Everett Goldner is a poet and actor living in New York.

Heat Sonata   Leather, Sketch, Score, Mist

Heat Sonata

Now motion is postmarked, sealed and shipped.
I recognize the propriety of stagnation
and await, with my brilliant reasonableness
the next hundred easels.

I await that old classic: the end of invisibility.
I await the confluence of light and need.
I await a microcosm of dogma...

In Lyle, perspiration's index sits on its stool
and thumbs its tail at a schizoid menu.

Fringe elements wail in the heat.  Thermonuclear with the Jewish 'u' on...
Leaf and chrysalis bent like a blank dogear...

Tasteless things.  Placards and shrugs.
Old anthems placated down through the pipes
Into one small --

Wash 'n wear kaleidoscopes.
Steel-belted harpsichords.
Thrill-seeking stonehowls.

The last impulse of speech is always fluted.

Leather, Sketch, Score, Mist

Elastic gong rings in a shivering space:
bent beams cross on a leafless cluster;
Unraveling a batch of glass-blown bake.

roily dodges wandering, opaque;
momentum, rivaling, lacks a pout to muster.
Elastic bound rings in a searing space.

Out in grace, waiting curious, all origami cascade:
illuminate this stillminded play concave maze –
unraveling spiral, of nonesuch make

while star-felt reelings la deedle de game
reaping, into verse, pelt static through flame.
Elastic bound rings in a salted space –

and moves impatiently, like an unsigned wave
palms up and soundless in any given enclave,
unraveling spiral, horn and wake.

at limbo, o scarlet harlequin, bow a sheer A;
a long-muted mobile sees its calmed outline fade.
elastic bound rings in a salted space
unraveling spiral, horn and wake.

Harvey Goldner  Harvey Goldner (newpacificboomerang@hotmail.com) lives in Seattle. His three chapbooks—Her Bright Bottom, Memphis Jack, and American Flyer—are available from Spankstra Press (Seattle). To purchase, contact Chris Dusterhoff at spankstra@hotmail.com or write Chris Dusterhoff, Spankstra Press, PO Box 224, Seattle WA 98111.

Claire Black....

Claire Black

               19 sonnets from an apple basket

#1

Prominent cheek bones, on the deck of her pastel condo,

high up, Claire runs a red comb through her hair, black

with just a minor encroachment of  gray.  From far out,

a Pacific breeze ruffles white the Sound water and stirs

some business papers beside her chair.  Down there she sees a few

trivial gulls and sailboats and—vibrant capitalism, three huge ships:

a freighter from China stuffed with mattresses for the massive

Americans, a ferryboat, passengers bound for Bainbridge and TV,

and the wedding cake Princess, top-heavy, her pleasure sponges

no doubt drowsy from a big dose of rigatoni and red wine or

something.  She dozes and dreams a rustle of rats in the attic, the

several stations of the crass, a basket full of death wishes & red

delicious apples, a priest—the beast who scooped her up—dead

in a dim room, a bullet wound in his forehead, oozing blood, red.

#2

She awakens and her trigger finger itches.  Claire Black,

recently widowed at fifty, leans over the railing of her deck,

cold now and in the dark.  Should I inject my face with

bo-tox?  Should I jump?  But what if death is—even lonelier?

Maybe I will inject my face with bo-tox and buy a small dog,

a Maltese, maybe two Malteses, male and female.  I'll call

them Tess & D'Urberville, Derby for short. Yes, bo-tox and

two Malteses, but both male—Laurel & Hardy.  O fuck, all

I need's a stiff drink.  From a cabinet above the kitchen sink—

a tumbler, a fresh fifth of Bombay gin and two tiny bottles of

tonic water, Schweppes.  Claire struggles unscrewing the Bombay.

Hot Christ!  I don't need a man to screw: I need a man to unscrew

bottle caps.  After a blast of gin, a TV dinner and a hot shower,

Claire, in a pink silk kimono, settles down for a family album hour.

#3

Two more gin & tonics and Claire feels like a blathering mother so

she first phones her daughter Phoebe's friendly answering machine

in Omaha, and Phoebe's friendly answering machine (Claire sees

corn stalk or parrot green) cheerfully announces that Phoebe

has gone to church to eat corn on the cob, to sing some hymns and

to play a little bingo.  Claire informs Phoebe's answering machine

the if she should ever return to church she'll be packing a pistol in

her Louis Vuitton, to drill a filthy raven between his twisted eyes.

