translated to ASCII on October 10, 1996 -- %%%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%%% %% %% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %%%%%% %% %% %% %%% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%%% %% %%% %% %% %% %%%%%% %% %% %%%% %% %% %% %% %% %% % %% %%%% %%%%% %% %% %%%% %% %%%%%% %% %% %% % %% %%%% %% %% %% %% %% %%%%% %% %% %% %%% %% %% %% %%%%%% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% %%%%%% %% %%% %% %% %% %%%% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% %%%%%% %% %% %% %% dedicated to the art of the written word volume 1, issue 6 November 1995 ================================ POETRY INK 1.06 / ISSN 1091-0999 ================================ POETRY INK volume 1, issue 6 November 1995 "Dedicated To The Art Of The Written Word" >From The Editor's Desktop... ---------------------------- Issue 6. Can you believe it? Quite frankly, I am surprised that I have continued to publish POETRY INK for six whole issues. The only project which I have ever launched that lasted longer than six months is my marriage (apologies to my wife). I hope POETRY INK lasts at least half as long as I envision it will. I think one of the reasons POETRY INK has lasted as long as it has is that there is a true demand for a high- quality literary magazine for the on-line universe. POETRY INK is different from most on-line electronic literary magazines in that it is designed to be read off-line; rather than spend time (and money) reading page after hot-linked page on the World Wide Web, POETRY INK offers readers the opportunity to download the entire magazine and browse at their own pace without worrying about on-line charges. While there are several electronic magazines devoted to computing--such as "MacSense", "Low End User", "DT&G", and "About This Particular Mac"--there are few e-zines devoted soley to the art of the written word; other than POETRY INK , only "Kudzu" and "Planet Magazine" come to mind. In fact, I think POETRY INK stands alone in offering a forum for both the expert and novice writer. I also like to believe that this magzine enlightens as well as entertains and informs. A recent upstart in this whole electonic magazine affair is "About This Particular Mac", or ATPM, an electronic magazine which blurs the line between entertainment and information. Now, I know it seems strange to promote another magazine--particularly one which may be construed as a competitor--in the pages of POETRY INK. But promoting I am. ATPM is a very highly polished and entertaining magazine which focuses on the "cult of Macintosh" (my phrase, not ATPM's). Produced by Dan Novo (RDNovo@aol.com), ATPM began publishing about the same time as POETRY INK, and they have already worked their way to an eighth issue--and have even spun off one regularly appearing column into an electronic newsletter called "AppleSauce". ATPM can be found on eWorld(tm), America On-Line(tm), and CompuServe(tm) in the usual places POETRY INK can be found. Check it out! It is well worth the download time. As far as this issue of POETRY INK is concerned, I think you will find many good examples of the poetic act within these pages. Jay Marvin's short fiction piece _Fidel's Secret Agent_ is a superb standout, and of course we have the requiste Featured Writer's essay, this time by one of Australia's favorite sons, Warrick Wynne. If you like what we do with the Featured Writer section, you might be interested in the book "PoetSpeak" (Collier, 1991). This excellent tome contains many poems written by modern American poets--such as W.D. Snodgrass, Robert Wallace, and Stanley Kunitz--accompanied by comments and anecdotes explaining the poems' orgins. As a writer, I think that seeing the inner workings of another writer's mind and how a poem begins its geneis is a learning tool that can help me find my own voice. This is why I began the Featured Writer section, and I hope you take away some insight into your own writing process when you read it. Also, there is still time to get your contest entries in! 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. Official OneNetBBS Network distribution by Ben Judson Official America On-Line(tm) distribution by Dick Steinbach Official WWW Web Page maintained by Wayne Brissette Official Icons designed by Geoffrey Hamilton POETRY INK is a regular, erratically published E-zine (electronic magazine). Anyone interested in submitting poetry, short fiction, or essays should see the last few 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. Specifically: * All commercial on-line services, such as eWorld(tm), America On-Line(tm), and CompuServe(tm), and local BBSs may distribute POETRY INK at no charge. * All non-profit user groups may distribute POETRY INK at no charge. * All CD-ROM shareware collections and CD-ROM magazines may not include POETRY INK without prior written consent. * All redistribution companies such as Educorp may not distribute POETRY INK without express written consent. POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS retains one-time rights and the right to reprint this issue, either printed or electronic. All other rights to works appearing in POETRY INK written by authors other than Matthew W. Schmeer revert to said authors upon publication. POETRY INK is produced on an Apple Macintosh(tm) Color Classic(tm) running System Software 7.1. POETRY INK is initially uploaded to eWorld(tm), with further Internet distribution by our readers. We use Global Village Teleport Gold(tm) II Fax/Modems. POETRY INK is produced using MicroFrontier's ColorIt!