Musing Marvels

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October, 1998 Of The Month

The Ride

By: Peggy Makolondra


The dove, in mourning apparel,
seized tight astride the bucking branch
in a blizzard lashed rodeo,
holds true to the ride.
Though a gale screams his name
he ignores the distraction,
attention undaunted by furious foe.

To reign as victor brings no adulation,
no trophies to cheer
or dismiss with a shrug.
The branch, fiercely clutched through
this desperate encounter,
merely grants the survivor
the flight of his life.

Another Hymn

By: Christopher Eck


Unsightly beauty
a chaos of cares,
her form enough to frighten
a physicist and his
laws.
Astounding wind - a weapon -
the queen's.
Betrayed like the sea,
ridden by insolence, her
fractal form a failure to science,
asymmetrical, magnetic, stellar.
On Tuesday she will call to me.
She sings for a son,
one without snares and,
I must me naked
or crazy because
ancient goddess manifest
allowing possession:
her to I to her to I.

June, 1998 Of The Month

Sectional Mourning Piece

By: Mike Walker


what is many?
touched I was from the 
ease of the congealing 
a lot more than a little,
vacancies stretching
here			then
here			now

all I have made quilted
of 			us 
all 			now
it's spread so far and 
temperaments change
readily, if not rapidly

what would augment
(steady/steadfast)
the home of lost homes
at long and labored last?
all I have made burdened
of 			us 
true, nothing more than
my 	own 		speech
 but it settled
down in contrary corners 
becoming absent like characters in
a war epic.

July, 1998 Of The Month

Dancing with My Footnotes at the
MLA Convention: Cindy Steps Out

By: Ron Watson


Our name tags have lines for professional titles.
Mine says GRAD. ASS. 
Which I printed with a black marker
Except for one of the A's, penned in red ink.
Maybe I ask for trouble
But you would think at a language convention
Ideas would prevail.
Try telling that to Dr. Winebreath,
Joyce scholar and keynote speaker
Who asked me to slow dance to Patsy Cline
So he could play grab ass and talk into my ear.
Last semester, his words raced through my head
Toward the deadline on a Faulkner paper,
And here was the horse's mouth
Begging to breathe on my cheek.
How could I refuse?
My research did not prepare me for what I heard,
But my mother did.
Patsy came quickly to the point in "Faded Love," 
But I thought that song would never end.
Near midnight, I danced a fast one 
With a stout lady in a string tie
Who claimed to hold a Black Belt in Willa Cather.
She was a scream, a portable riot.  Later, 
After the songs ended and the laughter died,
I was speechless.  She kept asking 
What are you thinking, Honey?
Each time I had no answer.
Details were slipping away--already,
I had forgotten the name of our song, 
Who asked whom to dance,
Even the grounds for our introduction.
Just trying to remember was all I could say,
An outline of faces becoming a blur
In my gradually vanishing Cinderella affair.
Aside from a poet lounging around the coffee pot,
I think I was the only one taking notes.

May, 1998 Of The Month

After Love

By: Joy Reid


He lies 
small boy naked,
fists curled into foetal paws
his belly pale, 
frog smooth.
He smells of tea tree
fresh sweat 
and loam,
a river bank odour
of dark undergrowth.

He lies 
shyly furred,
tufted toes 
buoying in waterbed sleep.  
Wheat stubble cheeks
hollowed,
sun burn vee
a fiery arrow at throat,
eyes pooled beneath 
restless skin.

He lies 
so

and my 
love

renews.

April, 1998 Of The Month

Dead Roach on the Wall

By: Richard Fein


Particles of the universe race through me.
To them I am a false density.
Like horsemen speeding through a forest of scattered trees,
they're hardly veered by my substance.
The weak organic bonds that glue my atoms to a unity
are of no consequence to these iotas,
that are the emissaries of the infinite.
Dead roach on the wall,
or rather a dangling hollow dried up shell,
lifeless mote.
The geometry of our common third dimension decrees
that we are collinear.
And between us is frantic traffic,
an endless volley of fast paced star shards
voyaging from infinite to infinite
piercing both of us with equal ease.

March, 1998 Of The Month

Night Watch

By: Linda Hays


In the a.m......02:00 to be precise,
on the darkly enveloped,
Night-Blooming-Jasmine isolation
of my balcony, under the Big Dipper,
I sit, slowly rocking,
as the acrid smoke of my fifth cigarette
fills my lungs and the honeyed tea in my
Grandmother's chipped china soothes
my throat. The sky is a ripped canvas
releasing the light from beyond. The
darkness is aflame in the shape of
Andremada.

A neighbor's light goes on.
Are they insomniacal, also,
or are they wandering the
tall structure of home
worrying about imagined slights
of the day or was that just
a babies cry I heard
that shook them from
their slumber?

There is never light or movement
from the apartment two doors down
and across the lawn.
Is that where the so-called crazy lesbian "widow",
the children tauntingly sing about,
dwells?
Why does she hide?
Is that HER shadow moving
on HER balcony in this a.m.?
I would wave but what would 
that mean? There is a seclusion
about the mid-night that does
not allow invasion.

