Poem __________________ David Mason

 

A Mathematical Abecedarian Poem

 

A problem is to calculate the

Beta function at alpha = 1/2, where it is

Continuous, has a transcendental value and is

Divisible by Beta at 3/2.

Easy enough using

Familiar properties of this function.

Galois theory does not come into play nor do

Hilbert spaces and their special properties.

Indivisible numbers, as well as,

Jordan curves should be avoided. You might get sucked into a

Klein bottle and never get out.

Latin squares may befuddle you or

Manifolds on Lie groups.

Never try to understand

Ordinary differential equations without

Practice in Fourier analysis and knowledge of

Quaternion valued matrices.

Riemannian metrics are essential in talking about

Space that is very curvy.

Time and time again they are

Useful in describing unexpected worlds.

Vector spaces are helpful too

When defining one’s place in space.

Xeno did not know about them when he fashioned his paradox.

Yet it confused philosophers long ago. By the way,

Zeno came up with the famous paradox, not Xeno.

Poem _____________________ Koon Woon

 

When you, when I …

 

When you catch me writing,

when you catch the wind,

a warm breath is blowing, &

birds flock over the land.

 

Though the political is absurd

and men often pitch dirt,

a raindrop of the good

portends a brotherhood.

 

Take this feather, my friend,

it’s preserved from childhood.

Recall fondly the days and nights

in this undertaking we call life.

 

When you, when I are far awake,

an opulent music we shall make.

And we will laugh and dance, as

Providence bestows another chance.

 

Koon Woon

E. Martin Pederson _______________ four poems

The Beauty of Books on a Shelf

 

pinetrees at the edge of the forest

ready to be felled

pickets in a fence

always white

dandelions in the grass

in a seaside town

in salty Maine

creases in a thick curtain

in the projection room (industrial marketing shorts)

the bored room

junior & senior yes women & men yesyesyes

coats on a rack

in the room in the back

where I am sent

for snickering

during story-time

in Miss Soite's fifth grade

and in the scoutmaster's mind

boy scouts ideally rigid

baseball bats leaning on a cyclone fence

then tall glasses on the bar

bottles in a supermarket with cartoon labels

in alphabetical order

one by one.

 

The Chill of the Sierra

 

is not cold

the sun's out

the night was damp

and the night was cold

the frost is cold

but now there's only a chill

the brisk air

the smell of granite

floor of duff

air you'd want

to share

in advertising

 

I can feel that fresh air

anywhere

everywhere

any and everywhere

 

 

Curse Immortality

 

There’s a sad sigh of relief at the end of every job

Like summer

Like a sealed vault at the end of a hallway

I’m glad to move the train, leaving another station behind

I only wish it would never end

This curse of immortality.

 

A Life Saved is a Life Earned

 

Everything around us is dust

we’ve only got each other

I will never let you out of my sight

ever again, all my days.

 

You are mine or I yours

proper and appropriate

went down with the cathedral

on the believers’ heads.

 

Never to separate, claustrophobic

two as one inside the other

I will never break my promise

you wear yellow rubber boots.

 

 

 

 

 

Koon Woon reading

 

Poem _____________________ Deanna Scott

 

Changing Seasons

 

Trampling on shining sumac 

Sitting at the edge of the meadow

The trees hummed a soft melody at the end of fall

Winter responded by grabbing the baton

I didn’t know I was ready

The last of the shrubs forming a colony with shiny leaves Resembling the birds flying 

Stop worrying

I will always protect your gentle footsteps

A cluster of red berries fell on my head

Silly girl

This is the easiest transition

Fall leaves turn scarlet red

Allow things to come

Accept the universe’s treasure

As nature rotates 

The gift of seasons. 

 

 

David Gilmour __________________ two poems

 

 

DREAM-DOG

 

 

Say, it was vivid! -- akin to something --

Someone alive and kicking.

