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Desire Street
July, 1995
cyberspace chapbook of
The New Orleans Poetry Forum
established 1971
Desire, Cemeteries, Elysium
Listserv: DESIRE-ST@BOURBON-ST.COM
Email: Robert Menuet, Publisher
robmenuet@aol.com
Mail: Andrea S. Gereighty, President
New Orleans Poetry Forum
257 Bonnabel Blvd.
Metairie, La 70005
Programmer: Kevin Johnson
Copyright 1995, The New Orleans Poetry Forum
(17 Messages for July, 1995)
-------------------
Appointed Rounds
by Mary Riley
These are my daily appointed rounds, my dogwalk land
An observation post of sorts,
I tip my hand to the old men prognosticating
Together on the stoops.
They remind me of the few sweet green fronds I've seen in some old
yards
Up North where I am from, the baby tips of century old asparagus
Roots set down so old, faces pale green new.
Here, I see addicts at their best and worst, and hanging out
In the middle of it all, an alchemy of languid youth who live
By all youth's odd rule that everything is
Funny, I no longer cringe beneath
Their see- through- you gaze but do ask myself is that
High laughter grief?
And I see the church people who walk in stern belief, and
Peep in windows to see if we
Are at home for sermons, which for a quarter donation
Can be accompanied by a pink sunrise printed on pulp paper,
I have myself been awarded a small tract or two of
Salvation by them.
And the Christian's flip side,
The Afro-Centrics who
Murmur together like ancient Semites as they
Escape into their incensed rooms,
To quietly Eschew us and our aromatic
Frying meat for just as aromatic steamed rice and vegetables,
They re-wrap themselves like gifts for a still
To come magi, emerging like suns, in Kinta cloth each morning.
And as I walk I hear and chide myself,
"God I sound bitter today!"
The way I carry irony by the neck through these old looking
streets,
Like the men who carry their
Booze bottles wrapped
Discreetly in brown bags.
Holding even that behind one hip,
As they imperceptibly bow and let the white lady pass.
-------------------
Double Vision Three
by Bonny Crumley-Fastring
Home
I
She wolf sighted
Nebraska prairie hills,
traveling north,
less than three hundred feet
from the side of a red rented Toyota.
She runs through ditches
where Purple Loosestrife grows,
across hills
where wild oats break in waves,
past trees, Russian Olive,
silver-gray leaves blown bellysideup
running free, carefully.
II
How high's the water, Mama?
Thirty feet and rising
The sigh stopped me
right outside Chilicothe, Iowa,
ROAD CLOSED IN THIRTY MILES.
"You can't go no further north, Miss,"
the gasoline station man yells,
so he redirects me
around closed roads, closed bridges,
down graveled secondaries,
ditches bloated to the rim with brown water.
I don't even stop to pee
trying to beat Grand River's crest.
The directions,
west on 10, north on 13, west on 36,
kind of sideways stepping
like my fiftieth birthday
slipped up on me.
Stan snapped a polaroid
of my birthday celebration.
In the picture I'm tasting
a half gallon Swiss Almond Vanilla,
sucking its sweetness from my fingers,
a patch over my bad eye,
drunk, with the same half dread,
half delight,
I feel trying to beat this flood.
How high's the water, Mama?
Forty feet and rising
"Can I get across the Missouri?"
I ask at every country cafe.
I imagine all the rivers in Nebraska
rushing to join waters
in some ever greater source,
the Niobrara, tearing down from pine country,
The Elkhorn, spilling over into the Platte,
The Platte, no longer dreaming but pushing
down the Missouri, heading South,
While I go the opposite way.
That nagging question, which place
is home, or more precisely, where
will they bury my body.
"Put my ashes in the river,"
I tell my son from the next pay phone.
This river has swept across plains
and down for millions of years
making a north-south connection,
a line of pain and pleasure,
a line that holds the intensity
between two points of equal need
until it's become home.
Fast, slow, day, night, season
after season I've traveled this river,
even now, racing the river's crest.
How high's the water, Mama?
Fifty feet and rising.
-------------------
Earthquake Country
by Mary Riley
We cannot be made it seems
Upheaval proof,
I read the headlines
About yesterday's earthquake in Japan,
2,000 dead and the number of people climbing, climbing, since the
war,
Still climbing, crawling out of the rubble,
Dead or half dead or three quarters dead,
With disbelief, still shock bound,
Of trouble always just around the bend.
*
I climb myself out, down
From my precarious loft bed,
It rocks and yet it is a place I can feel high,
Above it all, quake proof,
I shall pray there tonight
Just before sleep, for Japan's suffering
And my own to end soon.