Another blast from the bottle and baby daughter Annie's answering

machine (pantie pink) in Miami sings, breathlessly.  Seems Annie's

fanny's on the back of her photographer fiancé's Harley, and they're

touring Gulf Katrina states on assignment for National Geographic.

Claire, now somewhat slurry, sings to Annie's pink machine that she

is torn between skydiving in Peru & scuba diving in the Caspian Sea.

#4

Nuclear family business complete, Claire decides to connect

with her larger tribe: she flips on the TV.  It will take a village

to polish off this bottle of gin, she thinks, as she riffles her deck

of channels, finally fixing on the Seattle Sonics versus the Phoenix

Suns.  All those stunning men in silky shorts, so tall and nimble!

But what a waste.  If only...if only they could break free, free at

last—God Almighty!—from that retarded basketball.  She trembles

weeping while splashing a tumbler half full—or half empty?—

of gin and tonic, then wraps an Indian blanket around her tightly

and stumbles out onto the deck—those lights, those harbor lights!

Claire's eyes open at dawn.  She crawls inside, drinks her last drink.

She dumps what remains of the Bombay gin into the kitchen sink

and mumbles: "Time to sell my eagle's nest  high above the Sound

and live somewhere closer to the ground, maybe even under ground."

#5

In a peachy Hawaiian surfer shirt, Red Feather—long black hair,

blue cotton headband—shuffles his homemade cards.  He gazes

into, and through, Claire Black's eyes, places a card on each

of the nine points of an enneagram crudely sketched with a red

magic marker on old cotton, and speaks, amused, hamming it up:

"Madam Black, I see shoes, shoes moving back and forth.  I see

a man in black…but not Johnny Cash…I see a flash…not from

a camera…I see blood…from a head…not yours…I see your

"photo… a theater poster?…a postal wanted poster?  Now cross

my palm with silver.  Twenty bucks.  I'm in serious need of fresh

buffalo meat.  Would you like some advice?"  Claire swoons and

nods. "Record your dreams in this specially blesséd journal.

"A mere twenty bucks.  I'm in serious need of a dog for my sled.

Mark your place with this red feather.  It's free: I like your head."

#6

Claire stands up, dizzy.  With a grand theatrical gesture, Red Feather

hands her his business card—Have 3 Eyes; Will Travel—& a rather

filthy paperback copy of Steve LaBerge's Lucid Dreaming.  "Brother

Steve's a shaman—campus tribe, Stanford clan.  Sacred smoke of cedar

"fire has purified this copy—twenty bucks.  My squa needs a new bra."

"Where'd you get your red feathers?" Claire stammers.  "From a

cardinal, but not at Rome—in Missoula."  Claire's fingers now smell

like a Cascade Mountain campfire.  She exits Red Feather's closet—

Red Feather, Registered Psychic on the door—in the back of the

Fremont New Age Bookstore (just below the Troll) and browses a bit,

buying a hunk of  rose quartz and a fresh copy of Lucid Dreaming.

Claire wanders Fremont, and before sundown she rents a basement

studio apartment in an old building.  Her windows—sidewalk level.

She sees shoes, shoes moving back & forth.  Red Feather—you devil!

#7

Saturday night and neon swirls in a Fremont tavern, The Cars

on the jukebox churn cream into butter, the bartenders—Lars

and Laura—draw multiple beers for the boys and girls, Dusty

throws a dart that misses the board, Nicole Rococo swats him

on the ass and everybody laughs.  Out front, under lights, under

summer stars, Leona and the smokers gesture & smoke & pose

for the traffic.  In back of the tavern, in the dark, Angelo parks

his Harley in the weedy lot, and with a big silver key, opens the

back door.  Claire Black follows him down dark stairs, and

together they light a dozen candles on the long table that stands

surrounded by cases of wine and beer.  Slowly more ghosts

file in and fill up the chairs.  It's Claire's first AA meeting: The

Saturday Midnight Fremont Free Monsters.  Hanging on the wall—

their motto: The way up is the way down.  Claire feels quite small.

