John Zedolik writes

The Reins

                                                                

Two pigs, one unleashed,

have purpose in the park—

acorns under the civic oaks

that bear their bounty every fall—

so snouts to the grass and straight

to the trunk, reined slightly back or not,

nimble even carrying their weight

upon hooves peeping between the blades,

the tender, upright and obedient,

follows to the source, a glutton

for the gathering of two intent

upon the yet-giving earth

whose final skin peels off

under their snuffle and twitch,

yielding to those whose appetite

and will masses with much greater press. 

John Zedolik writes

Ars Vbique Est                                                 

Our generously arced spigot

in the half-bath reflects

the faux-gilt and frilled

mirror of this home’s previous

owner into a semblance

of Munch’s screaming man,

but I am at relative ease so

acknowledge the pain the lips

on the chrome, pursed into an “O,”

express, wash my hands, pump

the dispenser of liquid lavender soap

so lose sight of the little

agonized simulacrum of the brush,

turn off the light, rest assured

the tortured face and matching eyes

will be waiting with their angst

and dread whenever I need a shot,

a taut perspective, of immortal gloom.

[Ars vbique est = Art is everywhere] 

 

 The Scream -- Edvard Munch

John Zedolik writes

Doubtful Armor                                                     

The tale, over tea and coffee

on an easy Saturday evening

was of loosed armadillos,

minor mayhem and mischief

on a hotel floor then false

reporting to earnest police,

which yarn elicited laughter

from the group whose members

were reveling in their third decade,

some parenting and some almost,

so what better than a story

of those southern scramblers

of neutral to unattractive temper

on account of their small brains,

according to the raconteur,

in contrast to these relatively

young and prosperous representatives

of a species with much larger

noggins and proportionate brains encased

to boot though without the plating

the old Spanish attributed

to the low mammal, so needing

at times such diversions concerning

carpet-covering chaos little critters

and other unthinkers bring.

John Doyle writes

The Lesser-Known Presidential Assassinations

For Alyssa Trivett

I was born with lots of things across my hands,

snowflakes, blood, 

water from the Rio Grande.

Nothing compromised the science 

of each individual component,

snow-drifts grew larger, 

started a family,

moved north, blocking tin-can Ford trucks on freeways.

The blood I took, 

I added it to the bones from lesser-read pages in the Holy Book,

Adam had sisters, brothers, no-one spoke of, 

Eve was married twice before.

The lesser-known presidential assassinations spring-up

from tributaries of the Rio Grande,

William McKinley -

A good Protestant

County Antrim name

with sizzling stagecoach wheels

in thickened rains - gives church-yard

its Sunday chatter. 

James Garfield is mentioned in archives

where cigars, brandy

and the Witherspoon family 

of New England make generous donations

to rebuild our church-hall blown down 

in the winds and rains of 1908.

I was born with lots of things across my hands,

it's a map that remains,

its fauna blotchy

like dead animals hunting near a desert dirt-track

mutes and blind-folk 

were too terrified to rub with tar.

This is the word of someone's Lord;

Praise Be

John Doyle writes

Migratory Birds Going Home to Africa

The radio was shouting at you, pleading with you...

David Byrne

Vaguely orange with offerings of brown,

such a rusted sky - 

vapor-trails like Nuada's veins.

On the radio tonight I pretend it's Carl Corcoran

whom I've missed like an Uncle gone to war.

Carl plays Heartland Rock, Carl plays Afrobeat,

I remind myself every April, as this requiem is due-

about now - all these birds who fly southerly, 

marmalade-burned sundown, grass still brown.

It's five inches-high at our crossroads -

three local streams meeting like Uncles returned from war,

and I smell the farm and primary river

they flow to, sometimes - summer maybe, but usually April,

birds' whooshing chatter that plays Heartland Rock

on the radio, now that Africa is leaving.

Hey there Carl, tell me

if anyone is listening anymore,

on a transistor radio in a tent, something orange flashes overhead…?

John Doyle writes

I’ll Send You a Postcard Tomorrow Amelia, That I Promise

Negatives of my shoelaces

fade from my shins

as I dissolve into my myself,

appearing moments later

as an acrobat in Rush and Lusk Station

haunted by the puppeteer

who pulled the children

like seaweed from the waters -

it makes a believable alibi

explaining myself 

to a man checking tickets

who spent last night sleeping

in a wooden hotel from the late 19th Century

while his wife, son and daughter

trotted off to Sunday School

unaccompanied

Arlene Corwin writes

 Two Looks At The First Reality 

 (or What or Who creates it all)

Depending on one’s leanings,

And assuming one is interested,

I, myself am all-enthralled 

By themes self-vested in.

One view is that Reality, the Primary

Is really One, without a sun - just one Entirety.

