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Poetry by Gregg Cawley
About forgiveness She said: “The universe you describe is profoundly unforgiving why are you living there?” She was right, of course, my universe is unforgiving. But not always by my design and seldom my place of choice. Once I asked her to forgive words uttered in emotions driven by turmoil and fear as I struggled with my life. She said: “I can’t reassure you and make it all ok. This tangle with your life is toxic to me.” And now she doesn’t talk to me at all. June 27, 2002	Stern faces in an old photograph Horse tilled bottom land breaking rich and black Plow’s blade gleaming in the early spring sun. A cool breeze blowing clouds across the sky He stops and looks back. She comes from the east bringing a basket Sweet milk, cold biscuits, and strips of dried beef. Stopping to pick a handful of flowers, She sees him and waves. After lunch he lays his head in her lap She hums softly and he closes his eyes. Smoothing his hair, she asks, “Much more to do?” “Another day’s work.” Standing, he stretches his back and looks down. “Land’s good this year. We’ll have a full harvest.” Walking away, he repeats quietly: “A full crop this year.” Watching a wren Days without end that somehow begin. And I stare out the window watching a wren building this season’s nest. The gray morning makes her efforts seem brave. Braver, at least, than my quiet reflection. A distant siren disturbs my silence, disturbs me. Reaching out, I touch the window pane wanting to feel the wren’s warmth, her hope. But the glass is cold. Days that somehow begin but never end and I stare out the window. March 23, 2002 Gregg Cawley writes poesy because he read Jack Kerouac when he was young.

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Poetry by Laura McMennamin
Winter Aquifers Do you hear the glitter and flash of flames crawling on ice? Or lick cinnamon deltas in frost? Tell me. Does my black eddy (crouching) scare you? I’m sorry. Donde es su cabeza, su corazon,… su musica, your carpenter’s salty-sore muscles, sawdust musk, and blue-green flames? Are you caught in braided currents? I throw you— Honesty. Okay? Medicine Bow’s peaking granite shimmers on Marie’s obsidian Lake in diamond-dusted… Dark flint sparks Laramie’s Red heat (ginger, clove, and cinnamon) riding blue-green frozen fires of night train whistles. Seasonal undertows: (until summer’s channels) Why drift alone?		Seduction I pass you the silver cup of loss and destruction Filled with timeless, white passion and We drink, Deeply. Cold Water When nerves, exposed, throb over her body (scraped skinless) your brushing… touch…wounds. When I’m sick of myself (another sunset unthinkable, another union fatal), it’s past time to let go. Laura McMennamin lives and writes in Laramie, Wyoming. “My coming-of-age experiences happened in the Rocky Mountain West. As a result, landscape often becomes a character in my work.” Her latest pieces appear in Hard Ground Anthology (Pronghorn Press). Email:lauramcmennamin@lycos.com

