<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<------>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> POETRY . . . =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==******-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- THE UNHAUNTABLE MAN by Keith Allen Daniels =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ghosts have given up, and spirits despair when they speak of me: How can we haunt a man who never stays put for a haunting? Always wandering, wandering, wondering: Perhaps it is I who haunts the world, dead but embodied, itinerant, searching for comfort among the sessile spirits a zombie with no sense of place migrating endlessly with the short seasons of a lost soul. Copyright 1995 by Keith Allen Daniels, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Allen Daniels, a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association since 1979, has been publishing poetry since 1972. He lives in San Francisco with his ladylove, the artist Toni Montealegre, and likes to make funny voices. His poems have appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Recursive Angel, Poets of the Fantastic, Narcopolis and numerous other magazines and anthologies. He has been called "one of the foremost science fiction poets of our time" by David Kopaska- Merkel, editor of Dreams & Nightmares. In addition to winning the National Association of Independent Publishers Fallot Literary Award for What Rough Book in 1993, his work has been nominated for the Nebula Award, the Rhysling Award (10 times), the Pushcart Prize and the Clark Ashton Smith International Poetry Award. His other books include Loopy Is The Inner Ear (Quick Glimpse Press, 1993), Dyscrasias (Anamnesis Press, 1994/1995), Field Notes From The Antipodes (Dark Regions Press, 1995) and With All of Love: Selected Poems by James Blish (editor; Anamnesis Press, 1995). kdaniels@ix.netcom.com ================================================================= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- COLLAPSE by Eric Dunstan =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= we are the remainders who live on the beach and sand dig holes in the cliff for shelter a place for young where no old are... share what nothing we have with those who have less * * * mary has a blanket and rags I a pencil * * * no-name has his legs sticking out from a collapsed hole in the cliff he dug too deep henny pulled on a leg and rubbed the fly-blown end in the sand blue maggots are good food but no-name is still and still 'no-name' has no name and the tide has ebbed and flowed many times since henny found him who cares leave him where he lies he breathed on a sky mushroom * * * mary has red hair -- hot as the scorched sky she is thin and marked and nearly nameless almost still her sister is the same . . . she slid the steep track to the beach I saw she has no pants and pink pubic hairs but it is not for me to care * * * my pencil is shorter * * * frank slid from his ledge and did not cry when his body splashed the full tide his cliff access is mean but hairless walter is now scrambling to take the ledge for his new address perhaps walter will fall tomorrow * * * saw a rotting swab two tides ago with gaping holes like a hollow skull soggy full of purple sea lice they are hard to catch salty to taste and seaweed-cold but good food is precious may still be nunclear . . . noocleer . . . how you spell it don't know perhaps it is not for me to know parts of swab will dry in time . . . time? and will be lighter to carry perhaps when left outside my ledge it will go to some other ledge higher for a bed taken by one with no words and no name he is another 'no name' who will have no status among us because he is french . . . they say who cares he doesn't I don't . . . should I? * * * floater found on last tide marge I think I will get her book though stained with red spittle for writing if I can find where . . . few will reply when I ask around for her book talking . . . like sex is unimportant and they will not care to answer * * * old is not young even those with years but few they do not move like the young move old is 19 years but in those years countless tides will collapse on the shore . . . did the collapse kill fathers of wisdom and destroy the parents alike? can't remember perhaps it is not for remembering * * * plutonium (was it named after a dog?) you-rain . . . u-rein . . . uranium both degenerate slowly half lives and tides are the only measures only lead will remain * * * we are to be unlead like a stray pencil not yet carbon and going endlessly nowhere what cares? all will be still soon "sans vie" 'no-name' with no status had said before he was still -------------------- Copyright 1995 Eric Dunstan, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ------------------------------------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- TIME? by Mark Harrison =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Time is like rhythm of a melancholy afternoon, being soaked in sun, rays bouncing off me like that little rubber ball you used to play with, you know the one. Clouds flying by, bye long gone! Time, yeah! Hold it in the palm of your hand like a dust ball, crunch it up or blow it up to the wind. Whatever you do it's yours and it's gone somehow. Boom! Boom! What's that noise? It's time closing in. Better make good use of it, never coming 'round again! Time, like a jar full of crickets all hopping 'round, yeah! Crazy, spinning, uncontrollable and then it can be the time for a change. Sit and listen! Do you hear it, it's time standing still, or might as well be. Perched there like a little robin red breast unsure of where to go next. Do you know what I mean? Of course you do, you know! don't you. Too late now, it's gone, you missed it. Maybe next time. ---------------- Copyright 1995 Mark Harrison/Constant Synthesis Project -------------------------------------------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= THE JUST TALKING by Ben Ohmart =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- the expensive program had to listen to this guy talking crap and the system crashes and the man went away from the computer -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= AFTER THE DEMONS by Ben Ohmart =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- is there ever a stage where the world finds peace because you have enough money or enough friends to tell you money is unimportant or family to say how you'll make friends soon or that voice at the employment office desk with the smile or the card a week late for your birthday from the insurance place? