11 - cuyahogalibrary.org - Cuyahoga County Public Library

M U S E
I S
T H E
Q U A R T E R L Y
J O U R N A L
P U B L I S H E D
WORDS+IMAGES
11.09
ISSUE
B Y
T H E
L I T
MUSE IS THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL PUBLISHED BY THE LIT
VOLUME 2 , ISSUE 4 NOV 2009
JUDITH MANSOUR
Editor
judith@the-lit.org
T I M L AC H I N A
CLAUDIA J. TALLER
R AY M C N I E C E
Poetry Editor
words4muse@the-lit.org
R O B JAC K S O N
SWORDS PIERCE THE AIR AND FEET STOMP IN THE DANCE OF COMBAT
as Shakespeare’s Macbeth comes alive on the Hanna Theater’s jutting stage. The last
time I heard the words “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls on the other” (Act I, Scene VII) was when
they were read by poet and professor Dr. Robert Tener around 1980. I wept when I
heard his passionate recitation of 16th century sonnets when I was twenty-one.
Dr. Tener’s intense energy could be disarming. When he read Shakespeare, the words came alive as he strode from one side of the room
to the other, The Riverside Shakespeare on his desk while he recited
the words from memory. He paced across the front of a Satterfield
Hall classroom dressed in a red cable-knit turtleneck sweater, blue
jeans, and cowboy boots, his tenor booming out “There is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (Act II, Scene II) from
Hamlet. In his attitude was a dare: dare you not be moved?
Tener was still lingering in my imagination when Bird Dog Publishing announced the release of Depression Days on an Appalachian
Farm, Poems by Robert L. Tener. Could this be the same man whose
graying hair and goatee made him fifty-five back then? I pressed forward, for the depth of his love of great writing continued to influence
me. Local publisher Larry Smith confirmed the author of the book
of poetry was the former Kent State Graduate Department Chair and
igniter of the Wick Poetry Center. He told me Bob pecks out his poetry on a typewriter today even as he “once built a house for his family—with his own two hands, one brick and one board at a time.”
Yes, I remembered, Bob Tener built his own house. He invited his
graduate-level Elizabethan Drama class to the rustic home near the
Cuyahoga Valley for a holiday dinner, and I was entranced. A large
tree branch strewn with white lights and small packages hung from
the two-story foyer with its balcony library. With great bravado, he
climbed to the second floor, plucked a present off a branch and delicately presented it to his new wife, one of his former graduate
students. He recited Sonnet 18, “But thy eternal Summer shall not
fade nor lose possession of that fair thou owest” at one of the most romantic moments I had ever witnessed.
What could I say to the romantic man I knew when practically a
child? How would I connect with the poet who impressed me at Student Center poetry readings and Writing Certificate Program organizing committee meetings? Would he remember a jean-clad,
blue-eyed brunette, indistinguishable from other long-haired college girls, a girl who regurgitated his lectures regaling Marlowe?
Life has taken the shyness from that girl, and I am a woman who
honors connections.
Fiction Editor
words4muse@the-lit.org
ALE N K A BANCO
three weeks away from For Closure—no, not the crisis, but the
LIT’s 35th Anniversary exhibition and benefit. For those of you
who have somehow escaped our PR push for this event, we
have decided to use our 35th anniversary celebration, not only
to honor the individuals who helped to found and form this
organization—as well as those who helped to shape its
programming in the early years—but we also took the opportunity to revisit the very popular Mirror of The Arts program.
Using large-scale, bleak images captured by Cleveland artist
Donald Black, Jr. to inspire writers from around the area, For
Closure: Visions of Reality, Words of Promise, will open on
November 7th at 6:30pm at Convivium 33 Gallery.
Art Editor
images4muse@the-lit.org
BONNIE JACOBSON
DAVID MEGENHARDT
Contributing Editors
words4muse@the-lit.org
K E L LY K . B I R D
Advertising Account Manager
advertising4muse@the-lit.org
SUBMISSIONS
(Content evident) may be sent electronically to
words4muse@the-lit.org. We prefer electronic submissions. MUSE publishes all genres of creative writing —
including but not limited to poetry, fiction, essay,
memoir, humor, lyrics, and drama. Preference is given
Ohio-based authors.
In keeping with the original intent of our founders, and with the
commitment to celebrate excellence in simplicity of craftsmanship,
this issue of MUSE focuses on the black and white photographs
of our Art Director, Tim Lachina (whose collection, DISCARDED
AMERICA: Evidence of Lost Ideals will also premier at the LIT
35th anniversary at Convivium 33 Gallery). These images: subtle,
stark, and evocative have inspired the new works that you see in
the following pages. Simple, elegant, passionate. No columns
this time, no fuss. Just the words and images. Art.
Judith
Founded in 1987 as Ohio Writer, MUSE is the quarterly
journal published by The Lit, a nonprofit literary arts
organization. No part of this journal may be reproduced
without written consent of the publisher.
THELIT
CLEVELAND’S LITERARY CENTER
A R TCR A F T BUIL DING
2 5 7 0 S U P E R I O R AV E N U E
SUIT E 203
C L E V E L A N D, O H I O 4 4114
216 6 9 4.0 0 0 0 W W W.T H E - L I T.O R G
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
MY TRUE NORTH
Design Director
tim@wjgco.com
At the time of press for this issue of MUSE, we were less than
1
MUSE IS THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL PUBLISHED BY THE LIT
VOLUME 2 , ISSUE 4 NOV 2009
JUDITH MANSOUR
Editor
judith@the-lit.org
T I M L AC H I N A
CLAUDIA J. TALLER
R AY M C N I E C E
Poetry Editor
words4muse@the-lit.org
R O B JAC K S O N
SWORDS PIERCE THE AIR AND FEET STOMP IN THE DANCE OF COMBAT
as Shakespeare’s Macbeth comes alive on the Hanna Theater’s jutting stage. The last
time I heard the words “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls on the other” (Act I, Scene VII) was when
they were read by poet and professor Dr. Robert Tener around 1980. I wept when I
heard his passionate recitation of 16th century sonnets when I was twenty-one.
Dr. Tener’s intense energy could be disarming. When he read Shakespeare, the words came alive as he strode from one side of the room
to the other, The Riverside Shakespeare on his desk while he recited
the words from memory. He paced across the front of a Satterfield
Hall classroom dressed in a red cable-knit turtleneck sweater, blue
jeans, and cowboy boots, his tenor booming out “There is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (Act II, Scene II) from
Hamlet. In his attitude was a dare: dare you not be moved?
Tener was still lingering in my imagination when Bird Dog Publishing announced the release of Depression Days on an Appalachian
Farm, Poems by Robert L. Tener. Could this be the same man whose
graying hair and goatee made him fifty-five back then? I pressed forward, for the depth of his love of great writing continued to influence
me. Local publisher Larry Smith confirmed the author of the book
of poetry was the former Kent State Graduate Department Chair and
igniter of the Wick Poetry Center. He told me Bob pecks out his poetry on a typewriter today even as he “once built a house for his family—with his own two hands, one brick and one board at a time.”
Yes, I remembered, Bob Tener built his own house. He invited his
graduate-level Elizabethan Drama class to the rustic home near the
Cuyahoga Valley for a holiday dinner, and I was entranced. A large
tree branch strewn with white lights and small packages hung from
the two-story foyer with its balcony library. With great bravado, he
climbed to the second floor, plucked a present off a branch and delicately presented it to his new wife, one of his former graduate
students. He recited Sonnet 18, “But thy eternal Summer shall not
fade nor lose possession of that fair thou owest” at one of the most romantic moments I had ever witnessed.
What could I say to the romantic man I knew when practically a
child? How would I connect with the poet who impressed me at Student Center poetry readings and Writing Certificate Program organizing committee meetings? Would he remember a jean-clad,
blue-eyed brunette, indistinguishable from other long-haired college girls, a girl who regurgitated his lectures regaling Marlowe?
Life has taken the shyness from that girl, and I am a woman who
honors connections.
Fiction Editor
words4muse@the-lit.org
ALE N K A BANCO
three weeks away from For Closure—no, not the crisis, but the
LIT’s 35th Anniversary exhibition and benefit. For those of you
who have somehow escaped our PR push for this event, we
have decided to use our 35th anniversary celebration, not only
to honor the individuals who helped to found and form this
organization—as well as those who helped to shape its
programming in the early years—but we also took the opportunity to revisit the very popular Mirror of The Arts program.
Using large-scale, bleak images captured by Cleveland artist
Donald Black, Jr. to inspire writers from around the area, For
Closure: Visions of Reality, Words of Promise, will open on
November 7th at 6:30pm at Convivium 33 Gallery.
Art Editor
images4muse@the-lit.org
BONNIE JACOBSON
DAVID MEGENHARDT
Contributing Editors
words4muse@the-lit.org
K E L LY K . B I R D
Advertising Account Manager
advertising4muse@the-lit.org
SUBMISSIONS
(Content evident) may be sent electronically to
words4muse@the-lit.org. We prefer electronic submissions. MUSE publishes all genres of creative writing —
including but not limited to poetry, fiction, essay,
memoir, humor, lyrics, and drama. Preference is given
Ohio-based authors.
In keeping with the original intent of our founders, and with the
commitment to celebrate excellence in simplicity of craftsmanship,
this issue of MUSE focuses on the black and white photographs
of our Art Director, Tim Lachina (whose collection, DISCARDED
AMERICA: Evidence of Lost Ideals will also premier at the LIT
35th anniversary at Convivium 33 Gallery). These images: subtle,
stark, and evocative have inspired the new works that you see in
the following pages. Simple, elegant, passionate. No columns
this time, no fuss. Just the words and images. Art.
Judith
Founded in 1987 as Ohio Writer, MUSE is the quarterly
journal published by The Lit, a nonprofit literary arts
organization. No part of this journal may be reproduced
without written consent of the publisher.
