I Am But a Traveler in This Land & Know Little of Its Ways

BY DEAN YOUNG
Is everything a field of energy caused
by human projection? From the crib bars
hang the teething tools. Above the finger-drummed
desk, a bit lip. The cyclone fence of buts

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Goodtime Jesus

Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dreaming so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it?  A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn’t afraid of that. It was a beautiful day. How ’bout some coffee? Don’t mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.

–James Tate

SONNET IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR
W. C. Williams

Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off a sweetest
odor, man and woman

under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of

aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it

Might be made of it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of no odor
other than trailing woodbine that

has no odor, odor of a nude woman
sometimes, odor of a man.

From the imitable WB Keckler
Spring Poem

1.

Not wanting to know the constituents which compose your aggregate
is the usual human cloud; a roiling personality.

Your body’s microflora and microfauna have a rich inner life. These are
probably more photogenic than you will ever know.

(a) The Chinese considered the wild asymmetricality of funguses to be beautiful
(b) so they carved them in jades so many lifetimes ago
(c) or they saw them as suitable subjects for art

(d) and the concept of beauty was either irrelevant or absent
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Charles Wright, who grew up just over the mountains east of here, and who, as a boy, spent part of his summers here…

Today I offer you one of my all time personal favorites, it has been rolling around in my head lately, so I thought I would share.

TOAD, HOG, ASSASSIN, MIRROR

Larry Levis

Toad, hog, assassin, mirror. Some of its favorite words, which are breath. Or handwriting: the long tail of the ‘y’ disappearing into a barn like a rodent’s, and suddenly it is winter after all. After all what? After the ponds dry up in mid-August and the children drop pins down each canyon and listen for an echo. Next question, please. What sex is it, if it has any? It’s a male. It’s a white male Caucasian. No distinguishing birthmarks, the usual mole above the chin. Last seen crossing against a light in Omaha. Looks intelligent. But haven’t most Americans seen this poem at least once by now? At least once. Then, how is the disease being . . . communicated? As far as we can determine, it is communicated entirely by doubt. As soon as the poets reach their mid-twenties they begin living behind hedgerows. At the other end of the hedgerows someone attractive is laughing, either at them, or with a lover during sexual intercourse. So it is like prom night. Yes. But what is the end of prom night? The end of prom night is inside the rodent; it is the barn collapsing on a summer day. It is inside the guts of a rodent. Then, at least, you are permitted an unobstructed view of the plain? Yes. And what will be out there, then, on the plain? A rider approaching with a tense face, who can’t see that this horse has white roses instead of eyes. You mean . . . the whole thing all over again. Unfortunately, yes, at least as far as we are permitted to see.