UNTITLED:
Jagged, Frightened, Tender Woman
She had me
And her pain
She loved it
It was her wino's bottle
her junkie's fix
Her demon lover
That she could not out-grow
She was a pathway
few had bothered to walk
and
she hated me for loving her
By Bill Burns
<Weather From The North>
rocks
cliffs
morning breaks
with the waves white
the sky empty
waiting
for weather form the North
the last of a bright sun
followed by years of cloud
from horizon to horizon
a gray cotton sheath
a dressing for the wound
the voices
the wind
the notes filled
the baritone waves
the chorus
the seabirds
the last of the sun
the bulb of the planet
its fragile glass
sucked of air
evacuated
the sea boils
the birds explode
the rocks are
as they always are
the rocks survive
even the giant's feet
the deep sounds
of their footsteps
of drums
slowly marching
with sabers and axes and
whatever else is needed
to render flesh to useful things
like soap and leather
as the giants of wicker
filled with men and women
start to burn
and men and women
watching from
the cliffs
the sea
are listening
to their cries
confusing them
with seabirds
and with children
changing them to music
only music
as the voices sing again
welcoming the clouds this time
welcoming the blanket
made of smoke
and silence
By Ray Heinrich
The flowers of evil grow bushily everywhere.
To find them you need not be clever.
The trick these days is to discover,
a tuft of innocence here and there
By Bea Cameron
THE WIND WHISPERS SECRETS
The wind whispers secrets
to the pyramids and sands
black velvet skies and stars
cloak mysterious lands
What wisdom lies beneath the depths?
Locked in tombs dark and deep
From eons gone, far beyond
The kings of old forever sleep
Their hollow bodies breath no more
The Nile's fragrant air
afterlife beyond the Styx,
Does Pharaoh now hold court there?
In state they lie wrapped in cloth
now an empty shell
Dreaming deep
Eternal sleep
the kings of old who death befell
By Chris D'Alessandro
Grist
with palms upraised,
my soul in offering.
Because all are lost in nights
domain,
when carrion are we not
the same?
Don't shed tears, your eyes
are dry
till I bring forth your blood
honed edges invade the pallid
flesh.
disgorged filth and shame.
and yet
smiles the unpolluted mask-
this is not right.
we must be meat n life as
not.
grist for the stones.
By Dr. Alan Moakler
Art by Chris D'Alessandro
