Worm 31

 

Li Po's Fire Poems

Some say Li Po burned
only his bad poems,

freed them like fire-flies,
to spark down the rivers
of night.

But that is all wrong:

I recall a night
of ice and frost,
high in a cave
in the Tai-hang Mountains.

Surely we would have died
that night, but Li Po
unrolled his best work,
read each poem softly,
then handed them
to the flames.

I remember one -
about a young girl he caught
praying to the moon -

the warmth from that poem
keeps the chill from my marrow
even now.

© Mark Allinson

 

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Indian Creek

We could have taken the upper trail,
.............but instead follow the dry swale,
............. .............imagining the patter
.............of gossiping water
beneath oaks
.............curling like smoke.
............. .............After so many married years,
.............you don't entertain, but rather spear
the other's ideas.
.............A green blur,
............. .............the mossed walls
.............rustle. We laugh and call
to each other through the haze.
.............All the way
............. .............I follow you and then
............. ............. .............you say, You have the lead.

We learn the hard way.
.............Squirrels burrowing against the chill,
............. .............we outlasted the winter hill
.............and the scant water
of summer. Does it matter,
.............when at last you break
............. .............into these petals quaking
.............in layers like white veils?
History quails
.............at this knocking corridor
............. .............smelling of orange and cucumber.
.............The path parts
and opens. Birds dart
.............and backstroke on the wind.
............. .............Trail's beginning, not its end.

© Rachel Dacus

 

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Where Lines Converge
(dedicated to Beryl Inez Jeffrey 09/02/47 - 11/10/02)

I can use the line to put a string of
monosyllables together,
counterpointing polysyllables below.
I can use the line to generate an
expectation, fulfilled, like many a good
song, a tap of the heel into the future.
I can use the line to echo a natural syntactic break
though a comma can do the job just as well.
I can use the line to retard the forward velocity
or to speed it up like a bat out of
Surprise is the raison d'etre of many a killer line.
I can separate ranunculus and hydrangea
from yellow jacket, caterpillar and aphid.
In one line I can play with the beat;
subsequently I can jumble it all up.
Tonight a commonplace yet damn-I-mean-it line
wags the clapper in the center of my skull.
I would ring it to you from the highest bell tower,
sally in my hands, leather on the iron, echo in my breath -
even as yours has fallen into stillness.

© Fred Longworth

 

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On Writers and Writing

It's finely crafted, microcosmic prose
I like--and poetry that resonates
through musical effects, sans adipose
or ersatz verbiage. The writer states
a subject that is palpable and real
and skillfully constructs a living world,
allowing me to hear and see and feel.
Technique and form are intimately swirled
with recollected images of light
and shade, forgotten melodies, lost love,
pure joy (those sweet caresses in the night),
and bitter loneliness. The best unglove
their words of artifice. They find uncouth
what would obscure experience and truth.

© Vaughn Fritts

 

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Of Numbers and Nine Lives

These days the neighbor's cat sleeps on my chest;
I'm hollow as a spoon curved to ensnare
a taste of broth. My tongue uncurls a prayer:
I'm stainless now. The surgeon blandly stressed
our time is short, expect the worst. I've messed
up half my kitchen and Mum's silverware,
failed breast exams, paid blindly with my hair.
Wall mirrors make me look away. Undressed,
I'm gauzed to ward off flies. The stand fan ticks
away my thoughts. I'm here just to survive.
Some days I feel allergic to the sound
of purrs, a warmth that makes me sneeze. It flicks
its tail against my nose. I count to five:
the years before another lump is found.

© Arlene Ang

(Of Numbers and Nine Lives: Editor's Choice of David Anthony, ' A very fine Italian sonnet, technically flawless and brilliantly understated; full of memorable, chilling images and bravery, or empathy, or both. Such flow, such effortlessness, is not achieved without great effort and an absolute mastery of the craft.' )

 

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otherwise known as (a long way from home)

magdalena was known as leni
by her mother and father
when she worked the fields and factories of home
a girl
slender as a reed

I heard she could run like wind
but not too fast for d"uro
he caught her with a song
and a look in his eye

magdalena was known as mag or meg
by the people she worked with
in the small town madhouse refractory-ward
an aide
in the blue of nursing staff

I heard that she sighed
at the end of a long day
hoping d"uro and the kids
were fed and ready for bed

leni leni this place
is a long long way from home

© Frank Faust

 

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Breads

Once it was all white sliced, now, since her 'turns'
it could be Granary, Farmhouse, Cottage Wholemeal,
Midshire Windmill, Rustique, Bloomer, Plait,

filling the trolley; some now, some for the freezer.

All the girls know me, wave across from Bakery,
have a word, sometimes, chat about grains and batches,
dressings, dustings of flour, nuts, raisins, sesame.

