DP Tool Club 26/CD_ASCQ_26_1295.iso/vrac/df9511g.zip/10L

Text File | 1995-11-01 | 12KB | 495 lines

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                             POETRY . . .
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 THE UNHAUNTABLE MAN
   by Keith Allen Daniels
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 Ghosts have given up,
 and spirits despair
 when they speak of me:
 How can we haunt a man
 who never stays put for a haunting?

 Always wandering, wandering,
 wondering: Perhaps it is I
 who haunts the world,
 dead but embodied, itinerant,
 searching for comfort
 among the sessile spirits
 a zombie with no sense of place

         migrating endlessly

                 with the short seasons

                                 of a lost soul.

 Copyright 1995 by Keith Allen Daniels, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
 Keith Allen Daniels, a member of the Science Fiction Poetry
 Association since 1979, has been publishing poetry since 1972.
 He lives in San Francisco with his ladylove, the artist Toni
 Montealegre, and likes to make funny voices. His poems have
 appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Recursive
 Angel, Poets of the Fantastic, Narcopolis and numerous other
 magazines and anthologies. He has been called "one of the
 foremost science fiction poets of our time" by David Kopaska-
 Merkel, editor of Dreams & Nightmares. In addition to winning
 the National Association of Independent Publishers Fallot
 Literary Award for What Rough Book in 1993, his work has been
 nominated for the Nebula Award, the Rhysling Award (10 times),
 the Pushcart Prize and the Clark Ashton Smith International
 Poetry Award. His other books include Loopy Is The Inner Ear
 (Quick Glimpse Press, 1993), Dyscrasias (Anamnesis Press,
 1994/1995), Field Notes From The Antipodes (Dark Regions Press,
 1995) and With All of Love: Selected Poems by James Blish
 (editor; Anamnesis Press, 1995). [e-mail]
 =================================================================

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 COLLAPSE
   by Eric Dunstan
 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


 we are the remainders who live on the beach and sand
 dig holes in the cliff for shelter
 a place
 for young
 where no old are...
 share
 what
 nothing we have
 with those who have less

 *  *  *

 mary has
 a blanket and rags
 I a pencil

 *  *  *

 no-name has his legs sticking out from
 a collapsed hole in the cliff
 he dug too deep
 henny pulled on a leg
 and rubbed the fly-blown end in the sand
 blue maggots are good food
 but no-name is still
 and still 'no-name'
 has no name
 and
 the tide has
 ebbed and flowed
 many times since henny found him
 who cares
 leave him
 where he lies
 he
 breathed
 on a sky mushroom

 *  *  *

 mary has red hair -- hot as the scorched sky
 she is thin and marked
 and nearly nameless
 almost still
 her sister is the same . . .
 she slid the steep track to the beach
 I saw she has no pants and pink pubic hairs
 but it is not for me
 to care

 *  *  *

 my pencil is shorter

 *  *  *

 frank
 slid
 from his ledge and did not cry when his body splashed
 the full tide
 his cliff access is mean
 but
 hairless walter
 is now scrambling
 to take the ledge  for his new address
 perhaps
 walter will fall tomorrow

 *  *  *

 saw
 a rotting swab two tides ago
 with gaping holes
 like a hollow skull
 soggy
 full of purple sea lice
 they
 are hard to catch salty to taste
 and seaweed-cold
 but good food is precious
 may still be nunclear . . . noocleer . . .  how you spell it
 don't know
 perhaps
 it
 is not for me to know
 parts of swab will dry in time
 . . . time?
  and will be lighter
 to carry
 perhaps
 when left outside my ledge it will go to some other ledge
 higher
 for a bed
 taken
 by one with no words and no name
 he is another 'no name'
 who will have no status among us because
 he is french . . . they say
 who cares
 he doesn't
 I don't
 . . . should
 I?

 *  *  *

 floater
 found
 on last tide
 marge I think
 I will get her book
 though stained with red spittle
 for writing
 if I can find
 where . . .
 few
 will reply
 when I ask around for her book
 talking . . .
 like sex
 is unimportant
 and they will not care to answer

 *  *  *

 old is not young even those with years but few
 they do not move like the young move
 old is 19 years but in those
 years countless tides
 will collapse
 on the
 shore . . .
 did
 the collapse
 kill fathers of wisdom
 and destroy the parents alike?
 can't remember  perhaps it is not
 for remembering

 *  *  *

 plutonium
 (was it named after a dog?)
 you-rain . . . u-rein . . . uranium
 both degenerate slowly
 half lives and tides
 are the
 only measures
 only lead will remain

 *  *  *

 we are to be
 unlead like a stray
 pencil
 not yet carbon
 and going endlessly
 nowhere
 what cares?
 all will be
 still
 soon
 "sans vie" 'no-name' with no status had said
 before he was still
 --------------------
 Copyright 1995 Eric Dunstan, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 -------------------------------------------------

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 TIME?
   by Mark Harrison
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 Time is like rhythm of a melancholy afternoon,
 being soaked in sun, rays bouncing off me like
 that little rubber ball you used to play with,
 you know the one.

 Clouds flying by, bye long gone! Time, yeah!
 Hold it in the palm of your hand like a dust ball,
 crunch it up or blow it up to the wind.
 Whatever you do it's yours and it's gone somehow.