#8

Shadows and candlelight play on his face.  "My name is Angelo, ex-

con, gypsy, joker, and I….We were out in the yard shooting hoops…

hard words…push & shove.  I got stuck in the gut.  As I lay dying,

blood pooling in the dirt, I saw—it's all  a big joke. The world, the

"Earth—comedy central.  God the father mother joker.  I also saw,

not that we're all in the same boat, but that we're all parts of one

sailor.  You, me, everybody, really just one sailor.  Sounds corny,

I know, like a Beatles song."  The meeting over, the ghosts drift up

and out like smoke.  Claire declines a ride on Angelo's bike. "Angelo,

you're beautiful, and you and your beautiful bike make me feel like

seventeen.  But I don't want to feel like seventeen.  I want to feel

seventy, or a hundred & seventy.  See you next Saturday."  Rarely

have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.

Most evenings, Claire reads: Kafka, Sam Beckett and Sylvia Plath.

#9

Claire wakes at dawn, goes to the stove and boils water—Am I

dreaming?—for a pot of green tea loaded with honey.  She records,

with words and small sketches, her dream: On a sinking ladder, she

tries to climb out of a sunken flower garden.  Out her window she

sees shoes moving.  Am I dreaming?  She puts on her walking shoes

and begins her long day's walk towards night.  Widdershins, she

circles Green Lake, observing the joggers: Some joggers are demons,

some are being chased by demons, while others—the unawakened

dead.  Am I dreaming?  Claire stops at a Greenlake Starbucks, sits at

a sidewalk table.  Coming up the sidewalk—a pair of men, both bald.

They are taping posters to poles.  One is very old and tall and slow

and white; the other, very young and short and quick and black.

A few feet from Claire's table, they stop and tape.  The poster reads:

WANTED!  The Amateur Avant Fremont Freakstar Theater Needs…

#10

…Actors And Actresses Any Age Or Size, Experience Useful But

Not Essential…Also, Anyone Willing To Help Backstage With

Props, Costumes, Sets, Lighting And Sound Or As Stage Hands,

Prompt And So On.  Contact….  Claire remembers her college

thespian career.  Her senior year, she starred as Irene, in Ibsen's

When We Dead Awaken.  That freshman Gina stole the show

as Maja—bigger tits, bigger hips, bigger lips—that bitch!  May

she freeze in Hell or Norway!  Sundown, the following Thursday—

just a hint of Autumn quince in the air—Claire strolls down hill

to an old weathered barn—the Fremont Freakstar Theater—near

the canal.  Waiting to ham for the director, she chats with Troy—

seventeen, short, genius, black—who has put down his hammer.

"No, Claire, I didn't drop out: School interfered with my education.

I didn't run away: I kissed Mom goodbye at the Greyhound Station."

#11

"It was my 16th birthday, Cinco de Mayo.  I tell you, Claire, I was

ecstatic to be exiting rust-belt Buffalo.  My first day in Seattle,

Ocho de Mayo, I explored on Metro, and Fremont felt—just right.

I sat under the Troll awhile, then strolled on down to the canal. 

"Something drew me to this barn, where I met Stan, that old man

over there, hammering.  Forget the director, Peter Pan: Stan's the

heart and brains of this enterprise.  He was a hotshot New York

director in the '70s, a rising star, fast.  Thought he deserved a little

"Holiday in Poland, big mistake.  In Warsaw he looked up mad Jerzy

Grotowski, bigger mistake, and joined one of Jerzy's theatrical, uh,

experiments.  Stan and some other seeker suckers were driven deep

into the countryside, and dumped.  Stan, distracted by some strange

"Polish flora, became separated from the group—lost, alone.  Clear

night awhile—then rain, lightning &  thunder.  I felt like King Lear

#12

 "(Act IV, scene 4) at first, and that was theatrically charming, but

soon I felt like shit.  A Polish farmer out shooting squirrels found me

the next morning, shivering under a Polish oak, in shock.  I returned

to New York and attempted suicide, failed, & then attempted drugs,

"without success.  So I moved to Seattle.  It seemed like a nice place

to sleep.  Stan's taught me everything about this monkey business—

backstage and front—and he gave me a valuable piece of advice:

Shun actors.  Their brains are like vacant barns in which grotesque

"birds and creeping things come to nest.  And I've managed to teach

Stan a little about computers.  Mom got me a PC when I was six,

a gift from a rich lady whose house she was cleaning.  At 14, I was

considered a prodigy hacker:  I could see the cracks in the seams."

When her name is called, Claire tells the director, Mr. Peter Pan:

"Cancel my audition.  Could I work backstage with Troy & Stan?"

#13

Sunday night, night of the autumn equinox, Claire Black takes a

long bubble bath (total immersion) followed by a quick hot shower.