I watch them plant fresh strawberries onto pastries.
(I can't stay long, the carer's always waiting.)

Sometimes it's two for one, or three for two,
or late on Fridays 'Specials from Today',
bargains, I check crusts, textures through the plastic,

see they're still fresh. Mainly I go for wholemeal,
keeping us healthy. French Sticks if they're warm
or Tin Loaf, with its hint of river picnics.

"I'll book the punt," I'll say. She can't remember.

I know them all, now, which are best for toasting,
those that slice thinly, crumble, are good for croutons

how best to keep them. Bought a porcelain crock,
Victorian letters, 'Ideal for Expeditions'.
"All right if we go up the Nile," I told her.

No response, but she knows I'm all prepared.

Same with the football, never used to watch.
Now I know everything, leagues and strikers, transfers,
fees, moving into space, the offside trap.

Suppose it's the roaring, being part of the crowd,
the sound right up, so's not to hear her crying.

© Martyn Halsall

(Breads: Editor's Choice of M.A.Griffiths,'A celebration of a type of mundane heroism that often goes unremarked. The narrator's small escapes from his restricted world of caring for his wife are poignantly described, and his dignity and humour are wonderfully conveyed. A perceptive and moving character study.' )

 

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A Visit From the Malka Movetz

My father had a massive heart attack
while teaching two ten year olds to play chess
at the library where he volunteered
for years, on Wednesday mornings. It appeared
to have taken ninety seconds or less.
I was at work, already dressed in black.
(Zegna cashmere blazer, Brioni tie -
fuchsia paisley - with a Jermyn Street shirt.)
Peter and I rushed to the hospital.
My family was waiting in the hall,
my mother ashen, impossibly hurt,
infuriated that he dared to die,
whose warmth and presence commanded a room,
leaving us numb. Inexpressibly numb.

(Malka Movetz : Yiddish term for "The Angel of Death")

© Mitchell Geller

 

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Dignity of Age

He is not himself.
He pushes slippered feet

toward me
in a stiff half-bow,

ambassadorial,
decayed empire.

I want to shake him,
stop him playing the clown

He once leapt round a stable yard
gorilla style - I nearly

wrecked myself -
a big lump of laughter.

Jack in the box,
how shall we mend
your spring?

© Rod Riesco

(Dignity of Age: Editor's Choice of Helena Nelson, ' Its simple sadness moved me immediately. Not a word out of place. The poet plumbs clichés (He is not himself/ I nearly wrecked myself) and makes them poignantly true. The visual incongruity of erstwhile ambassador and broken Jack-in-the-box is heart-breaking. This is about a man boxed in by age and decay. A man who has reversed roles with the child he once entertained. And somehow, in the 'we' of the penultimate line, there is love.' )

 

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Receptacle

You desired to make me your receptacle
for all you knew. No child of your own,
you meant to pass to me your lifetime's
knowledge of history, flora, and fauna.
So you introduced to me by its Latin name,
a rare speckled orchid on St. Aldhelm's Head,
by the side of the hermit's ruined chapel.
Named the swirling birds, cormorants, auks,
as we hiked along Beeny Cliff, the waters
below us twinkling with a million suns.
You prepared the strains of knowledge
like skeins of wool at a spinning wheel,
sheep's wool caught in clifftop barbed wire.
We slid down the shale to Kimmeridge Bay
seeking fossil ammonites and trilobites,
the world's wisdom in a raptosaur's tooth.

© Christopher T. George

 

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Maid in Apartheid

Because Nosipho often found a set
of false teeth in a glass by the couple's bed,
she had believed for many years, she said,
that whites don't have real teeth -- she'd never met
one that did not arouse the thought that soon
a tooth, or maybe worse, would pop right out
and hit her in the face. She feared, no doubt,
that all their parts were loose. That afternoon
she saw the man lift up his hair -- she screamed
and fainted on the spot. Of course, they thought
it was a native thing -- they had been taught
that blacks don't make much sense. They never dreamed
that her reaction to their flaws revealed
that fictions cannot always stay concealed.

© Geertjan Wielenga

 

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Driving Habits

.........I drove with hands at ten and two
......o'clock till seventeen; a perfect score
.........and license meant they'd find their true
............grip at eight and four.

.........Soon after, it was five o'clock
......while eight became a left elbow out straight,
.........except when loading southern rock,
............my right hand on the eight-

.........track player, left hand set at nine.
......At eighteen I reversed the grip, left hand
.........at twelve o'clock to realign
............my torso while I fanned

.........an arm around her nape. The years
......brought cell phones and a standard shift to fill
.........a hand. There's more than what appears
............to mastering a skill.