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MARY GOFF
DROWNING Angels of white dance in swollen circles Before my eyes, heaven's light Engulfs me in it's ethereal beauty. Crested waves of dampened blue swallow me Washing over my darkening sight The holy beauty that is death Takes me to her breast and kisses me. The abyss if full of fated patterns Incandescent rays surround the creatures there. Soft as mother's hair Brushing against baby's mild cheek Oscillating Like feathers caught on a breeze. Wings of gossamer ash, swirl in pale splendor Attached to vessels of muted beauties The hallowed sound of whales Long since passed Echo upon the angels tails. Velvet hands light upon my skin More hushed Than the lullabye of a drowsy mother Tattered streams of black and gray Gather like golden vortexes The bottom like cushioned air. Silken streams of light Curve against the walls of this shell The angels fade into nebulous blackness The last vestiges of pain Explode as my life escapes into her mouth Death has claimed my soul and I pass with acquiescence Into undulating hell. ~~~ THE SCAR Sarcastic know it all, Like hittin' a brick wall never letting me explain how I felt, your words like a whip, leavin' a bloody welt, Here I stand, take a shot, Tell me something I know you are not, Dark clouds roll in, Rain pours down, once again, How long must I hide? I don't believe in arrogant pride, Cornered, walled in, I get a grip, Let that hammer fall down, a fateful trip, I smash those walls, I'll show you inferior, expose that cold and sarcastic exterior For what it really is, an empty space A lifeless skull with a human face, Sarcastic know it all, Like hittin' a brick wall, But there you are, in your little fort, with a heavy crown and an empty court, A ruler of nothing but your own cruel palace, Full of lonliness and self righteous malice, Sarcastic king, with words like spears, I will no longer supply your moat with my tears. Sad little man, you think you are so bad, Never realizing that wall is all you ever had... ~~~		NO DIAMONDS No diamonds Only metal And the light off her eyes, Eyes like glittering gems. But they are no diamonds. Sick, brown, damp. Two swamps set in marble stone; Her face Blank as slate Staring at the ceiling A breath, escaping Chest falls flat, Still And the light of her eyes Darkened A razor lay on the floor And it glittered like a precious gem But there were no diamonds here… Only metal, Porcelain, The scent of iron and perfume And her body Bathing in pink water. Her eyes, those warm autumn eyes Lightened to winter As they focused beyond the ceiling, Beyond this world The light of her eyes Replaced By powdery gray Those eyes, A now lifeless void Like two faded gems. But no diamonds would be found here Only decay. ~~~ MENDACIOUS A devil's kiss upon eager lips takes to seed; Gonna wait it out, give darkness time to breed. Wings full of hell's tempest spread; Furious, black, bearing dread, Rocking like the wave of a sea; Flight born of pain, overshadowing me. I'm still right here, beneath the wing, Staring into a blackened sun; a vacuous King. Frailties lie within the reflection Of corvine eye, in hollow perfection. A tail like a whip and mouth like a scar; Perilous bird, imperfect star. Gazing upon the lips that lie, Malice in flesh, a smile that's wry. A devil's kiss upon eager lips takes to seed; He's gonna wait it out, darkness seeks to breed. He grips me in his iron claws and flies, Continues to feed me his iniquitous lies. Frail limbs cling; shivering, tragi-comical, deceived. Love, like the truth, is only how it's perceived. ~~~ ANCIENT MACHINE Metal mashed into skin Wicked light gleams from thine enemy’s eye Ancient rituals swirl around the dead A futuristic scheme, he had to die. Fluid trickles, the life blood of the machine Dripping; malfunction, error, body moves none. The light that is the soul, blinks off Hollowing out the shell that was once the house. The battle between man and metal Lost, to flesh behind the steel Cold eyes, gleaming in complete thrill Ancient rituals swirl around the dead For the future to come, he had to kill. Smooth, cool, hard, metal Soft, malleable, permeable, flesh Combine into one… Thy name is machine. I answer to only me. Artificial intelligence I am life binary, Soulless and contrary I bleed, but I am the shell That becomes the body That houses the soul Thy name is machine. Metal sparking against metal In faceless piles my enemies lie Bound by weakness Lost on logic Chased by the dream. The future has come, I am born. The battle between man and metal is NO MORE I am the house of the soul I am the created and evermore- The creator… I am life, the new dream Flesh and mechanics are one Thy name is Machine! Heartless, soulless No eyes for my head Veins; wires pump life Life; No malfunction Immortality seethes Immortality breathes and shouts my sacred name… I am… MACHINE. ~~~

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By Walter Cook

"One?" by Walter Cook: The Fascist Gardener A seed has been planted somewhere in a synaptic garden; Is it a weed or is it a flower? We The People are not qualified to say...according to some. They tell us: If it is a bad seed let it be destroyed lest it affect other gardens in the area; Let it be pulled -- by an iron fist.

The life of a local in a college town (Ode to Laramie) Every fall, when the outside world begins to turn dark and gray, Fueled by their abundant energy they come to your town to stay. They are the immortals, the ones for whom your town is truly meant; Without them, your town would die for a lack of money spent. With their eyes full of wonder they patron your bars and eat, drink and thrive, While the current of life pulls you so low it sometimes seems you’ll barely survive. Curiosity never strays from their eyes; they love the things you gave up on long ago. Desperately you try to cut through your cynical gaze to be like them, but it can never be so. And no matter how hard they try to lose their innocence, from them it will never stray, Whereas yours lies over some burned bridge passed years ago on some long-forgotten day. As the years and the rigors of life unceasingly add line after line to your face, Nothing affects their beauty or gait -- they will never be out of the race. They shall forever inherit the Earth, those who are so pure, so young and so strong, Because once one flock graduates, the university will simply raise up another throng.
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by Yu (Aloe) Luo
Poem: Random Thoughts on the Tree ENGLISH 1. Fortunate to shelter in your flourish shades Due to the affinity to meet in life During the days you’ve relocated I have to let the mundane storm Carve into my annual ring Growing as weather-beaten as you 2. If born into a tree for the next life I hope to be able to stand aside the road Outside your door Into a chunk of beautiful landscape Or made into window or doorframe Guarding your door Or into a desk prostrating silently before you Yu "Aloe" Luo, University of Colorado Boulder, Yluo@colorado.edu