(tm) 2.3.4, Novell Corp.'s WordPerfect(tm) 3.1, and Michel & Francois Touchot's eDOC 1.1. We encourage others to support these fine hardware manufacturers and software programmers. Announcement!!!!!!! ------------------- **POETRY INK is now on the World Wide Web!** Wayne Brissette, a technical writer for Apple Computer, has linked POETRY INK to his Web site on one of Apple's servers in Austin, Texas, USA*. Wayne, who's poem _Uncertainties_ appeared in Issue 4 of POETRY INK, has generously donated his time and resources to provide POETRY INK a home on the Web. By the way, Wayne also maintains the official "unofficial" Web site of the Central Hockey League (CHL). Go Iguanas! Point your WWW Browser to this URL: At the current time, the Web site only contains links to download POETRY INK's back issues; future plans call for the possibility of reading POETRY INK directly from your Web browser. Check out the site and let us know what you think! Spill The Ink! *Views and information stated in POETRY INK and on it's Internet Web Page may not necessarily represent the views or products of Apple Computer, Inc. Free Stuff Wanted! ------------------ **We Want Free Stuff!** Okay, we admit it. We are making a desperate plea for free things from you, our readers, who recieve each issue absolutely free, no strings attached (feel guilty yet?). But lest you think less of us, here's the Free Stuff Catch: We want Free Stuff we can either use to produce POETRY INK or review for future issues! What do we mean by use or review? Here's a few examples: GOOD IDEA: A book you have written and/or published. BAD IDEA: Free puppies. GOOD IDEA: A new Power Mac 9500 with 2 gig hard drive and 6x CD-ROM drive loaded to the hilt with RAM and VRAM, a new Apple Multiple Scan 21" monitor (with video card) and Apple Extended Keyboard II. (Hey Michael Spindler--you need all the free publicity you can get...) BAD IDEA: A copy of Microsoft Windows 95 on CD-ROM (we already have a set of coasters). GOOD IDEA: A complimentary copy of your band's CD. BAD IDEA: A complimentary copy of Yoko Ono's Greatest Hits CD. You get the picture. Basically, we are looking for things to review--such as books, magazines, and CDs--that have a literary bent. Or you can send us things we can use to produce POETRY INK, such as new orused hard drives, keyboards, Mac CPUs, and so forth that are in good working condition. While we regret that your contribution is not tax deductible, we won't tell the IRS if you don't. So send us some free stuff! Featured Writer --------------- Warrick Wynne 1 poem and an essay _The Beach as Metaphor_ Nothing gets anywhere; even this beach, of all places least likely to show its age, is draping itself with cracked weed or fitfully uncovering broken stumps of a pier that used to be, and isn't. And just offshore, underwater, there are bricks or rods, and wood that has filled up and sunk to the bottom and become stone or something. They are shapes grown strange and dark through sunless winters; the shore littered with coin-shaped fragments of frosted glass that were once bottles you could see through. Look closer, the open mussel shells are broken or buried and their blue-black sheen is dull and splintered or filled with soil, the dead skins of crabs lie dry and brittle as peanut shells. So this place is burying itself, or unburying itself, filling and unfilling old hollows as the tides rock back and forth under the cold day moons, and the blank sand is wiped clean for a moment and again and again is clear shining satin long after you've stopped looking. Warrick Wynne teaches English and Literature about 50k south of Melbourne, Australia. He has been widely published in Australian magazines and journals and has been featured in several poetry awards. His first book of poems, "Lost Things and Other Poems", was published by Butterfly Books in 1992. A new book, "The Colour of Maps" is due out through Five Islands Press later this year. For more of his poetry check out Warrick's home page at . About _The Beach As Metaphor_, Warrick writes: I began writing _The Beach as Metaphor_ after I'd finished writing a series of poems about the shoreline and the lesser known world just offshore. This poem was about the shoreline, too, but I wanted it to be different from the others. Living on a peninsula, I tend to find the coastline intruding on my writing often. The Mornington Peninsula, where I live, tapers down to a narrow point at the end. Where I am, it's about twelve miles wide; Western Port Bay on one side, Port Phillip Bay on my side. You can't drive or ride far without eventually reaching the sea. What was different about the impulse for this poem began with the desire to make the metaphor apparent and visible in the title. Of course we're always writing in metaphors but I wanted to write a poem that began with the metaphor as stated and apparent, obvious from the very title, so the reader couldn't read it any other way. So this poem wasn't going to try and pretend to be a neutral rendering of the beach in words (as if any poem could be neutral anyway); this was going to make its metaphoric movement obvious--sort of hit you over the head with it! I suppose the central idea is that things don't progress. I've always been interested in history and how the past impinges on the present. Australia has had so little European history that evidence of the colonial past is