Tongue of Fire -Joshua Gramse

Night is long

Season of stillness

The Harvest, two turnings of the moon past and more

Frost now before dawn

My grandfather closed his eyes when the last leaves fell

We wrapped him, tethered him in the river's flow

Trees stand, fleshless hands grasping black sky

Ice silvered eye of the sky serpent stares

Its golden eye is heavy, barely wakes

Dark swallows the days

Night is long

Night's season

Cold smell of earth, stone, mist on the river, men, women, beasts

Breath steams in the air

Hush, Hush in the pre-dawn

We build no fires

We are silent shadows before the mound

The mound

Gateway to the other sphere

Our gateway

Rising above us

Passage like a black maw

Dark mouth for the sleeping otherworld 

How it waits

Not even beasts bray, nor bellow in the gloom

So quiet now

Birds hold their breath

Bursting above us

Sky breaks and a blaze

Great golden eye rouses, opens, spills a tear

A tiny dart of skyfire splits the dome of heaven

Shining missile into the doorway of the mound, caught there

Fills the entrance, a mouth spilling gold

A tongue of fire in the passage gleaming

A throat to drink the light deep into the belly cold

And green things stir in their slumber, heavy lids lighten

The light is strong

Its time is short

We carry cold grandfather to the bright door

Washed by light, radiant halo about the elder skull

He is draped in his finest raiment

Gift of his lost wife's hand

Pinned with a bit of antler

From a stag he felled when young

There is a cradle of stone for him inside

Down the passage

We lay him in the glowing chamber

The belly of the gateway mound is warming

The otherworld is yawning

When we give fire to his old body

And leave him smoking

He sheds his cold bones and steps through

Is gone

The Light blinks out in the chamber

A black gateway once more

We emerge 

A pale dawn, sky of iron

Cold day so brief

But we know it's turning

Dead season too will die

And from ashes rises 

Like grandfather from his bones

Growing green and pumping red

We light the fires

Bright legion of flame

We are together

Women, men and beasts

Warm hands to give late harvest's bounty

Oat and millet, sweet roots and the winter's hunt

And good things found in the cold

A light in the darkness

A promise

In the long night

                   ***

Pelagic - Russ Bedord

I swim in an ocean of words,

in the light ’twixt air and abyss.

I fear the deep. Flashes there hint

at revelations I shouldn’t miss.

Factual dragons hunt below,

lurking words, odd meanings

hidden in puns, definitive terms—

dense, subtle, and obscure.

Best I porpoise here at the surface,

beneath clouds’ flashy substance.

Let height lend weight to their brightness.

I splash conjecture into the air—

cascading heaps of frothy likeness.

                   ***

Why We Listen to Jazz - John Field

For Mike Litt and Bob Bamberg

Listening to Paul Desmond play East of the Sun

Is like watching JFK sipping the sound

Of a dry martini in the oval room

While Marilyn Monroe 

Bats her silky eyelashes at him 

Gently as a butterfly coming in for a landing 

On his waiting lips.

When the embers of our waning passion

Finally grow stone cold

Who gives a damn anyway? 

So what if we’re too old to jump and jive

Each time Basie swings the blues 

Or Armstrong sings

Struttin’ with some barbecue.

Not for us The Sound of Music 

And its chorus line

Of dancing nuns in bacchanalian rut.

Give us instead a ballad by Chet Baker

Which calms our nerves 

With an influx of evocative notes 

Light as cannabis smoke 

Mixed with twilight mist 

And stippled with fireflies  

Which flutter down from the sky

And settle in our deeps forever.

After John Coltrane kicked his habit 

He gave praise to God in sheets of sound, 

Thunder and blast, a love supreme, 

His art a vision he blew heavenward 

Through the mouthpiece of his saxophone.

Distant as Latin the look in Bill Evans’ eyes

As his fingers weave

Jade Visions’ unearthly melody

Into transcendental patterns

Of everything there is out there

Beyond the stars,

Ethereal jazz that makes us feel

Like we were going to heaven 

Instead of Peru.

When Lester was a Young hipster

He was so ultra super icebox cool 

Billy Holliday nicknamed him

The prez-id-ent.

Listening to the breathy tone 

Of his saxophone’s contagious rapture

Is like driving a black Cadillac 

Through the streets of Manhattan 

At midnight

While our two best friends

Are having sex in the back seat.

Drive on, baby, drive on, 

Keep your eyes on the road   

And accept the night for what it is,

A ride on the wild side 

Played out in sweeps 

Of sweet sixteenth notes, 

The prez-id-ent’s gift to us----his alpha

And omega salute to joy.