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Poetry by Ken Elwell
All I need is a pen A utensil to write again The intricacies and strife That I deal with constantly in this life A word or phrase depicts The burden in my heart that exists Could torture bring about The feeling I*ve been currently without Knife to arms and chest In the trail of my blood iniquities they rest Taken aback by the ponderance of another Because they felt me to be a brother And tried to find the reason why In this solitude I choose to reside Telling others that everything is just fine Then running back home to the comfort of wine A cigarette lights the room before me And I disappear into a world unwittingly Wishing I could change the future seen And have a life clear and clean Love escapes me and laughs evilly Taunting Laughing and Jeering False hopes reside in this brain of mine Leading me once again to whine And in the solitude of a bed too big I dream of her and promise myself again That tomorrow I will finally change my ways And bring a change to these seemingly numb boring days
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Scott Laursen
Diurnal Deletion ((August 21, 2001) Sight peers blind and time breathes cloudy. A bed of coals first blazed red and then fired ice. In this moment a quiet, subtle touch ignites a new inferno; The first brush with questions of internal intimacy. Behind the mist of rushing falls, Into the disturbances within my darkest and most thriving halls, This new touch ventures without fear. I reach out with bruised hands to caress that which is beyond my grasp. A relapse into duhkha; Camaraderie within mayan tombs and anityan eyes left blood to blur and thin. Without a channel, the Heart’s surge spewed among selfish wounds. The gentle touch awakens Love. Humbling my arrogant mind as it turns upon itself, Spring melt soothes lonely, remote caverns. Moisture envelops the skyline, charging entrance to electricity’s frantic dance. Engagement rekindled. Relentless intensity is finally consoled and justified by the quiet torch of your passion. Perhaps your voice calls to my future. Until then this gentle inspiration wisps within my song. Within your eyes I touch my own view, While asking this singular moment for progression through the song of two. Moksha’s path begins anew. Suicide April 24, 1997 Pull the cold. Feel the old. Life sold. Story told. Here I lay, And here I stay. For this moment the forest impedes your way. I would not ponder my own block of emptiness. Gladly fruit from the vine would I have taken. But between lines of property, how sorely I was mistaken. Alas within all this You know not what you miss. You know not what you piss. And yet I cannot agree with ignorance as bliss. Thoughts lie stagnant on metal shelves; Left idle in the blandness of department store selves. Conviction quietly bottled to stock convenience. Into the alley out back, packaged humanity flows. Into the muddied river, bloated fish accompany lost souls. This lifestyle grows. Choked water slows. Soon it will bend. Caving in the front doors to a world of Kmart woes. What will you do then without a map to the newest trend? Throw this flesh in a box. Human insecurity lies next to the cold body concealed within Though freedom awaits and freedom will move in. Golden trinckets tarnished. Metal corroded. Padding molded. Tomorrow from worms will I have imploded Gone without pity. Good riddance. I was your bad rubbish. You cannot feel for those who dare Move beyond your petty human care. For then your God you could not repair. Skillet Glacier, Mount Moran ( Aug. 11^th, 2001 , 9 p.m. ) Darkness sets in. I am no more than a pebble on this timeless gamepiece. Chilled and thrilled for the moment, Quietly awaiting the fear delivered by tomorrow’s dawn. Stars begin their dance. By chance warmth in your heart do they also stow Filling your soul with a silent feverish glow. Within the mouth of this vast peak, I will surely be swallowed whole. Yet destruction of this flesh could never dampen what undulates within. Beneath the frozen caverns passion flows. Reaching within its cleansing path, I find retention is beyond my grasp. Feeling a world of connection that slides on past, My screams and clutching hands are but silence and shifting sands. Love whispers from all corners of the earth, but is lost to those who search it out Quiet winds touched an unsuspecting shoulder. Subtle embers are placed in my most intimate breath. On this ice where time is lost within itself, I speak to the stars in celebration of what they’ve always said. Peering down to you, they whisper my story. Not a story of significance but tales of new inspiration quietly reaching out to say thank you. Nothing to grasp within the icing night air. Sliding into this bivy, my song is warmed by a smile And a jolt to the heart that these rocks will not tame. Within fissures of rock and ice, Dawn’s early light will witness a new mortal flame.	