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= A MASTER by Ben Ohmart -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- the boy knew nothing and going away the man said he'd learned something from him then continued to do things the way as before =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ELVIS AND COSTELLO by Ben Ohmart -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= the cat listened and the message transformed him into a person fucked by taxes damned by making the money for the milk ------------ Copyright 1995 Ben Ohmart, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ----------------------------------------------- (The following three poems are courtesy of SPIRAL CHAMBERS) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "YOUR JOHNNY OF 1917" by Repsi, at the Void =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Nailed to the cause I am strung amongst the crowds Loftily above Where none may touch People hurl eggs Cracking, drooling from my clothes Moving along The procession stays fast Carrying the cross from street To street I watch with nonchalance !They mean nothing to me Still the flag is swarmed I on its shoulders Additional mass gathers Catapulting rocks to torment me I ignore Deflected they go and shower Breathing outrage and contempt Something I know little of As the parade files onward Arms of love are arrested the right To refuse the crowd Which doesn't cause anger it Merely makes me forlorn Nailed to a sign of regression In a home you ought to trust Displayed for the good folk Who worry you are gifted !Might you conceivably be !What only they dream of? The theory creates a swollen moment To make a grand statement Not accepted Exponential claims are thrust in spite Words said Proceeded by a lashing Of your stake !Move now! Sweat drips onto the Newborn fire Stoking a cheered reaction Many find fault in But dare not speak Sleep comes An instant before I wake I recognize The land coated in sweet Candy covered starkness and black Retained to the cross My body still remains whole Often I curse the fortune !Curse the amber's dead glare Pooling and collected Internally driven Inexperienced blood Bursts Across my heart And through my palms Marking where I was abused Towering over worthless ashes A slightly perverse color of red The papers elaborated On what survivors could not explain Wrote fictitious commentary Camouflaging their mental lapse Interpreted many ways Why hundreds died Bloody Gory deaths At the hands of Something else than believed Later All chaos cracked Away from humanity's serene utopia Millions perished then My only original sin the Nucleus of so many problems masqueraded Origin set at one. ------------------ Copyright 1995 Repsi, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ------------------------------------------ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= THE WIND OF LIFE by Michael Morain =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- His face Unscoured by the wind of life Holds few lines with which To read his fate His hands Spread wide to life Breathe not the essence Of the age They talk not as others do Quietly confident in their youth Not waiting the flesh time brings He is immortal in the now The joy a body holds Straining the atoms Finding release In the rhythms of Life. ----------------------- Copyright 1995 Michael Morain, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. --------------------------------------------------- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= BUTTERFLY IN MY PALM by Mirielle Jaborsky =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- He said he was a butterfly in my palm. Indeed, that was true, For I easily could have crushed him, But instead I fed him off the nectar of my love Which dripped silently into pools of darkness That protected him. How strange to me, this lowly caterpillar, With only love in his eyes for mex A love I could scarcely understand And a love that bound us surely as chains And gently as the pressure of his lips. I'd changed him, somehow. I'd given him wings with which to fly, But I could not give him the strength To use them. I watched him dash himself against the world Again and again, And he would come back to my embrace To be healed. He didn't know he was killing me. He was just a butterfly in my palm, And I had to let him go I had to let him go! -------------------- Copyright 1995 Mirielle Jaborsky, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ------------------------------------------------------ SPIRAL CHAMBERS is seeking original poems for inclusion in their poetry distribution channel. Send the work to: Spiral Chambers, P.O. Box 772, Mentor, Ohio 44061 or email to: repsisk@AOL.com ========================================================== <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<{DREAM}>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==*****=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-