*
Last night I visited a gentle, pastoring place,
The host introduced a visitor from Zaire,
He sermonized, linking crises, like earthquakes
With sin, though his voice was soft
Clothed gently in his
Colonial tongue, French, then translated by a
Countryman, come to live her now,
Hunched over, a larger, older man
Beside him on the bench,
Who seemed to pray a second for himself before
Translating his new friend's next thought.
*
And we the others there, polite
Americans, took only silent, inward issue
With this pastor's, (to us
Too sin-fraught view), preferring to dwell
Instead on his torn country, his softness, the
Gay songs he made of our old hymns sung later,
Accompanying himself on our electronic keyboard,
Expertly choosing a beat, Latin, Waltz-time, organ...
And this, made all the more sweet by being at last
In his native tongue--------------.
*
I thought then, hearing his, his countrymen's deep voices,
And that man's wife, traditional female, hard-edged African voice
raised
Sharply, joining these her
Brothers' rich song (She'd said little to that point) perhaps
God sent us here to travel far and wide, give birth to the throngs
now waiting
Outside Eden to endure, earthquakes, wars, fatal differences,
Hardship, terror, even divisiveness not as punishment
But knowing his creation wasn't after all
Just a dream, but the real thing
Hand made, each head turned out according to its won kind,
This complex beast,
Which got itself created in God's image,
Could only rise to upheaval, aftershocks shaking God's
Man-given tribal ways
With clever, seismic instruments, dancing, following
A long line of dancers to the holy cities, and taking mad scientist
Note, getting it all down amidst the chaos, so we'd always have it
all,
From our origins to our downfalls, and then we'd start from there
To understand our maker.
*
The very way the reverend from Zaire
Uttered the closing prayer and
Heard God speak to Him between the lines,
He told us after the amens, how God said,
"Yes someone in this room is going through
Some heavy times"
Is struggling, still error bound,
But at the very least
Not all alone,
Peopled with voices still strong enough to scream,
And scheme, scream, and whimper
Raise arms, hands fingers, nails, tap, tap, tap,
Hear faint cries of "Christo! Christo!" echo
Through the rubble, and await that
Joyous cry,
Worth anything to make,
The faithful seeker's cry is heard,
"Found, I found one, quickly the stretcher,
Over here.....
And still alive!"
-------------------
Faith & Plasma
by Stan Bemis
In my gut, I've always been piss-leery
of needles, but now
I eagerly await the needle, hoping I'll pass
the inspection at the plasma center.
Recently, for inspiration, I've been reading
"The Meaning of the Death of God,"
a little remembered theological movement
from the age of Camelot
I keep the book on top of the toilet & after
being ushered out of Wendy's or Shoney's
waterlogged from nursing a bowl of soup
or a biggie drink for hours
thinning my blood
I cramp myself up against the window
& read the pages from the light
cast on the words by my neighbor's flood
my own electricity having been cut off
Free stays by my side, an additional shadow
finding kibbles & bits scattered on the floor
from a time when I could feed us both
I can't really talk to him
about Van Buren's Wittgenstein-influenced
linguistic analysis of the Gospel or Altizer's
commerce w/Blakeian dialectic
& it isn't just because he's a dog
the Deicide theological movement is dead
God is dead, long live God
Sometimes, as the rain glistens silver falling
from the rooftop
sliding past where I stand
I'm reminded of the loneliness of an Edward Hopper painting.
Sometimes my neighbor plays his radio.
The other day at the Center I sat across
from a beautiful woman having her blood drained, also.
we smiled at each other.
What the theologians were wrestling w/
was Bonhoeffer's question, how do we speak of
God in a secular fashion,
what is the meaning of Faith in a post-Christian world?
It was Van Buren's contention that we don't,
& it was Altizer's contention that we jump
joyously into the void.
I told the woman when I left,
my plasma had run faster than hers,
that looking at her, seeing her beauty
had taken away the pain of the needle
jammed up inside my arm,
& she said thank you.
-------------------
Visit to the Graveyard
by Andrea Saunders Gereighty
From a sense of duty I go every Saturday
To visit Camp Gris-Gris where we once lived.
Regular, like a ritual baptism, I water plants
Renew air fresheners, remove trash like the
Housekeeper of Lake Pontchartrain.
I sweep up pigeon droppings crusted like
Barnacles to the veranda.
The Maine buoy bells call like funeral tolls.
These visits remind me of going to the graveyard.
A child dressed all in white like a first
Communicant, I'd frolic in black-eyed susies
Near tombs where mother planted, dug and watered.
