TABLE ONE

You said you’d never leave me by myself
With a kiss and a ring – I thought it was
the truth. So why do I sit here alone?
I ask for a Coke, no ice with lemon
The waitress already knows my order

How did forty years pass by so quickly?
Your smooth skin slipped into wise lines of time
Each doctor visit, glasses got thicker
Nights out turned into nights in by the fire
I swear your pillow still smells like perfume

I look around the diner, my view wide
since there is no one else at my table
A girl in a red dress has your blue eyes
A woman near me, your worn wrinkled hands
A child, your loud squealing laughter

Took me twenty to pick a shirt today
You liked plaid, I liked stripes – so I chose plaid
It’s been two years and I’m still not okay
The kids worry; I assure them I’m fine
Even though I know loneliness does kill

I’m bitter like the vegetables on my
plate – the ones I buy cause you told me to
Wanted to go first; I know I’m selfish
I eat my meal tasting very little
Ask for the check, politely don’t worry

I wonder what they all must think of me
Crotchety, perpetual old bachelor?
Senile senior who mistakes shoestrings for spaghetti?
Incompetent imbecile who can’t cook?
Tired widower who misses you terribly?

By: Elise Renz

View of a Beholder

(this didn't go through a workshop, I'd love your critique!)

VIEW OF A BEHOLDER

as if a pair of chapped lips kissed creases
of steel in the folds of blue your lashes shade.
In the depths of your eyes I see the ocean,
clear, bottomless, pure, fringed with the sun's
dazzling reflection as your smile gently
reshapes the waters within. The power
of your eyes unnerve my shoes they shake me
so much. It's almost as if I've tripped on
my stomach simply because the steady
coolness of your eyes, so confident and
knowing, touched mine, a protected green, a
forest hidden. In that second I see
a future full of friendship and laughter
and love (?) resonate... and yet I look away.

I always look away.

~Jomi

Family

One day I stood outside the orphanage
in doubt, like the day before, and before
that. Twenty-two and unmarried, I saw
a girl, frantic on the phone with her mom;
a child, sobbing and scolded by dad for
losing his little red balloon; and an
older brother who wouldn't wait for his
younger brother. Then, I saw a girl, red-

ribboned, cheery, and lovely, skipping home.
She stopped next to me, like a lady-bug
on my hand, and said, "This was my sister's
home," and galloped off, reinless. I opened
the door and met the manager, Mother
Chelsea, with a child, shy, holding her arm.


- Bob Richardson

All For One

ALL FOR ONE

Leaves dance
in the alley, like marbles
dropped
in a deep glass jar,
both tornadoes of
purposed chaos.

Above, their brothers
twitter appreciatively
applauding from their branch
the dexterity
shown below,
though fettered
and clamped,
the muskateers
judge not.

Surge up,
up until Aeolus
directs his attention to
some other world's
corner,
the leaves
gently rock
back to the earth
as hypnotically as
rested gulls
ride
the wave.

(I'd love to hear your thoughts!)

Happy Birthday

Poet Emily Dickinson was born 175 years ago this month in Amherst, Massachusetts. ''G'' -- for girl -- was the scant description that the town doctor noted in his record book. "Writing in the preface to Dickinson's first edition of poems published four years after her death, Thomas Wentworth Higginson noted the primeval power of the work. ''These verses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with rain and dew and earth still clinging to them.'" miamiherald.com (Tue, Dec. 13, 2005)

Bless Him

Down the dusty, cavernous hallway,
I saw a man, whose youthful visage
contorted in such a way, that my own
face emulated his life-knowing
anguish.

His face melted, as if Salvador Dali had
painted it. An arch below his nose,
whiskers glistened with the gush of
salty, green goo.
Red buttons to the sides
burst forward, like crackling embers,
thicker with the tug of the arch.

What could it be
that has caused this
misery?

His eyes welled up with tears and
one trickled down his cheek,
as if it were the last shattered fragment
from a broken, star-stained sky.
His face rose to the shards
split asunder from the heavens,
flailing and wailing silently,
despondently.

