Feb '03 [Home] Poetry Feature: Erotica B Mud Love ~ Peter Markus | The Reading ~ Dave Matthews | Latitude of Fellatio ~ Laura McCullough | Fresh Air ~ Sean McEvoy | You Are Below ~ Raphael Moser | Nuzzling Wind ~ Baruch November | Sophia's Room ~ Samvara and Vajravarahi in Union ~ Sharon Olinka | As Far As ~ Allan Peterson | The Janitor Daydreams of His Wife ~ Zach Sussman | Sally Lunn ~ Leo Vanderpot | Dutch Interior: The Artist and His Model ~ Gyorgyi Voros | because ~ George Wallace A Black Irishman ~ Stephanie Dickinson | Variations for Single Violin ~ Learning to Dance ~ Charles Fishman | The Amateur ~ Michael Foster | In Paris ~ No Longer Hidden ~ For Michele ~ Michael Gause | To the Logician, from His Better Half ~ Liza Hall | Tell Me ~ Maureen Holm | Mouthing Off ~ Nicholas Johnson | From Havana to Sidewalks ~ The Making of a Movie ~ Jillian A. Johnstone |
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Mud Love Peter Markus This is us brothers kissing. Us brothers, we are kissing mud: we are kissing mud until this mud that we are kissing, it turns into a muddy river. But no, that's not right: what it is is, it is us brothers kissing the mud that turns this mud into a river. This river is made out of mud. This mud that we see, it is flowing away from us brothers, it is the breath of us brothers passing away from our lips. It is mud that we, with our muddy lips, just finished kissing. Don't go! is what Brother hollers out to try to stop this mud from its going to where, we don't know where. Our names! is this other thing that we say. You don't even know our names! This, the mud, the river, they act like this they cannot hear. We can make you more is what us brothers want this mud and this muddy river to know—about us, about our kisses. Our kisses, we say, they can make you into stars. When the mud, and the river, and the muddy river hear this thing about us and our kisses, the river, and the mud that is so muddily flowing away from where we're in the mud crying out to wait!—they turn back around and start flowing back the other way, toward us, back to where us brothers are standing, us with mud still dripping from our lips. So kiss us, so says the river, so says the mud that this river now is. And so what us brothers say to this is, we do. And so, we do. We drop down onto our hands and knees, us down at this river's muddy edge, and begin to eat. (Peter Markus is a frequent contributor to the magazine. His work appears in Sudden Stories, a new anthology of short-short fictions just out from Mammoth Books.) ~ . ~ The Reading Dave Matthews I taunted her into it, and she replied with the guileless excitement that anyone has, anyone who holds out her palm to be read, anyone who, for the Tarot, shuffles the cards. She leaned forward, presenting her head, skeptically, as though Phrenology were a bogus science, like astrology, but then, who doesn't like to read her horoscope in the paper, full of Fun House danger and the promised Romance of Greeting Cards? She leaned forward, and I held her head like an offering, with my thumbs on her cheeks and my fingers on her nape, her long, thin hair like a gauzy drape against the afternoon glare. And I gasped. My fingers traced her occipital bulge. Her eyes widened in question. I said, "It is so strange, so unexpected, I never would've thought it. You're so demure and chaste. I have plumbed your secret already. You have the capacity of a wanton woman, reserves of freedom and license, scruples of abandon that I have not seen before. Incredible — let's move on." She blinked slowly, once, lowered her eyes, then her head, as my fingers crept up to her crown, and I palmed her parietal like a crystal ball, and put confusion in my voice, "I never would have guessed. You are so distant in all your social dealings, as if set apart by a fieldstone fence. With my divining rod atwitch from hidden springs, feelings, I can sense the turmoil from the mountains, heaving, to the chasm down below, seething, with a mighty fountain." She put her hands on my arms, and raised her eyes again, with "Stop!" on her quivering lips, but I said, "Just one reading more," and spidered my fingers up to her pate for some full frontal acuity. I became a faith-healer and intoned, "Here, at least, I am not surprised, for your character and intelligence are written across your wide forehead with monumental prominence. How often I have paid respect, made remembrances, contemplated the inner resources that have made you the idol of my worship." Then my hands dropped down to her waist, while I waited for her to react. "I had no idea," she murmured to my chest, "that Phrenology could be so perceptive. Where did you learn?" "Oh, I picked it up, over the years," I deflected, "from books of gypsy lore, and ancient texts, and observations, and, there is even more " She looked at me quizzically, and with interest quickening, "Such as?" "I can read the whole body," I declared, "I wish you'd let me try. For a woman, of course, the most telling part, are her breasts. May I see them, please?" She looked at me then, as I'd looked at her: full in the face, telling me without words, the dismay