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2010 Di-vêrsé-city Anthology - Austin International Poetry Festival
di-v0rse'-city 2010 Anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival Edited by Barbara Youngblood Carr Co-Edited by Michael Lynn Sadler Katya Bochenkova India Rassner-Donovan Ron Jorgenson Ashley Steakley Kim Cover Art by Derris Lanier Cover Design by Alyson Stringer Steakley Texas Commission on the Arts Copyright @ 2010 by Austin Poets International, Inc. 2010 Anthology Editors Barbara Youngblood Can, Adult Anthology Deb Akers, Youth Anthology Austin Poets International 2009-2010 Board of Directors Lynn Wheeler-Brandstetter & Shlomi Harif, Co-Chairs Katya Bochenkova, Secretary Cara Salling, Treasurer Ron Jorgenson, Parliamentarian Michael Lynn Sadler, Art Director & Emily Barker, Youth Coordinators Bijan Rahnamai, Venues Coordinator Barbara Youngblood Carr, Invited/Featured Poets Coordinator Luis Cuellar, Photographer Ashley Steakley Kim, Festival Director Jessica Lane Emeritus Members Deb Akers; Barbara Youngblood Carr John Berry; Byron Kocen;Peggy Zuleika Lynch Cover art by Derris Lanier Cover design by Firefly Creatives l0 Digit ISBN: 0-9799129-7 -0 l3 Digit ISBN: 978-0-9799129-7-9 This anthology and the Austin International Poetry Festival have been funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Special thanks also to members, sponsors and volunteers of Austin Poets International, Inc., and to all the poets who honor us with their participation. Printed in the United States of America by Morgan Printing in Austin, Texas Contact Information: * P.O.Box 41224 * Austin, TX78704 [email protected] (5 l2) 369-3960 AIPF * Thble of Contents Preface Chenille Bathrobe Fantasies The other side of the fence (for J.Z.) Coast Starlight #11 Rock Island Line, 1936 Remembered The Question of June Butterfly Language A Joyful Journey Cyclothymia Native Sons Grandmother's Wool-Spinning songs A Gull Bluebonnets in December From "In the other room" The Gulf Lament for the Lost Time A Letter Listening to Li Po Curtain Call 6 Rosemarie Iwasa Carol Hamilton Elizabeth Kropf Hannah Ensor Herman M. Nelson 9 l0 ll l2 t4 Cindy Huyser 15 Chenda Duong Lee LeTeff l6 Belinda Beresford Dede Fox Stephan Baley l8 l9 t7 20 Ken Hada Scott Wiggerman Brent Downes 2l 22 23 Katherine Durham Oldmixon 24 Joe Blanda 25 Renee Rossi 26 Anne McCrady Tony Zurlo 27 28 29 30 Creatures of the Night Before the Baby Comes In the Human Ocean We Were Rich Back Then Poem for the Single Father The Poet Skinny Friends Allene Rasmussen Nichols 32 Ronnie K. Stephens William Dawson 33 34 Susan Summers 35 Memories Julie Pujol-Karel 36 Free Juan Manuel Perez E-Mail 3: Reply to Sender Spilling filmic blood Such Thirst in Mexico. l97l Nancy Membrez Mark Zuiderveld 5I 38 39 Vanished Masterpiece Modern Day Prophecy Dreaming of Haiti Becky Liestman Mona Follis 40 42 Joyce Gullickson 43 Mike Gullickson Judith Austin Mills Ian Hom 44 her gardens have a creed My Johnny Weissmuller Moment Elzy Cogswell Carolyn Tourney Florek Ken Jones 3l 45 46 Bedtime Story Dare I Claim TexasAs My Home? CEDAR WAXWINGS To Cornelia Had Schumann Lived September Song The WayAway Chloe's Blue Tomatoes Soft Chapel Gold Like a Child Rejection Letter on the Train to Chicago Epilogue Laura Pena Christa Pandey Sally Alter Donna Marie Miller 47 48 49 50 Fanell Ron Wallace Laura Kooris Jill Wiggins Vince Quinlan Melissa Lumpkin Mo Stoycoff Robert Wynne Katia Mitova 52 J.P. 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 6l Sarah Webb Monigan, Daughter Emmas Robert Allen Death by Window Glass YOU CAN DIE FROM WASHING DISHES Liliana Valenzuela 63 64 65 Landscape The Yin and Yang of Sin Joaquin Zihuatanejo Kelsey Erin Shipman John Layne Hendrick Indian Summer blue andromeda Natasha Carrizosa 66 67 68 69 70 Untitled Robin Bell 7l The Robe Nameless Dread The Gusty Fallof a Huisache Legend Fear of Flying Anne Schneider Tony Beckwith Glynn Monroe Irby Susan Bright Dillon McKinsey A.M. Lewin 72 I) 74 Negative Moons of Jupiter Hale-Bopp Mad World FullCircle This Fire and Holy Water ORAL REPORT TO THE TOMBSTONES The Three R's Though I know My SoulIs Damned Past Tense Nighthawks Bamiyan Milk Infidelity A Piece of Troubled Skv Adamarie Fuller 75 76 77 Parsons 78 Gessaman Gilbert Jenna Lily Nicholas Dorosheff Debra Winegarten Jonathan Richard Laurie Coker Robinson Terri Lynne Hudson Shin Yu Pai Kevin Pilkington Bonnie Stuffiebeam Christina Lovin 79 80 Jane Louise Steig Jena Christine 8l 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 Enterprise Margo Davis 9l Memory Game The Blue Bird Paula Small 92 93 94 95 96 David Lester Young Carolyn Luke Reding Fifty Years of Palm The undefeated man Fire of Thorns Hephaestus at the Forge Broken Reel Christina Daniela Summer in the Suburb Three Masks The Purple Path Shoe Garland Descent Viplob Pratik Oscar C. Pena Del Cain 97 Malia A. Bradshaw 98 Ximena Leon Maricel Mayor Marsiin 99 100 Rebecca Raphael l0l Darla McBryde 103 Priscilla Celina Suarez Imana Cordova 104 Rose Marie Eash 105 Wheatfield 1973 Women in Traffic: Funnv The Cold Front I want a Poem Diana Trevino 106 107 109 Anne Gordon Perry ll0 Gravity Mark Ilan Unger The Western Sky Nodding Faylita Hicks Off Paula Bird Broadshoe Joyous Reunion Angela Patterson Lyublyu Karma Crisis Adaption Cold Beauty Ani Fox Sonnet l4 Sunset Last seat, second violins, seventh grade, Nathan Brown Bob (Mud) McMahon Claire Vogel Camargo Isabella Thylor Sue Littleton Lori Desrosiers l1l lt2 ll3 tt4 ll5 ll6 ll7 ll8 ll9 r20 Editorial Staff 122 CoverArt Photographer, Designer, and Judge 124 Preface As other guest Editors of the annual Austin International Poetry Festival (AIPF) have said, the poems submitted for possible publication in this year's edition were unique, creative endeavors replete with personal reflections; rites of passage; ancestry; travel; death; war; justice; and love. Some were negative about the inequalities of life, while others sang with beauty of location or place in time. Choices of those selected (from over 600 submissions) for inclusion in this Anthology from our blind reading were decided upon by six readers, including myself. The poems printed here are just a sampling of many fine poems submitted. As we read them we discovered many new metaphors for life and love. Over the centuries, since the first poem was recorded, poetry has risen in popularity and then waned - but it always makes a strong, startling comeback every few years. Perhaps that time for poets' words to march off the page into the waiting ears and hungry hearts of readers and listeners will be this year - during the celebration of our eighteenth AIPF. Yes. Poetry resurfaces every few years - along with some not so good things - like shoes for women; five-inch high heels or unreasonable platform heels; and revealing mini-skirts most women should use common sense about wearing. - fashions that Yes. Poetry and good stories resurface every few years. This is the year of a tenific revival of "Alice in Wonderland" starring one of my favorites, Johnny Depp, as the Mad Hatter. As poets, we can fully understand the word "mad" because of where some of our creativity lives. We often dwell in dark, private corners with our muses and hear words nobody else hears. We often walk a tightrope along a high-wire; to fall off the edge into real madness is always a possibility. But it is walking along that thin line that gives us our creative edge and allows us to write words others can identify with. We sometimes jump into a deep rabbit hole to disappear inside our own minds where the words live that we are driven to write. Since poets often don't get much affirmation and remuneration or the respect that we deserve, we feed, dream about, love and live on the words of our own poetry and the poetry of others. I would like to thank my Co-Editors, Michael Lynn Sadler, Katya Bochenkova, Ron Jorgenson, Ashley Kim and India Rassner-Donovan, whose assistance greatly shaped this collection. We searched for artistry, candor, ingenuity, etc. and, as I recall, great endings that left us with a sense of wonder and wanting more. Good poetry, like any good writing, should have a "hook" at the beginning to make you want to continue reading the poem, some food for thought in the middle and a breathtaking ending so that you may draw the reader or listener into his or her own explorations and understanding. We hope you, dear readers, will enjoy the selections in this edition and be inspired to create your own poetry now and forever. As Native American Chief Seattle once said, Today is fair. Tomorcow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Barbara Youngblood Carr Editor,2010 Chenille Bathrobe Nothing is as comforting as my old red-purple, very worn, way too big soft chenille bathrobe. Creamy double chocolate ice cream comes close; while it feels good going down, I can't wrap myself up, hide in it like I can with the old bathrobe that soaks my tears up in the sleeves, after a bout of weeping. What possessed me to pass it down to a cousin. I should have given her the new fleecy pink one, also soft, but not too big and not all broken in. The old chenille robe taunts me from the past, covers me like a tent while my internal storm rages, I wail from the emptiness I feel, the low surging through me. When I am able to look out at the world around me again, I peel offthe purple robe, the heap at my feet, toss it onto a chair, recover my composure, go on with my life. Rosemarie Iwasa Garfield Heights, Ohio Fantasies Friday nights were guitar concerts in the Mexican town of rich houses cliffed like Christmas ornaments over the green hills. Some were white knuckle events, one startling with the German El Lobo returned to the scene ofhis first success. One artist played with flourishes like Veronica Lake tossing her head to clear away her silky veil of golden hair. We later watched his sweeping entry to our restaurant trailed by his entourage of firred and squat women, avid faces come to circle his table and exalt him and his mediocre music, he, apotheosis of himself, aglow. We left full of our scorn for him, tripping with light steps on clouds gilded by visions of our own rosy-tinted selves. Carol Hamilton Midwest City, Oklahoma l0 The other side of the fence (for J.Z.) we give pieces of our childhood back to each other reuniting twenty five years later Remember Rolly Polly City Remember Puppy Dog Detectives Remember trying to sell mud, water and aspirin as chocolate milk? We warned our only customer not to drink it neighbors, close to everything that happened huddled together in the backseat on the way to pick raspberries in Oxnard close when I was standing on the other side of the fence searching the blacktop for a boy that never showed up at9 spending the night at your house my dad coming to get me in the middle of the night leaning over me in the dark Mom will be alright, she can have another baby Elizabeth Kropf Leander, Texas ll Coast Starlight #11 Try to stay warm if you even can, try to keep breathing if the air is thin. Sleep whenever you can, sleep as well as you can. I'm on a trairl curled around nothing and against nothing, hands thrust into fingerless gloves, a blanket, too thin for the air here, pulled right up to my chin, to my garLze white pillow. I get up and pace the car looking for open spaces that aren't there. It's gorgeous through here, you'd never know it, black as these windows are this time of night, but last time we swayed past Klamath Lake we were breathless. t2 Any time you can, look outward and let it take your breath. Ask for it back, ask earnestly. Whenever you cann be earnest. Then again, I think that when I die, I want my gravestone to say I WISH I COULD HAVE KEPT BREATHING but I also