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About The North Coast times-eagle. (Wheeler, Oregon) 1971-2007 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2007)
PAGE 10 THE STATE OF OUR DEMOCRACY: THE TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT An elegy for the Public Libraries in Jackson County, Oregon The expected veto of the bill setting a timeline for troop withdrawal = Cut-off Federal reimbursements to counties for diminished timber sales = The complete shutdown of the entire public library system in Jackson County = The shattering of our country’s democracy while we spend billions per week “to spread democracy" somewhere else. A lie which now bleeds us In every way we can be bled -CAROLYN DUNN (Carolyn Dunn is former librarian for Clatsop Community College) A RIDDLE IN HARD TIMES (for Kurt Vonnegut) What good is life? The seed of what it doesn’t fit is poetry and good for f**‘ all, I’m sure. But every four years Venus on the half-shell tracks a five-pointed star, a path re-occurring also in the apple, cut transversely. Some events are like invisible love, like the shore wind’s grace: open for all the season, but a riddle in hard times. Can you refute me? I do think about us someday turning our mind into stone and plummeting toward God, a sore, muted clink the longed-for answer, the arc tracing the form of the question. Still, workings can be seen, even from here. One imagines this lovely blue-green planet has also been a host. DRAWING BY WILLIAM MICHAEL SCHUSTER The tree goes on and on. The spider devours and autumn continues after we’re gone. It would be great if one’s lonely patchwork could break into a halo of dance. POETRY If you find it so, please writ it in the stars, or if you can, take me up there with you, too. -VINCENT REYNOLDS WINE GLASSES In suits and ties and hats and hose they file inside exalted walls. All those sinners, all their sins so amiably combined within. POINTS WEST For Kevin & Eve A ghostly shadow falls upon the Sunday funnies on my porch. You fuckers, move that god damned church, it’s shutting off my sun. When the street has gone all so quiet except for the police car that whizzes up and down at the same time every night — when the timbers jolt and the radiators click-click and the action of the clocks gets ready to strike — I stumble across a blustery waste ground, a cliff-face, a dozen streets of little houses, under a full moon, blinded by the light of a door that’s been left open, church bells clanging at six in the morning, the first train haring off to points west, and, from the garden that edges a misty lake, wind chimes accompany my 'going before me', to the terrace overlooking a splendid sea, where the kids hunt in rock pools or dive headlong into the uplit swimming pool, the smoky hills behind and beyond us nestle the rich and no-longer famous — ex-colonials on retreat and contemplatives — but in the bulky containers moving so slowly, stowaways crouch for pockets of air. I am off again, daydreaming of marauding tree wasps with their ghastly undercarriages, cicadas ringing their nightly changes, the high-pitched whine of a mosquito, my eyes peeled on dolphin-watch, while they, like dancers, wait in the wings. -GERALD DAWE -JEAN ESTEVE INVASIVE SPECIES Black mold has invaded every comer, ridge, and indent of the front door window molding. Frogs expire by the pond-full from the encroachment of a fungus in their lungs. Words fly in a starling-wave: habitat loss sewer overflows suburban runoff water pollutants airborne contaminants industrial wastes poisons in the food chain gigantic dead zones rampant algae growth land as “national sacrifice.” But of all invasions the invasion which we embody has hog-tied us within a human procreation frenzy. The unexamined question between elections, between one day and the next, between high water and hell. -CAROLYN DUNN A man is brought in to the cafeteria. Naked. Long hair, pretty boy good looks, like something out of King Arthur. He’s been sleeping with the Princess. Now he’s dogmeat. Some guy cuts into his back with a big blade, blood bubbles up and the victim curls like an embryo on the white stretcher, reduced to agony, begging for his life. Two women sit chatting about this and that as the man bleeds in front of them. Long thin tubes transmit his blood into their wine glasses. One woman gives a wink, and they drink. -STEVE CLEVELAND THE EXCUSE NEAHKAHNIE MOON White pearly moon observant as an eye, shine on bone-white snags. Disgraceful race decimates great Douglas fir. Sunset is salmon pink to sea. Slaughtered fish runs. O Kahnie — god witness of a 1000 generations — remove scavengers from the scabbed land. Primitive Pacific coast scarred by their deprivations. May they and their seed die out, lead depleted lives. O most beautiful place on earth, rainy Eden, of dewy jade-like trees and Taoist rocks! Ocean fog leaves a kiss on wounded landscape. Indian God, forgive us our trespasses, as we cannot those who pass this way trespassing against primordial beauty. May this race die off and their offspring slough into the ocean, scraps of maggoty meat for wheeling gulls and pounding wave smash. Pitiless moon, see all, be a searchlight for natural justice, reflecting pearl, bone and polished shell. In the well-lighted room we sat on the bed the light from the window burnished dully, opalescent to touch. The bedspread was pulled tautly -WALT CURTIS at the corners, the dimpled cloth reminiscent of memories. I told mother what I had told the others... she moved closer to me and hugged me, weeping smally, saying she was happy I had told her, that no one could save her, when may I go home and watch my and, that I had done my movie? Give me my TV brainrot duty. Now I could go... and my potato chips. Love potion and loosely I did no 9. yum yum. My salty almonds must be eaten and the -L R. BUELT droop in my couch sat upon, you may quote me on this. I love you and your mother. -SOPHIE z