Featured poets this month include John D. Porter, Don McIver, Janet Buck, Bob Childs (AKA Doomwheels) and Jan Sand.

Many thanks to all contributors.

John in Santa Cruz JOHN D PORTER is a transplanted Canadian and former academic, now doing science for a living in Silicon Valley. He rides a British bike, and often finds himself engulfed in live music, cinema, poetry and art. John's work has been featured online at: Makar The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks Agnieszka's Dowry Lynx: Poetry From Bath

Carol's Hands. Carol's Face. © John D. Porter October '98, revised November '98 Carol spins her hands, like a flamenco dancer; Carol bides her time, by dark plate glass; Carol stares at twisting hands. Ask for food; wait for food; stand beside a plastic Lotto board-- grease-pencil traces, like Mary Kay mascara, long past closing; empty parking lots; December rain. I scratch a secret message (never numbers, never names); I think about my father's desk, I think about the slick and tick of black grease pencil, the grease pencil smell of moving days. Oscar's is empty, not counting Carol. Carol creeps behind me, when my head is bent; I turn; I catch a glimpse of Carol, threefold: Carol, in reflection; Carol: jagged silhouette; Carol: umbral, as the food is flamed. Carol is whispering, whispering: lofty vowels, soft, and consonants dental, labial, mouthing her words like bedtime prayers--she could be saying nothing more than whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper-- I don't want to know; I turn away, and Carol's hands convulse, like novice gypsy widows, fearful, silent in the dripping woods. Again, the flame: again, the jerking shadows of her hands. I turn away, again, and Carol whispers: (listen, listen ...) Carol listens, for her wind-whispered words. Carol moves, to stand in front of me. Carol's shoes are neat; her stockings, neat; Carol's skirt and navy cardigan are neat and matronly. Carol's hands are calm, expressionless. Carol's face is all messed up. Carol's eyes are blue and nearly swollen shut. Carol's brows and Carol's cheeks are leaking blood in ragged traces--beetle-dark, Pre-Cambrian. Carol's face is smeared with blood, expressionless, flat. I can only freeze and think of infantry wives, gathering babies, breaking camp, making grease pencil marks, but Carol's face is lonely white beneath her black-red tracks. Carol's hands are smeared with Carol's blood. Carol's fingernails are sticky-black with Carol's blood. Carol turns to stare at night-dark panes of glass; Carol's hands begin to dance, completely of their own accord. Tori Amos, Live -- San Jose © John D. Porter September '98 I've been told (by appled voices in an empty culvert--over, over, over, over): be suspicious of a thing that bleeds for days (a thing that speaks) but does not die. No knives, no guns, no broken glass or razors past the gate -- at centre stage: the bleeding and the broken bones are photographs, are pictographs, are alien blueprints in an alien tongue. A candle (careful!) -- woman-tallow (men have offered lye and embers) rendered, not reduced, in white-fuming vitreol and handfulls of fertilizer pearls that catch the light like crematorium teeth. Around the stage, above the stage, the girls are bathing in the detonation. Now I Lay Me © John D. Porter January 2000 In the night, I watch your jaws begin to clench and move; clench, relax. Some nights, you open up your mouth and chew. I ask about your dreams; you never mention eating. In the cafe, while you read the Sunday comics, little muscles in your face begin to dance. You are not forming words; the outlines, the pieces appear on your lips, on your brow, on your chin. I stare at the rain. I stare at a physicist, walking. I stifle my small talk, and stare. You read; he clutches his sheaf of scribble. Your fingers are small. They smell of ink and pulp and bleach and crabs. You do not catch me staring. The yolk of your egg begins to grow a skin. Later, in the car, you fall asleep--your jaw is slack. You chew. I turn my eyes from the road. It is raining hard. When I touch your leg, you stir but do not wake. Later, I turn down the heat. We knot in our sleep. You ask about my dreams. Backstreet, Gion* © John D. Porter July '98 a boy a bicycle sinusoidal motion lamps are lit eaves are dripping a bicycle bell a trail of froth a girl an arc from axle to boy belly to back to shoulder to hand to face the rain the rain has made them naked so her eyes are closed *GeoReference: Gion is a section of old Kyoto, lying on the east bank of the Kamo River, once famous for its courtesans. [email protected]

