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           Carnelian 
     

Five thousand years ago (give or take a few centurions), a poet laid feathers over wax in the labyrinth of
his mind and then used those elaborations to fly himself beyond the clutch of minotaurs and micromanagers.
Forty-five hundred years later, the world finally gets a clue (with a nod here to Leonardo da Vinci) and four 
hundred orbits past that we unravel the science at last, to make flight happen. Okay, okay, maybe we're not 
the mental greyhounds of the universe.  All the more reason, I think, to cock an ear when there are poets 
musing about ... 

Some amazing poetry in this issue! Wouldn't surprise me one bit to learn that somewhen, somewhere, 
something one of these poets composes will cause a world to whirl into flight.    Enjoy!  The Editor.

On the cover: Bust of an old man in a fur cap [detail]    Rembrandt van Rijn    oil on wood  (1630)
     

     Grace our mailing list, or request a link exchange:   carnelian@sidewalkpress.net
 

Volume 3 Issue 1 January 2003 
       TABLE OF CONTENTS: 
  
  
Talk Erotics                                                               Wendy Taylor Carlisle       Texarkana, TX  
Hanami                                                                      Jack Schafer       Clinton, MO      
This Isn't Anacreon's Garden                                  Taylor Graham       Somerset, CA  
Kissing A Poet                                                         Vanessa Frazon       Kansas City, MO  
Call Someone Who Cares                                      Tasha Klein       Dekalb, IL
Pity                                                                             Geertjan Wielenga       Vienna, Austria
Relationships According To The 80’s Top 40       Rachel Asbury       Shawnee, KS  
I, The Vampire, Move To The Suburbs                  Brandon Whitehead       Kansas City, MO
Pygmalion, Computer                                              Taylor Graham        Somerset, CA
At Full Length                                                            Jack Granath       Kansas City, MO
Definitions                                                                 Wendy Taylor Carlisle       Texarkana, TX 
Storms to Come                                                        Robert Gibbons       Charlestown, MA

Poetry All-Stars

if I have made                                                            e.e. cummings
At thirty-one when some are rich ...                         Philip Larkin
 
  

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    Send to: carnelian@sidewalkpress.net
 

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POEMS:

 
Talk Erotics               by Wendy Taylor Carlisle


So few words between us, I translated you 
from the flesh. My ears buzzed with the language 
of bone and muscle, your bare back 
disappearing into the broomsage. 
Later, flushed with the carnality 
of vowels, I dissolved in talk erotics.
I had a preternatural yen for conversation. 
Today, the blossoming pear trees are cotton, 
spring's wordless gesture puts me in the present 
tense. I distrust the power of the dictionary, 
again speak only skin and its desire, 
search for quiet under your hand and eye, 
for the dumb show between lecturer and lover,
longing to start as one, become the other. 
  
  

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Hanami               by Jack Schafer
(Viewing Cherry Blossoms)

The cherry blossoms were falling all around Inokashira Park
She said “lie down, right here”
And I did
She said, “Pick one and watch until it falls”
I felt like I was lying under a waterfall
Some landed on my face, my hands, my heart
But mine did not fall, only others
Blurred flashes of pink and white and red
But mine did not fall
Her voice was a wind chime
“Do you see the way they spin on the way down?
They are most beautiful when they are dying
They are like the Samurai of old times
They spin and whirl and are most beautiful
When they are dying"
But mine did not fall
She said, “We are dying
You are leaving and I am staying
And we are dying"
I couldn’t answer
I was watching my cherry blossom fall. 
  
  

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This Isn't Anacreon's Garden               by Taylor Graham


I found you under the apple tree
in the warm-cool grass of early May.
I called your name, Sweetheart.
You stirred, stood up,

and discovered you'd been sitting,
just May-flower dreaming,
on a rattlesnake! (a small one—
barely a nub of baby-rattle

at the tip of its serpent scales.
It was lying snug and belly-up
under buttock
in the buxom joy of May.

Why so jumpy, Darling?
In this garden full of apples
what are your chances of being tempted
by another snake today?
 
    

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Kissing A Poet               by Vanessa Frazon


I wet my lips
and whisper your words, knowing 
that in doing so, my lips are touched
by the same sensations yours were
when you spoke them. 
And in my whispering, 
my lips move like yours—somewhat,
and open where yours do
and purse where yours do
and follow the lead of yours
until by reading your words aloud, 
I am kissing you.
 