somewhat rare and unusual. You don't dig up old coins in your gardens, farmers don't turn over old statues with their ploughs. When you dig in your garden, maybe you're the first person to uncover that soil. That used to matter a lot to me; I was delighted when the wind uncovered the remains of what looked like part of an old pier at Bird Rock Beach near my house--the broken stumps at the opening of the poem. That uncovered grey wood was hard physical evidence of the past and our progress. It was something we'd built and had fallen; our own authentic ruins. What I didn't notice for a long time was the half-buried pile of mussel shells at the bottom of the path where older inhabitants, the Australian Aborigines, had left their mark much earlier. When I did see these things it lessened my desire for ruins and also my respect for them somehow. What I wanted to do in the poem was mix up some of these images of the past with the debris of the present in a poem that devalued the belief in history and progress. Everything seems to have fallen and splintered and decayed; even that most timeless looking place, the beach, says so. I wanted to show how objects lose their purpose and become lost, how wood becomes solid and heavy and another substance, how quickly that clear smooth glass we see through becomes frosty and rough and altogether different. My children love collecting the green and gold and silver glass pieces that are washed up, all smooth edged and softened by the sea. I like the way the rough sheen disappears when you dip them in the water and some of the beauty is restored in their shining. I like the way they clink in your pocket when you walk. It doesn't seem to take long for the beer bottles to become something else, and strangely beautiful, too. So it's that kind of beachcombing poem, a salvage job, picking up the litter and making something out of it or testing some connections. That the glass looks like little coins washed up made me think about the lack of real and solid artifacts we have to go on. Everything seems to have aged or faded or fallen I thought, but it's not just that, so in the last two sections I wanted--though not in these words and not in such a mechanistic way--to incorporate some more of the natural processes to all these images of decay. Here, the fact of the empty shells and the crabs, the fact of change and death, is supposed to cast a slightly different light on what's been said so far. Maybe the processes of building and decaying, of historical rises and falls, are more natural processes than we might have first thought. Maybe we shouldn't expect things to get somewhere. Which may not be all that depressing. I wanted, at the end of the poem, to emphasize the natural and the cyclical, the tides, the cold moon, the waves themselves. That all this human stuff was part of all that. I wanted to end with the image of something fresh, some new potential in this constant rising and falling. So I used the image of the fresh blank sand after the wave has washed over it, how it's like a fresh sheet of paper ready to be impressed with an image or a word or a life. And I finished, too, with the fact of the human looking at this; that this is, after all, a viewpoint or a perspective and that no interpretation or theory can alter those natural and inevitable processes; that they go on with or without the human observer. I guess in the end it's a beach in winter poem, the kind of thing that's more apparent on a clear, cold afternoon with the white moon in the sky and no one around. Meanwhile, the collected glass mounts up in rattling little baskets. Maybe there's a poem in that some day, too. Don M. Blews ------------ 3 poems _Visitor_ The sun's compassion, caressed by the winds, sees one wave's fury dowsed by a new. Sand hugs my toes over dune blazers; morning glories anchored fast. Coerced as a quest of the sandpiper, I feel serene in nature's sauna. The crabs behind me dance in chaos as pines slash through fronds of palms. In a world of waning He dared appear, the one survivor of an indigenous kind. A welcomed visit amongst the yucca, His eminence displayed in silent repose. A worthy assemblage of God's creation, wrapped in fur gleaming of auburn. Swift as a wind's gust in high, He pranced along like a hurricane's eye. Refusing to move I cry for air, in fear of waking upon an illusion. Gracing a stance merely three feet, His stare mused, reflecting my thoughts. Four eyes locked in ignorant wonder, how short we come of knowing each other; He as beast...I being man, close in reach...so far in grace. My heart pounding and glands active, find His ears forward and nostrils flared. Bolting about in flagtail motion, His signal of white vanished from sight. As grains of sand enshroud His tracks, yesterday fades on the wake of today. Focused on asphalt, now over His turf, anger encroaches my unchanted heart. With eyes of lament, I look to the dunes, at high rises tall and condos bold. Where comes our license, displacing a creature, as covetous growth exploits His land? _Beach Seduction_ Her waters heave, breaching his soul, to bare him mortal...bound to meekness. And so his ego, revealed as false, came shrouded in sprays of salt. Born were breakers from her troughs, surging in crests, she read his thoughts. She ripples a clue, submerged under swells, enticing his life with remnants of past. Slapping the shore, kissed by her waves, surging mists swallow his gaze; as churning foam seduces his heart, a dream