translated to ASCII on October 10, 1996 -- %%%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%%% %% %% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %% %% %% %%% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%%% %% %%% %% %% %% %%%%%% %% %% %%%% %% %% %% %% %% %% % %% %%%% %%%%% %% %% %%%% %% %%%%%% %% %% %% % %% %%%% %% %% %% %% %% %%%%% %% %% %% %%% %% %% %% %%%%%% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% %%%%%% %% %%% %% %% %% %%%% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% dedicated to the art of the written word volume 1, issue 4 "bringing it in under 150k" September 1995 ================================ POETRY INK 1.04 / ISSN 1091-0999 ================================ **Night And The City** **a special issue of POETRY INK** volume 1, issue 4 September 1995 In This Issue... ---------------- Night. Dark and foreboding in it's veils of mystery. The Midnight Hour. Crisp chills of air and the skies speckled with the dust of thousands of stars. Full moon and creeping things which reach for you from under the bed. The City. A bright shining beacon glowing hotly in the hours before dawn. Traffic. Noise. The endless shuffling of a million feet heading to home or work or play and back again. The collective soul of untold generations beating the rhythm of life. Night and The City. They seem to fit together naturally, but nature is a harsh mistress. This issue of Poetry Ink explores the connections between the feel of the Night and the heart of The City. For some, the Night is a beast to be feared and hated; for others it is a celebration of life. The City, too, has many meanings. Is it the small town in the middle of the Midwest on the verge of dying because the new Wal-Mart is killing the independent businessman on Main Street? Or is it that vast hulking behemoth on the coast, a magnet for the world's cast-offs and untouchables who come to America to reap the riches of freedom and sometimes succeed? All of us carry prejudices about Night and The City--but how many of us juxtapose these two intangibles and think about what they really mean? Sprinkled throughout the following pages, our contributors explore these themes and draw their own conclusions. We invite you to join them. You will also find our regular grab bag of topics herein; we have decided to discontinue the theme issue platform, as the response was less than spectacular. Those writers whose work appears under the Night and The City banner should be given a huge round of applause, for without their submissions, this would be a slim issue indeed. So, consider this issue a bonus; you get the expected quality work, but also the unexpected pleasures of our Night and The City contributors. Matthew W. Schmeer, editor POETRY INK ---------- **Editor** Matthew W. Schmeer **e-mail** **snail mail** Matthew W. Schmeer POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS 6711-A Mitchell Avenue St. Louis, MO 63139-3647 U.S.A. POETRY INK is a regular, erratically published E-zine (electronic magazine). Anyone interested in submitting poetry, short fiction, or essays should see the last two pages of this document for submission instructions. If writing via snail mail, please include a #10-sized self-addressed stamped envelope so that we may respond to you. Donations of food, money, software, and hardware are gracefully accepted. Legal Stuff ----------- POETRY INK is copyrighted 1995 by POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS, a wholly owned subsidiary of the imagination of Matthew W. Schmeer. POETRY INK can be freely distributed, provided it is not modified in any way, shape, or form. 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We are looking for people to upload POETRY INK to: * CompuServe(tm) * sumex-aim.stanford.edu (Internet Macintosh ftp software archive) * mac.archive.umich.edu (another Internet Macintosh ftp software archive) And to post POETRY INK's Submission Guidelines on a monthly basis to the newsgroups: * rec.arts.poems * scruz.poetry * rec.arts.prose And finally, to: * link POETRY INKto a Web Page for downloading * set up an Internet e-mail subscription service Ideally, we are looking for one individual to do the postings and link POETRY INK to a Web Page, one individual to handle the subscription service, and another to upload POETRY INK to the commercial on-line services mentioned (That's a total of three for you mathematicians out there). If you have regular access to any of the above mentioned electronic forums, please consider helping out! The more POETRY INK spreads across the Internet, the better we will get. We regret that at this time we cannot compensate our volunteers for their efforts. However, they will be given our undying gratitude and many blessings from their Muses. Plus, their names will become permanently etched into our masthead and given credit for their support. If interested, please eMail us at , and tell us which duties you would be willing to fulfill! Dedication ---------- Dedicated To All the Night Owls Out There Featured Writer--Night and The City ----------------------------------- Richard Epstein _On E. Colfax_ On E. Colfax your sisters still ply and vend, never