Intelligent Life Out There -Robyn Makaruk

In reflecting on a thought that was stored in my mind’s attic

gathering dust, but not forgotten,

it kept poking at the regions of my hippocampus

nudging for an answer.

Then one day, I came upon a man

Purported to be wise and have answers to questions, like

‘What is Out there?’

He was an astronomer and an astronaut,

one who searched the skies with powerful optics,

and who had traveled through space and time.

I posed my question thus:

“Do you think it possible that there is intelligent life

in the Universe”, thinking

he’d be very clued in and able to resolve my conundrum.

He took moments before he spoke:

“Yes, I do believe there is intelligent life Out There,

And the fact that it is not known here on Earth

Proves that it has made a wise choice”

It left me to ponder for quite a while,

Before I looked up to the skies and spoke boldly,

“Please take me with you”  

                         ***

A Different Light - Russ Bedord

So what's really wanted? I think you know.

You are not considered a good time girl

To kiss today and desert tomorrow.

You’re a deep-sea diamond, a fresh pearl

Just waiting for the kind of man who cares

For more than matchless physical beauty,

For an honest and tender man who dares

To give his word and stand by his duty.

You want some one steady, but to a fault,

Yet still be unfailingly romantic.

Together, we would create one gestalt,

One yin and yang, both earthly and cosmic.

This will be seen in a different light,

When changed from impossible to just might.

***

Attachment of Old Love - Beverly Koepplin

I saw an old man and old woman walking today,

white heads tilted together, stepping in the same cadence,

almost joined at the hips, clothes rustling together,

an old attachment still holding strong in the last of their days.

The man leaned further down and said something to the woman,

and she looked up at him, smiling at what he had said,

a light coming through the crepe like skin of her face

so brightly that she wore the blushing glow of a young woman again.

I imagined them when they first met, new love on the rise,

purloined kisses, her trilling laughter like a songbird’s call at the break of dawn,

his strong arm placed around her waist for a quick unseen moment,

and both sweetly serious as they stood together in a new marriage.

Sons and daughters, maybe, years flying by, homes and jobs,

still stolen kisses, still laughter, still touching in the rush of the day,

walking together but not always in time, steps a little out of rhythm,

but always that attachment of love over time, through time.

How perfect, I thought, that their attachment is so strong.

Now that they are in the most frail time of their life,

thin bones, fine hair, translucent skin, faltering steps,

that attachment, woven of love and steeped in a rich life,

will bind them together until the end of their days and beyond.

                                 ***

Give It A Chance - Joan Brady

I didn’t want to leave where I was, but the stars vanished, one by one by one, and the moon narrowed to a fine crescent...and I couldn’t find the long-embraced echoes that held me in memories’ half-light, but then the wild fire started burning hotter and hotter till the light became unwavering, the heat intense, and the smoke filled my nostrils, choking me, into barely tolerable half-breaths, and so I ran, first in the van, then on foot on the road, still with back-pack & elderly cat...until the road vanished, and there was a clearing of air, and trees for shade, and fields of poppies, orange in a new warmth, measured in even days where sleep was possible, and fresh mint and berries grew by streams flowing an abundance of cool water where sometimes tadpole-ponds could be found...always fresh...not stagnant...like before.

And still I see a turtle now and then, and one day the cat wandered off into a choice of wildness from where she once came to me, long ago, as a stray kitten. Always, I knew, there was that part of her, and now we were creatures of the same wandering, but still, I do see her at distances watching me, and I hope she is wishing me well.

I didn’t plan for this. It is an invention of happenstance...and so often, I long to hear old music coloring time before the other part consumed what had gone before in it’s immediacy of dark, flickering, choking heat, impossible...even though I tried to adjust...too long I think...but I did get out...safe in this place of even greenness, populated by strangers, sometimes seen as shadows, sometimes solid, each wandering in their own direction, some breaking eye contact, some nodding as we pass...a few are now recognizable where berries and mint are plentiful for all, four-footed, two-footed...and I wonder about them...but never stop. 

No, I never stop! I did that once...and it was so beautiful...until the vanishing began...some parts marked...some parts continual motion...and so it was I became another being in another place, forever changing in what measures as countable time...sun up, sun down, rain, predictable, when seasons change...but still, sometimes, I do see my old cat, far in the distance, and am comforted that she, of the time before, is still out there.

                                       ***

Design For a House - John Field

In the house I’ll build

My wife, kids, cats, dogs and I 

Will be the posts, pillars and studs 

Upon which its rafters rise.

