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NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E , APRIL/MAY 2003
DOS ESMERALDAS (TWO EMERALDS)
POETRY
Dedicated to the love of my life Gillian
Dos emeraldos tengo yo
Que las cuido noche y día
Verdes como el amazonas
Son dos piezas de arte
Talladas por las manos de los dioses.
I have two emeralds
That I guard night and day
They are green like The Amazon
They are two pieces of art
Made by the hands of the gods
Cada vez que me miro adentro de ellas
Veo a la mujer que me ama
A esa mujer que esta conmigo
En las buenas y en las malas
La que me habla cada noche
Y me canta
Mi musa, mi calabaza,
Esa niña desobediente
Que me hace amarla cada
Dia un poco mas.
Every time I look inside them
I see the woman who loves me
That woman who is with me
In good times and bad times
The one who talks to me every night
And sings to me
My muse, my pumpkin,
That stubborn little girl
Who makes me love her
More and more.
The rose of my garden in winter
The one who calms my thirst in summer
That little one with an innocent smile
And an angelical beauty.
La rosa de mi jardín en invierno
La que alivia mi sed en verano
Esa chiquilla de sonrisa inocente
De belleza angelical.
La sirena que me adormece con su cantar
La que me escucha llorar,
Cantar, reir y gritar
La dueña de mis esmeraldas
La que me ha embrujado.
The mermaid who enchants me with her voice
The one who hears me cry,
Sing, laugh and shout
The owner of my emeralds
The one who has bewitched me.
You know that you have left me
Hungry for your love
Thirsty for your body
Those nights full of passion
Where I lost myself in your mouth
Where I write poems on your
Back with my breath
Where you call me
Your love, your heaven and your everything
And I get drunk from drinking
All the drops from your body
That have been fermented from the air
Between your body and mine.
Tu sabes que me has dejado
Hambriento por mas amor
Sediento por tu cuerpo
Esa noches de pasión
En las que me pierdo en tu boca
En las que escribo poemas en tu
Espalda con mi aliento
En las que me llamas
Tu amor, tu cielo y tu todo
Y me emborracho de beber
Las gotas de tu cuerpo
Fermentadas por el aire
Entre tu cuerpo y el mió.
'■GUILLERMO REYES
FOUND ART (ON A WET SIDEWALK IN ASTORIA)
‘Light is slow. Behind every black hole is a sun.’
-PAUL EV ALT (9&X)
THE GREENING OF SPRING
PERSEID METEOR SHOW, 2002
Vagrant longings
surface as dreams
of wicked-grinning roses
purveying empty delights
of hunger gnawing at rot
and with careless regard
my inward seeing
reveals the greening
of winter soon springing
l. 'í í ■ i/V / • ,v*
a star cleaved the sky in two
as it leapt, screaming from heaven.
It reminded me of a wayward angel,
caught in the jaws of gravity’s teeth,
blown off-course
and pinned to earth
like a butterfly tacked to the collector’s board
it left in its wake a stream of particles
faintly luminescent before dissipating
-E. A. ANDERSON
like swirls of foam in the cosmic ocean
strewn upon our distant shore
and it was silent.
no comforting rush of wind or far-off snarl of impending doom,
to take a picture would be pointless —
and if they say pictures are worth a thousand words,
EABY-KU
then not in a thousand pictures could the real thing be captured,
the silence echoes on to vega,
Fear, like hot water
to algol, altair, to deneb
here the night is a shattered scream —
Splashed against a baby’s skin
a callous and cruel echo of an angel’s demise.
Twists me suddenly
another speeds to eternity.
there must be a hurricane up there...
i sit at home on earth
to sip cold apple cider
and count the dying angels
before they slip away, and are greeted by the dawn.
-MARGIT BOWLER
GETTING USED TO DUMB COMMENTS
Your mouth twists like mumbo jumbo
when you talk and
my thoughts are like hair
growing backwards, getting tangled in my brain.
-SUSAN ANDERSON
MY FAVORTTE PLACE
I am going to tell you my favorite place. And it is the river
The river smells like peace in the air. It looks like God
It tastes like water and feels like Grandma Donna,
It sounds like George Harrison.
The river is peaceful when I walk.
I love to hear the waves.
The river soaks through my soul.
The river is a joy to my life. It is a part of who I am
The river is blue. My mom loves it too
I love the river. I just love the river and the waves
-DONNA JOY DEUFEL (AGE 7)
LEAVES DON’T FALL IN SPRINGTIME
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Leaves fall in Autumn,
when the time is right
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Blushing beauties,
float, spiral,
like lily pads in air,
circling, free of the vine,
billowing to death’s corridor,
where legend has it,
heaven is next Spring.
Leaves don’t fall in Springtime,
the time just isn’t right.
Innocence growing,
plummets, heavy,
bubbles with life to live,
screams, unwilling
to fall without a fight,
and legend has it,
heaven is sacrificed, everytime.
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ELEMENTS OF WAR
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In times of darkness
We burrow deep underground
Searching for more light
Blowhards blow harder
Fridays at 5, and their signs
Say: Give War A Chance
Misinformation
The more we know the less we know
No smoke without fire
While old women stretch
Graceful as swans in chlorine
Transcending dry bones
-SID COOPER
-THEDA SPRACKLIN
-RICHARD SCHULTZ
(1952-1993)
SOME DAY IN MAY
Deep in the shadows we linger
Intrepid malingering
Waiting and watching for the sun to appear
Now just a smear.
Whoever dares to venture out
Must allow a few minutes
To break free from clouded thoughts
And restless dreamy haunts
Far down from where we hide
The sidewalks are cold outside
And dreary from the night’s misty dust.
Our morning reeling is something unbearable
And to face another day pushes the crisis our way.
Suddenly the sun stands up and stretches
Filling up the far corners of the valley
Reaching for the most intimate shadows
Treacherous mountains of leering darkness
Slip away for the day and rest.
The burglar who uses dark for his flashlight
Is secretly upset by the change
And lightly repulsed by the creaking hinge
As the back door opens to invite the
Newness in for breakfast.
Now he must readjust for another day
A simple portion of the month of May.
Where the millions of stars fade into bars
And chrome-distorted people start
Their fancy motor cars.
-ROBERT LEGG
We came for the rain
thinking I guess the dreariness
would suit us
while the others ducked
or ran for cover
We entered the city
and settled into apartments
and underneath bridges
a good place for dwelling we thought
We’d walk the wet city at night
shining like a dark dream —
always so much more
and less
than we had hoped
We loved the drowning
the struggle
against the unseen forces
every morning we'd rehash our tiny dreams
so caught up in
the gasping
We never even saw the others poke their heads out
never noticed the drying
the growing
We lay confused under our bodges
and stared still at the spectrum of the ram —
grayness ahead
and behind us
all the little brown puddles
-TERESA BARNES