of mystique renders him hushed. Lightning's display chills skies to gray and thunder's echo threats his refuge. In a frenzy to climax, the clouds touch the seas; rain taps on her belly a sensual tease. _A Coast Possessed_ Rock of mounds, folded and polished, nature's sculpture of time and erosion plunge cold into oceans clear to flaunt its masses of might. Rock, as giant petrified mushrooms would cloak a forest floor, lie unburied in tombs of aqua. A glass-eyed Cyclops towers, ruling the garden of stone, to conquer a sunless veil. The lighthouse sends its rays to a horizon, far from its shackles, where souls of the ocean swell beneath void of the farthest heavens. A wooden fossil cowers, battered by seaweed of stone as tide's relic to harsh reality. An omen testing weather's wrath, never again to relive its past... bilges dry and cockpit tidy, is hostage held by a coast possessed. Shannon Bonton -------------- 1 poem _Timeless_ Timeless, that which is never ending. Like love, infinitely beautiful. Blessed by God's kind hand, It is He, who has brought together This woman and this man. Joy and good times, Will always be in your life. As long as God and love, Are your guiding lights. Blessed is this love, from Heaven up high. May it soar for all eternity, Like an eagle into the sky. Richard Epstein --------------- 2 poems _The Gentle Scansion_ Of all places for me to be, I am driving into West Virginia. Suddenly the smell of pickles is everywhere, ignoring the rolled-up windows, pouring through the twang of heartbreak and divorce on the AM radio, which is all I have. It's a paper plant, I think. Or chemicals, maybe. They are about the same, paper and ink or clot-dissolving solvents. Somehow the pickle smell of West Virginia opens the way, foretells the gentle scansion, lyrics that tell, pastel, how much you wanted to open that pale Magdalene's long legs. _Using the Crawl to Stay Afloat_ In the first month of the third year after the Great Gasp (well before The Unhistorical Mistake) came a Big Thaw in early spring. The tulips floated downriver, and what an odd dinner they made for the channel cat. The neighbors' house turned bottomside up. It balanced on the sharp edge of its pitched roof. I tried to ride my bike away, but only got to Leonard's house before a wave took me as well and dropped me in his family room, splashed through a glassless windowhole. I can't remember what was on TV. But they were watching. Mom probably would have let me too, but I swam home, thinking it best, using the crawl. Rebecca E. Hays --------------- 2 poems _The Wall_ A calculating glance brushes softly; the question, ever male, flashes momentary heat; the flinch, interest in a woman-set-aside suddenly squelched; the cool glance richochetes to another woman, walking. And the Wall falls again... It stands between glowing heart and discerning mind, impenetrable, guarding her already aching soul from this one-more-agony. Heavier than grief, it crushes all emotion, allowing only crystal logic-- necessary to calculate the depths of ignorance. Innocence, bought with that chill coin, purchases gentle forgiveness... And the Wall lifts again... ...while once more she hopes to see only fire in the next calculating glance. _Wheelchair View: Perspective in White_ A softness of snow, falling slowly, silently, so very gently, allows my mind to calm, senses to blossom, heart to flush with a quiet joy... Watching this commonplace beauty, serenity in motion, purity of perfection, the warming chill, I glow within-- a sensual deluge, exquisitly satisfying... And wonder: Why? Why do I see this as magnificent, without equal, even glorious, when others shake, grit their teeth, become sullen at the sight? Because-- I answer myself, smiling gently, softly, sweetly, serenely-- you don't have to shovel it. Wm. Michael Owens ----------------- 1 poem _The Bag Lady_ Hair gray and like straw beause of the years Eyes tired because of so many tears Line deep on her aged face Walking aimlessly from place to place Her hat perched on her head all askew It probably cost plenty when it was new, found Teeth brown and some missing because of lack of care Keep an eye on every stranger you have to beware Coats, shirts piled on to keep out the cold Probably sleeping in a doorway this night I know Somebody's Mother along time ago A heart that's empty and feeling just pain I can't care for no one there is no gain Seasons change day by day Don't ask me nothing, I have nothing to say I keep my life here in this sack! I wish I knew how to get back Despair and lost What is the cost Don't bother me no more I'm just looking for an empty door? Marco Morales ------------- 1 poem _The Betrayal_ I_. The Fall Her soft hands and sweetness blinded my soul, how was I to know? As I fell I touched the sun, and its burning, twisting flames devoured my love in a ravenous rave of wrenching glow. My mind burnt and buried, wriggling worms wreck body and being Ripping skin, reducing organs to a rotting wound while the cemetery's black earth, cold, cruel, cranks my lifeless limbs. The stone-grey skin, pierced by skewing roots weaves into decay to feed blind trees, deeply rooted into hellbound graveyards. Flaming screams, churning my throat, burning coal through my innards, push tears of fire through a tight grimace, sending my soul stray. How can anything hurt so much? I crave physical pain to liberate the mind from the broken pieces I am. No freeing death nor comforting oblivion from pain's dart, condemned