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| Eric Shaffer |
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GASK! *
He’s poisoned the air
scientifically noted the hate, date, time, and amount released
on the village
He’s blue-eye taken photos of the men, women, and children rushing
from their huts
He’s watched their faces change color, last hugs,
drops to the ground
carefully noted the decibels of screams, the various gods
prayed to
He’s noted how long it took the entire village to die
who died eyes open, who died eyes closed
and he’s just dropped his pen gasping for air
realized there’s a hole in his mask—no spare.
* Inspired by: Poisonous Legacy, 1990
Lilian Tyrrell
Mary Weems
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"IF YOU NEED ME CALL ME"
You keep callin’
me to get your mind back
like I’ve got it in a folder
locked in a box
hidden in a secret drawer
you know nothing about
Like all people eat today
are cold grits
Like your brain
is the original social security
card, and birth certificate
I kept giving back to you for years
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Eric Shaffer |
Like you don’t know life is a long drop on the head
without a safety net, the day
after your best day when the sky
turns pure white and falls
on you like a clear-piss-filled outfit.
Like you don’t remember
I taught you about the rainbows
in street water first, the new thing
the sun is each day—the way it sets
on its side at dusk and lets night
take over like a jazz
musician on break
Like life is something you can rewind
and play back until it sounds
right
Like you don’t know your mind
is the path to love
and my love is not enough.
Mary Weems
MARY E. WEEMS is an accomplished poet, playwright, author, performer, motivational speaker, and imagination-intellect theorist. Weems has been widely published in journals, anthologies, and several books including Public Education and the Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth (Lang, 2003), developed from her dissertation which argues for imagination-intellectual development as the primary goal of public education. She won the Wick Chapbook Award for her collection white in 1996, and in 1997 her play Another Way to Dance won the Chilcote award for The Most Innovative Play by an Ohio Playwright. Her most recent chapbook Tampon Class (Pavement Saw Press, 2005) is in its second printing. Mary Weems currently teaches in the English and Education departments at John Carroll University, and works as a language-artist-scholar in k-12 classrooms, university settings and other venues through her business Bringing Words to Life. Mary Weems may be reached at mweems45 at yahoo dot com.
ERIC SHAFFER is from Ohio, but lived in Florida for a number of years. He graduated high school in Shaker Heights, went to the University of Michigan, and has written poetry besides doing lots of art. He loves the work of Georges Seurat, and does some reproductions on a small scale, plus Picassso studies. Recently Eric has been producing a number of lamps made from bottles.
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