 Boom! Boom!
 What's that noise?
 It's time closing in.
 Better make good use of it,
 never coming 'round again!

 Time, like a jar full of crickets all
 hopping 'round, yeah!
 Crazy, spinning, uncontrollable and then
 it can be the time for a change.
 Sit and listen! Do you hear it,
 it's time standing still,
 or might as well be.

 Perched there like a little robin red breast
 unsure of where to go next. Do you know what I mean?
 Of course you do, you know! don't you.

 Too late now, it's gone, you missed it.
 Maybe next time.
 ----------------
 Copyright 1995 Mark Harrison/Constant Synthesis Project
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 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 THE JUST TALKING
   by Ben Ohmart
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 the expensive program
 had to listen to this guy talking crap
 and the system crashes
 and the man went away from the computer

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 AFTER THE DEMONS
   by Ben Ohmart
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 is there ever a stage where the world finds peace
 because you have enough money
 or enough friends to tell you money is unimportant
 or family to say how you'll make friends soon
 or that voice at the employment office desk with
 the smile
 or the card
 a week late for your birthday from the insurance place?

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 A MASTER
   by Ben Ohmart
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 the boy knew nothing
 and going away the man said
 he'd learned something from him
 then continued to do things the way as before

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 ELVIS AND COSTELLO
   by Ben Ohmart
 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


 the cat listened
 and the message transformed him
 into a person
 fucked by taxes
 damned by making the money
 for the milk
 ------------
 Copyright 1995 Ben Ohmart, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 -----------------------------------------------

 (The following three poems are
 courtesy of SPIRAL CHAMBERS)

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 "YOUR JOHNNY OF 1917"
   by Repsi, at the Void
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 Nailed to the cause
 I am strung amongst the crowds
 Loftily above
 Where none may touch
 People hurl eggs
 Cracking, drooling from my clothes
 Moving along
 The procession stays fast
 Carrying the cross from street
 To street
 I watch with nonchalance
 !They mean nothing to me
 Still the flag is swarmed
 I on its shoulders
 Additional mass gathers
 Catapulting rocks to torment me
 I ignore
 Deflected they go and shower
 Breathing outrage and contempt
 Something I know little of
 As the parade files onward
 Arms of love are arrested the right
 To refuse the crowd
 Which doesn't cause anger it
 Merely makes me forlorn

 Nailed to a sign of regression
 In a home you ought to trust
 Displayed for the good folk
 Who worry you are gifted
 !Might you conceivably be
 !What only they dream of?
 The theory creates a swollen moment
 To make a grand statement
 Not accepted
 Exponential claims are thrust in spite
 Words said
 Proceeded by a lashing
 Of your stake
 !Move now!
 Sweat drips onto the
 Newborn fire
 Stoking a cheered reaction
 Many find fault in
 But dare not speak

 Sleep comes
 An instant before I wake
 I recognize
 The land coated in sweet
 Candy covered starkness and black
 Retained to the cross
 My body still remains whole
 Often I curse the fortune
 !Curse the amber's dead glare
 Pooling and collected
 Internally driven
 Inexperienced blood
 Bursts
 Across my heart
 And through my palms
 Marking where I was abused
 Towering over worthless ashes
 A slightly perverse color of red

 The papers elaborated
 On what survivors could not explain
 Wrote fictitious commentary
 Camouflaging their mental lapse
 Interpreted many ways
 Why hundreds died
 Bloody
 Gory deaths
 At the hands of
 Something else than believed
 Later
 All chaos cracked
 Away from humanity's serene utopia
 Millions perished then
 My only original sin the
 Nucleus of so many problems masqueraded
 Origin set at one.
 ------------------
 Copyright 1995 Repsi, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 ------------------------------------------

 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 THE WIND OF LIFE
   by Michael Morain
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 His face
 Unscoured by the wind of life
 Holds few lines with which
 To read his fate
 His hands
 Spread wide to life
 Breathe not the essence
 Of the age
 They talk not as others do
 Quietly confident in their youth
 Not waiting the flesh time brings
 He is immortal in the now
 The joy a body holds
 Straining the atoms
 Finding release
 In the rhythms of Life.
 -----------------------
 Copyright 1995 Michael Morain, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 BUTTERFLY IN MY PALM
   by Mirielle Jaborsky
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 He said he was a butterfly in my palm.
 Indeed, that was true,
 For I easily could have crushed him,
 But instead I fed him off the nectar of my love
 Which dripped silently into pools of darkness
 That protected him.
 How strange to me, this lowly caterpillar,
 With only love in his eyes for mex
 A love I could scarcely understand
 And a love that bound us surely as chains
 And gently as the pressure of his lips.
 I'd changed him, somehow.
 I'd given him wings with which to fly,
 But I could not give him the strength
 To use them.
 I watched him dash himself against the world
 Again and again,
 And he would come back to my embrace
 To be healed.
 He didn't know he was killing me.
 He was just a butterfly in my palm,
 And I had to let him go
 I had to let him go!
 --------------------
 Copyright 1995 Mirielle Jaborsky, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 ------------------------------------------------------
 SPIRAL CHAMBERS is seeking original poems for inclusion
 in their poetry distribution channel. Send the work to:
 Spiral Chambers, P.O. Box 772, Mentor, Ohio 44061 or email
 to: [e-mail]
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