THELIT
CLEVELAND’S LITERARY CENTER
A R TCR A F T BUIL DING
2 5 7 0 S U P E R I O R AV E N U E
SUIT E 203
C L E V E L A N D, O H I O 4 4114
216 6 9 4.0 0 0 0 W W W.T H E - L I T.O R G
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
MY TRUE NORTH
Design Director
tim@wjgco.com
At the time of press for this issue of MUSE, we were less than
1
COVER
TIMOTHY LACHINA
TRUE NORTH, SANDIA CREST, NM, 2007
I read A Cadence of Cold Poems and heard the “trees growing” and
“the hum of stars.” I embraced the silence felt in the words “silence
comes with snow falls . . . the past settles on the present . . . silence,
not even an inner thought sustains the universe.” The symphony of
silence entwines the past with the present as we grow old but remain
young. Memory becomes supplanted by a pang much deeper in “The
Perfume of Snow”:
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
4
The Perfume of Snow
comes to us
like rain or sun
though it carries
if we love our cats
the fear of deep cold.
for us its bouquet
goes beyond memory;
it carries the fragrance
of childhood.
The poetry of Depression Days on an Appalachian Farm aches with
the limitations of life. In the poem, “The Farm Still Haunts Me,”
the words “suddenly the future’s reality seems to return one to the
past’s possibilities,” reflect upon the necessity of pregnant possibility rooted in the past. Bob Tener’s poetry allows me to know him
as a child silhouetted against snowdrifts and as a man who listens
and waits for answers as he chops wood, plants buckeye trees and
carefully tags them, and walks in the coolness of a dewy late summer morning.
I sent him some clips: an article on the Outer Banks that appeared in
Northern Ohio Live, an essay on our dinner group from The Plain
Dealer Magazine, and the back roads and beaches trail article penned
for West Shore Magazine. My work is not poetry, it’s an attempt to
capture places and moments and urge others to experience life. He
responded, in his neat long-hand, “Wow! You are some writer!” My
words showed him a woman who loves to feel sand between her toes,
who enjoys good company with her food and wine, and for whom
riding a bicycle is a passion borne within her childhood.
contents
19 Poem: The Blue Moon Drive-In, Larry Smith
19 Image: Union Drive-In, Tim Lachina
8 Image: Hidden Agenda, Tim Lachina
9 Essay: Septic
Heather Madden Bentoske
20 Image: Dressmakers' Wire Mannequin,
Tim Lachina
21 Poem: Untitled, Lisa Citore
12 Poem: Bar Flies, Robert Flanagan
22 Image: Cemetery, Tim Lachina
13 Image: 2am Club, Tim Lachina
14
Poems: October 20th, Anita Herczog;
You Told Me, Russell Vidrick;
Untitled, Steve Thomas;
Chennai, Sharanya Manivannan
15 Fiction: How Does It Begin, Matt Marshall
Above the silence, the noise of how we use words to savor life reigns
and unites us. I keep his poem, “Successful Farming” on the wall
above my desk because it reminds me that we do what we can,
whether it’s working the land or working with words. Bob Tener’s
living out his later years on High Hawk Farm which he built while
remembering “our old Ohio barn” and seeing the blue granite gray
of its aged pine siding polished different than his father did, but the
rhythm of chopping wood is felt in his poetry.
As naturally as words fall onto a page, he invited me to see the home
he built. I drove to High Hawk Farm on a fall afternoon to honor the
relationship that went beyond words. I discovered a compact wooden
home with porches set back in a quiet place amongst trees. Inside the
house, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of the same white ash from which
his father made axe handles were filled with books and travel artifacts. I found the man whose eyes are bright and body is sprite, whose
energy is almost combustible. Our words tumbled out like water in
a brook as we toured his property. Afterwards we drank tea with his
wife while the aroma of white pine walls and red and white oak floorboards embraced us.
My true north, my love of words and need to share them, is enhanced
by my connection with a man who is both a farmer and a poet, who
harvests food and poetry. The rhythm of living and knowing each
other, of having a kinship of word loving, infuses our writing with
energy. We give each other hope just by sharing our worlds with the
words that are our tools.
17 Image: El Mar, Tim Lachina
23 Poem: Its Gold Still Greens With Tattered Light,
dan smith
24 Image: Late Night Shoppers, Tim Lachina
25 Poem: Shortcut, Melissa Guillet
26 Lies, Nin Andrews
27 Image: You Can Have It All, Tim Lachina
18 Fiction: From the Sky, Jess Stork
the CuyAhoGA CouNty puBliC liBrAry FouNDAtioN AND CleVelAND MAGAZiNe
PRESENT CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY AT PLAYHOUSESQUARE
November 3
Ohio Theatre / 7:30 p.m.
C hr istopher B uCkley, political satirist and
bestselling author, who has written twelve books, including
the novels The White House Mess, Little Green Men and Thank
You for Smoking. Buckley’s most recent work, Losing Mum
and Pup: A Memoir, chronicles his efforts to cope with the
passing of his mother, Patricia Buckley, and father, author
William F. Buckley.
2009-2010
For tickets,
call 216.241.6000
or visit
writerscenterstage.org.
Book signing after the show.
BACKGROUND
BILLY DELPS
11
09
SPONSORS: Cuyahoga County Public Library; Bostwick Design Partnership;
DominionNYC,
Foundation;
PLAYGROUND,
2003
Eaton Corporation; Roetzel & Andress; Margaret Wong & Assoc. CO., LPA; Ulmer & Berne LLP
M
U
S
PARTNERS: Joseph-Beth Booksellers; PlayhouseSquare and The Ritz-Carlton, Cleveland
E
M
In my first letter, I explained how I thought of him while watching a
Shakespearean performance or admiring a cedar-framed home on a
valley floor. When he wrote back, he told me he was an 82-year-old
farmer trying to start an arboretum and living with his wife and two
dogs, a humble, quiet life. He enclosed two chapbooks and several
poems printed in limited editions in Kent, which I read as an extension of our correspondence.
2 Essay: My True North
Claudia Taller
5
COVER
TIMOTHY LACHINA
TRUE NORTH, SANDIA CREST, NM, 2007
I read A Cadence of Cold Poems and heard the “trees growing” and
“the hum of stars.” I embraced the silence felt in the words “silence
comes with snow falls . . . the past settles on the present . . . silence,
not even an inner thought sustains the universe.” The symphony of
silence entwines the past with the present as we grow old but remain
young. Memory becomes supplanted by a pang much deeper in “The
Perfume of Snow”:
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
4
The Perfume of Snow
comes to us
like rain or sun
though it carries
if we love our cats
the fear of deep cold.
for us its bouquet
goes beyond memory;
it carries the fragrance
of childhood.
The poetry of Depression Days on an Appalachian Farm aches with
the limitations of life. In the poem, “The Farm Still Haunts Me,”
the words “suddenly the future’s reality seems to return one to the
past’s possibilities,” reflect upon the necessity of pregnant possibility rooted in the past. Bob Tener’s poetry allows me to know him
as a child silhouetted against snowdrifts and as a man who listens
and waits for answers as he chops wood, plants buckeye trees and
carefully tags them, and walks in the coolness of a dewy late summer morning.
I sent him some clips: an article on the Outer Banks that appeared in
Northern Ohio Live, an essay on our dinner group from The Plain
Dealer Magazine, and the back roads and beaches trail article penned
for West Shore Magazine. My work is not poetry, it’s an attempt to
capture places and moments and urge others to experience life. He
responded, in his neat long-hand, “Wow! You are some writer!” My
words showed him a woman who loves to feel sand between her toes,
who enjoys good company with her food and wine, and for whom
riding a bicycle is a passion borne within her childhood.
contents
19 Poem: The Blue Moon Drive-In, Larry Smith
19 Image: Union Drive-In, Tim Lachina
8 Image: Hidden Agenda, Tim Lachina
9 Essay: Septic
Heather Madden Bentoske
20 Image: Dressmakers' Wire Mannequin,
Tim Lachina
21 Poem: Untitled, Lisa Citore
12 Poem: Bar Flies, Robert Flanagan
22 Image: Cemetery, Tim Lachina
13 Image: 2am Club, Tim Lachina
14
Poems: October 20th, Anita Herczog;
You Told Me, Russell Vidrick;
Untitled, Steve Thomas;
Chennai, Sharanya Manivannan
15 Fiction: How Does It Begin, Matt Marshall
Above the silence, the noise of how we use words to savor life reigns
and unites us. I keep his poem, “Successful Farming” on the wall
above my desk because it reminds me that we do what we can,
whether it’s working the land or working with words. Bob Tener’s
living out his later years on High Hawk Farm which he built while
remembering “our old Ohio barn” and seeing the blue granite gray
of its aged pine siding polished different than his father did, but the
rhythm of chopping wood is felt in his poetry.
As naturally as words fall onto a page, he invited me to see the home
he built. I drove to High Hawk Farm on a fall afternoon to honor the
relationship that went beyond words. I discovered a compact wooden
home with porches set back in a quiet place amongst trees. Inside the
house, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of the same white ash from which
his father made axe handles were filled with books and travel artifacts. I found the man whose eyes are bright and body is sprite, whose
energy is almost combustible. Our words tumbled out like water in
a brook as we toured his property. Afterwards we drank tea with his
wife while the aroma of white pine walls and red and white oak floorboards embraced us.
My true north, my love of words and need to share them, is enhanced
by my connection with a man who is both a farmer and a poet, who
harvests food and poetry. The rhythm of living and knowing each
other, of having a kinship of word loving, infuses our writing with
energy. We give each other hope just by sharing our worlds with the
words that are our tools.
17 Image: El Mar, Tim Lachina
23 Poem: Its Gold Still Greens With Tattered Light,
dan smith
24 Image: Late Night Shoppers, Tim Lachina
25 Poem: Shortcut, Melissa Guillet
26 Lies, Nin Andrews
27 Image: You Can Have It All, Tim Lachina
18 Fiction: From the Sky, Jess Stork
the CuyAhoGA CouNty puBliC liBrAry FouNDAtioN AND CleVelAND MAGAZiNe
PRESENT CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY AT PLAYHOUSESQUARE
November 3
Ohio Theatre / 7:30 p.m.