to coexist with love, that hot claw clenching my heart. II_. Undead A thousand million worms feast in my intestines, their acid vomit dissolving a shredded cry. Love is the door to suffering; a deceiving reception to the dark, murderous hell of separation. Is the initial pleasure worth the torments of the soul? An instant of sublime heightening, fond affection of someone dear and a lifetime of dreaded sorrow and harsh, lone fear. Undead by numbness to reality, abandoned to the unknown. History repeats itself as young lovers burn up in flames blinded by the folds of love which nurtures their feelings, mocks affection and posesses the soul like a spider, weaving the destruction of the poets, plotting, creeping. III_. Solitude And the worst torment--solitude. Loneliness, as extense as the Pacific seas, where there is nothing but blue. Alone, like the hangman's tree in the open field, rotten through against the rage of the weather, unbeloved, misunderstood. The solitude of the lone wolf, sick and old, left behind to die is like the lonely grievance of a thousand men, quietly drinking, anonymously hanging onto the bottle, absently singing voicing the emptyness of their hearts in a howling cry. IV_. Abandonment Would death help me forget, then come sweet and swift, lift me off this thoughtless world, and rock me to sleep. I yearn for dreamless nights and absent days to die at dawn and repose at night. Let the blood come gushing out, my life slowly consuming away. I want to smoke away, to disintegrate, and forget, like a candle, suddenly blown away. What else is left in this pompous heart? Great monuments to knowledge, hidden treasures and mighty deeds. What is the use, when there is no reason to live? Without you. I merely exist. Death would forgive me, the pain ease. but I am unforgiven, unaccounted, undead. Cannot repose in peace. Damned to lurk the surface of this earth tormented, mutilated, pierced, eyes torn out of their housing when lovers kiss. I still remember how it used to be... V_. Regrets HOWL! SCREAM! CRY OUT! Let me die, let me out! Is it so much to ask? Will no one hear my shout? I don't eat, I don't smile. Life is just a buffon's act. Watch me laugh! Angela, Angela, Angela! 'Tis your name in fire branded on my heart. For every letter, a thousand sufferings, for every thought, a million tears of blood. Angela... That word capable of inflicting the most excruciating pain. The word that brings lost memories, desperation and anguish And yet, it was my choice to love you. What a fool! Didn't I know the price to pay? Did I not know this black day would finally come, to take you away. I only want to forget, and dull the pain. Jay Marvin ---------- <102547.1273@compuserve.com> short fiction _Fidel's Secret Agent_ He calls you to the blackboard and you stand in front of the class. The figures stare at you in white chalk, but you can't make anything out of them; it's like your head is blank, dead, there's no here and no tomorrow. God knows how long you're up there; the whole class laughs; you sit down stunned, wounded. You'd like the whole fucking class to die, and most of all you want your tormentor to die. You escape the moment by thinking of ways to kill your math teacher. You've read stories in the papers about service men in Nam fragging their own commanding officers. You feel the grenade slip and slide in your palm and you roll it under his desk and it goes off with a... At home they sit at the dinner table. You pick at your food watching them, your insides coiled like a snake. You watch him eat and drink his water in huge gulps. He talks about the quality of the food. This drives you crazy. This man is your father yet you have nothing in common with him. You don't want to have anything in common with him. You'd like to get out of your chair and push his god damn head into his plate. Across from you sit his two girls from another marriage. You look at them, you see them every day, but you don't really know them. The family: all of you under one roof bumping into each other living together fucked up as hell. It's like you're on some kind of movie set and you wish you had a saw to cut a hole in which you could climb out. You don't live life--you try to survive it. The phone rang and he answered it. He's talking about you. The others at the table are sitting still listening. You get it at school you get it at home. Your mother gets up and fiddles in the kitchen. He continues to talk on the phone you hear your name repeatedly. He hangs up and sits back down at the table. Your math teacher doesn't want you in his class anymore. He says you are flunking and that you won't do your work. The others giggle. You ignore them knowing you'll get them later. Starting tonight, he announces, you'll get no television, and you'll go to your room until you start doing your work and your grades improve. This is the deal he's worked out for you so you can stay in math class. In your room you sit at your desk and turn on your short-wave radio very low so the guards don't catch the prisoner with any special privileges. The radio plays a station from a country called Cuba. You hear about this man named Fidel and how he keeps telling the U.S. imperialists to jam it. You like that. Maybe if Fidel was here he'd tell your math teacher, your stepfather and the rest of the household to jam it. You decide to listen every night. Now you're a communist, and while others cheer for your country you'll cheer for Fidel's; and when the