The Heart’s Perception (early 1997) What of it? The screams scrape my skull. Why the Heart or brain cell? Smashing of time’s bell. Take what we can, untarnished by lesser races. Hell’s fire piles white bones in their places. Dark flesh slides from the faces. I have loved those chosen; Following words written, Security as His people, Running to the weekly chime of the steeple. Why its pulse? Translucent drop in a rotting waterfall. Arrogance innate; our thoughts are tall. What of God? We could not know. Save me from His people. It does not evolve for they said so. The chosen. The frozen. Bound by absolutisms, wild passions die young. Accept talking snakes. Question not the stakes. Hate is masked in fake. Love ourselves. Love those in the club. Love one version of love. Forgotten is the lesser. Tradition’s bloody trip. Warned of Hell’s grip, the heathen’s limbs will rip. Why its reverence? The lost agnostic. An atheist. The anti-christ. The lamb for their vice. To know compassion within expressions of diversity is to pay the price. A reflection of the heathen’s humility Means death with no dignity. We have failed the gift. The air is thin. The sky is gray. Toxins choke our Eden , While we selfishly bicker and scamper within shallow pews and short-term views. What has brought this day? Without worry of nature’s unclean ways, The city was gay. The city ran the day. Corporate blocks bludgeon the landscape with comfort’s redundant, plastic mirrors. Diminished to legends within days long past, passion’s unrestrained insight would only lead us back to our fears. So in this empty moment, the city is easy. Shiny new things stream through the streets to appease me. Undetected in the blackness of each cobbled alleyway, unclaimed shadows wander freely. The forest done. Its people gone. Where are the crops? Why can’t I see the sun? From my shadow I must run. An intricate web undone. Insecurity breeds hate’s arrogance. An existence only external greed can rate. Forgotten is our most profound trait. Compassion’s quiet inferno could’ve fired a transcending dance, Tuning us to foresight beyond suicidal walls of this lonely human stance. Without the true strength of tender exposed hearts, vulnerable wings could not take shape. Ignoring such powerfully gentle guiding strings, ego's unbalanced rational is doomed to rape. If only from within our lives had sprung. Tangled roots penetrating deep within the earth’s fertile darkness and bloodied hunting arms extending wild into subalpine air. And yet the sweetest song of soul connection cannot be humbly sung. Corrosion instead chokes the last breaths of a blackened lung. Here our best wasteful walls temporarily stand tall. Far away mortars fall to feebly justify detached accumulation. Earth system desolation. Globalized goods and services fatally flood each lost industrial nation. A concrete playhouse built in fun. The dove is bled unsung.
Plurality (3-21-98) I have heard your Word. Singularity deals a comfortable existence leaving life’s beat unheard. Vigor jolts the Heart after tasting the plurality within words. Subtract the upper case And maybe you’ll lose face. This Hebrew you say can be the only way. Your tunnel’s concrete funnel will crack before bending. Comfort’s acceptance grinds each nerve ending. Arrogant machines scrape vitality. Varnished thoughts garnish bloated cots. Stolen is cherished sensitivity. And here I am in my head. Nobody’ll come knockin’. Else they’d replace the singeing of the stove, The sting of social disgrace, The pain of an empty bed with stained sheets, The twisting of Mercedes metal, With a fear of water, With a look into time’s indifferent embrace, With insignificance near the hunted’s feats, With the horror of killing to eat, With death’s lurking patience, With the burning sun’s intimidation, With the scent of nature’s palate. Caste your hate. With shallow intention of salvation, Mask it in fake. . . . . . Do you know His son? Well then you’d better run. Without His grace, a dark web you’ve spun. Ignorance of these systems enforced through His wisdom Is no excuse when it’s time to enter white gates. Didn’t you feel us? Didn’t you hear us? Carving through mountains, the Chosen have come. We are here to present you light. You wretched, empty souls. Ignorant of technological wonder, The Devil’s children still touch the blood of their prey. Somebody call the FDA! . . . . . I am a child. To you I am wild. I have seen you. I have felt you. Why have you enslaved our Mother to serve this Father? Must we trap out the otter? Perhaps it is only right after abusing his water. Quick death is mercy when rotting slowly within chemicals of convenience. Through the finely crafted doorways of your country clubs Fancy needs meet arrogant deeds. Yet do you not cry? Do you not aspire? Do you not perspire? Then indeed I am you, just as your strangeness is