of a captured tease. ~ . ~ Latitude of Fellatio Laura McCullogh Like a tourist in any foreign country, I want permission to say the word cock like a destination, a password at a door that looks like any other in a row of doors, behind it a bar rising from prohibition. I've got a couple of cocks in my pocket, enough to get us all the way to Paradise, Louisiana. Learning a new language off postcards of fat bodies displayed sans shame, vulnerable as any survivor who can't understand what's been said, as hungry to be taken home as to the back country, my guide, some Casablanca kid with nothing in his pockets but his hands, his face, a letter in no language I knew, my mouth all the Creole we'd need, the door opening, you're welcome here, have a drink, what other words do you want to learn how to say? (Laura McCullough is on the writing faculty at Brookdale Community College where she chairs the Visiting Writers and Lecturer Series. She won a NJSCA Fellowship in 1995, and her work has appeared in The Lucid Stone, Poetry Motel, The Witness, and other small presses. New poetry and essays are forthcoming in Slant and In Posse.) ~ . ~ Fresh Air Sean McEvoy At this point I'll write about her and air. She has smoky eyes (first aid: inhalation: move to fresh air). I watched her get up from an outdoor chair, alcohol in her breath, smile prettily as a hostess should, and place her eyes anywhere but where they might cultivate arrogance. Her hair can look wind-swept or tight to her frame; I believe she can control that with her eyes. She pointed at the available food, the available drinks, everything seemed to be available. But who could ask? She juts her chin out when she is afraid. I think she might sometimes be very afraid. I saw that when I saw her smile hit her eyes like a storm-front, dark on a curved horizon and pregnant with something I would love to bury me. She lowers her eyes when they are looked in too long, but I don't know her well enough to say that it is because she is shy. Respect for the gender makes me hold my breath, but infatuation lets me release it in peals. I somehow doubt she would like me to be erased, although she did say that, very seriously. When things like that are said, though, the knife drags smoothly across the whetstone, and burrs become finer and then, planed, they cut through memory and peel back commitments. I hope, for my own sake, that when someone wishes you were erased after only one night of knowing you, that means well, anyway. I hope for her sake though, she walks carefully if she walks with me. I don't believe I can be owned; but if I am wrong, her power over me will be her eyes. I knew that the first time I saw her. Something breeds there, something vital, despite the ease I'd find myself in if I just met her glances with my back. The morning with her ended with her hands on my face, rubbing me as she breathed as far from me as she felt she should, much farther than I would have wished. I think, maybe, she was trying to erase me, but my secret hope is that her hands memorized my face. ~ . ~ You are Below Raphael Moser The story had become elaborate and labyrinthine and from each exhalation distilled there were savage deliberations of relevance A quickening begins as intuition and enters into every sense and circumstance Scrutiny's conclusion effusive and still celebrated in subtleties so brief almost ephemeral Feverish in darkness and ordinary light The desire to succumb dreamed on Their saturated heaving bodies coming together assailed her thoughts with the futility of its inevitability and sometimes beckoned destiny Tongues locked above and below roughhewn fingers Slowly penetrating each vertebra testing the duration of light Gliding and opening laconic sojourn Ascending to the depths of my own Solely only soul to soul if not that Slow and close Just one kiss ~ . ~ Nuzzling Wind Baruch November Only in sparse memories am I needless to replace you. While shingles pale below the moon's lamp, a dog laps the lake. She howls in lonesomeness. I wait for your umbrella to spring closed. Listen to the knock of rain on ochre leaves that lunge to the sill, only to sling back into the sway of their sisters. The walls hold, the stairs give under no footfall. The still-life returns, except to the wind-nuzzled eaves of which I am so jealous. (From Dry Nectars of Plenty, a title to be released in March by Big City Lit's affiliate, Headwaters/Hudson Press, 23pp.) ~ . ~ Sophia's Room Sharon Olinka You can sin. That's what the angel Raphael told me. His mouth a wet nectarine. And he was very near when Dimitri and I struggled on that bed, with my fear. Dimitri won out. Layers peeled away to his small ass, balls puckered like a fig, penis with two freckles near the tip. What I want most in life. Yes, I'll say it. Not my husband and son. I know Dimitri doesn't love me. He praises my body. My breasts; the rosy flush of each aureole, nipples deep pink, that flower between my legs. But he goes back to his wife. Their two little girls. He is a man. Sex is in one place. Love in another. I blame God for this. I believe where I live is already passing away, the streets merged with