Volume 2 2009
Urania: An Editorial Preface
I thought I might reach out and touch the top of her stone, then berated myself for being a groupie. ‘Act like a grown man, for godsake,’ I chastised myself. But as I stood staring at her, I soon broke down, “What the hell will it hurt?” I reached out my hand to caress the top of the small monument . . . and the very instant I touched the stone, a substantial church bell blurted a loud toll, causing me to jump back, scan the cemetery for witnesses, and abruptly focus on a large tombstone heralding the surname, WARD, my own name.
Rod Stroked Survival with a Deadly Hammer
Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or a pull of a lever,
that one of the bunch in her pocket was a winner or the slots were a redeemer;
but life itself was not real that was strictly for the mentally insane at the Elgin
Mental Institution.
She gambled her savings away on a riverboat
stuck in mud [...]
Mother, Edith, at 98
Edith, in this nursing home
blinded with macular degeneration,
I come to you with your blurry
eyes, crystal sharp mind,
your countenance of grace−
as yesterday’s winds
I have chosen to consume you
and take you away.
“Oh, where did Jesus disappear
to”, she murmured,
over and over again,
in a low voice
dripping words
like a leaking faucet:
“Oh, there He is my
Angel of the coming.”
Gingerbread Lady
Gingerbread lady,
no sugar or cinnamon spice;
years ago arthritis and senility took their toll.
Crippled mind moves in then out, like an old sexual adventure
blurred in an imagination of fingertip thoughts.
Who in hell remembers the characters?
There was George, her lover, near the bridge at the Chicago River:
she missed his funeral; her friends were there.
She always made feather-light [...]
Charley Plays a Tune (version 2)
Crippled with arthritis
and Alzheimer’s,
in a dark rented room,
Charley plays
melancholic melodies
on a dust filled
harmonica he
found abandoned
on a playground of sand
years ago by a handful of children
playing on monkey bars.
He now goes to the bathroom on occasion,
relieving himself takes forever; he feeds the cat when
he doesn’t forget where the food is stashed at.
He hears bedlam when [...]
Gemini
My brother’s been looking at the stars. That’s
a UFO, he declares. He’s eighteen
to my nine. I believe: He’s bigger
than I am and closer to the truth. He
goes inside to tell the rest of the clan.
I hear him through the kitchen door, back in
the living room. Our parents and [...]
Fire
Tonight the boy who tends the pool
comes to lock up just as I step
from the shower, naked and wet.
Between us, a fogged glass door.
I know his as the hand
that turns the key, but he
does not know this body as mine —
my shape, ambiguous; skin, unlined.
In this hazy light, I could be
the kind of nymph he’d [...]
The End of Childhood
She wakens to a hand
rocking her shoulder,
a muffled word, slips
into folds of clothes
and follows.
She feels the dead space
under the sky, and the layer
of air lying close to the earth,
a blanket of musk
left from summer flowers.
Between her hands
she finds her head, its
heavy, leaden weight
she has to cradle
every hour to stay
conscious of the field,
the [...]
The Code of Perpetuity
Tonight is the night of glorious voyages;
a perfect prospect for splendid inventions.
Give me the opportunity to enlighten my mind by the illumination of our satellite.
Put me inside a capsule of time,
and show me the secret corridors of your rocket.
I’ll speak your language for a brief moment,
and I’ll pretend to be one hundred years old.
My wisdom [...]
Cosmology
The sky pulls you in.
You stand on tiptoe like a child.
Arranged like birthstone earrings
on a card, they’re tarnished.
Sirius the dog, Medusa writhing
in her headdress of snakes, Orion
chasing the flock of doves
that later changed to sisters.
These strange stories kept you from sleep.
The bedside glass remains a collection of sand.
The same electron
masquerades as others, speeding [...]
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