Musing Marvels

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August, 1998 Of The Month

Impasse

By: CK Tower



     “...not a single answer had been found...”
                                      -Oliver


Rising full with chantings, 
rustling with cobalt mantras I cannot 
unravel, having been 
born of things other than fierce 
and fragile breaths,
          this warm spell rising 
incites my own unsettled prayers 
invoked to blackened skies.  One bleached luminary 
against the framework of night.  
				
Tonight the trees are possessed.  The oaks
standing naked or draped reluctantly 
in the frigid clinging fabrics of this 
drawn-out season.  I too, have been clothed
in material not of my design and am tired 
of wearing this shade... 
          nothing like August cerulean.  
But I’m uncertain of this temperate promise 
of green, wary of sapphire kisses 
offerred to flesh still quivering 
with the remembrances 
          of December.  If I trust this invocation stirring, 
calling me out 
into late March dusk, tempting me to discard 
my winter adornments, it may only leave me
as it has before, wrapped tighter in this blue.

Anastasia

By: David Hunter Sutherland



No high-strung chords, promenades or artifice.
Beneath flashing eyes, 
imperfect order leads you
and threads a crowd in a kingdom,
whose gossamer pales to your skin.
Lodged in sculptured grace,
pride cuddles about your throat
and reigns in the midst 
of a desolate seclusion.

Hung like pearls across your chest,
brubers, bettors, and sordid eyes
feed this new political famine.
And I am cast in your glow, 
the cutter last to share in your presence.
The handmaid scribed 
to this sanctimonious deed.
Jealousy binds to the pull
as the scaffold folds you in these arms. 
(God save the queen.)

My Mind Hovers Over You

By: K.R.S. Murthy



 Purged with the dreams of the companionate beatitude,
 hyped by the hopes of your amorous enamor,
 day dreams of you fly me in the air of ecstasy,
 longing to share the breath with you,
 your curly hair springs bouncing on my finger tips.

 Stone deaf, did you cocoon prisoned in your routine,
 pasting a label of smile on the face.
 Emptiness peaks through your contempt disguise,
 making you a victim of vulnerability.

 Your sight is a delight
 a few feet away 
 so near, yet so far.

 That lascivious instinct
 in you would sway my senses
 to unknown heights
 
 Warmth of your presence
 raises my hopes so high,
 for your blank eyes
 to beam the desire
 hidden deep in your heart.

 Over your sensuous body,
 the heaven's abode,
 rides free and wild my mind.

 Though shapeless, shapes up,
 becoming your curly hair,
 bouncing on the shoulders,
 springing on the temple,
 the temple of your charm,
 caressing the cheek,
 lowers to the honey dipped lips.

 No!  you cannot wipe it away!
 Behold! It is not the breeze,
 but my mind it is,
 soothing you off the surprise,
 turning into water deposits
 all over, cooling you all over.

 Yes, with you, day and night,
 a feat not your shadow can do,
 leaving me with fever long desired.

Comments to author: skmurthy@attmail.com

October 1997 Of The Month

Bargaining For Time is A Gamble

By: Patty Mooney


He lays an Old Spice hand
on the side of my face
tracing how far
he wants to go
after a foot-in-the-door pizza pie,
one glass of pale blood Cribari
and some parking-lot sweet talk.
His surf-blonde hair
feels like the down in my goose pillow
and his passion is commendable.
But he is shorter
by an outstretched palm
and sometimes
I want to be over-
taken
so I don’t let him kiss me
and he swells up
like a frog’s throat.
"It’s not all that complex," he says,
"Don’t you want to understand me?" he says.
"You’re so tense," he says,
and he says, "I need you.  Now."
like “Come out or I’ll shoot.”

September 1997 Of The Month

Soup

By: Kevin Crone


I wish we had some soup.
Something like chiken soup
Without the ethno-religious
Stigma attached to it.

Just some good old fashioned soup.
Something to take the burn
Out of my stomach like when
I was a kid and soup healed

Everything. Maybe if the whole world
Ate some soup at a certain time
Every day. Potato. Tomato.
Gaspacho. Cream of Mushroom.

We wouldn't have to worry about
Peace. Nobody ever fought over
A bowl of cream of celery.
I really wish we had some soup.

One For The Money!