in me true. Accepting the insecure inner, letting not its hatred get my better; I will refuse the claim that there is but one culture, Searching out the diversity of Truth within human and nonhuman experience. Painful bliss whispers between each swelling riffle, Splashing tales of a turbulent, solitary venture. Oh to touch the burning sun! Through the unanswerable I run. Striving inside inquisition no solution is desired. Nor is any answer for hire. Suggestions of pattern within observation find belief that shifts with the wind, Belief reaching beyond lines of comfort into a surging Heart’s nature, Proclaiming pain and ignorance within any absolute. Nothing extends beyond question’s realm For without inquiry there can be no wisdom. Hatred seethes from unclaimed insecurity within. The reactionary blaze of unclaimed shadows will burn white hot on this life. Because I do not pretend to know what is to be once worms perforate this flesh, My fate “burns in the Devil’s grasp below.” It is as your nursery rhyme understanding foretold. Yet nature simply recycles a body long cold, Regardless of the lives you’ve scorned or the lofty story you’ve told.
Scott Laursen, "naturalist, educator & human being", Laramie, WY.
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Poetry by Rich Furman
There we were way out in sun valley with miles of blank and distant nothing ridding our rear view mirror a wicked dream and stories of hazy lunacy never found in the maps to the star's homes. taco stands rising from the dead streets melting into malls giving way to the heat and smog that always has the last word. the laugh of silence between the gapping toothless gums of an old dog called Los Angeles. January 10, 1992 By Rich Furman	Roofs and roars She has her dog speak to me on the phone, when I need to forget that humans, are cruel piranhas who eat each others hearts for extra strength, or merely for convenience. Thought the city's haze, I cannot tell if the sun has yet risen, or if it will even rise again, or if the bomb has dropped, and wiped out everything, leaving me alone to stare at the blankness of my walls, or the self too weak from life. The covers form a protective shield, to tune out the madness of it all. But, when she commands Sasha to speak, Sasha speaks, and I remember that all if fair in roofs and roars. May 28,1991 Feb. 8, 2001 By Rich Furman
No man's land Our houses side by side fronted by perfect palms their splaying branches spinning the sun the sidewalk cracked mosaics below the mix and matched dreams and patterned futures within.. Between us, neglected warn bricks crumbling, Not his nor mine but lost in un-surveyed middle. We called this no man's land. The missing twenty seventh letter perfect sound to tongue. A tunnel to secret passageways to hide from the gray. At seven or eight we tried to hold what escapes like gas. And so our war started. In shin guards, shoulder pads, motorcycle helmets dangling over our eyes. When one crossed the line, we swung aluminum bats the other jumping just out of reach. How were no bones broken? Was enough damage done, this ancient game of neighbors? Summer, 1992 Rewritten, April 5, 2002. By Rich Furman	Outside the hardware store Each morning before the hardware store opens, where he counts and sells, nails, screws, and other necessities of existence, he stands by the street and waves good morning to each car going and coming, to cans of dead anonymous fish. He leans towards the street, his belly pushing his frame, down towards the littered sidewalk, his jaws keeping rhythm with its huge was of gum, puffing his cigarettes between chews, between lonely waves, that are never returned, as his eyes follow trails of exhaust and sadness, the roar of rap and boom box blues. Undaunted, he greets the next tin can, a mechanical doll programmed for pain addicted to rejection.
Rich Furman, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Colorado State University, his poetry has been published or is soon to be published in Colere, Pearl, Hawai'i Review, Black Bear Review, The Journal of Poetry Therapy, Poetry Motel, Penn Review, and nearly 100 other literary journals. His scholarly writing is concerned with social work ethics, international social work, friendship, social work theory and social work practice. He teaches group and practice courses in the BSW and MSW programs. He is married to a wonderful women who has more freckles than there are craters on the moon, has two children, loves to mountain bike, and is slightly obsessed with his two wonderful American Bull dogs. Mostly, he just likes to live as fully as possibly. He welcomes feedback, comments and dialogue about his work. His first book of poetry, of only average intent, was printed by Snorting Dog Press in 2002. Rich Furman, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Social Work Colorado State University Fort Collins, Co 80523 (970)-491-5818