want that to be a lie. Hannah Ensor Ann Arbor, Michigan l3 Rock Island Line, 1936 Remembered God, they were beautiful: dragons black as the coal they ate and belched from their chimney-mouths. Kings of the Road, they were all soot and steam - and man-tall drivers Hear those drivers spin, spin, spinning for traction, the squeal of steel wheels on rail, gathering steam, and the eerie wail "roo-a-rooo-aaaah" left the round-house-yards of Silvis for stockyards in KayCee or Chicago. as they They went everywhere, into the lowlands, Bad Lands, Wet Lands pulling their box cars, flat cars, tankers and caboose, fifty, sixty, a hundred and three cars - all full-of-market trailers - America's caravan, lickity-split, 70 miles per to the clack-clack rhythm of the track. English bom child, American adopted, railroads grew on the backs of Irishmen and Chinese, black gandy-dancers and Pullman porters white brakemen, firemen and engineers. They chained the country east to west, north to south better than horses, covered wagons and coaches, and later when the auto engine became perfected, they were still King, faster and more efficient than buses and trucks. That crown remained until construction of all those super-highways and super-plane-skyways claimed dominion over each of our transit lives. How distinctly I recall how quickly time sped by. I turned around, having spied a tiny monoplane flying overhead, and when my eye came back to view the rail, by God, there was only mist and a voice like a whisper of memory, singing "City of New Orleans". Herman M. Nelson Austin. Texas t4 The Question of June Even the sky has gone pale with the heat: a dusty sort of limestone haze. Shadowless noon, the sun a brilliant interrogator. The yellow-brown grass is an answer, as is the creek bed's gray caked clay. Cicadas and grasshoppers keen with dry-winged voices. Wind whispers orange flame to blackened hillside flanks. The murmur of air conditioners their hush of heat in cars and houses, the occupants sunburned, peeling and speechless. Cindy Huyser Austin, Texas 15 Butterlly Language If my words were butterflies I think I could catch them easily Display them on this glass stand for you to ponder the delicate armature of my wings my feathered belly my lithe body nailed and shuddering But moths fly only under the radar ofshadow of camouflage and twilight They wait anxious for the reliefofbreeze Un-nailed Void of beauty of poetry of monarchs and a butterfly language They glint unremarkable drinking moonlight Chenda Duong Oakland, California t6 A Joyful Journey Hearing children's voices and believing There is healing in joy. Seeing eagles fly and believing Freedom is necessary. Feeling seasons change and believing All things have their cycles. Knowing friends care and believing Friendship cures many ills. Giving what is best of us and believing Generosity is an important part of life. Loving unconditionally and believing All creatures improve when loved. Believing is the first step... Action carries us to our destinations. Lee LeTeff Austin, Texas t7 Cyclothymia your slightly uncouth, somewhat tame werewolf, presentable enough but not to be quite trusted. Your furniture is safe from me, nor will I snack on visiting small children, no matter how they squeak. Polished with love, you can take me out in public heads will turn to watch your loving companion. My jaws and claws are there for your protection and my eyes watch yours with open adoration. Unfortunately there comes a time when tides change. Perhaps you slip, for one brief moment forgetting that werewolves love fiercely but they are not pets. When the world is running strong and fast you'll wake and find my teeth resting open against your throat. I am Belinda Beresford Portland, Oregon l8 Native Sons Our fathers' eyes, a steely gray, not my skin, brown like the earth I plowed, gave me away. Your mother had never noticed my eyes, I was only a houseboy, after all, until you, in a fit ofjealousy told her you had seen me with Father in his study, sharing books you were too lazy to read. She banished my mother, the upstairs' maid, to the fields, where whipped by the winter wind, burned by the summer sun, she soon died. When Father followed her in death. then you, my brother, sold me. Loss lodged in my empty heart, a cold stone I carried as I read the stars and fled north, away from you, the white brother I despised. So why now, as a Union soldier, Native Guard ordered to write this final letter to your loved ones, do my tears fall across the page, blurring ink, as I see you, drenched in our shared blood, our father's eyes, steely gray, staring in death beyond my own? Dede Fox The Woodlands, Texas l9 Grand mother's Wool-Spin ning Songs We have always been moon, bird, and flower watchers. We know how far we can walk in the time it takes a kettle of water to boil, as the hands and arms move rapidly, the Sun changing its position in the sky. As a child she would I would ask my mother what day it was, and tell me to look at a calendar, failing to understand the Catch-22. I had become estranged from lunar phases, reindeer herders, buffalo hunters, and the Sea. I was unaware of any comparable set of facts: Was it the 2nd Tuesday of the month? Was yesterday the l5th of the month? Was tomorrow payday? The other children would laugh at my obsessions over telescopes, tracking a shifting shadow, collecting wood for a bonfire when I feared language and sunlight, when I thought language was a grasshopper, that poetry was made of crystals, pouring out of one language onto another, evaporating, while men dressed as women worshipped the Sun, while women dressed as men watched September at first snowfall, grandmother's wool-spinning songs. Stephan Baley Austin, Texas 20 A Gull A Gull approaches as we sit under a palm by a rented condo. Every meal he waits, conditioned by idle tourists who drop him crumbs. I notice a personality in him, mannerisms, a character, I assign. Let's name him Pete I say one moming between sips of coffee. You are Pete I say. Hello Pete says my friend but Pete smirks at us Advising us to consider how many times he's been named By vacationers lounging on this veranda who mistake A visit for home who assume dominion over Pete Who name Gulls but fail to understand that Gulls are naming us. Ken Hada Ada, Oklahoma 2l Bluebonnets in December No height, no spikes, no fruit, no blue - not yet. The flowers have all spring to shine; but now the leaves themselves emerge in sad quintets of tiny fingers, rimmed in salty bows like margarita rims. They hug the earth in search of warmth and ride the winter's chill. They hunker down, though dreams rev up, spring forth in colors of the sky: audacious smiles and vistas wide, from dim to drunken blue. Applause and accolades will greet them in three months with fields of photo-ops, a coup of aspirations. First, the bitter green must season, wait with patience thLrough the cold as all things must, before rewards unfold. Scott Wiggerman Austin, Texas 22 From "In the Other Room" with the reaping reeds of wheat, golden sun in hue, therein I lie. I have been some hours at the foot of a dying sycamore tree, carving the hours & loves that pass me by & among the rushes & the woods & scrub tremulously still, I have tremored, lingered no more than whispers on the breeze, No more than touches, echoes, kisses, no more disquiet than stillness in a dream. There stands no oaken door in my dreams, neglected still by ageless years & all the passers by, & there is no house that like a rock, weathers the weather & tide & inside there are no rooms, no wann laughter, only the spectral ghost of the wind who howls & is all at once silent. leaving the footprints in the dust like signatures for some future mind to lodge in its forgetting places. Under the azure sky, fading to black like an ocean bespeckled with glints like so much glass crowned with due catching the light we have heard the chorus from the people in the park & wandering the avenues of this city at night, a mournful sound lost & looking for self & solitude but certainty & society, so still & insubstantial wind in the wheat stalks ripe for reaping &yet something as the 23 golden sun in hue, therein I lie giving no weight to whispers that pass nearby instead waiting for evening & the songs inside it. Brent Downes Brisbane, Queensland, Australia The Gulf Humans cannot live here. When they enter their voices become hollow vowels hovering on tips of coral fingers, their breath breaks into foam shuddering in the current to the sea-grass shore where their flesh sheds its salt and their bones bloom. Katherine Durham Oldmixon Austin, Texas 24 Lament for the Lost Time I married a map (oh, lonely roads!) for its wild and willowy splendor - to have something to read when I eat the sweet cheese, the fine wine narrowing in the fragile glass. Impatient flames ringed my fingers and burned my lips with every sip. They warned me I wouldn't get far in that beat-up old car of mine. But with every chicken bit of strength the two of us could muster, kept tugging away at the tiresome knot that bound me to the job time forgot. Squealing tires, acrid smoke: I slipped away in the commotion. Joe Blanda Austin, Texas 25 A Letter Nothing changes with us. Fresh water in the jugs. A lovely rain. Young girls drying their hair. Stones stacked around the farm, some toppled and overrun with moss. Venus scared by the new moon while stars founder in the sky. And the sunsets, if you were here, copper and tin, before the slow lighting of lanterns over the valley. Still, the hunger, looming, impassable as a mountain. Renee Rossi Dallas, Texas 26 Listening to Li Po I am no longer sitting on the patio swatting mosquitoes between sips of beer and bites of sandwich. Instead, I am listening to Li Po, strolling beside the rascal everyone loves to love, the traveler who knows the paths to pools of shadow and spikes of sunset, the one whose lines climb high into the hills at the slightest sign of men's work to be done for the women who feed him and wish he would come again soon to drink their rice wine and paint their wishes with words, his dreamy eyes dancing with the passions ofa poet happy to be drunk on the nectar ofa late lavish rain" when nothing is more precious than the face of a familiar woman and a walk under a new moon. All this comes in loose haikus as I listen and smile across the table at the dark-eved lover who drinks his beer and reads Li Po to me. Anne McCrady Henderson, Texas 27 Curtain Call I often wonder about dying. Will it slip in unannounced or arrive with regal fanfare? Will there be a dress rehearsal? Will there be prompters in the box in case I miss a cue or drop a line? Will there be time? Time to learn my blocking? Time to practice lines with friends? Will demons take possession and steal away any chance I have of fortune and fame? Long decades of conflict complicated by crises, confrontations, and resolution are essential to pull off a proper dying. Anything shorter than three acts would be undignified. Who ever heard of a hero dying in the first or second act? Why is there silence at curtain call? Shall I recite "To be or not to be?" o'Do I dare lDisturb the universe?" It's enough to frighten one to death, this idea of dying before mastering martyrdom defending fair maidens. Tony Zurlo Arlington, Texas 28 Creatures of the Night Before midnight on Christmas Eve, a few steps from the capitol building, I slow to let a raccoon, wearing his bandit mask, cross the street he governs by charismatic presence. In cold wind soaked in rain, he cannot know how neighboring colleagues funnel lobby money into campaign funds. Through the night, a raccoon conducts his own little larcenies. Elzy Cogswell Austin, Texas 29 Before