C hr istopher B uCkley, political satirist and
bestselling author, who has written twelve books, including
the novels The White House Mess, Little Green Men and Thank
You for Smoking. Buckley’s most recent work, Losing Mum
and Pup: A Memoir, chronicles his efforts to cope with the
passing of his mother, Patricia Buckley, and father, author
William F. Buckley.
2009-2010
For tickets,
call 216.241.6000
or visit
writerscenterstage.org.
Book signing after the show.
BACKGROUND
BILLY DELPS
11
09
SPONSORS: Cuyahoga County Public Library; Bostwick Design Partnership;
DominionNYC,
Foundation;
PLAYGROUND,
2003
Eaton Corporation; Roetzel & Andress; Margaret Wong & Assoc. CO., LPA; Ulmer & Berne LLP
M
U
S
PARTNERS: Joseph-Beth Booksellers; PlayhouseSquare and The Ritz-Carlton, Cleveland
E
M
In my first letter, I explained how I thought of him while watching a
Shakespearean performance or admiring a cedar-framed home on a
valley floor. When he wrote back, he told me he was an 82-year-old
farmer trying to start an arboretum and living with his wife and two
dogs, a humble, quiet life. He enclosed two chapbooks and several
poems printed in limited editions in Kent, which I read as an extension of our correspondence.
2 Essay: My True North
Claudia Taller
5
trib
utors
con
NIN ANDREWS is the author of several books of poetry in-
Caduceus, The Cherry Blossom Review, GBSPA’s City Lights,
dan smith’s poems have been published in Sein und Werden,
cluding The Book of Orgasms, Midlife Crisis with Dick and
Cyclamen & Sword, Dos Passos Review, Fearless Books, Imita-
Scifaikuest, Hessler Street Poetry Anthology, and ArtCrimes 21,
Jane, and Sleeping with Houdini. Her new book, Southern
tion Fruit (winning poem), Lalitamba, Language and Culture,
as well as a number of poems published on-line. His chap-
Comfort, is forthcoming in November, 2009.
Lavanderia, Look! Up in the Sky!, Nth Position, Public Repub-
book, Crooked River, was published in 2005 by Deep Cleve-
lic, Sangam, Scrivener’s Pen, Seven Circle Press, Women.
land Press. He has poems forthcoming in F**K Poetry,
Period, six Poets’ Asylum anthologies, and several chapbooks.
Scifaikuest, Paper Crow, bear creek haiku, SpeedPoets, and
HEATHER MADDEN BENTOSKE has an MA in creative
Kaleidotrope.
writing from Cleveland State University and currently writes
for a local advertising agency. She thinks The Sensational Alex
ANITA HERCZOG is the mother of two lovely adult daugh-
Harvey Band and mashed turnips with butter and black
ters. Along with her alter ego, anitakeys, she’s been playing
LARRY SMITH is a poet, fiction writer, and editor. He is
pepper are underrated.
piano and singing since grade school, writing music, lyrics,
also a professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University's
and poetry since she was a teenager. In her free time she’s a
Firelands College in Huron, OH. He and his wife Ann grew up
LISA CITORE is a poet and the writer/director/producer of
student of photography, particularly portraiture. She’s gener-
in the industrial Ohio Valley, the setting for his recent novel,
two spoken word and dance productions, The Tao of Sex and
ally considered a lot of fun.
The Long River Home.
Open, a women's improvisational theater group in Santa Bar-
TIM LACHINA, having spent many, many years in the back
JESS E. STORK grew up in a suburb of Cleveland. She now
bara, CA and leads a writing circle for recovering women
woods, mountains, and blue highways of the lower 48 states,
spends her days buried among books and children as a Library
addicts. She is currently working on her first film.
he is still attempting to find true north.
Associate at the Palisades Neighborhood Library in Washing-
ROBERT FLANAGAN has published numerous chap-
SHARANYA MANIVANNAN is the author of a book of
spent most of her time at poetry readings at Mac’s Backs. She
books of poetry in Canada, England, Northern Ireland and
poems, Witchcraft. She can be found online at http://sharan-
enjoys making artist books and contemplating the thoughts
the U.S. His work is anthologized in X.J. Kennedy’s An Intro-
yamanivannan.wordpress.com.
of early morning bus commuters.
Hermsen’s recent O Taste and See. His most recent collection
MATT MARSHALL is a freelance writer/critic in Cleveland
STEVE THOMAS is a proud father of two. And three-time
is Reply to an Eviction Notice, Selected Poems, from Bottom
Heights. He is a regular contributor to Cleveland Scene,
Greater Cleveland bowling champ who is pursuing the grace
Dog Press. Retired as director of creative writing at Ohio Wes-
AllAboutJazz.com and Jazz Inside Magazine, among other
of literature, mainly through poetry. He is having a grand old
leyan University, Flanagan now writes full time.
publications. His short fiction has appeared in various print
time doing so.
The Legacy of
Rock & Roll Auction
Now Accepting Consignments
Bloodlines. She is a co-founder and member of Woman Wide
The late 1950’s,‘60’s ‘70’s and 80’s were
magic times for Rock & Roll. The music
was everywhere and we made it.
ton D.C. Previously, she was an art teacher at Clark School and
Our music. Our photographs. Our art.
For evaluation of items, please email us
at appraisals@graysauctioneers.com,
or call 216 458 7695.
duction to Poetry (7th ed) and David Lee Garrison and Terry
and online journals, and he’s currently working to complete
MELISSA GUILLET's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Appleseeds, Ballard Street, Bloodroot Literary Magazine,
a short novel.
RUSSELL VIDRICK has been writing poems for twenty
www.graysauctioneers.com
Photo by Janet Macoska
Robert Plant 1977 #3
10717 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland OH 44102
p: 216 458 7695 f: 216 458 7694
years, poems that fall on his head from out of the sky.
Appletree
Books
12419 Cedar Rd.
Cleveland, Ohio
216.791.2665
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SECTION 1: SEPTIC
HEATHER MADDEN BENTOSKE
I look down at my yard, and all I see is a rough scar, like
that of a clumsy C-section.
Was the doctor blind when he operated?
No. He was just maneuvering a front loader through an
area that had never been navigated by heavy machinery before. My front yard.
From my bedroom window I look down at the torn up
grass, mud humps and shale. Even before this intrusive
surgery, it’s a front yard that’s hard to explain without photos. A place so private that it can only be reached by walking down thirty stone steps and crossing a bridge. Cars can
not make it down to the front yard or house. The house is
set deep into the woods, tucked into the very earth that
surrounds it. There is no back yard.
And now the yard has been violated while giving birth to
the baby—a new septic system—I will, in turn, give to the
new owners of this magical home. My yard is hurt. I have
hurt it, and I can’t make it better. I can’t tell it, I had to. It’s
better for everyone.
And I am thinking.
I can still touch this rough scar.
Once I touched it with my eyes. My smell. My fingers. My
hearing. In fact, I can still hear the Cuyahoga Valley National train on the weekends. Taking people to and fro. In
the winter they go on the Polar Express. Never having
children, I am not sure how much fun this is. Or memorable. The characters in the movie looked spooky to me
with their dead, flat black mouths.
My senses are all in place when I look at this beautiful patch
of earth. When we made love in the front yard, confident
no one could see us. After all, we were in the woods. The
Cuyahoga National Valley. The grass was rough, the ants
were brutal, I was nervous just in case.
11
09
M
U
S
M
There was no in case.
8
M
U
S
E
M
E
11
09
HIDDEN AGENDA, CLEVELAND, OH, 2008
9
SECTION 1: SEPTIC
HEATHER MADDEN BENTOSKE
I look down at my yard, and all I see is a rough scar, like
that of a clumsy C-section.
Was the doctor blind when he operated?
No. He was just maneuvering a front loader through an
area that had never been navigated by heavy machinery before. My front yard.
From my bedroom window I look down at the torn up
grass, mud humps and shale. Even before this intrusive
surgery, it’s a front yard that’s hard to explain without photos. A place so private that it can only be reached by walking down thirty stone steps and crossing a bridge. Cars can
not make it down to the front yard or house. The house is
set deep into the woods, tucked into the very earth that
surrounds it. There is no back yard.
And now the yard has been violated while giving birth to
the baby—a new septic system—I will, in turn, give to the
new owners of this magical home. My yard is hurt. I have
hurt it, and I can’t make it better. I can’t tell it, I had to. It’s
better for everyone.
And I am thinking.
I can still touch this rough scar.
Once I touched it with my eyes. My smell. My fingers. My
hearing. In fact, I can still hear the Cuyahoga Valley National train on the weekends. Taking people to and fro. In
the winter they go on the Polar Express. Never having
children, I am not sure how much fun this is. Or memorable. The characters in the movie looked spooky to me
with their dead, flat black mouths.
My senses are all in place when I look at this beautiful patch
of earth. When we made love in the front yard, confident
no one could see us. After all, we were in the woods. The
Cuyahoga National Valley. The grass was rough, the ants
were brutal, I was nervous just in case.
11
09
M
U
S
M
There was no in case.
8
M
U
S
E
M
E
11
09
HIDDEN AGENDA, CLEVELAND, OH, 2008
9
Until our neighbors built a barn overlooking our yard about four
years ago. So much for privacy in your front yard in a national park.
Of course I had to have a septic tank put in. You can’t sell a house
without proper sewage disposal. Apparently, all these years everything’s just been running away from us and straight into the tributary from the Slipper River that flows in front of our home— according
to Google Earth, which knows all things topographical.
Home. Where the heart is. Where the deer and the antelope roam.
Mmmmm.
Unlike other mothers who give birth and look at the scars as badges
of honor, I looked at this crude stitching, and thought about what it
was covering up.
The previous septic tank, I discovered, was basically a hole in the
ground, dug over 60 years ago. So at this point, it was a natural question to ask: what is the history of shit removal?
