. . . .

Epigram Deposing the Long Marriage
          for K.

Which cell is saying no
to love? What atoms are
not touched by your goodness?

_________________________

Not an Elegy
© Rodney Nelson

an hour to reach the sanatorium town
another decade the high old age of him that
had wooed in one like this but when the warm midday
stilled at the library and got epiphanic
I might have been der Geheimrat
                                       was soll ich nun
                                       von Wiedersehen hoffen
                                       von dieses Tages
                                       noch geschlossner Blüte
                     in eighteen twenty-three
the hurt and terror he could not hide or hide from
in losing more than Ulrike von Levetzow
awaited me too in the flowerage that had
kept on to sunstead and I might have wanted to
jump in my coach
                     blame die Götter
                                       sie drängten mich
                                       zum gabeseligen Munde
                                       sie trennen mich
                                       und richten mich zugrunde
                     forge back to Wymer
Lake Minnesota and the court I would have been
paid had I held title or anything in two
thousand seven
                     a last year in Marienbad
Otter Tail County to think on
                     my Ulrike
                     was thirty not nineteen
did not want me or words
yet walking out of that library into a
quiet even lime-tree noon I thought of what an-
other grand coot Henrik Ibsen in the same fix
had written to another Ulrike
                                       people
                                       do not meet until
                                       they have to say goodbye
                     wished
I had had the Danonorwegian but felt
no ending hurt in that or me
                     no elegy
time at all and knew goodbye had been part of
hello
                                       wiedersehen
                                       Wiedersehen
                     contained
the next hello too that linden flowering would
nod again next year in Mariánské Láznĕ

__________________________

der Geheimrat                              the privy councilor (Goethe,   1749-1832)
was soll, etc.                                should I look to the as yet folded
                                                    blossoms of the day for hope of reunion
Ulrike von Levetzow (1804-99)      never did marry
die Götter                                     the gods
sie drängten, etc.                          they drove me into the fold of
                                                    these fleshpouts, now they
                                                    abandon and ruin me
wiedersehen                                 goodbye
Wiedersehen                                reunion
Mariánské Láznĕ (Czech)             Marienbad

__________________________________________________________

Humidity
© Tobi Cogswell

She buys him cufflinks for important dates—
silver, then gold, then
platinum initials
mark their own private
calendar, a chart
plotting increments
toward a vertigo
that climbs unfettered.
It hangs off the vines,
reeks like a cat house
in red-light districts.

Sunset over the
Home Depot and you’re
in a dream. A nest
of wicked vibrates,
takes you over the
fields of rocky sand
and shell. A seagull
picks at the carcass
of failed intention,
a foghorn warns all
not to get too close.

They don’t travel light.
Rather they carry
a trunk, a costume
change for every day.
“Ordinary” is
not in their teal or
twilight. They are a
porn shop next to a
pawn shop – “We buy gold”
and quick-stop liquor.
You never know what
day it is, but sure
as lust in the trunk
of a stolen car,
sure as one plus one,
they defy…

__________

The Fall of Paris
© Eileen Aronson Ireland

Witness
        on the boulevard
        this champagne morning
        the woman   the man
        without flag     without pride
        without touch     of a hand
        with       rivers of eyes
        seeing     boots beyond tanks

No chisel of Notre Dame or Reims
        ever gargoyled an ugliness purer
        than high stepping boots
        on the Champs Elysee

        Proud Roland’s ivory horn
                    cannot   blare
                    in Vichy Land

Who is Pierre
                    Who is not Pierrot

Does the driver of the tank
     under the stone eyebrow
     of Napoleon   have
     any face

Would you know him
                   gorging bran flakes
                   in a trailer park

Would you know him
                   conjugating futures
                   in a caucus room

Would you know   the woman   the man
       separate as poplars in
       wrought iron cages where we
       hung red paper poppies
       while the Legionnaires of
       the war to end all wars
       paraded on Memorial Days

The woman   the man   the marchers
       the faceless driver
       staining dishonored cities on
       champagne mornings

Would you know them at your
       voting booth
       under your comforters

________________________

Anniversary Party, November 9, 2010, at a Luxurious Downtown Hotel *
© J. J. Steinfeld

We first fell in love in early 1939,
before the War, the elderly man said
music from another era playing
in celebration and enchantment
a roomful of well-wishers.
No, we first fell in love in late 1945,
after the War, the elderly woman
at his side contradicted abruptly
their three grown children
and nine grown grandchildren
and one teenage great-grandchild
gathered around the table
for an anniversary toast.
And the great-grandchild
who was a scholarly student
majoring in world history
asked, Did you really meet Hitler
during World War Two?

 The anniversary couple
did not answer, not he nor she
yet both started to cry
but no one nearby
neither the children
nor the grandchildren
nor the one studious great-grandchild
knew for whom the tears were being shed
on their festive anniversary party
and not a single person in the room
realized it was also the anniversary
of Kristallnacht.