I’ll lay down the hardwood floor

Board by board  

Rock solid on a concrete slab,

Design a front door 

Shaped like an open mouth 

With an insatiable appetite for friends

And erect walls of glass 

Overlooking sun-checkered gardens,

Squirrels scampering about on the lawn

With nuts in their heads

And trees loud with the laughter of birds.

Call me a dreamer if you will

Made mad by the smell 

Of a chicken casserole in the oven,

Coffee brewing on the stove

And a wet dog 

Sound asleep on the kitchen floor.                                                                                         

It’s linkage I’m thinking about,

The structure and harmony 

Of holding everything together

When storm clouds gather

Point blank above our roof

And collide with the rising moon. 

Some say happiness 

Is an endless distance away

Because something splendid 

Directly in front of them

Is always blocking their view.

No thanks. 

In the house I’ve designed

I’ll sleep adrift

On one soft bed of dreams.

                       ***

A Short Walk, A Full Moon - Beverly Koepplin

The dusk is slowly falling into the dark

after a long, warm and satiated day,

and the promise of a jasmine-scented night fills the air –

ah, our sweet dreams will be even sweeter for it.

Let us wander down the road for a while,

walk the wine away, watch the moon breach in the sky,

follow the furrows of the road or walk on the berms

hold hands loosely and swing our arms together, like children at play.

There was today, there will be tomorrow,

but right now in this time and right here in this place,

we are all that we need, we are all that we want,

and, luv, wander as we will, the rising moon will surely guide us home.

                                   ***

Getting the Sailboat Ready - Lucille Hamilton

Barnacles attach themselves tightly

to the side of your sailboat, uprightly

visible: even at midnight, leeward

and windward - on all sides all visible.

The situation is really not risible

as it takes hard work to make barnacles invisible

                                        ***

My Wrecking Yard Heart - John Field

Shunned by her peers, mother was a poet 

Who lived in a comic book town,                                                  

A social mistake whose only companions                                      

Were the ladies she befriended 

At the old folks’ home.

I was her little love letter when I was a child, 

My cheeks stamped pink with her smiles,

But I turned against her

When she started picking quarrels with my father.

She wanted to live near a university,

Attend concerts and lectures, 

Make new friends, resurrect her muse. 

“Not now,” my father replied  

Each time she begged him to move.

“Not now, not now,” grindstone words

That chipped away at her heart

Until it vacated the place were their love 

Used to be. Then things REALLY got serious, 

The unspeakable out there

Volleyed back and forth—followed by

Long broody stretches of silence 

And then another round.

I only dated girls when she was out of town.

There were days when bitterness

Coated the lines of the poems she wrote

With its unforgiving glue

The way an oil-slick soils a seagull’s wings,

And the night 

My father slammed their bedroom door 

And camped out in den 

For the next thirty-five years. 

“Love’s aftermath,” he said, 

A giant absence in his eyes 

Each time she begged him for a kiss.

But I also watched him stare at her

The way a climber searches for a path 

Long lost beneath the undergrowth.

Once when I came home from college                                                

Drunk as usual, she wanted my love so badly                        

That she wound time counterclockwise                                  

Until once again I was her little boy, 

But the ice cream cone she handed me

Melted many years ago. I could tell you                

Some other funny stories about myself                                        

When I was twenty                                                                       

If they weren’t so sad and inexcusable.

                                                                                                 

Self-reproach, you ever want me—don’t.                                

At her funeral it must have been my childhood

Sinking in because I bowed my head

And laced my fingers as if in prayer, 

A perfect likeness of contriteness                                            

Because isn’t moonlight a shadow, too?

Then held a conversation with my heart

And almost convinced its network of spies

And secret police

That you can’t fix the past

Unless you fiddle the facts a little.

But I was only talking to myself

So why did I even bother?

Years later when our paths crossed in a dream                 

More vivid than my waking from it

We behaved badly, 

Like villains in a puppet show.

She pretended I was someone she didn’t know

And my lifeless arms hung limp at my sides 

Like curtains framing an open window

When the air outside is heavy, humid, still. 

Suddenly a tug of tribal remorse                                                   

Turned my wrecking yard heart                                                   

Into a construction site                                                                  

And inexorably my arms began to rise

As if borne upward by silver wires

Until they gave her the hug 

I had always denied her when she was alive.                    

Her response was surprise, 

A quizzical frown                                 

Bent low beneath the burden of her memories.                                            

“Why now?” she asked,                                                                 

The accusation in her eyes implacable, 

As constant as a cloud of flies.

                ***

My Mexican Lover - Beverly Koepplin

Your skin is only slighter lighter than the shadows

of the evening that fill my bedroom and flicker in the candlelight

so that you are brown against black as you move around me,

over me, on me, in me -  a symphony of dark surrounding me.