The French were the first to use an underground septic tank system,
in the 1870's. By the mid 1880's, two chamber, automatic siphoning
septic tank systems, similar in concept to those used today, were
being installed in the United States. Even now, a century plus later,
septic tank systems representa major household wastewater treatment option. Fully 1/4 to1/3 of the homes in the US utilize such
a system.
Six septic-install-and-take-care-of people and three Easy Flow
Septic Systems people stared into the hole in the ground that was
our old septic tank.
“They musta’ dragged the cement down here and built this one
on site.”
“Uh, huh.”
All that shit, all those years, flowing from him, from me. Everyone
walking all over it as it ran underneath. Unaware. Family, friends,
welcome and unwelcome guests, pets, stray Jehovah’s Witnesses
who managed to find a way to the front door, energy-checkers,
realtors, charlatans, procrastinators, 3-legged deer, cheaters, liars,
the hopeless, assholes, the awe-struck, ghosts of previous owners,
300-pound clairvoyants, boiler repair men, postal workers, vituperative drunk ex-owners with glasses of cheap Scotch at 6 a.m.,
roofers, grass cutters, tree trimmers, feral cats, blushing autumn
leaves, cardinals (the birds, not the higher-order Catholics), questers.
Well, you get the idea.
It was a special place.
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
10
Snaking through the piping underground, cruising past the hedging made of Peninsula quarry stone (and set with seashells at random moments), for the past 10 years all this personal evacuation
was lazily waving at the giant blue Easter basket, made of concrete,
to the North and the 40' cedar to the South. Gurgling with anticipation to reach its liquid kin in the brook, fed by the Slipper River.
And then there is my estranged husband – who has joined me on
this day to help facilitate this septic birth – and myself.
Staring into the void.
A septic tank, the key component of the septic system,
is a small scale sewage treatment system common in areas
with no connection to main sewage pipes provided by private corporations or local governments.
Just how much shit was between us? We were married 24 years,
times, let’s say, once a day, times two people. 175,200 flushes. Give
or take a margin of error of .05. And that’s not including the six
months we knew each other before we got married.
These are my last days in the house. He is missing that. Not my last
days, but his last days in this house. His last days were spent in
someone else’s home. His last days in this house, before he left, I assume, were nightmarish. They apparently involved months, or even
years of being disillusioned. By stupid shit. By me. By the house. By
himself. Mostly by himself. For 23 years he always sent me anniversary greetings written on With Deepest Sympathy cards. He did not
send me a card on our 24th anniversary, which occurred four days
after he told me he wanted to separate.
He is shutting down. Has shut down. Even though he’s the one who
found this beautiful ruin. And wanted to make it work. For so many
years. The house was like a baby constantly demanding more. People would come over and say, there’s so much work. He is the secret
weapon I would say. He can do it all. And he promised that. Until
he couldn’t. But we both should have known, big emphasis on I
should have known, he couldn’t. Do it. It wasn’t humanly possible.
Unless you were rich.
We were not.
You have never seen greener grass than the grass growing over a
septic system. Lush with possibility. It’s a yard that has to be recognized as the big shit of the neighborhood. This yard will be like that
again, but not in my time. Right now, it’s an ugly birth covered in
coarse mud stitches, but I know it will live.
The term "septic" refers to the anaerobic bacterial environment that
develops in the tank and which decomposes or mineralizes the
waste discharged into the tank. Septic tanks can be coupled with
other on-site wastewater treatment units such as biofilters or aerobic systems involving artificial forced aeration. Periodic preventive
maintenance is required to remove the irreducible solids which settle and gradually fill the tank, reducing its efficiency. In most jurisdictions this maintenance is required by law, yet often not enforced.
Those who ignore the requirement will eventually be faced with
extremely costly repairs when solids escape the tank and destroy
the clarified liquid effluent disposal means. A properly maintained
system, on the other hand, can last for decades and possibly
a lifetime.
Maybe in the depth of experience of all those years. Eloping and
then having a fake wedding for family. Iowa. The Carter Manor.
Chasing the guy who stole his motorcycle. Finding Paul Bowles in
Tangier. Driving my Dad into the future. The deaths of so many
close—my mom and dad, my uncle, his dad, his brother, his good
friend who died too young. Making up silly songs for the dogs that
went like this: “Hi, ho, hi, ho, it’s off to pee I go.” Waving to each
other when we left in the morning.
So much shit. So much flowing away from us.
All cleaned up now.
And sanitized with a UV light. The latest technology in septic
systems.
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
But the C-section runs right over where we laid together. First on
the grass, then when it was too prickly, on an old blanket we found
in the house. The blue and green flowered one from my seventies
teen bedroom. Still an old standby used every Labor Day weekend
for camping on Kelley’s Island. Until now. Now it is used for protecting shit as I schlep it from the house to my storage locker.
The typical American urbanite in the 1870s relied on the rural
solution of individual well and outhouse (privy) or cesspools, the
forerunners to septic systems. Baltimore in the 1880s smelled “like
a billion polecats,” according to H. L. Mencken, and a Chicagoan
said in his city "the stink is enough to knock you down.” Improvement was slow, and large cities of the East and South depended to
the end of the century mainly on drainage through open gutters.
Pollution of water supplies by sewage as well as dumping of industrial waste accounted in large measures for the public health records
and staggering mortality rates of the period.
11
Until our neighbors built a barn overlooking our yard about four
years ago. So much for privacy in your front yard in a national park.
Of course I had to have a septic tank put in. You can’t sell a house
without proper sewage disposal. Apparently, all these years everything’s just been running away from us and straight into the tributary from the Slipper River that flows in front of our home— according
to Google Earth, which knows all things topographical.
Home. Where the heart is. Where the deer and the antelope roam.
Mmmmm.
Unlike other mothers who give birth and look at the scars as badges
of honor, I looked at this crude stitching, and thought about what it
was covering up.
The previous septic tank, I discovered, was basically a hole in the
ground, dug over 60 years ago. So at this point, it was a natural question to ask: what is the history of shit removal?
The French were the first to use an underground septic tank system,
in the 1870's. By the mid 1880's, two chamber, automatic siphoning
septic tank systems, similar in concept to those used today, were
being installed in the United States. Even now, a century plus later,
septic tank systems representa major household wastewater treatment option. Fully 1/4 to1/3 of the homes in the US utilize such
a system.
Six septic-install-and-take-care-of people and three Easy Flow
Septic Systems people stared into the hole in the ground that was
our old septic tank.
“They musta’ dragged the cement down here and built this one
on site.”
“Uh, huh.”
All that shit, all those years, flowing from him, from me. Everyone
walking all over it as it ran underneath. Unaware. Family, friends,
welcome and unwelcome guests, pets, stray Jehovah’s Witnesses
who managed to find a way to the front door, energy-checkers,
realtors, charlatans, procrastinators, 3-legged deer, cheaters, liars,
the hopeless, assholes, the awe-struck, ghosts of previous owners,
300-pound clairvoyants, boiler repair men, postal workers, vituperative drunk ex-owners with glasses of cheap Scotch at 6 a.m.,
roofers, grass cutters, tree trimmers, feral cats, blushing autumn
leaves, cardinals (the birds, not the higher-order Catholics), questers.
Well, you get the idea.
It was a special place.
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
10
Snaking through the piping underground, cruising past the hedging made of Peninsula quarry stone (and set with seashells at random moments), for the past 10 years all this personal evacuation
was lazily waving at the giant blue Easter basket, made of concrete,
to the North and the 40' cedar to the South. Gurgling with anticipation to reach its liquid kin in the brook, fed by the Slipper River.
And then there is my estranged husband – who has joined me on
this day to help facilitate this septic birth – and myself.
Staring into the void.
A septic tank, the key component of the septic system,
is a small scale sewage treatment system common in areas
with no connection to main sewage pipes provided by private corporations or local governments.
Just how much shit was between us? We were married 24 years,
times, let’s say, once a day, times two people. 175,200 flushes. Give
or take a margin of error of .05. And that’s not including the six
months we knew each other before we got married.
These are my last days in the house. He is missing that. Not my last
days, but his last days in this house. His last days were spent in
someone else’s home. His last days in this house, before he left, I assume, were nightmarish. They apparently involved months, or even
years of being disillusioned. By stupid shit. By me. By the house. By
himself. Mostly by himself. For 23 years he always sent me anniversary greetings written on With Deepest Sympathy cards. He did not
send me a card on our 24th anniversary, which occurred four days
after he told me he wanted to separate.
He is shutting down. Has shut down. Even though he’s the one who
found this beautiful ruin. And wanted to make it work. For so many
years. The house was like a baby constantly demanding more. People would come over and say, there’s so much work. He is the secret
weapon I would say. He can do it all. And he promised that. Until
he couldn’t. But we both should have known, big emphasis on I
should have known, he couldn’t. Do it. It wasn’t humanly possible.
Unless you were rich.
We were not.
You have never seen greener grass than the grass growing over a
septic system. Lush with possibility. It’s a yard that has to be recognized as the big shit of the neighborhood. This yard will be like that
again, but not in my time. Right now, it’s an ugly birth covered in
coarse mud stitches, but I know it will live.
The term "septic" refers to the anaerobic bacterial environment that
develops in the tank and which decomposes or mineralizes the
waste discharged into the tank. Septic tanks can be coupled with
other on-site wastewater treatment units such as biofilters or aerobic systems involving artificial forced aeration. Periodic preventive
maintenance is required to remove the irreducible solids which settle and gradually fill the tank, reducing its efficiency. In most jurisdictions this maintenance is required by law, yet often not enforced.
Those who ignore the requirement will eventually be faced with
extremely costly repairs when solids escape the tank and destroy
the clarified liquid effluent disposal means. A properly maintained
system, on the other hand, can last for decades and possibly
a lifetime.
Maybe in the depth of experience of all those years. Eloping and
then having a fake wedding for family. Iowa. The Carter Manor.