the water, the lights of the harbor. A postcard, say, of Vue des Quais et la Poste Hellénique. A souvenir of Smyrna. Dimitri is always hard for me. I imagine our bodies outlined in burnished gold, Byzantine crimson. I remember the day soldiers entered Smyrna, and they were ours, they were Greek. I see Dimitri and I wearing crowns on our heads. Greece marries Anatolia. And the room where I live becomes whole. ~ . Samvara and Vajravarahi in Union Sharon Olinka How they rise from a whirling bed in spirals, old love, old selves shed like curls of reptile skin, how this burning comes like grace. In this painting from Nepal, Samvara, who destroys illusion, has skin blue as the inside of a sapphire, his eyes all-seeing, darkened by desire. He holds Vajravarahi close, hands crossed over her back. A thunderbolt in each hand. Her nipple pebble hard, the deep red of a carnation. Her long necklace of skulls. A tiger tail under one thigh. Even her anus opens, quivers hyacinth sweet. She, with a crown of skulls. He, with a crown of skulls. Their bell, to disperse evil. And when I see this painting I think of you, who have so honored me, how your hands shocked me into awareness, the strength of a single flame, despite distance and trouble, trusting silence, whatever our blood carries to ascend higher. What is between us is not love, the lie men and women live by, but only this purifying fire. (Prior publ.: Poetry Australia, and in A Face Not My Own (West End Press).) ~ . ~ As Far As Allan Peterson ten miles out where the Gulf erupted with pewter fish like sparrows, and farther where it appeared the blunt sky touched water with electricity, a seam, she touched him at the edge of promises. Back on shore, birds in a tree shape turned sideways in a bank, vanishing, an instant Fall. Then the bridge frowning and separating from the road, an animal suddenly facing two lights: a man behind a wheel, wheels under his aspirations, moving too fast, the moping hill beyond which red eyes blistered: The shirt that felt the heart and no farther, skin wild-eyed, the sink they could see from the bed, its maddening drip, temperatures peaking and falling like a road with a possum on it, the shower that rained in one room: The boy dropped off at the forest which has no horizon but is continuous green inches while his father went to Food World which orbits the sun, for the strawberries of his youth gone forever but through him: Pollen of mangos delivered by bats, wings like oar locks, lights from the toxic or allergic, two towns close together, petals and craters, hair-do's, prom dresses, proteins, kisses on reliable eyes. (Allan Peterson's poetry manuscript, Anonymous Or, won the 2001 Defined Providence Press competition. His work has appeared online recently in The Adirondack Review, Poetry Bay, 420pus, and Pierian Springs. Recent print appearances include: Marlboro Review, Notre Dame Review; Pleiades, Bellingham Review, and Shenandoah. He has won Florida Arts Council and NEA fellowships in poetry.) ~ . ~ The Janitor Daydreams of His Wife Zach Sussman When I plunge the mop into the soapy water, drawing the suds over the tiles, I think of scrubbing your back, your neck, the fan of your ribcage, making the smooth flesh glisten. I am the one who erases, who undoes what was done through the day: the footprints, splintered bottles, glint of fumbled dimes. This slow effacement I have mastered, like removing your blouse in the evening. If my palms ache, they ache not from labor, but longing, clutching the mop's bare handle. When dusk floods the store, I toil alone in the neon light, rinsing the mop, washing your hair. ~ . ~ Sally Lunn Leo Vanderpot In which the poet pursues a homage-heated love affair with a no-nonsense, sexy-prose phenotype. Are you in there, Sally Lunn? When I speak, can you hear me, Sally Lunn? Can't you see me, you sap ? Above Johnnycake, page 120 ? In my lap, Sally Lunn, you make me dumb, Sally Lunn. Put the book on the table right this minute! On the table, Sally Lunn, it's easier said than done. Could be the story of your life. Just do what you are told! What I'm told, Sally Lunn! How exciting, we've begun! Right. So take 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt and mix them into 2 cups flour. I've measured, Sally Lunn, and I've mixed, and they're clip, clip one, Sally Lunn. O. K. Then mix an egg into a cup of milk and mix 1 cup sugar into 1 cup shortening. Mixed, Sally Lunn— so much fun alone with you, mixing, Sally Lunn. Sure. Now the liquids get stirred into the flour mixture, alternate a bit at a time. It's rub-a-dub thick, Sally Lunn, but please don't say we're done. I'll most likely tell you when. Grease a loaf pan and put the dough in the pan. Greased to the elbows, Sally Lunn, so slip it in the oven, is that what's to come? Set it for 375 and take it out in an hour. Can you do that? Yes, Sally Lunn. And thank you, Sally Lunn. Don't ever put me on your lap again, hear ? Yes, I promise, Sally Lunn. I'll obey every word, Sally Lunn. Why me? WHY me? The reward, Sally Lunn, is so great on the tongue. You are the giver of the words that deliver to a bread lover, yum, yum, yum, Sally