ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Perambulation

I remembered the strange logic
In your most offhand remark.
The overcast manner we wound around
Lofty smoked warehouse windows, laughing
As we lost our way.

Now, with the carbonaceous glow of
A rooftop meal still on my
Palate, I know where we went wrong. Listen:
Streets swing out of every roundabout
Like bicycle spokes—and

Hence our relation seemed to change
Every time we neared a cluster,
Or node that colored sets & subsets of
Things as they occurred to us. It's the tumbleweed,
Circular progress, a rustle I didn't hear,

A background throwing the salient
Events, now, into relief, and I see
The unfolding rose
At the center of whatever it is, trivial or cosmic,
We shared. I call you.



New Town

My friends opened a new bar
on a corner the immigrants never noticed.
They'd been programming the
jukebox in secret, dissatisfied with
the local arrhythmia

(I'd only beat
my drum disruptively on the
sidewalks),
with the gravitational,
back & forth flow

of persons on
presumed errands (I'd
been satisfied with
yelping and startling a
stolid passer-by,

his mind back
in Warsaw). Sure,
I'd shared a joke &
a foreign cigarette with these
friends (in empty, dusty

alleyways, starting (unknown to me)
a murmur
whose crescendo into a scream
ripped a hole in this bleached city,
revealing

a dimly lit cave
& the plush chairs of today's
vogue, making me dreadfully
at home). The
streets are now empty,

the immigrants avoiding
what they can't fully understand
or accept: the power of
electric lights to make the day
longer, and I

am an instantly
recognizable citizen of the New Town, a
dancing leaf on a vine
that's flowering
all over the world.




Old Peril

That's not a forgiving planet—
home & drapes of thick satin waxlike,
dripping, and her eyes
are not as lustrous as you heard.

Their dullness fails to compel your
comportment, force-fed tales of
seduction by the plateful,
like honey cakes at a pharoah's wedding,

Before entering the realm
of these twin moons, you've
had enough. You traversed the farthest distance
for a vaunted enounter with the lights

At the bottom of the well only to find
it is their dullness which
wavers & then grows. Such
charisma is a match, unexpectedly,

For the other side of your predation, the
part of you that watches in the night.
Handsome & handsomely appointed,
they forswear other allegiances,

& you can't guess why
these brass platters—the usual Egyptian
past-life regression fare—tempt
you to stillness. Perhaps it's because you've

Learned to take nothing that you
establish trade relations
with one a breath away, reflecting
a chamber or cellar you've

Been peeking into for some time.
You find, now,
it isn't as peaceful
as you supposed.