    

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Call Someone Who Cares               by Tasha Klein


I am washed white 
and heavy. My hands
weep at the glass 
table-round and still. 
I am part sleepy porch, 
holder of leafy things. 
I am the fat balloon of pillow 
talk, grinding rooftops 
and I am keeping the dime. 
  
  

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Pity               by Geertjan Wielenga


Often I'd wonder about you.
Why didn't you say what you thought?
Your silence was strange and unnatural,
it left me sad and distraught.

Your responses to me were evasive—
now you say that you feared to cause harm.
I get it—and thank you for caring—
but I wish you'd succumbed to my charm.
 
    

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Relationships According To The 80’s Top 40               by Rachel Asbury
 

I used to be Jessie’s girl
Until I told him to beat it.
So again, I’m the owner of a Lonely Heart
And it was just like starting over.

Still in search of that crazy little thing called love,
I’m dancing on the ceiling
Down in Margaritaville
Looking for a man
To start me up.

Lo and behold it was like karma chameleon.
My Bette Davis eyes
Locked on the eye of the tiger
And, oh, his kiss was on my list.

As he crossed the crowded room,
I had a total eclipse of the heart.
In a careless whisper,
He said, “Hello,
Say, say, say
Lady.
Angel you could be a centerfold.
I’ve been waiting for a girl like you.”

And I said, “Yes!”
I might as well jump.
I want to know what love is, 
Endless love.

And he replied, “Hey maneater
I just want you tonight
Let’s get physical
Cause I’ve got a slow hand.
I can show you just another day in paradise."

What’s love got to do with it, anyway.
I want a new drug.
So we took the morning train
To Luca’s place on the 7th floor
For some sexual healing
And abra, abra, cadabra
We got the beat.

I did ride like the wind;
Like a virgin, 
In his open arms.
He said, “Baby come to me”
And celebration
Oh it hurt so good.
His island was in my stream.
Do that to me one more time, he screams.
I love the rainy night.

I can’t go for that (no, no, no can do).
No time to keep on loving you.
I can’t get money for nothing.
I’m working 9 to 5.

Say it isn’t so.
Don’t you want me baby?
Well…call me?
When doves cry,
It’s still rock and roll to me, baby.

I leave the rose on his pillow
As another one bites the dust!

   

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I, The Vampire, Move To The Suburbs               by Brandon Whitehead
( to be read in cheesy Eastern European accent )

I rise at sunset from my backyard grave
a terrifying and monstrous sight—
my great cape flowing in the wind
as I slide like a shadow in the darkness—
only to trip over the barbecue pit.
You see, a castle isn't cheap.
The upkeep alone was a fortune
and Renfield was a lousy maid.

So I moved to these residential outskirts,
got a mortgage, a toaster-oven,
one of those little "Garfield" dolls
to stick on the back window of my car.
It's not such a bad unlife—

Except that sometimes, now and then,
I can see myself in my bathroom mirror
and wonder at the change—
What has happened to my sharp, nobleman's face?
Where are my gleaming canines,
my dark Carpathian allure?

What woman will swoon in ultimate orgasmic terror
to a balding middle-aged man 
who drives a dented Civic?
How can I rule the countryside
from the back deck of a duplex,
or terrorize the villagers
wearing "Dockers" and a tee-shirt from "Target"?

Once, I dined with (and on) the finest
of European aristocrats—
now, I eat "Doritos" and watch "Battlebots"
on cable TV.
Sometimes, late in the evening,
I rush as a last recourse
into the darkness and tilt back my head
to howl to the wolves,
my children of the night:
all I ever hear is this little poodle down the street
who yip-yip-yips all the way to morning.
 
    

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Pygmalion, Computer               by Taylor Graham


A keystroke and she stands in neutral pose.
He tries a scarf, a petal, and a leaf;
another stroke disrobes her like a rose.

He likes the color amber, one that shows
burnt sunlight before a touch so brief,
a keystroke, and she stands in neutral pose.

He tries a green pajama, one that flows
just off the shoulder in a corn-silk sheaf,
and slips and then disrobes her like a rose.

