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Our Dead World 2001
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Only the very best of submitted poetry will make it to the archives

IF I WERE THREE?If I were three - where would I be?
I'd be in your arms or on your knee
I'd run around the house
Not quite as a mouse
I'd smother you with hugs
I'd gather a whole bunch of bugs
I look up to my mom and dad
With awe - I'd be glad
That I was part of their life
I'd take away some of their strife
I would be proud
I'd shout out loud
I'd say "Mom-Dad, I love you.
You love me too!"
If I was three I could reach four
When dad came home - I'd open the door
As I jump in dad's arms
He'd share his charms
My mom would be grand
Mom would take my hand
She would love me so
I would not have to go??t;br>I was almost 6 months old
I did what I was told
But - I am just a baby
And three - I'll never be...
I am sorry I had to leave
Please do not grieve
God's little angel - am I
Please don't cry
I'm no longer in pain
I do not feel the rain
I am part of the sun and the sky
Please, don't ask why
Mom - dad, I am happy
I throw the stars for fun
I swing on the moon - in front of everyone
Mom - I can walk
Dad - I can talk
Please let me go
God needs me so
I am always with you
In spirit - that's true.



Dedicated to John Graenser Jr.
Dawn Anne Hall August 2000.

If it is to be

the pains runs deep
just below the skin
stuck fast to my mottled soul
clinging to the energy that feeds it
swallowing up the joy
sucking the marrow out
of the pursuit of happiness
the endless strangling threads
like an addiction
it wait wholly to devour its prey:
me

as as I crawl each night
into this lonely tomb
and stare out the window
up at the stars
holding the ache in silence
I curl up
as a babe in the womb
and entrust my soul
to the vast darkness
of endless dreams

fluttering on gossamer wings
silvered with mystery
they hover just beyond
seeming to taunt
one so frailly foolish
with such sparkling wisdom
luring the question soul
ever onward
into the glowing enchantment
through each gauzy layer
and every step
in the dance of faith

Velvet Scythe 2000.



The Dormant Weapons of Canine Incest

The last of the scarecrow empires
These degenerates of eden
Craving cowboy deformities
Easter clinics and aerosol flesh
The dormant weapons of canine incest
Libido knives carve funeral sex
Slashing photographs of punk revolutions
Of lunatic babies hooked on lipstick warfare
Of soldier killers and retribution brats
Swaying beneath autumn crowns
Dark noise glimpsed from the edge of the motherland
As Martian romances span sleeping civilisations
Diagonal fiction re-interpreted as deliverance

Micheal Roberts 2000.



Driver Error

Cars crashing in slow motion
Debris at the intersection
Tyre tracks retraced
Impact data studied long after working hours
Attention to detail
Shard of glass repositioned
Shred of expelled rubber returned
Telephone left off its hook

Wife and children invisible in rush hour traffic

Martin Rutley 2000.


Disturbed Voices

Cultivated mind state, gyrate, spinning cocoons, and sinning black tunes, match an evil text, the level is next, and it continues to rise, ripping sinew through eyes, a thin new demise, brought about from the wise, debating a thorough stratagem, creating heroes from a shattered stem. So it's like anti-matter then, powers celestial, extra terrestrial, like nothing that's known, grab air and a full blown army is grown, new true skills are shown, yet still some are hidden, displaying full potential is forbidden, opponents will be ridden, when the secrets come forth, turbulence from up north. Knocks aerial attacks off their course, unsustainable force, pertian to a source, unascertainable lore, meltdown in the core, implore the gore. Unsheathe corni-forms horns unleash born by morn storms take on many forms, to decieve all opposing platforms. Realizing their mistakes a little too late, already has the plan begun to deviate, from its original path, a cynical wrath, results in blood bath, brought about from witch craft, and sorcery. Forcibly changing beliefs, and extirpating beefs, evolved from kids teasing, appeasing to parents with racist intent, no need to repent, this sin won't go unpunished, it may seem Hunnish. Pagan infliction of material diction, words to physical weaponry, kept in me, then surfacing when duties are required, never to be retired, eternal executioner, revolutions stir, and are uprooted, instituted exile, for this egg pile. A medieval style use a while along with guile, to deceive a small child, put it on trial, turn it to bile, then erase its whole file. NO trace of existence, at this very instance, emotions become null, how would it feel to crush a skull, deform a whole human hull, due to gull. A weak being are the mortals, unable to use portals, still living in fort holes. When there is a higher kingdom, to bring from, voracious hunger, consuming souls, yet sapiens are still pleased with lumber, stripping their mother, I watch as I closely hover, what a thing to discover. Self inflicted apocalypse, mock these trips, made to space, thinking it's a sign of advancement, when my hands went, into the fabrication, just to catalyze their damnation, early bereaved. Armageddon concieved, love them selves through death, encasing a last breath, and letting it ferment, every word was meant, an axiom or maxim, lay on their backs and give in, to the commusmation of my eradication. Verication of me divine omnipotence, these recipients, revel in the diffidence, of their own crippled sense. Hence, this destructive behaviour looked upon as a saviour, as well as a plague, the plight is vague, yet easily seen, to be obscene, no one can intervene, with the action of this paradoxical being. Creating philosophical He-men, so I can see when, my eyes are beaten, cloned henchmen, avoid being fenced in, move about freely, we be, one in the same, clones of my brain, to expand my range, free of mange, or other imperfections, disbanded in all directions. Confusing everyone like a house of mirrors reflections, closing in making corrections, then leave the finished product, raw and plucked, of disastrous shit that would have earth fucked, therefore I place them in my clutch, unbalanced like walking with one clutch, now crumble the already weak foundation, from my astral sound station, pound patience, no more waiting, this has to be done, before the next rise of the sun, when the moon, descends,

Instant Paradox 2000.