the Baby Comes Late evening at poolside she walks the edge, her hands clasped around her unborn child, incomprehensible in the sheath of her womb. She no longer sees her legs at the horizon. Her umbilical scar, a pole cap. Her body, a smooth planet. She walks in orbit to a solar pool, its inner lights flare when she enters. She slides through the interface, buoyant in blue silence, wann then cool and warm again. She thinks, Is this what it was like? as she pushes herselfbeneath, only to bound back to the surface, her simple exercise before the baby comes. Carolyn Tourney Florek Houston, Texas 30 In the Human Ocean Examine humanity on a Wednesday. Chattering utterances of myriad diversity Speak of similar needs: Food. water. The touch of another. A song at the lungs Hungry to fell air An everything sno-cone of skin tones And One skin. I am a penniless pauper Owning Nothing But my name and what words I leave after it. My muse-a fertile peach tree The poems-peaches. Savor them if they offer you sustenance. The Victors listen. The waves glisten. A bell tinkles. I sprinkle my spirit Across the last flat expanse of land Expecting flack But what a beautiful ocean. Ken Jones Houston, Texas 3l We Were Rich Back Then in the gold that gilded the leaves at dusk and the silver fish that flitted down the river. We were rich in our own laughter walked together on velvet earth beneath bowing trees and kissed on a fallen branch that extended over the river. as we We were rich in dreams that we shared while we sat beneath the bridge and watched the ducklings learn to swim. We were so rich that we didn't mind having no money, working as waitresses in greasy spoons, making love on a bare mattress on my floor. I would give all I have to be that rich again. Allene Rasmussen Nichols Arlington, Texas 32 Poem for the Single Father There's something somber about a man eating alone. The naked ring finger, a misplaced crease in the leg of his slacks, the quiet arc of sullen shoulders reflections of my father in the decade after his third divorce. Once, he told me how it felt to look across the table, to forget conversation. The dinner plate learned to hold his gaze as if it had a mind to tell him that there is something somber about a man who shares his meals with silence. Ronnie K. Stephens Fayetteville, Arkansas JJ The Poet With Lips like an Angel Spewing... Scalding Notes from The Unbridled Savage Within, A Wailing Well of Tormented Eclectic Thought Erupts across Airways to a Bebop-Beep-Beep Beat Inspired by The Gospel Singers of Old, Lettin'Out The Savage At Passovers... At Funerals... At Saints Go Marchin'Home Time, As Dylan passes The Torch of Inspired Poetic Thought The Savage Gabriel called and Virgin anointed Transcends The Migraines of Old Haunts Scales Saint Michael Destiny A Palm Tree with Grapes Is Bom William Dawson Mountainair, New Mexico 34 Skinny Friends Do not hate your skinny friends. They cannot help that they are thin. Some work real hard to stay so lean. Others were simply bom that way. In either case, they're not mean. And how judgmental we all become When we get a little wider waist. We rush to judge our skinny friends And forget to see clearly in our haste. Skinny people have troubles, too. They don't take it out on you Even if you gain a pound or two. The world can sure discriminate And tum our love to jealous hate. Skinny ones are not left out And they are surely talked about. Plumper wives distrust their husband's eyes And look for flaws and even tell lies. And the skinny ones may feel quite alone Misunderstood and lonely to the bone. It's not their skinny that makes us fat. It's not that they're something that we lack. We just are padded to absorb life's blows And we all have issues, heaven knows! So when you see your skinny friends around Don't let their size get you down. Invite them over for tea instead. Just put extra butter on their bread. Susan Summers Hutto, Texas 35 Memories I am too far from the ocean, and the waves of the blue sea, from the white and soft sand where long ago I had buried my feet. I am so far, so far away from the bay and the old green tree the tree that gave us shade each summer while we rested and kissed. Sometimes you went wind surfing, I tagged along with you, the salty waters caressed our bodies and also the wind. Many other instances I stayed ashore to observe you surfing through the wind. Those summer days are over with, yet so alive inside of me that if I only close my eyes, with certainty I can feel... My wet feet buried in the sand, The wind caressing me and I can also feel your kisses salty, soft and warm over my lips. Julie Pujol-Karel Hockley, Texas 36 Free America, of thee I dream Land of my fathers Land of immigrant forefathers Land of the me Land of immigrant dreams America, do you cry for me For what has been done to me For what we have done to us Brown people Black people Red people All people America, land of the free Land of the loving Land of the lost And looking for a way out of this mess Americ4 I weep for thee If this'tis of thee Dare not come again This Plato's Republic-an drearn America, this America I dream of thee Forever free American me Juan Manuel Perez La Pryor, Texas 37 E-Mail3: Reply to Sender My words pierce the emptiness and the silence. I love you weightless cybernaut, pure light and nimble-fingered. I love you Arial, Times New Roman, and Monaco. I adore this white space of invisible margins, this mutual solitude in tiny letters that makes Do you see the pulsating, inquisitive cursor? Count there my heartbeats. Nancy Membrez San Antonio, Texas 38 us one. Spilling filmic blood roll footage till it works and runs through sprockets, these are the veins; neurotransmitters are the lenses that focuses the information toward the brain, the viewfinder, that is, with its metal frame. what does it look like? Renais sance fi lmmaking, it's a Kubrick Aniflex camera capturing slants of natural light from mirrors and mint green walls bulbs of light that stain the black satin celluloid with a burn. it's space thus spoke Zarathustra red blood stowed in hotel elevators, poser gangsters with inferiorities a world wrought with human vanity and injustice and a marriage at stake, at the stroke of midnight. Time is slowed to a halt and evaporated. Time is denouement, unraveling. Time is encapsulated in silence, in wind, in snowo around brick corners of fake New York streets. Time is captured on closed sets of Pinewood Studios. Stanley is busy, locked away in a closet of time. Mark Zuiderveld Jacksonville, Illinois 39 Such Thirst in I Mexico,lgTl see cages, harsh black-brown metal stacked liked cubes in filtered tropical light. I hear screams of riotous cocks, each in it's own cage, feathers flapping hard against the wire rusty from ancient roosters. I don't know this thing - this cock fighting. I come to wash. I gather wood from the pile; begin a fire in the burner. Banana trees at my back, I smell their need for death. Each fighter has it's own attack, slams against it's own prison. Screeches build, catch like fire gone wild. I stoke my coals. I am the provocation. They force their ragged hooked feet into parallel spaces between wires seizing... Sharp beaks dangle red. Sharp voices bleed death. My hand wraps a chunk of wood. I think survival. 40 When the water's hot, I walk by, unwilling. I drop my clothes. Then, the vulnerability of the naked. The gal/os scream thirstily after me. I open the wooden shower door and step inside, spiders for company. Clear water flows with joy, submerges the screeching in the trampled dust. "Don't worry," my gentle boyfriend says. "They don't know you.'o Becky Liestman Shorewood, Minnesota 4l Vanished Masterpiece I lie in bed, light out, piano music massages my muscles, but my mind races, creates whole lines of a poem which spill out as quickly as they're thought and, word by word, evaporate from the invisible parchment ceiling if written with disappearing ink into the thin air above my head as where they hover, waiting to be plucked into existence by my pen lying on the dresser. Or perhaps they will drift down as I sleep, into my unconscious deep. Will I recall them in the morning? At dawn I try to remember the poem, irretrievable as tennis shoes hanging on a telephone line by tied-together laces high above the ground. Mona Follis Houston, Texas 42 Modern Day Prophecy Once I dreamed I was a raven. able to fly all the way east and all the way west. I saw the polar ice shelf melt calving into the sea I watched New York drown beneath the tidal surge and New Orleans disappeared along with all of Florida. I saw naval oranges float by like tiny suns of a neo-universe. I witnessed California crumble into the Pacific. As the water receded I saw footprints in the sand. And then I awoke, just me again, except the sun blinded me on the drive to work and a suicidal pigeon crashed into my windshield. His remains looked like a polar ice cap melting beneath my wipers, bits of feather and fluff resembled New York, New Orleans, Califomia... and I thought, "Bet he won't have the guts to do that again." Then I recalled my dream and how prophetic dreams can be... Near midday, the sky turned gloomy. A rainbow appeared in the West It reminded me of footprints - and past promises. and so I bought a bicycle and became a prophet. Joyce Gullickson Georgetown, Texas 43 Dreaming of Haiti The dust has settled and still the souls swirl around me my brother, my wife, my child buried beneath the rubble and debris. I wonder what kind of world shakes lives out like free-pouring salt? I wonder if you can feel my loss where you are? Mike Gullickson Georgetown, Texas 44 her gardens have a creed my mother lives among her flowers she sees their details not as well as she perceives their total air or smells their rich and subtle scents and though she knows the needs of species (almanac requirements water, sun, and prudent weeding) she also says their latin names as a maker would pleased with creation on the third day so when she carries trowel or hoe or wheels fresh compost to a border bed i believe her gardens have a creed there's more than form to getting fed i have watched the exchange as she leans her face to theirs their mystic syllables her tender talk roses and pentas when she comes pronounce for the hummingbirds see where light walks Judith Austin Mills Pflugerville, Texas 45 My Johnny Weissmuller Moment Alexander Springs, Florida Sometimes you stand so still that nature comes in around you like some whimsical Walt Disney scene. Small resonant moments: bullfrogs grab my ear and turtles glide past within touching distance. I swim in intense and poetical waters within a' gator's breath. A front crawl of Olympic standard propels me into a Tarzan jungle. There was a minute after a good swim where I felt in between two worlds. Ian Horn Shotton Colliery, Durham, United Kingdom 46 Bedtime Story In the darkness she reaches For her lover's hands Guides his fingertips Over her stretch lines Along her belly Under the swell Of her breasts Running along her thighs His hands scoop Her ample bottom She whispers, Our bodies tell Our history He reads her past glory A supple firm body Now older looser A child born to her Skin weathered by wind, Rain, cold, smoky rooms, Intoxicating spirits He reads the Braille Of her body his lips to a Shoulder blade Leaves another piece of History on her flesh Presses Laura Pena Katy, Texas 47 Dare I Claim Texas As My Home? I never wore tight cowboy boots, ten-gallon hat or buckle, but winters without shoveling snow, rare icy roads -- though summers are too hot good eats and lakes, few hurricanes - except for coastal plains have drawn me here like many folks, some immigrants, some wanderers from other states. I've