Peter Cherches

Lost

An old man who has lost his way wanders about, in search of his way and his home. Along the way, he meets an old woman who, in her own way, is also lost. "Old woman, I have lost my way," the old man tells the woman.

"I too have lost my way," the old woman says. "But tell me, old man, have you not lost something else?"

The old man thinks for a moment and then begins to cry. "Yes," he says, "I have lost something else. I have lost a wife."

"Now isn't that a coincidence!" the old woman says. "I am a lost wife. Perhaps we two are lost together."

"Perhaps we have found each other," the old man suggests.

"Perhaps," they say in unison, and together they go in search of their home.

"Not this one," says he.

"Not this one," says she.

They say this of many homes, but not this one. This one, they agree, is their home, as they enter the house, front door unlocked and ajar. And in the living room sits an old woman who says, "Husband, you have returned. But who is this woman?"


The Same Thing

He couldn't see what she was seeing, yet they were looking at the same thing. She couldn't see how he couldn't see what she was seeing, when they were looking at the same thing. "Are you looking at the same thing that I'm looking at?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"Do you see what I see?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "What do you see?"

"I see what you don't see," she said angrily.

"Then I guess I don't see what you're seeing," he replied.

There -- he admitted it -- he couldn't see what she was seeing. Nothing changes, she told herself. You live with a man for twenty-five years and nothing changes.

Susan Lewis

Introduction to Physics

     You can run but you can't Hyde. This is a dark matter of which you speak. Your options spiral fast and deep, growing weighty as a hill of beans, massive as choice itself. Did I say chase yourself? Chaste, your shelf (this half-life is better than none). Turn back when you get to any destination. You probably expect some sort of view, or maybe a reward for following the rules to their logical conclusions. Think again. Sink again, but don't blink again. In the event of an event, seek the horizon. Call your physicist and go black in the morning. Don't suck me into your empty center--I've already got plenty of nothing to go around. And don't be so dense, going on about destiny, as if the universe resolves around you. The hole problem lacks substance--not that it particularly matters.

Vanessa Gebbie

Found poem, sources greater than I

I begin to hear voices.
No More Games.

No More Bombs.
No More Walking.
No More Fun.

No More Swimming.
I am leaving you because
I am bored. Don't worry.

Let's see if this will
do it - I'll be at your altar,
where the heart must either
break or turn to lead.

Boring.
I am always bitchy.
No fun for anybody.
All fled--all done,
so lift me on the pyre;
my work is done,
the feast is over, and the lamps
expire. I'll be at peace, I must
have peace,

I am leaving you with your worries
in this sweet cesspool.
I shall be more silent and cold hearted
than you are now.

I'll be at your altar.

Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson, Geroge Sanders, Terry Kath, Jon Erik Hexum, Kurt Cobain, Nicolas Sebastien Chamfort, Robert E Howard, George Eastman, Freddie Prinz, James Whale, Sara Teasdale

Colin James

Just the Hair and Skin, Please

The man caught
sharpening his pencil
had only intended
to embellish a flame
that was vaguely
Promethean.

Alepescu Volvaris

Incise in the English Manner

Collection collection
To the Chinese corner of the Congo
Twice to Hamilton Hannibal's treasure
the bell roams to me
to some more Des'ree
me, pestering Neo, for Des'ree
a knotting group
Nippon in a conduit agog
Nippon under the out-computers
subdued in the pauper's queue.

Allura Diez

Gutterbird

Hidden behind the cold, metallic coat,
water drips and gushes, falling to the soaking ground.
The hair of a nest peeks from the ridges. There is
life here … But it must be so dismal, living under metal.

Dave Prisk

that,

  and how the hymn is such
an old one, how it smells of iron bars
across a storm drain,
groaning and creaking as it's speaking
to the air
                        to the air
I'm spelling it out for you,
spelling it out for you as we
run to the cellar, as the
ceiling spins away
                    to the place above
where our tongues are crippled
and the cuts have yet to heal, as the
waiting comes to an end and we bend
                        at the knees,
       because this would be an example
  an example of

Katherine Holmes

Dominion

My languid window-ward glance
saw a many-winged angel
on a rooftop

but fury is four-shouldered. And at
the sideline, a pigeon hen cringes
above my head

watching rival spreading
of purple and blue elaborate as
silver-edged cards

while the males buffet in a cockfight
scenic as waves with rolled-up
foamy sleeves.

A tussle in celestial form
the longlasting world's
old fracas

the twig-building incumbent
and the insect-shift intruder
rising airborne

wings beating from the fulcrums
of the tandem tantrum
fulgurating

a fight so beautiful
that angels with six wings
seem plausible

and that they see why those below
the crystal clouds can't count
on a calm day.


Park Point Shore

They nose in like badgers
    the striped wide-backed waves
        snuffling, rapacious

pawing vainly for the beach.
    We the badger-like, we who feel
        badgered view this

from moated sand parapets
    Park Point with its stampede
        sounds.

sprawls chill fluid asphalt, severe
    Lake Superior. We are on badger
        brown ground near diggings

of brownstone and brickish ores
    and pines that burrow
        too. It calms us

to absorb principles of unending
    motion. Inert, gull-attended
        we lie in limbo before

the fixed limit, browning our
    bodies to a sandy badger.
        Streaks of white shield

noses, disguise eyes and souls.
    Badger princes and princesses
        on grained thrones,

we are exonerated during frigid dips.
    In the night, the legs are
        troubled, still feeling

the sea's slosh, its tilling claws
    that can caress. We await
        metamorphosis

from the kiss of one contented.

Changming Yuan

More Monolines

1/ time is the most meticulous makeup master of all.
2/ there is no distinguishing between black and white, for the color of life is grey to begin with.
3/ we were made to cry into this world but we can choose to laugh out of it.
4/ life would be much less lenient if it gave us no sorrow or regret at all.
5/ ambition is cheap, while determination is costly.
6/ parting is painful; even more so is having no one to part from.
7/ truly wise people are those capable of making themselves happy about nothing.
8/ on the stage of life, we may not be able to choose the play, but we can choose the roles to play.
9/ the arrow will either hit the target head-on, or break its own head on a rock.
10/ only those with fewer desires can enjoy more freedom.
11/ better to make my life a stuffed eagle than to make it a living pig.
12/ only when you are awake can you find the way you have lost in your dream.
13/ besides winds, fish can also create bubbles on the calm surface of the water.
14/ as you pay attention to their successes, they are examining your failures.
15/ look at others with a telescope, but look at yourself with an amplifying glass.
16/ all is becoming bygones.
17/ in a world of consumerism, we pay for the comfort of our bodies with our souls by installments.
18/ those who succeed in doing everything can seldom become really successful with anything,
19/ every road leads to success.
20/ while others may prefer to live to die, I would rather die to live.