straying too far from Shepherd's Inn or the Appletree Shanty. I only glimpse you now in Alfalfa's aisles or the still lanes of The Polo Grounds. But oh, Celinda, you are still a working girl, hard at it, though the effort doesn't show on your soft tan, no drop of sweat unintended. I'll bet you even talk an elegant ground game, with the odd rough trade slang, for pace. No more servicemen, Lowry's closed; and what night knew, hubby need not. Richard Esptein lives in Denver, Colorado, and his poetry appears in a wide assortment of mostly obscure journals, both in the U.S.A. and in Great Britain. His recent credits include "Staple" and "Seam" in England; "Lyric", "10x6", and "Potpourri" here in the States. He makes his living as a litigation paralegal. Two of his books, "Second Thoughts" and "The Missouri Shores", are currently under consideration for publication. His poem _Towns In Such Movies_ appeared in Issue 3 of POETRY INK. About _On E. Colfax_, Richard writes: _On E. Colfax_ is one of a series of poems, "These Denver Odes", designed as imitations of Horace. This one is Book 1, number 3, as it happens. I write in form; metric regularity, and often rhyme, are important to me; but even I occasionally tire of the iambic procession, and I was looking for a structure to work within which would offer some variety. As the great poets often do, Horace presented himself. As does not always happen with great poets, he presented himself as a host, not an obstacle. Horace's "Odes" are of course formal in ways I can scarcely understand; my Latin is, to be polite, rudimentary. I find that Latin quantitative scansion--regularly placing short and long syllables rather than unaccented and accented syllables-- is inscrutable. That it is regular, though, is obvious even to the ignorant eye; Latin compression is a good thing for American poets to study. Horace's way with topical references, local scenes, personal history, and his tendency to serve large themes in small poems is perpetually charming and enlightening. That was my model. I am a somewhat lesser poet than Horace, so Denver seemed an acceptable stand-in for Rome. The places in _On E. Colfax_ are real Denver venues--Lowry is a recently closed Air Force base, Shepherd"s a seedy drug (and whore) infested motel, The Polo Grounds a posh enclave of older "mansions" in the City. Celinda, like other named characters, recurs in my version of the "Odes"; if she has a real-life model, you won't learn that here. I began writing poetry on a specific, well-defined occasion a long time ago as an undergraduate at The University of Denver. One evening in the spring of my junior year, a professor in our English Department was to read from his poems; since I knew him slightly, I attended. He was a dapper, rotund little man, a chain smoker with a basso profundo voice and a pseudo-English intonation, equally smitten with his physical presence and the sound of his own voice who was reputedly a hard drinker. Or so he seemed to a 20 year old. God knows what sort of man he really was. He read his pretentious poems with the fruity, Biblical seriousness of Orson Welles selling wine. It was dreadful, and I left thinking, "If he can write poetry, I know I can." I immediately returned to my dorm room and tried. I still have the result hidden in a file cabinet; a very bad poem called "The Poetry Reading", it concludes: And in the furthest row a baby cried aloud in boredom and impatience. So it turned out I couldn't do even what the natty professor had done, at least not right away. And although I like to think I have moved on from that point, I feel I still haven't gotten it quite right. I wonder sometimes what that professor thought of his own poems; whether he labored over them as I labored over my initial efforts to surpass him, and whether today some young poets don't read my poems occasionally posted on eWorld with the same disdain I felt for Dr. X. If so, I wish those young poets luck. They're going to need it. Kenneth Hann ------------ Night and The City 2 poems _Our Town_ Wicked women. Subway noises. The metropolis never sleeps. See that boy with the tombstone eyes? He's got a short rope and a big stone. All smiles here have extended canines. It's a desperate land with a desperate game. Buy sex, steal sleep, beg to eat: trade your dignity for a chance. Hear that man with the serpent's hiss? He's got a bag of the finest walking death. Retarded children, diseased virgins, slippery passage, and all under commercial skies. Wandering through a land of pain but no gain, our Prodigal Sons shall never return. _Wanton Boys_ (For Raymond Souster) Twilight. The hot humid day transforms into a sticky summer night. The heat trapped within us has no place to run. We sit on an urban edifice watching the street's business interaction-- merely curious young boys looking to let off steam. We watch sick roses peddling their flesh. They wear plaster faces and exposing fatigues. Fascinated, we make a game of their naked sin. We hoot, clap, and jeer at their exploits. The adults--buyers and sellers--first look flustered. But then the professional women call our bluff. We stiffen with their callousness and try