ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

The New World Order

"Today we need a poetry
that calls a tree a tree
and a woman a woman."
A tree whose leaves are crisp yet soft,
transparent like negligees—
prefection, indeed.
A woman who closes a book,
throws the windows open to the sun
she believes she can help her,
the beatification of light, that sort of thing.
Somewhere on the City streets,
find me carrying a bottle of wine
and a bouquet of roses
for no one, no one in particular.



Vampire Women, Richard Nixon
And a Few Mexican Poets in New York

A cool Fall day—
In my mind I'm rummaging
through the misadventures
of the Vampire Women who have no choice
but to love the darkest nights.
While mudering a fly on the window
I see the poets on the street—
Gongora, Tablada, Lopez Velarde,
Reyes and some young disciples
basking in the company of immortals.
Tablada is reciting a poem
about a tiny monkey—when he finishes
I call from my bungalow,
asking if I can join in.
"Certainly," Gongora says in English,
"and bring a bowl with you."
I get there to hear Lopez Velarde
end a poem "the policeman's whistle
and a profound reactionary sorrow"
and Reyes asks me: "Very well,
which is more important—
your poems of your bowl?"
"My poems," I say without flinching
though I'm quick to add
"but I'm always ready to eat."
With that we all go for a meal
in a basement flat
where I later read a poem
'A Fiesta for Richard Nixon'
and notice the sky getting red,
blood-red in spots, red
as the mouths of the Vampire Women
who, like the poets and the politicians,
are lurking to strike at anytime,
from anywhere. "Beware, my friends, Beware."
and I leave them with a cautious hope
yapping at my heels like a Pekingese."





Mathematician Toby

Toby read the article in the paper:
A famous mathematician writing how
each mathematical certainty
contains its own correlating ridiculousness.

Toby didn't get precisely what it meant
but he loved the idea, discovering in it
a sanction not only for his life spent on the line
but for the lives lived by others,
the entire world suddenly made palatable.

Toby continued banging the rivets
into the sheet metal when the nonsense struck:
He'd see strange people playing a strange piano,
festive couples decorously dancing up to the beams,
Judith chasing a panic-stricken Holofernes,
things like that.

Toby kept his new additions from his co-workers
and went right on spinning himself and the Factory,
the strange people and the strange piano,
the festive couple, Judith and Holofernes,
into a mathematician's protective net
of pure purpose, form and closure,
the perfect hypotenuse.