The tree off the westward side
holds the secret of a blue jay's nest
which is even more secretive
in the silent dark. I watched
them build with sticks and threads
and lint from electric dryers.

Silence? Did I speak of
silence? Why then do my
ears roar with so many sounds?
Voices and hums and oh
so indistinct sounds that make
a description impossible.

The apartment on the second floor,
the one to the left, has flickering
candled flame shadows escaping
around the edges of the mini-blinds.
Silhouettes dance across to
the strains of Count Basie.
A sigh, mixed with smoke,
escapes my parted lips.

That other apartment,
the one over there,
has its porch light
shining brightly
into the night.
Such a young girl
to live alone. Is she
afraid of the beasties
that go bump in the night?

No need to worry, dear,
plenty of eyes in the night
keeping a voyeuristic
vigilance. I see the glow
of another cigarette
on the balcony across
the lawn. She too
greets the night and
ignores that I do the same.
It is the code, after all.

My eyes grow weary, I
can feel the sunken sockets
of exhaustion grow deep.
I will sleep again, will fall back
without a second thought
but how do I stay there?
How do I capture the elusiveness
and keep it and make it mine
for more than a few hours?

When light of morn streams
through the blind, and heat beats, 
cruelly mixing shadow and harshness,
highlighting the pillow wrinkles
on my cheeks, I will again rise
and face a day that will soon again
lead to night
that will soon again
lead to the fragrant balcony
under the Big Dipper.

February, 1998 Of The Month

Progress

By: Rusty Fischer


contruction plows through
thursday's routine
forever
watch maytag trucks deliver
huge dryers to the new
laundromat
gleaming chrome fake ferns and
track lighting
see the going out of business sign on my last
visit to
the suds shop
already miss the mushroom wall
paper mustard yellow
chairs orange
folding tables and
those sluts from the
tanning parlor next door
who used to sweat
on purpose
i think

September, 1998 Of The Month

Near Pueblo, Colorado
By: Chris James Kulkosky
Silence of a century waits, hangs
Near the land, a solace of grass hills,
Trees glisten, no one walks by,
Eagles seen aloft, afar,
But the wind, less than we thought,
More than we believed,
Seems kindred and grows,
As my hands dip blue water of a creek,
A face I had not looked for arises.
Copyright © 1988 Chris James Kulkosky

Poetry of Chris James Kulkosky

January 1998 Of The Month

Prayer
By: Germain Droogenbroodt
MAY MY MIND 
be as pure as this moment
of sunlight and blackbird voice
unconcerned about

the why-

to which all  replies fail 
excepting that which in a multiplicity
of leaves and colours may offer:
the rose.

Ronda, 11.3.96
Copyright © 1997 Germain Droogenbroodt

Poetry International

December 1997 Of The Month

the faint light

By: Matt Welter


i watch for the faint light
the perseid's streaking
the fresnel lens blinking
a candle from which
i shoos the moth away

i write by the faint light
the northern curtain shimmering
red and green in fresh wet ink
the sailboat's triangle that glides
past an "A" from the far shoal buoy
i match lights the kerosene
and draws the moth in

i dance with the faint light
the veil of setting venus swirling
across the channel to catch a red crescent
the fireflies twirlings and flitterings
they turn my eye from the far lighthouse
i turn from the aladdin lamp and reduce it
into a sequin in the moth's eye

i am seeking the faint light
the foxfire, the seine
the glow worm, the milky way
i turn from the bright light
lighting near its edge
like the mother bat
i dip into the bright light
only to catch the vine wing
		 the soft foot
		 the white eyes
		 the moth

Comments to author: mwelt820@uwsp.edu

November 1997 Of The Month

The Fiddler and His Lady

By: J. Kevin Wolfe


He made his fiddle a lady
in the exhaled haze of a Dingle pub

As the drums and strums 
danced the clack of Keryl's spoons
the old men scratched their violins
But not Maguire's lady

She cooed and sighed 
as his chin so gently rested on her body 
His peaceful touch drew across her
like a warm breath through hair of silk
Then the rogue Jim made her weep

til she bit us with her pain
and a drip of tears seasoned the Guinness

But he knew his lady so well
The instant he smiled and her hopes took wing  
She laughed like he'd never made her grieve 

Her chorts so loud they drew a curious boy 
who jigged on the stains of the floor
She giggled at the jests of Macguire's bow 
and the boy floated above the hardwood 
his feet occasionally tapping the floor

At closing time 
Jim laid his lady in her worn velvet bed 
and locked her away 
as if she only wanted to sing to him
He hugged her under his arm
protecting his rare lady from the damp chill
of the Irish summer night.

Comments to author: wolfe@psionworld.net

house guest gone . . .
I undress for my bath
on the way

Copyright © 1997 Zane Parks

Zane Parks' Haiku Page