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Dan Adkison

WHO KNEW?

Camel-jockey astrologers?
Magi-king men?
What made you wise enough
To drop everything and wander far?
                                                 I wonder.

Clueless as to whom you sought,
Knowing only what time it was,
Excitement made you risk the precious things
To ride for miles and days.
                                                 I ponder.

Asking how you knew,
O wise and transient ones,
That the paranoid king was not the star,
Yet seemed the one to guide you
                                                  Yonder?

 

CHILD SUPPORT
Dan Adkison

Spring sports are subject to the weather.
I'm never sure they'll play the game.
Sometimes I wish they would not
in cold and threat of rain.
Soccer parents in
blankets tight are
shivering
in the 
night.
 

SPRING SONG

Dan Adkison

Spring sings the prelude

When robin eyes the wily worm

And the finch finishes

The last seedy morsel in the tube.

It patiently awaits its place

Like the pecking order at the feeding station

That is somewhat orderly

During waning winter's days.

Spring slips into its slot

When crocus breaks the grayish soil

To colorize and usher in

The daffodil's more sunny spot.

Motif upon motif, the music of spring

Swells full chorus and,

Like mosses on a dormant tree,

The song surely grows on me.

 
Curtis D. Goss

VENUS’ WALK ACROSS THE SUN—JUNE 8, 2004

A pearl rolling across a golden abalone shell,

The lucent goddess with face of charcoal black

Steps into sun's hell.

Slowly and smoothly she glides.

Then, stretching her leg, quickly steps off Helius' back

On the other side.

 

LADIES OF SUMMER

Curtis D. Goss

From the street

Looking at the picture window,

I spy naked ladies.

Slender, smooth

Legs underneath soft pink flowers,

Faces lightly freckled.

Blushing smiles,

They seem to happily display

The best of August charmsl.

Mauve lilies

Of late summer cool off the heat’s

Oppressive encumber.

COMET HALE-BOPP, HARBINGER OF DOOM

Curtis D. Goss

Speeding through the dark,

gawking at the incandescent

hanging spark.

Raising hand in mock

irreverent fascist salute:

"Hail, Bopp, hail!"

Then within the car:

the sickening sweet smell of skunk

cadaver.

REFRAIN FOR A WHILE
Curtis D. Goss

Time is short and fleeting,

too soon aborting subtile pleasures:

Tort by waiting.

Too often life burdens

the inner spirit with strife:

chimeric details

prolonging procrastination.

Refrain for a while

from the pain of procrastination:

sow a grain of sincere effort,

realize the reign of peace,

savor the jus naturale.

Carpe diem:

Employ every moment

which showers its beauty

on our tedious obliviousness.

David Hacker

NO SPRING HERE
 

I won’t talk of lengthening days,

of singing robins, of winter’s demise.

I’ll not mention purple crocuses

and yellow daffodils popping out

on greening hillsides, at

foundations of abandoned house-places,

and in the wakening backyards.

Breezes from the south with

a different feel, rolling

thunder and the big black clouds

that are not the stuff of winter

will escape this page.

I’ll write of weightier matters—

spring’s too easy.

HAPPY

David Hacker

When autumn afternoons quickly chill and the pungent smoke from the across-the-street neighbor’s ditch full of leaves surrounds the touch football boys trying to get one last snap in the fading light, I’ll be home again, and I’ll be happy.

When walking out the back door into the Christmas-cold air in order to watch that warm-ocher family through the windows, embracing, celebrating through sentimental tears, I am home again, and I am happy.

When pick-up truck driving between sweet-mown hayfields with caramel dog, ears flapping in the wind, tongue hanging, happy-grinning, and biting the wind, tee-shirt nights and long, long days, I’ll be home again, and I’ll be happy.

I'M HUNGRY
David Hacker

Donuts and chips and jelly on toast--
These are the things that bother me most.

Ice cream and tacos and chocolate confection--
Against these lures I've scant protection.

Pizza and burgers and nachos and cream--
They're the theme of my every dream.

Popcorn and T-bones, chili with beans--
Never there when I need them, or so it seems.

Peaches and grapes and mocha milk shakes--
I'll have them--I will--whatever it takes.  

