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Poetry Spring 2007-Pg.2
 

 

 

           

Here, Finally 

      by James R. Whitley

 

A plausible theory

is one that points to a possible end to a quandary,

one that sticks to the ribs like

homemade meatloaf and real mashed potatoes.

 

For the past several months,

some loser down the street has been

butchering the old Strayhorn classic,

caterwauling every night,

 

Life is lonely again and only last year

everything seemed so sure.

 

Or maybe it was just the glum baritone

scatting nonsense in my head.

 

Or the sound of the merciful rodents in my hall closet

chewing through the dog-eared stack of

unsent love letters.

 

And speaking more objectively now:

there comes a point when you realize that,

no matter how long or torturous,

no road is your enemy.

 

(And the moon does not glower down.)

(And the wind does not wail.)

 

On my outdated, but trustworthy, television set,

the game show contestant voices his selection to the host,

 

I’ll take “Things You Shouldn’t Do While God Is Watching”

 for a thousand, Alex.

 

Finally, I thought,

a category I know something about.

 

 

Bio: James R. Whitley's work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in several publications, including 42Opus, Barrelhouse, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, FRiGG, Mississippi Review, Pebble Lake Review, Poetry Southeast, Stimulus Respond, The Houston Literary Review, and The Raintown Review.  His first book Immersion won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award.  His second collection ,This Is the Red Door won the Ironweed Press Poetry Prize and will be published in 2007.  He is also the author of two poetry chapbooks: Pietà and The Golden Web.

 

 



REACH OUT AND TOUCH

    by Davide Trame

The air shone livid in the rain, under a swollen
fierce coal sky. But the cloister of Porec basilica
stood in amber light, stones honed in a sun of their own.
I entered the cloister feeling cold and was bathed
in the gaze of layers of silence, in the rest
and kingship of the still air. So simple the presence
of "Monuments of its own magnificence"
and I just one of the many shivers passing
and loving my shivering, as a way
in which veins, nerves, heart and bone-marrow
can really pray.
I stood and walked in the mellow light of the stones
and their silvery puddles.
And got to a closed door, looked into the keyhole
and saw a headstone bathed in the same amber
and spangled with drops, I was eye to eye
with a quiet secret and felt like a child.

And you came at the basilica door,
your eyes in amber radiance
telling me to go in and look. The mosaics.
Some pieces are mother-of-pearl.
And I am still there, by the altar
praying as a child does before knowing:
I reach out and touch the round shell,
one of a garland, the glisten of sea light
on my eager hand, fingers expanding.


Bio: Davide Trame's  poetry collection "Re-emerging" is published as an email book by 
www.gattopublishing.com. He has  been writing exclusively in English since 1993. He lives in Venice, Italy.



FROZEN IN TIME

    by Pete Lee

the stone age hunter
awakens from a mad dream
of computer and jet plane

he shakes his head violently
then grunts as he voids his bowel
against a glacier

10,000 years later
the well-preserved fecal specimen
is flown across the world

to be carbon-dated
and digitally analyzed
by orphans sniffing for home


Bio: Pete Lee owns and operates a bookselling business. He lives with his
wife in a small town in the Mojave Desert. His poetry has recently appeared
in the online journals Unfettered Verse, Antithesis Common, Alba, Thick with
Conviction, and The Orange Room Review.