Needing a mother to cradle him in her arms, surely
dejected by and rejected from
society. His sorrow cleaved my heart in two.
I wanted to talk to him, to plead with him,
"Please, sir, what could possibly torture your poor
soul so?" But then, as the paramedic words
mended my heart...

He sneezed.


- Bob

Tomes

They stand in hushed rows at attention,
spines straight, keeping their leaves tucked tight
between covers—some bruised, some wounded
here, an amputated afterword, there, a new recruit
smelling of paper, ink, and binding. Most were drafted
by an author who has long since set aside his quill,
extinguished his candle, and slept without waking.

Many have not seen action for years, for decades.
All around, the library is filled with a quiet warfare
of silent knowledge held fast
against the darkness of an empty carrel,
uncaring world. Each soldier guards the voices
of the dead, and in their purple hearts
beats the ancient rhythm of poets and sages past.

-Elizabeth

Erasing

Coal-black board,
a vast expanse of midnight sky,
once dotted by fragmented constellations
of scholar’s sutras—jeweled teachings marked
in brilliant, powder-white.

Smoke now smudged
in long, arced streaks across the dark.
Chalk fades and moves in embolden borders
from top to bottom in thick eraser tracks.
It’s as if God had taken his hand,
broad and perfectly angled,
and it pressed firmly against the depths of night
to wipe all tiny, diamond suns from view
and leave us with his prints of cloudy grey.
Neither dark nor light would exist:
only the murky moments of pre-dawn
on a sunless, foggy day.

--Alison T. davis

National Undergraduate Literary Journals

Interested in publishing your work?

DELOS National Undergraduate Literary Magazine
Accepts poetry, short fiction, longer fiction, excerpts from novels, plays, & screenplays, essays of creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and photography. Electronic submissions encouraged. Submission deadline for July 2005 issue EXTENDED: 15 April 2005

THE ALLEGHENY REVIEW a national journal of undergraduate literature -- "One of America's few nationwide literary magazines dedicated exclsuively to undergraduate works of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and art. Published annually, the periodical showcases some of the best literature the nation's undergraduates have to offer."

FURROW is an excellent magazine that accepts submissions from undergraduates nationwide. Published locally by the students at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee. For submission guidelines write to: Furrow-UWM, Union Box 194, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukeepo, Box 413, Milwaukee, Wi 53201, or email furrow@csd.uwm.edu.

WHITEWATER REVIEW: An Undergraduate (Electronic) Journal -- "this e-zine is a place where undergraduates and graduate students from any higher educational institution in the world can have the opportunity to publish their work in a friendly, competitive place."

INSIDE OUTSIDE

Masked under matching dresses,
layers of velvet and tulle.
Three girls in a row
eyes fixed forward.
Remember,
God loved the world – so don’t
fidget and put a
run in your stockings.

I sat in the pew.
Clicking heals together,
playing Hangman,
crinkling candy wrappers.
Until my father looked down from the pulpit.
Jesus with the kind eyes, the only son
staring behind him.
The two of them, a moral force
with carefully crafted beards.

If the world ended today Elise
would you want God to see you in jeans?
What if I believe in sweatpants,
disheveled hair and
dirt under my fingernails,
my soul?
Does my penance, my tithes, my obedience
not count?

I did not perish in the pool.
Didn’t even discover Jesus.
Though I encountered bats
during hide and seek,
disturbing their anointed slumber.
I would have fed them the body of Christ;
but I ate the last of the Wonderbread.


John, Paul …. George & Ringo?
Two out of four isn’t bad.
I memorized verses for stickers.
I forget most of the words; I remember the stickers.

Bows in hair, socks cuffed,
clean underwear will lead you into everlasting life.

~Elise Renz

NPR interview with Frieda Hughes

Given that we're reading some Plath poems this weekend, you may be interested in an NPR interview with Frieda Hughes, Sylvia Plath's daughter, talking about Ariel: The Restored Edition (the collection in which "Daddy" & "Lady Lazarus" appear) and her mother's legacy. The interview can be heard here. It includes a recording of both Sylvia herself reading as well as her daughter in a rare reading of her mother's work.