Chasing the guy who stole his motorcycle. Finding Paul Bowles in
Tangier. Driving my Dad into the future. The deaths of so many
close—my mom and dad, my uncle, his dad, his brother, his good
friend who died too young. Making up silly songs for the dogs that
went like this: “Hi, ho, hi, ho, it’s off to pee I go.” Waving to each
other when we left in the morning.
So much shit. So much flowing away from us.
All cleaned up now.
And sanitized with a UV light. The latest technology in septic
systems.
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
But the C-section runs right over where we laid together. First on
the grass, then when it was too prickly, on an old blanket we found
in the house. The blue and green flowered one from my seventies
teen bedroom. Still an old standby used every Labor Day weekend
for camping on Kelley’s Island. Until now. Now it is used for protecting shit as I schlep it from the house to my storage locker.
The typical American urbanite in the 1870s relied on the rural
solution of individual well and outhouse (privy) or cesspools, the
forerunners to septic systems. Baltimore in the 1880s smelled “like
a billion polecats,” according to H. L. Mencken, and a Chicagoan
said in his city "the stink is enough to knock you down.” Improvement was slow, and large cities of the East and South depended to
the end of the century mainly on drainage through open gutters.
Pollution of water supplies by sewage as well as dumping of industrial waste accounted in large measures for the public health records
and staggering mortality rates of the period.
11
BAR FLIES
ROBERT FLANAGAN
Dim dives
Wise guys
Ex-wives
Old lies
Brief lives
2 AM CLUB, MILL VALLEY, CA, 2006
M
U
S
M
U
S
E
E
12
M
11
09
M
11
09
13
BAR FLIES
ROBERT FLANAGAN
Dim dives
Wise guys
Ex-wives
Old lies
Brief lives
2 AM CLUB, MILL VALLEY, CA, 2006
M
U
S
M
U
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E
E
12
M
11
09
M
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13
MATT MARSHALL
11
09
M
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S
M
E
14
In a café (or bar) with stone (no—brick) walls and little pathways too thin,
square rooms with speakers up in the corners near the ceiling pumping
out Celtic rock music (all driving guitars and drums and electronic pipes)
with people milling from room to room like ants at their work filling or
refilling their smudged pint glasses with ale to carry and sip and wash
away the mind toils of the day and so slip over into a cool liquid
beginning.
—Where’d you see him? Kate asks Asian girl cheek tan silky
white teeth on smile lips round em dark eyes—brown—black—brown—
black hair shining redpeachbrick, hardsandscrapilywallbricks loudly says
see him to be heard over pounding bass music.
I look down at the shirt she’s referring to—grey black and white
image of Bob Dylan upside down as I look at him in black shades and tousled hair, mike hanging down (or up) big mike—studio mike—Dylan’s
hands at mouth blowing on harp. That image on the Bootleg Series box
set cover lighter faded on T-shirt screened on and surrounded by white
soft cotton. Now being stretched out to be seen—to give the appearance
of being seen—that I am looking at it as if never before—as if for the first
time. Silly.
—Bloomington, I say.
—I. U.? she squeals. Black eyes opening wide in joy amazement.
Music is pounding and smoke beers full or empty or some stage in
between—7/11ths full pint glass dark Guinness on bar wood at emptyleft
chair. Scattered change. Dollar crumpled bill. For next beer.
Guinness. Black with creamy tan foam floating on top in thick
pillow that if poked with your finger in it ploop up foam tower—foam
hat—foam creamy cream chocolate shaped chip—pulling up by your finger then breaking off. And you plop finger again raising slowly six towers,
all foam stunted, in that way—two eyes and four ploploops for the smile—
make smiley face and if it lasts till the bottom of the glass it’s right thickness—only those at McCormick’s in New York doing it right (McCormick’s
business card still in my wallet in pocket) I take it out and show Kate—tell
her—best Guinness in the City. In country most likely. But in Ireland
what they must be like!
She smiles at my mention but little else. I am on to Joyce then
and asking has she ever read Ulysses? She hasn’t. Great book—greatest—
I am saying, but always I go in cycles. First I really raved about The Scarlet
Letter. That book was the greatest as far as I was concerned for the longest
of time—year maybe, in high school—and you couldn’t talk me out of it.
Then A Farewell to Arms and anything Hemingway for even much longer.
Sip Guinness cool liquidy black coldness. I talk on and on and on. Some
point she is holding a pint glass herself, half full with black Guinness half
full with tan Bass. I’ve gotten her to try it. She likes it—I’ve never had
anything like this before—I am in. I feel it. Some measure, some instant
I’ve slipped into her heart—with a beer no less! Don’t you remember
Molly black lashes round eyes so squintily pretty you gave me your right
hand in my hand and warm you said that if you married me coupled warm
you well, I would be your man but what kind of man am I? Drunk pitiful
dreaming of artistic fame and fortune and good brilliant critique—me
genius—but never displaying it—the loathing of knowing of feeling so
worthlessly empty and void roughly of any talent (regardless of what other
fools say) I suck and will never amount to anything....
But Kate—bright eyes. Bright smile. Warm touch. In white
sweatshirt with sleeves rolled up, though still hanging near wrist and blue
snugging nice jeans. How nice to get inside them. Inside them warm juicy.
But she touches me on the forearm.
—I went to I. U., she says.
—What’d you major in?
—Biology.
Lab student in white lab coat and microscope.
—I’m in med school now at Loyola.
Pounding music. Baboom. Screeching guitar licks—screeching scrape picking sharp riff after riff and bass booming and thumping
low low on bass drumbeat and cymbals and badumpadumdumdum—
piercing voice of brash female sailing easily on top. Singing. Singing.
Singing.
I wish I was in London
Or some other seaport town
At bar in the port with creaking wood posts and wood tables,
wood chairs and wood bar creaking like a ship still at sea and the tough
bearded men with patches and aye mateys and parrots. Drink coffee and
clam chowder, dark Guinness out etched dirty pint glasses and mugs.
Mr. Bloom walks in with Stephen Dedalus after just escaping
from the whorehouse a few blocks over. The sea scraper is telling his yarn
and they (Bloom, Stephen, other dirty dusty old men and sailors) all listen, in rain coats and coffee vapors.
Outside the sea is calm.
Seafaring vessels rest easily on the waters at dock on the rope and
float. Cracreeeeeeack.
I’d set myself on steamship
And I’d sail the ocean round
Kate sits down beside me at our table—wood unfinished picnic
table that is grey from too much salty moist air and the sun. She sits close.
Our legs are touching—in shorts—her creamy thighs nearly the same
color as mine, only mine darker from sun but our legs are touching and
warm. We drink Rolling Rock in green long-neck bottles. The beer is of
But then cometh salvation blowing in as clean air, chasing the
heavy fish smell from the room and filling my lungs again with freedom,
restoring open mouth, so that the cold in the green again is beer once
again in its finest, recounting lost days on schoolhood porches with spring
advancing. Ah, morning on the docks! And the whole day ahead to do
great wild things that’ll be talked about and legendized for years.
—Do you remember that time Ian did this or that?
Ah, the stories. Great drunken stories with me as main-role
hero. Avoiding cops or running into them or arguing some stupid drunk
stupor—That’s a pretty straightforward question, the officer said. Don’t
you think? And me blunk and tearing at me brain to remember the question or even the situation general and how I happened to be there and why
oh why can’t I just get out?! And then they hauling me off—or not—and
that making it either funny or nay. Cause I always feel so guilty when they
take me and wonder about me mum. What has her good Catholic boy
grown up and done and why did he ever leave the Church? Pray more, pray
more, unfortunate sad son. God still loves ya. And’ll take ya like a sweet
little bird flying back to Him.
Fr. Woolsey, dressed all in black, with black hat too, and black
overcoat, passing out canny to all us sweatin small children on hot blacktop of the playground. Thar ya go, says he, pinchin at me cheek and scrufflin me harr as he hands me over hard red candy in clear cellophane wrap.
They burn hot cinnamon in the mouth and produce all that water that
burns cinnamon when you swallow and breathe.
Fr. Woolsey now dead. Hit with a stroke two falls ago and laid
up in hospital with half his face frozen up and hand twi-twitching.
—Glaguteral, he spoke. Glaglickslupblablockityblock and spit. But maybe
in mind praying to his sweet Savior to take pity on his poor wretched body
and bring him on home—if it be Your will. Black rosary beads twitching
from hand that seems already dead. And when he died he shit himself like
a matador gored in the corrida.
—I love Tchaikovsky, Kate tells me now. Her voice sounding like
some Tchaikovskian violin, and rising up and soon melting the beating
rock rhythms into a movement from the Sleeping Beauty Ballet Suite. I
tried to learn both the piano and the violin but....
—Yes? I ask.
—My fingers weren’t right. They were always about five steps
behind my brain. I just couldn’t get them to move.
—Really? My problem was just the opposite.
—You played?
—Guitar, mostly, but a little piano. I take a sip of dark Guinness.
With the piano, I’d learn a new tune, just playing it over and over, and
struggling through it note after note, till my hands learned it. After that it
was just a matter of reflex, you know? My hands knew where to go.
—Really?
—Yeah. But if I ever thought about what I was actually playing,
I’d fuck up.
She laughs, but more I think from Guinness and Bass than from
anything I’ve said. Though maybe also from nervousness of me. God, it’d
be wonderful if you could move right from that stage to the bed. From shy
laughters to deepwombmoans. Stead all that nonsense in between that’s
all show and politics. You just want to tell her—I’m here, you’re here, we’re
both miserable, let’s just enjoy some heat together. Spread your legs in a
human bed, as Kerouac says.
But now she just laughs and for now it’s enough and breaks me.
The violins are rushing upwards along some great crescendo that will
surely end in great cymbal crash. And creeeeeeeshshshshshsh. Then
silence. Till she begins again.
—I stuck with my brain after that, she says.
—Good choice, I tell her.
—What’s that mean? she responds.
—Nothin, I smilin.
—I’m not that much of a geek, she smilepleads.
—No, I’m sure not.