By: Truthtable@aol.com


Anticipating,
We will wait 
Bide our time.
For we know
Things will get better,
Improve.
Real living starts later.
Right now, we must prepare 
Study  learn  save  earn.
Later, we'll reap, begin, start.
OK?
Anticipatingly, we watch for The Right Moment.
When it comes,
We need to be ready.
When the Real Signal comes,
We'll be ready
To live,
Sing, Die...
Die??

Two for the Show!

Things are just about right.
Just a little longer.
Hold your horses,
Settle down  Be prepared.
Almost ready for love.
Almost ready for life.
Almost ready for letting our
Real Self flourish...
Almost ready.
Almost ready.
Liftoff minus one and holding...

Three to get Re

December, 1998 Of The Month

Mad

By: Vincent E. Baca

Like the mad horn
Of Charlie Parker
She bursts with
mad talk
mad looks
mad eyes
Tragically hip polyester dress
Green barrettes restraining the curls

Truths The World Has Taught Me

By: Michelle A. Bartley


This world has taught me many things,
It's served its purpose well,
Encased my heart, entrapped my soul,
Within it's phantom shell.

The first thing that it taught me,
Was life's a wicked road,
To prove it's point it taunted me,
With dreams I bought and sold.

Holding bait before my face,
Then snatching it away,
As I struggled endlessly,
To keep the wolves at bay.

The second thing it taught me,
A lesson carved in stone,
Is other's can't be trusted,
So it's best to be alone.

Don't think about companionship,
For it's merely an ideal,
A senseless flight of fancy,
None of it is real.

The next thing that it taught me,
Was love did not exist,
"Only fools and idiots, believe"
The world had hissed.

And just to add validity,
Each one that I've held close,
Has gone and left me trembling,
When I needed them the most.

It's taught me things I never knew,
Or really cared to hear,
Ruled my life through tyranny,
While casting doubt and fear.

 Counterfeit realities  
A story packed with lies,
Obscuring truth and vision,
With well versed alibis.

These truths the world has taught me,
So contrasting they are,
To everything you've taught me,
My precious guiding star.

This path in which we tread upon, 
Etched in this earthen ground,
Although there may be perils,
Dreams can still be found.

And trust, although it's very hard,
It's been the given key,
To open locks within my heart,
To set my spirit free.

The love I thought did not exist,
I see within your eyes,
While the truths the world has taught me,
Are a great big pack of lies!

March, 1999 Of The Month

Fear of A Floor

By: Rich Lovejoy


The drone of delerious melody
                wraps itself around
the smoker's cage

         from out of the light
comes a young woman
                  with raven black hair that
          your eyes just slip off
      within her mouth 
      is a knife
         which playfully dances 
                     around your throat
    and you dare not speak
          lest your muscles adjust
         ever so slightly
                causing a fatal 
prick

            She's dressed mostly in the
     breath of a dozen strangers and the
haze of cigarette smoke 
           she's so wispy you could breath her in
        if you wish
    to risk
          a trembling throat expansion

July 1997 Of The Month

Warmth
By: L.M. Cunningham
Sensation,
Skin 
On paper.
Warmth
could come from you,
From me,
From electric creatures
Prowling nights
like back alley
strays
into small
colorful boxes,
humming motors
can suck you in,
but
Touch,
Skin,
Even Paper
Are worth more
Copyright © 1997 L.M. Cunningham

Comments to the author: mann@tima.com

From Plant to Pioneer

By: L.R. Powell


Beauty burst into the room a whirlwind,
her smile chasing sunbeams like little 
tufts of dust before a broom.
Her voice gently tapped at doors
closed tightly so many years ago.

Unconsciously she cooled her feet
while throwing terms upon the board,
and this tired heart skipped a beat
to see a silver ring of attitude
that another's mind once knew.

Familiar freckled hands danced quickly
in and out my vision, erasing chalk,
while too excited with the sharing
to find and use the proper tool, 
and painting shades of another's touch.

A distraction this, and ill afforded
when time is short and quickly flees.
I have no time for chasing ghosts,
and I don't think my soul could bear
to ache with want once more.

So I race on toward other goals,
and 'tho my feet be lighter on the road
I'll always wonder, " Did she know?".
Chalk dust and imaginary numbers
will cheer me as I go.