grappled with the endless views, eye-squinting azure of the sky, the sunset-friendly low horizon, where faint tornadoes cannot hide, bluebonnets by the mile in spring with winecup, paintbrush sprinkled in, strong winds, the tune of tumbleweeds, the lonely oil wells'pecking beaks, that scoop the gold from nether pools, the people's pride and can-do creed. Sometimes I miss the forest trails. old market towns, historic inns, blooming front yards, native tongue, yet foreign kin will hear in me a Texas pride, a home attained. Christa Pandey Austin, Texas 48 - CEDAR WAXWINGS We waited all year for the Passover of the cedar waxwings. They flew north on their pilgrimage over the Hill Country then on to the Great Lakes. Winter visitors - we could mark offthe days until they congregated in the pecans, their thin song like choir boys before their voices have broken. But this year a wave of warm weather in March confused everyone. Berries swelled on the ligustrum, and like a font the birdbath overflowed, but the waxwings never came. We dreamed of waxwings, their gold tipped tails, their crested cloaks, then we awoke to find the trees stripped of fruit. Some lay crushed and bleeding on the ground, but the air was silent, the waxwings gone. Sally Alter Kerrville, Texas 49 To Cornelia ' I tell you I remember the view from Guantanamo Bay. I felt the waves rise and fall against the rocks with your heartbeat. I loved those bumpy rides along gravel roads in the Jeep, two miles from zurd the green smell of banana trees. We lived in a two-room shack. slept together in a bed with a net to keep out mosquitoes and scorpions. In the mornings, big black buzzards sat on the rooftop and peered down into the hole base above the stove where the smoke came out. Sometimes I awoke to hear you shouting, "Shoo! Shoo!" I thought you were talking to me; I did not leave for nine months. You were beautiful then. Your dark hair fell around your eyes, the color of abalone. You wore pedal pushers and cotton blouses starched at the collar. a perfume that smelled of gardenias. I used to lie silent for hours as you drank Cuban coffee, (it gave me the hiccups) and you told stories to chica, our neighbor, about the states. sometimes you pushed back the rugs and danced to island music with her in your bare feet. Listen to me. I know the words: "Tu'y yo, y tu'y mi papa." 50 I tell you, I cried too as our boat left shore. I did not stop until we reached home. There I began anotherjourney alone. It took three days. The scars are worn smooth. The cord fell off, shriveled, was discarded, long ago. Years. Mother, I wish there was a way to crawl inside you and to find the girl we left behind inGuantanamo Bay. Donna Marie Miller Austin, Texas 5l Had Schumann Lived over-weight clouds - puffy become as liquid as they drown in the tenuous municipality of evening. a tadpole gibbous pond soaking, light illuminating from public housing units. the sun, off to intergalactic rooms as the dark, intermezzo melodies find voice. soaring past fat, old frogs croaking and choking on the heat stench - from public housing dumpsites. Schumann - dead. 52 counting augmented harmonies that soar past stars. night upon night. stars upon the shadows of the constellations and then the echo of history upon my eyes. tadpole, dime-tap, jinni tales. Muslim mysticism. clouds rain Schumann's music burning-starlight disciples - shimmering. had he lived I would have found melodv in'das nachf 'ding an sich' - Not so much the night, but the things within the night.' J.P. Farrell Boerne, Texas 53 . - September Song Dad's cowboy hat hangs under rifles on a red cedar gun rack behind my leather chair. August has slipped away while I wasn't looking, blue eyes beneath a straw brim. I hold a lawman's star in my left hand, remnant of hard arms and a good man's heart, as a grey wind presses my window pil€, remnant of a fading hurricane flown inland to die on the coast of Oklahoma. Outside worn heels on beat up boots scuff September dirt where fathers walk leaving sign, that only a tracker can read. For without a tail to follow. life is a pursuit of pieces scattered in a storm, a whisper of dry leaves whirling away before a sad rain falls. Ron Wallace Durant, Oklahoma 54 The Way Away The tiny chickadee sits like a treasured porcelain on the asphalt; its future there cast as road kill or raven's treat. The parents hover like seraphim. Anxious, throaty worries swoop around me as I scoop it up. The pinch of its hean against my palm moves quicker than wings. Is this chick the first one to fledge? The chatter of encouragement and caution is frantic. I know those parental concerns: our daughter leaves for college today. I've taken a walk to avoid her dismissive glances, the heavy sighs; to reduce my fuss about her packing and the flood oftears. I set their young on a ledge near the ambivalent birds. Perhaps this one is the last to leave the nest. Make its way away. The wings flutter directionless. New tail feathers abort the next attempt for take-off. The fledgling spins, a feathered top without centripetal pull, and drops with parental chorus, to the ground again. Its clear who must fly solo, reach enough lift and trim to survive the precipitous falls. Should I be the watchful eye that changes this critter's course? I would want such a hand in my child's life. I retrieve the nestling onse more, add ticks to its time. Laura Kooris Austin, Texas 55 Chloe's Blue Tomatoes Chloe is learning her colors. For dinner we have yellow macaroni and cheese, green spinach, and heirloom garden tomatoes from a friend. I offer them to Chloe, and she says, "l want the blue ones." "We have red tomatoes, orange tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, even green tomatoes, but we don't have any blue tomatoes. Point to the ones you want." She points to the yellow ones. I give her some and she eats them, along with three servings of macaroni and five servings of spinach. Maybe there w// be blue tomatoes when she grows up and I tell her this storv. Jill Wiggins Austin, Texas 56 Soft Chapel hieratic relationships, the rotating of the occult, the rose window of soft chapels stained rose, sweet scent, talk to the little shaft, the finger over the petals, the twirling lips the talk, the talk in magnets and tides, and moving insanity, the mounds, hills and valleys, mountains and abyss, and the tides. Vince Quinlan Austin, Texas 57 - Gold It's the kind of place you might visit in the spring When the air has warmed and the flowers begin to bloom. The morning still holds a chill, but the dew is gone Before you finish the morning's coffee and paper. On the bench at the park you smoke your cigarette As runners pass you by, settling their dust on your shoes. A smile forms without your knowledge or consent As your mind recalls the first walk you took with her on this very trail. You, awkward and overdressed. Her, smiling as always, With her arm looped through yours as if she'd never let go. The last kiss you shared was tear-filled and perhaps empty. You walk down second Street and stop in front of her favorite coffee shop-turned-spa, More proof that nothing good lasts. Stay gold, Pony Boy, she would say, not believing it possible herself. The frst time you held her hand was at the bar across the street. Three beers in before either of you worked up the nerve. You felt the earth shatter when she said it was over. You simply said no, but you were talking to yourself. When the day comes to its end, the sun flashes one last look Onto the city skyline, turning all things golden. You smile because you know exactly what she would say if she were here, But you cry because she isn't. It's the kind of day you both would have enjoyed together If things did last and stayed gold. She has enjoyed it nonetheless and perhaps you would have, too If you would only let the sun set, Taking its golden shine with her until another day. Melissa Lumpkin Austin, Texas 58 Like a Child "I fell for you like and now I know a child" wrote June Carter what she meant. The way his voice penetrates my ear and vibrates down my spine, the way he comes at me head-on without a glance aside, and how he hums "baby" at me and makes me fall backwards in time. a baby, I am crying and starving for him in my bed. I am sweet and new and innocent and in I am soft and his are the hands that need. hold me together. I fall for him like a child, every time his words shake the pretense right out of me and I'm completely in his power and not the least bit ashamed of it.I call out to him and I am lost until he answers. I cry for him until he soothes me. And I laugtr, a child's laugh, at the light that has surrounded us both like a ring of fire. Mo Stoycoff Austin, Texas 59 Rejection Letter on the Train to Chicago The tracks out my window blur like spokes of earth turning below, carrying the whole deck of us quietly east. Then without warning a westbound train steals my vision with silent silver speed before disappearing swiftly into memory. Your poems, too, hurried toward their destinations in a torrent of language, never pausing to pick-up passengers or even to linger long enough for anything to come into focus: not this pond frozen over by water's thin mirror or these thick clouds admiring themselves briefly while slipping away, not dark fists of branches hoarding the sky or this melancholy mailbox harboring the future a few more hours. Robert Wynne Burleson, Texas 60 Epilogue old woman burning love letters at dusk a letter a day as long as they last or the fire swells at the end ofeach short night she picks an envelope releases the genie and makes a wish river rock robin sail south solitude become true thunder thorn torrid all likenesses of the man whose pale script kindles the fire 6l reluctantly black shavings of narrative ascend to the clouds tomorrow she will open another drawer of letters and lavender Katia Mitova Chicago, Illinois 62 Morrigan, Daughter Emmas Morrigan, Daughter of Murder, I am the one, a shape in your mind that twists and changes. A crow, a wolf, an eel,l lead you on. I love the warrior, his body, its scarlet, the gray of its organs. I plunge my beak in the opened body. Red-tongued, witless, men flail in the crow time, the time I work for, when the air shakes, when men blister and fall. You follow me there. Of course you do. You hold your cup in the quiet of your garden and you listen. My whisper fills you. I say, there is only one way. It is your way. No other way can be allowed to stand. Sarah Webb Burnet, Texas 63 Death by Window Glass After the surprising thump and flutter I rushed out into stifling backyard heat to find aprize amid grass and feathers I did not want, didn't know how to keep. I held in both my hands a white-winged dove with two curled red feet and one blue-edged eye. Her wings were architectural marvels, wondrously soft and tucked close round her sides. That name-giving stripe so blazed with glory it made me think rattled lungs might yet breathe, but the head on her thin neck drooped sadly. My imagined rescue seemed doomed to grief. Distraught, I sought to revive her, save her, life back, reverse the death-throes, but when dying bird saw human savior that blue-rimmed eye grew wide with fright, and closed. massage her Robert Allen San Antonio, Texas 64 YOU CAN DIE FROM WASHING DISHES Soapy hands, I wash knives, forks and dishes, lift the last one and an attacking scorpion appears stinger in the air, claws ready for combat my heart leaps to my throat this primordial genetic memory awakens the adrenaline; with the knife I try to clip link of poison. the last He's at a disadvantage sliding down the sides of the sink, he slips, changes angles. Tailless nowo maimed scorpion scor scor scor the stubborn thing is now immobile, I