And we should fall together there and kiss—heavyfull pint
glasses droppin and crashin and explodin dark carnage on slab floor since
forgotten all else and obeying only deepull thirst inside and inside’s where
I want her and I inside her and tightly pressing her to me and holding her
there and kissing at mouth for to drink her and swell her inside and feel all
the heat and be one.
But though we feel the great magnate we pull back away. Which
makes us feel it even more—strugglin against it—’til you’ve pulled long
enough and it rips at your gut and you’re left with a big hollow space where
your stomach used to be. And you wonder how you ever felt anything for
her and just how you felt it and how you ever allowed it to grow inside a
you and continue and escalate to the point of a no goin back and beyond
and why you agreed and moved in with her after that and spoke that word
lueve over and over again treading down upon it and wearing it out till it
was all the beers mashed together from all the last nights cavin in on you,
washing you out, leaving you to wonder all empty and dry if you ever can
possibly feel that way again about her or about anyone else who might happen to happen along.
But Joyce comes and sits down at our table. He is young. In straw
boater hat and mustache. He drinks coffee with us at our grey picnic table.
We laugh together, ignoring the whalerman and his tale and just soaking
up the new clean air of the bright morning. Kate’s bare leg presses against
mine and the shriek newness of love jumps in me. I smile and take her
hand and rock it slowly, looking out the open door, across the dock and
still sea to the bright glare of the new day’s rising sun.
11
09
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M
HOW DOES IT BEGIN?
pungent fish as wind blows in off the stagnant sea—slow and heavy
through the propped open door—mouthfuls of stomach turning on
warmly to ocean within me of sea sickness, first time ever—from beer.
The old sailor is talking about his last whaling expedition and scratching
his short white beard. His hands chapped red and crackling from the salt
and years and his work.
15
MATT MARSHALL
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
14
In a café (or bar) with stone (no—brick) walls and little pathways too thin,
square rooms with speakers up in the corners near the ceiling pumping
out Celtic rock music (all driving guitars and drums and electronic pipes)
with people milling from room to room like ants at their work filling or
refilling their smudged pint glasses with ale to carry and sip and wash
away the mind toils of the day and so slip over into a cool liquid
beginning.
—Where’d you see him? Kate asks Asian girl cheek tan silky
white teeth on smile lips round em dark eyes—brown—black—brown—
black hair shining redpeachbrick, hardsandscrapilywallbricks loudly says
see him to be heard over pounding bass music.
I look down at the shirt she’s referring to—grey black and white
image of Bob Dylan upside down as I look at him in black shades and tousled hair, mike hanging down (or up) big mike—studio mike—Dylan’s
hands at mouth blowing on harp. That image on the Bootleg Series box
set cover lighter faded on T-shirt screened on and surrounded by white
soft cotton. Now being stretched out to be seen—to give the appearance
of being seen—that I am looking at it as if never before—as if for the first
time. Silly.
—Bloomington, I say.
—I. U.? she squeals. Black eyes opening wide in joy amazement.
Music is pounding and smoke beers full or empty or some stage in
between—7/11ths full pint glass dark Guinness on bar wood at emptyleft
chair. Scattered change. Dollar crumpled bill. For next beer.
Guinness. Black with creamy tan foam floating on top in thick
pillow that if poked with your finger in it ploop up foam tower—foam
hat—foam creamy cream chocolate shaped chip—pulling up by your finger then breaking off. And you plop finger again raising slowly six towers,
all foam stunted, in that way—two eyes and four ploploops for the smile—
make smiley face and if it lasts till the bottom of the glass it’s right thickness—only those at McCormick’s in New York doing it right (McCormick’s
business card still in my wallet in pocket) I take it out and show Kate—tell
her—best Guinness in the City. In country most likely. But in Ireland
what they must be like!
She smiles at my mention but little else. I am on to Joyce then
and asking has she ever read Ulysses? She hasn’t. Great book—greatest—
I am saying, but always I go in cycles. First I really raved about The Scarlet
Letter. That book was the greatest as far as I was concerned for the longest
of time—year maybe, in high school—and you couldn’t talk me out of it.
Then A Farewell to Arms and anything Hemingway for even much longer.
Sip Guinness cool liquidy black coldness. I talk on and on and on. Some
point she is holding a pint glass herself, half full with black Guinness half
full with tan Bass. I’ve gotten her to try it. She likes it—I’ve never had
anything like this before—I am in. I feel it. Some measure, some instant
I’ve slipped into her heart—with a beer no less! Don’t you remember
Molly black lashes round eyes so squintily pretty you gave me your right
hand in my hand and warm you said that if you married me coupled warm
you well, I would be your man but what kind of man am I? Drunk pitiful
dreaming of artistic fame and fortune and good brilliant critique—me
genius—but never displaying it—the loathing of knowing of feeling so
worthlessly empty and void roughly of any talent (regardless of what other
fools say) I suck and will never amount to anything....
But Kate—bright eyes. Bright smile. Warm touch. In white
sweatshirt with sleeves rolled up, though still hanging near wrist and blue
snugging nice jeans. How nice to get inside them. Inside them warm juicy.
But she touches me on the forearm.
—I went to I. U., she says.
—What’d you major in?
—Biology.
Lab student in white lab coat and microscope.
—I’m in med school now at Loyola.
Pounding music. Baboom. Screeching guitar licks—screeching scrape picking sharp riff after riff and bass booming and thumping
low low on bass drumbeat and cymbals and badumpadumdumdum—
piercing voice of brash female sailing easily on top. Singing. Singing.
Singing.
I wish I was in London
Or some other seaport town
At bar in the port with creaking wood posts and wood tables,
wood chairs and wood bar creaking like a ship still at sea and the tough
bearded men with patches and aye mateys and parrots. Drink coffee and
clam chowder, dark Guinness out etched dirty pint glasses and mugs.
Mr. Bloom walks in with Stephen Dedalus after just escaping
from the whorehouse a few blocks over. The sea scraper is telling his yarn
and they (Bloom, Stephen, other dirty dusty old men and sailors) all listen, in rain coats and coffee vapors.
Outside the sea is calm.
Seafaring vessels rest easily on the waters at dock on the rope and
float. Cracreeeeeeack.
I’d set myself on steamship
And I’d sail the ocean round
Kate sits down beside me at our table—wood unfinished picnic
table that is grey from too much salty moist air and the sun. She sits close.
Our legs are touching—in shorts—her creamy thighs nearly the same
color as mine, only mine darker from sun but our legs are touching and
warm. We drink Rolling Rock in green long-neck bottles. The beer is of
But then cometh salvation blowing in as clean air, chasing the
heavy fish smell from the room and filling my lungs again with freedom,
restoring open mouth, so that the cold in the green again is beer once
again in its finest, recounting lost days on schoolhood porches with spring
advancing. Ah, morning on the docks! And the whole day ahead to do
great wild things that’ll be talked about and legendized for years.
—Do you remember that time Ian did this or that?
Ah, the stories. Great drunken stories with me as main-role
hero. Avoiding cops or running into them or arguing some stupid drunk
stupor—That’s a pretty straightforward question, the officer said. Don’t
you think? And me blunk and tearing at me brain to remember the question or even the situation general and how I happened to be there and why
oh why can’t I just get out?! And then they hauling me off—or not—and
that making it either funny or nay. Cause I always feel so guilty when they
take me and wonder about me mum. What has her good Catholic boy
grown up and done and why did he ever leave the Church? Pray more, pray
more, unfortunate sad son. God still loves ya. And’ll take ya like a sweet
little bird flying back to Him.
Fr. Woolsey, dressed all in black, with black hat too, and black
overcoat, passing out canny to all us sweatin small children on hot blacktop of the playground. Thar ya go, says he, pinchin at me cheek and scrufflin me harr as he hands me over hard red candy in clear cellophane wrap.
They burn hot cinnamon in the mouth and produce all that water that
burns cinnamon when you swallow and breathe.
Fr. Woolsey now dead. Hit with a stroke two falls ago and laid
up in hospital with half his face frozen up and hand twi-twitching.
—Glaguteral, he spoke. Glaglickslupblablockityblock and spit. But maybe
in mind praying to his sweet Savior to take pity on his poor wretched body
and bring him on home—if it be Your will. Black rosary beads twitching
from hand that seems already dead. And when he died he shit himself like
a matador gored in the corrida.
—I love Tchaikovsky, Kate tells me now. Her voice sounding like
some Tchaikovskian violin, and rising up and soon melting the beating
rock rhythms into a movement from the Sleeping Beauty Ballet Suite. I
tried to learn both the piano and the violin but....
—Yes? I ask.
—My fingers weren’t right. They were always about five steps
behind my brain. I just couldn’t get them to move.
—Really? My problem was just the opposite.
—You played?
—Guitar, mostly, but a little piano. I take a sip of dark Guinness.
With the piano, I’d learn a new tune, just playing it over and over, and
struggling through it note after note, till my hands learned it. After that it
was just a matter of reflex, you know? My hands knew where to go.
—Really?
—Yeah. But if I ever thought about what I was actually playing,
I’d fuck up.
She laughs, but more I think from Guinness and Bass than from
anything I’ve said. Though maybe also from nervousness of me. God, it’d
be wonderful if you could move right from that stage to the bed. From shy
laughters to deepwombmoans. Stead all that nonsense in between that’s
all show and politics. You just want to tell her—I’m here, you’re here, we’re
both miserable, let’s just enjoy some heat together. Spread your legs in a
human bed, as Kerouac says.
But now she just laughs and for now it’s enough and breaks me.
The violins are rushing upwards along some great crescendo that will
surely end in great cymbal crash. And creeeeeeeshshshshshsh. Then
silence. Till she begins again.
—I stuck with my brain after that, she says.
—Good choice, I tell her.
—What’s that mean? she responds.
—Nothin, I smilin.
—I’m not that much of a geek, she smilepleads.
—No, I’m sure not.
And we should fall together there and kiss—heavyfull pint
glasses droppin and crashin and explodin dark carnage on slab floor since
forgotten all else and obeying only deepull thirst inside and inside’s where
I want her and I inside her and tightly pressing her to me and holding her
there and kissing at mouth for to drink her and swell her inside and feel all
the heat and be one.