The second is the same Supreme

With arms, legs, body, plus an aim;

One which we address by name.

Who often spotlights sin and blame

But calls on us to love our neighbour -

Finely tuned through daily labor.

I find I prefer the former:

One which says that causes good in motive, act

Result in good-ness as a fact;

And causes whose intents are wrong

Though mind is rational and sharp 

Will end in ends that taint and warp. 

Each theory is complementary.

Depending on how you are born

(with preferences pre-natally ‘learned’)

You can arrive one early morn

At one with It-The-Energy,

Free from all impurity.

These little stanzas simplify

A lifelong try

At transformation.

Drawing on our screwed-up best

At wrestling with the gifts and mess 

We’re born to guest.

Arlene Corwin writes

Words That Changed Our Lives: 

Pandemic, Pandemonium, Endemic

Words that show lives but a tribe:

There to scribe, describe our lives. 

Words that come from health or sickness: mind and body:

Words from which no-one escapes:

Fearlessness, speechlessness, endlessness;

Dangerousness, selfishness;

Sowing seeds of mental shapes 

That come from mind-to-mouth.

Now’s come the time to learn some new:

Epidemic and Pandemic, 

Plus another word to view: Endemic.

Just a few, but whew! 

Let me put you in the picture,

Hoping that it’s not titanic - the Titanic!

First come epidemics:

Measles, smallpox, influenzas…

How to conquer, name and aim,

How could and could we cure the sum?  

We do sometimes rule over some -

But vanquished? Germs and virus are not dumb,

Survive anti-biotically, the foe of symbiotically.

It is the year two thousand twenty:

Epidemic now pandemic,

Plentiful and more than plenty;

Too, too many - far too many.

Struck by the invisible;

We, vaccine-less, susceptible, 

Daring not to breathe or touch,

Wondering, asking when will it become too much?

Thus we leave the first word, 

Come to the last, worst word:

Endemic: 

Some background forever found somewhere;

Will not be killed, wiped out or cleared;

And underground a countlesss year

Alive and well and waiting for…

 

pandemonium:wild and noisy disorder or confusion; uproar: there was complete pandemonium—everyone just panicked. ORIGIN mid 17th century: modern Latin (denoting the place of all demons, in Milton's Paradise Lost), from pan- ‘all’ + Greek daimōn ‘demon’.

 

pandemic: (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world; an outbreak of a pandemic disease: the results may have been skewed by an influenza pandemic.

 

endemic (adjective): (of a disease or condition) regularly found among particular people or in a certain area: complacency is endemic in industry today.• [attributive] (of an area) in which a particular disease is regularly found: the persistence of infection on pastures in endemic areas.

 

Arlene Corwin writes

Examining ‘My’

My, means belonging to…

Does anything belong to you?

I don’t  think so.

My face, body, cat or house.

Worse,

My child, my wife and coin possessed?

Preposterous and pointless.

Mine to own?

Fallacious and  illusion;

All’s a loan.

Each object, person, situation

Not the tiniest bit mine.

It is better that you say: 

“I go, you go, he goes, she goes”.

Goodness knows, each object goes:

Nothing’s mine and nothing’s yours;

Each thing seen, touched, held; a guise..

The range of verbs you choose to use

Should be reviewed to understand reality.

Everyone and everything but temporary.

Try to take a day or two

Getting used to finding out what, how and who 

Relates to you.

Rotation, alternation, staying in our lives a day

But never staying always.

 

We use ‘my’ without a thought. My goodness! Oh my! We use it affectionately, sympathetically; my dear boy; my poor baby!  Also belonging to or associated with the speaker: my name is Arlene; my friend. And yet, and yet…my is possessive.  

Arlene Corwin writes

 July 4th, 2020

It is the fourth of July.

A day we usually

Fill with joy:

Fireworks, parades and games

Its names:

Fourth of July:

Independence Day.

United, free;

No more a colony;

A formal declaration

Made of five brave men

And Thomas Jefferson,

Making history, and

The beginnings of a USA.

So, Americans,

My dear, dear Swedish friends

And any there may be elsewhere,

Let us wear the day

In camaraderie and play.

Most all in harmony.

Happy, Happy 4th July!

Duane L. Herrmann writes

FLY WITH ME

I want to fly 
like butterflies – 
wings  
colorful  
bits of beauty.
Oh, that I  
could also fly.
I stretch and stretch  
and WINGS appear!!
Slowly dry them  
in warm sun  
and off  
into clouds.
Finding food  
I drink deep  
and merge  
into flower colors.
Come!
Fly with me!

Duane L. Herrmann writes

LITTLE BODIES

Tiny corpses:
skunks, possums,
rats and coons,
trapped for bait
and left to rot
to draw
their predators:
for them
an alluring stink!

