Saturday, February 28, 2004

Raw Beauty

To some it would look
only like a black heap
but there was something beautiful about it
gazing at it from the car
in the darkness
there was something
almost mesmerizing
graceful rounded mounds
of black coal
promising energy yet spent
over which beams of light
cascading down
created a hazy
filtering in white
showcasing
beauty in a raw form........


Copyright 2004 by Phyllis Johnson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.

Monday, February 23, 2004

The Barachois*

Here we do not seek the sea,
for it a level presence, beyond
persuasion, cold and articulate
in motion like the sinking
of a dark moon, impossible
to touch, but for the briefest
stroke.

            Instead, we find the lakes,
sun-warmed and glistening, between
the patches of tuckamore and flattened
rocks that radiate yellow light. We
see in their shallows the perfect
melting of form and idea,
the blue-pocked water reflecting
bare, circled suns.

On their banks,
people listen to the sea, distant
by a thought, and wait for the
revelations easiness offers in
the intricacies of warmth. Maybe,
we plunge into its sheltered depths,
translucent water streaming from us,
and shudder at the hints of coolness
below the turquoise surface.

Oracles could have prospered here,
offering scant words for dull coins,
telling us what we feel in words we
can not sound but as the moon
moves predictably across the
foam-pocked, level ocean;
Telling us again and again
that things have meaning,

that we are.


* As the seawater temperature in Newfoundland is forty-five degrees even in high
summer, locals swim in shallow fresh water ponds which are usually within sight
of the sea or sound.



Copyright 2004 by David King.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.

Sunday, February 08, 2004

Wars

The Old Masters worked
With no more intensity of perfection
Before a vast scene of carnage
Getting each detail of man and beast
Just so in oil and tempera,

Than my brother
Ranked his legions of plastic men
In our room, setting each olive-toned soldier
In such a position that he could fire
But be exposed to no fire on the oaken floor,
Though we didn’t see the need for camouflage,
So each one lay naked and alone.
And, besides, the color itself was wrong;
Every man a naked thumb of dull green
On that flat, waxed surface would
Have been blasted to oblivion by the artillery
Placed commandingly on the looming heights
Of toy chest and bed.

He did better when we found a threadbare carpet,
Making ripples like hills and trenches
In the tangled, thick background,
So the grateful troopers could hunker down
Exposing only their weapons
And the tips of their helmets,
Establishing a field of death without standing out
Like frightened immobile rabbits
In some imaginary meadow, thinking
They are invisible to all-seeing predators.

He would set them in long lines
And curves following the run
Of that day’s terrain from one length of the room
To the corner and then start at some random point
Hammering one side against the other,
All the while making sharp noises
Of shots; some men miraculously missed
In the hail of fire, others mercilessly slaughtered
At the first volley. But one side, usually those
Who held the high ground of the bed, would
Prevail in a field mathematical possibilities,
And find glorious victory.

Plastic faces
Took on no despairing looks of fear,
No mercy was implored, no prisoners
Were taken, though in an hour or a day
The implacable, faceless foes would
Find themselves elbow to elbow with
Those who had fought most bitterly
Against them:

There is no
resurrection from this oblivion,
from the dark necessity to live
again and again.

Copyright 2004 by David King .
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.

Sunday, February 01, 2004

She moves with water grace

She moves with water grace,
a waterfall in motion
predictable but each moment different,
a twist of movement
each droplet
like the next
but not like the rest
building upon the next,
one after the other.

I could stand under
water washing my soul
each drop bringing sweetness
to my lips.
I want to dive in
stand under
raise my arms high
uplift my face
be enveloped in wet sweetness.

Copyright 2004 by Peter A. Stinson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.