. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A N D R I V E R J O U R N A L - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sand River Journal is a collection of poems gathered from the newsgroup rec.arts.poems; it is posted monthly in ascii and \TeX\ formats to r.a.p. and related newsgroups. Current and archive issues may be retrieved by anonymous ftp at the site etext.archive.umich.edu in the directory /pub/Poetry. This archive includes PostScript versions of the formatted journal, which is publication quality and may be printed on most laser printers. Poems appear by authors' permission and constitute copyrighted material. Free transmission of this document (electronic or otherwise) is permitted only in its entire and unaltered form; to inquire about individual poems contact the authors by their email addresses. The editor takes no responsibility for the fate of this document, nor does he claim ownership to any of the contents herein. Many of the poems appearing in this issue were collected and forwarded to me by zita while I was traveling. Send comments and contributions (please reference SRJ) to asphaug@cosmic.arc.nasa.gov. Enjoy! Erik Asphaug, Editor _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Issue 7 October 31 1993 All Hallow's Eve _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Travel Advice a word of advice there will be times sunrise over the Ganges slap of wet slap washing slap rams wailing loincloth devotions powder into your mind cannon arms around a backpack there will be no-one to touch no-one to tell the film is not important you must be a poet of the moment Michael J Norris michaeln@cs.uq.oz.au angels + angel, a poem for the misinterpreting reader today the ineffable angels press ever closer around me wavering, howling calls of wild electric fires away afar all around my cliff-dwelling. a different angel, an angel of unwavering kind summoned me, voice sullen with news, then wavered. did so when i said, will you still? and the angel said in zen: i love you. talk about communication gaps... it's the cold that makes the howling angels bold. they move closer. my angel's hot remorse gives off a twin sodium line sign, a harvest of gold a touch like the other angels' torching: i think i might street? should i avenue? would i drive? could i place? need i pee oh box? give you up for dead end? don't fret so much angel, love. look at things this way: an angel hasn't flickered until showered in smooth shudders, skinned in swarms of warmths. you have serious angel merit badges to pick up, angel. with a slick load-bearing groove. the other angels, the ones howling bone china-hard flicker now rising as flame over the fires of lights -- i merely glance at them, peripherally take them in. you, at you i look more closely. now, about that life of ours. in sin. Marek Lugowski marek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu perdus ou sont (grave accent ` over les sourires et les larmes the u in oU) d'autrefois comme les oiseaux errants de mes pensees (acute accent ' over the je ne sais pas second e in pensEes) by zita, tr. by E. Russell Smith ab297@freenet.carleton.ca Contracting "Well, try it again," he said, dismantling the second floor. He sighed, wiping sweat from his eyebrows, and reached into the tool crate for a handful of words. Laying two phrases crosswise, he hammered them to the first floor with a verb. And then cursed. Capricious nature had warped the words through rain and sun; they joined only oddly. No sigh this time, a real grunt as his tired back heaved until the phrases came loose and the whole first floor with them, a pile of nouns, verbs, adjectives twined like licorice. He fell, himself, on his rump, face reddened in the setting sun. He kicked a dangling participle. It splintered. "Ah, hell," he said at the sight, "I'm too tired to rebuild it right." A little dejected, he rose and erected a quick limerick for the night. Lee Merkel lmerkel@BIX.com untitled Late at night I am afoot amongst the flowering plants because I seek to discover where butterflies sleep Ronald M. Bloom cy092@cleveland.Freenet.Edu Roots Refusing to be my father, I wandered San Francisco, looking for streets from family stories. Lost in fog, I found where my grandparents lived, where my grandfather cut stone, the post office he built, the pool hall where he won a billiards championship. I wasn't sure whether I was my grandfather or Henry Miller, drinking wine on Mission Street curbs, patronizing Tenderloin hookers, reading obscure literature in the public library. I sat on the