Vol. 2, No. 5
Writers:
Irene Baros-Johnson – Asterisk
Arlene Diepenbrock – My Garden
Harry Garrison – Security-Guard Brain
Hanna Garson – Begotten, Begotten
Patrick Daniel Gervais – one, two
Scot Jamieson – Cost-cutter outsourcing
Heddy Johannesen – The Saw Bug’s Toil
Lionel Morrell – A Crimson Vision
Henry Stevens – The Scent of Maria
Christopher Trainor – The Cottage
Kristine Webber – You came to me in a dream
Return to Top
Asterisk
Poem by Irene Baros-Johnson
These days I forgive this street’s
Wintery cold laziness yielding
Patches of glaze-ice slipperiness.
I delight in crocus colours,
Sways of delicate daffodils,
And tulips soon unclosed.
Elsewhere, it’s possible to warm
To dandelion asterisks of spring
Flaring hardy through summer.
Return to Top
Travel down through the valley
It’s a rough and quiet trip.
Pack your things:
The faith of books;
The hope of dreams;
The wisdom of kings.
Step into
Rustling crops,
Spraying seas –
The pictures of life.
Struggle for sight
Inside your bubble of night
Throw your coins
to the wind,
Seek, seek mercy
from your sin.
Bless your lips
with your thumb,
Speak, speak like the dumb
Return to Top
Chapters surface abject from scribblings
rancid opacity of North American capitalist
asylum – fragmented itinerant eulogies;
embryonic skeletal seed –
by product of sixteen years auguring
a new century, rummaging libraries
sinister malaise of bachelorhood…
mortal shock of adulthood descending
clouds over prospect of parenthood
dog-eared drudgery on streets
illuminated by moonlight; holes in shoes
cold, cracked tears on sidewalk
vernacular tome, novella, allegorical epic
fable, libellous satire for student émigrés –
vermin ambushed by locusts;
indigenous cupids; Galatea in battle-trim
whole nights awake wrestling phantoms
old books shelved with corrupt spines.
Return to Top
Life, so short.
Waiting at the port of life, sitting.
Waiting for someone to rescue
and take you on an adventure.
Pointless… make your own.
When someone does, you will be grown
and too old.
Dig to China, sail around the world, get married.
Have kids, then die happy. Meet God.
Sure people will be sad, but glad you died happy
…and went for it.
Return to Top
For Magnus.
Poem by Santina Cross
When we were seventeen
The world was still green,
And Fairy tales could still come true.
We laughed at time
Thought all would be fine,
Never stopped to think what we’d do.
So we followed the winds
Gulped down our own sins,
Never looking for signs up ahead.
We choose different roads
Took on private loads,
Till we never did what we had said.
Return to Top
My Garden
Poem by Arlene Diepenbrock
Fresh green foliage,
copulating ladybugs.
A new beginning.
Return to Top
Security-Guard Brain
Lyrics by Harry Garrison
They stand around
and they look real mean,
and their job’s not so much to be heard
as it is to be seen.
They don’t look like they’re having
too much fun.
They don’t get to do too much stuff,
and what they do is unpleasant.
They’ve got Security-Guard Brain,
which is not to say, now,
that they’re going insane.
It’s just that they’ve had to work
themselves into a groove,
so that they’re numb
to the boredom, to the boredom.
If you work at a job
that isn’t too much fun,
just a job
that’s got to be done,
then you might be someone
who is suffering from
Security-Guard Brain.
Return to Top
Begotten, Begotten, Begotten
Poem by Hanna Garson
Oh-so-politely at family dinner.
Each chromosomal donor so loving and tender.
I notice the slight strain in your neck, and feel
….that is it just as the slight strain in my neck.
Tracing the breadcrumbs strewn about that lead
….me down the path of familiarity into your
….balmy, acidic belly of unconditional love.
I am revolted, and can only pick at my food, as
….the slight strain in your neck is the slight
….strain in my neck.
I peel back the wrapping paper of the greatest gift
….one could receive and hold your supportive
….hand,
Basking in the warmth of your smile. It’s just the
….right temperature for bacterial fester.
And I realize (in just the way you realize)
….that I am also smiling, my lips curled
….up just like yours.
Return to Top
one, two
Poem by Patrick Daniel Gervais
lights fridge AC hums
my gums pulse
pushing back at
breaking waves of
liquid courage washing
away the sands that clog my speech
it’ll be ok
i say
one or two
of these
and i’ll be free
from the years of
pavlovian laughs that push back tears
Return to Top
Cost-cutter outsourcing
Poem by Scot Jamieson
As I watch the morning sun’s clear light
clear ragged fog from shaggy hills,
I smell the sewer in The Arm.
