Bruce Stater

from Shaman-Machine



Systems Collapse in the Face of the Real



Day One

A pattern is running through my mind
I have thought that it stands
on its own two feet regardless of twists & turns
pushing towards new outcomes of fate
new separations between inside & out
locus solus & societas
the expansion or reduction of circles
eyes fixed forward on that tree
which blossoms on the horizon
in the summer encrusted with dark memories
of cold skies, of lesions which separate us from
you from me from the sensation of light
from the miraculous union of the seasons
from sensation from depth from the playfulness
of memory from life itself

To repeat it & repeat it again
as if any reparation were adequate practice
& training for the fantasy of winning that race
finally arriving there alone or with others
beyond the line in that moment or event
where anguish & bitterness
emptiness & despair
wave their final farewells
bleak & teary eyed
filled with the sentimentality of departing trains

It is as if day one does not know
the meaning of first day
of dawn, horizon, of feather & caress

I waste more time writing these words
they are not mine
they belong to my mind
as alcove belongs to cave
or guardian to gate
as muse belongs to the impoverished poet
as magic helper belongs to frightened child
as aphasia belongs to word
the arc traced around the invisible center
the skin of the apple or the peach
which protects the ripe flesh within
ready to burst in the season of new beginnings
in which eyes open to the orange and pink rays
of dawn to the morning flight of pigeons & doves
to the excess of beauty of my beloved's skin,
the curve of her waist, the softness of her thigh,
the weight of her breasts, of the pain & beauty of growing old

When the trains departed we thought of the sky
when the sky fell we thought of a place beyond time
practically unfathomable, resistant & impervious to harm
to war & sickness & the darts of the angry angels
the frightened ones who would whisper their horrible
names & desires in our ears
for we had ears & were forced to listen
though we stopped them up
with wax & hope & even wisdom
projected into the push-pull of our dreams of utopia
of lion & lamb
of the absence of goods
where the idea & abstraction of what was possible
replaced the materiality of excess imposed upon us
from the outside

At night we sleep
that is my vision my dream
I enter the bed before you do
you stay up late & read through the darkness
the emptiness of memory the hopelessness of future
the refusal of fatality
each night I wish that you were there with me
from the outset & invent excuses & lies to achieve this end
sometimes it is a sore back that needs the affection
of your hands
sometimes a fear or need to complete the distracting
conversation complete the task or come to terminus
though both of us know in our unspeaking that end
is illusion that we are given what we make that the beyond
is now & that beyond the sense of nothing in now
which we struggle endlessly against & into
there is a greater & more infinite emptiness
which touches & somehow inexplicably kisses the process
of dancing atoms, of thoughts formed from spiral galaxies,
of actions taken in those universes whose geometric configurations
& metaphysical self-awarenesses lie beyond our capacity to conceive

Invariably I startle within the hour
& lie awake awaiting some miracle
demanding from sleep the capacity to dream
within my own necessity for freedom
in the direction that I would take the dream
always dreaming of that beautiful dream
I would call breakthrough & meaning
the feeling of feeling unnamed
resolute, inspired, sincere, purposeful, & mine

You enter the bed & sleep disturbed
by my wakefulness, my obsessive disruptions,
the distance between my unbridgeable now & walled off then,
my gray is & my blue could be
my nameless desire & impossible contentment

40 milligrams of temazapan
dissolves on my tongue
its bitterness
covers our eyes with the sand of forgetting
protracts the discussion of what is missing
& what happened
what we never speak of
so that this excess of the unbearable
leaks onto my pillow in the form of sweat
& exudes from my stomach
as vomit & bile
though I do sleep I sleep through it
forming lesions inside that we hush
with maternal words, comforted in darkness
because what moves within light we know
will blind us with the madness of its unbearable truth

Because I have failed you once, twice, over a dozen times
each night I fail you again in the decisive moment
which determines who I am

It is as if, worse than choosing flight over courage
I simply do not exist
or choose to fade into self-protected nothingness

In a crowded room I will point at you
& you will point at me
words are unnecessary
this means
"you make me who I am"
if you return the gesture I will know
that you feel the same
it is not that we are one
we are more than that
it is not that we are two
we are more than that also
we know that the others cannot understand
the depths of what it is to be through the lover's
eyes, ears, lips & skin,
through the thought completed before it is uttered
through the completion fragmented so that it can be
completed again
through the memory of the storm weathered without fear,
through the burning heat at the heart of the sun,
through the sleep of bears, through the company of wolves,
in the face of contagion and irreparable loss, of dandelions in
spring, the startling rose which blossoms in winter, the absence of
time,
the confines & vicissitudes of what cannot be,
of the tools that are available & those which we invent,
of the knowing & the yet to be known