Great things endure----bread and wine

And Thelonius Monk

Never surpassed or overlooked. 

His compositions, nutty songs 

Like Misterioso and Humph, 

Take us to the edge of the world 

And drop us over.

No longer safely wedged 

Between the ceiling and the floor

We listen enchanted and perplexed 

To the jangly tremulous path 

His fingertips follow 

As they wander in short choppy strides

Across the keys----creating Jerky rhythms 

Which lead us to believe

We are his privileged guests

In the strange oasis of his dreams, 

Mirages, rainbows, sunsets, phantoms,

Reflections on water and beautiful women. 

Either that or what he’s doing

Is pursuing jeweled illusions 

In carnival halls filled with ornamental

Distorting echoes

The likes of which we’ve never heard before.

                                 ***

Winter Solstice - Russ Bedord

“It's too cold,” Karl said, as he thought about going to school. Staying under warm covers as long as possible delayed facing that horrible fact. He shuddered over breakfast from principle, because the house temperature was almost 80 degrees, but it looked so cold outside. 

Days were short this time of the year, just before Christmas. “Why does the shortest day of the year have to be during Christmas vacation,” he complained mentally, then realized: “What difference does it make? I wouldn't know unless someone called it the solstice, anyway!” Just like summer solstice, it passed unnoticed, except some people make a big thing out of it. Miss Holman had pointed out that the summer and winter solstices were mirrored in the southern hemisphere. The shortest day here was the longest day there, and vice versa. What if you lived half way? Then there'd be nothing to get excited about!

Going to school in the dark at 8 AM and coming home in the dark at 4 PM marked Christmas It also marked the hunt for Christmas presents. If Carl was lucky enough to find them, it guaranteed disappointment on Christmas morning because then there would be no surprises.

It never gets really dark in the reflective white snow, but going to school was fun because there was always a snowball fight. Except that the cold snow wasn't sticky this time of the year, and snowballs were hard to make. 

Solstice marked all this—short dark days, a dark time of the year, and no snowballs. There's something positive about having vacation during the “holidays,” as they're called. And the holidays celebrate the death of a man and the birth of a new year! Well, the new year could be anytime, on any day, so it has no significance except that it's celebrated. 

They put a positive spin on the celebration of death by saying His birth is celebrated and  attach all kinds of miracles to it. But you are always reminded: “He died for your sins!” 

“What?" Karl thought, “ I'm not even responsible for my own sins?!?! Something's fishy here. Is having a lustful thought a sin? Lately, I've been having lustful thoughts all the time. Since they seem so natural, it seems a silly thing for anyone to die for. It's like there's no escape. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't, because Hell is the threat all the time. No escape is Hell.”

The nice thing about school was that there one learned something about the way the world worked. At home, you were supposed to learn how the world was supposed to work. There's a huge difference between those two: should and does. Matching facts with beliefs often finds no agreement. Sometimes there's no agreement at school, either. It's all so confusing. The way people seem to resolve this puzzle is go with beliefs and bend facts to fit. Even more, make up facts to fit the belief. It appears that this is the way the world works. Carl couldn't call it an escape from reality, because reality turns out to be the way belief works, regardless of fact.

The funny thing—the world works despite what is believed. I get up, go to school, have thoughts, learn something, right or wrong, but nevertheless, something, and apply what I  learned—or do the opposite. Sometimes, it seems advantageous to obey instinct. 

Instinct tells Karl that society is mostly bullshit, but it's wise to not be too different. Look at the fate of people who are even thought to be different where no difference exists. Then, differences are made up, or valueless differences given great value. School society teaches lessons of popularity and persecution. Prejudice was common in grade school, is more sophisticated in high school, and probably even more sophisticated throughout life.  

Since beliefs invite conflict, there must be something beyond belief. What is it?

      

            ***

Ode to My Purse - Joan R Brady

It is a soft, sack-like bag I carry...

always, forever, in close proximity 

necessary things

kept in expectation

of anticipated immediacy

that forever may happen

some time, some place

far from the familiar...

in wandering ways, explorations

always changing except

for what it is that is carried

so much never needed

but still there is a sense of

safety in knowing it is there

just in case...

just in case...

        ***

Writer's Block - Robyn Makaruk

Writer’s block?  

Yep, it came and landed on my naked shoulder

its sharp claws digging into that muscle

that lies across the tendon along the scapula

and squeezes it into a spasm.

I thought I’d find something to tweak this flighty mind

into writing something on the topic, even if 

it sounded like a mother’s admonishment of

“because I told you so”

but it became the screw worm

that inched into my brain

and then morphed into a tapeworm

that devoured every last morsel

of any creative thought that

might have been percolating.

