RELIGION
A broken sail is a pole in the sand
That once was the bottom - now is the top,
Blue depths of dead seas that no one sees,
The wind with no smell of sparkling waves.
It is the religion of the following days -
The wind with no smell of sparkling waves.
The smoke disappears, revealing a trench;
I hoped it was mist over the field,
Lost in limitless wasteland drained of life
A farm by the field with a mountain of hay.
Disputes over who should carry the blame
For dead yellow seas, for blood soaked fields
Don't matter to Earth drying its tears
With a burning sunset after rain in May.
It is the religion of the following days.
A burning sunset after rain in May.
(Andrey Y. Morozov,
Age 20 St. Petersburg, Russia)
MAYBE TOMORROW
I've had more than my share of ill luck.
My days are all cloudy and
The sun doesn't care to shine through
To set free my sorrow.
Maybe tomorrow.
I can't walk straight on the roads of time.
I move forward, but keep slipping back,
Skidding on sands left behind by others,
Is there any happiness I can borrow?
Maybe tomorrow.
My boat is lost in stormy seas
And the sky and stars my only friends.
I'm thirsty even as the rain falls around me.
If only someone could help me row.
Maybe tomorrow.
On my track the sun's never shone.
I'm hungry for love, that I've never known.
I wait for a harvest that's never been sown.
Tell me when and tell me how,
Maybe tomorrow, Lord, but why not now?
(Anand Subramanian,
Patna, Bihar, India)
PERIOD PIECE
As the caboose of Generation X
clatters and stumbles
its way to the Career Development Office
across the lawn
littered with recycled paper,
they are too conscious
of what earlier ages
had to discover;
the past is always
hipper than the present
literary figures don't have to
eat ramen or pay ten cents a minute
the past has periods the present
has papers the future would like
fries with its order
studying sex is easier
than gettin' any
and romance was a period
from 1800-1830
your B.A. is useful
for jotting down employers'
phone numbers go
to a party or a show
and twitch,
twitch
twitch
(Gary Wilkens,
Conway, Arkansas)
ABUSE
She screams inside herself,
words too hot to be spoken freely.
Words heard often by the dog
that sometimes comes around.
She suffers the common-ground of indecency,
felt much too often by her kind.
Batterment by large bones,
against smaller bones.
Batterment felt often by the dog
that sometimes comes around.
A single drop of blood.
A morning rose that stains her pillow.
Last night's disappointment she recalls;
A beating while cowering against the wall.
Beatings given often by the dog
that sometimes comes around.
(Ernest Serna, a.k.a. "Goat",
Laurel, MD)
