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Carnelian
It's another spring, time for another fling with leaves and light and flowers—so why not spend a few of those delicious hours with the taste of poetry on your lips? Take a few trips down the melody line, and rest an eye (or two) on some great writing, be it here, there, or wherever. Shake off that rime and slip right on into summer with some fine work by Taylor Graham, Richard Moore, and Alison Eastley among others in this issue. Check out what's going on in On These Premises, and enjoy all the talents these writers employ... The Editor
On the cover: Spring (detail) by Tamara de Lempicka oil on canvas 1928
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Volume 5 Issue 2 April 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Conversations With A Naked Ascetic Alison Eastley Tasmania, Australia Sleep Deprivation Jeremy O'Neal Kansas City, MO Time Capsule Monica Ellen Smith West Liberty, OH Tongue Patricia Wellingham-Jones Tehama, CA Girl Positioning System Robert Johnson Washington, D.C. The Watch Richard Moore Belmont, MA Getting Chaucer Right Taylor Graham Somerset, CA Devices On Standby Kelly A. Malone Canyon Country, CA The Canadian Within John Birkbeck Iowa City, IA Durga Puja Srinjay Chakravarti Calcutta, India Hard Jane Adam Buffalo, NY Or A Definition, Beyond Rescue Maurice Oliver Portland, OR Poetry All-Stars In A Dark TIme Theodore Roethke There He Was Alan Dugan
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Send 1-3 original poems, any form or style, no longer than 100 lines (per). Author retains all rights. Cut/paste poems into the body of an e-mail (not as attachments or links to URLs). Simultaneous subs okay; previously published okay if you hold copyright; poems accepted/rejected (generally) as is. Include name/city/country; no screen names please (use pseudonyms if you prefer anonymity). No homework assignments or therapy exercises, thank you. Please query concerning poems longer than 100 lines, or articles for On These Premises.
Submissions which do not conform to these guidelines will be discarded unanswered.
Send to: carnelian@sidewalkpress.net
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POEMS:
Conversations With A Naked Ascetic by Alison Eastley This day is so ordinary it's impossible to find the ghost of what happened or what we would do if it wasn't for the night's perfect pitch for talking about sex. We talk of contentment, the way you hold me closer when you're close to orgasm. I listen to staggered breath, the stutter of arms and legs and I want to bite. I want to taste blood attached to flesh. You understand what I mean, we want to devour each other but we know we'll never be complete though it's almost possible the way you stay inside me just because you can and it doesn't matter we've finished, we always start again. We try to explain what togetherness means, slowly choosing words to describe what it is we like. You say I've a gorgeous ass or that my mouth is so soft because it's made for sucking your cock. I laugh and say you have the strongest arms, the most beautiful chest, the best lips I've ever kissed and still, we haven't explained a thing. The time you felt like crying came close to when I said you're a naked ascetic, someone who sleeps under blankets of leaves and by day wears only the bark from trees easily removed when the day is anticipating the night will witness the love we always make.
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Sleep Deprivation by Jeremy O'Neal What potential we waste With our hooded eyes, Lying prone, sprawled, Even neatly posed, Especially tucked clean And orderly, rigid with routine, Aid induced but without dreams, Eight hours of listless escape, Retiring away from what is real, How we could grasp more, Learning to dream with eyes wide, As the world spins and gyrates Without need of catatonic states, While the sun is loathe to set And bursting hotly to rise, Still we cuddle comfy with greed to lapse, And it's all this sleeping That should make us feel deprived
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Time Capsule by Monica Ellen Smith
Time goes, you say? Ah, no!
Alas, Time stays, we go
—Austin Dobson (British author,
"The Paradox of Time")
Though many times I’ve paid no mind
And pushed the old trunk aside,
This day I bravely bowed to fate
And beheld what lay inside
With pounding heart I broke the lock
And raised the dusty lid
I could not wait to resurrect
The treasures which it hid
Entombed within, conserved with care
Concealed throughout the years
My life, preserved for posterity,
Before me now appeared
In infant’s raiment, small and crisp,
In yellowed scrapbook pages,
In crinkled paper and ribbon shreds
I survived throughout the ages
I closed my eyes and summoned Time
I begged it to remain
I could not bear its passing now
I prayed it would refrain
I closed the lid and asked myself
Time goes, you say? Ah, no!