This is a poem Professor Martinez-Saenz used in one of his presentations. I thought it was cool.
-Matt Argalas

Continuing to Live
by Philip Larkin

And once you have walked the length of your mind
what you command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not
for you
be thought to exist.

And what's the profit? Only that
in time
we half-identify the blind impress All our behavings bear
may trace it home.

But to confess
On that green evening
when our death begins
Just what it was
is hardly satisfying
Since it applied only to one man once.

And that one dying.

Bamboo plant (this is not for the assignment)

Hi all,
I wrote this poem recently, and I just had a revelation: perhaps it would work better as a prose poem or short short than an actual poem. I wondered if anyone could provide feedback on which version they like best (or none at all!). There are 2 versions below; in the first version, please imagine each section as an indented paragraph with no double space. I couldn't get it to indent, so I double-spaced each paragraph. Thanks for your opinion!

WHAT I DID TO MY BAMBOO PLANT (each section is meant to be a paragraph, not a stanza)

It was a slow killing process, really; not like the quick whap of newspaper crushing unsuspecting mosquito wings, but more like gentle evaporation of life.

It was unintentional; well, at first anyway. I got busy and forgot it needed a weekly drink, but life interfered.

I can’t say I felt guilty, not at first—fascinating how the green filled with fine veins of darker green, which withered into the wrinkled skin of late life. The truth was, I liked watching it, watching the strong fibers dry up, wondering what stage would come next in the slow process of losing life.

At the first prick of regret, I moved it into the sun, expecting that great effulgence to beam energy into the yellowing death of a pathetic life. By the time the once-green stalks became parched brown, and I had trimmed the dead leaves so it was bald as a chemo patient, a strange thing happened: I felt panicked.

I so badly want to save it now that I will tend it ten-fold, give it drinks daily to make up for all the weeks of missed life.

But I know I can’t.

It is nearly gone, so I don’t bother to water it as it thirsts by the window sill and shrivels to nothing more than a shell of lost life.



What I Did to My Bamboo Plant

It was a slow killing process, really;
not like the quick whap of newspaper
crushing unsuspecting mosquito wings,
but more like gentle evaporation of life.

It was unintentional;
well, at first anyway.
I got busy and forgot
it needed a weekly drink,
but life interfered.

I can’t say I felt guilty, not at first—
fascinating how the green filled with
fine veins of darker green, which withered
into the wrinkled skin of late life.

The truth was, I liked watching it,
watching the strong fibers dry up
wondering what stage would
come next in this slow loss of life.

At the first prick of regret, I moved it
into the sun, expecting that great
effulgence to beam energy
into the yellowing death of a pathetic life.

By the time the once-green stalks became
parched brown, and I had trimmed the dead
leaves so it was bald as a chemo patient,
a strange thing happened.

I felt panicked. I so badly want
to save it now that I will tend it
ten-fold, give it drinks daily to make up
for all the weeks of missed life.

But I know I can’t. It is nearly
gone, so I don’t bother to water it
as it thirsts by the window sill
and shrivels to nothing more
than a shell of lost life.

Work in Progress

cutting tile
your bathroom
on my knees, coughing on drywall dust
the toilet’s working now
the empty coke can a remnant of celebration
attempting to ignore my stench
[can we fix the shower next?]

so this is what love is


our first date was a week after we were sleeping with each other
best sex of my life
your touch i blush
wax
and my cheeks won’t stop flexing


you mentioned forever a few days ago
my bullshit answer meant to cover
outright fear
spoiled plans
panic could i let myself be

happy?


holding you at the waist [thank you]
the sweet clean is not what i notice
nor the new shower door,
skillful tiles,
my dry hands


but you
different
than expected

please

ignore bullshit

-A.j.kessler

Shards

I suppose it was the geography
of my Dad’s new life
that made my brain register
the words
“broken home”
(when I was eight,
a hurricane called Andrew
went through the Carolinas
chewing up houses and spitting
them into their neighbors yards,
and I felt sorry for all the people
from broken homes).