Duane L. Herrmann writes

FROZEN TAN

Northern sky  
of pale orange sun  
filled with streaks  
of pinks, blues, and whites  
contrasting above  
skeletons of trees,  
frozen tans of grass,  
fields of snow and stubble:  
final colors  
of a dying day.
One day and time,  
one civilization,  
passes for another  
cycling through time  
we see only 
when looking far enough  
across time and space  
and experience.

Duane L. Herrmann writes

BABY BONDING

I talked to her –    
wide eyed  
she listened,  
our mother couldn’t bother,  
while I held her bottle:  
my first job, at two.
Later, she was the one  
to play with:  
a companion  
at last.
When brothers came  
we both worked –
a team. 
I was taller  
to reach stove knobs  
we had to cook,  
mother  
was “too busy.”
Competition too:  
washing dishes alternating weeks:
I would NOT wash hers,  
she would NOT wash mine:  
we understood being fair –
Our mother didn’t.
Submissive, we survived  
but in the world –   
lacked defenses.

Duane L. Herrmann writes

GRIEVING FOR…

Have you ever grieved,  
or even thought,  
of the deaths  
of uncounted millions  
of creatures  
and beings,  
some sentient,  
some not,  
on countless planets  
orbiting
how many suns  
that go nova?
Painful, 
fiery deaths,  
agony instant,  
then ending – 
and no one else  
will ever know!

Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia writes

Insight Out of Sight

Whom have I pleased the most?
Those farthest from me except for those who know me not at all though I have made many such happy too, despite their not knowing me

Whom have I annoyed even hurt the most? Those closest to me. Why would others bother? Yet I may have hurt many I don’t know, them unknowing me personally, me unknowing or knowing only dimly in exactly how my being what I am doing what I do eating what I eat consuming what I consume by my class function for instance or my way of life.

Which is the real me?
Which the unreal?
Is there a real me?
Is there really a me at all, real or unreal?
Or am I just my own perception of a tiny node of the Great Universe?

Who’s to judge? I myself? Or other self appointed judges? Or Church or State? Or this uncertain entity called God or Soul or whatever? And what is to be the consequence of such judging? More of the same, or the opposite?

Whom do I love that I hate so much?
Whom do I hate that I love so much?
And they, me ?

One may pause to reflect
But will it change things?
Can these things qua things actually be changed at all ever by one person?
By one person’s thoughts?
By a thought?
Some think so
Others disagree

For life must go on
Or at least time will pass
The world will go by
Or come to an end
Inexorably

Exactly what is it that we really can control, if not our own thoughts?
Not even emotions
Not even action
Perhaps not even thoughts
For
From where do thoughts arise?

Think about it
Or not
It’s up to you
It’s up to me
Or is it?

Arlene Corwin writes

The Sin Of Pride

I heard the phrase: it froze, was glued.
First thought: What’s sin?
The second: what is pride?

A sin is when you miss the mark,
(Connected to self- condemnation –
Sadly, to iniquity )
Pride is when you’ve chosen wrongly,
Guided by a mostly falsely high opinion
Of oneself and one’s importance.

Yet we use it as a virtue,
Nurture as if it were good;
Pride in country, children, kin..
Fact: exclusion and restriction;
Leaving out, elimination;,
Failing to include oneself as sinful,
Ignorant and rude.

Reality contains the certitude
That we are all a family
With variations in the tree:
Tendency and quality, person, personality.
None is better or more worthy –
(one more fancy theory).

We’ve all filled with invasive traits:
“All-inclusive” like the place.
Different nose, different face,
Different color, difference race;
Talents more or less intense;
On the fence;
Misrepresented.

Pride: to swap for modesty,
A lack of vanity,
The ever growing insight that we
All are everyone and nobody.

Arlene Corwin writes

Words & Marriage II

Word Paralysis: Stunted Growth

Couples do it all the time:

Talk in phrases long cliched by platitude,

Stalled and staled attitude.

They don’t communicate

(except perhaps when fornicating).

Do not learn, the phrases all the same,

Repeated at each meal, each film.

Reprised like some old pale rhythm.

They’re missing out on IQ-raising inspiration,

Real communication

Worn or lost in years or habit:

Customary words inadequate.

They learn to neither listen 

Nor to pay attention,

Stopping up their listening ears

Through years of word paralysis.

Sometimes deafness very real

Strikes one or the other mate.

There goes all conversation’s skill

Communication standing still,

Or worse, traveling at speed downhill.

What to do?

What the solution?

Marriage as a dance for two

Goes falling through

Through simple lack of word renewal.

Who wants boredom,

Wants to snore when loved one speaks?

Love goes sneaking out the door

When words no longer stir or spur.