A pattern is running through my mind
that is the nature of the instillation of society's dreams
that is the nature of unresolved doubt
of the fear before becoming what one means to be
that is the nature of the paranoid creature
ever watchful & wary of the escape routes & openings
to his burrow
that is the nature of the wall
of the flight from demons one has not yet learned expel with a word
with the power of one's own breath,
in the communion of the ten thousand fists
raised against the tyranny of power,
of the joy of laughter at the swarm of locusts
which one crushes into bread,
of the barbed wire we use to cut the ropes from our wrists,
of the prisons whose walls we enter in order to teach those who need
our teaching most,
of the silence which emerges through our deepest being,
which cannot be thought, expressed, or uttered
except in that silence which resides beyond the silence of words

Day Two

Day two says
this is not consciousness at work
this is not consciousness at play
this is the desire to resist necessity
this is the impulse to hide
within the interior recesses of cavern
of darkness, to resist tension
this is the desire to separate water from water
to count out measure in syllable sense
or carve niche in comfort of concrete glyph
to place the inconsequential slide beneath the ridiculous microscope
to contemplate the film on the surface of mirror
this is not the consciousness of hewing stone
this is not the consciousness of letting blood
of erasing the first, second, and third gateway of unknowing

Day two says
this is the mantra of continuous forgetting

Day two wants the poem to end at this moment
will mark a turn in the road
will begin again tomorrow

is forced into the discomfort of remembering
the violence of speech forced upon itself
& against its will

A pattern is fragmenting the lavatory of my mind
a word chosen randomly from the dictionary of memory
a sword or word replacing the phoneme used to hush
or stifle the confused indiscretion of passage into deposition

One finds oneself there
before the jury of outsiders
eyes fixed on the unmoving lips
on the trembling lips
on the sweat which pours from one's brow
internalizing the dream in the image which exudes
from the back of the throat
from the breath which heaps up in pants
from the muffled cries one wishes at once
to hide & inhabit

& so choked thus
day two says
let the beautiful dream enter the poem
express the laughter of communicated meaning,
of resolution & new beginning,
of the absurd expression of that actual moment
in which the deepest fear of those poisonous serpents
kept in glass cages
by the machiavellian corsortionists of imposed desire
is transformed into the gentle acceptance
of giving it all away
at the inception of the secret order of mystical herpetologists

For that is the pattern
that is the dream, the nightmare
for years it slithered into my nights
always of reptiles kept in a cage
& among them those I would have cared for
& loved
were it not for the others
whose fangs and poisons kept me from opening the lid
that would express the purpose of who I am

For that is the pattern
that is the meaning of dream, nightmare, hesitation, & indecision
fear transformed into guilt
inertia before action, love, care, responsibility, & understanding

For two decades I have dreamt of poisonous serpents
kept in cages with beautiful lizards, helpless birds, & beloved cats

For two decades I have dreamt of the paralysis of fear
& the guilt of placing my safety before the needs of beings
crying out for sustenance, deliverance, comfort, & care

& yesterday, which is a figure of speech,
I dreamt that I had given all of my reptiles away
to a man who understood, who knew, who could teach
& show me through demonstration
that the smaller ones could be raised in canopies
above the larger
that the weak & strong could be kept within the same cage
that the powerful & aggressive could be given the run
of the ground floor
while the soft & meek could be cared for above
that even the poisonous serpents could be handled
by one who understood their nature & could substitute caution for fear

& so day two utters its first truth
or interpretation of truth
it is not stupid, careless, or simpleminded
it knows that its words, its stories, its meaning & interpretations
are fragmented & out of order
it knows that it has not yet found its way
on the road of becoming
that it has uttered the letter h without reciting
the alphabet which comes before & after
that a glimpse is not a vision
that a patch of light is no evidence of cloudless sky
that a dream is neither state nor action
that the clarity of desire is not a course unstrewn with stones &
chasms

Day Three

Composed of brachae or filligree
constructed of moss, sod, hope, or desire,
I wait inside the waiting gate
despondently tired of waiting for first glimpse
of the origin of universe, light, partition, & departure

In water I turn to you
toward the sea beyond sea
in horizon I interpret you against the venoms of hazard

In ringlet I see you as rhizome of the particulate
in substance you are present in absence you turn to memory
in fire the air
in bread the act of kneading
in etcetera the ellipsis

Day Four

I cannot forget the day I turned away from you
encrusted with the gold leaf of class-envy & ambition
with the barnacles of narcisistic desire
wandering lost with floppish gait
on the road divided by so many misdirections
each with its sign bearing false witness to belonging
each with its siren song of horded treasure & crown
each with its promise of one-eyed kingship & the eternal sleep
imaginary needs

I have read through the journey
what has been written so far & no further
though I would push into the beyond to coalesce & merge
into greater meaning, particulate & sedementary
into fusion metamorphic, metastable, multidimensional

On the road confined by maps
we adhere to the surface seem bound by it
as one is bound by inarticulate gesture & subterfuge
within the prison house of language, Limited Inc.