I thought again and sadly sighed
Alas, Time stays, we go.
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Tongue by Patricia Wellingham-Jones She stabbed the two-pronged silver fork into the tongue, dark red and huge, lifted it from its simmering bath of peppercorns, bay, oregano, thyme. She peeled off the tough outer skin, sliced thinly crosswise, fanned the slivers of pinkish-red meat across a platter dotted with roses. Tucked sprigs of fresh green parsley along the edges, then served with a flourish and a pot of spicy mustard. The guests helped themselves to the mystery meat, chewed with thoughtful frowns, made the kind of comments you hear at a wine-tasting: subtle aroma, easy on the palate, no aftertaste. I forced myself to place one small morsel in my mouth, regretted my help in her kitchen. Knew in my head the cow’s vocabulary consisted of “moo” but felt my stomach whirl at all the words murdered and swallowed with mustard.
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Girl Positioning System by Robert Johnson I incline my head toward hers, Romance in mind. She says, in an even, firm voice, Off route, recalculating Move mouth right and down Moisten lips Proceed to destination. I plant a warm kiss Our passion awakens. I raise my right hand gently toward her left breast, A caress in mind. She says, in an even, firm voice, Off route, recalculating Move hand up and left, palm pointing inward, fingers together Proceed to destination. I cup her (firm) breast Our passion grows I lower my right hand, gently, Purse my lips, softly raise her skirt, slowly Breathing, reaching, damp with sweat— She says, in a quivering, breathless voice, Off route, recalculating Descend Proceed to destination Quickly Descend Proceed to destination Quickly Descend… I shift into high gear, The road before me wide and clear.
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The Watch by Richard Moore
Nightfall on the hill.
Somewhere a siren, wild and shrill,
goes panicking through the streets below.
I search the shadows, hoping for a glow—
something to flash and show
me why I wait here—wait
and think: something's inside me that I hate.
A fire. It's like a sun—
unworldly, yet the heart of one.
A building glows with it, and draws
crowds, men, faces alight, who pass and pause
to watch the scarlet claws
draw earth back into sky,
as through a black tornado's empty eye.
Red-eyed holy birds,
crueler than flesh, subtler than words,
plumed Pharaohs, sun-born worshiped kings,
light, and feed on the solidness of things.
They ride on magic wings.
It is in me they ride.
They're nothing much. They're what I keep inside—
an emptiness I twist
around, attempting to exist...
It's pleasanter kept shut in gloom.
I raise up stones, wall Pharaoh in his tomb,
and try not to exhume
the hollowness it hides—
but the earth shakes, crumbles, and out he rides.
That siren slings its noose
to catch a prisoner on the loose—
me there! I'd have him flashing higher—
darkness is coming—and see the naked fire,
the naked god inspire
his stones, raise up, possess...
Charred walls collapse into his emptiness.
And now the light of day
like a burnt fire sinks away—
and like a melting gauze, has peeled
over the body of the moon, revealed
in a dark starless field,
unterrified and white,
standing out there in nothing but the night.
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Getting Chaucer Right by Taylor Graham When we did the General Prologue she got a secret smile as "Amor vincit omnia" passed her lips. And then she'd snap a pop-quiz question at the girl who'd been daydreaming in class. And I noticed how Mr. Alexis the Episcopalian of the faculty would always take her hand an instant before it was necessary to pass her into the driver's seat of her black Rambler. And she, good Catholic of the faculty, would smile and say something briefer than "Amor vincit omnia" but too soft and far away for any of us non-believers of 12th grade honors to hear. Oh, we all believed in love.