to casually walk away. Wade H. Moline -------------- Night and The City 1 poem _Still_ Teenage Al Capones swept the dirty, rundown neighborhoods. The city sat molested by these thugs in the humid, hot night, and opened new wounds in the mayor's old promises of bringing about the three R's; Reform, Revival, and Revitalization. Rotting garbage stenched the night air and danced on hot breezes, not alone but with the putrid smoke of burning asylum for the poor and for the homeless. The raging fire was hell bent on reform. In other parts of the ghetto warm beer was sipped on dark porches, a vain attempt to beat the heat. Sweat tickled everyone, not even the rich were immune to the humid night. The sudden rumble in the west perked momentary interest, but no clouds could be discerned in the thick, hazy, night sky, and more cans of false relief were guzzled while an entire town lynched the weathermen for their false hopes. The rains hadn't come today either. Activity ceased when the power was lost casting the dark city into deeper oblivion. The Capones were delighted and moved to the rich areas, their false hopes of glory spurned on. Now they could move and not been seen. Only the man who had the gun and could use it was safe, another false hope as broken hearted wives cursed the makers who said any man with the gun and those behind him would need not fear another. With street lights gone one could not discern friend from foe the exception being the passage of a patrol car, and the men inside were both. Evil, vile, and deathly screams violated the stifling stillness of a dead end street. Tensions shot high, all listened with hair prickling, goose bumps growing. The barking of maddened dogs stopped as fear struck even the biggest hound. Then laughter came from the black street. Not an evil laugh. Not a vile laugh. A nervous laugh. An entire neighborhood laughed. One eyed bandits lit the way and others followed bravely into that screaming arena at the end of the street under the superhighway that rose high above. On hot pavement bare feet pattered and scampered, sneakers padded, hard shoes tapped. The arena was lit by the one eyeds and the occasional escape of light from the highway above. At the feet of the encircling crowd was a bloody, gory fight. Word of this exciting diversion spread, and the heat of the night was driven from the collective minds of the restless, growing crowd. From the vulgar crowd a single phrase was uttered. It broke the spell and returned the heat. On this night it was the wrong thing to say. All eyes moved to seek this individual fool, but he had vanished as quickly as the fighters. As the grumbling crowd dispersed seeking new entertainment a solitary soul watched from safety, a vow on his lips to never utter, "Here kitty, kitty" on a hot night, in a restless crowd, on a dead end street, in a dark city, during a cat fight, again. And the crowd moved on, still smelling the rotting garbage still smelling the burning asylum still feeling the heat still feeling no relief still seeing no friends still drinking warm beer still being raped by the teen Capones still seeing the spilled blood. It was 1967, and it was Detroit. Wayne F. Brissette ------------------ Night & The City 1 poem _Uncertainties_ At my feet are the uncertainties brought forth by the wild eyed spirits of the night. Dusk is upon my fears The darkness crawls up my spine leaving its absence in my heart. I move my feet; first to the left, then to the right. I stand watching the drunk moon dancing upon my head. Inside I stray. First to Istanbul, then to New York Slowly I make my way to Los Angeles. Where the stars laugh as I pray at the temple. The dancing and chanting lessens the laughter, but it lingers like the smell of the drunk off Sunset and Vine. He asked for a quarter and I laughed. The stars are not kind, for they heard my laughter and now haunt me as I silently walk from coast-to-coast. I return to Istanbul, I return to the Mosque, I return to my house, I return to my fear... Opening my eyes, I see the red glow, I see the flames dancing at my feet. The heat, the sweat...And inside my hollow heart, a picture of laughter. But tonight, the uncertainties fill my head. Michaele Benedict ----------------- 2 poems _Nasturtiums_ "On Thursday a respectable female far advanced in pregnancy was taken out of the Serpentine river... having been missed formerly six weeks." ---Newspaper clipping about Harriet Shelley, quoted in "Ariel" She was a nasturtium of a woman With that bright blowsy top And those tender stems. She once stated with wonder That she had separated and transplanted Densely sprouting nasturtiums Because she could not bear to thin them, That is, to sacrifice the weak to the strong As a practical farmer would do. (Her thin fingers against the sunshine, The fine bone surrounded by translucent flesh, The small chewed fingernails like pale petals.) Then, forgetting the day she sat in the dirt To preserve the jade-colored seedlings, She let her own life slip away in (Let us say) carelessness (and not despair.) In June, the wild nasturtiums Are mostly orange and fresh-faced, Smelling of ponds and radishes, But are sexual, mutating