Her body covered with a clean cotton sheet, Claire curls up in bed,

rehearsing her lucid dreaming script.  Sleep.  Am I dreaming?  Yes!

Claire, small as a sparrow, stretches her wings and ascends to the

sun, to the top of the Christ Tower, rose quartz pulsing with light.

Standing on the deck of his penthouse condo—Christ!  He wears

Mexican sandals, 501s, a green cotton shirt with pearl buttons and

a dusty gold pinstripe fedora.  He smiles and says: "Claire, I know

what you're thinking:  Christ looks like Crazy Horse.  Who'd you

expect—Jim Caviezel?  Now about that so-called priest.  Go ahead,

off the son of a bitch.  You've got my green light."  His shirt turns

from green to yellow to red, then back to green again, but brighter.

Claire wakes at dawn, humming Ave Maria.  She feels much lighter.

#14

Claire gives Angelo 500 bucks and a kiss, and he gives her the cold

piece.  "Yes, Angelo, I know the drill: point and squeeze.  When we

first got married, my late husband Rusty, afraid of rapists, bought me

a .38 and taught me how to shoot it.  After we got to know each other

"a little bit better, the pistol disappeared.  Rusty wasn't the brightest

bulb on the Christmas tree, but he was no fool."  Later, at the barn,

Claire says to old Stan: "Say, Pops, I'm going to be an old crone at a

Halloween party.  Can you give me some tips?"  Stan, master of

props, gives her a cane from a Noh drama, bits of a crone costume

and a ragged wig from a Yeats' play; and, touching her face, says:

"A little paint here, Claire, and you'll look like a hundred."  Then

Claire asks Troy: "Troy, can you find a man?  You might have to

"hack the Vatican.  Can you hack the Vatican?"  "Of course I can.

I can hack the Vatican.  Tell me his name and I'll find the man."

#15

Thursday, clear and sunny, Claire meets Troy for lunch, Kentucky

Fried, crispy, a picnic at the Troll.  "I found your Father Yago.  He

really gets around, to & fro, up & down, slums & jungles, jungles

and slums.  It's like something's been chasing him for forty years,

"but, surprise, he's back in Seattle; and, next week, Allhallows Eve,

he'll be at Blesséd Bingo & the Beatles at his church in Rat City."

"Troy, you hacked the Vatican?"  "Didn't have to.  Yago plays

bloggo, has pages at MySpace. Yago likes to keep in touch."

Feeling foxy from the chicken and the rare, crisp autumn weather,

Claire strolls from the Troll to the Fremont New Age Bookstore,

thinking:  I'm coming to get you, Red Feather.  But Red Feather

isn't there.  There's a basket of red delicious apples on a chair, and

on his door, a note: Eat one, in remembrance of me.  Don't worry:

be happy.  Have gone to pick apples with my tribe in Wenatchee.

#16

The bingo basket whirls.  Beatles blare.  Bending low, poking

with her cane, her appearance an amalgam of an ancient Mother

Superior & an old Irish-Japanese witch from Macbeth, Claire

enters the raucous bingo hall &, with mincing steps, heads straight

for Father Yago, who sits at the children's table slurping a hot

fudge sundae, a Notre Dame varsity sweater over his shirt & collar.

She croaks in his ear: "Father Yago, I have a bequest for the Holy

Church, gold and precious stones."  With Claire on his arm, Father

Yago waddles down a dim hallway to an even dimmer room. 

They sit at opposing desks.  Claire looks in his eyes—nobody home.

Claire thinks: Father, you have sinned.  Say half a Hail Mary,

quickly, & kiss your ass goodbye, you freak.  Claire reaches in her

purse and feels the cold piece.  She looks out her exit, the window—

crescent moon.  A flash coincides with Sergeant Pepper's crescendo. 

#17

Next day, Mysterious Murder on the evening news.  Bud, 300 pound

cabdriver, towers over ace reporter, Molly Chen.  Scratching his butt,

Bud explains: "She was so old.  I picked her up at Swedish and she

seemed Irish yet oddly Japanese and when we got to the church in

"Rat City she tipped me a quarter, barked, took it back and tipped

me a dime and then when I wasn't quick enough getting out to open

her door she called me a goddamn fool and poked me with her cane. 