Root beer floats and banana cream pie--
The taste of which makes a grown man cry.

I've time on my hands and the evening is long-
O Lord, watch me now, and help me be strong.
  

Bill Lower 
SO THEY SAY

I believe in science,
I really do,
but when I take experience
and then pursue the two

and try to reconcile
what I'm told and what I know--
well, it takes a while
to cogitate on sun and snow.

Effects of earth's tilting axis
explaining our four seasons
sound as certain as are taxes--
though unclear as to either's reasons.

Science facts or simply faith,
of each I have moments of doubt.
Seeing the shimmering, shifting heat wraith
above the summer pavement in midst of drought--

can it truly be as they say--
our planet circling its star
in summertime trails farther away?
And winter not nearly as far?

I know, but do I believe?
 

THREE HAIKU
Bill Lower

Fractured globe, snow scene.
Xanadu's uttered McGuffin--
Rosebud, lost in smoke.

High and mighty king.
Searched, for nits and cyanide--
post spider hole.

Early bird gets worm,
food chain advances apace,
Stalking cat gets bird.

 

FORCED PERSPECTIVE
Bill Lower

Shadows without sun.

Squares with no right angles.

An epilogue explains(?) how it began,

After demented plot twists and tangles.

The staged is real, was Caligari’s conceit.

Viewed vicariously through a celluloid eye,

made possible impossibilities come alive.

Through death, madness, and deceit.

DEPENDING ON THE FORECAST
Bill Lower

My head hurts.
I bang on it in fits and spurts.
Routinely at a quarter past,
my noggin get quite harassed.
That strange six o'clock hour
wields its irrational power.
Compelled, drawn, convulsed,
My discriminatory powers are repulsed.
What is the future? I have to know.
Will it sunshine or will it snow?
Will I never learn?
The weather will turn
quicker than the forecaster  
can check his Doppler.

John Lower
NORTH OF CLIQUOT
John Lower

The Frisco trains came from the south with heavy cars of coal,
crossed trestled creeks, through timbered hills toward their urban goal.
A nearby family of ten was short on heating wood--
The mother asked her older sons to help out if they could.

The boys grabbed up some burlap bags and bars of homemade soap
and headed out to the railroad tracks to find the steepest slope.
As the chugging northbound freight approached they soaped the rails and
   waited
and, on the grade, the train's wheels spun as they anticipated.

Out from the roadside brush they ran and climbed aboard the train.
They tossed coal down upon the ground and then climbed off again.
Then throwing sand upon the rails, they sent the train away
while a grinning engineer looked back and waved the boys good day.


QUESTIONS FOR THE DOG

John Lower

Which among your cousins
was first to come in from the cold?

Was it the Wild Dog of Africa
or the wily coyote of the American West?

Did you have a sense of loneliness
before the human race arrived?

Did you wait as if some unknown part
of your existence was missing?

Do you feel compromised, deceived, enslaved
by those two-legs who place demands upon you?

When you sleep on the rug at my feet
are your dreams of wildness and freedom?

Or do you feign sleep while thinking
of a bowl of Purina and a romp in the park?
 

OLD MANSIONS MADE NEW?
John Lower

Is that it? Do the laws of physics satisfy the promise of faith? Are the two the same, immutable? I sit and ponder the petunia, its purple velvet corolla looking straight at me, trying to tell me, without voice, something potent with promise. Do we have a common destiny? Will we fold, each in our own time and condition of demise, into the same black hole? And the real question is whether, after long innocent sleep, all that are gathered will emerge again, atoms on the same pathways as before, gathering as the galactic dust that begets the stars and planets. Then does life begin again, exactly, unknowing that all this has happened before--a mansion that we do not recognize? And one day, will I sit, again pondering the same petunia, thinking the same thoughts?

Tom Padgett

JOHN'S CHRISTMAS CAROL

My friend is playing Scrooge this Christmas
so he won't be at our meeting.
He'll be too busy Bah-Humbugging
to write a Christmas greeting,

at least till Marley--the guy in chains--
brings warnings from Beyond
and ghosts appear, one by one,
three ghosts who correspond

to Ebenezer's Christmas Past,
Present, and Yet to Come.
John--uh Scrooge--will age on stage
and laugh with little Tom Thumb.

