Three Poems by Duane Locke

TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION NO 399

Perhaps, we should appropriate a Deleuzian ontology
And replace essential traits, essences, with a morphogenic processes,
But during this segment of temporarily, I am more concerned
With something else. I am standing on black moist mud
That borders a large water varied brown puddle
And my attention is focused upon
A local manifestation. This occasion is an action in a location
Between two cypress knees near the spread-out bottom
Of a cypress with pink and green lichen. What I am observing
Is a mobility, and currently it is swimming away from me.
The motion is swirls and small silver wakes in the water.
I struggle to avoid a conceptual modification of the occurrence.
I try to subdue what has been imposed upon my corporeality by
Folklore, scientific biological accounts, and the myth of
The Garden of Eden. I must exorcise so much if I am to
See and interpret the distinct singularity of
These two snakes swimming away from me.
I think these two beings are designated in man-made parlance
By the name of Eastern Mud Snakes. Names are unimportant,
What matters is being able to overcome one’s past learning
And experience the the swirls of these two snakes swimming
Side by side as they swim away from me to disappear.
But names can be a mnemonic aid when I need to recall
The beauty of their faces, a beauty
With a power to transform one from a cipher, a slave mentality,
Into an authentic human being.



TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION NO 402

On the earth, an acorn pile, each acorn
Touching with its curves the curves of another acorn,
Each acorn streaked with a white variation on an “S”,
The reflection of an existence very far away, the sun.
I pick up an acorn. Feel the share point at the end
Denting my thumb, and the slickness against my fingertip.
Its tops is rugged, and is shaped like a cap oriental warriors
Wear in B movies. Does an acorn have oak-qualities,
Or acorn-qualities?-- a verbal game that philosopher play.
What is the mathematical interpretation of its chemical content?
When looking at the wonder of an acorn, all these learned
Pastimes seem like nonsense, useless. What is real
Is the generative power of the acorn’s shape that when
Intensely observed excites and transforms my life.
How the dark brown unique color below and the color
Of beige above enhances, enchants, transports.
Observing an acorn transfigures time, changes
The elusive short-lived presence into a time
That is a present, a past, a future at the same time,
And cannot be measured by clocks or man’s mind.



TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION NO. 410

Unambiguous linguistic representations can be metaphorically
Expressed as being sawdust from a chain saw ripping down a young
Cypress tree to have its bark stripped off and turned into a fence post,
As fences make good neighbors. Technological enframing of
Amorphous human minds has produced
The dehumanized person who is capable of being excited
By sawdust and lumber, but is incapable of being excited
By a living tree unless the tree become a fiction, falsified by such
as Joyce Kilmer.
Sawdust and lumber are apotheosized and a living tree
Is relegated to the being a resource. Trees are tolerated because
Their leafage provides shade, not for their mystical transformative power.
Trees, if intensely observed as obscurities, ambiguities, concealments
And if the observer can exorcise
The technological attitudes spoken by the public into his corporeality, trees
Can contribute to the humanization
Of a population now dehumanized into robots and artificial intelligences.




Duane Locke lives in Tampa, Florida near anhinga, gallinules, raccoons, alligators, etc.  He has published 6,701 poems, includes 29 books of poems. His latest book publication, April 2012, Is DUANE LOCKE, THE FIRST DECADE, 1968-1978, BITTER OLEANDER PRESS. This book is a republication Of his first eleven books, contains 333 pages. Order from http://www.bitteroleander.com/releases.html, Or Amazon.

Two Poems by Kevin M. Hibshman

Narcissus

My hand stirs the water, opalescent and thinning like a fog may thin.
The morning.
Milky eyes prepare for the shock of bright.
Cutting clear,
Tiny diamonds sparkling their worth.
They settle to a shimmer as a thrill grips me.
My reflection!
I gloat alone.
I am transparent to be carried off by the next wave.
Lulled to sleep by a stray siren's song.
Lucid only in a swift flash of memory I hope will haunt you.

 

 

 

Cat Goddess

 

Obsidian and moonstones under her pillows.

She gazes long into the clear quartz and feels the pulse beat of the earth.
She knows when you sleep and reads your dreams.
Her mind fills with pictures.

Stealthy, on silent paws, she rides the air.
Her fur stands on end as she connects with every breath alive in the night.
Emerald eyes bright and fixed on her target, her prize.
She moves to the pulse beat and danger dances wild in a world of night sounds.

She arches her back.

She winces at firelight.
Warms her fur and purrs.
The hum of the universe in motion.

Later, she dabs scent behind each ear,

Slinks into pearls.
Instinctively leaps to hide under the bed at the first peal of thunder.
Preening before a hall of mirrors.
Divining aspects of a personal mythology.
She is sleek and sure with a fierceness reserved for any true adversary.

She leaps from your lap to lie in a pool of golden sunlight.

Her athletic grace unmatched.
Her sense of poise never compromised.
Her balance an art form.

She licks her lips and luxuriates.

A lounging seductress.

Kevin M. Hibshman has had poems published in numerous magazines and journals over the past decade and a half. In addition, He edits his own poetry newsletter: FEARLESS and has authored thirteen chapbooks of poetry. 

