Gerry Boyd

What the Mocking Bird Said It's Just a Little

Some time after that season of keening rain

blanched the bleached slats of blue-gray siding,

the gutter's low scrub bloomed shortly once-

just before the blocked and frosted jalousies

shuttered the lime-streaked porch for life.

Inside the nod of flowers drifted away

drowning out pool filter chlorine whines

behind dapples on dry buttery siding

where once the rain had flowed in sheets

over a withering brown oak's low branches

and vibrant figs coaxed from depleted earth.

A table plated with unfinished eggs gives

a circus of coffee aged evidence of lift

in a place where nothing uplifting is left:

no mouth in the greasy skillet entices ears

with a low sizzle that has long since passed

into a torn curtain obscurring cloudy skies,

ripples form on the pocked aluminium shore

of lidless guardian service with steamy

gradients of starch under the striped rose

hanging a shadow over the newsprint news.

Puckered lilies would rather smooch the moon

than greet the apricot rise of morning stalled

long since a quartered acre of silence arose,

arose for a sun that only after stabs next door

and only after an early breeze shakes uneven rain

from other sun-drenched leaves of maple.

Sean Weathers

In a Garden


She stepped among the coloring flowers
and kicked over every ornament in her way:
a bird bath, an old gnome, a boy
whom she'd been chasing. Her dress already
brushed in strokes of green and brown,
she knelt to pick dandelions from the grass;
the yellow weeds staining young fingers,
she held death so loosely in her hands.

Gordon Mason

Storm

I do not see her out today,
only a sandpiper,
chased by salt-brown flurries.
Burnt coral is twisted on Moroccan cane;
a shelter for a half buried shoe sole.
A fractured scarf flaps navy blue.

I do not see her out today.
Twelve sinking steps apart,
a pair of Vileda rubber gloves
glow yellow: Professional 7½-8.

I do not see her out today.
Shells lie raped by a gull chorale.
On a girdle of skimming stones,
blackened limbs cool from the fire.
Empty tins of salmon-stuffed olives
have cupped wet sand.

I do not see her out today.
Cruzcampo and San Miguel bottles
are speared in the sand.
A nylon net strangles a bird’s neck.

I do not see her out today.
Termites play on punctured bone,
the marrow dead black.
And in a rock pool, a tan shoe drowns.

Gerry Boyd

it's such a blue thrill to split the sky

i. the fair weather that grew into a silky redemption

our gate into the moss that day

was trilled in a perfect coloratura,

demising at thrill the bark target

that was grilled by rusty willows-

pink but secretly unmentioned:

the munificent weeping of impatiens

in a necessary press towards bloom

as to my blush became the saintly dew.

you might call it paradise,

I call it something more.

ii. every evolution has a modicum of unfortunate offshoots

then came a calligraphy shorn of boredom that never faded:

our foundry unspoiled and grave where carved tablets lounged

in a soothing sienna mud that reeked of bubbling, spiky abuse.

I was so high I could see the planets.

iii. it only sounds like growling when I mean it.

there was something barking a gray language of granite oppression,

a voice that dragged with sisal ropes across the canine floor

and tore into the seductive sway of elms and oaks and maples:

it had the darkening violence of an unexpected autumn storm-

I had only expected leaves.

iv. the circle is sometimes announced by the chimes of innocence

twigs were hurled until our nostrils reeked of blood-

times were so much different when the sun arced low

and a horrified pack of shills went monkey, totally:

for a split dream moment the falcon aspired

under gray flurries that huddled with the Valkyries-

to wait for the freeze is, often, to be frozen still:

I still yearn for that sky-blue pop.

Andreas Andersson

Untitled


birthplace: a whorehouse.
at the end of life, eyes
of a Buddha peering
back at those soon to be
mourners. it makes perfect
sense to anyone who knows
anything about compassion
and life. i don't believe
the stories of palaces
golden pavilions, women
of virtue giving birth
to tiny saviours shining
a light on the world out
of their navels. i believe
it all happens in a whorehouse
to women who have lost
their virginity so many times
to so many men
that the whole world resides
between their legs. within days
all forgotten, all women
mother to the child.
that's what it means
to be a Buddha.

Andreas Andersson

G.S.


boarding a freighter in san francisco harbor
destination kobe
best described in a longer poem
where the city itself longs for the sea
with childlike longing
the journey best in stripped down journal entries
about rest of crew and assignments aboard
but also and more interestingly about the historical development of buddhism
in china and japan. chan/zen.
myths of the mountains. animism. grace and gratitude at a dying animal.
a she fox sneaking in at night in the guise of a beautiful woman.
man sleeping. man and woman an altar.
poems to robin in a temple garden. pleiades chanting
my words above.

Andreas Andersson

I do not know death


I remember a bird in childhood buried
under a tree - oak out by the field.
It looked so small. The grandest
tombstone in all the county.

Then there was my grandpa -
his whole stomach riddled
with cancer - one day gone.
Church service with red banners
befitting a socialist, followed
by cremation.  My grandma cried.
My cousins chased me round
the churchyard.

My grandma died
a few years ago,
eighty four years old.
Few people showed.
Sandwiches and beer.
Then we went home.

                    

Peter Greene

small hot milk

there is a little tiny man

who cuts up my nutmeg for me

he comes down to my house from the moon

on a tiny pair of snowshoes - silver-stringed

like electric tennis rackets

he cuts up the spice very quickly, into

tiny diamond-edged triangles; much better

than any grater or grinder can make

is the fresh taste of this

that he cuts - but

unfortunately

one night i caught him and squashed him against the wall

burst like a bug and guts -  i

was tired, i was half-awake, he surprized me - no more

will i see the quick crazy half-smile

that would cross his face as he plied his tiny scissors; no more

will i see his eyes glint and glitter in the yellow kitchen light. He was beautiful.