No, that's not right--it's Tiny Tim
that eats Christmas goose
when John--uh Scrooge--metamorphoses
and all bells break loose.

So the play with Christmas greetings
ends on a happy note,
but Scrooge--John--won't be at our meeting
to read a poem he wrote.


POET ABUSE

Tom Padgett

No wonder that most poets feel abused,

especially on topics such as spring.

The best lines, like Perce Shelley's, have been used:

"Can Spring be far behind?"  That sort of thing.

"To be in England now that April's there"

will frustrate you for certain if you start

to weigh Bob Browning's verse and then compare

it to the products of your meager art.

You wandered lonely in Bill Wordsworth's hills,

but hummocks you came up with, to be fair,

don't wear a crown of golden daffodils--

more likely, just a halo of hot air.

Perhaps it's time to take to heart that benison

of Al's on what in spring we should think of.

Give up on verse--remember Tennyson--

and let your fancy lightly turn to love.

ENIGMA

Tom Padgett

Our preacher says there’s no such thing as Luck.

God’s in absolute control-- but needs our help.

Therefore we should vote against casinos—

well, not exactly all casinos—

it’s the new ones we should vote against.

I guess there’s nothing we can do

about the ones we have already.

Is that because we are ungodly?

Or are we just unlucky?

At this point he took the opportunity

to hit us with the lottery.  Statistically,

he showed that tickets are most often bought

by those who can the least afford them.

He didn’t say, but you can work it out,

since most tickets are sold to those

financially unfortunate,

most lotteries are won

by those who need the money.

It’s easy to call these folks ungodly,

but harder to prove they are unlucky.

If we agree that all that happens is God’s will,

we soon must differentiate between

His express will—what He really wants--

and His allowed will—what He doesn’t

want but needs to have to make Good good

and Evil evil.  We find it quite confusing,

but we, thank heaven, are not in charge. 

Once I saw a church whose builders

had engraved in huge letters on its front:

“My house shall be called a house of prayer.”

On the lawn, a billboard added:

“Bingo at 7:00 every Tuesday evening!”

TALK ABOUT CUCKOOS

Tom Padgett
 

“Sumer is acumen in / Lhudde sing cuccu, /

Groweth sed, bloweth med, /

And springeth wude nu / Sing cuccu.”

                             -- Anonymous c. 1250

Now that sumer is acumen in

all sorts of birds fight for footing

on our backyard birdbath’s rim.

I’ve never seen a cuckoo there,

but I know “the herald of summer”

from literature, that Middle English poem

where the cuckoo loudly sings, and

the Anglo-Saxon riddle years before.

in England’s Exeter Book (which I missed

when I went to Exeter—talk about cuckoo!).

In 975 Bishop Leofric gave the cathedral

a large collection of Old English poetry. 

According to G.P. Krapp and E.V.K. Dobbie,

who worked on this collection 22 years,

riddle 9 of 95  is about an selfish orphan

who repaid his adoptive mother

by killing all her natural children

one by one and then deserting her--

the mother a cowbird, the child a cuckoo

whose mother laid her egg in the cowbird’s

nest, and the cowbird—talk about cuckoo!--

fed the earlier, bigger, stronger hatchling

who made needed room for himself

by pushing out the competition.

I wrote a paper in graduate school about

this riddle, but when I recently revisited

the scene of the crime, I found the scholars

at odds (talk about cuckoo!),

some supporting Craig Williamson

in combining some of the riddles so that

the cuckoo sings in riddle 7 of 91.

What is more, in this day of issues

before you cast aspersions on the cuckoo,

make sure it is an old-world bird,

for in our country the cuckoos are innocent,

and, get this, the cowbirds here have

perfected the role of social parasites,

laying their eggs in songbirds’ nests

to the extent that the widespread cowbirds

are responsible for the declining numbers

of songbirds in America--talk about cuckoo!

Our perspective has changed—

old-world victims are new-world villains

and vice-versa.  Lhudde sing cuccu!

Paul D. Rauch
THANKFUL

One man
Stands alone.
Flag raised.
He is proud.

He remembers.
Buddies slain.
Wrenching pain.
Tears run.