What science makes this magic to disclose
her graces—then erases like a thief?
A keystroke and she stands in neutral pose.

The fashion must attend how eyes compose
her face, a look of sudden unbelief
before a click disrobes her like a rose.

Outside the actual flowers blossom—those
that brown and brittle in a chill relief
when fall comes to disrobe them like a rose
and he stands, artist in the neutral pose.
   
  

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At Full Length               by Jack Granath


By reaching for the out of reach
That lies there at the end of stretch,
		I put my dough
		On some day know
	The satisfy of scratch.

As bad as odds impossible,
The payoff but a fingerful,
		Still I can try
		To twist awry
	And spring my half-sprung soul.

Who cares about the general sting
Of failure, laughter, chattering,
		Who cares about
		The bottoming out,
	The oomph is everything.
   
  

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Definitions               by Wendy Taylor Carlisle


A serious man, when he sought out 
the sacred he meant consecrated, 
holy and inviolate; 
not manipulated for wild feeling. 
While mostly what she wanted was pagan, 
ribald, wicked, vain—
her common passions, certainly profane. 
He offered what he offered, love refined,
a righteous quiet to contain her.
For her part, she defined the sacred 
with Virgil, as accursed, 
courted perdition with her skin 
and when she couldn’t hold it out 
her daft, irreverent heart. 
  
  

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Storms to Come               by Robert Gibbons


Glum merely from the gloom of it all, even the fire 
not enough, nor the Port, nor Coltrane
& Tyner on Crescent. 
Until now, as if on key, 
a snow squall, sidewise 
in the wind cures all 
present ills. 

Norwegian spruce dancing in the sky
across the street, the snow 
without much accumulation still 
acts as cohesive force 
between me & the outside world. 
After a week-long move from mid-Atlantic states to New England, 
late afternoon, Thanksgiving Eve, she's gone 
off with her first love: her kids, buying who-knows-what else 
for the house, the table, for storms to come 
among things to be grateful for. 


II 
Let alone potential lilacs! 
I spotted them dead-to-the-window when we first rented 
the place, yet now something else kicks in, purple, 
a purple, sprinkled white with frosting, 
the sweet scent, olfactory memory is 
conjuring all by itself: Spring 
to the fore!
 
  
  

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if I have made               by e.e. cummings


if I have made, my lady, intricate
imperfect various things chiefly which wrong
your eyes(frailer than most deep dreams are frail)
songs less firm than your body's whitest song
upon my mind—if I have failed to snare
the glance too shy—if through my singing slips
the very skillful strangeness of your smile
the keen primeval silence of your hair

—let the world say "his most wise music stole
nothing from death"—
You only will create
(who are so perfectly alive)my shame:
lady through whose profound and fragile lips
the sweet small clumsy feet of April came

into the ragged meadow of my soul.
 
  
  

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At thirty-one when some are rich ...               by Philip Larkin


At thirty-one when some are rich
And others dead,
I, being neither, have a job instead,
But come each evening back to a high room
Above deep gardenfuls of air, on which
Already has been laid an autumn bloom.

And here, instead of planning how
I can best thrive,
How best win fame and money while alive,
I sit down, supper over, and begin
One of the letters of a kind I now
Feel most of my spare time is going in:

I mean, letters to women—no,
Not of the sort
The papers tell us get read out in court,
Leading directly to or from the bed.
Love-letters only in a sense: they owe
Too much elsewhere to come under that head.

Too much kindness, for a start;
I know, none better,
The eyelessness of days without a letter;
Too much to habit ('Stop? But why on earth...?'):
Too much to an unwillingness to part
With people wise enough to see my worth.

I'm kind, but not kinetic—don't
Enlist a word
Simply because its deed has been deferred;
Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won't
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.

Why write them, then?  Are they in fact
Just compromise,
Amiable residue when each denies
The other's want?  Or are they not so nice,
Stand-ins in each case simply for an act?
Mushrooms or virtue? or, toadstools or vice?

They taste the same.  So summer ends,
And nights draw in.
Another evening wasted! I begin
Writing the envelope, and a bitter smoke
Of self-contempt, of boredom, too, ascends.
What use is an endearment and a joke?
 
  
  

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Carnelian   V3 Iss1  January, 2003