April, 1999 Of The Month

Four Hatchlings Near My Window
By: Glen Fauré
For each of them a day will come
when dawn’s tempo will be urgent.
When something in the clouds will nod
and a song in the wind will have them.
When the world of the air
steps back and loosens
making room—
and they will find their way.
Copyright © 1997 Glen Fauré

Comments to author: ghfaure@theramp.net

June 1997 Of The Month

Sun and Raven
By: Diane Engle

Such a private person could never write openly, especially from Alaska. Perhaps the totem on your postcard says it all, fantastic with its skewed features and atitled "Sun, sea and raven." I see wings but no raven, precious little sun. No smile. I'm not sure it says anything about love. Sleepless without you I fill these squares in the crossword: "Love for Caesar," says the clue, and I know, I know. Words fall into place-- amo, amas, amat, amamus, each dependent on the last. The scowl on the face of the totem is frozen in place. Seals nuzzle snouts, lids drooping, as they glide in and out icy waters. I have slipped under crossword and postcard into sleep, where you wait like a lie, like a weight on my dreams. You move only in whispers. When I wake the postcard lies crushed on the crossword. I'm not sure they say anything about love.

Copyright © 1997 Diane Engle

Comments to author: 76557.3463@CompuServe.COM

Coffee Shop
By: Alan W. Goodson

Old men with nothing to do,
Who haven’t gotten started yet...

A circle of old friends...coffee hot and bitter,
like some memories of youth gone by.
Reliving the past with half-remembered stories,
half-baked lies, and imagined truths only half-discovered.
Their days nothing more than fallen leaves
swept up in the cold, hard winds of time.

Remaining days of their lives measured in cups,
Cups of sorrowful lament, filled to the brim
with memories of paths not traveled,
choices never considered, chances never taken,
love never found, or lost in the haze of soft regret.

Untapped wells of knowledge...life experience seeping through,
to form stagnant pools of advice for youth
who don’t listen, don’t care, don’t know or wonder
about frail words spoken in meaningful jest,
by old men whose lives don’t seem to matter anymore.

Old men with nothing to do,
Finished before the day begins...

Left to compare scars of battles with life
and secrets of success never quite obtained.
Steam rising from their cups, like the spirit
of their youthful dreams, drifting off into thin air,
to mingle with the stale smoke of bridges burned.

Weathered faces hiding behind wrinkled masks,
sculptured by pain earned from hard work,
harder lessons, and hardest times.
Arguing over the bill that comes due
because they feel all their debts have
already been paid in full, with interest.

The hands of the clock move more swiftly now,
speeding onward towards eternity, towards rest,
towards another world where the coffee is free,
the waitress doesn’t expect a tip,
and the tables are always clean.

Old men with nothing to do,
And an eternity to finish...

Copyright © 1997 Alan W. Goodson

This Side of Yesterday
By: Michael Loose

There is a place
just this side of yesterday,
but not quite tomorrow,
where time runs still as silence
and voices still as time,
in which we cannot stray
from the hidden shadowed whisper
of what we know is truth
beneath a pall of desire.

Waters do not ripple
and leaves are never stirred
by breaths of errant winds,
and standing in that place
the center is seen as the whole,
and the one can only be
the all.

Copyright © 1997 Michael Loose

August 1997 Of The Month

The Clown
By: Peter Wastholm

My name opens doors,
my face is known,
but no one sees
that I come alone.

Mendaciously smiling
in the gleeful crowd,
I say nothing,
but I say it loud.

I sing and I laugh,
I joke and I jest;
at lively parties
a popular guest.

As morning breaks,
the party ends.
I bid farewell
superficial friends.

A clown so amusing,
so clever and shrewd,
heads for home
in solitude.

Where's my companion,
who cares for me,
who can truly hear,
who can truly see?

Copyright © 1996 Peter Wastholm

Aphorisms Galore!

Steel Umbrellas

(For Vartouhi Yeranos)

By: David Hunter Sutherland

And its been raining mostly folderol
gush and puff of silver thaw,
squalls of verse and hoarfrost ballads'
rime riche song.

And we've been swept along as casualty
bedewed and cordoned in refrain,
life's sudden showers, swift denouements,
rain again.

Beneath umbrellas fettered parasols,
below a canopy of cloud,
blow nimbus parables whose metaphor
announce a spectral sky
in thunderous outbursts,
fount anew neath fir and pine,
as falling leaves on limb and meristem
augur a season's slow demise.