She must have been a hundred.  You see, Molly, to live that long,

"one must be exceptionally mean.  That's my theory."  Claire, feeling

finally even after forty years, returns to the Church and, following

a date with jolly Bishop Tucker at Ray's Boat House (Friday, fish),

Claire makes arrangements to enter a retreat on the eastside of Lake

Washington (nine months official mourning), a convent for rich lay

ladies—flowers, ducks.  Without delay, Claire begins writing a play.

#18

Working title: Irene Contra Maja: a Tragedy.  After subtracting

Ibsen's superfluous male characters from When We Dead Awaken,

Claire takes Irene and Maja and sets them in a ski lodge on Mt.

Shasta, where they battle for supremacy, day & night, on the slopes

and in the bars.  Feverishly, far into the night, Claire Black sits in her

cell at her PC, collaborating via e-mail with her co-conspirators, Troy

& Stan.  They opt for a minimalist approach, but fast—Sam Beckett

fused with Kabuki.  The frequent howls of laughter exploding from

Claire's cell disturb the nosy nuns & other inmates, and there is talk

of importing a specialist priest from Boston to perform an exorcism.

Fortunately, the final curtain drops (Irene, triumphant in a duel

fought with ski poles, plants Maja's body in a lodge pot, and sings

a concluding aria, crowing) before the exorcist arrives on the tarmac

at Sea-Tac.  Claire Black splits the convent and she never looks back. 

#19

After an earthquake Fremont Freakstar run, the play's performed on

Broadway.  Stan, now awakened, declines to return to New York in

triumph, saying only: "Ah, fuck New York."  Soon, Hollywood buys

the title. The movie, now a comedy, ends, not with a duel, but a duet

and a wedding.  Jennifer Aniston, gradually looking more and more

like Humphrey Bogart, plays Irene with considerable flair.  Angelina

Jolie as her bo-tox bride, Maja, is sultry enough, but a bit lazy.  As

bride's maids, Brad Pitt & Tom Cruise star in hooker wigs & skirts.

Jack Black, in Papal drag, performs the Vatican wedding.  Critics

predict Oscars.  Meanwhile, far from the maddening Hollywood

hullabaloo, Troy, Stan and Claire are directing Bill Gates and

a bunch of jaded Microsoft executives in a Grotowskian theatrical

happening involving skydiving and mountain climbing in Peru.

Newsweek headlines it: The Ascension Towards Machu Picchu.

Copyright Ó by Harvey Goldner

Cindra Halm  I met Cindra teaching a poetry class in '93 at a Barnes & Noble. She teaches classes at bookstores, S.A.S.E.- The Write Place, and The Loft. But don't hold that against her! Cindra is an excellent poet who explores connections in sundry ways, and a critic, fiction writer, dancer, and active participant in the local art scene- as well a local grocery co-operative. Had she been a regular attendee of the UPG she might have been described as the yin to Art Durkee's yang.

Asking The Kitchen     It's August....     Said The Chef   The Grove....     When I Walk

Asking the Kitchen

for work is like bartering with any
lover: cut and be cut; warm
to be warm. Whisper, toil; tables will
breathe, fill, sharpening the palate,
your style.

Copyright Ó by Cindra Halm
(poem 1st published in FOOD & OTHER STUFF)

It's August. You'll Be Passing Through Town Soon.

I love the twin guardian angels (not for sale)
on either side of the porch, their oxidized wings
collecting the world's poses curved between them.
And fountains, everywhere, for birds or for show: See, I'm
never alone, on my balcony, scrutinizing postures. Have you heard?
I live in the house next door to the place that sells statues,
25th and Hennepin, third floor. Down in the yard
shape takes its weight: busts, columns, life-sized gods,
obelisks, an array of hound, reindeer, and scroll.
There's enough swaying and straying as shadows
inch at the pointed gate and beyond yet I still find
the bronze soldier who has borrowed your backpack and conceit.
With your curly hair you may look
like my brother but you are not.

The swell of commerce cools as light cools to leave
garden empty of guests and Zeus in stone, riding
chariot urn as figure then figure turns to its nightly
orbit. Gestures make meager, conversations solidify, the far
sky slips between me and these cluttered, familiar heads
like a blue-haze barroom tunnel. I've agreed to stay
in the house next door to the place that sells statues,
forever. This is my beautiful view, a vista certain,
craved. So when you come, come in the morning, full of flesh
and footfall up the stairs to the third floor
where I can watch you move. Wanderer, wind, I
remember you, and there are times when I desire
the sun and your hands in my hair.