Don reciting his work DON McIVER's publications credits include the following: The Albuquerque Journal, Crosswinds Weekly, The Weekly Alibi, The New Mexico Daily Lobo, The Red Rocks Journal, The Campus Press, Conceptions Southwest, Static Planet, Signature: Writing of the New West, Endless Possibilities, The Duke is Dead, Willow Street, The Tongue's Literary Supplement, Poet's Sanctuary, the online magazines www.spokenwar.com and www.jambands.com. Don is an active member of the Albuquerque poetry community and has read as a feature at the following locations: Sonny's Bar & Grille, the El Rey Theater, Golden West Saloon, the Launchpad, R. B. Winning's Coffeehouse, the Blue Dragon Coffeehouse, Irysh Mac's Coffeehouse, High Desert Café, Bandito's Hideout, Rancho de Corrales, the Poetry Diner at the Poet's Plaza, the East Mountain Groove, 3sidedhole, the Sun Tran Transit Yard, Albuquerque High School, The Reptilian Lounge at the Riverside Repertory Theater, The Warehouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Babooshka in Aurora, Colorado and the Tivoli Brewery in Denver. Presently Don hosts a monthly features-only reading at the Blue Dragon Coffeehouse and has featured 29 different poets and performers. He is also an original member of "The Out Caste." He hosts/produces the weekly Spoken Word Hour on 89.9 KUNM-Albuquerque. In July this year, he will be teaching a weekly poetry class through SEED Open University.

