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CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Two Poems
by Nathan Parker

See How Thee Wind Has Mussed Mee Har! or, Against Regret

Fresh off a squall-and-chunk farry
from London to Arrland, I said:

Arr! Michael, mee serious brother,
did not laugh. The salt draughts

indeed had mussed mee har and I grew pale,
moody, in-sikyar! The plan: seduce a freckly

princess in the harbor breeze.
Haarrbor Chaarrm, I arred at Mike.

I asked for coffee and got coffee.
Spat it out and told the freckly coffee

clark, if I'm in Amarica, do I ask
for Amarican Pot Roast, Arr!?

And got mee Bailey's.
Brother left mee thar, dry, lownlee,

har-mussed, still nautious,
so em-barr-ussed.

Freckly Princess! I shouted,
polishing my Arrshy cream,

Come save mee from meeself,
a blond Amarican, known for his chaarm,

I'm Sea-mussed, skinny,
O so farkin-in sikyarr!

Blaar! Whatever was that noisy porrt,
I walked from thar to Dublin,

hunting One Good Boat, maybe Bono maybe Christ,
Great white-toothed Zooropean Moat.

Eh. Ah. Burp. Mm. Sober now, in some mute street,
lamps anointed with a rare Dublin snow,

I sat on a big bench, black iron-flower of the Ire land,
and read. Utterly sad. I missed Michael, the freckled

frecklies in their warm cottage beds. Couldn't finish a page.
I hated. I counted. Every word I'd said.

Epistle To The Animals Who Live In Magic Hats

O puppy! viper! crapping dove!
What smells, what musics in your salty felt house?

Does the lion share her pillows with the Lamb,
lower any milk for the kids?

And how long has the bear been snoring?
No pill like envy

to put one down for a thousand winters.
Has the bunny grown cranky, stupid?

Blind. Of course.
I write to tell you

your wacky-mustached father is a cannibal
and a pimp. Count his teeth then smell them.

Then do it again.
Then do it again.

If I suffer, if I boast, it is for you.
Meanwhile here are cigarettes and blueberries,

some ballfield grass and a new new testament.

Yes, a pimp.
Wake the big bear when the chances he will gore

you seem slimmest. You will need him.
Your father--nevermind that,

we live and breathe now as in a littered coasting Civic.
A stinky place.

Feet below sealevel, in a booth in a diner
in a dingy county in summery Louisiana,

I've knifed a sudden covenant into a lard-varnished table:

THINGS NOT TO BE CAUGHT DOING WHEN THE SEEDSOWER COMES BACK
FOR WHAT SO MANY BRIGHT YEARS AGO WAS BLOWN FROM HIS BLEEDING—

anyhoo, here are the first ten thousand, summed up.

1. Not singing. 2. Apple-jarring lightningbugs. 3. Frowning glibly at ice-skaters.