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                            POETRY . . .
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THE UNHAUNTABLE MAN
  by Keith Allen Daniels 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  

  
Ghosts have given up,
and spirits despair
when they speak of me:
How can we haunt a man
who never stays put for a haunting?

Always wandering, wandering,
wondering: Perhaps it is I
who haunts the world,
dead but embodied, itinerant,
searching for comfort
among the sessile spirits 
a zombie with no sense of place
        
        migrating endlessly
                
                with the short seasons
 
                                of a lost soul.
 
Copyright 1995 by Keith Allen Daniels, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Allen Daniels, a member of the Science Fiction Poetry 
Association since 1979, has been publishing poetry since 1972. 
He lives in San Francisco with his ladylove, the artist Toni 
Montealegre, and likes to make funny voices. His poems have 
appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Recursive 
Angel, Poets of the Fantastic, Narcopolis and numerous other 
magazines and anthologies. He has been called "one of the 
foremost science fiction poets of our time" by David Kopaska-
Merkel, editor of Dreams & Nightmares. In addition to winning 
the National Association of Independent Publishers Fallot 
Literary Award for What Rough Book in 1993, his work has been
nominated for the Nebula Award, the Rhysling Award (10 times), 
the Pushcart Prize and the Clark Ashton Smith International 
Poetry Award. His other books include Loopy Is The Inner Ear
(Quick Glimpse Press, 1993), Dyscrasias (Anamnesis Press, 
1994/1995), Field Notes From The Antipodes (Dark Regions Press, 
1995) and With All of Love: Selected Poems by James Blish 
(editor; Anamnesis Press, 1995). kdaniels@ix.netcom.com
=================================================================

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
COLLAPSE
  by Eric Dunstan
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


we are the remainders who live on the beach and sand 
dig holes in the cliff for shelter    
a place 
for young
where no old are...
share 
what
nothing we have 
with those who have less

*  *  *
  
mary has
a blanket and rags  
I a pencil

*  *  *

no-name has his legs sticking out from
a collapsed hole in the cliff
he dug too deep
henny pulled on a leg 
and rubbed the fly-blown end in the sand
blue maggots are good food
but no-name is still
and still 'no-name'       
has no name
and 
the tide has
ebbed and flowed
many times since henny found him
who cares
leave him
where he lies
he 
breathed 
on a sky mushroom

*  *  *

mary has red hair -- hot as the scorched sky 
she is thin and marked
and nearly nameless
almost still
her sister is the same . . .
she slid the steep track to the beach
I saw she has no pants and pink pubic hairs
but it is not for me
to care 

*  *  *

my pencil is shorter

*  *  *

frank 
slid
from his ledge and did not cry when his body splashed
the full tide
his cliff access is mean
but
hairless walter
is now scrambling
to take the ledge  for his new address
perhaps
walter will fall tomorrow

*  *  *

saw 
a rotting swab two tides ago
with gaping holes
like a hollow skull   
soggy 
full of purple sea lice
they
are hard to catch salty to taste
and seaweed-cold
but good food is precious
may still be nunclear . . . noocleer . . .  how you spell it
don't know
perhaps 
it 
is not for me to know
parts of swab will dry in time 
. . . time?
 and will be lighter
to carry
perhaps
when left outside my ledge it will go to some other ledge
higher
for a bed
taken
by one with no words and no name
he is another 'no name'
who will have no status among us because
he is french . . . they say
who cares
he doesn't
I don't 
. . . should 
I?

*  *  *

floater 
found
on last tide
marge I think
I will get her book
though stained with red spittle
for writing
if I can find
where . . .
few
will reply
when I ask around for her book
talking . . .
like sex
is unimportant
and they will not care to answer

*  *  *

old is not young even those with years but few
they do not move like the young move
old is 19 years but in those
years countless tides 
will collapse 
on the 
shore . . .
did 
the collapse
kill fathers of wisdom 
and destroy the parents alike? 
can't remember  perhaps it is not
for remembering

*  *  *

plutonium 
(was it named after a dog?)
you-rain . . . u-rein . . . uranium   
both degenerate slowly
half lives and tides
are the 
only measures
only lead will remain

*  *  *
 
we are to be
unlead like a stray
pencil
not yet carbon
and going endlessly
nowhere
what cares?
all will be
still
soon    
"sans vie" 'no-name' with no status had said 
before he was still
--------------------
Copyright 1995 Eric Dunstan, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-------------------------------------------------

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
TIME?
  by Mark Harrison
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Time is like rhythm of a melancholy afternoon, 
being soaked in sun, rays bouncing off me like 
that little rubber ball you used to play with, 
you know the one. 

Clouds flying by, bye long gone! Time, yeah! 
Hold it in the palm of your hand like a dust ball, 
crunch it up or blow it up to the wind. 
Whatever you do it's yours and it's gone somehow. 