Boulder Sunrise © Don McIver Boulder, Colorado. I want to be responsible for something. Is it the ridge top with its wind blown pines, icy, snowy rock, skeletal and white, lonely Aspen trees? Is it the sun blasting its presence and filling up every square inch below the dark rock scars of the Flatirons, and the calm patchy expanse of eastern Colorado? Boulder, Colorado. The top of the ridge is a fitting place to view sunrise and mistakes and regrets. A year of sunrises and I want to know if I am destined to share them alone, hungover, bloated, and ceremonial? Spread out in the valley, my thoughts say good-bye to fighting responsibility, fighting insanity, fighting fighting. I want to be responsible for something. Boulder, Colorado The town that I grew up in is and never was truly mine, yet somehow I feel posessive of my past. And as the morning sun shakes me awake, it's just a matter of waking up. It's just that simple, waking up and starting over. Greeting sunrise with a kid's anticipation of an after dinner treat, or a concert with only the album to tease your ears, or an e-mail that says something kind. And I realize in my own mixed up way, that I am no more responsible for my thoughts and experiences than I am for sunrises and sunsets. And in the humility of time, I am thankful for witnessing another day. Carla June © Don McIver Every morning I wake up I see her, at four, running down the Chatfield beach to jump into the cold lake for her first swim. She screams in surprise, then giggles as she paddles toward me, her arms afloat in those inflatable orange things that her father, my ex-husband, nearly passed out filling up. And then I really see her, pissing into a catheter tube, smiling as she swings her waist from side to side, but those legs, not tiny anymore, just sit there. Columbine, she's happy to be alive, but Columbine I'm not. Every time I hear her voice upon the phone, I hear her announce how she made the volleyball team. I see her, standing in line at the school pay phone, jumping up and down as the two minute bell rings. She's calling me and I'm so proud and know how far those lovely legs will carry her. Those legs are from her father-actually from his mother. She has long legs too and she could dance, jump, run, and play turn heads every morning of every day. Columbine, my crippled daughter assures me that she's just happy to be alive. And Columbine I am happy for her, but not for me. Every morning I drive down the street and see that building you were always in. I'm reminded of that fateful day. Dylan Klebold went overboard and shot you in the back. You may never walk again, no matter how hard you try. And I am happy that you're alive, but just can't go on and on. He killed me that day. Columbine, Columbine. You took my life away from me. Seems like such a simple plan, they'll never believe its true. I don't really wanna buy the gun, just use it for a shot or two. Do some paperwork, don't notice the two bullets from my purse. as I put 'em in the chamber. I'll blow my brains out there and then. Dedicated to Carla June Hochhalter, who shot herself today, October 22 The Mighty Mule © Don McIver Because the bus turns left on Academy and disappears, I imagine the driver runs into Wild Oats, fills up with "Organic Sumatra," pisses in the auto-flush toilet next to the "Baby Changing Station," runs back outside, straps in behind the wheel, as they spin the lug nuts with that high compression drill that they set up at the "Wild Oats/Nascar Lube & Brake Express." "Squeak, Vuvvvvv-Ummmp." The double doors open before me. Because all they do is drive around in circles, I imagine that driving a bus is akin to driving in the Indy --only slower-- and since you can't talk to the driver and must stand behind the yellow line, driving a bus would be ideal for people with short fuses and missing vocal chords. Thus winding down at the end of the day must be a veritable symphony of hand gestures, monosyllables and expletives. They describe their day of senior citizens showing them pictures of their grand kids as three legs of their walker creep just inches over that yellow line in a revolutionary flaunting of casaul disregard for rules and regulations. Because Del Norte freshmen wait north of Montgomery and the "upper" classmen south, I bet a bizarre hazing ritual in the hallway ensues, "Hey, Frosh! You were at the wrong bus stop. Let me have your bus pass. Come on. Don't make me give you a wedgie and a dirty swirly." "Squeak, vuvvv-umppp." Because I have this pen and a single pad of paper, I write as if all I had was the words upon my back and I set out for the frontier on a government funded expedition with cartographers, geologists, and military scouts. I'm in search of the seven cities of gold, on this space oasis, aboard this moving bus called "Life." I'm sluggish and my head is spinning. I take the transfer and re-board the bus. I'm a single protein on a roller coaster artery and I'm firing fantasies and mysterious memories across my brain. I eavesdrop on conversations and inhale exhaust fumes. All these people going somewhere and doing something when there is nothing to be done and nowhere left to go. "Squeak, Vuvvvv-Ummmp." The double doors open before me. My stomach rumbles. The end of another day. October 15, 1999 A Pistol or a Bottle of Perfume for Randy Libby © Don McIver I see him sitting there looking over the bar and glaring at me. "You're cutting me off?" he says. Hearing the menace in his voice, I say, "You're cut off. I can call a cab if you need a ride." Clutching his last drink, he says, "Are you trying to get rid of me?" "No. Just don't know why you'd want to stay and drink another water." He glares, clutching that last drink as if it was a pistol or a bottle of perfume. A few days later, she walks in and sits down, pulls the dark shades off her bruised and battered eyes and says, "I am still with him." He saunters in, puts a paint flecked cellular on the table top and smiles. I say, "Do you want a drink?" A power struggle-he knows I know his usual- a Jack and Coke and she a Margarita, yet I make him say it anyway as he lunges for his ringing phone as if it was a pistol or a bottle of perfume. While talking on the payphone, he puts his fist into my wall, then clutches his last drink at my bar, and wonders why I am '86ing him. And I want to clutch his hand and show him the hole in my wall and grab the still warm handset and say, "You can't take your frustrations out on me, your girlfriend, my wall, your last drink in my bar. My drink is not a pistol or a bottle of perfume." Life hangs on a pistol or a bottle of perfume that he can hold the cops off with behind the curtained window. Life hangs on a bottle of perfume that looks like a pistol, which he clutches and announces, "I have got a gun-and I will use it." And who would they believe? Him and their buddy behind the field glasses who says he is clutching something-- and it could just be a pistol or a bottle of perfume as his bruised and battered girlfriend says, "He doesn't have a gun." And they shoot him down behind the window and he dies clutching a bottle of perfume as if it were a pistol, or maybe that last drink. January 19, 1999 [email protected]

