as long as you get your point across

16D

                                 BY SHERMAN ALEXIE

On the airplane, the woman across the aisle and one row in front of me was beautiful. She wore the best pair of blue jeans in the history of the world. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Is there such a thing as the greatest jeans in the world? Can denim be sacred? Probably not. But I’m trying to make a point here. The woman was an epic series of curves. The ghost of some ancient Greek lute player is vainly searching for his instrument so he can sing ballads for and about her. Okay, I’m exaggerating again.

/

rimbaud's love of sounds

Vowels

A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins: A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies which buzz around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents, lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley; I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips in anger or in the raptures of penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas, the peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads; O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds, silences crossed by [Worlds and by Angels]: –O the Omega! the violet ray of [His] Eyes!

. . .

Voyelles

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu: voyelles, Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes: A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles, Golfes d'ombre; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes, Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles; I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes; U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides, Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux; O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges, Silences traversés des [Mondes et des Anges]: —O l'Oméga, rayon violet de [Ses] Yeux!

. . .

.

all that is not gold

HYMNUS AD PATREM SINENSIS

I praise those ancient Chinamen
Who left me a few words,
Usually a pointless joke or a silly
     question
A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled
     on the margin of a quick
                    splashed picture—bug, leaf,
                    caricature of Teacher
on paper held together now by little
     more than ink
& their own strength brushed 
     momentarily over it

Their world and several others since
Gone to hell in a handbasket, they
      knew it—
Cheered as it whizzed by—
& conked out among the busted
      spring rain cherryblossom
      winejars
Happy to have saved us all.

                                Philip Whelan

..

a thumbprint

   


OLD RAILROAD tracks run
      like text along a swerve of 
water,  a story of the way we've
moved from there to here,  along
the axis of a past that endures in
lines of rusted steel and crum-
bling timber.  City and forest
both began as rain.  Like clock-
work,  a geyser shoots a spume
of steam and vapor from a crack
in the earth.


                           Aaron  Parrett

prurient perceptions

     What Peeping Tom Knows         

In the silence of his gaze

in silence surrounding women

he beholds,  he feels the touch

of yearning,  like a hand once

 laid along the curve of a face.

A hand no longer there.

He hears the pulse and flutter

of longing,  like a bird wings

beating in the rafters of old barns.

Loudly,  startled -- then soft,

softly as feathers that descend

through shafts of light and dust.

In each window he peers:  feathers,

feathers -- he watches them alight

finally,  at the bottom of his eyes.

          Charles Levendosky

......

dialectics with the eternal

Plato, Azaleas, Bluebird                  

  

A shaft of sunlight on the creek; in the shallows
Three trout slip in & out of shadow, nudging moss-green stones.

The mathematicians tell us that there are
An infinite number of infinities.

Did I say July? My grandmother said, I meant 1953.
A spray of lilacs in a small vase.

I was trying to identify the little bird in the pine tree
That makes a sound like Plato crying in the forest.

Spooned together in bed, my arms around her, our fingers
Touching. I notice our hands are sleeping swans.

                                       ~

Old & twisted cottonwoods line the creek;
It’s their asymmetry that gives them balance.

Is there anything you have left undone?
Is there any undone thing you have left?

We lay down in our bodies. Such a nice place to be.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you…

Rilke words: star, puppet, mirror, rose.
Dickinson words: purple, soul, secret.

Did I say lilacs? I meant azaleas.
Did I say Plato? I meant Chief Joseph.

                                       ~

Silhouettes of horses returning to the barn at dusk.
A mountain bluebird sings a last song with his whole body.

It’s not ugliness or violence
That will break your heart, but beauty.

I don’t think I can bear it any longer, my friend said,
& I don’t even know what it is.

This evening’s sunfall is a literal translation
Of Dickinson’s poem beginning, The skies can’t keep their secret.

Let worry sleep; let hope dream.
Let silence have the last word.