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poems by Lori Howe

Breakfast in the Plaza, Cayey,
Puerto Rico

“Café caliente,”

Celia’s customers call,

and Chinese curtains

willow in la cocina.

Steam and sugar,

the shoulders of morning

with umber coffee

in canary-colored cups.

Through a salty mist

the streetstones shine

a smoking silver,

all the early sky

a cask of copper

and the umbrage of crows.

Rainfall in the mercado,

like marrow, like money,

like songs from the catedral,

this sacrament of spring.

Religion of Fish

In my coastal town, the seawall sings

a lyric to the water,

a chant in the quiet religion of fish.

Eggs and ashes in their pools

murmur, sleepy against the mother;

lucid stones amongst luminous weeds

linger and profess.

Every woman who stands on the edge

of this sea

sheds layers to uncover her gills;

I walk in slowly, the wilderness of clove-water

wrapping me in translucent skins,

in the blue-beaded cloth of the deep,

and the almost-silence of swimming

plays, its music turned down low.

The water laces a whisper between sky, mirror, and bones—

Woman, have you forgotten?

The ever-weaving carpets, the glowing of these beds,

the phosphorescent stretch of tides?

First and again,

it is the cycle of thirst that steals away my feet.

el Alcaldia

(The Mayor’s House)

In a shower of vines

on Charity Street,

beside a dark-eyed child

bewildered by sirens

and her yellow grandfather,

stained with tobacco

and the ink of years,

el Alcaldia

is a slender harbor

in a paved and sunbaked town.

The village girls who curl their hair,

the fruitless orange trees, the starving dogs,

the shoeless children who sing for pesos

all cool themselves

against its jungled walls.

Abandoned to the past,

el Alcaldia grows wild with ironwork,

its bricks aged into a sensuous moss,

peeling off layers

of paint

like a woman

alone on the edge of the sea,

feeding waves of aqua

and Mediterranean blue

to the fishes that swim these streets.

A patient mosaic like this alcaldia

builds its beauty in the mirror

of three hundred years,

and its reflection in the silvery newness

of the town

makes it long to crack its foundation

and leave,

carrying its poor,

like water pipes,

bent

from missing the ocean.

The Secret Life of Trains

Carrying the last of my father’s vineyard,

warm Burgundy from 1971,

I climb iron stairs

to sit cross-legged on the footbridge.

Trains slithering beneath me,

I touch the crimson bottle to my lips

and my breath freezes, heavy and pungent,

roiling the night air.

Exiled from the sea-lands,

trains slide by their reflections,

shedding the war-garments of snails

in the darkness,

casting golden eyes upon the ground.

A dozen trains an hour shake my body

as they hurry,

heavy, black, and obedient,

like cattle

or pigs,

and I smile into the clouded dark,

tip a precious drop over the edge.

I anoint my children, my lovers.

The tanker cars have secrets.

Suspicious of containers

that do not leak,

I deny their faded inscriptions.

I believe this one contains

red-haired women

the size of goldfish, luminous

swimmers of hidden blue waters,

and another embraces a nation of mice,

tiny brown heartbeats

nestled against the weather,

sleeping in a mother cargo

of heavy woolen socks.

The next one, I suspect,

is full of oregano;

it is the lightest on its wheels (cont.)

and they clack with the green scent

of herbs in the dusk.

I sit with wine and the jewelry

of all the women of my house,

watching journeys I will not join.

The muffled barking of wheels

growls and grows to a shaking;

The fury and solace of momentum

do not wait for a dark-haired woman

on an iron trestle

consuming the last of wine

bottled the year she was born.

Plaza del Catedral

(Cathedral Square)

--for the children of Cayey, Puerto Rico

Doors and windows

of the Catedral

swing open during Mass;

on this island the Virgin Mother

breathes in rain and the scent of mango.

Inside, faithful hundreds rise,

joyous with more than words;

I hear the floor holding them up-

it is a song I understand.

Outside in the plaza

the old men are dark and creased

as the mountains,

their skin like honey

from wild abejas.