Boom! Boom! 
What's that noise? 
It's time closing in. 
Better make good use of it, 
never coming 'round again! 

Time, like a jar full of crickets all 
hopping 'round, yeah! 
Crazy, spinning, uncontrollable and then
it can be the time for a change. 
Sit and listen! Do you hear it, 
it's time standing still, 
or might as well be. 

Perched there like a little robin red breast 
unsure of where to go next. Do you know what I mean? 
Of course you do, you know! don't you. 

Too late now, it's gone, you missed it. 
Maybe next time. 
----------------
Copyright 1995 Mark Harrison/Constant Synthesis Project
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
THE JUST TALKING
  by Ben Ohmart
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the expensive program 
had to listen to this guy talking crap
and the system crashes
and the man went away from the computer

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
AFTER THE DEMONS
  by Ben Ohmart
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is there ever a stage where the world finds peace
because you have enough money
or enough friends to tell you money is unimportant
or family to say how you'll make friends soon
or that voice at the employment office desk with 
the smile
or the card 
a week late for your birthday from the insurance place?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
A MASTER
  by Ben Ohmart
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  
the boy knew nothing
and going away the man said
he'd learned something from him
then continued to do things the way as before

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
ELVIS AND COSTELLO
  by Ben Ohmart
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  


the cat listened 
and the message transformed him
into a person 
fucked by taxes
damned by making the money
for the milk
------------
Copyright 1995 Ben Ohmart, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-----------------------------------------------

(The following three poems are 
courtesy of SPIRAL CHAMBERS)

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"YOUR JOHNNY OF 1917"
  by Repsi, at the Void
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Nailed to the cause
I am strung amongst the crowds
Loftily above
Where none may touch
People hurl eggs
Cracking, drooling from my clothes
Moving along
The procession stays fast
Carrying the cross from street
To street
I watch with nonchalance
!They mean nothing to me
Still the flag is swarmed
I on its shoulders
Additional mass gathers
Catapulting rocks to torment me
I ignore
Deflected they go and shower
Breathing outrage and contempt
Something I know little of
As the parade files onward
Arms of love are arrested the right
To refuse the crowd
Which doesn't cause anger it
Merely makes me forlorn

Nailed to a sign of regression
In a home you ought to trust
Displayed for the good folk
Who worry you are gifted
!Might you conceivably be
!What only they dream of?
The theory creates a swollen moment
To make a grand statement
Not accepted
Exponential claims are thrust in spite
Words said
Proceeded by a lashing
Of your stake
!Move now!
Sweat drips onto the
Newborn fire
Stoking a cheered reaction
Many find fault in
But dare not speak

Sleep comes
An instant before I wake
I recognize
The land coated in sweet
Candy covered starkness and black
Retained to the cross
My body still remains whole
Often I curse the fortune
!Curse the amber's dead glare
Pooling and collected
Internally driven
Inexperienced blood
Bursts
Across my heart
And through my palms
Marking where I was abused
Towering over worthless ashes
A slightly perverse color of red

The papers elaborated
On what survivors could not explain
Wrote fictitious commentary
Camouflaging their mental lapse
Interpreted many ways
Why hundreds died
Bloody
Gory deaths
At the hands of
Something else than believed
Later
All chaos cracked
Away from humanity's serene utopia
Millions perished then
My only original sin the
Nucleus of so many problems masqueraded
Origin set at one.
------------------
Copyright 1995 Repsi, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
------------------------------------------


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THE WIND OF LIFE
  by Michael Morain
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His face
Unscoured by the wind of life
Holds few lines with which
To read his fate
His hands
Spread wide to life
Breathe not the essence
Of the age
They talk not as others do
Quietly confident in their youth
Not waiting the flesh time brings
He is immortal in the now
The joy a body holds
Straining the atoms
Finding release
In the rhythms of Life.
-----------------------
Copyright 1995 Michael Morain, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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BUTTERFLY IN MY PALM
  by Mirielle Jaborsky
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He said he was a butterfly in my palm.
Indeed, that was true,
For I easily could have crushed him,
But instead I fed him off the nectar of my love
Which dripped silently into pools of darkness
That protected him.
How strange to me, this lowly caterpillar,
With only love in his eyes for mex
A love I could scarcely understand
And a love that bound us surely as chains
And gently as the pressure of his lips.
I'd changed him, somehow.
I'd given him wings with which to fly,
But I could not give him the strength
To use them.
I watched him dash himself against the world
Again and again,
And he would come back to my embrace
To be healed.
He didn't know he was killing me.
He was just a butterfly in my palm,
And I had to let him go
I had to let him go!
--------------------
Copyright 1995 Mirielle Jaborsky, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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SPIRAL CHAMBERS is seeking original poems for inclusion 
in their poetry distribution channel. Send the work to:
Spiral Chambers, P.O. Box 772, Mentor, Ohio 44061 or email 
to: repsisk@AOL.com
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