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           Carnelian 


          "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and
               lands, they are not original with me,
           If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or
               next to nothing,
           If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they
               are nothing,
           If they are not just as close as they are distant they are
               nothing.

           This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the
              water is,
           This is the common air that bathes the globe."

					—Walt Whitman  "Song of Myself"

Need I say more? I think not— so let's welcome the new year with some great poetry from Harvey Stanbrough,
Maggie Morley, Jordanne Holyoak, Philip Larkin & company, and get on with untying the riddle... 
                                                                                                                                                               The Editor

On the cover:  Walt Whitman (detail)   by Thomas Eakins     oil on canvas   1887  
     

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

Volume 4 Issue 1 January 2004 
       TABLE OF CONTENTS:


Beyond the Masks                                                        Harvey Stanbrough       Pittsboro, IN
Substance                                                                     AnnMarie Eldon       Henley-on-Thames, UK
The 1st Chapter                                                            Taylor Graham       Somerset, CA
Duty Free                                                                       Karin Henderson       Oslo, Norway
Dallas Cowgirl                                                               Maggie Morley       Kensington, CA
Eye For Infidelity                                                            Jason Fraley       New Haven, WV 
Wistful Days                                                                   Aurora Antonovic       Ontario, Canada
Tahitian Pearls                                                              Jordanne Holyoak       New Albany, IN
A Trek Through The Himalayas                                   Srinjay Chakravarti       Calcutta, India
A Wet Shirt                                                                     Wil Lobko       Eugene, OR
Of The Ruby Slipper                                                      Aliya Whiteley       Lincoln, UK
Our Wedgwood Lives                                                   Janet I. Buck       Medford, OR

     Poetry All-Stars

Places, Loved Ones                                                      Philip Larkin
Stepping Backward                                                       Adrienne Rich
        

**************************************************************************
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     Submissions which do not conform to these guidelines will be discarded unanswered.

    Send to: carnelian@sidewalkpress.net
 

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POEMS:

 
Beyond the Masks               by Harvey Stanbrough
        from and for Gerald Whitefoot St. Clair, just a man


       "There used to be gods in everything
        and now they've gone...
            ~ Howard Nemerov in "The Companions"

I

Before we lost the gods or sight of them
and let them fade away beyond the masks

that separate their world (the world) and us,
we knew there was a line between the sea

and the coral resting there; between
the stream and the rocks that line its bed;

between the liquid and the bowl; between
the fruit and the seed; between the void

and the atmosphere; and between
the music and the flute. We heard the gods

in creaking branches, in the touch of rain,
and consequential gatherings of birds,

their flappings tuned perfection to the ear
their song an invocation in the trees,

whence they would rise as one to form a sign
then turn this way and that, as if on signal,

before they settled to the trees again
to talk excitedly among themselves

about the gods they'd called, whether those gods
would visit them and us ever again.

II

I walk with you to look beyond the masks,
to see us as we were before The Fall,

before we lost the ears to hear the gods
in everything, before we lost the eyes

to see the gods, the sense to know their worth.
I walk with you to taste the sweet mesquite,

the silence layering the land, the music
trickling down the Rio Peñasco;

I walk with you to smell the dusty sage
just before it rains, the joyful sage

just afterward, and to know a god
made the difference; and I walk with you

to learn to count the threads in mescal,
listen for a blessing on the wind,

and watch a single grain of dust settle
gently on a yellowed blade of grass.

III

Before we slipped beyond the masks, the gods
guided us, beheld our gangly stride,

our awkward gait as if we hadn't grown
into our feet. They watched us flail about,

feigning all the while a certain status,
lifting ourselves even over them

until we couldn't hear them when they spoke
and so they fell silent. But now I walk

with you to hear them creak in juniper,
see them hunched beside the craggy rocks,

and know that we and they are of one heart,
the rhythmic heartbeat of the Law of One

as if they'd never gone, as if we'd never
turned our backs on them in our headlong

rush to leave ourselves behind, our rush
to be who we are not. But now we know:

We listen to the earth and to the gods.
We hear them and we see them peeking at us.

They slip across the window pane at night,
they whisper softly just outside the door,

and sometimes, when I've been well behaved,
they rustle dust in moonbeams on my desk.
  
  

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Substance               by AnnMarie Eldon


At first I never did it
then just a coupla times 
after I was wed

I did it with arms 
crossed tongue out
I did it with head 
bowed

I did it by choice 
and because I was led
I did it along with everyone else

and I have refused
to do it
believing there was no shred of evidence

and with arrogance 
and in innocence
and in the other queue 
instead

I did it behind you 
I did it up ahead
I did it with anger sadness apathy and doubt

and thirsting after truth 
and hungover
and when I bled

In pain I knelt alone 
as never could be
and watched you being fed

I did with 
and without 
the red

I did it in celebration 
of the living
and remembrance 
of the dead

But always 
always always 
the bread

tasted the same
  
  

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The 1st Chapter               by Taylor Graham


It's all connected in your head
as clues to a murder mystery:
footprints diminishing
along a wooded path

a girl
with hair the color of blackbirds
about to fledge

and beyond any place such a girl
could imagine,
a minesweeper riding waves
where a war has been,
or is or will be

as any plotter knows,
the imagination's full of
dirty little secrets

a call at midnight

It will turn out badly.
 