Cuban people win in their battle with U.S. Imperialism, Fidel will come liberate you. There will be trials and those who committed unjust crimes against you will be tried in a revolutionary court of law. It will be a people's tribunal and you'll be the judge and prosecutor. You'll present evidence and take testimony, and in the end they'll plead for forgiveness and mercy, and you'll ask who gave you mercy when they were in control and held you prisoner and subjected you to torments and abuse? There won't be jails big enough to hold everyone you'll try and convict. The radio glows hot with non-stop programming from the Caribbean. You rub your eyes and make a pact with God and Fidel you'll be his secret agent here in America; in the belly of the beast. You disconnect your receiver, hide it under your bed, like in the movies, and turn off the light. You get undressed in the dark a smile on your face. You're a guerrilla fighter; a man with a purpose and tomorrow you'll start to prepare yourself for the coming revolution in which all men will be free from exploration! For the first time in your life you feel like you'll survive. Call For Entries...A Contest Has Begun! --------------------------------------- Announcing the first (of what we hope to be many) **POETRY INK Writing Contest!** **Contest #1: An Exercise In Writing** We all know that in order to write better, we need to practice. What better way to practice than to do short writing exercises? Writing exercises force us to write within a structured environment, but also allow us to flex some creative muscle. One of the best writing exercises is to open a dicttionary, choose a bunch of words at random, and use them to write a poem. So here's the hook for the first POETRY INK Writing Contest. **The Pitch** Write a short poem (10-40 lines) which contains the following twelve words and phrases: stapler bough postage stamp calico mythology thesaurus Oktoberfest obsidian Tao Te Ching Hemingway pigskin secrets These words may be pluralized. These words may be used as either nouns or verbs, where permitted. You may enter as many times as you like, but all twelve words must appear in each poem. **The Deadline** The deadline for entries is December 15, 1995. All entries must be postmarked by this date to be considered eligible for consideration. Entries cannot be returned. **Where to Send Your Entry** All poems must be sent by SNAIL MAIL to the following address: Matthew W. Schmeer POETRY INK PRODUCTIONS ATTN: Contest #1 6711-A Mitchell Avenue St. Louis, MO 63139-3647 **The Prize (This Is What You Really Wanted To Know, Right?)** Prestige and the knowledge that you were the best. No, really, the people who submit the top three entires will get some realy cool free stuff (oh surprise, surprise, surprise). Plus, they'll each receive a certificate proclaiming their greatness (suitable for framing) so that they can impress their friends and family. Not only that, but the top 11 poems will be published as a Special Edition to be included with the January 1996 issue. So what are you waiting for? Get those entries in! Mail yours today! John Freemyer ------------- 1 poem _Immortality Blues_ My youngest daughter has the blues today. This morning I found her crying alone in the back yard crosslegged on the wet lawn wearing glamor Barbie clothes and a south sea island funeral mask. She told me she had climbed the big walnut tree and eaten a nut and the nut, she explained, had planted an idea in her head. She said "When this tree dies, I die." I said "Have courage. You're only seven years old." She said "It doesn't matter how old I am. It's the tree I'm worried about." Now she wants me to build a fence around the tree so no one can hurt it. She wants to make sure it doesn't get too much sun or too little water. She wants the tree to live forever so she can live forever. I understand how she feels. I feel the same about her. Paul Semel ---------- BeerHound@aol.com 2 poems _Notes From Los Angeles_ I keep forgetting I'm not in New Jersey I wake up in the morning expecting to see my bookcase my tv and my underwear drawer and instead I see a pile of books in the corner my friend Mark's tv and a large duffel bag full of my underwear I keep thinking I can pick up the phone and play pool with Rob and Steve I keep expecting Jeff and his baby to come over to watch 'The Simpsons' but when I pick up the phone I have to count ahead 3 to see if it's too late to call some nights when I really feel alone I rack my brain trying to think who my friends are the local ones I could call right then and... I keep forgetting this isn't home _Hide & Seek_ everyone wants to know everyone needs to know everyone has to know who's calling Sarah everyone wants to know everyone needs to know that's why Sarah gets mad when you ask "may I ask who's calling?" Sarah knows we keep track of what she does Sarah knows we keep track of who she talks to and Sarah knows we keep detailed records of every man, woman, and child Sarah talks to and these records are analyzed duplicated collated translated studied transmitted digitized and made available on CD-ROM for $39.95 Sarah doesn't want anyone knowing who calls her which is why she tells us who it was when she gets off the phone Rob Johnston ------------ 1 poem _Oasis_ Little John's Icehouse, framed by Texas highways and desert storms, its garage-door walls unveil hidden pool table promises. Weather-worn stools teetering under four-hundred pound tattooed men, named Tiny