put my inanimate trophy in a container. Liliana Valenzuela Austin, Texas 65 Negative I remember the first time I saw Manny shoot someone It was as though he carried a piece of all of his victims around with him Their statuesque faces frozen motionless for all time I remember the first time Manny shot me I was standing outside Roy Hernandez' Barbershop Broom in hand He caught me with my head down Gazing at the myriad of cracks that lined this particular sidewalk Marveling over the countless backs of mothers broken By the ambivalent footsteps of careless children When the flash rang out Brooding brown eyes blinded by the light Then the recoil of a spring mechanism A soft grinding sound And there Manny stood fanning himself Polaroid in hand Slowly the image began to appear Me in the foreground The street sign behind me read Bonita Boulevard But there wasn't anything pretty about it He showed me the photo but wouldn't let me hold it And rightfully so It was his image It was his magic I remember he said to me, Damn vato, you look lost in thought Maybe we were all lost back then Maybe we were all waiting to be someone's victim Maybe we were all waiting for someone with magic in his hands To show us we were beautiful Joaquin Zihuatanejo Denton, Texas 66 Landscape I kiss your lips in a chorus of crickets savoring your tongue's sweet embrace my fingers chase your simple sigh. as such a perfect shine upon your skin (a gift no doubt from a distant star illuminating the landscape of who you are). the gentle rise of your chest soft slope of your belly the tiny forest between your thighs even the rainclouds in your eyes map my every thought. so be naught but humble in the evening. be naught but bright lift in the day. let these bird songs our love like a weightless serenade. if I should find myself without you (a regretful fate indeed) I will sew wings to my heart & reap her cloud-born seeds. Kelsey Erin Shipman Austin. Texas 67 The Yin and Yang of Sin The flowers have withered. I remember your sister in a field of thistles that swayed. She spoke to the wind, and the wind obeyed. I dressed in the rags of cold December to listen to the fne burn the ember and bowl. No food beckoned me; I played in the light breeze; my slow brain splayed by the motion of the ocean's December. Never will I mock the cryptic universal worth of songs to Jesus and his King, but now I wallow in the shallow water near my ruin with the moon who bereaved us, crowned by the yin and yang of sin. John Layne Hendrick Austin, Texas 68 Indian Summer Squinels and small birds scavenged the remnants of summer in my spent, listless garden. The gazing ball followed me as I viewed the wreckage of tangled vines, wilted leaves. Beyond bean poles and wood-hard okra stalks I saw the entwining blackberry vines their luxuriant leaves hid painful thorns but not the memory of cobbler after a feast of fresh tomatoes, garnished with basil. I bent, began to clear the snarl of dead vegetation. Cucumber and squash vines will now tango with worms in a fluid embrace, a glide and pause through the mulch pile giving the last of self for the garden. Adamarie Fuller Houston, Texas 69 blue andromeda there is a waterfall in my eyes and thunder in my throat a maelstrom of strange oaths sweet scents, and silence love is a pipe dream ificouldiwould bend the wind for you leave a blue daffodil on your windowsill pray that the petals never acquiesce to the harsh rains of reality love is a cobalt ruin if built too close to of selfishness sandcastles can only stand a shore for so long i am andromeda chained soul and song bottled breathtakin g blaze inside of this indigo sky fall into and admire me i am a raging fire that will never know the face of their freedom love is a violet sacrifice you are a beautiful storm of torment and i - a woman with a passion for tragedy Natasha Carrizosa Fort Worth, Texas 70 Untitled The havoc of thunder wrinkles the sunset As the lilac rain cascades through a tobacco sky Sheltering a timid soul of loneliness Caught in the catacombs of regret Stars beaming through a churning world of satin eclipses Until the quivering sky surrenders to the wind of conceit. Robin Bell Mount llope, Kansas 7l The Robe I find it heaped in the closet corner, hidden beneath too-crowded hems of rarely worn dresses. Annoyed, I sigh and pick it up, try to remember the last time I wore it, why I've kept it thirty-eight years, recall the memory, my mother's gift to me, barely nineteen and every pound of nine months pregnant. I slip into its nylon nest, forget silver-fingered stretch marks cradling a mature belly's still stubborn mound. So lovely and long, never would have bought it for myself its satin-bound neck, empire waist, those flouncy sleeves swept out like angel wings, no hint of Mother Goose. I never guessed my mother knew what I could not yet fathom of children's needs beyond bottles and blankets, of wisdom sung in lullabies. Mama gone, I clutch robe against breast, bury my nose in pale peach folds, yearn for the scent of youth and fairytale dreams of babies that never grow up. Anne Schneider Kerrville, Texas 72 Nameless Dread I'd like you to meet a friend of mine who lives inside my head his name sends shivers up my spine I call him Nameless Dread In the wee small hours when a creaking floor can make me catch my breath jiggles the handle of the bedroom door and scares me half to death he In the great outdoors on moonless nights when the ground is wet with dew he'll make me think of vampire bites and what the dingoes do So now when monsters roam the skies and lurk beneath your bed ignore them all and close your eyes it's only Nameless Dread Tony Beckwith Austin, Texas 73 The Gusty FalI of a Huisache Spreading wide with shallow roots, twisted and top heavy, sheltering the back bay window and the patio with the clay chiminea. she was I always thought she'd come down quick. Even as the season lingered, it was sure to happen. Then came that night as the wind kicked up with a guttwal snap and she fell down hard by the garden gate. Come the next day, as we drank cabernet and relaxed on the sunny Lutyen's bench, we whispered to each other how different it would all be then, come wind and blowing rain. Glynn Monroe Irby Clute, Texas 74 Legend There was a desert. For a vast distance in any direction nothing grew until, quite suddenly, a great and very large bird appeared. The bird spat out a seed which fell to sand, aching for life. As it sunk below the surface where we cannot see what happens, a cry echoed from sand to stone, from crevasse to karst, from cave to fossil, a vibrant cry of thirst resounded, underground, where we can't see what happens, where magic thrives. The cry crisscrossed its own thirsty rhythm, intersected itself, grew stronger, more urgent, more perfectly beautiful, a dark, brilliant necessity. The seed stretched, and broke, sang and again sang, and again sang its cry of thirst - Until deep below the surface a flowing, jubilant, cool, emerald answer emerged. 75 It is said the thirst of Earth's great trees calls water from depths which are invisible causing springs to flow. Susan Bright Austin, Texas Fear of Flying Backwards, towards the nervous Western coast I take the Jaqi way on tin-foil wings Against the mourning turquoise Of the circled sky around us And the leathered Earth below. A rock, as in REM sleep, Boldly swims the naked night, And I dream of you with eagles lust And turn with taloned hope, My seat belt keeping me away And all my rarified thoughts at bay. You sleep, Like valleyed clouds at dawn, Unwarmed, and yet, at rest, Your doe-like eyes pavilioned With velvet shutters And secure against the world, While all about us Life goes on, Suspended by invention And our fear of open skies. Dillon McKinsey Cedar Park. Texas 76 Moons of Jupiter it is merely a set of mirrors, glass, and beams of light. a white glow draws me to where my eye must rest. when I catch the image, my skin comes alive, my breath quickens, because we are not alone. the light drips away from the planet like stardust. the gravitational pull brings my spine to your sternum your hand to my waist, your chin to my neck. you guide me where to look just as the moon moves out of view. without the magic of rods and beams we become blindingly tansparent. the heat of us disperses, we are frozen. I am left with only an untouchable memory a blue telescope and clear sky. A.M. Lewin Austin, Texas 77 Hale-Bopp Pale pink-orange fingers caress the azure sky as day begins its odyssey into night. Slowly the hues deepen as the sky ignites in fiery splendor, to the darkening horizon. a contrast An unearthly sight; too intense for human eyes to bear. Only the eye within can comprehend such unspoken grandeur. Torn and bleeding from its own ecstasy, the sky fades to glowing embers, then to black. Almost imperceptibly, sparking pin points of light emerge, Cooling the passionate union of earth and sky. A transient comet, Hale-Bopp by name, is revealed for mere seconds in historic time. Trailed by multi wisps of white it retreats again into the depths of the universe. No living eyes on Earth will again look upon it. Would that our distant progeny, many generations hence, be here to witness its return. Jane Louise Steig Parsons Austin, Texas 78 Mad World this morning is Mother's Day May 2009 the Hubble telescope reveals that our universe is unfolding constantly creating more dimensions full of black holes rich with billions of years of history due to the speed of light we c€rn only see the past and what it teaches my Grannie's flour sifter, the stainless hand beater wooden spoons, her jewelry box adorned with tinkets her sun hat she used to wear when she worked with him yesterday I felt the black zucchini vines and was transported back to my Paw Paw's garden pigtails and skinny legs,awkward and loud, still :tm now I want to hold on to all the bits of you my family floating through the ever expanding universe these aprons, colorful Pyrex bowls, her bumpy water glasses I hold on to suitcase memories in dusty, old spaces recalling smiles plastered on their warm faces my family where I could lie down on the cold floor watch nasty stories told by Aunt Nettie Grannie and Uncle Jerry I wasn't supposed to listen, but I did the reason we can all write something good is because we all have our own stories our own dishes, our own soft, worn flour sack towels I am comforted by the feeling of these things around me I am unfolding rich with history digging through thrift store shelves stopping in little old towns scattered throughout my hill country I am forever looking with eyes wide open for signs in things once used to find every piece ofyou Jena Gessaman Austin, Texas 79 Full Circle In a wheelchair, Aunt Elizabeth blankly stared at the ceiling, her fingers rubbing, smoothing, fiddling incessantly with a corner of her batluobe till my mother reached out to hold and soothe the withered hand. It began with an inability to balance her checkbook, followed by muddled language and memories turned to water. Concepts leaked down drains toasters became telephones, cups were spoons, - birds were little dolls. My mother turned away, tears in her eyes. "She doesn't even know me." A few years later, at the funeral, Mother wouldn't go to the graveside but waited in the car till the service was over. Now in a nursing home herself, she tells me about the nice black man who helps her toilet, shower, and dress. She can't remember what she had for dinner. She plays bingo and takes long naps. She rocks herself back and forth, notices only the beautiful, never complains. Christine Gilbert Austin, Texas 80 This Fire and Holy Water Lavender dusk spreads across the sky and the face of a boy radiates in the darkness