The Clackamas print., November 18, 1992, Image 8

A Literary Insert
I HEAR THE DRIP
Poetry is a sliver of the moon lost in
the belly of a golden frog.
--Carl Sandberg
GIDEON CANDLE ABRAHAM
Before a candle
is a candle,
it is a string,
across a bar,
above a pool,
of wax.
Before Shore Pine
becomes fire
In soggy camps.
It can be dried
with white gas.
But someone's voice was once heard
in a forest, alone, without a candle
or gas.
Suddenly
a million years of before now
comes barreling up from behind
and glances over
at what you are about to do,
then speeds off ahead
to prepare the consequences.
I hear the drip of the water fountain
pouring in my head.
Sliding down the heater
Sliding down my throat,
Sliding down the pipe above my head
Quenching my thirst without a thought.
Tightening within the bounds of bravery
like a cartoon, rushing past me
with a spiral wisp of air between it's legs.
Between me and a forever whisper,
of the echo of the pipe in my head.
There's a small breeze within my sneeze
that hardens the nipples of the night,
Quenching the thirst of thousands, with a drop,
from thé heat,
and the moisture of the pipe,
above my head, in my dreams,
quenching my thirst with a lemon-lime label.
Texture of the beating,
sliding down the pipe,
sliding down my throat,
Coating it,
With a wisp of wetness,
sliding smoothly, gently, the rust
of the pipe and the moss that builds,
slaps my swallow, gently.
The heat of the pipe and the moisture
surround me, with it's power,
it's illusion and delusion,
asking me to come and to drink
from it's waters,
from it’s depth,
of cool passionate pools.
I salivate the signature of the savior
of the water, of the drip, of the pipe,
with it's heat and heavy burden of thirst,
weighing me down, on the oasis of thought,
and indecision.until thedrop
hits,
and it is blood.
Christopher Haberman
Believing you still know what you are doing,
you dip the string into the wax.
He made candles.
Said he was an artist.
He knew about darkness -
said he'd taken lessons in It.
He knew how Shore Pine burns
golden, alone, in the woods, at night.
Said candles attract angels.
Said a man was never alone
if he had an angel,
or a voice like a candle.
bused to mow his lawn every Saturday,
rainor shine. I was mowing his lawn
when his wife left him. She came out
of the house with q suitcase. She
pretended she didn't drop it, pretended
it didn't crack open like an egg on cement.
She kept walking to the street. I kept mowing.
He came out of the house slowly and stood -
both feet in the suitcase. He waved his arms
as if coaxing a child or a kite out of a dangerous
wind. When I finished mowing, he gave me a
five dollar bill and asked me not to return.
For the next two years, ear wax and tobacco*flakes
stained his thumbnails brown, until
finally he fell asleep -
a cigarette in one hand
and a fist in the other.
That night, his couch
fumed into a candle
and drank his skin
like white gas drinking wax.
His bones burned like a skeleton
of carefully balanced wicks.
Adam Wagner
1« I®«!
I
ir
122 1/2 E. 12th
1 miss the long summer days
breathe in the melancholy sweet
lemonade, porch swing
toxic nights at the tequila bowl
someone stole the dress i was wearing
but summer Sunday mornings are pure
like you were
coming across the green lawn
like a ten year old looking for cookies
and the sun shone
as our honey heads
stuck to our lips
and dipped into our tea
by Maria Julianna Kirwin