or Slim...or Fred. Parked inside and out, rows of Harley Davidson, shinning chrome and two-thousand dollar paint jobs. Cheap yellow-water...on tap, named after cities where the water is poison. Freebird playing too loud, and too often. Cowboy boots, and combat boots, and black leather chaps...with fringe. Wounded dart-boards, full of losing bets. Tired women, wearing leather bras, singing off-key trying to seduce the local pushers. High school kids huddled in beer soaked corners, laughing at the local cops. The local cops eating mountains of grease, laughing at the drunken high school kids. Short, tight, blondes with too much sun and painted-on jeans serving tequila by the quart. This dull mirage, a bleary safe-house for dust-weary travelers. Free of Yankees, and Yuppies. A Texas haven. An Oasis. Mike Randall ------------ 1 poem _what happened to andy?_ if you sat on your hands watching what i see day by day you'll learn that reality is a product that you make not with fingers but your eyes you are a photographer who makes life and god and future and past who captures it on film who others will take and frame, hang high on a plastic wall, and point at and laugh Then you'll see the hands so numb to your movie and watch them scrape your eyes goodbye, goodbye rapture you've fallen too. Jeanne Gil ---------- 1 poem _I Close My Eyes_ I close my eyes to dream, not of you beside me, Another, though sight unseen I know, Without a touch I want. A stirring in my groin, the purest senses awaken, heightened by the aroma of my passion, drifting to my nostrils, its heat vaporized. I continue to dream, my body trembles, then screams for the aching carress of your body, over me, under me, within me; for liquid fire pooling on the skin, singed by your lips, hot breath on my neck, freeing me, engulfing me, taking me prisoner. My eyes open, I turn to look at you. Staring, a flood of tears break free of the duct, mourning a passion that will never be. Nicolas Marc Billon ------------------- 1 poem _Blood of the Martyr_ I follow The Crimson Path As it slowly crawls forward, Knowing its destination to be Truth. I follow The Crimson Path Because I want to discover Truth, Because Truth will enlighten me. I follow The Crimson Path Because it is The Blood of the Martyr. I follow The Crimson Path blindly, filled with trust in The Blood of the Martyr. I follow The Crimson Path as it slowly mutates from Pure red to Corrupt ebon. I follow The (Crimson) Path My faith shattered, My legs weak. I feel my body crumble to the ground, Limp and heavy. I see my crimson blood, flowing out of me, Moving inexorably towards The (Crimson) Path. I feel my blood mix with The Blood of the Martyr, Slowly it mutates, helplessly, from Pure red to Corrupt ebon. Richard Steinbach ----------------- 1 poem _The Road_ You are on a road But you can't get through You are standing in front of an enormous gate It is locked and chained and bolted and tied with ropes And somehow you know you must get through So you summon all your will and collect all your tools Saws and knives and hammers and bolt cutters And you work until you are exhausted But you finally get through And you are traveling down the road again In a year you come to another gate All locked and bolted and chained and tied And you say to yourself, "I think I must get through" So once again you summon your strength And get your tools And cut and saw and beat And get through And continue on And in yet another year you come to yet another gate Not quite as large as the last But still locked and chained and bolted and tied And you say to yourself, " I know I must get through" And you get tools and saw and beat and cut And get through But this time, before continuing on, you look up And see before you, leading off into the horizon In clearly diminishing perspective An ever narrowing road Blocked by what seems to be and infinite number of gates Diminishing in size With fewer locks and chains and bolts and ropes But always there, always locked, always blocking your path And now you know that it is all right Because you know you can get through And delight in the joy of the road And build the strength to suffer the pain of passage And best of all You now know you are not crazy And it only took two years. Amy DeGeus ---------- 2 poems _Zeros and Ones_ He says I am possessed Of infinite fire-- Coiled copper wire-- One hideous expert is he Of superfluous passion Doled out in digital clock portions. ?How compliment is that? From one so perfectly fragmented Each emotion is a planned display. A fine talent has he For making me feel Adored and forgotten In the silent clicking Of one digital moment. _Gentry_ William Burroughs sits on a stoop On Kenmore between Berwyn and Balmoral Condo conversions beseige this shameful straggler This decrepit old abscess of a building William hunches on the stoop elbows on knees A buddy beside him Two wrinkled remnants Taking in Indian summer Watching leaves fall off trees Such a complete life These leaves know when to let go They bud, flourish, blaze supernova-- Shrivel dry And give themselves to the wind What does William see, from there on his stoop Old drug buddy beside him When leaves drop And flowers droop? Spiders, tentacled monsters? Brown crunchy newts? What does that fried old hanging on mind see When faced with something so complete? William sits, his rackety bones crouched crunched on the steps To a decrepit weeping abscess of a building William is stoic "The mind," he says, "must