Copyright Ó by Cindra Halm
(poem 1st published in SIDEWALKS)

Said the Chef

        "Cooking is like love. It should be
        entered into with abandon or not at all."
                          --Harriet Van Horne

Smell, first, to locate, to tease. Release of food's
perfumes, sprays of oil or sweat fresh from whatever pod
or skin has shed them. Asparagus bursting through steam,
garlic and cayenne escaping the skillet. A knife
or flame carefully played elicits the aromatic truth
for the most gnarled of noses: if you breathe here
you will soon feel the need to eat.

When I breathe deeply, widely, I am able to find
that region near the back of my tongue where
the unwritten menus reside. I am a choreographer
wild with vision, daring culinary music, coaxing
bodies to blend or collide. One day--from where?--licorice
seized me and declared a theme: fennel salad, tarragon
pate’, Pernod in the ratatouille, anise for shortbread.
On another, a Greek appetite engulfed the table: dolmades
mousaka, spanakopita, baklava ah, ah, ah to sup
in the lap of the Aegean Sea! Which came first,
my passion for flavor or an errant breeze
delivering a neighbor's feast? So, I am

In the kitchen where it is hot and my body
is heavy. Saliva insists on primal skills,
reduces me to an animal of constant possibility.
Composition sparks anonymous fires.  I ask myself,
what does the air taste like today?
Then I work, inhaling, spreading my hands to all
corners of the room, bringing the food
before me, away from me, then out the door.

Copyright Ó by Cindra Halm
(poem 1st published in NORTH COAST REVIEW)

The Grove Which Lives Between Matter and Wander: the Heart

Whether this weather abates is not the point,
but rather, how I matter in the weather.

My bicycle shifts beneath me on ice-rain slipping
streets adrift on the nature of plates further under
that could wake a shaky geological matter and flood
bicycle from me, me from mass of earth, me
from myself in health. Everything could separate:

A toddler unwinds from her mother; the mother,
losing ground, grasps madder at whatever weather
has twistered the child away. For moments
or years, I wander, dream about an earthquake's crevice
calling me until I fall through eons of air, granite,
my own body's dense matter. At bottom, small as one
cell, one time's flick, I perceive my amoeba
self, wonder whether weather or I moved me, shifting, here.

Which nesting doll am I, rain above, rain below?
Soaked between cloud and puddle, wet seat and dripping
hair, precipitation, evaporation, I might as well
middle inside a teardrop, a stopwatch, a toy boat in
a full bottle, a pond drip under glass under eye of God's
microscope. Seen. I didn't ask to swim but since
I'm swimming in someone's sight I find I'd like to make
my strokes as beautiful as that eye. One atom this time,
or many, next; it doesn't matter.

Back to ground, the found child and her mother
hover within the grove which lives between matter
and wander: the heart, a mass of clover sending scent
to one, another. This place, here or not, is how
they matter to the weather, is the brother between the eye
and the slide, the seat and the seam, a sudden
spring of water and drowning in a sleeping
earthquake's quiver. It's better that I'm back

From my debate about the weather, on my bicycle
shifting seasons in a cold pelt slipping on the streets.
Now, exposed: ticking tires, slick shoulder, water danger
pressing my pulse to the lover called weather and how I
home or not here, heart. Am I mad to want to be seen,
floral in the midst of inclement, wheeling further into each
drop, feeling? I yield to what happens, to matter. Sleet.

Copyright Ó by Cindra Halm
(poem 1st published in THE BELLINGHAM REVIEW)

When I Walk

The Devil talks to me, too. I shake just like anybody
else. His voice is low and he laughs a lot. But not
the kind of laugh you'd think is funny. It's more like
a hot laugh, one that follows me down the street
when I'm wearing high heels. I am wise so I save
ice. When I hear that low laugh at my skirt I fill the
tub with cubes soon as I get home. If I lie there for
about 20 minutes there starts a ringing in my ears
so loud there's not room for 40 devils. Then the freezer's
empty so I put on my jeans and go across the street
to the 7-11. I never heard any voice at the 7-11
except the one asking me for my money.