My mother certainly seemed broken;
she spent most of those
first months
in her bedroom, sleeping
and staring out windows like
a stoical, department-store
mannequin
(I would leave cold
peanut butter sandwiches
on her bureau,
not knowing what else to do).

And home,
which had always been
warm brown & full of good smells,
was now cold
(because we couldn’t afford heat),
and empty
(like the ruts in the driveway
where my father had parked his car).

The postcards and pastel packages
began arriving for me two months
after he left:
“I miss you, baby” from Tahoe
and San Francisco,
free pens
taped inside cards from ski lodges
in Virginia and Michigan,
and a hand-blown glass sunfish
from Naples, Florida.

(It was clear, with
dots and ribbons
of colored glass
netted through it.
I put it on my bookshelf
and never looked at it)

Three months later, I made myself sick
on Halloween
so I wouldn’t have to see him.
When I called, he answered the phone
in a spoofy vampire voice
full of mischief & fun.
Then, his voice sobered
and I asked him if he was mad.
“No,” he said, “just disappointed.”

Back in my room, my vision
starred at the edges,
and I felt my tongue tingle
like it does before I puke.
Disappointed.
Disappointed.
Dis-appointed.
My father.

(There was a throbbing in the corner,
a noxious essence—
like the tiny radioactive ball bearing
a little boy finds in a junkyard,
and then carries
with pennies
in his pocket
until it kills him)

I don’t remember running out the door
or joining up with the thin, dog-path
into the woods.
But I do remember how my fingers curled
around the nodes of glass
perfectly.

I used the follow through
my dad taught me when I was nine,
and watched the sleek fish
somersault
through the old oak trees
until it collided with one,
and broke,
little shards lit & arching
like firework strands
across the wide autumn sky.

-Sabrina Renkar

What She Never Told Me

I was dumbfounded
when my grandmother
made a point
every day
for two weeks
to tell me it was all right
if I decided not to.

After several calls,
and strange exchanges
my irritated mom
explained
her mother’s behavior:
“She’s only saying
what she never told me”.

Surrounded by bridesmaids
nosey aunts peeking in
I only hear
my muddled thoughts
with a numb body
blank stares
and fake smiles.

Dad comes in
and I consider
how lucky
I am
that mom
was too chicken
to admit she didn’t want to.

Dad says,
“It’s time”
and sets off
a frenzy of
last minute touches.
The girls swarm me
like bees

Veil
Garter
Old
New
Borrowed
Blue
I do.

-Erica Wendt

Numb

My eyes lie
abreast
with hers.
I fall back,
rehearsed,
met by iron, cold
pillows.
A smile,
hers,
wide, wet, wanting.

My fingers
taint
where she likes it.
The Moon,
crashing in,
squirm and slither
over her chest.
My hands are numb.

Wide expanse, cotton
shackles,
legs bound.
I quaff,
girl from my mind…

She collapses,
quivering,
same as I.

-Bob Richardson

Religion

As you casually trickle your hand up and down
my back, you ask, “How did you find Jesus?”
And it is one of those moments in which
I feel guilty for not having an answer formed
ready-made to evangelize one such as you. But I think

of apple juice and graham crackers served
in tiny Dixie cups and homey napkins
down in the church basement. In front of me
a leaflet, telling a story that will save my soul
when I am dead, but for now my biggest question
is what color to make Jesus’s robe. Crayola gives
so many options. Christ’s words in red.
And on the wall, a chart with the doxology
and the Lord’s Prayer. Next year
I will learn those. For now I am told
Jesus welcomes children, so I brush the crumbs
from the table and almost smile back at Jesus,
who is beaming up at me from behind a cloud of cartoon beard.

Perhaps you think I’ve fallen asleep,
never imagining how happily I am dreaming
of those early communions of
graham crackers and apple juice.

-Elizabeth Eshelman