American Dreamers

ohmygoditscoldoutside!

He high—stepped through the hard snow
Quaking

Dressed only in underwear
And fragmented dreams
The snow kept coming,
Freezing up around him
And 0!hers--a white
Heartless honeycomb.

The giant albino bees
Were returning

To their homes

To reap the harvest

01 American Dreamers,
Closing in quickly

0n the bomb-sight.

start the count.
Zero in!”

Doors ﬂew open;
Fish darted towards their targets,
Horned in on the homeless.
The air boiled and the snow
Melted,
Washing everything away"
Continents slid off

The edge at the earth,
The one-sided earth.
Insects were burning in the air.

The scream of a butterﬂy
Woke me
From my dream.

Marty Iker

llwe...

If we had lorgotten our manners
and had scuttled under the table
whispering jibberish
till our eyes met beneath
the dark shroud of linen,
through a maze 0! feet and iaraway voices,
we might have touched,
discreetly and stirred
in the ecstasy of what we had long awaited—
but knowing
all too well the Immortal union and separation
oi our reason,
we would have painfully
emerged from the dissonant shelter
to resume our places 01 dignity
and play the silent game across

the table.

Janet Hamilton

Ode to the Wang

AS the leviathan of old with Jonah
’l‘hou swallowest up the stubborn Numbers
they disappear {rout sight tossing
and turning within the belly
And then, regurgitated, are ready to
do God’s will.
Amy Rosenberg

Earth inhaling Position
Ahead and back
here between
where? I ask,
1 see mountains
spreading crippled
like my mother’s
arthritic hands;
alpine iirs rising
to either side and
the plunging snowiield:
one free ride
to Surprise creek valley.
1 see my tracks
in the sun-wrapped snow
ascending through
this gap; the gasps
oi geological tlme
that scattered the air
and death that clung
as close as bark.
But now-—
I hesitate ln
rapturous calm:
l cannot return
nor can i advance.
Suspended by the here
in a place gone unknown
l inhale the present this
and then everything, everything!
disappears

S. T. Wellman

K

ﬁg??? Bingo”

. *3???
$173:

The nu was ﬂying through the house , g _ ‘ ° ' .y , w;
ad nauseat. '
Some sort oi demon had control,

it had to be.

Some say it recently arrived from Hong Kong,

and l (or one wouldn't doubt it.

Never did trust those Chinese.

And so at a or thereabouts,

the sounds at teet running toilet-bound.

In a series or 4 the eonvulsions came,

at clock-like intervals,

making it nice to know that you were still

alive and kecking.

?

\ba

R. Quint

Images In A Northern Clinic

1
, The snow was blue on the lawn as aslight
Wind brushed by. Your image stirred beiore
My eyes: Nude beauty walking opal wastes.
II
A single ﬂute accompanied in tones
Pale as the ﬂight of winter birds. The night
Became yours in melody and color.
III
Houses faded in harmonies oi blue.
Shadows became innuendos. I met
. Your image, mute as deer walk the white woods,
IV
Alone your lean ghost braved icy iields.
When l-called, it echoed in the distance.
night in this northern clime brings only night.

David Mura

 