______

* first appeared in Drash: Northwest Mosaic

____________________________________

Playlist Directives
© John G. Rodwan. Jr.

kiss the bangles
bump the spinners
discharge sex pistols
fly black flag
cash blue notes
count the kinks
king the exploited
fear the temptations

_________________

Erected by James MacDonald, Loving Husband
© Tobi Cogswell

Come sit here beside me 

skin lit, a candle 

on alabaster, small gold rings 

draw my eyes to your neck 

your pulse beating, hands still.  

It has always been like 

the first time. The first kiss, 

first lovemaking, first 

child. The children.  

Your smile never died, 

even as we both grew older, 

less able to sway with the wind 

of disappointments and sadnesses.  

I still see you in your 

wedding veil, the one 

our daughters also wore, being

both poor in material riches

and also superstitious.  

I drink to you in the glass 

you loved so well - the sun

piercing reddened shadows

on the wall above your empty chair.  

My heart. It will not be long

until we dance again, 

eyes bright,

fingers straight and sure. 

'Til we marvel at the golden 

blossoms along emerald hills

and what takes the place of sky. 

Save a place for me. 

I will not find another.

__________________

Excursion Mountain
© Jonathan Rapp

Sky’s spent mineral pressed to the Berg
No one in this wood Spitz in the lake.

Banging away with field glasses July
Twisting itself off the empyrean. A basket

Of crickets in the saved setting of its one
Tooth. Shade feels like a bar everyone

Just ran out of emptied by a sudden total
Beaked by an elevator bad business to

Employ or ape. Nothing diverges from
Yüan Hung-tao.

________________________________

Grandma
© Eileen Aronson Ireland

waiting   at the station   no
               knots in your   shroud
               zaftig   Grandma Becky
               worn   to bones
                                       I never asked you   questions
                                       you never told me   anything

do you   dream in   Yiddish   Polish English Russian
                   the marked village   shtetl
                   you grew breasts in
                   before   the crossing
                   age sixteen   with one brother

                   who was left   swaying
                   in the doomed synagogue
                   father mother sister
                   did the walls   wail
                   that last night   or
                   chant   your escape
                   from bloodland

or did you hear only   Machine Ahmerika
                          you would stitch your life on
                          husband   a landsman
                          3 children
                          4 grandchildren
                          7 great grandchildren

                          husband   only son
                          one daughter
                          already under
                          stone

what do you read   between their numbers
what do you hear   the morning after
               a child dies   or
               10 yahrzeit candles later

               how many lips kiss you
               with my son’s lips

               what must I bear
               when I no longer can

waiting   at the station   no
               knots in your   shroud
               zaftig   Grandma Becky
               worn   to bones
                                      I never asked you   questions
                                      you never told me   anything

______________________________________________

Untitled
© Manuel Cautle, Trans. Toshiya Kamei

I watch your eyes

    the wind
tattoos your name
on the seas
as it travels

fish
savor the tenderness
of each one
    of your letters

you're a relief
and a symphony
    riding
in the prairies
        of the horizon

_________________

Corso Vittorio Emanuele
© Jonathan Rapp

I was so intrigued watching you tap
Together a jointed maggot puppet from tin
Cans of graded sizes I made a point
To catch your show later at Palazzo Asmundo.
After we were seated you humped your maggot
Around the perimeter of the audience so we

Could view its working parts. You made it move, we
Saw, with rods, not strings. You allowed us to tap
Its shining metal crescent. Someone asked about the maggot.
What role did it play? Please, what is the tin
Son of a fly’s business in Palazzo Asmundo?
Our ‘tin envoy’, you pinched the point

Of your nose, is a stage manager of sorts. The point,
You added, was to avoid run-on corpses. We
Were fascinated. It was a rare point. It hovered in Asmundo
While you waved the hammer you used to tap
Copper and nickel and brass into knights’ armor. Tin
Wasn’t used, you said. You walked your maggot

Behind the curtain and returned. Only the maggot
Was tin. The others were wood. You turned to point
To a knight on a nail with hand-painted eyes the color of tin.
Its black moustache and red lips were like a doll’s. We
Coughed. You motioned to your son to tap
Off the house lights. The show at Palazzo Asmundo

Began with a story of Charlemagne. Your Asmundo
Troupe was so skilled I forgot the maggot
Behind the curtain. The armies of Christians and Saracens did tap
Each other ferociously with their swords. No point
In the Carolingian cycle was far from a sword-point. We
Were floored by the rate at which bodies piled up. Your tin

Worm we remembered only when dead covered the stage. The tin
Logistician would remove the gore from Asmundo.
It seemed the mess should soon produce the worm. We
Had been thrilled by heads and limbs flying, but if the maggot
Missed its cue, if it failed to appear at its proper point
In the tale we would have to tap

A hole in the tin ceiling to breathe. The maggot,
Solemn as a temple, entered then. We raised the roof at Asmundo,
And had to point, when the first dead knight it began gently to tap.

________________________________________________________