But though we feel the great magnate we pull back away. Which
makes us feel it even more—strugglin against it—’til you’ve pulled long
enough and it rips at your gut and you’re left with a big hollow space where
your stomach used to be. And you wonder how you ever felt anything for
her and just how you felt it and how you ever allowed it to grow inside a
you and continue and escalate to the point of a no goin back and beyond
and why you agreed and moved in with her after that and spoke that word
lueve over and over again treading down upon it and wearing it out till it
was all the beers mashed together from all the last nights cavin in on you,
washing you out, leaving you to wonder all empty and dry if you ever can
possibly feel that way again about her or about anyone else who might happen to happen along.
But Joyce comes and sits down at our table. He is young. In straw
boater hat and mustache. He drinks coffee with us at our grey picnic table.
We laugh together, ignoring the whalerman and his tale and just soaking
up the new clean air of the bright morning. Kate’s bare leg presses against
mine and the shriek newness of love jumps in me. I smile and take her
hand and rock it slowly, looking out the open door, across the dock and
still sea to the bright glare of the new day’s rising sun.
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
HOW DOES IT BEGIN?
pungent fish as wind blows in off the stagnant sea—slow and heavy
through the propped open door—mouthfuls of stomach turning on
warmly to ocean within me of sea sickness, first time ever—from beer.
The old sailor is talking about his last whaling expedition and scratching
his short white beard. His hands chapped red and crackling from the salt
and years and his work.
15
OCTOBER 10TH
ANITA HERCZOG
closer
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
16
CHENNAI
SHARANYA MANIVANNAN
YOU TOLD ME
RUSSELL VIDRICK
You told me about an
ocean in Mexico how the
surf sounded like thunder
while you were still in
the distance how you
wanted to stand in the
waves but the undertow
almost drew you under.
Today a hurricane touched land
in Texas a category one
with 100 mph winds.
The world is full of little entropies.
I go to the sea
and turn myself over in my hand
like a shell; a hollow conch
carried on the resonance
of a song long past its singing.
My heart is a well
and this city, one that is
forever in drought.
UNTITLED
STEVE THOMAS I watched the exhausted waves
lay among the sands…
My father had been gone for
decades
when I stumbled onto this shore
his shore, all the time he and I
played here
nearly forgotten
he swam immersed in moments
beyond
my understanding, only able to say
I like coming here
EL MAR, YUCCATAN, MX, 2006
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
I was robbing your beach
of her lucky stones, daddy,
two years to the day
since you died.
my feet in the sand
here
where you used to stand,
the sun on the lake
filling my eyes.
all these lucky stones
must be broken
handfuls don't change anything,
but the hush of the waves
washing over me
brings your voice
closer,
17
OCTOBER 10TH
ANITA HERCZOG
closer
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
16
CHENNAI
SHARANYA MANIVANNAN
YOU TOLD ME
RUSSELL VIDRICK
You told me about an
ocean in Mexico how the
surf sounded like thunder
while you were still in
the distance how you
wanted to stand in the
waves but the undertow
almost drew you under.
Today a hurricane touched land
in Texas a category one
with 100 mph winds.
The world is full of little entropies.
I go to the sea
and turn myself over in my hand
like a shell; a hollow conch
carried on the resonance
of a song long past its singing.
My heart is a well
and this city, one that is
forever in drought.
UNTITLED
STEVE THOMAS I watched the exhausted waves
lay among the sands…
My father had been gone for
decades
when I stumbled onto this shore
his shore, all the time he and I
played here
nearly forgotten
he swam immersed in moments
beyond
my understanding, only able to say
I like coming here
EL MAR, YUCCATAN, MX, 2006
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
I was robbing your beach
of her lucky stones, daddy,
two years to the day
since you died.
my feet in the sand
here
where you used to stand,
the sun on the lake
filling my eyes.
all these lucky stones
must be broken
handfuls don't change anything,
but the hush of the waves
washing over me
brings your voice
closer,
17
FROM THE SKY
JESS E. STORK
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
18
But they became bolder, following people on
the street, proffering skills and objectives.
They began to cover city blocks with lists of
degrees, tattering off the buildings in the rain
like obscure band titles. Pretty soon, the
children couldn’t play in the street because the
linen sheets trailed after them on the cracking
pavement. It wouldn’t have mattered if they
could go out. The playground was covered
anyways. There were talks of cleaning them off
the streets, but no one really saw the point.
There would just be more to replace them.
The city took on a lethargic, deserted look.
The loneliness cramped in the stomachs of
the residents.
Finally, word of the storm came. Overnight,
windows were boarded up. Loose graffiti
appeared, hastily scrawled across. Under the
cover of night, residents went out to the food
store to purchase bottles of water and toilet
paper. Wind whipped through the empty
streets as one lone car cruised slowly down the
street. And the sky turned a dark, empty grey.
When the storm began, the residents were
safely huddled around their television sets in
the darkness. It was beautiful in a way, the
silhouettes carefully blotting out the sky.
Silently, they fluttered to the ground, coating
the grass. They fell into pot holes and littered
the sidewalks. Carried by the gusts, they
collected in pockets on window sills. Silently, a
blanket covered the city. The buildings, the
homes, the trees all disappeared under a
thickening shroud of unanswered resumes.
UNION DRIVE-IN, LAS VEGAS, NM, 2007
THE BLUE MOON DRIVE-IN
LARRY SMITH
Last night at the drive-in
over in Wellsburg, you know,
me and Barbie really watched the movie.
A Rebel Without a Cause, with that
new guy James Dean. Man, he could
really kick ass, as an actor I mean.
Of course, we made out, give me a break.
But that movie got to me, you know.
‘Bout halfway through when he’s
fightin’ with his old man, that was me
all bustin’ loose inside and all,
yellin’ “You’re tearing me apart!”
at his folks and all. And when ole
Natalie Wood waves that drag race flag,
that was Barbie in tight jeans
and a scarf round her pretty neck.
I had plans of going for it that night,
I mean all the way in the back seat,
but, hell, there was something more
going on up on that movie screen.
At one point, when old Sal Mineo
You know, Man, I been thinkin,’
maybe I won’t join the Marines
like my old man. Maybe I’ll
try goin’ to West Liberty, you know,
‘Get an education’ and all that stuff
gets it, I thought of you, Butch,
and I had to get outta that car
so’s Barbie wouldn’t see me cry.
I mean, a tough ass guy like me
bustin’ up at some movie, what the heck!
What’s that all about?
we been hearing at school, our parents
pushing us to get a job right away.
Maybe there’s somethin’ deeper in us
maybe there’s somethin’ more.
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
At first, they only seemed to show up
sporadically. People hardly noticed them in
manilla stacks at the supermarket or pinned
onto boards at the coffeehouse. They were
crumbling monuments, disappearing in a
tangle of ivy or a letter tattered at the creases
and forgotten in a pocket. In the first few days,
there were only a few scuffing the street corners
and catching on trees in the wind. Most just
ignored them, going about their daily routines.
But a general feeling of easiness hung in the air.
Authorities suggested not to aggravate them,
just to slowly back away or cross to the other
side of the street. They created color codes to
flash on the news for the intensity of the threat.
Every once in awhile, a gust of wind would stir
up a few into the air. Dog-eared corners winked
at the horizon.
19
FROM THE SKY
JESS E. STORK
11
09
M
U
S
M
E
18
But they became bolder, following people on
the street, proffering skills and objectives.
They began to cover city blocks with lists of
degrees, tattering off the buildings in the rain
like obscure band titles. Pretty soon, the
children couldn’t play in the street because the
linen sheets trailed after them on the cracking
pavement. It wouldn’t have mattered if they
could go out. The playground was covered
anyways. There were talks of cleaning them off
the streets, but no one really saw the point.
There would just be more to replace them.
The city took on a lethargic, deserted look.
The loneliness cramped in the stomachs of
the residents.
Finally, word of the storm came. Overnight,
windows were boarded up. Loose graffiti
appeared, hastily scrawled across. Under the
cover of night, residents went out to the food
store to purchase bottles of water and toilet
paper. Wind whipped through the empty
streets as one lone car cruised slowly down the
street. And the sky turned a dark, empty grey.
When the storm began, the residents were
safely huddled around their television sets in
the darkness. It was beautiful in a way, the
silhouettes carefully blotting out the sky.
Silently, they fluttered to the ground, coating
the grass. They fell into pot holes and littered
the sidewalks. Carried by the gusts, they
collected in pockets on window sills. Silently, a
blanket covered the city. The buildings, the
homes, the trees all disappeared under a
thickening shroud of unanswered resumes.
UNION DRIVE-IN, LAS VEGAS, NM, 2007
THE BLUE MOON DRIVE-IN
LARRY SMITH
Last night at the drive-in
over in Wellsburg, you know,
me and Barbie really watched the movie.
A Rebel Without a Cause, with that
new guy James Dean. Man, he could
really kick ass, as an actor I mean.
Of course, we made out, give me a break.
But that movie got to me, you know.
‘Bout halfway through when he’s
fightin’ with his old man, that was me
all bustin’ loose inside and all,
yellin’ “You’re tearing me apart!”
at his folks and all. And when ole
Natalie Wood waves that drag race flag,
that was Barbie in tight jeans
and a scarf round her pretty neck.
I had plans of going for it that night,
I mean all the way in the back seat,
but, hell, there was something more
going on up on that movie screen.
At one point, when old Sal Mineo
You know, Man, I been thinkin,’
maybe I won’t join the Marines
like my old man. Maybe I’ll
try goin’ to West Liberty, you know,
‘Get an education’ and all that stuff
gets it, I thought of you, Butch,
and I had to get outta that car
so’s Barbie wouldn’t see me cry.
I mean, a tough ass guy like me
bustin’ up at some movie, what the heck!
What’s that all about?
we been hearing at school, our parents
pushing us to get a job right away.
Maybe there’s somethin’ deeper in us
maybe there’s somethin’ more.