And tonight this forest green ephemeral
deciduous alike our lives,
toss fragile keepsake, time's memento
to earth then stars on stormy night.

In thick of wind and violent tempest
in tumult waves on sand and dune,
our precious dreams find sentried breakers
or wash up beach with each monsoon.

For all these shelters in our firmament
the fierce and gentle both abide,
and move in silent admonition
forever through us and through time.

Copyright © 1997 David Hunter Sutherland

Sweet One-Hundred

April 1997 of the month
By: Alan Reynolds

Our geriatric acrobatic dance,
our subtle art, goes sometimes undiscerned
by passers-by. And by you too. Your glance,
pale pilot flame from passions banked, has turned
my head for decades, and today. The trance
the orderlies assume I'm in is one I've learned,
to masquerade my yearnings. They run sweet,
while I doze sitting, silent. I'm discreet.

Copyright © 1997 Alan Reynolds

Word Wrap
By: Anne Johnson

We wrap our words
each in our way;
we wrap them all
throughout the day.

We wrap our grief
in wooden smiles
pasted on for
just a while.

We wrap our pride
in humble words.
Why can’t we sing it
like a bird?

We wrap our love
in hidden thoughts,
afraid to show
we care a lot.

we wrap our anger
deep inside,
seem unconcerned
to keep our pride.

You see word wrap
is not just seen
looking at a
monitor screen.

Copyright © 1997 Anne Johnson

Thunderstorm
By: Daryl Kessler

estranged sun
heavy air
motionless landscape
horizon rumbles

cowering field
rolling gray
airborne river
darkness marches

beguiling silence
humbling power
pregnant sky
gives birth...

Copyright © 1997 Daryl Kessler

Sleeping Between Us

May 1997 of the month
By: William Dubie

The purrs settle between pillows,
indenting the linen that wrinkles with us.
We stay rhythmic with our breaths,
and counter the dark while one
sleeps lightly.
Childless,
we content ourselves with this heartbeat,
fur imitating wisps of hair,
claws curling like small knuckles
in a parent's palm.
We tell ourselves this is how
the soul takes its form,
and whatever blood we share
will be warm.

Copyright © 1997 William Dubie

Candle
By: Jerry H. Jenkins

March 1997 of the month

One star has faded from our evening sky.
Millions remain; its loss is meaningless,
but on some world in bitter emptiness
of space, what terrors did its death imply?
What navigators watched their pole star die,
what shrines, whose majesty was somehow less,
burned incense to their gods and goddesses,
their avatar oblivious to their cry?

Although this happened long eons ago,
in reaches far beyond our present sight,
it may yet be important that we know,
for at this edge, that vanished stellar light,
that darkness where its fossil remnants glow,
reminds us we are on the rim of night.

Copyright © 1995 Jerry H. Jenkins
Candle originally appeared in The Formalist
Reprinted by permission of author

Musings on a September Afternoon
By: Alisha Freeman

February 1997 of the month

Somehow, it seems futile to write today.
For the things I wish to convey are such
That words are an inadequate tool.

I wanted to write the rhythm of the rain
The smell of fall in the air, the color of the leaves
If I could write such things, I would give to you
The sound of the croaking frog outside my window,
The touch of the cool wind September brings,
The laughter of children walking home from school
And the warmth of their mothers’ smiles
Greeting them with after-school snacks.

Were they mine to give, I would bestow
Upon your senses delightful presents:
The cheer of bountiful harvests, and the fragrance
Of their produce baked into pies.
The glow of a warm-hearted conversation
Full of laughter and love
Taking place among a family gathered
Round the fireplace on a chilly night.

But I am the owner of such things only in that
I cherish within my heart, their lasting impressions
And a desire to impart the same to you

Copyright © 1996 Alisha Freeman

My Wife, Awakened

Peeping through the bubble of her sleep,
fisting the covers, she defends her other self,
clearly unready to be born again.
Copyright © 1996 James Worley

Emotions came in
to devour my soul-
upon realizing
it had already
been claimed.

Copyright © 12/20/96 Moon Beam

for January, 1997

Accounting
Oh how I long to be
fruitful and free, and
the desire swells
as I multipy
faceless figures
at my desk.

Copyright © 1996 Anonymous