Copyright Ó by Cindra Halm
(poem 1st published in PARAGRAPH)

Neil Hester

Neil Hester is a Texas poet currently attending high school. His blog can be found at http://laevanesce.blogspot.com

Advice To The Stout   A Reflection On....   A Difficulty In Parenting   Every Pop Quiz   Half Tragedy   Loosely Laced   Ou La Mort   The Last Visit   Village Children

Advice To The Stout

To those of a fearsome, Goliath descent
That retain a Davidian mind:
Do not ever venture to represent
A hunk of the dim-witted kind,

For power is broader than muscles alone;
Be large in your culture and wit.
With both is strength; it’s not unknown
Athena made Hercules knit.

A Difficulty In Parenting

A wrinkled lump of faithful skin
Lay curled at my daughter's door.
The dog was tired; I took her kin
And tucked him in; he didn't snore.

When she awoke, "Oh, where is Spot?"
I said he pulled a Peter Pan.
For after all, a dirty cot
Cannot compete with Neverland.

A foolish hoax, I must admit,
An act that kindles no applause.
My daughter beamed; and I regret
I've yet another Santa Claus.

Copyright Ó by Neil Hester

A Refl ection On Conversing Mirrors

Intangible glass in tangible glass. They stand
And talk of love which we only touch
The beginning of, and of such
We cannot hope to see the end.

In between, the doppelgangers
Grace their crystal-set creators,
Each as real as next, each
Farther off, smaller
Than that before,
Until there is
none.

I dreamt last night
I almost touched
The end,
but
I

Every Pop Quiz

Our pleasant chatter falls away;
Rattles run from eager pens
And fingertips. Eyeballs writhe
Like witches at high stakes. Red and black
Roulette: my ballpoint pen lands black,
Bound for red. We’re the smartest group
Of gambling minors that I know.

Half Tragedy

She cut the tension with a knife,

a gun, and a smile. What’s life

in a place like this? He’d miss her,

but half-dead love only copes with hell

so well,

            so long,

                         he thought, same knife,

same gun, no smile. What’s life

alone? In a place like this,

with an all-dead love (still smiling),

and all the winds beguiling

her hair into an almost-lively flight,

a sight he could only bear so well,

            so long.

Copyright Ó by Neil Hester

Loosely Laced

Glassless watching: this and that
Are almost one. Blended room
That says: “You shouldn’t scat
With me!”: I differ when I say,
“You are with a better tune
Without your huffy face!”

Even the slums are beautiful
Like this. They almost mock
The other side, with its cruel-
Set corsets and urbane ways;
The ladies find it hard to walk.
You look better without the lace.

Ou La Mort

I was told to, bar what they sing,
Squeeze my longings to a point
That pins the edge. Of nothing
I speak of; of nothing I take
Everything that is left to behold.
Such is taken by eyes that cease
To shun the dead horizon,
The curve that mocks sanity
In its (im)purest form:

God of the civil razor, he laughs
Before the dawn, his daily draw
Of red stench, common and quick,
Laced with the cheers of men
And children, dying to see
Life pass a terrific door and flee.

My name is on a program.
Everything exploded: my longings,
My lungs against the zeal of men
Who urged me (in a sense) to be
With and one of theirs. They cry,
Liberté, égalité, fraternité!, and I
Bellow out of mind, but sane,
Ou la mort!, and die.

The Last Visit

All the petals are in the pond.

He’s loved me four times, loved me not three.

The fairy tale count is very forgiving;

Never and always are very cruel.

At times, we would join, if only to be–

Just for the sake of feeling, of living.

Well, for him, anyhow. I’m a fool.

To only touch is such a weak bond.

I used to respond to every misgiving

That threatened to part me from my jewel.

My jewel– sure, just a thing to be donned.

For awhile, anyhow. Now I numbly let him flee.

Enough with petals. A toad and its stool,

For half-love and lust–– into the pond!

Copyright Ó by Neil Hester

Village Children
               ~John Singer Sargent

The drear of the day settles far
Into her black and lovely gaze,
Deeper than the running streets around her
That almost walk still in their constant march.
Lost next to her, a little drifter
Is somewhere else, wonderful
And stars away. She cannot blink, in fear
Of consuming her grand and dear escape.
Silent and warm, the village is next
To their plain and precious charm.

Copyright Ó by Neil Hester

Dan Masterson

Dan Masterson's 4th book of poetry All Things, Seen And Unseen, was published by the University of Arkansas Press (1997). He's a member of PEN & contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology. He teaches at SUNY/Rockland, as well an online graduate poetry course for Manhattanville College, via his Poetry Master website www.poetrymaster.com . His poems have been published in magazines diverse as the New Yorker, Paris Review, Gettysburg Review, among others.