Oh well, on to next week’s topic!

                       ***

Loose Ends - John Field

Even though fifty years have passed since Cynthia and I broke up, a verbatim transcript of our final argument is still scrawled on the walls of my memory. As I stormed away from her and headed toward the UCLA library, certain that the heyday of my life was over, I felt like a peacock whose tail had just been shorn off. 

    

When I reached the library I tried to calm down, but my guilty conscience continued to give me the third degree. I’d said horrible things to Cynthia, things I couldn’t deny or retract, called her a whore and a slut, and my black mood vacillated between powerful alternating frequencies of shame and anger. What sort of future could I have without her?  Certainly not the one I’d envisioned a week ago when I believed she loved me and only me. Condemned by fate and my rotten mouth to spend the rest of my life on love’s death row, I’d probably turn into one of those drug-addled cynical creeps who hang around bus depots, the sleazy type that flash their Richard Widmark grin at fresh young girls who arrive in Hollywood from Iowa and Nebraska. “Hello, my dear, my name is Oliver Martin and I’m a talent scout for MGM. We’re looking for an actress to play a secretary in a movie we’re going to begin shooting next week. I can get you the part----if you’ll be kind enough to take a screen test at my place.”   

     

In the library lounge I popped a couple of Dexedrine in my mouth and washed them down with a cup of coffee, after which I rallied for a moment and almost convinced myself that Cynthia would forgive me if I brought her some flowers----a dozen roses or maybe a bouquet of lilies; she liked lilies. Strike that possibility, a voice from the inner chaos of my heart told me. She’d rather see your head pillowed on a gravestone than go on another date with you.  Weird thoughts like that kept exploding in my head, but the only one I still remember is a saying my father, a dentist, had told me when I was a boy. Be true to your teeth or they will be false to you. 

     

Forget about Cynthia and get to work, I told myself, because I had a term paper to write for my European history class, so I spent the rest of the evening researching a group of 18^th century French philosophers who’d replaced their loss of faith in God with the idea of inevitable and eternal human progress. I could sympathize with them because heaven had fallen out of my sky  a year ago, but I hadn’t filled the spiritual vacuum my soul floated around in since then with an alternative set of philosophical values. Human progress, my ass!  All I had to do was look at myself to see that mankind was regressing into a barbaric state, doomed forever to live in a hell of its own making. 

     

Zonked out on Dexedrine and starving, I left the library at midnight and headed towards Westwood Village where I’d parked my car on a side street. Of course I’d forgotten which side street, but eventually my shoes led me there, no doubt following a secret map printed on their soles. It was a warm and windy night and when I finally reached my ’48 Plymouth, with lost eyes I looked up at the moon which was perched on the shoulder of an apartment house a block away. Devoid of its usual romantic connotations, it glared back at me, arrogant and full of itself. 

    

There was little traffic and ten minutes later I arrived at my studio apartment on 12^th Street in Santa Monica. Once inside my living room I felt secure and for a few moments I was able to kid myself into believing that I was better off without Cynthia. Ours had been a love without a center, I told myself, all fingers and toes, and eventually it was bound to fail. The odds of our getting married and living happily ever after were always in favor of the house, not us. But why oh why when I’d argued with Cynthia about her brief, torrid affair with Danny Raymond, had the barrel of my mouth kept going off like shotgun blasts? 

     

On the other hand, looking at the bright side of this disaster, at least now I had a real topic to write about for my creative writing class, a scorcher that would burn up the paper I wrote it on. Better still, writing a fictitious account of our breakup would allow me to abandon another story I’d been working on that wasn’t going anywhere, a tear-jerker about a deaf mute named JoJo McCloud who just happened to live in my hometown of Decorah, Iowa. I got the idea for this story after I’d finished reading Carson McCuller’s “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”. However, the more I thought about sharing the sordid details of my personal life with my classmates, the more I realized doing so would be impossible because they knew I was dating Cynthia, the daughter of Hollywood’s most famous gossip columnist, James Bacon. 

     

No, I couldn’t write about my fight with Cynthia because I still loved her, even though I hated her. But how was I going to get even if I was too chicken to expose her cruelty?  Fueled by a desire for revenge, I began tilling the sub-marginal soil of my imagination and came up with a new and shocking twist for my story about JoJo. Locked away in his blissful world of silence, he’d fall in love with Cynthia, but they’d have difficulty communicating because she was too lazy to learn how to use sign language and JoJo couldn’t read lips, so when she tells him the terrible things Cynthia  told me, he’ll simply smile back at her and drive her insane. Cackling hysterically, my spittled laughter punctuated by barking sobs, I finally pulled myself together and dismissed this  idea as too childish to pursue any further. 

