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About The North Coast times-eagle. (Wheeler, Oregon) 1971-2007 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2003)
PAGE 9 north coast TIMES EAGLE, JAN/FEBRUARY2003 IT'S A DOG'S LIFE I heard it on the radio That America s unhappy dogs Respond well to Prozac We could teach our kids to beg Before they can watch TV. An animal trainer said That guard dogs kill their owners More often than strangers Should we keep our children in cages To protect them? I read in the paper That "Americans spend more on pets Than they do on books." We could send criminals to obedience class To reform them. In the crime reports They call police dogs "Canine Officers.” If we call our teachers “Education Officers” Can we get them more funding? HANK GREELMAN, PORTRAIT OF HIS FATHER CRAIG (2003) POETRY WHERE WATER BEGINS For MeiLi at 20 months Washing hands with water from the Bear Creek drainage, water stored in the city's reservoirs and let go, water heated by the power of water tumbling through turbines at Bonneville,The Dalles, water swirling into the drain and on down to the sewer, the treatment ponds, the river, the sea. You've learned how water pours forth from faucets, falls as far as it can, finds the low point, and spreads out, how it takes on the shape of what holds it, touches it, moves through it. We turn our hands in the water and I wonder, “Where does water begin?" Is it where clouds let go their load of rain? Is it at the fast fading edge of ferry's wake? Is it the cornice of snow on the ridge line? Is it where frost begins to hone a grass blade? Is it your first sip from a cup? Is it where tears form in your eye? Is it where they dry to salt on your face? A WARM GUN I am a woman who on occasion contemplates murder today asking a clerk in a department store if she sold guns ones which fire with grace the bullet moves like a paper airplane and enters his flesh serenely, no blood just a small hole and a slow wave going out from around it as if it could be sleep but it isn’t. (S AS I MOl/RN MEN How many dead, too soon returned to earth, to air, Must it be the fate of women to live thus in memory, racked with loss after loss, warmed but unsatisfied by the breathy goodnight kiss of children, however dear? A VILLAGE AGE -JIM DOTT where the circle is broken the woman must smile at death and her mortal voice woo its window -JUDITH GRIFFIS SALTY CLOUDS I wish I had a girl so dark that the sea would call me friend like in my good old days of youthful power and natural ways the mighty wave did lift heaven’s light through the waters love I oft times played surfing with no board and having fun the laughing sun roaring overhead this girl I want will lift the fates and give me strength to carry my songs to stranger folk so they can freak, be proud and laugh with me for I am blessing the heavenly fates to help me search for this mate maybe a child to love this world as I to carry creation child this thing that willeth I me hopeth little sorrow carry dream catchers tarry advise the moon and bring this girl for me to carry -CHRISTOPHER KRAEMER I saw it on TV That pet care is “A big consumer item.” We could put a tax on dog shampoo To pay for homeless shelters. They say “The dogs of war are loosed” Because dogs never stop chasing Until they have cornered their prey Just like our government.... -PETER MARSH while I still see and hear and dance without their arms about me or their mouths hot on mine. But water is not like a story, a journey, a day, where you can say, “Here it starts." -JUANITA HUEBNER It is always welling up, flowing through and away, starting over, stopping, passing by again: The wide brown Yangtse sweeping slowly under the bridge between Turtle Hill and Snake Hill at Wuhan. Flesh never learns to say goodbye. The Columbia that slips and slams over the bar. The ocean that was between us. -ELIZABETH HOBBS The heavy haze over Hubei the day we got you. The barely cool breeze off of East Lake. The morning rain steaming up from the hotel steps. The shush and blur of the waterfall in the White Swan lobby. The droplets split and sprayed off the wing’s edge as we took off for home. The hose dribbling water over your toes and down the walk, as you filled and emptied a bucket again and again. The water slipping off our fingers, our palms as we rinsed them. Storms that pass The gutter outside the window spilling over with hard falling rain. Taking you along My own sudden tears as you step off your stool You alone with escaping hills and put a towel in my dripping hands. Here is where water begins. I heard an expert say That the American dog Eats better than a third world peasant. Should we send the starving kibble To end world hunger? The clouds becoming feelings. The small lines of life Looking to towering faces Appearing and disappearing, Chimes roaming all outdoors Holding encounters. White fawn lips passing through family pines The shape of locked arms whispering into deaf ears Rain Moving over oblivion With swirling gray brush marks, Sketching as it calls Upon touch. Souls touching Trapped in a village age ROBERT LEGG FOR MR. PARKER What are you saying to me Charlie, you sound so sad as you nibble at my ears, after laying down long stemmed roses at my feet That’s just you isn't it Charlie Your joy mingles with your sad, and mine too You float around this still, sunny room, like a lazy tear, suspended in the juiciest pulse of alive -THEDA SPRACKLIN Sticks & stones may break my bones But never my brain -LILY DEUFEL (AGE 7) IN YOUR WHISPER your mind, a blood red amaryllis has torn each petal from its only blossom leaving only a chaste stalk and that too illusion spread deep beneath the pulp of roots how trivial, your beauty seems now, an untimely ghost hovering over the veil of your lips in your whisper vixens once danced bareback falling from rooftops like suicidal angels and I caught them now, the crook of your voice lies flat in my palm a chord of rosemary curling like a requiem around the soft shadows that cradle memory how obscene the passage of time when the mind and body have parted I wonder if your life has spun out before you if all this time you have paced back and forth along a single unkempt memory and trying to recall have lost your way along the polished halls that reflect like circus mirrors or perhaps a lapse in heart has hinged upon a single day and swung out like a door inviting you to follow the life you almost led and now lead inside your head a new family raised in the space of dreams children all of them with violet eyes that follow their children around the dining room table and in the center a cake, a birthday, yours a sea of candles set to ferry away a wish and you are happy and do not notice the faint glow around the walls shimmering like stage backdrops and you crawl into bed that night your eyes flutter open the feeling of having forgotten to do something washes over your body like sour milk and you can’t shake the chill that starts in your toes crawling up your spine pressing on your chest like a piano the keys moving on their own to a melody you almost know -NICOLE ZUCKERMAN