Your skin is wet against mine and tastes like grape nectar,

no, chili oil, sweet and sharp on my tongue, like a strange wine

I cannot and do not want to stop tasting.

I lick the drops that fall from your brow 

so I can have more – of you.

Your skin smells like the clean fertile dirt in which you work,

of the ground on which you walked those many miles to be here,

of the hot sun in which you spend your long days.

I love the smell of you – my earth in these moments, 

my moon, my stars.

I do not remember how you came to be here, 

maybe an exchange of looks

over the rims of our glasses as we downed our tequilas,

maybe a beckoning finger, 

and perhaps a silent stroll through the parking lot.

It does not matter – your skin rubs against mine, 

and we start a fire.

Ah, my Mexican lover, 

I cannot understand the words you murmur.

In the hot darkness as we find a rhythm 

that transcends our cultures,

a dance of your brown skin against my fairness.

I want more of the taste, the smell of your skin, 

of you – my Mexican lover.

                       ***

Revival - Michael James

MEMOIRE OF A 1956 REVIVAL

Back in the time before drugs and hippies and gangs, while I was still an undergraduate, a person could go down to Oakland alone for an evening’s honest entertainment without fear of being mutilated and robbed. Thither I was tempted by news of a notorious, old-fashioned revival coming to town.

A crowd was gathering on the Oakland waterfront between the railroad tracks and the Alameda estuary where a circus tent had been erected behind a portable picket fence. Signs on the outside of the fence advertised “REVIVAL” in large, red letters. People in the crowd were mostly black, hatless, quiet, and middle-aged. A few caucasians appeared to be waiting with the others, and some of them wore heavy, hooded duffle coats against the cold of the evening. It was winter time and the year was 1956. Bulky, white guards stood on either side of the closed entrance to the tent holding obviously large flashlights in two hands as if they were batons. They appeared to be waiting for a signal to start admitting the crowd. Eventually it came and the guards opened the fence and stood aside to allow the people entrance to the tent. They appeared to be inspecting them as they passed. Not one was detained.

When the wooden seats in the tent were occupied, the entry flap was closed and the guards posted. Similar-looking young white men, suited, tied, the very picture of brawny angels, roamed the aisles looking slightly formidable. Few took any notice of them; all eyes were on the podium around which the arc of seats was placed. Two middle-aged white men and one black man were seated  there. They appeared to be quite composed, though the cherubic, Rubenesque man next to the microphone, was wearing a collar that was obviously too tight, as he several times ran a finger under it as if to loosen it. When he stood up, the crowd hushed expectantly. Loud speakers around the edge of the tent carried his voice distinctly.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to our seventh annual holy revival meeting in Oakland, California! I’m sure you’ll find your visit here inspirational and blest by the holy love of God . I’m the Reverend Andrew Johnson, and these gentlemen are my colleagues the Reverend E. Dewey Smith and the Reverend Jasper Williams of the Weary Travelers Rest congregation in Sentinel, Alabama. They are going to help me tonight bring the Holy Ghost to each and every one of you in need of personal cleansing. Are you ready to help me, brothers?”

“Halleluja, yes,” they both yell loudly.

“God bless you both! Now let’s get on with God’s holy work!”

“You know how Jesus told Peter on the night he was betrayed by that snake, Judas, that he, Peter, would deny Jesus thrice before cock crow. And what did Peter say? Oh no, not me Lord! I’m in this for the long haul. But what did he do? Did he give in to the intimidation of the Sanhedrin and deny knowing Jesus when the authorities questioned him?”

Crowd: “Yes.”

“I can’t hear you!”

Crowd yelling, “Yes, yes! Peter was weak and knuckled under.”

“And what would you all do if you were called to bear witness to your God? Would you cave in to your desires and fears? Or would you give all you’ve got to Him who gave you all?”

“We’d give; we’d give all.”

“Good! Now you remember the feeding of the five thousand, when Jesus had only five loaves and two small fishes? Yet after giving thanks to His Father, he divided the bread and fish and fed the assembled multitude. He fed all those people! Where do you think all that food came from? You think it came out of thin air?”

“It came from Jesus!” someone in the crowd yells.

“You’re so right it came from Jesus! It was his life he was giving to the people, his spiritual body became their food. He gave of himself that all might eat and have everlasting life. Now when Jesus asks you to give a little, how do you respond? Do you give all as He did, or do you hold back, thinking to yourselves, He won’t miss my contribution! He’s got so many, many people giving to Him! Well, what if we all thought that? Would there be enough to finance His ministry?”