Into yellow, cinnebar and gold, Leaving pods as hot as peppers. No one gathers them but children Or strangers from barren places. The perfume rarely pleases them. Often they drop the blossoms Beside the road. _Travois_ Then we sawed at our wrists with a dull knife We tapped blood And the dark blood, yours and mine, ran together And we said we would never be parted. We would make a sling of woven work, we said, So that in the end we could lie on it together. We would tie it, we said, to Two spirited horses, this travois, And the horses would carry us to the next world, Leg on leg, arm on arm. Down cobbled streets we went, Stealing moments, reciting poetry, From the mosque to the old church To the hard, hot sand of the beach. The dream horses carried us laughing and crying Past tall cypresses. I still do not know why my horse began to veer away. I lost my grip on the travois, Was deposited on some rocky field Far from home as your horse dragged you on. You must have seen me flogging my nag, How she would not move. You must have seen me running and running. Perhaps the wind carried my voice to you: "Oh, wait!" But finally you were only a small moving spot In the distance, and then you were gone. Come back, come back, come back, come back. Come back to get me, to finish the dream We dreamed. I cannot bear to grow alone Toward the moment that you promised. Richard W. Parnell ------------------ 1 poem _Otherwise_ The computer can simulate language easily, but we had thought otherwise. Intelligence was to be easily artificial, yet we struggle still with our assumptions. Is there such a thing as too much information, too many connections, too many thoughts, too much to do? I feel diminished by immensity, by what I have not done (could not do), and yet it is just me, after all. My language is simple: this is not enough, is too much, is too me, is too true. Richard Steinbach ----------------- 1 poem _The Fabric of Society_ You are a rising athletic star And you get paid a thousand times more that you think you're worth And you ask yourself, "Am I worth that much?" And you wonder And time passes And you start to believe that you are "Just raise the ticket prices" And another rent appears in the fabric of society You are an entertainer And you are married and have children But you are vibrant and alive and attractive And women "force" themselves on you And you try to resist, but you don't Because, if you're this special, the normal rules don't apply to you And besides you work hard and should have some "fun" And another rent appears in the fabric of society You are a senior executive And you know in your heart that staying loyal to your employees During tough times will pay off big in good times It is the strategic thing, too But the stockholders are screaming And you cave in, and fire the older ones, the expensive ones And the bottom line looks good for another short quarter So you give yourself a raise And another rent appears in the fabric of society You are "down and out" You once were one of the elite But it got away And you just need a hand To be covered by the fabric of society "It should help me..." "It should help those who have gone low" And the answer comes back "There is no fabric...only holes" Gary Wiener ----------- Night & The City 1 poem _The Streetlights On Our Block Are Out_ The streetlights on our block are out. I don't worry; it's a safe neighborhood, except for the double break-in two night's past. I've got the house illumined anyway Spotlights gleaming front and back reveal only the neighbor's crawling cat, and, if anyone's looking, me, sitting at midnight on my steps, observing how the streetlights on our block are out. The streetlights on our block are out. I'm reminded of the Italian Futurists of early this century, who wagered mechanism could murder moonlight, that beaming burning wattage could drown out silent Diana's doleful orb. But tonight the streetlamps are but blackened poles donning funereal bonnets, while the moon glows full above, not to be lauded for what it does so naturally, or romanticized in a poem, or anthropomorphized, in Stevens' phrase, like the widow's bird or an old horse, but just to shine, noncomittally, uncontested, while the streetlights on our block are out. The streetlights on our block are out. I should get up from these steps and call RG&E, they'd get it fixed in a week I'm sure, but there's no poetry there. Who wants even a thought of worktrucks, anyway, when one has this pristine night of crawling cats, late summer breezes, and humless electric streetlamps. What I'll do is go inside and douse those spotlights, front and back, and chance that burglars and murderers and even near relatives will stay away and let me enjoy and bask in the grasp of the thought that the streetlights on our block are out. David M. Rosenbaum ----------------- short fiction _The Unbeliever_ None May Approach Him. Exalted Is He Above Your Approach. The Sun one day spoke thus to himself, "All the worlds cry out, Why glow so brightly? For none can look upon me even for a moment. I glow for my love of mankind. Every day I look down upon the wide blue earth, upon the seas on which I dance, upon the