Between crackling pavement

and the sultry sky

they stand in the fountain spray,

their white cotton shirts

embroidered and ironed,

their hair an everyday careful.

In the lime-tree shade,

their hands are filled with scars

the color of guavas.

Under the acacia trees

Body Pressure and Flight

I know there are beds in rooms in cities strewn

Across the world where I will stretch myself out

Alone or not alone, wrapped around the plot of a suspense novel,

Traveling light with a skirt and second stockings

Drying audibly against the radiator’s hiss;

I know I have barely begun to order food

From foreign menus—

I know arroz y habichuelas, chichurrones, pollo asado—

But what of Tandoori, naan, gefeltifish, sashimi, baaba ghanoosh?

I know what I’ve heard of wine and wedding soups, of cakes made of nuts and cream,

Of people dancing to the sound of rain.

I know this flight will land in Pittsburg or Ft. Wayne, or perhaps in a town

With a name like New Hope or Belle Fountaine,

rather than in Bangladesh, or Morocco, or Prague,

where the wash is bright yellows and reds,

hennaed and saffroned and hanging on lines.

I know that inside the room of my skin is a barometer of years,

that this body is a jar of honey on its side, a slow streaming out--

I know that we are all containers meant to leak a little,

Imperfectly mitered, temporarily seamed, forgetful.

I know more than I did yesterday, and the fact that this plane will touch down in Kansas City where the diners are filled with meatloaf and the underwear is all bleached white

has no bearing on those beds I haven’t slept in, on the rains I haven’t danced to.

I know my way to the airport. I know this body’s pressure.

Promiso de lluvia

(Promise of Rain)

You like a promise of coming rain,

my body singing in anticipation.

I sat simply touching you

in that cantina

in Viejo San Juan,

elbows on a bar almost

older than trees.

You smiled

at my Spanish.

Out the soaking door,

we watched tourists dancing,

dodging the shower

in the narrow street.

leaving the plaza smooth and warm—

my neck,

the touch of your lips.

The tourists found

shelter

in cafes, in galerias,

and in the jardines

of wide, deep doorways,

and I wished

for the shelter of dry, heavy

cotton,

your hands tracing

rain drop patterns

on my skin,

listening.

Gloria eats coconut ice cream

on her worn plaza bench,

labeled by her shopping bags,

feeding bread to the palomas

with her blindwoman’s hands.

Every shining Sunday before Mass

The smallest children play mariposa,

in their good Sunday shoes they fly in circles

around the fountain,

spreading their arms and singing

“you can’t catch me, I’m the butterfly,”

soaking their wings

in the harmless mist.

Ciudad de Sal y Lluvia

Una noche de lluvia, sali de esa ciudad, de su luz electrica y sucia.

Alegremente sacrifique mis calcetines a las calles y mis pequenas joyas a las fuentes.

Confieso que hui de las librerias y los cafes como un nino saliendo del circo; demasiado temprano, dissatisfecho.

En los hombros orcelanas de la noche azul, camine descalza hacia un norte invisible.

Anhelaba una distancia para destenir de mi lengua el sabor amargo del chocolate, el vino la polvora y los amantes del invierno.

Desde aqui, desde el campo solitario donde el viento dulce y verde entre los brazos de un millar de olivares me toca con su fosforesencia, no puedo regresar, ni mirar hacia atras, sin convertirme en esa ciudad, en estatua de sal llorando para si misma bajo la lluvia.

City of Salt and Rain

I left that city in the rain, left its dirty electric light.

Happy, I sacrificed my socks to the streetsand my little jewels to the fountains.

I confess I left the bookstores and coffeehouses like a child leaving the circus; always too early, not quite satisfied.

Along the blue china shoulders of night, I walked barefoot into an invisible north.

The bitter taste of chocolate and wine, of gunpowder and lovemaking, needed miles to fade, like winter, from my tongue.

From here, from solitary country, where the wind in the arms of a thousand olive groves tastes sweet and green and touches with its phosphorescence, I cannot go, nor turn to look back, without turning into that city, into a statue of salt crying for itself in the rain.

Lori Howe lives and writes in Laramie, Wyoming, where she teaches English at the University of Wyoming

Seduction

Lucid Moments

When the connection clears

COMPASSION

Body Pressure and Flight

Gloria eats coconut ice cream