Janet Buck JANET I. BUCK has a Ph.D. in English and teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in A Writer's Choice, The Melic Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, San Francisco Salvo, Apples & Oranges, Ceteris Paribus, In Motion, Pogonip, Peshekee Review, Thunder Sandwich, The Suisun Valley Review, The Red Booth Review, The Poetry Kit, Miserere, Niederngasse, Lynx: Poetry from Bath, The Horsethief's Journal, salon D'Art, Pif, The Dragonfly Review, Morpo, Recursive Angel, Big Bridge, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 1998 and 1999, she has won numerous creative writing awards and has been a featured poet for Seeker Magazine, Poetry Today Online, Vortex, Conspire, Poetry Cafe, Dead Letters, the storyteller, Poetry Heaven, Athens City Times, Poetik License, 3:00 AM e-zine, Poetry Super Highway, Carved in Sand, and Beachfire Gathering - a publication of Chiron Press. Two of Buck's poems have been nominated for this year's Pushca rt Prize in Poetry and she is a recent recipient of The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence. In December 1999, Newton's Baby Press released her first print collection of poetry entitled Calamity's Quilt. Janet is one of ten poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. Her poem "Acrylic Thighs" will be translated into five languages and paired with original artwork. The tour will travel to France, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, and Japan. Janet's first e-book of poetry, entitled Reefs We Live, is now available at Word Wrangler Publishing. In April 2000, Word Wrangler will release Buck's first e-book of humor entitled Desideratum's Doggie Dish. It contains what critics have called a "biting, hilarious, and original look at the roles of men and women, the foibles of bureaucracy, and the hubris of academia."

Telling Crayons © Janet I. Buck Night after night we celebrate both doom and joy pouring potions from a bottle. Safety pin propriety owning every shape of goblet prettily blasting inherency. A serpent clutching mockingbirds, the cocktail hour feels so damned old-- the only Buddha pose we know, only stain and speck of dust that's legal in our family. Dancing dalliances of words-- all attached to tee-off times, birthday parties, Easter eggs, who did what to whom and when. It's laughing gas that lifts the rocks inside our moons. A space-walk in the living room of mushy green cheese fairy tales-- silicone where breasts should be. I sit outside your circle now with slander candor of a poem in pockets of my grimy sweats. Afraid to tenderize the mood by bringing up old memories. I dig too deep; you shut me out like puppies peeing on a carpet someone paid good money for. I'm unacquainted with a meal that doesn't feature's ether's hold. I long to touch a wicker chaise with summer slugs of barer souls tuning up their orchestras. A rocking chair with real in its creaking arch. A crayoned picture on the fridge your son has drawn is full of corks and little else. A celebrated heritage of leaning on a leaving fire to keep its tendons warm in frost. The Rocking Vase © Janet I. Buck Luggage sitting by the curb like dinosaurs in fairy tales, soiled dreams awaiting transfer to a fancy Hell he knew was there for codas of a closing play. "I'll light the stove just one more time," scratching the stomach of his blind old dog. Nursing homes had no roaring fires. "I'll mow the lawn just one last time." His weathered frame in crouched retort of carnal praying mantis style. When the car came and the smiles sat like bumpy sealed envelopes, he was pushing the beast around a row of blue petunias matching the color behind the clouds. Sam left so God-damned suddenly. A heap of oatmeal dropped on green. Pathology reveal a clot in tunnels of a pounding heart. Railing at widows of old, old age, his daughter dug out blades of grass from under dirty fingernails, knowing he had had his way and done the steps of one last dance. Seizure came from nature's falling podium. Body full of Roman ruins and charted dusty dignity. One last blast of foghorn will-- one last scream from stunning peacocks strutting barnyards with their wings-- torn from earth like roses yanked from bellies of a rocking vase. Megahurts © Janet I. Buck They called me in to give advice on living with that missingness protruding where a knee should bend. CAT scans of a courage train with brakes on fire. Blood left stains emotion-wise. At sixty pounds, your tiny frame -- a scarecrow whittled to a stalk of wheat. The nursing home was just an attic waiting for a merciful torch. My allergies to trouble zones were acting up and I wanted to run and jump and fly, that brand of conquest laughable. Both our stumps, unbidden shames, would always be the mascot of a wet cigar and not some triumph parachute. Megahurts of platitudes and sweet congeniality did nothing to restore your parts. I folded hands in envelopes, tried to make a smile stick. Asked to read grief's crystal ball -- I had papers of fermented pain as puppy dogs get pedigree. Syllables were useless lace, squirting mace, untrained tendons reaching for cloudless sky in taverns of a thunderhead. Book reports of fairy tales and pink ballets I tried to not recite to you on motion's stopping music box. Been there, done that desperation tied to stakes beside a match. An orchestra on upper decks of sinking ships with noses of a giant iceberg coming at body's rotting tooth. Wanting to be a well of quinine poured like wine for those who caught malaria. Every slap my tongue would make seemed full of impropriety -- like wearing a coat of satin mink for sleeping in a dirty barn. Defended Turf © Janet I. Buck To untrained sense, his patio was a porch for mud the Cats would come and scoop away. He sat in a swing with his check in hand, counting the zeros his pulse despised, thinking of sold paradise and next steps of a nursing home. Smoking his pipe like prairie grass and blowing curses at the wind. Baseball hat on top of bald -- a lampshade crooked on his head, lamenting the fast right hook of age, that slow left lift, receding time. Snowy dandruff on his shoulders even though his hair was gone. The right to war was one he earned. His daughters said the nurses there were especially polite and some of them were literate. The question was: "How much did they know of topics such as bulldozed hearts, spirits losing wicked will to wile and file a heap of bitter closing hours." Engines came like rolling pins across a pie crust on a board. He still had tongues that tasted fruit but arms could not reach apple trees. Baby cheeks of wild pink roses growing in a wood pile's dregs. A lily stalk, collapsed and dry, as cattails in a winter ditch. A flag upon a mail box, use-less hollow metal now for dulcet good, since eyes were spent pennies in a crushed bank of intruding fog. [email protected]

