PAGE 9
NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E, JULY 2001
A MOMENT OF LUCIDITY
THE UNKNOWN IS KNOWN
Sounds of silence
breaking my soul
Repeated thoughts
invade my mind
reminding me of days
and days to come
Why they happen
and not disappear
Broken promises
fill my heart
tearing this sadness —
Rushes with guilt
Time has come
and come again
Unpure thoughts
to overwhelm
curse me and break me
I do the same
Take all these lies and unjustified ways
My karma has come
and come a long way
I feel it's time to release
this pain
-JACKIE SMITH
MICHAL TOCHINNI
1948-2001
Your voice
clear, intelligent & warm
vibrating far out beyond
the shrill babel of this noisy planet
to reach other sentient ears
among the oscillating spheres
as our introduction
- michael M c C usker
ADDRESS SEARCH
And you will find me
any night
now, try
at the motherless sky.
com
How dare you
interrupt
me.com
Schizophrenia needs some room to live
if you're going to stay detached from it.
Grounds for sanity and
the freedom of this client.
If he takes his medication
and doesn't get into trouble
with police very often.
What ideology promotes
one of the many schizos
to be able to think enough
to take care of themselves
and not endanger anyone or
themselves?
-PAUL EVALT (9E2X)
A TENDED FIRE
Dark was coming on, a cold rain falling.
The low glow of sunset held no heat
and then was smothered under black cloud.
The last of the maples' flicker and flare
had been snuffed out, scattered by the wind,
drenched in the downpours, drowned in the run-off.
No live ember remained.
The fire was out.
Then we see the lights of the hall
across rain-soaked pastures.
When we arrive the doors are open,
the radiating heat invites us in.
A host of scents and sounds welcomes us:
wet wool, split wood, food set out for the meal,
the click and pop of the wood stove,
laughter, young voices, old voices,
those in between, blending
in the murmuring warmth of common speech.
This is no wild fire that devours all in its conflagration,
PAUL EVALT (9E2X), 'CATS IN BOTTLES'
no blaze set to fill the arsonist's destructive need,
no artifact of gravity like the hot molten core
at earth's center,
but a tended fire.
And while anger may spark us out of smoldering complacency,
or the lightning strike of inspiration ignite creation,
or passion burst our bodies into joyous flame,
it is slow-stoking love that sustains us
through the cold, the dark,
that keeps this fire burning.
-JIM DOTT
A PASTORAL REFLECTION
"My mind is so big,
but my brain is so small."
-CARSON WHISTLER (AGE 4)
I'm sorry
I was ever born.com
No doubt
you can always find
me any
time, any
where
i
GOLDEN MOMENTS
A blazing path swathes
the Columbia even
as we drive westward.
in the damned world
-ARTHUR HONEYMAN
-FRANZ WRIGHT
GIFTS
For every tear you cry for a friend,
I promise you love that will never end.
For every smile you put in a heart,
I grant you a star that will never part
For every fight you walk away from,
I give you peace in endless sum.
For every day you cherish and hold,
I swear your heart will never grow old.
For every loved one you say goodbye to,
I promise you kindness, blooming anew
For every time you comfort a child,
I promise no hate, and anger ever mild.
All is not peaceful in my being
(not the way it's supposed to be)
as the moon skims above the ridge
its beams shining down the valley floor
to light up the shadows of images
moving noiselessly across
the faded landscape that comes with night
under a lunar sky.
Who knows why this phenomenon is?
Possibly, a wolf howls somewhere
(in Orlando?) and stalks hapless souls
in the wake of the waxing Luna.
Or, maybe, there's a nocturnal emptiness - a
void in the night - where hollow cravings
reside.
Joy is out there somewhere, but not here,
and a bat's caught behind a screen window!
-ARTHUR HONEYMAN
For every person you lift from the floor,
I'll close no windows and open a door
For every wish you make on a star,
I promise your loved ones will never be far.
If you think I'm offering a perfect life,
Look close at your heart and examine your strife.
All these things are already yours —
Count your blessings and let your soul soar
-JESSI DUNKIN
Here, over bloodstained
craggy barren soil
the tattered banner waves,
high above the final
battlegrounds,
where hundreds slaughtered lie
in eternal sleep,
their blood tinting the dirt.
The banner flies
held up by the wind
witness to desolation
until time itself
tears the fabric remnants
from the pole
and everything crumbles
to dust.
-MARGIT LIA BOWLER
B ureau C ats C oup D' etat
All credit cards nationally canceled,
America's Elm Street shades are drawn.
Women and children, under pastel bedding,
lie stunned before TV static and snow.
Beer bellies soured and gaseous,
boneheads under hardhats are crushed
as Military/lndustrials foreclose on the land.
Now matriarchal scout cookies are crumbled.
An age of GIVE ME GIVE ME ended.
-BILL BERTIN
ARTEEST
zombies don't screw for long
she screams in my mind
they bark out orders to bigger muscles
in odious chicanery with absurd strutting
all these civilians are or aren’t targets
for the stupid military goons lording it over each other
wtiat bastards would like to blast the world to hell
simply because they confuse each other in nationalistic furor
what do they love
what do they respect but they deify their own death wish
ignorant selfsameness causes brutal death
cascades of conscription, forecasts of power to dignified domains
call off the lycanthropy of the races
wing the titans to whispering angels
you won't let the world go bad
just powler it up till the sky bursts and the earth cracks
paper and minerals aren't edible
do I wonder if you are
poisoned doves are flooding the sky with your souls'
inverted anger, avarice and greed
dreadful rages all pass with the cosmic wind
do we all vibrate complete
or are there dreadful mistakes in high places
attempting to roar the flowers to death and taxes
nifty little girls with their endowments mapped
and their minds expanded courageously conceal tyrannical bullmen
still snuffling and searching for the right vibration
-CHRIS KRAMER