I know I should have caught that 4:11 am

Dream lingering at the empty platform,

When I sat bolt upright, I saw myself

As if myself saw me in the high-

Density reflective mirror of that world.

A crisis whether to arise,

Dress, eat, and climb aboard the blank page;

Whether to drop back down the rabbit's hole to sleep.

 

Had it, fed it, bled it, died!

Alas, that frisky puppy of a dream-dog

Up and abandoned me. Carried on a carriage,

Taken on the brain-train,

Chuffing on down those serpentine tracks

Until the rails went skew,

Now's blowing smoke in distant fields

Where poetic frogs used to croak.

 

Through channels reamed by rumination,

The barge hangs by some mooring post,

Along by now a narrow ditch, a psychic lair

Where something more than frog was spawned,

Where it's at home,

Like simple souls a while ago,

Who chattered, smoked, and sipped green tea

Over yellow formica breakfast tables,

Morning sun in streams of gold,

Through the hazy kitchen windows.

 

 

 

TRANCE FORMATION

 

The cosmic picture or the uncosmetic chaos

Is pressed by the spirit of Life

Upon the walls of its own awareness.

Rainbow arcs, moon above the pyramids,

Cliff faces, glassy mountain ribs.

The listener might see a spectral fragment,

The large red,

A lamp glowing upon a triangular plane,

A rough stone, tragic ledges,

A dead drop into blue chasms.

 

Nature’s mass can be reordered:

Coherent line, measure, form, and word.

The singer’s synesthetic eye,

A wild iris, savage thought.

A maelstrom of meanings:

Pristine is white,

Black is pure, men are wheat,

Women violets with a deep, deep core.

Raven, a nightjar,

And a sign of spring—cuckoo!

 

All concocted transformations,

Laden galleons sailing across classifications

To an unknown shore,

The blades from bristling pines

Palming the foaming eddies,

Skimming across orders

To an ineffable shore,

Down to earth experience,

Amber and frankincense.

 

Out they fly from the cave of dreams,

Carlsbad-like gusts of plumage,

Beauties once worn by cargo cultists

Now extinct in paradise

In faraway Sarawak.

 

Soaring,

Focusing on all divine planes,

Swift squadrons,

Drawing evening in,

 

John Grey _____________________ three poems

 

I HAVE BUT ONE TRUE HOME

 

Here is the house in which I lived.

There is the quiet spot

where I could inhabit the darkness,

a womb where I was moved into

after my mother’s could no longer hold me.

Other people live there now.

A woman waters the garden.

Kids play in the yard.

A small dog barks at me,

like I’m some burglar casing the joint.

I’m really casing the past,

a different dog, different woman,

and one of those kids,

the smallest one, is me.

The eyes have done their job.

Now memory takes over.

THE TRUCKS AT NIGHT

I'm going home to sleep
but who knows where they're headed.
Sleep could be Richmond or Pittsburgh,
and maybe there's no sleep,
just uppers and the monotony
of route 95.
Maybe there's a truck stop or two
along the way
where they can park these roaring behemoths
and pass the dead of night
with fellow creatures,
taste the coffee,
see the trips they've made,
have still to make,
in the red of other trucker's eyes.
I think I've got it bad
until I read of miners stuck in hell-holes,
chemical workers breathing cancer
on the job,
or see these weary road knights
rattling down the highway,
full tank of diesel,
head almost on empty.

 

WHY TRY TO CHANGE ME

I share an apartment with a gelded dog.

I was in a long-term relationship.

It broke up a year ago.

Her mother was a harridan of the old school.

I did the best I could for her.

Not enough of course.

And I do see her now and then

at the local hangouts,

We refer to ourselves as friends.

(We’re not really but there is

no personal noun to go with indifferent.)

 

My dog looks on me

as everything there is

and more besides.

And I was the one who had him fixed.

I was once shacked up with

a series of misunderstandings.

Now I live with an irony.

Once I was on my own.

With no nouns to speak of.