Bob Childs on the mic BOB CHILDS (AKA Doomwheels), whose current publisher is Shhh, No Talking! Publications, found that his writing changed dramatically after an injury he sustained in 1994. Since then, head injury and mood disorder have played an important role in his life, relationships, and his writing. Bob last appeared in Poetry Life & Times in the February '99 issue. He has updated his website this year, and is currently working on a journal about his recent travels in Europe. His poems illustrate the struggles and truimphs of one man's journey through life and love. Excerpts from his latest books can be found on his website, below. To read more of Bob's poetry Click here To contact him, email: [email protected]

Wrong Side Of the Glass © Bob Childs From the book "Wrong Side Of The Glass" She spends her days looking out windows Every shadow is a cop or a dealer she owes Locked in her room she watches the Light shining on others A fire burns inside her A desire without purpose A craving that controls her soul Forcing its silence The night is her kingdom The needle, her sword Spoon, her shield One quick pierce And her enemy succumbs The enemy within She is free Released from her weight She swims through rivers of wind Resting on the shoreline of clouds Angels fly to her and eat from her hand She is loved Here she will live far from the pain Safe from the hunger Free from the loneliness She is without regret The night leaves her Resting in the mountains The morning finds her Unconscious on the floor Returned to the painful Weight of her form She crawls to her bed The love forgotten The freedom erased from her mind She looks out her window at the Light shining on others and Waits for the night Always watching From the wrong side of the glass. Whisper Soft © Bob Childs From the book "Wrong Side Of The Glass" Take of the seed and stand over it that someday You become made of wood and pressed into paper Take of the soil and turn clay into painted beads To braid into your hair Take of the sky and cloud-up heavy and dark To bleed down over quiet valleys Take of this life and whisper soft A breeze of loveliness through the air. I Breathe You In © Bob Childs From the book "As Do All Things" I breathe you in I pull from my diaphragm To suck you up You travel through my blood To give me strength You flow through my mind To give me consciousness And when exhausted I breathe once more and Send you 'round again I breathe you in And you become part of me Spring Begins Without Us © Bob Childs From the book "As Do All Things" The sun lies hot on my shirtsleeve I'm still used to dressing for the winter We've awaited the spring together Endured the cold and clouds This was our beginning but How we needed the spring Climbing to the mountains We looked across the horizon We touched dry cracked branches In search of a bud Barely splitting the surface Finally it comes Whispers in the night Secret from the dawn The world comes alive before us Shadows on the grass thicken As if shades drawn in a window Feel it, Taste it, Touch it! In dreams aching for this moment My love flows over it's banks The run-off swells becoming Rivers to carry seed to new laid soil Maybe drift an unexpected flower along the ripples Just to catch your attention for a moment Reflections on your cheek Capture my gaze as you Snuggle to my side Staring up at me with that Look I still can't describe This is what was to be We sang of this moment We anticipated the warmth with each kiss But now we are missing Our winter fire burnt too bright And now we watch the sun set From mountains apart As the spring begins Without us. [email protected]