As I being of fire I bring fire
burn the map & the bound words behind it
as a being of fire I speak of fire
draw burnt signs upon my wrist to mark new direction, twist, & return
as a being of fire I burn fire
against the institutions of lie
against the codes of demise, promise, & compromise

& so without maps we wander, carry on
in daylight under the burning sun
at night by the glow of moons we name according to the beauty & care of

past and future guides
in the night without moons by the embers of certainty
that persist within what cannot yet be said





Since 2002 Bruce Stater has produced several collections of poetry,
each touching in different ways upon the experience of trauma, loss,
abandonment, psychic reintegration, and psychotic semiosis. They
include: Wound Flower Heart and Memory-- Poems for Paul Celan, The
Language of Angels, A Labyrinth of Visions, Shaman-Machine, and What Happened. Selections from A Labyrinth of Visions have been published in PoetrySZ, Of(f) Course Journal, and Golden Handcuffs Review. This
work was recently published in its entirety as an echapbook and is
available online from Ahadada press at their web site.





Stu Hatton Linda Benninghoff Danielle Adair Mary Kasimor Bobbi Lurie Tim Martin David McFadden Gertrude Halstead Bruce Stater Patrick Mc Manus

Patrick Mc Manus

Helping



to help her
after her
hard day
at work
they took to
role playing
re-enacting
the tense moments
threatening situations
that sort of thing
……………..
but one day
sometime later
terribly injured
awfully scarred
touch and go
he woke up
in intensive care
on a drip
………………
they then
thought that
perhaps she
could learn
some nice relaxing
breathing exercises
instead




Patrick Mc Manus is a retired architect-survivor poet published in ‘Beyond Bedlam’ ‘Magma’ ‘Under the Asylum Tree’ and more latest books ‘Cement and Water’ and ‘Bricks - kept relatively sane with painting ex potter -ex voluntary work mental health-running poetry workshops groups helped by doses of Poetryetc and Britpos- -has –partner Janet ,Cat Vile Boris and grandchildren.-saw second world war -born London long ago.




Stu Hatton Linda Benninghoff Danielle Adair Mary Kasimor Bobbi Lurie Tim Martin David McFadden Gertrude Halstead Bruce Stater Patrick Mc Manus

Issue 24

Mark Lamoureux
Lois Marie Harrod
Sam Silva
Eve Rifkah
Christopher Barnes
Roger Singer
David McLean

Mark Lamoureux

from SOMETIMES THINGS SEEM VERY DARK: POEMS FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN



22.
[Untitled New York 1979-80]


The eye-cloth
& the death-cloth
& the cloth of this knowing
     rent
     mended by
the same scissor that
chimes the dead angles
     the human geometry

wheel of torsos      visor
     slits of the armored
dusk where the eye
     glides
who holds the key
to this (rib)cage?

         Not I

     not the furrows
     of the brow
     or the mirror of the lake





Dear Francesca,


Say I could be happy on the first warm day of spring wearing a new leather jacket, or eating leaf-colored gelato in Nafplio. Say I am happiest when I am furthest from home. A word that you would not speak. Our bodies are our homes. I am no longer welcome there. I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Say someone has the wrong idea. Say whenever anyone has the wrong idea, a fluttering silver fish dies.




30.
[Sloan Providence, Rhode Island 1976]


Not to know
the terror of the noonday
city:
         the sun that is
         a stain on the wall

     marred tapestry
     of the idle in the
     interrogation

             of the hourglass

the spyglass
     the glass eye of the recorder

     image lifted like
     rice      paper

     from the affront of this
         this breathing
         in strange places

this laurel wreath
     of strangers
         drags the oracle

     by the mane

the fishes' eggs without number
     the city's mouths
         without number
we must count
all the berries          on the wreath
         to enter

this house


         with no use for us



31.
[Untitled Providence, Rhode Island, 1978]


In the noontime
I sewed the spine

I broke
the pastel crayon
     at the seam

         The book written &
         the book sewn

     with the sliver of bone
     with the thimble of blood

with the eyes shut tight
     against the semblance

in the wall the semblance
that walks the hall from
where I have departed

to not be called back
to where the books seem

     to be speaking
     to the air

     to you
     to me

to the narrow seam
     inbetween





Mark Lamoureux: My work has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as The Denver Quarterly, Fence, Conduit, GutCult, Coconut and other print and on-line journals. My first book, Astrometry Organon, is due to be published by Spuyten Duyvil/Meeting Eyes Bindery in 2007. I teach English at Kingsborough Community College, and run Cy Gist Press, a micropress focusing on ekphrastic poetry.





Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean

Lois Marie Harrod

“A Small Parenthesis in Eternity”
     Sir Thomas Browne


The morning came
like a faded photograph
sucking the color
out of the trees.
Everything lost its motion
except a woman
moving through the gray.
She remembered
the child in a story
where everything stopped–
the filcher, the raker
the candystick maker
fixed like statues
around the square
so that the child
could slide among them
restoring what
had been lost, the coin
to the old lady’s wallet,
the red leaf to the oak,
the forgotten oil to the peppermint.
And the woman wondered
whether such stillness
was a common curse
or a cheaper blessing,
what should she lift
from this moment when
the world’s heavy commerce
seemed suspended, no gravity,
the letter unopened
on her desk, the baseball
inches from her son’s glove,
her husband’s car still
on the road
while the steel whistle
fluted on as if
breath were endless.
Then a raindrop fell
and that was it–
a sycamore shivered,
a mosquito lifted
from his larva,
a window opened,
the woman resumed her life
in a moving world,
no longer able to readjust
where she had been.





Lois Marie Harrod's chapbook Firmament is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her Put Your Sorry Side Out was published by Concrete Wolf in 2005, and she won a 2003 poetry fellowship, her third, from the New Jersey Council on the Arts. Her sixth book of poetry Spelling the World Backward (2000) was published by Palanquin Press, University of South Carolina Aiken, which also published her chapbook This Is a Story You Already Know (l999) and her book Part of the Deeper Sea(l997). Over 300 of her poems have appeared in journals including American Poetry Review, Blueline, The MacGuffin, Salt, The Literary Review, Zone3. Her earlier publications include the books Every Twinge a Verdict (Belle Mead Press, l987), Crazy Alice (Belle Mead Press, l991) and a chapbook Green Snake Riding (New Spirit Press, l994).






Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean

Sam Silva

Vampires of the Daylight Hours



Cigarettes....a dull perfume!
And pills and wine
...to populate that tomb of mine.

Drakul slumbered in his box
in ages when the Sun shown pure
and spread his wings to fire the night
to drink blood in eternity

...now...mornings pulling up my socks
a thousand years beyond the stake
which slew that nightly terror there
and let the darkened hours endure
with little more than ghostly crimes

leave daylight more the kin to Hell
with wretched voices in my head
making blood a sour thing
...muddy, muggy, slow as lead!
An evil daytime...speckled white.
That pus, those boils,
sick voices ate
...oozing from a broken brain
whose jaundice is mortality.

The vampires, in these modern times,
have no names nor nobility
but seek a sunlight more obscure
than any haunting terror's dark

and in the office or the park
hypnotized by cold TVs
communicate their blasphemies
in ways that half the brain denies

and sink their teeth in like a shark
yet leave no elemental mark
except that madness trembles

till their broken victims finally choose
with booze and pills and cigarettes
in dimly viewed electric light
to leave the voices to their cause
...each ego to that ego's debts
and terminate the light of day
and stay
awake at night....






Sam Silva has published well over 150 poems in print magazines including, but not limited to Samisdat, The ECU Rebel, Sow's Ear, The American Muse, St. Andrews Review, Dog River Review, Third Lung Review, Main St. Rag, Charlotte Poetry Review, Parnasus...most (but not all) of these magazines are now defunct. For the Past four years his magazine portfolio has grown by and large on line including Rio Del Arts, Megaera, Big Bridge, Views unplugged, Comrade Magazine, Ken Again and at least thirty others. Over the years four small presses have published a total of nine chapbooks by Sam Silva ...these, being Third Lung Press, M.A.F. Press, Alpha Beat Press, Trouth Creek Press. Brown and Yale Universities solicited many of these chapbooks for their libraries. These chapbooks were well received in newspaper reviews by Shelby Stephenson, Ron Bayes, Steve Smith, and the late poet laureate of North Carolina Sam Ragan. Silva has ebooks available without cost at Physikgarden.com, and Independantbook.com, and at two dollars a piece at readsamsilva.com and well over 300 poems archived in online magazines. He was nominated a total of seven times by three small presses and has a full length collection of poetry called Eating and Drinking based on a royalties contract signed with Bright Spark Creative available for order at any online bookstore and has two other full length poetry books available at http://www.lulu.com . Three spoken word CDs of Sam Silva's have been marketed through CDBaby.







Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean

Eve Rifkah

Path


The kid thought invisible
             walking no man’s land
             behind the houses lining Capen St.
             through  the woods – not real woods
             scattering of thin trees and underbrush.
The kid thought journey
             path from one backyard
             behind others to dead end dirt road.
Kid walked this trail
             not sidewalk – not in sight of
             all those curtained windows
to friend’s house
             the younger kid
             whose parent’s wonder why
             fourth grader plays with second
             wonders what’s wrong with this kid.
It’s the little house, the kid likes,
             on the dead-end – besides the over grown field.
The kid lives in an apartment in a house of six
             apartments      dreams of living in a house
                          no sounds of doors opening
                          slamming shut          no sounds
                          of footsteps up stairs down
                          voices behind the walls.
The kid wants green and sky outside the windows
             not brickwall back of market
             gravel driveway cuts between
             cars crunch crunch outside the kid’s window
Kid wants air to breathe




Eve Rifkah is editor of the literary journal Diner and co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc., a non-profit poetry association dedicated to education, promoting local poets and publishing Diner. Poems have or will appear in Bellevue Literary Review, The MacGuffin, 5 AM, Parthenon West, newversenews.com, poetrymagazine.com, Chaffin Journal, Porcupine Press, The Worcester Review, California Quarterly, ReDactions, Jabberwock Review, Southern New Hampshire Literary Journal and translated into Braille. Her chapbook At the Leprosarium won the 2003 Revelever chapbook contest. At this time she is a professor of English at Worcester and Fitchburg, State Colleges and a workshop instructor. She received her MFA in Writing from Vermont College and lives with her husband, poet Michael Milligan.






Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean

Christopher Barnes

Last Letter


Farewell seasprayed world
Bleak, sticky love
Will have me no more.

Ships, trains,
Radio signals
That dart questions
Into night’s nets
Are circus tricks
For me to endure.

Over, caught,
I’m glad, if I could have ever
Been called glad.

My innocence
Shivers unproved. I’ll
Doctor to my own salvation.

Of my wife I say nothing
Appeal only to the ghost,
Her voice singing
The cracks of my living.

Pentonville for a short
Unlighted stay, walk
To the hangman’s rope.

         H.H. Crippen





Christopher Barnes: In 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology 'Titles Are Bitches'. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection Lovebites published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.

On Saturday 16th Aughst 2003 I read at theEdinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St.

I also have a BBC webpage

Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle. This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords. The film is going into an archive at The Discovery Museum in Newcastle and contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho. I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University before touring the country and it is expected to go abroad, funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life. I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children's literature building. In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre why not take a look at their website

The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had", I can be heard reading it here






Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean

Roger Singer

The Coal Man



Wagon wheels
Press the soil
Like fingers on clay
Molding a path
As the coal man
And his horse
Find the driveway.

A Santa bag,
Scared by use
Is hauled rudely
Like homeless bones
As the canvas sheath
Bulges wildly with
Bituminous jewels.

A leather cap
Appears pasted
To his thick head
While a cigarette
Fades at the corner
Of a tired mouth,
While walking heavy.

Arms muscled wide
Stretch easily
Like crawling vines
On a fence
Broadly reaching
Owning the space
Without restriction.

Bits of blackened
Coal tumble
Into a waiting bin
Sounding like
Angry rattlesnakes,
As the horse looks
And the man coughs.




Roger Singer: I began writing poetry when I was in the military many years ago, for relaxation and to express my thoughts in an abstract form. I enjoy the challenge poetry offers, unlike the articles I have written, which are straight forward. Poetry allows the writer to step to the side from general thoughts, thus creating a miniature story which in and of itself can bifurcate into other levels of literary form.





Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean

David McLean

trees and the madness


once the trees
seemed to know their meanings
for me, and have chosen
them themselves

but now we are madmen
and have chosen that madness
and we live behind walls
where demons share the sunlight
with us
as it records a day dying gratefully
on the floor

the trees have forgotten
everything and mate mindlessly
promiscuous, selling their virtue
to the wind and birds
that pimp for them,

and we are mad as the blood
that remembers our passing:
we just love it and want it,
whatever happens





David McLean has been submitting for the past year and has had about 300 poems accepted by 129 magazines and webzines. A chapbook a hunger for mourning with 53 of his poems has just been released by Erbacce Press. It is available for purchase and download at Lulu.com. He has a blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com







Mark Lamoureux Lois Marie Harrod Sam Silva Eve Rifkah Christopher Barnes Roger Singer David McLean