The latest, INCESSANT SHINING is currently available from Propaganda Press.  Kevin received a BA in Liberal Arts from Union Institute And University in 2010.

Two Poems by Neil Ellman

Elephants Remember

Elephants remember
when they were small
amphibians evolving, plodding
to land on ponderous legs
how they grew and grew
developing tusks and trunks
thick skin and attitude
marching across a continent
all their own
without a predator
to challenge their size
but they now gather
around a stagnant watering hole
after a century, waiting to die,
nostalgic for their ivory days
wishing that they had evolved
to fly that they had evolved
to fly away on pterodactyl wings.

 

Swan's Way

After so many summers
In white-resplendent silk
like a Japanese fan unfolding its wings
after so many afternoons
admiring its own reflection
in a vernal pond
dreaming of youth, beauty
and elegance
even the swan will scatter
its feathers on the wind
even the swan will die
a lonely thing. 

Neil Ellman lives and writes in New Jersey. His poems, many of which are ekphrastic and based on works of modern art, appear in numerous print and online journals throughout the world. The latest of his eight chapbooks, Double-Takes, is available as a free PDF download at fowlpox.tk. 

A Poem by Zach Fechter

Un Blodymary

Hear the moaning Bedouins
In the desert night
Across the dunes
And upon the dead shrubs

See the sunlight
Spreading across the hot flat desert
Floor the shockwave flattening the rocks
And puffing the dirt in the night
The ship descending behind blue lights
And rotating orbs of bass

Sling your arm over the chair back
And lean into your forearm
Resting your head at a slight angle
On your palm

And drink your bloody mary
And close your eyes
Close your bloody eyes

 

 

 

Zach Fechter lives in Southern California and has been published in multiple editions of Poetry Quarterly. He studied accounting at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. He is 24 years old.

A Poem by Nicole Yurcaba

Greeting Autumn

Ah, yesterday you arrived.

      I greeted you by conversing while wood-cutting with my Muse:

our contemplations, self-inquiries, introspections and questionings
mingling with the tractor engine’s purr,
the wood-splitter’s hydraulic sighs,
the soft “clunk” of quartered cherry being stacked.

 

L(us)T

What drew you--my eternal Muse--

to kiss my neck below the right ear

inbetween ranking newly split oak logs

and justifying our infidelities as "accidents"?

 

Was it Lady Stetson swirled with unseasoned sycamore,

tinged with the wood-splitter's spent hydraulic fumes,

balancing what you love secretly--my lackluster femininity and devout tomboyishness?

flushed, with Desire's burning

midnight moonlight's pale spell washing his skin,

  a minute-too-long touch ignites a soul;

   two bodies, willing to mistake for fate,

    awkward chance's falling, flaming meteors.

     heavenly words, memorized

      --the yes and the now-- fading to gone,

       circumventing others unsaid.

        freckled constellations dotting a hand's back
         waiting to be read, to navigate

          lust's fiery orbit.

 

 

 

Nicole Yurcaba is a backwoods feminist hailing from West Virginia. Her childhood icons were Daniel Boone, Bettie Page and Rosie the Riveter. An adjunct instructor, farm hand, and substitute teacher, her work has been published in a multitude of places including Referential Magazine, VoxPoetica, Rolling Thunder Quarterly, The Literary Burlesque, Floyd County Moonshine, and many others.

A Poem by Doug Bolling

Just There

Summertime in field pond.

Water moccasin drowsing

under stone bridge.

Water lily parade, algae

pond scum providing
the tapestry effect.

It's 90 degrees and we swim

in half trance
memories sluicing into
present time then
sleeping.

We are actors in a film

being shot by
invisible cameras.

Beginnings ends the reels

slithering on and on.

We dive to bottom and walk

the mud floor past

turtles barely noticing.

Tough to resurface and begin

all over again.

But Joanna I say.

Did we come to this.

How do we climb out and
twist the calendar
into some sort of
deal.

Where our love,

our carefully crafted words
of a somewhat I-Thou.

Joanna saying only:

we don't know whats around

the next corner,
don't know what we;ll find
if we come here next winter

and scratch for what we

left behind,
what we lost here.

If we light a fire,

which way might
it blow.



Doug Bolling's poetry has appeared in Poetalk, Blue Unicorn, Tribeca Poetry Review, Hurricane Review, Indefinite Space, Illuminations, Iodine Poetry Journal and Convergence among others.
He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations and currently resides outside Chicago in Flossmoor, Illinois. His poetry has been both experimental and traditional.

A Poem by Bradley Morewood

the snake in the pool

the little wriggler signaled with sun and water
distress and will to writhe
it acquiesced to my net
then examined the chlorine web on the grass with its tongue

it was a kind of snake I’d never seen
greenish with a big head

could be the sudden death of someone in a year

I released it because it was beautiful
because it wanted to live
because its ancestors slithered here long before the first houses
and I admired its ability to stay alive
among the fences, cats and pesticides

I would want a second chance
or even a third or fourth
if the world mistook me for poisonous
if I’d made some mistakes and trapped myself
in a pool of social and financial madness



Bradley Morewood writes poetry and enjoys life in Tampa, Florida.