    

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Duty Free               by Karin Henderson


My attic office has a tea-break view
of life outside. Car-import documents
fill my screen, require conversion
into another language, a currency
exchange intended to keep words dry.

Stretching, I turn my chair ninety degrees
to window-poetry. Wet crows fly north
cawing in low cloud, birch tops gleam
with perfect glass berries, ripe for picking.
Cars splash by below like rainbow fish
brought here from the tropics duty-free.
 
    

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Dallas Cowgirl               by Maggie Morley


She'd thrown the switch too often, and her brain
Was fried.  She'd drilled herself into the duff
And being hot and wild was not enough
At last: she couldn't tempt a dog. Her train
Had left the station: she was out of gas;
Lived bootless in a land of boots; hard men
With old eyes didn't recognize her when
They found her, toes up, near an underpass.

And no one could remember, could recall
That once she was the Devil’s favorite daughter;
Could suck a golfball through a garden hose;
Could burn the siding off a roadhouse wall.
No one to tell the sheriff “This is not her
Customary angle of repose."
  
  

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Eye for Infidelity               by Jason Fraley


From a bedroom on the 6th floor,
she watches unknowing pedestrians
journey to the local mall
or random stores on 3rd Street.

She has a special interest in couples:
husbands with arms around wives,
tiny kisses on perfumed cheeks,
whispered I love yous for a smile.

The men who look back make her wonder
if they beat their beauties, foundation and long
sleeves hide bruises and blood.
Perhaps they visit local whorehouses,
leave with their eyes downcast, 
cigarettes redder than the apple of original sin.  

When the husbands walk alone the next day,
she imagines the wives spitting on their faces, 
sobs and screams accompany shutting doors,
familiar bodies left behind, no return
to broken families or loveless children

who grow up watching their fathers 
from apartment windows. 
 
    

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Wistful Days               by Aurora Antonovic
 

Late afternoon, dark skies are growing,
And my wistfulness is showing,
Thinking dark thoughts pensively,
Moodily.

No book can long hold my attention,
Preoccupation too sharp to mention,
Thinking of you yearningly,
Longingly.

Searching for some fixed distractions,
To steer me from your strong attractions,
A lump of sadness with my tea,
Despondency.

Whiling away the hours and days,
To lure my thoughts from my malaise,
Wiping away one escaped tear,
Wish you were here.

   

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Tahitian Pearls               by Jordanne Holyoak

A gift
from my lover,
these pearls.
Once hidden,
lustrous spheres
in oyster pressed
and mantle-cloaked
these dark gems,
hint of green
and tourmaline
lay beneath an ounce
of flesh.

I adored them,
both in bath and bed
I wore them.
My lover trailed their
languid kisses
over me, tied them in my
waist-length hair
that buried him
in tress and sea.

How could I
prophesy the day
of ocean's beckoning?
Dressed in strands
of pearls alone,
from giant rounds
to tiny grains,
there, I was lulled
by gentle reckoning,
to be caressed
by evening's garnet sea.
There is no sound
within the current,
its tendrils winding 'round
my legs and hips.
Caressing me with
open lips, beneath
the ocean's toss and whirl.
I'm dizzy in his liquid grip.
He glides his salt tongue
over me, claiming still
another pearl.
 
    

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A Trek Through The Himalayas               by Srinjay Chakravarti


The journey lasts for days and days.
We trek up valley, hill and slope
We carry with ourselves the hope
To traverse strange, untrodden ways.

We enter now a world of clouds.
Along the way we hear the call
Of mountain wind and waterfall.
The pallid mist is spreading shrouds.

At last we reach the final peak.
The summit beckons us to come
The air is cold, our feet are numb.
We climb to reach the grail we seek.

The path is steep and narrow there.
It snakes its way— these stairs of stone
Now mark the route we make our own.
The sunshine gilds the lucid air.

The peak is stark with gelid snow.
We look where sky and earth have merged,
From high above. Our souls are purged.
Forgotten lies the world below.
   
  

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A Wet Shirt               by Wil Lobko


Rarely smells like anything but rain,
A hint of steamed asphalt.
Under where it puddled's an arcane
Shadowy lithograph of sweat and salt.

Even if abandoned for an era
Of implosions, parking lots, new lofts,
You'd think it's recently forlorn, an air
Of midday toil, sex, or some fella offed

By the Hell's Angels or the lawyer's goons—
Who loses a shirt downtown?
Fishy business.  No time soon
Will its owner ask for the lost and found,

Bare-chested, bandaged, and chagrined.
She or he has long since vanished
Straight from their clothes like the face pinned
With tacks to a phone pole.  But savaged

Or gone to better realms, I can't guess.
I kick it over hardy crabgrass shoots,
Until its elbows bend, wrists at the breasts—
A mimic of the nude and final suit.
   