cliffs at Land's End watching waves crash over rocks-- I was Richard Henry Dana. Or Melville. I would have been Rimbaud but, by the time you discover him, you're always too old. I was twenty-three when my parents visited. Mother wanted Chinatown, Fishermen's Wharf. I showed them North Beach where I was Kerouac. At the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Father--an Okie who laid bricks, didn't read-- touched a sculpture, rounded the curve of a dancer's frozen pose. I saw his hands were like Rodin's and I knew who I was. Lee Duke duke@louie.dfrf.nasa.gov caveat do not teach me your music i might own your heart forever zita maria evensen bu016@hela.INS.CWRU.Edu Moving Song Let me wrap this crystal ornament in velvet, many turns in swaddling softness for the journey, as the setting sun adjourns this phase of light, this time of feeling, concentrated till it burns. It must be packed away in silence, cushioned well against concerns. On any journey, often little things go wrong. This is a delicate memento made of glass, reflecting glints of captured sun from more than one or two who warmed me. There are hints of frequent handling, careless holding, fracture lines and finger prints, but never once has fear of being broken up been this intense, a sense of frailty in me, frighteningly strong. Will you believe me when I say that you are never far from me, and what I put away is not your image, or your memory? Yet I must separate myself from this harmonic sympathy before these piercing, sweet vibrations shatter all serenity... but I will promise not to stay away for long. Jennifer Merri Parker jmparker@Ra.MsState.Edu milkweed a thousand clamourous birds have come to feed then rise as one amoeboid shade against the pallid height in black on white west along the ridge beside the farms basswoods raise their naked arms into the cherry light to block their flight a reach of sterile pool holds back the sky perversely so would you and I denying cold and bright the coming night and fearful we draw back avoiding still the spines of ice that creep and chill beneath the darkening hover then cross over when, plucked and shaken by a fickle air the milkweed cockles launch their fair intrepid squadrons back in white on black E. Russell Smith ab297@freenet.carleton.ca They Teach Children I am afraid of being eaten she said whispering. I am afraid of ravens coming to pluck out my eyes beating blackly as night howls of mad wolves and crimson jackal laughter. I am afraid of lightning piercing; a flaming sword set ward across my secret Garden. I am afraid that it will swallow me whole and all that is me will be engulfed in screaming and I will be glad. She huddled small a child in woman's body and careful drabness could not hide a lush and terrible wanting. I am afraid. M.A. Mohanraj moh2@midway.uchicago.edu Breakfast under Africa Africa is like washing up gloves to me it always has been shruggy why maybe that rubber smell in mornings when orange kaffirbooms are spiny and disney i call them my t-rex trees breakfast this morning in whos shoes and potato jeans was two oranges some coffee and a storm long a photographic sky as flashy as anger with beatrice the sexy cat white blowey on the wall There is foreigness in africa not slitty conrad deceit but the foreigness of long stretch driving past wheat and wimpys Solitary musing on the steps of a sky under africa never felt so good I dreamt all night of david. helen walne g93w5635@warthog.ru.ac.za Fall Magi There was a day when I came to you with gifts: a wreath of twisted vines, some pieces of cinammon bark, a very sticky pinecone, and a rusty nail. In return you gave only open open eyes and the sweet breath of the earth from your breasts. And now, not even with the tartest of lemons or the palest of flowers could I repay you. Corwin David Shackelford xdshackel@fullerton.edu Reliquary Carry me in a charm about your neck, a strand of hair, a tooth, a spot of dust. Toss me in a cerebral ocean, to wallow a few decades longer. Carve me in granite, pink and enduring, and plant me in a garden with daffodils and mud. Catch me in dye and silver specks, and keep me in a frame upon the window sill. Scan me into one hundred thousand sintered dots, and store me on magnetic film. Do this in remembrance of me. Karen Tellefsen kt1@cc.bellcore.com THE FATHER #3 He's told me that the ex-wife lets him take their daughter out alone for walks in their city. I imagine him holding her pink soft small cheek to his: large, scarred, scratchy. Once, walking in my city, I looked upon a building and