Future Shock

some bleak days when the rain
seems to burn my skin and brain
collapse
I think about the future, lakes
holding life no more, air stagnant
crash, crash
and thick and artless laughter
masked by technology, the man
collapse
after the money finally throttles
the last breath of life from our earth
crash, crash, crash
and battles wage and chemicals
peculiarly kill those who oppose
some days with classical music
reverberating in my ears I detect
collapse
the factory a million miles away
will there be, an unsavory idea?
no fruit falling from trees, look
dear a bird, it has been months
long gone
and the few rich men are fat
and filtered and fed and have
crash, crash, crash, crash
suckled this poor world dry

Viki Ackland 2000.


Stage fright

you unfurled caverns
and ropes to climb
not hang myself with
you held my hand
and my head under
the water, tenderly
you baked me hash
brownies and KD
by candlelight
and the cheap wine
made me luscious
you borrowed sweaters
and albums and
girlfriends to amuse
and terrorize me
you showed secrecy
and calm torture
and from the doorway
in the dark, your
naked back, bent
kept me straight

Viki Ackland

SOUL IN LASCAUX


Moments flower like cactus,
prickly with nerves, scratching
the smooth inlay of her mouth.

A frightened smile erupts.
one hardly seen
by the fluctuating span
of shadows
that respire the hour
breathless with torment from her past.

Back then,
choices were made in an age
of fire and slaughter painting
self-portraits.

Pigment mixed, crushed
from her own breath and bone;
dream and will--
she smeared along the ramparts of her mind.

The wind was her brush,
its quarry, her expression:

strokes of branches smoothing
a white forehead of sand,

of branches stumbling
in pain like a flogged women,

of branches clutching
a blanket of space
like an abandoned child--

she swirled on her canvass of rock.

Hot tears were flung against it
Like scalding water.
Even they grew into talons of steam,
into branches of anguish
grasping nothing.

The riotous bracken,
still terrifies her.
Its influence
leads her back
into those ancient cliffs of insanity.


The walls of coastline are there,
haunting, hunting her
with a fierce intent to capture and enslave.

Ankles of ledge-slim stone
shackled in seaweed
drip inches of madness;

wade in shallow pools
as tidewater gulps the shadows
of timeless caves.

Fountainous sprays
of exasperation rise,
rinsing clean the air
and her spirit of all strength..

Only the force
of silence digging into silence breathes
while a sky knuckled in white clouds
prevails.

Wendy A. Howe 2000.



THE LILAC


The white lilac withers
She now stutters in brown decay,
and the wind's asthmatic whip
strikes her throat and begins to fray
as it tangles round the branches.
The bride in her tarnished song
becomes battered, her dreams barren
and her suffocation unjust yet long.

Wasps convening with wing and hook
soon repel the surface of her head
as she bends forth, fanning space
with the vacant nodding of the dead.
Like harridans they hover
above the envied flower of spring;
her steps scent the earth, her shadow
evades the peril of their sting.

In and out, her movement wavers,
first seeking sunlight, then falling back-
silhouette of oppression,
she pleads her lot in spasms of black.
Out into distant spires of pine
her fate breathes, lighting sconces of bark
with the agony of a woman
whose voice climbs painfully through the dark.

The white lilac withers;
her tongue mauled, now melting
in a canticle of grief,
and her lines faintly lucid
as she rises through the larynx
of abused branch and leaf.


Wendy A. Howe 2000.

Excerpts from dream no. 3


Dark haired girl
Shoeless in long grass
Summer dress loose at the shoulder
Tears dried by the sun

Car chase through outer suburbs
Elderly man upright in passenger seat
.45 loaded in left hand
Cops visible in rear view mirror

Rented apartment
Discarded clothes by the door
Ankle chain on soft carpet
Cheap sex on designer furniture

Hungry-eyed youth
Fist-fights on wasteland
Bleeding wounds above the eye
Savage English accents


Martin Rutley 2000.


Euphoria splash


Streamlined persona
ever conscious
of your slim reluctance to devour with
wide open acceptance
That scriptures etched beneath sepia skin
can bridge the ripe expanse
of breast divine
The sleek ripples of euphoria splash
cerebral codes
amorphous structures
tumbling through holes in lightning
through snarling abdomen
The sudden recoil of dead muscle
awash with white divide


Martin Rutley 2000.

Our Dead World 2000.