Flag waves.
He salutes.
Freedom lives.
He is thankful.


MOTHER
Paul D. Rauch
 

In the beginning of  the world, when God created man,
Everything was going as the Lord of all had planned.
But there was something missing from this almost perfect scene.
With great consideration, this thought came to be.

A helpmate was required to complete creation.
Without this final part, He could not call it done.
A woman was created and presented to the man
But more than this is something we all must understand:

It wasn’t just a woman that God created then.
She was to be the mother of all men.
Without her there would be none of us alive.
Creation was perfected when the Father gave her life.

Time has passed in centuries from that wondrous day.
Still, the name of mother is like a golden ray.
The world and fashion may be changed from thing or another,
 But no greater honor can be given than to call a woman Mother.

MUD
Paul Rauch

Mud.
Slimy muck teeming with unseen parasites.
Swarming with creeping, crawling, flying insects of

     every kind.
Vermin living, dying and excreting.
Mud.

Hands.
An unknown being.
Great and massive yet infinitely small, gentle and
     delicate.
Reaches down and scoops up . . . muck.
Hands.

Form.
Muck, shaped into a semblance of man.
Breathed into by Spirit wind.
Resuscitated to animation.
Form.

Happy Birthday mankind.

Life.
Years of breathing and animation.
Loving and procreating.
Growing aged and dying.
Life.

Deterioration.
Discarded and buried.
Worms attack, feed and gorge.
All vermin feed and excrete and water seeps.
Deterioration.
Mud.

 

Doug Roller

UPSTAIRS
Doug Roller

We'll spend Christmas Eve
in Grandpa's upstairs room,
buried in mothball-smelling comforters,
cheeks flushed in the cold musty air,
terrified by the dark shadows of
old chairs dancing on spindled legs
and piled high with Progressive Farmers
as the moon slips across the snow-covered fields.

We'll lie still as death,
paralyzed by fear and magic,
remembering two years before
how we nearly caught Santa Clause
when he stopped to pee in the built-on bathroom
(where the front porch used to be)
and tripped over John Richard's new tricycle
parked in the darkened doorway.  
                                  
We'll wake up to the smell of coffee,
the whisper of voices from downstairs,
the sound of Grandpa's heavy footsteps
and the crackle of a fresh-built fire,
with the frowning photographs of forgotten ancestors
framed in haloes by the morning sun
singing silently of the Christ Child's safe arrival,
reminding us that we never sleep alone.
 

SECOND COMING

Apologies to William Butler Yeats

Doug Roller

If you returned today

Would you live next door to me,

Cloistered in my wooded neighborhood

Where sprinklers pop up

Like gophers on pre-dawn lawns?

Would we be fishing buddies

Tossing our tackles into the Bronco

With a bass boat in tow

Heading for a quiet shore

Like your pals from Galilee?

Would we rise from the rockers

On my front stoop for the parade

On Veterans Day in support of our troops

As they invade the enemy

To preserve our way of life?

Would our paunches push

Against our straining belts

As we knelt together in our pew

And prayed that God would save

The soul of our lost neighbor?

Would we pass strangers walking

In the fading light and nod

As to those out of touch, thinking

It odd to see the likes of such

In the wooded neighborhood we love?

UNION STATION
Doug Roller

If there were still night trains out of Union Station
I would walk my son through the marble halls
And down the Track I platform to a coach
With businessmen in bowlers silhouetted in
The brightly-lighted windows and place him
In the care of an old conductor who knew the fear
Of the boy on his first journey alone
And who did coin tricks that made him smile
And settle back into the checkered upholstery
As the train crept away in cat-like silence
As I stood waving from the Track I platform
Knowing he would soon fall safely asleep
Under the watchful eye of the old conductor
If there were still trains out of Union Station
That carried boys on their first night journey


Ken Roller

THE VOWS THAT KEPT THEM
Ken Roller

They stood at the altar, half-giddy, half-grim;

  he saw no one else, her eyes only on him.

They promised each other "Till death do us part,"

  exchanged golden rings and warm pulsing hearts.

The couple left smiling, through showers of rice,

  drove off, ears ringing with shouts of advice.

The two, one flesh became, later that night,

  embracing each other till morning's new light.

