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Carnelian
Another season of watching the leaves tumble away... off and on, up and down— as with the leaves, so too with our human seasons. Hot and cold, inside and out, we're much the same as the rest of nature, which only makes sense, since we're part and parcel of it. Probably the only real difference we can claim is our trying to make our own sense of it, which is, of course, why we keep thumping at the keys, over and over... Some great things going on in this issue: poems from Taylor Graham, Jill Sommers-Scholl, Robert Frost and many others. The months may mean different seasons in different parts of the world, but the cycle is the same, and so the subjects are similar, though the voices differ. Fire and ice, passion and whisper... I think you'll find amongst the poems here much that feels familiar. The Editor On the cover: After Beethoven: Moonlight (detail) by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer pastel on paper 1897
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Volume 4 Issue 4 October 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Surrender Carla Sofia Lopes Ribeiro S. Martino de Mouros, Portugal Venus Mons Jeremy O'Neal Kansas City, MO A Drowning Martin Jervis Leeds, UK Metaphysical Riddle #37 Jack Granath Kansas City, MO No Pattern John Grey Providence, RI A Matter Of Punctuation Taylor Graham Somerset, CA Knowing You Jill Sommers-Scholl Kansas City, MO The Best By Far Geertjan Wielenga Prague, Czech Republic Night Is Everything In Motion Dorothee Lang Stuttgart, Germany Be Clear On Why You Want Ace Boggess Huntington, WV Head Blow Blues Jack Granath Kansas City, MO Errata Taylor Graham Somerset, CA Poetry All-Stars Fire And Ice Robert Frost Love Sonnet XCVI Pablo Neruda (translated by Stephen Tapscott)
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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 to remain anonymous). 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:
Surrender by Carla Sofia Lopes Ribeiro I left so much behind to be with you, To gaze into your eyes and see the light Of your soul calling my name, as you do, When my mind's dark and your heart's shining bright. I wander through the night of every dream I fed with all your love and happiness. I wonder if you are just like you seem To be, inside my deepest loneliness. I give my life to you to become free. Tonight I raise my hands and let you take me. To live again, I give myself to you. Become my freedom, master of my world! Become the voice who's speaking the last word Of my soul, while my broken life goes through!
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Venus Mons by Jeremy O'Neal Below the belly, The slow, perceptible rise, Sweet symmetry; Sprinkled golden locks, Fluttering lid round A moistened eye, Satin hillock about A silken ellipse, My trekking hand Climbs Venus' incline, Slides a single strand Down the vee of Her delicate decline, Raises the water of life My rod of divining Sensed deep within Fertile ground, Drought ending, Welling of spring, That I could linger Forever among The flora of That sleek, luscious, Divine mound
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A Drowning by Martin Jervis You lay on September sand, your face, As smooth as ivory on a bed of ochre, A body's petal left sour by a salty dive, Desired and hooked into water's sap hollows. From the sockets of your dark, emptied eyes, Vision had ebbed in the stomach of the sea, Pyramids of salt-washed teeth gleamed Beside the tongue of your swallowed cry. You lay on September sand, sterile, And cleansed beneath the silent, grey cliff; Stiffened jaws, a spirited heart captured By ocean tides spit into empty lungs. I watched you lying in perfect stillness; Pale hands, tightly clenched, stretched, Weeping veins like autumn leaves, Whilst the gulls on the wing cried in anger.
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Metaphysical Riddle #37 by Jack Granath Which of them is Responsible For this bright splash Of sudden smile, The laws of physics Or a god? Who cares? She smiled, And it was good.
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No Pattern by John Grey It's a remote spot where two paths cross, two paths overgrown with weeds, where my footprints, my humming, fail to civilize. It's a place where everything seems without purpose, leaves fluttering one way then the other, tanagers moving from branch to branch without settling on any, day lilies blooming on the false assumption that a brief time's the equivalent of a thousand years. I pick up a pine cone, wonder why it fell just there, listen to rustle in the underbrush that makes life more immediate but not intimate. Sure, it's all of a whole here but it feels so indecisive in its pieces. Two paths cross... where can they go but nowhere.
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A Matter Of Punctuation by Taylor Graham They walked in together graceful as matched parentheses but with a world of possible words and speechless air between them. She circulated, comma'd, spoke in whispers to this and that etc, then withdrew in urgent conversation w/ a treble clef. He in the meantime kissed single gloves and dashed, setting the occasional period & drawing each subjunctive mood to him, as he bowed, allegro'd amid their question marks, to exit with a silent ampersand.
