LETTER TO THE EDITOR

a little hindsight
far from frenzied mind
casts a light of its own
cool & appraising

eli p. cimoza

THERE ARE THOSE IN POETRY PURGATORY

so you say you're waiting
for a zeusesian lightning bolt
to strike you
in order for you to compose
a poem?

just write, motherfucker

your parameters of what
a poem should be are
the size of a neat yellow
square tile
in a namby pamby kitchen

while you're scrubbing the dishes
waiting for lightning
i am pounding the keys
i am making my own goddamn lightning
& it strikes several times daily
the more i hammer away

but you, waiting
you w/apron strings knotted around your soul
you w/your neat sparkling kitchen tiles
& your dusty typewriter
you who believe in god
you w/your dead muse

you keep waiting

as the white electricity
keeps forking over my machine

Rob Plath

EXPLORING A FLOWER

…(T)he beginning of poetry in English occurred when an illiterate farmhand was aroused from sleep by an angel who then prodded him to versify the Book of Genesis.

Robert B. Shaw, “The Muse at Loose Ends”

I who cannot write, write.
There are those who know miracles cannot be miracles.
Thin lipped, her eyes wide open, she stands to sleep
and I wonder if, when night lives, this is her time.
I know the Bible.
I have heard it often enough.
Yet word for word, verse for verse, I cannot read.
Read I must.
She holds the railing,
sways with the movement of this thing she rides,
lips so thin when hair drips before her ears,
they bleed into her face.
I need to meet her.
She can teach me all things.

Michael Brownstein

BEWAILING

I try to be astute
& come off cruel
I try to be clever
& come off dreary
I try to be sexy
& come off creepy
Jesus wants me
For a sunbeam
I can't abide the
Light

KE