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Devices on Stand-By by Kelly A. Malone I’ve tucked away two forty-fours. They’re deep within a wall. Their bullets line my dresser drawers and wait for me to call. Two vials filled with cyanide are safe within their space. I’ve stashed them in a pot outside beneath the Queen Anne’s lace. Two gleaming knives to slit my wrists sit nestled in a shed. I’ll use them if my grief persists to soak my ivory bed. Two slipknots made of sturdy rope sit limp upon a chair. It helps me when I cannot cope to know that they are there. You ask me why they come in two’s… the need for added stress? In case the first one that I choose is launched without success. I’ve had these items in my house for over forty years. I’ve hid them from my kids and spouse, my neighbors and my peers. I tried to do it years ago, but then I had a boy. And two more children in a row, brought intermittent joy. And then I thought my work was done. I’d surely end my life. But now my daughter has a son, my son now has a wife. I’ll get around to my demise and give in to despair, when I can look into their eyes and tell them I don’t care.
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The Canadian Within by John Birkbeck I walk alone and across the river is another, unknown. Midnight is spinning away and church bells ring in the new hour of day, distantly singing in swirling mists her voice is ringing like the bells' gong alone in half-light with an ancient song. It soon occurs to me that a voice, my own, calls out to a far-off She, my otherself, Francophone, far off in the otherplace, calling to me alone.
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Durga Puja by Srinjay Chakravarti The temple priest is ringing his bells. A cloud of smoke from lamps and wicks Haloes the Goddess, glowing bright. This beat of drums both maddens and dulls. The incense burns: so heady the musk, Our senses flounder in its flood. This endless chant of sacred words Soon drugs our lips, while calming our minds. The Goddess, always staring at us... Her painted pupils cut through smoke And read the secret thoughts we think. We somehow feel this within our hearts. To Mother, we know, we bow and pray— Her formless form this image of clay.
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Hard by Jane Adam I am the edge you have come to in your travels when you know you're never going to get where you think you have to go even if it's by camel i am the hard plastic seat in the takeout restaurant you traveled so far to get to when you were hungry for people & grace & light not just a shrunken beef patty with brown lettuce i am the clamp on the valve of your anger when you thought anger was all you had left to feel i am the bite and burn of whiskey the dry throat grate of capsules i am the scissors with which a lonely woman cuts apart her pages cuts out words both offensive and sacred i'm a tight bandage footbound i'm a bit of glass or a rusty razor blade plied upon clitoris & umbilical alike in dust in mud wherever i find a bit of female gristle i break the egg and uncurl a tiny transparent dove to bake on the sidewalk i am the sidewalk i am the newly textured concrete under you the first time you fall off your two-wheeler i can take the skin off you but i can cut you free
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Or A Definition, Beyond Rescue by Maurice Oliver Almost anything on the horizon. Smells from a bakery shop. Leaves that shade us. Wild deer bedding down for the night. Dust on a window sill. Vegetable stands on the roadside. Sunday afternoons in the garden. Rowing on a lake in the woods. Grass growing to the waters edge. A car speeding by in the diamond lane. A Rococo boulevard. Sewage plants. Green stems. Slaughter houses. Boards for roof or floor. Under an ad on the subway. Iron locomotives. Tin boxes. Scattering earth with a plow. Idle cylinders. A plume of steam. The red green blue of lips laughing. Or perhaps several harbors that pierce all that. Patiently waiting in his raincoat.
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In A Dark Time by Theodore Roethke In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood— A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What's madness but nobility of the soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall. That place among the rocks— is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have. A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight come again! A man goes far to find out what he is— Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
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There He Was by Alan Dugan on horseback, and the saber's drawn, lunar acuity cut out a slice of sunlight in mid-air. He whirled it once around his head, a halo, and discharged it at a foe. Charge forever, hero! Rear horse! The saber points toward death, by means of which he changed into a statue in the square. To you the glory, brother, and to us the girls.
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Carnelian V5 Iss2 April, 2005