A Visit Home   Clouds Undisturbed by Human Things   Missing in Action

A Visit Home

The bottom sweater button
is in the next to bottom hole,
and his mother's fingers almost
find it out, but climb instead
to the polished head of a brooch:
a maiden blushing to the left, hair
falling across a shoulder
bared in sunlight.

But no. The voice is more comfortable
than that; it fits the neighborhood.
His hair is going grey; tanned,
he must spend time along the lake.
The eyes react
as her father's would: cut glass
catching light 

Shed by a flowered bulb in the ceiling
where they stand stopped
in the upstairs hall, she
at her bedroom door; her married son
nearer the guest room, a step away,
dressed from the shower
hardly used since he lived at home. 

She'd like to have a towel
from the linen closet, one of the long
fluffy ones they used to save for company,
and wrap it 'round his head, the way
his mother must have done
before he grew so tall. 

He seems familiar,
but she can't believe the name
he used for her. 

She takes his arm
and turns his face up
toward the light, as mothers do,
and finally asks the question:
Whose boy are you?

Copyright Ó by Dan Masterson

Clouds Undisturbed by Human Things

An arrowhead has missed
the dog's spine
blown sky high
and scattered among fish
and one prehistoric bird,
thick-winged and silent,
owning the sun. 

The long-limbed fox is opening
a kangaroo's pouch drifting
ever closer to a turkey,
one leg kicking
at a possum in pursuit. 

Off to the west, far from fox
and dog, fish and geese,
the crab with transparent pincers
floats after the wingless sparrow.

Copyright Ó by Dan Masterson

Missing in Action

She has heard it every night
since he went overseas:
the muddy jeep backfiring at the curb,
his flag-wrapped body bumping to the ground,
stars flicking light on the hedges
as he rolls toward the house. 

Her cane finds the corner of things
and she makes her way to the veranda door,
its screen speckled with bugs
lured by the pantry light. 

At the top step
she shakes her stick at the darkness
and mutters a private curse;
she leans on the railing and takes
each step as it comes, swallowing
quick gulps of air and straining
to see the lawn. 

On down the walk she goes
to the far side of the hedge
where the streetlamp lumps its shadows
on the leaves. 

She pokes at the bushes and calls him
in the voice she used above his crib
three wars ago, pleading for her bambino,
expecting to see him young and warm
in his bunting, longing
to feed at her breast. 

She unbuttons herself to the waist
and probes among the brush,
disturbing nothing but a squirrel,
stiff in the leaves, the mouth
dried open in its fur.

Copyright Ó by Dan Masterson

Whinza Ndoro

A Lady In Her Power   Out The Unloved, We Rise   Pills In Your Book I Took   The Einsteins Of Earthworms

Copyright Ó by Whinza Ndoro

Out The Unloved, We Rise

                                        1

Off sleep my being anaclisis I wish you

Knew the sultry, sunlit redwoods

I soar through sometimes…

Star-struck witness how a world view

Of unloved branches of humanity

Are reinvented given words

With value your kindly

Guises uplift me,

And scores

More than nations

At war apt scabs clad

Of splintering hearts harden

All inklings towards tender-care:

I too rise towards your sequoia-heart.

                                        2

What rings dispositions cheerful or hope

To being a stern-stem is a small anodyne

As talk, hugs on a lark, or Eros’ hub?

In wind to finger-combed undergrowth,  

Is subtle precursor of foliage elsewhere;  

My sensual Woodsman (as all elsewhere)  

Has faith in your shrouded greenery—  

Cordial as coddle-moods be, he approach

With tepid touch all your leaves evergreen.

Copyright Ó by Whinza Ndoro

Pills In Your Book I Took

Eventually, my (un)dying hope, my wishful loop is a getting together,

shoulder to shoulder, in one big festive room,

with you, my esteemed grave-clothed heroes,

who as far as enlightenment goes—

I missed meeting in person.

If time prolonged, then I'll thank you

when first off even God wasn’t enough

nor  family, friend, or lover too;

as life tried boomeranging me—

above it, you held me aloof as a roof.

Randomly, picking up a dog-eared book,

turning the wise pages,

there it was in potent hook—

an understanding of yours, O sages,

when with what ailed me then,

fittingly— (I got the chills)

you prescribed medication 

of wordy worldly pills.

Copyright Ó by Whinza Ndoro

Copyright Ó by Whinza Ndoro

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