mountains that stretch vainly to reach me, and I behold men blowing across their palms for me. They know me as their provider. They see me and know that from me comes all warmth and light and life. What man living upon the world could be without knowledge of me? Who could deny me in the face of these most binding and conclusive proofs?" Musing upon this, the Sun undertook to examine all mankind in search of one who disbelieved in him. To his surprise, he found such a man straight away, an old man who lived alone in a cave by the sea. He grew corn and squash for his suppers and he took his water from a nearby stream and lived his life in isolation from all men. This old man was blind entirely, unable even to perceive shades of light and shadow, for his eyes were ruined since birth with disease. While the old man was tending his little garden, he heard a voice calling out to him. The voice said, "I am the Sun, suspended in the heavens above. Look upon me and know me, for I am the giver of all life. All the things on earth I have provided for your sustenance and pleasure. I have given you life also; you owe me belief at least for that." The old man replied, "Sun? I have heard this word before, stranger, but have never comprehended its meaning. People speak to me as though the existence of this sun were miraculously evident in itself. Well, it is not evident to me. And if you, who speak for this sun, claim to be the giver of my life and the provider of all things on earth, then I have to respond that I lack any evidence to believe you. Describe your nature to me that I may understand you, if indeed there is such a thing as the sun and you are him." The Sun said, "I should not be put to proof by you, you who are but an insect to me. In any event, I cannot describe myself to you who have never seen with eyes. How would you understand? My words would be meaningless. At least, however, you are capable of feeling my warmth, for my fire heats the world and, when I am absent, how much colder life becomes." The old man said, "I have known both heat and cold." "Then you must know that I am the source of heat." "Hardly," the old man replied. "I feel heat; but I do not pretend to know the source of it. Perhaps the air produces heat. Perhaps the ground sometimes does, for the sand feels hot to me." The Sun said, "No, I produce it. The tongues of my fire warm you. The rays of my heat touch you, your face, your hands, the ground and the sky. I embrace the world with the essence of me." The old man responded, "Then present yourself to me that I may touch your face. Then I will know and believe." "I am exalted well above your ability to touch me." The old man shouted, "Ah, you contradict yourself, you liar! If I cannot touch your heat, then how do you presume to touch me and, indeed, embrace the world?" The Sun did not answer this, but chose instead another argument. "Tell me, how do you account for the corn and squash that grow in your garden? You must know that they have a source; that they derive from me the ability to grow and prosper for your benefit." The old man was adamant in his rejection of the Sun's claims. "I know nothing of the sort. I know that they grow from seeds I carefully plant and by virtue of watering. Water is all they require and, perhaps, heat to warm them." The Sun said, "Yes, but from whence comes this heat?" "I have told you, from the ground or the sky perhaps. I do not pretend to know exactly. But I suspect it is not the product of some inscrutable celestial orb. Perhaps these things are derived by accident. Perhaps their existence is fortuitous and arbitrary." Hearing this, the Sun grew angry and berated the man. But the old man would listen no longer. Although he was convinced that no sun even existed, he finally spoke to the Sun, saying, "Assuming that there is a sun that invisibly performs all these miracles, why should I believe that you are him?" Exasperated, the Sun finally answered, "Go then and deny me all the rest of your days. I am exalted well above either your belief or disbelief." Andrea Campbell --------------- 1 poem _Seasons_ the leaves turn upon their silver stems and it is autumn--- in the morning early I wander vacant streets gathering silence and leaving only footsteps hesitant behind--- it comes to me then in the clear cold air that I too long to turn upon my stem--- I have a rightful place among the seasons About The Contributors... ------------------------- Richard Epstein lives in Denver, Colorado. The rest of this stuff you already know if you read the Featured Writer essay (which you should!). Kenneth Hann hails from Toronto, Canada. He presently is attempting to make a living in the film industry, as he has a B.A.A. in film studies from Ryerson Polytechnical University in Toronto. Besides poetry, Kenneth also writes short fiction, screenplays, and rather depressing Nietzschean aphorisms. This is his first appearance in print. Wade H. Moline resides in Durand, Michigan, where he makes his living as a firefighter in Michigan's Vernon Township. He reports he is "still crawling through smoke--and flame--filled buildings and still extricating dead people from car accidents. A grim job