Lunn. It's warmer than the sun in your oven-heated bounty, Sally Lunn. I live— Shut the book! SHUT THE B — (The American Woman's Cook Book, Edited and revised by Ruth Berolzheimer, Garden City Publishing, Garden City, NY, 1947) ~ . ~ Dutch Interior: The Artist and His Model Gyorgyi Voros Silence, he knows, is always pregnant. The wife at the window, the maid asleep in the kitchen, the daughter languishing at the virginal with a suitor, these tableaux cheer him through the Northern afternoons, yet pain him, too, since he can only look. The mahlstick braced against the canvas steadies his hand so the kindled brushtip swaggers through blue and halts where it needs to pale. Perfect; pluperfect. He couldn't have dreamed the difficulty to touch the objects of his love across the distance of a room, an expanse as of a continent of obstacles: chair, credenza, tile floor, viola. The richly napped carpet flung across the table maps a pattern of desire. Birds in the garden of a Southern land, fruity light, not blue, a maze and clever topiaries along the footpath wending, after all, to love or at least the way to a clearing. Here the scumbled air unveils itself layer by layer, yet always beneath lies more ground, gessoed thick as though the scene outside the mullioned panes— a skittering on cobblestones, bricks needing pointing, a tinctured sun—could never satisfy. Down below, just beyond the ivy scalloping his window ledge (orthogonal, handhold, his perspective) a woman in a red raincoat smokes on the corner. It seems to him she is always there. Eventually she casts her burning ember into the canal, turns and disappears. Where to? Not into another century, not, as he might hope, into some country or condition of Being Always There. That's for him to create. His attention returns to his own suite of rooms, two flights up, not far from the street or the street noises he loves, not far from the sea, not even far from the things across the sea—all these at least as near as the footwarmer, the copper bowl, the woman at the threshold of the next room. He breathes and looks, his look a glaze on air. The air curves around and gathers him as a lens does light, enlarging every visible thing, bringing it near and nearer. (Finalist, Lyric Recovery Festival at Carnegie's Weill Hall, 2002.) ~ . ~ because George Wallace because your hands are a theater and your eyelashes makeup and your smile is a nightclub where everything always happens and your ears are minor characters in a silent film overacting in the old fashioned way and your poems are missing persons looking for a ritual of cold musical waves and your music is a mystery and the mystery is a wind and the wind is always crossing my desolate plain because under the vigil of darkness your feet migrate toward lonesome company and there is underwater dancing even when you do not glide so gracefully over ice and your hips sway endlessly through black and white charley chaplin boulevards because one day we were walking along the crisp edge of tragedy and the streetlights came on and there were stars jumping and moonspots and puddles and your heart leaping like trout and a curtain was going up and down and up and when you started to laugh your womb contracted because even though you are living in unbelievable prosperity these days your knees still bend with the memory of white hunger and your face shifts imperceptibly in candleflame and torchlight and your eyes flicker between promise and suspicion because the toes on your right foot curl in unison and i cannot recall the toes on your left foot but i can imagine while you sleep they ball up into "a nest of prayer" because when you wake up rain is shivering all along a rocky coastline and anyhow streetcars race aimlessly and the blood in your arteries quizzical for days and you get angry and begin to swing your notorious arms over everything because your flesh is constantly emerging from an ocean or cocoon and your skin is trying to forget what your bone marrow said and your palms serve gratefully in a willing marriage of saints because sometimes when you pull back your hair i want to cry i will love you because the moon's armor falls away in all four directions and the great eclipse of your shadow crosses my continent and your sun breaks morning up into dragonfly wings and the city is a brickyard reassembled block by block in your smile because it was always curbs and cobblestones and you it was always the street rising up wherever we were walking and you never knew it you were just walking and i was just with you because wherever you walked there were always simple pancakes of applause because wherever you sat there were always haphazard bouquets because even now you do not know how much you are loved because no one ever knows ~ . ~ . ~ A Black Irishman ~ Stephanie Dickinson | Variations for Single Violin ~ Learning to Dance ~ Charles Fishman | The Amateur ~ Michael Foster | In Paris ~ No Longer Hidden ~ For Michele ~ Michael Gause | To the Logician, from His Better Half ~ Liza Hall | Tell Me ~ Maureen Holm | Mouthing Off ~ Nicholas Johnson | From Havana to Sidewalks ~ The Making of a Movie ~ Jillian A. Johnstone |