.........One-handed driving is a trait
......I nurtured over time; to be precise,
.........it started on my Schwinn at eight,
............slurping lemon ice.

© Glenn Nicholls

 

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Summertime - Edward Hopper

I might have guessed you'd pick out Summertime.
The Nighthawk's low-life chic is not at all
your style. At dawn, when pale ephemeral
light sanctifies the seedy side-street's grime,
autumnal sunshine streams into the room,
a woman wakes, to find herself alone,
angelic brightness cannot then atone
for emptiness - your nagging sense of doom.
These images that haunt your hidden dream
will never grace your wall. Instead you choose
a scene of inadvertent hope. Above
the solitary girl, white buildings gleam;
she waits, in cotton frock and high-heeled shoes:
the Summer breeze enfolds her like new love.

© Alan Wickes

 

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I'm Bored With Pink

"I'm bored with Pink," you say. Her spot
as Saturday Night Live's
musical guest comes on too late.
By the time she arrives

you'll turn the television off
& take yourself to bed.
It's too late now to start a tiff,
we're both too exhausted --

but though our TV screen is dark,
the next commerical break
will see the singer go to work,
her hips begin to shake.

Deep-throated, she'll begin to keen
for the wallflower-hearted,
it's never too late or too soon
to get the party started.

Some part of us still wants to dance
all night, to smoke & drink
& celebrate our innocence --
the child inside dreams Pink.

© Mike Alexander

 

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Beyond

our dreams the world unrolls
as usual, distantly. We'll let
its noise flow through us
unimpeded, as it lets our mind
erase those outward images,
passing before our eyes as in
a magic-lantern show reflecting
everything we cared about or had
seen; we'll let our thoughts turn
inside out until they glitter in a kind
of space. We'll push it farther, make
the pace like that of walking through
a foreign city, lurching as the streets
pass and the sea swims into view.
We'll feel its breeze, hear someone's
breathing gradually subsiding. Then
we'll come back to this chosen life.

© Gerald Schwartz

 

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Night and Day
The circus travels through the night swinging on starlight swaying on the tight rope of road. The circus stops when it is day. At the dawn of the town they tie the big tent down. The stars go in.
© Philip Burton

 

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The Heart's Fine Bungling

I can only thrash my way back into our story.
Trying to resuscitate the details of the love.
Pure, shining moments strung like tiny seed pearls
between big red flares of defeat. We've managed
this thing like emergency workers on ecstasy.
Always grabbing the wrong colored flag.
Sending the ambulance over to put out the fire.
Turning the hose on the woman giving birth.
Handing out doughnuts to the shocked and grieving
at the roadside wreck. Coming home, flipping on
the TV. It would have made too much sense to weep.

© Kerry O'Keefe

 

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Tyrannosaurus in a Dress

'Slime Pig!' she called out to him, breath like flames -
'There's nothing in that hard-hat heavy head
but my clutch laying in your tar pit bed.'
But skip the keep-the-kettle-boiling games;
what if the girl exhausted all those names
that turn up like primeval dirt gone dead?
'Tyrannosaurus in a dress' he'd said.
She guessed a paleontology of shames

was running under Scaley Green Man's passion
but, feeling none, the lady fell and cried,
wishing her little arms grew wings and flew.
Caprice is nearly all there is to fashion -
only integrity is dignified.
So what's a tyrannosaurus girl to do?

© Peter Stewart Richards

 

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Author's contact details:
Mike Alexander.....................GuignolP@aol.com
Mark Allinson...................... lit4life@ozemail.com.au
Arlene Ang...........................aumelesi@libero.it
Philip Burton........................ burtophil@hotmail.com
Rachel Dacus...................... http://www.dacushome.com
Frank Faust..........................www.talesoffaust.com
Vaughn Fritts....................... vfritts@optonline.net
Mitchell Geller.......................PMMGBOB@aol.com
Christopher T. George............editorcg@yahoo.com
Martyn Halsall...................... martyn.halsall@ukonline.co.uk
Fred Longworth ................... stereo1@cox.net
Kerry O'Keefe........................jkok@hfa.umass.edu
Glenn Nicholls.......................glennnicholls@msn.com
Peter Stewart Richards......... peter.richards@chello.no
Rod Riesco...........................Jumpcatrod@aol.com
Gerald Schwartz....................gejs1@rochester.rr.com
Geertjan Wielenga ................g_wielenga@yahoo.com
Alan Wickes ....................... http://www.alanwickes.com

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Compiling Editor:
M.A.Griffiths (grasshopper@wordbug.freeserve.co.uk) .

Associate Editors:
David Anthony (http://www.davidgwilymanthony.co.uk) and Helena Nelson (HE11@beatonh.freeserve.co.uk)

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