       

Eventually I calmed down by reminding myself that what I wanted to be more than anything else was a writer, not a husband. This was a noble, worthy goal, but not a realistic one because I hadn’t read any serious novels when I was in high school, just a few trashy thrillers by writers like Mickey Spillane and Jim Thompson, so I had to play catch-up with my classmates in order to develop a writing style as advanced, subtle, and artistically graceful as theirs. 

     

Most nights after I finished my homework I’d stay up until two or three in the morning reading novels other members in my class glibly discussed whenever we got together at parties or bars, classics like ”The Sound and the Fury”, “Point Counter Point”, “Swan’s Way”, and “Bread and Wine”. Celine, Camus, Joyce, Waugh, the list of novels and novelists I hadn’t read was endless.

    

At midnight I was still too jacked up on Dexedrine to go to bed so I brewed a pot of coffee in my brand new $3.88 glass coffee maker and decided to get a head-start on breakfast by having the works: bacon, eggs and toast. I’d also bought a new wire toaster for thirty-three cents which I hadn’t used yet, the kind you place on top of your stove’s gas burner, and I was eager to try it out and see if it gave my toast a woodsy over-the-open-fire taste, the kind I’d enjoyed as a boy when my father and I went camping. As usual I burned the toast and broke both egg yokes when I flipped them over, but they tasted great anyway. 

   

                                        ***

FIRE- Noris Binet

I sat in front of the fire

looking for warmth I thought, 

but hidden within

there was something else--

a desire 

deep within

that went so far back 

to my time in the cave

when fire was

my wise mirror, 

when sitting in front of it

became the time for reflection

the time for contemplation, 

the time to rest

in the burning desire

to know, to discover

the secrets of life! 

El fuego se convirtió 

en mi espejo, 

en mi contemplación

y donde mi ferviente deseo

de conocer los secretos 

de la vida

encontraba descanso!

The fire was the place of reunion

where everyone came

to be warmed, to share, to unite

in the middle of the dark

with the spirit of the night!

The fire became 

a big mirror for each one--

for some to confess

their mistakes 

like the Huichols Indians 

before consuming 

the sacred plant 

the jicuri, a god 

for some, 

to forgive one another

for others to evoke

the spirit of purification 

and engage in the exorcism

of undesired entities

that had controlled them 

for a long,  long time

and to let the fire burn 

them up

into smoke rising in the air! 

La fogata

es un lugar de reunión 

para calentarnos y compartir

para unos reconocer sus errores 

para otros perdonarse 

para muchos exorcizar los demonios 

que lo han controlado por mucho tiempo

y dejar que el fuego

los queme convirtiéndolos en humo!

The first time I met the fire

I was hypnotized

by the flames

by its amazing nature

to extinguish itself into ashes

leaving  me alone

sitting on the ground

till the sun rose. 

The sun of nighttime

burn

deep within my heart 

to illuminate my path! 

            ***

Thunder in the Fog - Joshua Gramse

Fog-bound country

Aldermen on parade

In the chanting halls, in the illuminated windows, 

In the air, 10,000 tongues cluck their knowing

Discordant, there is nothing to know

Just sound, a pecking sort of drone

In the fog

Raunchy red jester

See me, see me

Wears a funny bulldog mask, he's Punch and Judy

Blowing and dancing for fun, for fun

Punch clubs Judy, throws the baby out the window

Knocks the paper hats from the heads of aldermen, 

Puts one on at a silly angle

Shocked laughter, what's he up to

He joins the parade, waves to the clucking crowd, 

Tiny red bells jingling

Rust land, long fallow

Alone and eating itself

Once loved, loneliness turned malice, 

Dreams of heads-on-pikes

Grows white hot

The parade passes by

But only the red fool sees the rust, makes a promise

A signal

War face

Aldermen on parade

One flies over their shoulders, 

Flits among their paper hats, leads the parade

A Sparrow of silk and steel, parade's darling

Red jester stomps along, 

Hooting and tumbling his hobby horse

His teeth are sharp, some see them flash

But laughter on the parade ground

But rust under foot

A signal

Earth cracks, rust rising

Sparrow takes flight

The crowd looks down too late

The red fool drops his smile

Splitting through his motley, jestless jester, 

A skyward rearing beast

Colossal, hollow-hearted, 

Great red bells thunder in the heavens

A shadow across mountain and plain, straddling earth

A white hot zigzag

Aldermen, ashen and wide-eyed, trampled, scatter

They forgot the fallow land, never saw it coming

Heads-on-pikes, rust rain, bitter in the mouth

Thunder

War face

In the fog

                                          ***