Recipe: (Sewage Treatment Plant Disaster)
blend one heavy rain, a power failure,
add a back-up generator
– an economy one that shuts off on its own –
mix in a main gate intake that’s to slide down
to divert the city’s drainage or else drown,
itself controlled by a switch box just a bit
too close to the rising sewage swell
and you can send a get-well to the wet-well –
it’s all 85 feet deep in shit.
A government monument to itself?
Ah, but they’ll clean up:
the public purse, an ever-rising sun.
Return to Top
The Saw Bug’s Toil
Poem by Heddy Johannesen
A sparrow flutters to the grass to peck for seeds and insects.
The saw bug tows leaves through soil and twigs.
The sparrow stalks the saw bug lost in an iridescent
web of stems, leaves, buds, flowers, and vines.
Return to Top
The church bells chime,
Its time to pray –
Seven days a week –
And every other day,
Unleavened bread upon my tongue
And still I do not feel young.
Looked for forgiveness,
For what I knew I would be –
The race to absolution
A fight between you and me.
Chiming bells and incense in my lung –
Priests and or sinners,
And choirs that sung.
I lit my candle
And tried to love my brother,
I did it for them,
I did it for mother.
Return to Top
The rose leaned forward
and said to the trees,
something carried away by the wind,
not for human ears.
Branches bore fierce
against the wind,
their heads bowed,
shoulders squared,
the leaves of their hair flattened,
the grass turned into a rippling sea.
And for a moment,
whilst Brahms and Mozart played,
the rose forgot,
someone
had unceremoniously cut it off at the root,
stuck it in a vase
and put it in the window.
Return to Top
It always starts off perfect
The excitement, the adrenaline, the novelty
There are happy faces, singing children, and balloons
waiting to see you
Huge hugs are met with an instant relaxation
of all body parts
Happy and calm to be home
I wish it could remain in this constant state
I wish events did not occur
words were not exchanged
feelings were not hurt
to obstruct these first few moments
of pure glorious happiness
Walking off the airplane, down the steps
into the arms of your dearest
Return to Top
A Crimson Vision
Lyrics by Lionel Morrell
You are as a fine bottle of wine posing
beneath cut glass
Imagine tasting the fruit of the sunshine vines
A crimson vision that captures your eye
An eternal vixen instant and ancient
But looking so young for your age
Facing the point of destruction
Should I wait to taste your liqueur
to the bottom of my heart – stillness
An explosive perfume sweet to all senses
Let no time be borrowed
As you’re poured out
To your destiny of pure patent pleasure.
Return to Top
Winter Sun
Poem by Derek Robinson
I’ve married pictures
pinned hope to dashboards,
walls and windows
invisible strings, devisable rhythms
conciliate comfort in routine
I’m beaten down, amongst the animals
And why must truth always be
so ever fleeting and brief
while hope lies on the next plateau
hold back all wonder
like the winter sun
fragile and faint
Let’s sell the guilt and build
our way out, though I may
regret never to have seen
A composite of time and the money
needed to travel by train
in my home country
like the winter sun, a mere teasing
on walls, through windows
I’ve married the past
if only in reverie
bird on bathroom tile
recount mystery, almost inconceivably
gone before it came
Return to Top
The Scent of Maria
Poem by Henry Stevens
Oh that scent of Maria it is
So strong. The by’s their heads
They turn when she wafts on
By. Girls stop with their jaws
Dropped taking in all her whiff. To
One and all Maria’s scent is the
Rudest cal call. She makes them
Mad; tests how far they’ll goto
Keep her near. This Maria she’s
A hard talkin’ fast walkin’ girl
From the glory lands. By her
Scent the righteous path it is
Followed. It takes them places
They do not always go. Into the
Better ends of hazy dayz. With
Lions at the guard, standing proud
Over that marching parade. Because
It is her scent the lions know
And with it they flow, protecting
Her pretty show. Maria, yah say,
She is the one that know the
Way and after he we must fly
Up into her realms so high.
Return to Top
The Cottage
Poem by Christopher Trainor
See the cottage
Smell the fresh air
Hear the birds chirping
Feel the sand beneath my feet
Taste the ice cream
The sky is beautiful!
Return to Top
You came to me in a dream
Poem by Kristine Webber
You came to me in a dream.
Our feet were cold.
You told us to follow you.
We descended through the church rubble,
Into clear blue water.
A warm cozy bed,
A sleepy, compliant cat at our feet.
Your father answered my question.
“All you need is love…keep trying…we
are all children.”
As I looked back, you were gone.
Your essence remains.
IT is never ending.
Return to Top