voyeured into a window: a young father dancing with his child in arms. I wonder if this father jigs in the street, a music to celebrate. _Enjoy the trice_, the musicians say, _enjoy the innocence._ Michael Hemmingson anon138e@nyx.cs.du.edu No room Since words between us come to blows I will send silence instead wrapped in small packages which speak music and have no room for misunderstanding. Ralph Wixer ralph@wixer.bga.com Im a poet and yore not o i feel like writing a funny poem but i really don't feel too funny and i sure as hell can't think of anything to say that's worth saying because not much is at least not by me i could talk about some deep issue some big emotional anti-abortion environmentalist gaggledeegee but i really don't think so i really don't give half a shit about that shit surprisingly enough, i thought all poets were faggety art-bamboozled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee see you can tell i'm a poet because i never capitalize jack shit and i'm allowed to say shit and shit because of my artistic freedom and i'm just too cool to ever end a damn sentence cuz i'm a poet and yore not wait a second check this deep shit out: the birds fly over ] the sky and the sky is blue and purple and pink and mauve damn that was deep alack for my deepness and the deepness of poets in general if you didn't understand it then you must suck pretty badly it's amazing how poets can get away with this foozled shit it sure makes it much easier to write meaningless bullshit it's really funny when scrubs try to say that you are talking about some deep shit or tried to do something deep people are too impressed with their intellects these days back in my day you wouldn't see a bunch of faggety-assed art freaks trying to analyze our poetry no sirree bob we talked about chopping wood and life on the old homestead and shit like that but mainly about chopping wood which is a real man's poem we also used to complete our sentences in my day and we used punctuation too. but nowadays everybodys too trickified for that crap cheese bubbles dominate the landscape dang hot damn sheet take it billy Ander S. Monson asmonson@mtu.edu _Triptych_ Sense Her Near you Her Heart beats Quickly Trembling For you Hold her Love her Like the stars Forever Lost in the Shine In her eyes Caress Her face With great tenderness You share Smiles She holds you With Love With Love With Love. Joseph V. Bopp jbopp@vaxc.stevens-tech.edu already? no no it can't be here already splashes of reds and golds dazzling against red-rich canyons burning a thousand shades of green my summer shoes are not ready to be put away not willing to jump into piles of ready-for-scuffing leaves not ready to tumble into sedona tones of mellow pink-reds of maples golds of sycamore and cottonwood i still have crowns of white daisies to weave and billowing dresses of cotton lace to dance in on full-moon summer nights air so warm so assuringly caressingly warm cools like a lover's absent-minded kiss it can't be here already i am not ready to cry or say goodbye just not ready to break away zita maria evensen bu016@hela.INS.CWRU.Edu En la Plaza Dam La generacion de los son~adores Con la guitarra y el verso Siguio buscando las sen~ales Que les abrieran el universo. Se marcharon caminando Con la mirada cansada Recogiendo los pedazos Que se les caian del alma. Muchos no regresaron De este viaje misterioso Se engancharon a una estrella En un dia de reposo. Mas, otros siguieron las campanas De mil iglesias agudas Bebiendo las palabras Como gotas de lluvia. Y el universo se abrio Crujiendo como pan caliente Dejando un rastro de pasas Y lagrimas de sal de la gente. J.M.G-Faria lsijmgf@blues.upc.es Overrated Don't bother me with sex, sweet muse; your titillation's overused. Romantic love is overrated treacle and won't leave me sated. The moon in June is nice enough, why spoil it with that spooning stuff? The stars above are sharp and bright, why paint them with this pensive blight? Infatuation, go away. I've better things to do today. Romantic love is overratee treacle and won't leave me sated. Karen Tellefsen kt1@cc.bellcore.com untitled ...she knows the colors' names and the hues they sing through i close my eyes and listen to her i can't tell between a color and a neighbor to talk of blue is to ignore societies of reds and greens and my smooth greys black to white the greys last all day so i close my eyes and the girl who knows the words colors my world in pastels (she taught me that word, pastels (soft . afternoon . diffusion Chris Losinger CDL0915@ritvax.isc.rit.edu