Now, fifty years later, they think of that time:

  the promises made, the hills they have climbed.

"For richer"...they haven't been tested by that!

  "For poorer"...more times than the lives of their cat.

"For better"...the good times flood over their souls.

  "For worse"...old mountains shrunken to hills of a mole.

"In sickness"...those long anxious hours that crawled by;

  "In health" then returned, life's again cherry pie!

They've proved that their keeping that long-ago vow

  produces for them a blessed right now!

CHANGING MY POINT OF VIEW
Ken Roller

To see the world as the Creator does

would doubtlessly amaze the wisest sage;

for that would end some questions that we pose:

"Is earth really close to its book-ending page?"

"Oh, why do those who love You often hurt

or even die, while scorners seem to thrive?"

"Is it okay to play guitars in church?"

"When Christ returns, will I be yet alive?"

If from Heaven's view we all could see,

I am convinced our questions would be few:

"How can He love a doubting wretch like me?"

"Today, who may I show Your kindness to?"

THANKSGIVING REMEMBERED
Ken Roller

To think of Thanksgiving and what I recall
of times from my childhood some long-ago fall:
The drawings of turkeys and black pilgrim shoes,
and stories of heroes who paid life's heaviest dues
for freedom to worship the God of their choice;
through heartbreaking loss finding cause to rejoice.

The short walk to Grandma's; a big family meal;
(a Norman Rockwell painting--or could this be real?)
Whatever it is, a part of Thanksgiving
is remembering when they were still living,
and I could just be there, with nothing to do
but eat to my fill until I was through.

Well, now it's my turn to make things appear
at that wonderful Thanksgiving time of the year:
And here's what I find, the longer I'm living:
The wonder of thanks and the blessing of giving.
Thank God for the memories of times that are past,
and pleasure in making some more that may last.

 

Todd Sukany
POINTY BEARDS

Observing the language of perfection
Thought to clarify all the distraction
They found in the Queen's tongue

By applying the rules of the gods.
Today, we have reams of lauds
We might could like to never unstrung:

"Have dinner at eight?
"You watching your weight?
"By eating the veggies you height?

I sit by the channel of Fox's
And laugh at the stampede of Dach'ses
When really he wanted some oxes.

The Queen's tongue causes many anguish
As they try to understand every blemish
I guess we will all have to go ghoti.

 

TRAINS
Todd Sukany

Rhythmic breathing
Passions steaming
Fires stoked
Strength unyoked

Press the rails

Hug to breakneck
Speed
Headlong
Ignoring

BRIDGE GONE


BRUSH ARBOR MEETING
Todd Sukany

Chocolate scrub several
meters high will untie heat
when fresh snow pillows.

Sunday's crimson birds,
shocked by the crack of cold, find
strength to fight for food.

Cotton and harem
huddling in the flurry warmth
will move soon or die.

 

Mark Tappmeyer
BILLY MEETS POETRY IN MRS. APPLEMAN’S ENGLISH CLASS

Mark Tappmeyer

A momentary stay, you say?  To my ears, that’s rot.  My view is that zero order resides here—on this wimpy page.  Just smoke and left turns, jabber and mirrors.  Whatever stay I intend is my delay to graduation on May 10.  Then this page of tortured stuff, cursed and bent, I’ll exchange for a shining block and shop shirt from which old Applemain can read “Mick” and hope I’ll stay a moment to find what’s unhinged in her confusion of knocks and pings to make her Town Car sing.

FORCED RETIREMENT

Mark Tappmeyer

Each sunrise I have

returned to this and every other

bloodied patch

to straddle a hundred,

a thousand backs, and with

this blade on which

I’ve worn my hand

spill life into these,

as you've declared,

holy basins.  Now,

in even dreams

the lambs fight my grip.

They shudder as I

open upon their white throats

a plume of color.

I, who of all

should love

these labors,

look up to hear

only kidney fats

crackling on the fire,

no glory settling down, just

knives grown

sticky.  No sweetness rising from

the coals and hindmeat

grilling on the altar.  I’m sick

of morning

steam above the bowels.
 

THE SHORT HISTORY OF PRAYER

Mark Tappmeyer

God, anxious, rose early in the dark,
a habit He’d in time trademark,

and studied the gloom, the stark

chaos awaiting His remark.

