A Magazine of Many Arts

Image by Stephen Lippay

Wounded,

I sink into your flowerbed,

succumb to enchanted sleep.

Purple ropes lash all four legs

to the worm-rich ground

and lavender stink invades my dreams.

Grackles laugh. My tail twitches at the sound.

Waking,

I wince at cold needles,

damn the rain that dissolves

my auburn fur and vulpine claws.

Mind and message melting,

I now resolve: these dregs shall poison

your salvia, fell your foxgloves bright and tall.

Lisa Bradley has sold poetry  to GUD, Strange Horizons, and Bull Spec.  You can find more of Stephen Lippay’s photography at  http://ajourneyinimagery.blogspot.com/, or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/slippay/collections/.

Whatever became of Oberon’s Indian boy,
the one Titania loved so much
she bed a donkey rather than give him up,
then, returning to her senses
seemed not to care at all?

There was no particular talent
he had, no special gift or blessing,
beyond quiet charm and boyish
good looks. There was the unfortunate birth,
the luck of being in the right place,
the right time, catching the scout’s eye
when she felt vulnerable, old, uncertain.

But was he, after all the fuss and fret,
the elemental war of poisoned eyes,
only a lark, a fad, the proverbial
flash in the pan, midlife
infatuation with impossible youth,
something we’d inevitably outgrow?

He became the darling of the internet,
Ganymede without the cups,
aging into oblivion.
He gained a few pounds,
got lost in his own celebrity,
never found love or meaning,
finally died the death no poet
fears, alone and overexposed.

The laying of hands over a warm cup
of capuccino won’t deliver us
from what can be read in this morning’s Sun.

For years our dailies failed to penetrate
even a pulpified body of text
with action verbs and barbed, insightful nouns.

I asked if this wasn’t unusual
and my editor said, “Messenger-gods,
like cloistered monks, can always make amends.”

White lies stain my fingers in the obits
with gilt on paper — photographs, captions,
illuminations cut from the whole cloth,

bound for the cheapest of rags or tabloids
to ward off Times more tasteful than our own.

WC Roberts lives in a mobile home up on Bixby Hill, on land that was once the county dump. The only window looks out on a ragged scarecrow standing in a field of straw and dressed in his own discarded clothes. WC dreams of the desert, of finally getting his first television set, and of ravens. Above all, he writes.

EMERGE RAVENOUS

We are dragons again.
For some years we were men
And dressed our skins with suits.
Hats hid our eyes,
Vests were disguise
For heat of heart—and we were tame.
For a while.

We forgot what hats covered
Our sons were smothered
Not knowing their own fire.
Things will burn now
As they burst out,
As we must.
The dragon does not die.

The drum in our chest beats.
A warrior may retreat
But a blaze
Never loses hunger.
These are wild times again
To be more than men,
Leaving our caves to unshackle these wings.

Bethany is a fiber artist who creates yarn themed on fantasy, cartoon
characters, and book covers. This pursuit inspired the first poem she
published. She lives in Oklahoma for the time being, on a marginally
successful homestead with her family. She blogs about books, writing
woes, and Asian TV at hakusa-tegami.livejournal.com.

Whew, so this break went on way too long. It was partially due to an overly busy work life and some changes in my schedule that left me without a good weekly time for updates. I have a number of great poems that are going to be going up in the next few weeks, starting with one on Monday. I’m putting a bunch up right now, so I can guarantee weekly updates for the next few months.