Empty rooms washed with grey are called home but chill the bones on cold days I arn dizq in love with all that is you in me and for the moments we both claim as ours Together, we are mor€ than we could ever be, so we float above the madness here. Feeling you is a drug when you enter my blood and move through me like mercury We are nuclear when we stand together not resisting the gravity that pulls us close The force is fierce between us but there is no form, only this feeling and this ltre Together, we burst into a firestorm shower of color and blinding brilliance. You have the eyes to see, the hands to heal, the soul to seek What are you doing here with me in this forsaken place - so I often wonder of lost souls and darkness? We cling to one another like two spent swimmers sinking to the bottomless sea Together, we plunge into dark water and deep we crash through the blue silk. So call me and We I will come to you and lay down beside you in the amber twilight will find peace in a deep place as we flow like holy water Rings of fire will wrap around our bodies, and we will into one another shine as one brilliant light Together, we are a river of energy with power to melt mountains into the sea I lead you to the beauty I have discovered and slay your demons with my love And one bright blue day you will step beyond my borders and seek your windmills Teach me, tell me tales of magic and wonder, and I will give you all my power Together, time melts like snowflakes in sun, so step into my technicolor world. Jenna Lily Austin, Texas 81 ORAL REPORT TO THE TOMBSTONES I went to the cemetery the other day And stood before the gravestones of my mother, My father and a grandfather and grandmother. The springtime sun shone down through green-tipped trees And warmed the stones, though not the bones Of those at rest below. They sold the old homestead at auction yesterday, I announced to the polished marble tablets Etched with the names of those who had worked the land And lived the years within the walls they called their home. A handful of strangers had gathered in the yard, Nodded or raised a finger as the auctioneer Hunied to the final bid. It didn't bring much. They couldn't buy the family meals; the summer evenings; The early morning dew upon the grass; the applesauce; Or all those memories you brought with you When you came to rest beneath these stones. Nicholas Dorosheff Herndon, Virginia 82 The Three R's The Three R's Someone told me once that people Die in sets of threes So the week Mom died I looked to see who else went with her. First, it was Ronald Reagan Which really put a crimp In the amount of newspaper coverage Mom got. Wasn't she the mother of Texas women's history? Didn't she write l8 books on the subject? Hadn't she spent her whole life telling women's stories, Wasn't she worth at least a newspaper column? Instead, the media followed Ronnie's casket From one corner of the country to the other As if all the homeless people he helped create Would somehow want to come pay their respects? Ray Charles was a little easier to bear Mom loved the blues and black men So I figure between the two of them They somehow balanced out Ronnie. So the three are inexfticably linked for me now Ronnie, Ray, and Ruthe. Fitting company, Rabble rousers in their own wavs. Debra Winegarten Austin, Texas 83 Though I know My Soul Is Damned ... but I'll live as though I'm blessed. By Hell I'm not oppressed. I'll have my time to burn, 'til then, it's all a jest. Three old witches have their turn snipping threads'til I learn that ev'ry climb falls in vain; flakes of ash for my plastic urn. The cards show my children slain, a jilted lover on a tain. The whistle chokes her whine as the Styx drinks all the rain. My weeping eyes will shine I'll laugh with madness so divine at the ruins of the mine, at the ruins of the mine. Jonathan Richard Austin, Texas 84 Past Tense The articles strewn among Mother's things are faded Yellow newsprint of Times gone by The news itself is antiquated Some cotton pickers from Ladonia remembering olden days Nothing newsworthy really, just reminders Of lazy afternoons on board sidewalks Blue skies and sunnier mornings Old farmers relaxing with their bourbon in smoke-filled domino halls And women in their flowered prints Baking bread and pickling beets. Sheets blowing on the lines And windows open so you can feel the breeze And listen to Eddie Arnold on the radio Days in open, gassy fields With horses and their sweet-scented sweat The softness of tattered dandelions blowing across a meadow How ancient is that I wonder? Mother's teaching certificate is lying on my work table More interesting than anything I've drawn Long strokes of calligraphy honoring her acceptance To a one-room country schoolhouse. Eight grades growing up in unison The photographs are frayed around the edges But the photographed look ageless In their bonnets and bows, boots and derbies They remind me of my grandfather's laughter And the sound of taffeta Laurie Coker Robinson Austin, Texas 85 Nighthawks we don't mean for the destruction to happen we would hold the rage beneath our skin stifle the pain, if we could but sometimes it grows bigger than us and forms its own body, runs rampant scorching the land wherever we go and we hurt the innocent as our innocence was hurt we were each marked and our scars are the same after all, we have each survived a war yours called iraq and mine called childhood Terri Lynne Hudson Austin, Texas 86 Bamiyan in the pink sandstone cliffs of the Koh-e Baba Mountains. spent rocket casings, steel support rods & shrapnel surround a pair of yawning outlines carved from rock, cave murals coated in dust & soot, a spray-painted phrase from the sacred Koran: the just replaces the unjust assailed by artillery & heavy canon fue, faces hacked off, then dynamited under Talib rule & yet it remains: nothing can't be blown up Shin Yu Pai San Marcos, Texas 87 Mitk On a warm night in upstate New York during the summer of 1948, Charlie Parker got out of a brand new Pontiac, the bass player from his quintet was behind the wheel. Clubs along 57th Sfieet were an hour behind them. Parker had grabbed the case with his sax in it from the back seat and walked out onto a field. He was offdrugs, clean for at least six months but knew he'd never be clean as the air he breathed. A herd of cows watched him walk in front of them, place the case on the grass, open it and take out a bent piece of sky the color of dawn. Then he blew on it as his fingers like a flock of small dark birds flew up and down. The cows listened, stopped chewing but couldn't prevent their tails from swinging like the Basie rhythm section. Sounds they never heard came out of a hole in the sky. Then it stopped. He placed it back in the box and walked away. Within hours the green grass they began chewing again turned the milk in their bellies white. Kevin Pilkington New York, New York 88 Infidetity I've married infidelity. The ring around my finger stings acid rain against my skin. lts raw mark burns permanent the way I never was. I lingered too long in the ice air. Frost clings to me where your hands once were. If I were shocked by your spark, I would have abandoned infidelity, let you wring its scrawny neck, take down the eyesore body, that dead ringer for a woman unwapped on a pedestal. But I peeled the arc of her hips, burning temporary. I've been known to linger in your steep footsteps. When you asked me to find the key to please, I found freedom in a foreign kiss. It was stark. Infidelity asked me before you; it slipped a ring'round me. Flattered, I fell into sheets without you. Foolish bringer of heartache, I wronged your sleeping promise. Our bed was dark, and I held your fire for light. But shadows permanently linger, and I stroke them; I fall and finger those soft flesh folds. They ask me, do you take this mark to be your lawful-wedded-wife? Infidelity does. This ring is a crackling ember. It will soon burn out. Bonnie Stufflebeam Denton, Texas 89 A Piece of Troubled Sky I went back that way again today, where yesterday I wheeled this twisted road. just as a tree swallow, jubilant in its flight, in its pursuit of bugs for summer young, flew diversionary arcs around a truck and struck the window of my car. I'd caught a glimpse of feathered breast like fog-veiled sun on moming fields: a shade so pale it downed to whitest gray. The back and wings were cruel blue - a piece of troubled sky that fell like hail from storm-blacked clouds. Today, I searched the road once more where I'd watched the fallen land. Nothing there to see - no feathers dark as instant death and radiant as wishes. (Refuse to think of claw and tooth, ofvultures hovering up above, refuse the tug and pull of truth.) I tell myself the bird was only stunned, just dazed for some small moment; that it gathered up its tiny bit of life. blinked and looked toward the curve where I had disappeared. Then shook itself and flew away to skim the hayfields once again as heartless rain began to fall upon the hapless windrows. Christina Lovin Lancaster, Kentucky 90 Enterprise Soft apricots, a Mclntosh, a mound of grapes among so many berries. It's the split pomegranate the ants chart. The leader peels a white fluffof skin to cart back to the earth. Around and around in a circle each goes, industrious, marching counterclockwise, rewinding time by half-seconds, almost breaking even. Margo Davis Houston, Texas 9l Memory Game I started walking down the street, reached the comer, and couldn't remember why or how I was there. I picked up the handset, started to dial a number, but couldn't remember who or why I was meant to dial. I took the #10 bus, to go somewhere I may have been before, but I wasn't sure. As I waved goodbye to the bus driver, a young woman called my name at the stop. She smiled and looked so familiar, I retumed her smile - teeth and all. Her hair comrowed, as mine used to be. Fingers slender to embrace a flute mine never played. I nodded. It was then that the bus driver announced my stop. My heart danced with my brain, quick-quick-slow. I had a feeling I'd been here before. As I waved goodbye to the bus driver, my name at the stop. "M4 where you been? We were worried. Come inside; dinner's ready." I returned his smile - teeth and all, remembering this young man as a young boy. I couldn't remember why I knew he was mine, but it's funny how the mind plays tricks a young man called sometimes. Paula Small Milwaukie, Oregon 92 The Blue Bird The blue bird contrasted an overcast day Brilliant plumage among dulled drab grays Defined definition blend of background blurs Focal point in a hypnotic stare of a cat's purr. Fur being petted in contented soft strokes As they both hear them blues-bird notes sing Upon such a thrilling twill natural folk song That at times a miracle just is in listen-ing. David Lester Young Panama City, Florida 93 Fifty Years of Palm One -Year Two young palm trees survive humidity, blue northers, and hurricanes, create the future palm-gate of Shadowglen. Five -Year Low circular fronds transform into water-marked taffeta as Carla inundates everything. Her tidal surge rushes nine miles across coastal prairies, pushes Flag Lake into our home. Twenty -Year Under the street light of surlmer, slender trees in frond-green crinoline with sequins of fireflies, stretch and sway a pas de deux. Revels collapse as a Pontiac Firebird flattens the fue hydrant at their feet. Thirty-Five -Year April Fool's Day. After Palm Sunday. Shaggy fans bend in disbeliel shade grief. Heart failure halts Daddy's last run around the track. Fifty -Year Pillars of palm still stand tall, frondless in their demise, without shade, without grace twin towers of memorv. Carolyn Luke Reding Austin, Texas 