                             Gary Short

///

like the birth of country music

 Driving in Oklahoma              

On humming rubber along this white concrete,
lighthearted between the gravities
of source and destination like a man
halfway to the moon
in this bubble of tuneless whistling
at seventy miles an hour from the windvents,
over prairie swells rising
and falling, over the quick offramp
that drops to its underpass and the truck
thundering beneath as I cross
with the country music twanging out my windows,
I'm grooving down this highway feeling
technology is freedom's other name when
—a meadowlark
comes sailing across my windshield
with breast shining yellow
and five notes pierce
the windroar like a flash
of nectar on mind,
gone as the country music swells up and drops
                                me wheeling down
                      my notch of cement-bottomed sky
                             between home and away
and wanting
to move again through country that a bird
has defined wholly with song,
and maybe next time see how
                         he flies so easy, when he sings.

                                           Carter Revard

...

as fate would have it

     THE COWBOY'S ACCIDENT                                      

Now a cowboy's life is kind of tough, 
And it's easy to get hurt. 
Like when you get throwed from your favorite horse, 
And land in a heap in the dirt. 
You've got to think ahead all the time 
And use all of your God-given wit; 
Or you can wind up all mangled and maimed 
And throwin' yourself quite a fit.
I had a friend who got hurt real bad, 
And I went to the hospital to see 
If he could tell me what happened to him. 
And this is what he said to me. 
"You know that old hay barn, 
The one over four stories tall? 
Well, I went up in the loft to get some horseshoes 
I'd stored up there last fall. 
The shoes were inside an oak whiskey barrel, 
It was full almost to the rim.
I couldn't find the sizes I wanted 
'Cause the light was just too dim. 
So I decided to lower those shoes to the ground, 
Empty the barrel and sort 'em out. 
So I rolled the barrel to the upper door, 
And tied on it a rope sling stout. 
Last fall when I put that barrel in the loft, 
It took four men to hoist it up. 
But I figgered I could get it down by myself: 
Comin' down's easier than goin' up. 
So I balanced that barrel delicately 
On the edge of the hayloft door, 
And to it I tied the rope that ran 
To the roof peak and down to ground floor. 
I knew with one pull of the rope 
That barrel would swing free in the breeze. 
Then hand over hand I could lower it down 
And sort them shoes with ease. 
Well, I really underestimated the weight of that barrel,
It must have weighed five hundred pounds. 
I'm a pretty stout guy, but even with my clothes 
I only weigh two hundred pounds. 
Well, you can imagine my surprise when I pulled that rope, 
I lost my presence of mind. 
I got jerked off the ground so doggon' fast, 
I forgot to turn loose of the line. 
Halfway up the side of the barn,
I met the barrel comin' down fast.
This explains my fractured shoulder 
In the wreck we had as it passed. 
Slowed only slightly, 
I continued my rapid ascent, 
Not stopping till I hit the pulley 
Where my hand got all broken and bent. 
At the same time the barrel hit the ground 
And the bottom, it split in two. 
After spillin' them shoes, the barrel in pounds 
Now just weighed a few. 
Well, as you might well imagine, 
I began to plummet to the ground. 
And halfway down I met that barrel 
As it sped up from the ground. 
This accounts for my fractured ankles and knees 
And the cuts on my legs so deep. 
But it slowed me down some, and when I hit the ground, 
I only broke both feet. 
As I lay there in pain unable to move, 
I again lost my presence of mind. 
As I moaned and groaned I forgot myself 
And turned loose of my hold on the line. 
The last thing I remember, 
Before waking up here on this bed, 
Was that empty barrel falling fast, 
And heading right straight for my head."

                              Tony Llardi

....

weighing things bovine

            A LITTLE BULL                                  

This story is of three bulls 
All of a bovine breed, 
Who were traveling the desert together 
In search of a little feed. 
When on a knoll they came upon a meadow 
A spring had made, 
With bright green grass 
And trees about
That allowed for a little shade. 
Now the largest of the three bulls 
Bowed his neck and some snot was blown, 
Which was warning enough 
For the smaller two 
That he wanted this place for his own. 
So now there's just two bulls traveling 
In search of a place to stop 
To fill up on green grass and water, 
Which they found on a mountaintop. 
Now, this place suited both bulls to a tee. 
But, as oft happens, as history will show, 
The larger one thumped the smaller one good, 
So back to the trail he did go.
Now, there's a moral to this story, 
One I hope we'll learn today. 
And it's that sometimes 
A little bull will go a long, long way.

