Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The North Coast times-eagle. (Wheeler, Oregon) 1971-2007 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2003)
PAGE 9 MEMORY OF SOME CHRISTMASTIDE POETRY It would be silent when my father spoke. The butler, maid and guests would listen to the man by the fireplace, subtly positioned, with a fine cigar, the tip just broke, an expressive hand, poised to choke the smallest sound: an ice cube glistening. Then he would screech how he hated them all. A few would laugh, the more nervous folk, and the rest would assume my father’s ambition was for them to leave. “Oh, it’s just his medicine,’’ sung mother, leading father by the satin coat. And he would scream how he hated her too. -JOEL IAN BELL LIGHT THE DARKNESS Winter's dark now clings close; cold has forced us in. At dusk, in a clear sky, bright Venus begins to bum. Upon the hills and fields frost’s silent crystals now begin. Geese make one last honking flight, two owls hoo-hoot in turn. Indoors, we gather toward the warmth and lights are lit. Old stories get told once more, sweet memories revive. Songs are lifted, our voices join in joyful spirit, As we praise the great thing it is to be alive. Yet some among us on these nights have only lonely cold. They make their homes huddled on the streets, crammed in cars. They may have no memories to cherish when they’re old. Hunger bums in bellies, souls are bound in scars. "For crying out loud Nelson, you don’t have to do it...The kids are staying a t the university this yea r." (Denis C. Bourland, 1932 -2 0 0 3 ) Take a moment, then, to reach within and offer out your hand. It can be, that we may each, alone and together, stand. MILLENNIUM 2000 AD -JIM DOTT SPLIT KINDLING “THERE ARE CENTURIES” There are centuries that wear white veils. W hole dawns with the sun on the hilltop Like an orange deer, and trees lift their webs. Blue loves in white rooms, days W hen the grass is paid, the throat of the stars Watered, and we bless the fog. -WILLIAM LANE THIS BE THE VERSE They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By old fools in old-style hats and coats, W ho half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. -PHILIP LARKIN CEDAR deadfallen queen, cedar, you who rested the eagle and rose the drum your whispered form on their canoes. once we slept sheltered by the edgeless night within your etched-disc of needles, dry the moon in a crescent sung dripping tears toward the grove. (I had one dream of each breath from his fish mouth sent up to the water surface and circles appeared there.) you moss hair, a draping spread over the exhausted furrows caked blood in black earth, alone, mutilated in a grid of barbed fences invention against the wild bom to earth the salamander withstood fire his closed eyes see you. a sweep of silence but you did live, dead I still hear you crying my heart is your funeral. -JUANITA HUEBNER With my hatchet filed to a feather like some guillotine in that French revolt, I take a quiet bolt of cedar by the neck, set it on the block. This wood is wise; it starts to chant. Up and split down, up and split down, my hatchet hand chops steady as a butcher’s cleaver one inch from my thumb while thin bodies of sticks fall singing in a crisscross heap. See where the skull of Man is rudely swept Upon the pock-marked shore, time and again. Each wave rolls up the toothy specimen That ebbing falls, poor salty thing, unwept, Among the heaving motes of sand and shells As if it were no more than drifting wood, Nor once, in other eons, understood Even the starry clustered sentinels Of space, and that sweet pastime, love’s caprice. This mind, in final planes of knowledge, learned Especially and well the arts of war, But not, nor seldom dreamed of learning peace Which was the subtler art, not wisely spurned By him whose windy shell now strikes the shore. I cut this old growth from the swamp — cedar kindling the color of hot flesh, the crux of every revolution in its grain — for all the cold inward mornings I need to hear the song in new wood fire -GEORGE VENN MEGADEATH Megadeath is calling you Into his sweet embrace From which there is no leaving Ah, sweet, so sweet the smell Left in his passing How final, how final is his kiss How deep, how profound the rest he brings Do not look surprised You’ve rushed to meet him all your days And now the day is met The appointment kept His hand reaches for you Your heart yields You go _ _ _ _ -ELEANORE BAKER-HENSEL HOROSCOPE The moon floats above us, Orion’s Lost discus, hurled in another season. Polaris Beckons us, Pegasus rides toward heaven. Our kiss casts a penumbra on each face. How am I to know what love is? Gibbous Venus is a distant muse, her yellow Meridians swathed in shadow, bouquets Of nebulae her only guarantee. Gravity, the comet's alibi, Provides the heart with its rhetoric. In the planetarium of debris, A phosphorus wand tattoos the zodiac. All winter, above the dead trees, Orion flees The Scorpion and seeks the Pleiades -JENNIFER ROSE -MICHAEL EMRYS THE VICTIMS OF THE WAR A BREATH OF AIR I walked when love was gone Out of the human town, For an easy breath of air. Beyond a break in the trees, Beyond the hangdog lives O f old men, beyond girls: The tall stars held their peace Looking in vain for lies I turned, like earth, to go. An owl's wings hovered, bare On the m oon’s hills of snow. And things were as they were -JAMES WRIGHT Some victims don’t know they are being used. Some victims know they are being used and keep on fighting. Jessica Lynch was a victim of the theatrics of war. The Iraqi people wanted to return her but the Americans wanted to use her to stage a rescue so they would look good to the media and the world and the Iraqis would look evil. The American people are victims of this war, too. We have a president so desperate to correct his father’s mistakes that he is making even more mistakes and pulling the Americans with him. Pulling them into a war that should have never happened — making them victims of his war Some people are willing to fight for what they believe in, and there are people who fight even if they think it's wrong Who are the real victims of war? -ANNA MYERS