94 The undefeated man I stand alone in the field Locking house windows, all of you are shrieking I like the act of viewing people's spectacles and I feel that people are but a horde watching a spectacle I'm proud" I stand alone in the field I cry, I experience the suffering of woundVassaults/and thoughts but I'm proud, I stand alone in the field I'm eager to meet young men who brave storms young women who brave attacks I'm eager to hold out a costly tray decked with tears strung as finely as pearls But I stand alone in the field The moon is alone/the sun is alone/the earth is alone I stand alone in the field. Viplob Pratik Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal 95 Fire of Thorns People don't like the oozing amber colored gum that drips on surfaces beneath your scarred and black stained bark of wounds. There is no oaken grandeur in arthritic limbs and green frond hair so sparsely shading bean-fruit, curved and semi-sweet where is your beauty? - Despite defiance of the thorns, I break your hard-wood body and fire it to red hot embers. Your energy consumed, at last gives pleasure in the smoke of a mesquite. Oscar C. Pena League City, Texas 96 Hephaestus at the Forge Constant hammer clanging molding, making weapons, tools of his time, and things of beauty. Bare-chested, sweating, dragging that lame leg through the smithy heat. Etna moans with his anger. With lesser gods who work the bellows and stoke the fire, the sharpeners and polishers, he takes his break at the water cooler and complains about his father's constant demand for lightning bolts and the competition above for more impressive thrones Del Cain Saginaw, Texas 97 Broken Reel Follow me: I will lead you nowhere and capture your time faster than the suffocating grip of the clock's hands if paradise exists I'll swallow its essence and and regurgitate it in speeds to your liking Don't cross your fingers for an apology: I will never be captivating enough as the original of anything I attempt to imitate Rather, a mediocre finish to a beginning that never happened leaving you anticipating yet fully aware - I'm just a second-rate remake of your favorite film and I'm nothing of the actress she was Malia A. Bradshaw Austin, Texas 98 Christina Daniela After breakfast the nurse brought you for the first time. I held you in my arms and stared at you for a long time. A smooth white blanket wrapped your body, Adorned by green and blue and yellow tiny hearts. A matching cap covered your frail head, Your big pufff eyes, closed. Slowly, I counted your little fingers and toes, ten and ten. Lovingly, I looked at your tiny nose, just like mine. Gently, I caressed your soft skin, felt like silk. Desperately, I prayed to hear you cry, but only silence embraced our time. Ximena Leon Austin, Texas 99 Summer in the Suburb The summer fatigues. It brings heat, sweat and bwden. The swimming pools get jammed with vacationing students the birds hide in the climbing plants the dogs lie down in the shade and the cats get comfortable all over the corners, confident creatures in their owners. The summer orders. It demands fresh drinks, cold air, some ice crearn, and green tea. Teenagers rub their bodies against each other, they repeat movements learnt on MTV. Lovers jot down some emotion under the sea at the beach. Housewives fall for the daily drama of soap operas. And in a very distant place the soldiers at war are lost between the desert and the decimating bombs. The summer frightens. Stiff-eyed corpses with nostalgia for the suburbs. Maricel Mayor Marsdn Miami, Florida 100 Three Masks I I'm eight.I'm Spock, slumped in a grandma-nylon-folding chair staked out where Argus begins its Mardi Gras route. A fever stokes me in my home-made Starfleet shirt. I strain against embarrassment, that exponential surge: mother refused to let me shave off half my eyebrows, and my eyes do not look right. They close. I'm weary. Hot. My brother Captain Kirk is catching all the beads. 2 Ten. Ace of Kiss. I stride down street with my brother Gene, our old kids' cruise accompanied by a dad in tow. Encased within a silver breastplate I embody (slipshod as I am) what neither I nor my icon will ever be: music and space. Metallic liquid stars my eyes, still tingling on my face. I am serene. ihen twelve, my first Mardi What I want to be - the old Gras unmasked. key by which one picks costumes - eludes me. t0l I was myself, with Dad in some bar off So there Saint Charles, returning from a no-luck bathroom search before Rex comes to us. We're pressing out when some half-shabby middle aged man sees me, bows unsteadily, and kisses my grandma-gloved hand. I fluster, unsure how to take the fork at flattered or frightened. No one's done that before. I can't think what (or not) to say. Dad jolts me out the door, into a single feeling: shame. Rebecca Raphael Austin, Texas 102 The Purple Path Our bones know the old secrets Earth itself once a totem creature now tattoos herself on us. We cut through the day on a purple path while sunmer follows the spiral and moves on. Red of sunmer gone Blue of winter on its way meet on equal terms and mingle today. With an alchemist intent the sun stares at golden leaves that are green but open to golden change Spider weaves windsongs on gossirmer strings my eyes tightrope across glistening strands fall to a ground beaded heavily with seeds Snails saunter never leaving home. Together our hands hold fast bridge the turning of the seasons Our bones breathe in the old secrets hidden deep in the pagan creases of our palms Arm around waist arm around waist we walk like the wheel a cast circle dancing through purple. Darla McBryde Conroe, Texas 103 Shoe Garland those shoes strung over pole lines, they don't fool me. dangling there snug as wann fleece socks, confusing and confused more over so, but those shoes there, they don't fool me. te lo juro, nobody knows their purpose. found at many street corners in many barrios dangling, pair in pair, but dangling as common sense. dangling as the nonsense which woes me and the land of lakes trembling over my rhythm of day. you might think, pair in pair, it's easy being hung to bear intact. the mystery purpose, the mystery behind their purpose -- hanging on for the show and dangling in mid-air all day, all nigh! today, tomorrow without a pulpose but the way it simply was meant to be. those shoes thrown over the pole lines, a mystery to their reasoning it only seems to make sense. reasoning sometimes needs no common purpose because it doesn't always match up. perfectly good pair ofshoes fenced above our heads, and for what reasoning but nonsense? dangling, pair in pair. they don't fool me. dangling as unfinished business, you don't fool me. Priscilla Celina Suarez McAllen, Texas 104 Descent In autumn the tree planned the wild plums descent there were thousands to be felled first signal a pulse but in the end they would have to be all pushed off and there within the leaves green and gold light shone through as light through topaz and peridot the halo that stretched the cooled shadows the fragile light tilted for slow breathing and the honeybee above the last dilated blossoms the earth on this side in this place drawing into itself a sky above it and the plums the thousands of plums falling and falling. Imana Cordova Dallas, Texas 105 Wheatfield 1973 He was a soldier and young -- just barely 21. No one lingers at the grave of someone else's nearly grown child. His parents are gone,like Amy who waited. The grass holds for just a while footprints of strangers walking by, unaware of burning green eyes, scent of Midwest clean, or the hard embrace of freckled arms. Children, friends, and lovers were folded in the flag handed to his mother - nobody cries at the white stone bullnosed to heaven, engraved with his short life: his God, his birth and death, his rank - an unforgiving footnote in a memory field of 58,158. Rose Marie Eash Bulverde, Texas 106 Women in Traffic: Funny Here I hold your name Sticky against my lips Like tips of sticks, stick e Sticks pushed crooked: In out Like spouts, like sour milk sloths crawling out of your mouth I know what they did to you. Two clumps of ragged flesh, your breast! Sagging against your busted bones. You, fermented curse, staggering into the room. You say nothing. The thumping hum of women cracked open in the other rooms; their glassy groans snapping under the slaps of sweaty fists against their faces. A court, a kingdom ofbloody corpses. You didn't ask for this. "$250 for Ariel, $45 for me." You were nine, but Ariel? Ariel, she's only three. But sister, I'm acquainted with that sound. The pregnant eclipse-like ellipses coated in concern. Your words cleft in your throat. The question still curling around the dollar signs. Like your name sticky against my lips. "Tick tick tick." Stickv. r07 "Time is money." Sick money makes good girls funny. 'uHoney, outside there is a van. For you. And you can leave... if you want to." Funny. Faylita Hicks San Marcos, Texas 108 The Cold Front Today, as I was getting out of mY car after my drive home from work, I felt the cold coming. I looked up and I saw it rolling towards me, crossing the blue ceiling of the sky, round and black, erasing the sun. I smelled it. It was thick and sour like embalming fluid. I felt it fill my nostrils and bloat my lungs. It blew around me, teared my eyes, tugged my hair then rolled a huge trash can down the alley and past me. I heard the cold. It had a sound all its own. It was the sound of something huge pushing its way through. I gathered my things, went inside and closed the door against its final approach. It is now night. I've rolled myself up in my blankets and still I can feel frigid shards in my lungs and I can hear it outside, rattling my home, fogging my windows -- and waiting. Diana Trevino Austin. Texas 109 I want a Poem I want a poem that peels bulbous flesh from my thighs and dances me wild for hours. a poem that erases the undereye shadows and gives me more energy than Red Bull, a poem that lengthens my hair, that ravishes my body and still leaves me chaste. a poem that brightens the moon and puts a dimmer switch on the sun, I want a poem that sharpens the world's taste for art, a poem that colors our ears with music and punctures our images with syllables and sound. I want a poem that shouts affirmations and catches us in gestures ofvirtue, a poem that whispers our names with coral and pearls. I want a rose-scented Persian carpet poem that transports us to heaven, whenever we want to go, a dark chocolate miracle poem that sees past and future, that lets us converse with souls beyond. I want a poem that puts artists and seekers at the center of listeners. I want a poem that cares. Anne Gordon Perry Duncanville. Texas ll0 Gravity pitter patter on window ledge and splice of droplets piercing/ soul/ rud... rampant across morning left breast beating as I lie on favorite pillow two not one for lack of commitment and intermittent rhythm of gloplets masses of rain shards swimming sideways together and begging for attention... waking/ breath/ calm/... fantasy attention of She, as if fantasy and reality still had mergeability without loss as if anything remained in the tank to drive anymore and wandering presents itself to coffee waiting patiently for it's turn to say remember me who was there for you then and lll Still here waning if not strong yet claiming irony as if it were it's own... not/ truly/ yours/... Mark Ilan Unger San Antonio, Texas The Western Sky Nodding Off She died in the morning, lovely as a sunset. Her pillow was the blue that patches through a striated sky of persimmon and magenta giving way to pastels, to pink, to a non-languishing cloud etched in silver-gold. Paula Bird Broadshoe San