I reminisce: this pilgrimage I make weekly
To a house empty like the haunted hull of a
Tomb; the pier bleached white as a spectre
wooden like my face when I left you after
The battering. Empty sockets of lights
Stare indifferent at me, no accusations
Just a simple sadness like the face of my mother
When she says "you don't visit enough."
And you.... You have never returned
I recall, "the readiness is all" Shakespeare stated
though I believe you've burned the bridges
fast like the fire that gutted camp Lori.
Do those burned bridges haunt you
Like your memory follows me,
Incessant as the sense of loss in a cemetery.
-------------------
Imagine Spring to Winter
by Kevinn Poree
The butterfly knocks
On the catapillar's door
As the Fairies bathe
In the sun
Then the winter
Snow makes the air cold
As ice pixies dance
With snow flakes.
-------------------
It comes down to this
by Christine Trimbo
Ice slides down my throat, a
lit cigarette, small torch in
the fading light, smoke curls
around the mirror, wisps
around a neck.
I have parcelled my heart and
sent it in envelopes across this
country, to Oregon, California,
the North. My words real as bullets.
But I do no damage, the dissection
uncovers nothing.
What I am left with is a cocktail,
the lowlit room;
I think you can't begin until you
rip the phone from the wall and
hold your head in your hands.
Love your pain like a daughter.
Sit with her. Remain tender,
curse slowly those who
make you feel...
-------------------
Last night you dreamt of Manderly
by Robert Menuet
You speak through the Hygeiaphone,
ticket in hatband;
climb aboard the Hummingbird, window seat,
linen antimacassar snapped to leather back,
then detrain. Rebecca is piped in
throughout the station; streamlined, its shop
displays Balenciagas beneath the sign: Odalisque.
Next to the window a chrome staircase;
man in cutaway beats woman
who draws luger.
You go for help.
The young stationmaster guides you to an empty space,
dull green. He doesn't know what it was used for,
but you do: the Colored waiting room.
Wait there.
-------------------
Melian's Pram
by Bob Rainer
Melian hummed a planxty as she pushed Tamara's pram over
the clods in the praty field, and Tamara slept
through the morning,
past the old turbine house,
through the elder abbey,
round the courtyard of whitewashed buildings
full of the late harvest,
through the gardens where the Old Man in his kilt
painted his flowers and dreams,
and under the massive siege gate,
and never knew that what her mother
was pushing was so in her blood and bones
and so much a part of them both.
In the great main hall of the castle,
Melian's youthful sisters flowed about in
their wisps of gowns,
blossoming in their prime, though
but a decade old, still
filled with the stuff of women.
Their beauty would have once comanded a dear price
then to shine no more than a decade,
to be so spent and tired
as were the elders in the abbey
which the scavenging Stranger once declared unfit
for ships' masts.
Like the giant curving elders in the abbey, the older sisters
held onto life
in their bent, dry form.
Such was the legacy borne by Melian and her sisters, and
which Melian had unwittingly passed on:
Soon to beauty,
Early to age,
Life a book,
Youth a page.
And Tamara slept while Melian and all her sisters knew
that she was one of them.
-------------------
Morning
by Athena O. Kildegaard
Morning turns up
motes and awkward shells
of cockroaches. He says to her
the niceties required by dry toast.
They kiss, lips tentative,
and he leaves, closes the door
into her silence.
The dirty
dishes wait like silent children.
She wants this loss that comes unexpected
to leave, wants it embedded in the formica
instead of in her tongue.
The time
when she could make her own life,
dance in a flannel robe, eat
shaved ice in great gobs--has gone
without ceremony.
She closes
the door, drives to work past
neighbors already gone, their houses
shuttered, turns up the heat
and thinks of how, at dinner and after,
like yesterday or the day before,
was it? they would talk of things
that ought to matter.
-------------------
Octopus
by Bob Rainer
The young man lay in the middle of westbound I-10
like a mushy speed bump,
only deader -- speed bumps don't let their guts
trail out from under them like a dry-docked octopus.
His liver hovered under a towel
six feet upstream, as if
it had been the first to desert the main body.
He seemed a quiet lad, not from the way
he wore his deadness with such grand aplombe, but from the
worshippers who left their cars to approach him and wonder
if Channel 4 was on the way.
They spoke about him in somber tones
and one or two suggested he looked Oriental.
His belongings spread out for a quarter mile beyond.
Some shifted as the wind blew, but
most acted like proper suburbs of a speed bump,
remained where they had fallen, intact and immutable.
For them, life had been belonging to someone.
For their master, life was only
the hands that would pick him up
and carry him away
from under the blanket that now covered him,
and his liver from under its towel.
