November Poetry

Hey! If anyone's interested, there's a new reading hosted by Diane Williams, being held on Friday nights at Planet Coffee in Kingston, with a 7 pm feature artist and open mic to follow. Call 340-4777 for more info. Along with the usual lovely nonformula prose, we've received some haiku and senryu, a form we are particulary fond of, simplicity of sentiment is hard to master. For those of you who dabble, send more!

Main Street Migraine

Truck tires suckle at the slick wet street.

A heavy engine thunders between houses,

a juggernaut, battering down the silence,

making a boiler room of Main Street.

Two pipes spew acrid floating poison ghosts

that threaten bed room window panes

with curling, twisting fingers of blue mist.

But in an interval between ponderous steel invasions

time is kept by sounds of raindrops

streaming off porch rooves in twinkling beaded curtains,

splashing down in mud goblets lined along the hedge,

plopping in rhythm

like popcorn kernels popping in oiled pots.

Behind a curtain of wer light I slouch,

enveloped by the heavy musk of my Salvation Army couch,

puzzling at a flat grey dropcloth, hung for a sky

behind the western movie storefronts.

In the still quiet of the Turco truck armistice,

waves on street puddles carry beads of light

from twinkling curtains, in concentric circles,

streaming out from the curb across the thin wet film

like theatre crowds,

until the next barrage of volcanic rumbling beasts

tramples them to death.

Bram Morenis

Hamlet's Soliloquy

I ask to be, or not to be.

That is the question I ask of me.

This sullied life, it makes me shudder.

My uncle's boffing dear, sweet mother.

Would I, could I take my life?

Could I, should I, end this strife?

Should I jump out of a plane?

Or throw myself before a train?

Should I from a cliff just leap?

Could I put myself to sleep?

Shoot myself, or take some poison?

Maybe try self immoloition?

To shudder off this mortal coil,

I could stab myself with a fencing foil.

Slash my wrists while in the bath?

Would it end my angst and wrath?

To sleep, to dream, now there's the rub.

I could drop a toaster in my tub.

Would all be glad, if I were dead?

Could I perhaps kill them instead?

This line of thought takes consideration -

For I'm the king of procrastination.

Harlan Thornton

Photons move at speeds

far beyond what we might know

And still no phone call

Bill Joel

Haiku From An Ohio Hotel

Cold bottle sweat and

warm body sweat pooling in

the cleft of my chest

&

All I can see: this

contrast of your dark eyes and

the soft white bedsheets

Christina Joy

Gravity

tonight I hear a moonlit

acorn flop into dead

oak leaves and wait

sudden nuts smack leaves loose;

yellow curlicues

finger the ladder down

one air-scooped leaf skitters

along the trunk and

nestles nose up

one leaf tips over

in the sky and sinks,

see-sawing to the bottom

another leaf falls,

pointed crown from a lopped head

to a dark basket

my yard a bleeding

map of chaos, heavy

with the waste of squirrels

Dennis Doherty

deadman's underwear

(to sal - - thanks)

i am

wearing the underwear

of a dead man

a dear

friend

who died from aids

in the end

his underwear was

the only thing he had left

to

give me so

i wear them

greatfully

they are

warm

&

cozy

&

certainly

of better quality

than any underwear

that i have

ever

worn before

i

told this

to a guy at

work

he said

"watch it,

you'll catch the

disease

right out of his

underwear!"

&

then

he

did not talk

to me

again

ever

normal