but somebody's gotta do it." His short work _Flashover_ appeared in POETRY INK's second issue. Wayne F. Brissette lives in Austin, Texas. He works for Apple Computer, Inc. as a technical writer. He claims his writing credits are pretty limited, in fact other than his high school literary magazine too many years ago. This is the first time his creative work had been published, although he has written more than a dozen user manuals for various companies in Austin; none, ironically enough, for Apple. Michaele Benedict lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and teaches at Skyline College in San Bruno, California. She is the author of the music method book "A Workbook for Organic Piano Playing" , a volume of poetry entitled "The Phoenician Sailor", and an unpublished novel, "The Dioscuri", which resides at the Brautigan Library in Burlington, Vermont. Recent articles by Benedict have appeared in "Clavier Magazine" and "The American Music Teacher". She is an award winning scholar, and has worked as a writer and editor at several newspapers in the United States and abroad. Richard W. Parnell lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and creates textual/sculptural pieces using hand letterpress printing, pulp casting, and wood & metal working in his studio and at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. A recent edition entitled "A Letter to My Daughter from Prison", created in collaboration with poet and human rights activist Alicia Partnoy, was exhibited and collected nationally in the United States. Richard Steinbach calls Novato, California home. His previous publishing credits consist mainly of Letters to the Editor in his local newspapers. A retired Navy pilot and telephone company manager, his intrests include photography, gardening, and his grandchildren. Gary Wiener resides in Pittsford, New York. He has placed poems in "Thema" and "Poetry Motel", and his fiction, essays and criticism have been widely published. He is also editor of "Desperate Act", a new literary magazine out of Rochester, New York. David M. Rosenbaum is from Ames, Iowa. He is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at Iowa State University. He has written short stories and poems for local literary magazines and non-fiction teaching guides for HarperCollins Publishers. Andrea Campbell hails originally from New York, New York. A well-traveled writer, she has lived in Russia, Spain, Africa at various times in her life. A self-professed flower child, she now calls Portland, Oregon home. She has published in several obscure journals, but none in recent years. _Seasons_ was written in 1961. Submission Guidelines --------------------- (You may want to print this for future reference.) * Failure to follow these guidelines will mean automatic rejection of your submission! 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See below for addresses. NOTE: e-mail submissions are highly preferred. * No gratuitous obscenity or profanity, although erotic material is okay. If you think it's too graphic, then it probably is and won't be published in this forum. * Please keep poems under 3 printed pages apiece (page size = 8" x 11" page with 1" margins printed with Times 12-point plain font). * Please limit short stories to under 5000 words. * No more than 5 poems or 2 short stories submitted per person per issue. * Submissions should be submitted as plain ASCII e-mail files or as StuffIt compressed (.sit) attachments to e-mail messages. Compressed files should be in plain text format (the kind produced by SimpleText). Regardless of submission format, please use the subject line "SUBMIT POETRY INK: your name" where "your name" is your actual name and not the name of your e-mail account. Omit the quotation marks. For example, it should look like this: SUBMIT POETRY INK: John Q. Public * Manuscripts and submissions cannot be returned, nor can we offer any constructive criticism unless we decide to publish your work and have serious reservations regarding content or structure. You will not receive notification that your work was received; while we regret this inconvenience, you must realize we have to support ourselves somehow. Therefore, due to the amount of expected submissions, we cannot acknowledge receipt of your work unless we decide to publish it. * If your work is accepted for publication, you will be notified as soon as possible via e-mail. If you prefer to be notified by U.S. Mail, please indicate this preference on your submission. Your e-mail address will be published when crediting your work. If you prefer us not to do so, please indicate this on your submission as well. * Subscribers to the PATCHWORK mailing list will be given special consideration in the selection process. For information regarding PATCHWORK, or to subscribe, send an e-mail message to patchwork- request@nyx.cs.du.edu, with the subject "HELP" (no quotes). It is not necessary to include any text in the body of the message. All submissions, inquiries, and comments should be directed to: e-mail: snail mail: Matthew W. Schmeer POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS 6711-A Mitchell Avenue St. Louis, MO 63139-3647 USA ..