“A Day In The City” by C. Jean Pearlstein

My eyes eat up the lascivious display of greenery
And blossoms
In the canyon
We slither down to the city
To take in a movie
In French
We prepare for our voyage, listening
To language tapes
To face the Gaults
As we’re never prepared
To face each other
“What do you mean by ‘lascivious’?”
He asks, head bent over the newspaper
A rare glance at my poem
Revealing a puzzle
The left brain must pursue
To a logical answer
“It’s poetry”
I want to say, “By needing to ask the question, you may not feel my meaning.”
I smile, and move into the kitchen.

C. Jean Pearlstein

Photo by VC Ferry

© 2010

“Till Death Do Us Part” by L. K. Thayer

I made it through high school
hanging out in art class
the art teacher’s getting married
so I go to her wedding

I didn’t know weddings made me cry
And I drink too much at the reception
And I can’t stop crying to save my life
cause they all look so happy

I think about the bride and the groom
the life they’ll share together
and I know I’ll never have that
cause somehow I don’t trust it

the ritual of the white dress
the exchanging of the vows
the tossing of the flowers
and the throwing of the rice

the empty cans tied to the bumper
it’s the happily ever after
that spooks me
the keeping of that promise

not to grow apart
till death do us part
how can I chain myself to that
when molecules are changing

and atoms are splitting
and it’s a woman’s right
to change her mind

and men stray

and so do I

and I couldn’t stop crying

L. K. Thayer’s Foto Fetish

© 2010

John Keats

“Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odor with the violet—
Solution sweet:”

(John Keats (1795-1821), British poet.

“Jejune Not Risque The Fire Escape” by Mitch Hicks

Quixotic bolted into hot pressed clay bricks

Such a labyrinth galvanized structure abode

Ungainly sombre feet that trundle gauze

Stark bellicose in allies decrepit

Errant are the nymphets oscillating clitoris

Yokel figures kooky sleeping below

Peeling rust like my osteoporosis bones

Vertex shapes mingle with factitious fascia

Handrails steps and ladders coalesce

Jejune not risque

From top to bottom an Odyssey from exit

Unlikely finding a medlar blown by a zephyr breeze

Promiscuous escapes with much adieu

Mitch Hicks – U.K.

L. K. Thayer’s Foto Fetish

© 2010

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka as a boy.

“A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.”

- Franz Kafka

“And So She Bled” by Roz Levine

Her sentence
Life with hard labor
Trudging in snow banks
Toiling under sun blisters
Saving leaf particles
Her papyrus
Scrawled below moon dark
With her woman’s blood
Fingered herself for words
Dug deep in genital tissue
For survival sounds
Her path to freedom
All she needed
Some blood
A few leaves
Her words
Each month
Creating new life
Where walking dead
Spine curled from hard labor
Paid a perilous price
For their speak out

Roz Levine

Photo by VC Ferry

© 2010

Juicy Quote

“An orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and you in my bed, sweet present of the present, cool of night, warmth of my life.”
– Jacques Prevert

“Fruit For Thought…”

“Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.“
– Walter Pater

Snap by Mitch Hicks – U.K.

© 2010

Catherine Drinker Bowen

“Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.”

- Catherine Drinker Bowen

L. K. Thayer’s Foto Fetish

© 2010

James Joyce

“I fear those big words which make us so unhappy.”

-James Joyce

L. K. Thayer’s Foto Fetish

© 2010