“We give! We give!” came the response. 

The Reverend Johnson took off his jacket, warming to his work, running his index finger under his collar as he laid the coat on the podium.

“Many of you came here tonight to bring Jesus into your hearts. But some of you have told me of your concerns that there may not be enough room for Him in your hearts, that you hoped I could clean out some of the trash you are holding, or even some bad feelings or anger, frustration, guilt and yes, sin. Well, you know I can’t do that. Only He can, but He can only do it if you ask Him, if you pray to Him to cleanse you so He can move in, come to live with you like a relative who needs a roof over his head. Do you want to do that? Do you really want Jesus to come into your heart and make it his house?”

“Yes, Jesus come, come to me!”

“Jesus can’t hear you!”

Louder: “Oh Lord, come into thine own. Halleluja, Lord Jesus! I’m here waiting for you!”

“I think he must have heard that one! So take your turn and come up to the podium. We’ll clean out your heart to make room for Jesus. And while we’re doing that, the ushers will pass baskets around for you to show your love of Jesus by making whatever contribution you can afford. Come now, let ushers lead you up to the front and these gentlemen and I will cast out those nasty devils from your hearts. While we work, our organist will play hymns for you to sing.”

“Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come....” etc.

While the hymn is being sung a slender forty-something black woman is led to the small stage by an usher and placed in front of the Reverend Johnson. He says a prayer over her while the usher goes behind, places his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and gives her a clumsy imitation of the Heimlich Maneuver. She coughs and gasps for air as the young man releases her, while the preacher yells out loud,

“There comes the first one, nasty red devil! Has she any more?” the woman shakes her head and holds her stomach, moaning. The preacher calls out , “Glory be to God, then. May Christ live within in you!” And the usher leads her off stage, leaning on his arm.

The next victim is a large black woman who approaches the stage singing the hymn then being played. The speaker holds the mike near her mouth as he helps her up the steps, and the audience can hear her moaning and crying, “Cleanse me of my sins, oh Lord and make me worthy of you. Take me for your own, dear Jesus.” Two ushers move up on either side of the woman, who soon seems to be going into some sort of convulsions. They hold her up as the speaker brings the mike to her, so all can hear. The usher with his back to the audience appears to punch the woman in the stomach, for she staggers, then hunches over and begins to retch while both ushers do their best to hold her up.

“Here comes the first one!” says the preacher. “Glory be to God! Come out Satan! Leave this poor soul to Jesus. Help her, Jesus. Cleanse thy handmaiden of her sins! She is thine, oh Lord!”  She staggers and retches again as the ushers hold her up. Johnson backs away from her calling loudly into the mike: “Out you vile Satan! Forsake this poor woman! Get you back to hell! Now sweet Jesus, come into this thy handmaiden! Cleanse her of all ills!” He releases the woman whom the ushers half carry down the steps and to her seat.

The other two “reverends” join in and the fun goes on uninterrupted for an hour or more while large Fried Chicken paper tubs are being circulated amongst the seats by the ushers for contributions. The exorcists pause in their work long enough to inspect the paper tubs and register their disappointment at what they see in them. Johnson goes up to the mike and gives his spiel about giving back to Jesus some of what he gave to us. Then he sends out the buckets again for another round of donations. The ushers must work while the reverends rest.

   

The ushers, duly admonished, pass the tubs around again until they’re nearly full. The “reverends” meanwhile, split up and go to run little side shows in adjoining alcoves where each performs  exorcisms . There’s a young white woman being addressed by the Reverend Jasper Williams from Alabama. She is in a fine state, very disturbed and shedding outer garments while Williams exhorts her to let go of her troubles, to give them all to Jesus who has ‘taken on the sins of the whole world.’  

 

She is on the floor, which is covered with wood shavings, back arched, arms akimbo, crying hysterically. Williams stands between her feet praying aloud, commanding the devils to forsake her, calling on Jesus to fill her with the Holy Ghost. She thrusts her pelvis upwards, gnashes her teeth, and emits great moans. The exorcist redoubles his efforts and the scene culminates with the woman screaming, “Save me, Jesus!” 

Williams responds by calling out, “He has saved you girl! Come to Jesus!” and he helps her  to her feet where she totters then leans on him.

My view of this scene is blocked by the trousers of a burly usher who demands to know if I am praying, for I’m watching the action from behind hands in which my face is buried. 

“You praying, brother?”

“Yessir! I’m praying for that poor lady what had the Devil pulled out of her.”

“That’s good! Keep praying, then!” And the trousers vanish. I sit up and look around. People are leaving. I can merge into the the exodus without being singled out for special attention.

                                            ***

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