seize the trees be the trees sweep up the sand so no one will sneeze. In the pot crumbled leaves tail of newt so crunchy and dust of bricks Put That Brick BACK, Billy--" for Billy is his buddy's name too--"back in the wall you must save this goddam building for the Lincoln Park rats with sucking tentacle tails so they can clean it up sweep us away put some tentacle tails in the brew and you--" He points arthritic finger at Winnetka emigrant walking past "You--" Billy his buddy cackles. Pats his jacket, pulls forth a classic brew Full of newts and tentacles too. Mad Dog 20/20. "I have it. I drink to you." He salutes Winnetka. William points. "You, with your rehabs and street cleaning and Reeboks and neighborhood watch--I dose for you." Grabs Billy's bottle, tilts it high, swallows til mad bottle is dry. "You-- Are welcome here." About The Contributors... ------------------------- Warrick Wynne is this issue's Featured Writer. Go read that section to learn more about him. Don M. Blews is a retired biologist living in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. His interests include ecology, conservation, reading, writing, and enjoying his grandchildren. A type of muscular dystrophy has recently left him homebound, and he now concentrates on new challenges, especially his writing. Shannon Bonton hails from Baton Rouge, Louisana. Her interests include running, cooking, reading and writing short stories. This is her first appearance in print. Richard Epstein calls Denver, Colorado home. His poetry has appeared in a wide assortment of literary journals both in the U.S.A. and in Great Britian. He currently makes his living as a litigation paralegal. A frequent contibutor to POETRY INK, Richard sadly reports he did not win the Nobel Prize for Poetry, a honor that instead went to Ireland's Seamus Heaney. Rebecca E. Hays lives in Cascade, Maryland. Due to a severe physical disability, she is virtually homebound and therefore spends much of her time writing fiction and poetry. She welcomes comments and criticism of her work. Her poem _Moonshadow_ appeared in POETRY INK Issue 3. Wm. Michael Owens lives in Balch Springs, Texas. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and collections of poetry, and won several awards. His work has also appeared in several electronic magazines, such as "Sunday Snippets" and "Original Creations". He has published two books, "Living Stones" and "Looking Thru a Glass Darkly". He currently works as a third party judiciary for GAB Insurance Company. Marco Morales resides in Brisbane, Australia. Born in Spain, he moved to Australia in 1990 to practice his skills as an architect. His girlfriend broke up with him in 1995. Jay Marvin is a twenty-two-year veteran of radio who lives in Chicago, Illinois. His poems and short stories have been published in numerous magazines and journals, including "Black Bear Review", "San Fernando Poetry Journal", "Impetus", "ZuZu's Petals", and "Sulphur River Literary Review". He has published one independent chapbook of poetry, "Angel Wings", and two collaborative chapbooks, "Two Brothers Under The Same Blood Soaked Cover" (with Bill Shields) and "Tasting What You Touch" (with Paul Weinman). His collection of poems and prose poems is titled "In Your Face: The Midnight Poems of Jay Marvin". Jay's radio show airs nightly from WLS AM in Chicago. John Freemyer works with developmentally disabled children and writes what he calls "Computer Assisted Poetry" with homemade software of his own design. John lives in Los Angeles with his wife of 23 years, Jane, and their two daughters, Marie and Claire. This is his third appearance in POETRY INK. Paul Semel has had poems appear in "Planet Magazine", "Mysterious Wysteria", "Drop Forge", "Coffeehouse", and "Nerve". He is currently putting together the final edition of "Mixed Media", a journal of art and literature. His day job has him editing music reviews for "huH", and contributing to such magazines as "Wired", "Bikini", "Ray Gun", and "Hot Wired". Rob Johnston hails from Houston, Texas. When not writing, Rob does graduate research for NASA and trying to finish his doctoral degree. He has published about thirty academic and research articles and about a dozen poems. Mostly he's just trying to stay awake. Mike Randall is a high school senior living in Southington, California. Although a proflic writer, he has published little. Jeanne Gil lives outside of Trenton, New Jersey. She works with special needs children as an Occupational Therapist in the public schools. Although always interested in writing, this is her first appearance in print. Nicholas Marc Billion lives in Montreal, Canada. He is a creative arts student at Dawson College, with hopes of pursuing a career in the film industry. Nicholas enjoys reading, writing, movies, hockey, and computer programming. His philosophy of life is summed up by D.H. Lawrence: "The world allows no hermits." This is his first time in print. Richard Steinbach lives in Novato, California. A retired Navy pilot and telephone company manager, his interests include photography, gardening, and his grandchildren. Richard is POETRY INK's offical America On-Line(tm) uploader, so eMail him and say thanks! Amy DeGeus lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. She works for a local Chicago service bureau, and in her spare times crafts jewelry from glass fragments she finds washed up on the shores of Lake Michigan. 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