Farewell to the Moa, Patricia Howitt |
Stazja Mc Fadden; Washington, USA Happy hour While the sun baked vacationers quench their thirsts at boardwalk cafes and beachfront bars I swim a silent distance north of high rise hotels and the public pier Undulating swells of tide dazzle with blinding chips of diamond sunlight In liquid jade I float face down in idle search of suicidal fish who send unwitting signals to sea birds diving like kamakaze pilots around me feasting on their catches of the day How do they know, these birds where to hit the drink for morsels? A squalling entourage of seagulls swirls above the gluttonous terns and pelicans One breaks formation touching down to body surf beside me He's eavesdropped on my thoughts and with an aviators condescending air he squawks "To find what you are looking for, you have to hunger" Then flies off to bother a pelicans shoulder I memorize the moment late into the night I repeat the seagulls lesson like a litany A film of dried sand and sea sweetened with coconut Coppertone stings the skin across my back It feels good I lick my palms and suck my fingers craving the taste of beach salt and freedom Copyright Stazja Mc Fadden 1999 Thomas Downing; Pittsburg, PA, USA August Ponds I suppose like everything else, eyes and ears and bone, a man's desire for a woman begins in August ponds. There is no other beginning, no other truth than the womb, no other mammel possibility- no other explanation, but Before breath we rock-a-bye inside her- inside a lullaby- for all we know- we're loved, sung to and desired. Copyright Thomas Downing 2001 James Dunlap; Iowa, USA Tracking a will 'o' the wisp through the shadowed canyons of your mind A sharp frisson of premonition notes perturbations in the air, like someone has just finished speaking, yet hollow emptiness is there... A turbulence where echoes echo The faintest whispers in your ear; Shivers rushing down spine, like frozen fire, burn and sear. Eyelids clogged with teardrops, leaking, Blink phosphorescent trails of light-- Multi-hued, sharp incandescence transcends the dusk of velvet night... First sunlight's blasting effervescence enervates your startled gaze-- You struggle to accept its premise: Nature feels not need for praise. Copyright James Dunlap |
Troubles in early infancy , Christina Conrad |
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David Markey, Australia Small Deaths (sorry Emily, I have used your voice to end my poem) Birds sing in these trees Autumn leaves fall crisp in death Cleaners bring their bags, sweep paths carted away to incinerators Smoke spirals filter through the trees The sun makes it seen the birds choke Down the road a steeple tolls. An organist entices the grieved to sing Leaves, and laden solitude inhabit orphanages of the restful Infer the wider distance to immorality. Memo to Emily Dickinson Oh, to read hieroglyphics, and Cleopatra's love letters. Dear Emily, I disapprove: your long black dress. Copyright David Markey 2001 Thomas Downing, Pittsburg PA, USA So this is rage so this is rage... after Holstein kicked, a finger smashed, a deep thigh bruise, or a rib cracked to ache a lifetime. It occurs and he becomes wild like a palsied man. His face goes red, his body shakes, his head spins, his fists... Obscenities arise, grandfather taught, twenty goddamns, thirty hyphenations, fifty stupids, two there is no god, a hundred references to mothers and cows. So this is rage...and because he is old, he repeats himself, and because they're cows, they remind him who they are, no longer civilized and regressing themselves. Copyright Thomas Downing Handsen Chikowore, Zimbabwe, Africa Cry African Girl Up in the Azure sky Shoots the sun's rays Rise to meet another day Another promise to me it's not yet any hope As each day brings more problems Which trouble a thirteen year old girl Setting alight fire early morning Sweeping the sheets of dust and dirt early morning A beast of burden for fire wood so I am bound All those long distances I have to walk A throbbing pain to my foot with the baby clinging on my yonder back Thorn infested forests The meandering long walks to bore holes and wells The back breaking dreary buckets full of water Its so tiresome my body sweats Its so punishing my body cannot endure All african girls cry for your rights The rape, torture and victimisation Our life an eerie furnace of denied paradise a sad song of denied education I am so weary a breath for fresh air cometh not Don't fall African girls Up and Fight Yearn another life Another era. Editors note: Handsen Chikowore is a young man of 23 years, studing to be a journalist. His aspirations for the Nation of Zimbabwe and it's people shine through in his poetry. Blackmail Press are proud to call him a friend and have published 2 articles and 6 poems of his in "Echoes of Africa" an e-chapbook. Please email DAJWPoole@zfree.co.nz to order free your copy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. |
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