Antonio, Texas l12 Joyous Reunion I enter the room quietly, observing. He might be playing with the pink dinosaur, coveted and precious. He might be climbing on the playground. Often he's on the floor, looking at a book. Other children run, play and sh,riek around him. He's calm amidst the chaos -- fascinated -- the story unwinding as pages turn. The moment always comes. Sometimes it comes sooner when the dimpled girl with the curls rats me out. Sometimes I get several moments to watch my child in his daytime environment. *DADDY." Sooner or later he realizes I'm there and shouts. His entire face lights up. My face mirrors his. Small legs run my direction. Slender arms encircle my neck. If I'm lucky there are kisses. It's pure love, unfettered and nourishing. "Let's go home," he says. This is my favorite time of day, five days a week. joyous reunion... go home and play before supper. We Our Angela Patterson Austin, Texas 113 Lyublyu* And so you wake one day To find love is not Love is not even Of the same category classification Linnaean realm It doesn't bear upon words Or take up truth's sword charging towards Epic gal lant romantic superfl uidity Cupid's cupidity - his Bacchic madness meted More blade than ballad You wake to find to feel its presence Ruach** upon the skin A wind without weight A song without singing It stands fast neither clinging nor draping Simply taking up the whole of the room Silent eschewing the trappings of majesty and splendor What are silver gold and rubies to bent gnarled wood Stooped over the river weeping A hundred years listening to the plink patter plunk of the stones You discover it is just so A cup oftea A stolen glance Watching your child as she dances Your arm on the arm ofyour beloved Wasteless timeless solace certain of mettle Certain where all other things You wake one day to find Are not *Lyublyu is Russian for Love +*Ruach is Hebrew for Wind, Spirit Ani Fox Austin. Texas ll4 Karma Crisis She glides in the front door of the all-organic Earth Caf6 with hairy legs and high heels -- a sweetheart of a hippie chick who sells Yellow Pages ad slots to dirty old men behind desks. She took the job as a stopgap before the more green-tinted, planet-saving work she plans to do. But the fat paycheck she cashes on Fridays by far surpasses what her flower-child mind is able to recycle in the tie-dyed and environmentally friendly agendas of her dreams. And so the revolution rages in the smoldering factories ofher flickering, hazel eyes. Nathan Brown Norman, Oklahoma ll5 Adaption In the long night of the paeleolithic human the roof of home was a sky full of stars and wonder. Footprints were made on the floor of earth. In the long night of the modern human the roof is ahaze of city lights. Stars are concrete on the Hollywood sidewalk. The fallof past civilizations was heralded by the worship of man above nature measured by monumental material achievements. Climate change was sudden in the history of time, not only for frozen mammoths and departed dinosaurs, but for Egypt, Mesopotamia, Incas and Mayan readings. Always from Mother Earth there was but one commandment of one word: ADAPT. "What a piece of work is man" said Shakespeare "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" said Jesus. And again Mother Earth said to every blade of grass; to every nemotode; to every malaria mosquito; to the thousand year old tree; to the microbe and the crustacean on the ocean floor: ''ADAPT. ADAPT. Adapt or perish." Bob (Mud) McMahon Lutwyche, Brisbane, Australia ll6 Cold Beautv Her torso gradually takes shape as the chainsaw's blade cuts deeply into the ice whining drill with sharp bits detailing as chisels chip and raspy sander rounds and polishes revealing angled shoulders, delicate collarbones, breasts high above an inward curving waist and flaring hips freeing the feminine form; cold beauty glistening in the light. Claire Vogel Camargo Austin, Texas tt7 Sonnet 14 Oh my sweet fruitful love Abundance of vermillion seed As delicate as a moming dove Dear devotion to my every need Rubies laden in your mossy hair Your skin a white fleshy albedo For you to share my golden chair Arils encase the seeds I now know The pomegranate stained lip No longer to be mine Justified by a lover's quip Exalted by the divine Fruit of the dead in Hades domain Abiding love no longer calls my name Isabella Taylor Austin, Texas ll8 Sunset We do not fear the Moon, cold and delicate; we contemplate her as we would an absent-minded mistress. courting her without fear, aware there is no menace in her blue glance, nor pain in her absence. The Sun, that magical source of light and heat- robust, arrogant, showers life itself onto the earth, creating and giving substance to our existence, at times our punishment, at times our blessing, but always, always, our destiny. How many innocent beings we have sacrificed without pity In our terror that He will abandon us! Each evening we watch entranced as the mighty disc slowly fades below the horizon, casting its last rays against clouds that bleed scarlet or shine with gold, incandescent trails reflect long seas that ofastounding beauty, filling our eyes with promises of etemal life and our primitive memories with insecurity. Will the Sun rise again tomonow to awaken the rose to her glory and the mockingbird to his song? Shall I feel its presence slide through the window from the garden to kiss my face,lick my eyelids with little tongues of light? Will there be a sunrise for me tomorrow? Sue Littleton Buenos Aires, Argentina ll9 Last seat, second violins, seventh grade Mr. Hayden would throw his baton at anyone who played a wrong note. Small hands trembled, eyes squinted trying to decipher Stravinsky making little pencil notations, finger numbers over treble clefs. Orchestra practice began 7:50 sharp. Leaving bikes outside, we shuffled in. Black hard cases swinging, tabs slung open to reveal rosin, swiped back and forth over horsehair bows. tightened just enough to sing. It was too easy to fake bow, follow the notations, gliding above the string, back there no one could hear our silent symphony. Melody carried by first chairs, High Schoolgirls, braces off, dyed blond hair, full breasts heaving below chin rest. red nails on bows. Practicing "The Firebird Suite" in my room at home, fingers high on the strings, fifth position, made my mother ask, "do you have to do that when we're here? By the time I was a senior, made my way up the ranks to second chair first violins, Mainly because everyone better than I was graduated. 120 My violin sits in the closet now, bridge broken, strings just old, bow need resfinging, rosin in crumbled fragments. but the case still smells like early morningso holding it, I feel the bruise under my chin. Lori I)esrosiers Massachuseits t2r Editorial Staff Barbara Youngblood Carr, Editor Author of 14 books of poetry/prose and short stories about her Native American Cherokee heritage and growing up in TX, the South and Southwest (8 books in her Ancestor Series partially funded by the City of Austin Arts commission); storyteller/humorisveditor/musician; Austin International Poetry Festival Board member, venue host and workshop facilitator in Austin for 17 years; published in many newspapers, journals, anthologies and magazines; published on 3 continents; appointed as National Poet Laureate for the Military Order of the Purple Heart in Wash, DC 2005-2008; in Sep 2009, received the first White Buffalo Native American Poet Laureate Award. Complete list of publications on website, ancestorpoet.com. Michael Sadler, Assistant Editor Michael Lynn Sadler is a poet and writer living in Austin, Texas. This is his first year with AIPF. He is currently working on a new collection of poetry. Contact him via his website or on Facebook. Ashley Kim, Editorial Assistant An X-heptathlete, AIPF workhorse, and blue moon poet, Ash Kim is an Austin native and seventh-generation Texan. A professional nanny and published family writer, this "Maya Poppins" of sorts can also sing the alphabet backwards and play both hands of "Heart and Soul." Despite the murder of countless poems and houseplants, she intends one day to garden. For now, she prefers to let the passiflora and flame agapanthus grow wild, tendrils spilling over fences searching for something. Much like her metaphors. t22 Katya Bochenkova, Editorial Assistant Katya writes poems that - upon re-reading - say new things. Fluent in three languages, she weaves the grammar, thoughts and structure of many cultures to create haunting evocative landscapes where what the reader brings helps shape what they find. A local Austin poet with ties to Kiev, Ukraine, Katya has been published in both English and Russian. By day, she runs a school, keeps her cats out of mischief and lives out the family motto "things are not what they seem." By night, she can be found writing, collaborating on music projects and listening to the stars. Ron Jorgenson, Editorial Assistant Ron is known in the poetry world as Dr. Charles A. Stone. A native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, both of him hold doctoral degrees from Marquette University and the Johns Hopkins University. He/they served on university faculties until leaving for private sector business and eventually retirement. His poetry has appeared in several joumals and anthologies and has won prizes from local, state and national organizations. He lives with his wife in Austin, Texas and Williams Bay, Wisconsin. India Rassner-Donovan, Editorial Assistant She has lived in the Austin area for 29 years and resides with husband, Gary, at Dancing Turkey Refuge on Cedar Creek. She is a weaver and professional in the healing community. Through her poetry expresses a commitment to a world without war. r23 she Cover Art Photographer, Cover Designer & Judge Derris Lanier, Cover Artist I'm a native Austinite and have lived and worked here all my rife. I've been interested in photography for over thirty years but have taken it to a much higher level for the past fifteen years through education and reading. Although I shoot a lot of portraits and people photos, my passion in the art of photography is recording the beauty of the Austin area and the beautiful scenery that nature provides us every day ofour lives. I strive to portray my vision of the landscape as accurately as possible in my images. Alyson Stringer Steakley, Cover Designer Alyson Stringer Steakley, an Austin native, grew up playing under her mom's drawing board while she worked on newspaper ads, illustrations and magazine paste-ups. After graduating from the University of North rexas, Alyson retumed to Austin to work at a full-service design firm that primarily served Simono Malls. In 1999 she became a freelance designer to pursue a wider variety of clients that now include magazines, restaurants, small businesses, summer camps, event venues and more. In 2003, she and her mom, cheri Stringer, launched fireflvcreatives.com providing clients with a one-stop shop for web and print design . ln 200j, they raunched trueloveloqos.com offering couples monogram designs for their wedding and beyond, and coming soon familvmonograms.com! Alyson and her husband Stephen, also a native Austinite, can often be found with their pups, Tucker and Disco, outside somewhere enjoying the views of Texas ... via porch, boat, lakeshore or ranch. D. Audell Shelburne, 2010 di-verse-city Antholory Poetry Judge D. Audell Shelbume Hardin-Baylor, Editor is Professor of English at the University of Mary of llindhover: A Journal of christian Literature and the Director of the annual university of Mary Hardin-Baylor writers' Festival. He is also a published poet himself. 124 ISBN 3?8 0 3?931,a1-? I ,llillillXill|lilllill ttflfimfllflt