Self-portrait by Jan Sand JAN SAND, poet and illustrator from New York, is a regular contributor to Poetry Life & Times. and the newsgroup alt.arts.poetry.comments. A great deal of his work is about animals, or science fiction. Recently Jan was published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press, on their latest CD ROM e-book, "A Way With Words (Poetry Real and Surreal), which also includes complete books by Dale Houstman, Sara L. Russell and Keith Gabriel Hendricks. Jan's illustrated book on the CD is called "Wild Figments And Odd Conjectures", which is also sold separately, in a limited-edition "single" CD. To see an illustrated article about Jan's poems, visit the November '98 issue of Poetry Life & Times, and scroll down past the Editor's Letter.

AND © Jan Sand I dreamed last night Of my wife, and we were young. And the fury of love filled me. And she felt distress I should look at her With such immense passion and delight. And she turned her face down and away. And I took her shoulder and turned her to me. And I drank her in as we walked the evening street On cobblestones up a steep hill In Paris or Grenoble or Helsinki. And the world was wonderful. VOCAL INTRUDERS © Jan Sand Machines nor longer chuff. They hum, like birds they trill, And some just beep Deconstructing sleep. Sometimes they speak With stolen voices Indicating many choices Numerating endlessly To offer which department One may be connected to, to have A real conversation. At night or early morning Car alarms deficient of all harms Check their electric clocks And about 3 am (to maximize the shocks) Howl and scream Exploding helpless neighborhoods From out their peaceful dream. They are endured with gritted teeth And restless rolls across the sheets While anger boils up from beneath For all mechanical outcries. And farther down from this lies A volcanic rage for this age That circuit boards should intrude Into our lives with senseless voices Insensitive and rude. THE LEGEND OF THE SUN © Jan Sand Some billion years from now The Sun will speak of its blue jewel That slid around its necklace out of gravity. "Here," it will reminisce, "arose a mystery That named itself as life. And this life Cast out a complicated spell To enchant from fine ground rocks And liquid water a sense Which sensed itself so that they sang Of beauty and of order and of love. They wished upon my pearly Moon And, in fleeting sidelong glance, Admired my fire. How they did divide and divide To change and grow and then - Like morning mist they rose and moved off to the stars. Their knowingness they took along, But in gratitude to me they threw their spell To lift me into love and care To bless my planets into knowingness With radiation, order, And consciousness. [email protected]

Dear Sara: You have a wonderful site! Elsiha Porat is a Featured Poet at my site, Kookamonga Square in Geocities Paris/Tower, as well! I would like to use the link for his interview in my K.S. Notice to my poets and viewers, and Elisha has asked me to contact you first. I would also like to add your site to our poetry links on Kookamonga Square's Main page. The URL for Kookamonga Square is: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Tower/9556 Yours in verse, Dale A. Edmands [email protected] What a nice looking site! Perhaps we could link our sites? Visit one of my pages: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8505 or http://members.tripod.com/~Raindog/LRB.html or http://home.earthlink.net/~lumoxraindog Raindog

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