  

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Of The Ruby Slipper               by Aliya Whiteley


The catch holds, window
Glass turn it over,
Away through angry, writhing dark.

It knocks insistent, bed
Flat pillow body,
I lie, dead small, scared tiny.

Scream breath bends, catch
Rattles a warning,
Wants me doll dead by light.

Slow, straight, gathering curtain
Belies the frenzy,
Falls softly over the fury.
I see its stillness through my lids,
Bodied down in blanket layered barricade.
  
  

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Our Wedgwood Lives               by Janet I. Buck


The washed up dance of holidays—
it starts with an innocent snort,
Mimosas with brunch,
a nap to recover our tongues,
gin before argula and vinaigrette,
wine with the meal
we can’t remember we ate.
It all comes down to drying corks.
 
Over brandy and a cold fire,
out come gossiping crows
that mourn a filthy swimming pool,
a parking lot without a space,
a line too long at the bank.
I have beautiful goblets in cupboards
I shine like shoes.
Like brie we grow a sour crust.
 
It’s tempting to crack a crystal flute 
over my knee, discover the blood we hide,
see if it’s red or pale with fear.
Our Wedgwood lives, our gilded plates,
our Dresden’s perfectly contained.
Train tracks tick like clocks—
no chimes, no choirs, no barking dogs
to claw our fences set in stone.
   
  

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Places, Loved Ones               by Philip Larkin


No, I have never found
The place where I could say
This is my proper ground,
Here I shall stay;
Nor met that special one
Who has an instant claim
On everything I own
Down to my name;

To find such seems to prove
You want no choice in where
To build, or whom to love;
You ask them to bear
You off irrevocably,
So that it's not your fault
Should the town turn dreary,
The girl a dolt.

Yet, having missed them, you're
Bound, none the less, to act
As if what you settled for
Mashed you, in fact;
And wiser to keep away
From thinking you still might trace
Uncalled-for to this day
Your person, your place.

   

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Stepping Backward               by Adrienne Rich


Good-by to you whom I shall see tomorrow,
Next year and when I'm fifty; still good-by.
This is the leave we never really take.
If you were dead or gone to China
The event might draw your stature in my mind.
I should be forced to look upon you whole
The way we look upon the things we lose.
We see each other daily and in segments;
Parting might make us meet anew, entire.

You asked me once, and I could give no answer,
How far dare we throw off the daily ruse,
Official treacheries of face and name,
Have out our true identity?  I could hazard
An answer now, if you are asking still.
We are a small and lonely human race
Showing no sign of mastering solitude
Out on this stony planet that we farm.
The most that we can do for one another
Is let our blunders and our blind mischances
Argue a certain brusque abrupt compassion.
We might as well be truthful.  I should say
They're luckiest who know they're not unique;
But only art or common interchange
Can teach that kindest truth.  And even art
Can only hint at what disturbed a Melville
or calmed a Mahler's frenzy; you and I
Still look from separate windows every morning
Upon the same white daylight in the square.

And when we come into each other's rooms
Once in awhile, encumbered and self-conscious,
We hover awkwardly about the threshold
And usually regret the visit later.
Perhaps the harshest fact is, only lovers—
And once in a while two with the grace of lovers—
Unlearn that clumsiness of rare intrusion
And let each other freely come and go.
 
Most of us shut too quickly into cupboards
The margin-scribbled books, the dried geranium,
The penny horoscope, letters never mailed.
The door may open, but the room is altered;
Not the same room we look from night and day.

It takes a late and slowly blooming wisdom
To learn that those we marked infallible
Are tragi-comic stumblers like ourselves.
The knowledge breeds reserve.  We walk on tiptoe,
Demanding more than we know how to render.
Two-edged discovery hunts us finally down;
The human act will make us real again,
And then perhaps we come to know each other.

Let us return to imperfection's school.
No longer wandering after Plato's ghost,
Seeking the garden where all fruit is flawless,
We must at last renounce that ultimate blue
And take a walk in other kinds of weather.
The sourest apple makes its wry announcement
That imperfection has a certain tang.
Maybe we shouldn't turn our pockets out
To the last crumb or lingering bit of fluff,
But all we can confess of what we are
Has in it the defeat of isolation—
If not our own, then someone's, anyway.

So I come back to saying this good-by,
A sort of ceremony of my own,
This stepping backward for another glance.
Perhaps you'll say we need no ceremony,
Because we know each other, crack and flaw,
Like two irregular stones that fit together.
Yet still good-by, because we live by inches
And only sometimes see the full dimension.
Your stature's one I want to memorize—
Your whole level of being, to impose
On any other comers, man or woman.
I'd ask them that they carry what they are
With your particular bearing, as you wear
The flaws that make you both yourself and human.
  
  

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Carnelian   V4 Iss1  January, 2004