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
At first, they only seemed to show up
sporadically. People hardly noticed them in
manilla stacks at the supermarket or pinned
onto boards at the coffeehouse. They were
crumbling monuments, disappearing in a
tangle of ivy or a letter tattered at the creases
and forgotten in a pocket. In the first few days,
there were only a few scuffing the street corners
and catching on trees in the wind. Most just
ignored them, going about their daily routines.
But a general feeling of easiness hung in the air.
Authorities suggested not to aggravate them,
just to slowly back away or cross to the other
side of the street. They created color codes to
flash on the news for the intensity of the threat.
Every once in awhile, a gust of wind would stir
up a few into the air. Dog-eared corners winked
at the horizon.
19
UNTITLED
LISA CITORE
I’ve never worn a perfectly fitted dress,
even on my wedding day.
Four months pregnant, starting to show,
I came to the altar with the dream of love
and the shame of unvirginity.
Has any woman ever felt perfectly beautiful?
Even for a moment?
I wanted to tell him how unprepared
I walked down the aisle trying
and scared I was for adulthood, wifehood,
to suck my stomach,
motherhood.
to look like a proper bride,
How the man sitting next to me had no idea
my baby starving for air.
who I was, nor did I know him,
I didn’t get a real wedding dress.
But I did not have my own voice then.
I bought mine off the sales rack at JC Penney.
So I answered him greeting card platitudes.
White with short puffy sleeves,
In a lifetime of false moments,
off the shoulders like a medieval wench.
I crave the holy, innocence, and freedom
Pink rouge cheeks and half moon lips
even for a moment
spread tight across my face
without a demon
as the zipper teeth around my waistline.
of mother and her past.
The mayor was supposed to officiate
I have not felt worthy of a tailored dress
in the town square gazebo,
let alone being a vessel for God.
but at the last minute got sick,
M
U
S
M
E
20
Long since divorced
in the Methodist church of my childhood
my daughter is now eighteen,
I’d only since attended with my mother
taking voice lessons
on Christmas, Easter, and her birthday.
and writing her songs.
My husband to be and I met the minister
She works in a pet shop with snakes,
briefly that morning. He questioned us
comfortable handling rats
about our beliefs on relationship.
and feeding rabbits to pythons.
I wanted to tell him my mother and father
She is curvy, hippy, and happy
both had affairs. Him with women
being a size eleven
he met while out of town “on business.”
the big picture of all
Her with the coach of the local football team.
the mistakes I’ve made.
And how my father, an alcoholic atheist,
When I look at her I see
was on the church board of trustees
only beauty.
and best friends with the minister.
When I hear her sing
And how I’ve always felt divided
I feel that soft deep rooted joy
between believing in love in spite of everything
of forgiveness.
and believing love is a sham.
DRESSMAKERS' WIRE MANNEQUIN, UZES, FR, 2007
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
11
09
and it rained so we had the ceremony
21
UNTITLED
LISA CITORE
I’ve never worn a perfectly fitted dress,
even on my wedding day.
Four months pregnant, starting to show,
I came to the altar with the dream of love
and the shame of unvirginity.
Has any woman ever felt perfectly beautiful?
Even for a moment?
I wanted to tell him how unprepared
I walked down the aisle trying
and scared I was for adulthood, wifehood,
to suck my stomach,
motherhood.
to look like a proper bride,
How the man sitting next to me had no idea
my baby starving for air.
who I was, nor did I know him,
I didn’t get a real wedding dress.
But I did not have my own voice then.
I bought mine off the sales rack at JC Penney.
So I answered him greeting card platitudes.
White with short puffy sleeves,
In a lifetime of false moments,
off the shoulders like a medieval wench.
I crave the holy, innocence, and freedom
Pink rouge cheeks and half moon lips
even for a moment
spread tight across my face
without a demon
as the zipper teeth around my waistline.
of mother and her past.
The mayor was supposed to officiate
I have not felt worthy of a tailored dress
in the town square gazebo,
let alone being a vessel for God.
but at the last minute got sick,
M
U
S
M
E
20
Long since divorced
in the Methodist church of my childhood
my daughter is now eighteen,
I’d only since attended with my mother
taking voice lessons
on Christmas, Easter, and her birthday.
and writing her songs.
My husband to be and I met the minister
She works in a pet shop with snakes,
briefly that morning. He questioned us
comfortable handling rats
about our beliefs on relationship.
and feeding rabbits to pythons.
I wanted to tell him my mother and father
She is curvy, hippy, and happy
both had affairs. Him with women
being a size eleven
he met while out of town “on business.”
the big picture of all
Her with the coach of the local football team.
the mistakes I’ve made.
And how my father, an alcoholic atheist,
When I look at her I see
was on the church board of trustees
only beauty.
and best friends with the minister.
When I hear her sing
And how I’ve always felt divided
I feel that soft deep rooted joy
between believing in love in spite of everything
of forgiveness.
and believing love is a sham.
DRESSMAKERS' WIRE MANNEQUIN, UZES, FR, 2007
11
09
M
U
S
E
M
11
09
and it rained so we had the ceremony
21
ITS GOLD STILL GREENS
WITH TATTERED LIGHT
dan smith
We held within ourselves a small infinity
when time had just begun and place
was anywhere we were.
We sang our hymn to all creation,
the choirs in our souls hosannahed,
no measure of our days was taken.
We signed a holy body language then
when love's alchemy raged across the sky
and we drank its rainbow potions.
Its gold still greens with tattered light
our run-down and decaying shrines
11
09
CEMETERY, OKRACOKE ISLAND, NC, 2001
11
09
E
E
22
M
M
U
S
M
M
U
S
23
ITS GOLD STILL GREENS
WITH TATTERED LIGHT
dan smith
We held within ourselves a small infinity
when time had just begun and place
was anywhere we were.
We sang our hymn to all creation,
the choirs in our souls hosannahed,
no measure of our days was taken.
We signed a holy body language then
when love's alchemy raged across the sky
and we drank its rainbow potions.
Its gold still greens with tattered light
our run-down and decaying shrines
11
09
CEMETERY, OKRACOKE ISLAND, NC, 2001
11
09
E
E
22
M
M
U
S
M
M
U
S
23
SHORTCUT
MELISSA GUILLET
Narrow and easily overlooked,
the bridge to understanding hid in plain sight.
There were shortcuts, easier ways
to get across the point.
There were no brain locks to pick,
no foreign tongues you had to acquire
a taste for. The map was drawn.
You were there.
But you weren’t. You were in
your own head. You never saw
the bridge for what it was:
a way of looking
outside yourself. Inside,
the maze adds another corner.
11
09
11
09
M
U
S
M
U
S
24
LATE NIGHT SHOPPERS, MONMARTE, PARIS, FR, 2007
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SHORTCUT
MELISSA GUILLET
Narrow and easily overlooked,
the bridge to understanding hid in plain sight.
There were shortcuts, easier ways
to get across the point.
There were no brain locks to pick,
no foreign tongues you had to acquire
a taste for. The map was drawn.
You were there.
But you weren’t. You were in
your own head. You never saw
the bridge for what it was:
a way of looking
outside yourself. Inside,
the maze adds another corner.
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LATE NIGHT SHOPPERS, MONMARTE, PARIS, FR, 2007
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LIES
NIN ANDREWS
Truth is beautiful without a doubt. But so are lies, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote.
Maybe that’s why we never know which is which.
Why we repeat our lies again and again. Even when we know they aren’t true, we want them to be.
But Nero didn’t fiddle when Rome burned. (It turns out he was out of town at the time.
And the violin wasn’t invented until the 16th century.)
The soil of Carthage was never sewn with salt.
Marie Antoinette didn’t say, Let them eat cake.
Or brioche, as her enemies said, to inspire hatred of the Hapsburg queen.
Louis XVI did not have a tiny penis. (Quite the opposite.
The letters and court records suggest he was too well-endowed for the petite Marie.)
Catherine the Great didn’t die having sex with a horse
(Though she did have many lovers, the last 40 years younger than she.)
Nor did she expire on the toilet seat.
Napoleon was neither short nor impotent.
Nor was he cured of impotence by eating green beans.
The Virgin Queen might not have been a virgin.
George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth.
Roosevelt didn’t know the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor.
Churchill was not an alcoholic, and his father never contracted syphilis.
Hitler was not an atheist, a social Darwinist, or a follower of Nietzsche.
He believed the Bible told the history of man. He confessed his faith in Jesus in speeches, and encouraged his Nazis
to worship in churches. In short, like most leaders in this country today,
he considered himself a good Christian. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL, RAMBLAS, BARCELONA, SP, 2007
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27
LIES
NIN ANDREWS
Truth is beautiful without a doubt. But so are lies, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote.
Maybe that’s why we never know which is which.
Why we repeat our lies again and again. Even when we know they aren’t true, we want them to be.
But Nero didn’t fiddle when Rome burned. (It turns out he was out of town at the time.
And the violin wasn’t invented until the 16th century.)
The soil of Carthage was never sewn with salt.
Marie Antoinette didn’t say, Let them eat cake.
Or brioche, as her enemies said, to inspire hatred of the Hapsburg queen.
Louis XVI did not have a tiny penis. (Quite the opposite.
The letters and court records suggest he was too well-endowed for the petite Marie.)
Catherine the Great didn’t die having sex with a horse
(Though she did have many lovers, the last 40 years younger than she.)
Nor did she expire on the toilet seat.
Napoleon was neither short nor impotent.
Nor was he cured of impotence by eating green beans.
The Virgin Queen might not have been a virgin.
George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth.
Roosevelt didn’t know the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor.
Churchill was not an alcoholic, and his father never contracted syphilis.
Hitler was not an atheist, a social Darwinist, or a follower of Nietzsche.
He believed the Bible told the history of man. He confessed his faith in Jesus in speeches, and encouraged his Nazis
to worship in churches. In short, like most leaders in this country today,
he considered himself a good Christian. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL, RAMBLAS, BARCELONA, SP, 2007
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26
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09
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