                            Waddie Mitchell

ode autumnal

                                                                    LEAVES   

He was cleaning leaves for one at a time

was what he needed and a minute before the two

brown poodles walked by he looked at the stripped-down trees

from one more point of view and thought they were

part of a system in which the dappled was foreign

for he had arrived at his own conclusion and that was

for him a relief even if he was separated,

even if  his hands were frozen,

even if the wind knocked him down,

even if his cat went into her helpless mode

inside the green and sheltering Japanese yew tree.

                                                   Gerald Stern

....

introducing .....Paul Zarzyski

    THE CAR THAT BROUGHT YOU HERE STILL RUNS   

—Richard Hugo, from Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

It takes more than gasoline and gumption

to get you to Zortman—more

than whimsy or a wild inkling

to rekindle history. It takes a primal prairie

need, a kinship with Old Man Winter, with Napi

hunkering in sunless gulches, a longing

for short Fourth of July parades, the bestkept-

secret-café with a waitress

who commutes 50 miles from Malta—

big city with its 5 p.m. rush

minute, she quips. Pavement—purt-near

all the way to the corrugated last

half mile into work—

through herd after mule deer herd,

excites her. What can anyone say in words

that Charles M. Russell has not

narrated in paint. Little Rockies, Larb Hills,

predator versus prey versus wind

still give this Indian-cowboy

landscape its animation.

Your eggs

jiggling over-easy, hashbrowns crisp,

roughcut slabs of real ham,

one pancake seat-cushioned over its own plate

(whole wheat toast sold out last month

to hot-shot fire crews), are all grilled

just right. The coffee, vintage-grind,

is brewed with water so mineralthick,

it’s panned first,

then filtered. Same goes for the décor—

local art collaged with faded Russell prints

above faux-brick wainscoting.

Lucky—

the 11 a.m. lull all to yourselves—

you are, for once, simply where you need

to be. Do not ponder why. Do not

ask the waitress what brought her here

from Seattle. The wall clock is not

locked in neutral. Thus, you better be

willing to revel in this living limbo,

this muffling of drumroll death. Muse

over your food. Ruminate,

while chewing, on each tooth’s name—

incisor, canine, bicuspid, molar—

salute the taste buds, bitter to sweet,

as you clean your plate, pony up,

inch your way out of town

with a groan—heartstrings taut

as lariats stretched to whatever rogue

lodestar pulled you into this

still-shot of Montana past, grass

ropes strained to their organic max,

aching to hold for only so long.

.....

begin and end with wind

    LOGAN PASS VISITOR CENTER            

Wind

           clear

as a double pane

                     window

sleet and snow

drive parallel

to the pavement

"is it like this

every day?"

tourists ask

"except for a few

days in July"

a ground squirrel

           begging

           concrete

                  steps

knows when to pose

probably even proper

                    shutter

                   speed

it's slick and wet

                now

a spot of blue sky

if you're quick

          you might measure

raw snow ridges

Clements

Oberlin fading

in a blast

of sleet and wind

         David Thomas

23 July 1981  West Glacier

....

one way to go

                      DOWN AND OUT             

at the crossroads again

begging the bosses for work,

some way to make it, easily,

a monthly grub-steak, a few

bucks in exchange for me,

my aging-marketable abilities,

whatever they may be, since

I need money, shelter, time,

that tick-clocking and increasing

chill-risk factor, whatever

jobs-to-be-got, whatever shit

needs shoveling, cold palms

to be squeezed—I’m your man,

I know I can get it done, keep

my songs buried, be a good

employee till this hollow shell,

my chest cavity, retires to pretend

the black hole is really this blue

heart aching, circling the dying

fire (and our silly, repetitive games)

oh-so briefly before the light fades.

                               Mark Gibbons  ( Missoula Bard )

....