He knew He’d have to change

to share or, worse, abdicate His lordly range,

relinquish, compromise, exchange,

agree to a cramping interchange.

So He pressed His lips to His clay man,

blew, and noted in the eyes a fluttering,

followed by the creature’s sputtering.

“Hey, Mac,” God heard him say,

“back off.  Here’s the plan:

Suck, Oh Lord, that breath away.”

These words, God did expect,

though overwhelmed how stiff-necked

this human thing in pants could dare.

God knew at once He hadn’t a prayer.

THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN
Mark Tappmeyer

In prayer, entranced,
you glanced
into a vast demesne
beyond, a sacred scene
where creatures threw down
golden crowns
around
the rim
of crystal sea
and sang spellbound in Him,
who always is to be.

But at scene's end,
what then?  
Freed of dramatic chores,
did actors flee the alley door,
spent, bored,
wrung out of hymns and moans?  
Or was each staged act  
an elemental fact,
the marrow in their bones?
 

Darwyne Tessier

THE MIND OF SPRING

 Frozen within a protective embrace,

winter's boundaries are hard to replace.

With old roots preserved and carefully saved,

new growth fights cold winds not easily braved.

It never strays from familiar events

but thrives on a path that the past presents

till small seeds of thought which are freshly sown

grow into ideas not previously known.

HAIKU
Darwyne Tessier

a cold winter day
like the age that signals old
is all relative

FRIENDS
Darwyne Tessier

I think of all the people
who have come through my life,
the ones still here and why,
and other friends who have said goodbye.

Before I started school,  
I trusted a cousin with my secrets--
those that I had by age five--
an accomplice who kept me in trouble.

At school I made new friends--
one helped me break an arm;
he was my very best buddy,
with his friendly dog that bit.

Later there were more classmates
and then roommates, the ones
who knew what you meant by
the professor with an extra eye.

And next came all the people
I have met through my work,
some quite good at the job
but others who were jerks.

If you can, tell me why
some grow roots and stand by,
while others, like wind in the sky,
leave nothing to remember them by.

 

Pat Wissman 

ALL SOULS DAY AT ST.
WENCESLAUS CEMETERY
Pat Wissman

Accents hanging in the air
Like incense hangs in the empty church
The day after a funeral.

Cold leaves scurrying to rest against headstones
Marked strong with consonants:
Death, gentle or violent, not telling

The story of tears that have flowed here,
Hot and burning or silent and cleansing.

We pray the names of their saints and
Perceive them standing with us just out of eyeshot--
But yet shining in the corner of our eyes.

HOLLY DAYS
Pat Wissman

Festive grace lies hidden in the darkness
Where smut and grunge and slime
Over-cover jewels with excess
Like a Madam's make-up covers grime.

How green grows the holly!
How her berries shine!
For beauty belies a folly
And will fade given time!

As beauty has her hidden ways
And grace her proper time
Hope remains and writes her plays:
Holly wreathing verse with rhyme.

A smile then in time of trouble
A glint from the gem revealed
Of pomegranate rubies' rubble
Crusted on the Book that's sealed.

Cascading sunlight blown from the East
Amid the ugliness of all the world's sties,
Four Horsemen separating for the Feast
Of the Kingdom falling from the skies.

CHANCES ARE

Pat Wissman

I walked, fingers crossed,

The whole day long

Carefully avoiding the cracks

In the sidewalks,

But

I’m not convinced

It helped.

WATCH FOR SCENIC OVERLOOK!

Pat Wissman

An upside-world

Viewed by the eye

In its true

Orientation

Perhaps gives us

A clue

In dealing with

Smoke and mirrors

And devious politics.

Appearances are deceiving:

The mind needs

To sift and readjust

Constantly

What pundits would have us

Perceive.

The one who speaks

Truth has always
Been suspect.

The Spade-caller

Has always

Been a threat.

Hearts and Diamonds

And Clubs have

Always dealt hands
Quicker than the eye.

Dealers of the shell games

(Always practice

Before the show

To) finesse the distractions

And those red herrings

That charm the eye.

Perhaps only the blind

Eye sees truly

Or the heart that

Refuses all but love.