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Knowing You by Jill Sommers-Scholl
And the clinking tick of wine bottles
Expressly tolls the forbidden hour
Where early rising businessmen
dare not tread
And the hardened, gentle waitress
Starts her shift at the Always Open Diner,
Where calf brains fare as delicacy but
The hooters there have long since hooted their last
and for far less
Than a twenty dollar cup of coffee.
Where’s the milk?
I’ve often at this hour wondered
And considered whether never having met you, a place
where you are not in me
Might be an easier empty space to bear than the joy
And constant worry that maybe I’ll do something wrong,
You’ll leave or, worse, stay— angry, bitter, confused
Wear me away with you like two longing bits of light
Believing they are stars heading into Somewhere, only shedding into nothing,
And then, I don’t care anymore as the bottles siphon,
The red dreaming comes like a sheet that wants to
Wear me, like you, under it, wrapped in tangles
Babbles, silly giggles as if we turned to tickles
And I rejoice in the serendipitous dance of running
Smack into you according to the map of how, when,
Where and why of this whirling mechanical world,
It makes no damn sense at all until it is all over
And you look back at the shadows life left to see
If I hadn't known you, I would not be.
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The Best By Far by Geertjan Wielenga Don't worry that he never buys you roses. They blossom in a week and then they wilt. And so picks his nose? That just exposes not every man is sang-froid to the hilt. Just value his nice smile and conversation. What's that you say? He's ugly and a bore? Then focus on his style and occupation! He's got none? Doesn't work there anymore? My friend, what are you doing with this loser? You don't deserve this treatment. Not a bit! Stop thinking you're a beggar. Be a chooser! Don't settle down with morons like this shit! You've picked some real bad apples, don't you see that of them all the best by far was me?
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Night Is Everything In Motion by Dorothee Lang Changes are departures in mind The breeze of tranquillity Before and after now, the beginning of the end Notions are landscape of likelihood Forseeing future mazes Failing moves Insights are holes in the clouds in the ground Immersing the hours beyond The emptiness of option
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Be Clear On Why You Want by Ace Boggess
[Horoscope for Libra, Aug. 26, 2001]
I want because my eyes tighten curves of her legs,
her naked back, stretch them into marble trees,
branches, cool & slick, that one must own to touch.
I want because moonlight morphs her irises from
hazel into silver. So unlike mine that once dimmed
jade to gray, hers brighten in their turn from color.
I want because wanting is better than not wanting,
easier & more pleasant than to look away. Desire has
its euphoric tension, sans a peak of physical release.
I want because I can want & never act on wanting,
never say, “I come to you in silence of need like
a drowning man in search of affirmation for the lungs.
I plead with you fulfill all that I want.” Because
I never want to go beyond the mere illusion,
scatter showering gold of fantasy, I might receive
more necessary things like words she wants
someone to really hear, to share & understand,
because I want & do not want what things I want,
so keep wanting this imperfect joy of possibility.
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Head Blow Blues by Jack Granath Instead of letting up like that, Why not ask to see my hat And stroke me stammer with a hammer Or a baseball bat? Why not split my steaming head While I crawl across the bed, Bleeding twenty horns of plenty, Why not whack me dead? Then you can stand there, feet apart, Or splash in the puddle of your fresh start, Making lovely sounds above me, Calling for my heart!
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Errata by Taylor Graham He's calling to take back everything. Whatever you imagine may have happened last night, he says, just plain didn't. One of his friends must have warned him you write poems. Kiss of death, this— to discover himself anonymously writ- ten about, drawn, quartered, lined out in metaphor, hyperbole and metric feet that do or, fashionably, do not rhyme unto all forthcoming time, recorded on a deceptively innocent white sheet of paper, which is not, in any way he'd understand (and lacking a line by half), a sonnet.
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Fire And Ice by Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
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Love Sonnet XCVI by Pablo Neruda I think this time when you loved me will pass away, and another blue will replace it; another skin will cover the same bones; other eyes will see the spring. None of those who tried to tie time down— those who dealt in smoke, bureaucrats, businessmen, transients— none will keep moving, tangled in their ropes. The cruel gods wearing spectacles will pass away, the hairy carnivore with the book, the little green fleas and the pitpit birds. And when the earth is freshly washed, other eyes will be born in the water, the wheat will flourish without tears. (translated by Stephen Tapscott)
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Carnelian V4 Iss4 October, 2004