-------------------
Response to Richard
by Andrea Saunders Gereighty
So I ask my friend, my mentor
What is it about prose I need to know?
Do I explore its entire universe
To discover the cause of nebulae or
dark holes in space
Holes so black they suck
I cannot connect to the rest of human
consciousness or even my own audience
a failed dialogue with death.
What of the deranged hag
Hacking, disheveled at my door?
My umbilical cord extends toward the
feeble sun's raw luminance
left red in the ignorance of ink
two thousand light years ago.
Whatever occurs, whatever i happen to learn
This I know already, Richard
Baby, I can write.
-------------------
Time Wasted
by Christine Trimbo
I have nothing but time
to water the plants, watch
lace curtains dance, the
ceiling fan hums absent-mindedly.
My days are spent
filling books with
to-do lists, proper
intentions, boring
as celery and less satisfying.
But Summer will pass,
Stumbling drunk and
unzipped, then Hung-
over me, pages upon
pages of regrets, will
wish time moved as
slow as the St. Charles Streetcar.
-------------------
Visitor
by Stan Bemis
Your fingers, fishhooks....
I shook with a chill
not mutual to the warm blooded woman
at my side
We walked the same concrete
you and I had walked
what seems a lifetime ago, now
memories a choke chain in my throat.
In the suite....
I poured a whiskey and
shut the blinds
I didn't press my face
against the pane
afraid, least looking down
I'd see your spectre
in the dark.
Afterwards....
the whoosh, whoosh of the fan blades
incarnated your voice
--neither the body next to mine nor
the pillow could block it out--
you said my name out loud.
-------------------
THE POETS OF DESIRE STREET
Stan Bemis, originally from California, is an artist & writer.
He is a frequent visitor to the Maple Leaf Bar's Sunday poetry
readings. He is currently working on a book of religious poetry
atempting to, in the words of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
"speak of God in a secular fashion." He has been a member of the
New Orleans Poetry Forum for some years.
Bonnie Fastring is a poet and teacher from New Orleans.
Byron Clement is a Bywater resident who walks through the Quarter
taking notes frequently.
Andrea Saunders Gereighty owns and manages New Orleans Field
Services Associates, a public opinion polls business and is
currently the president of the New Orleans Poetry Forum. Her poetry
has appeared in many journals, as well as in her book, ILLUSIONS
AND OTHER REALITIES.
Cedelas Hall has returned to poetry writing after a 20 year hiatus.
Her works range in subject matter from nostalgia to sex.
Kevin Johnson, Piscean, enjoys Tequila under the stars and writes
about the physiology of nothingness.
Athena O. Kildegaard is a freelancer writer and mother and
makes time between for writing poetry.
Barbara Lamont writes about fear.
Robert Menuet is a psychotherapist, marital therapist, and
clinical supervisor. Previously he was a social planner.
Obra Melancon does social work with the Office of Family Support
and has taught English at Xavier University.
Kerry Poree is an electrician from New Orleans.
Kevinn Poree is a student from New Orleans. She is 9 years old.
Mary Riley is a semi-retired 30-plus-years social worker/child
care worker finally taking the time to write full time. Her current
project in addition to her poetry is a non-fiction book "A Year in
New Orleans" dealing with the paradoxes--the delights--the deaths
she has met in her five years there.
Bob Rainer is an Alabama redneck who lives in Metairie, Louisiana.
Christine Trimbo lives in a house that once neighbored Degas'
house. She has two bicycles but no cats.
-------------------
ABOUT THE NEW ORLEANS POETRY FORUM
The New Orleans Poetry Forum, a non-profit organization, was founded
in 1971 to provide a structure for organized readings and workshops.
Poets meet weekly in a pleasant atmosphere to critique works presented
for the purpose of improving the writing skills of the presenters.
From its inception, the Forum has sponsored public readings, guest
teaching in local schools, and poetry workshops in prisons. For many
years the Forum sponsored the publication of the New Laurel Review,
underwritten by foundation and government grants. The New Orleans
Poetry Forum receives and administers grant funds for its activities
and the activities of individual poets.
Meetings are open to the public, and guest presenters are welcome.
The meetings generally average ten to 15 participants, with a core
of regulars. A format is followed which assures support for what is
good in each poem, as well as suggestions for improvement. In many
cases it is possible to trace a poet's developing skill from works
presented over time. The group is varied in age ranges, ethnic and
cultural backgrounds, and styles of writing and experience levels of
participants. This diversity provides a continuing liveliness and energy
in each workshop session. Many current and past participants are
published poets and experienced readers at universities and coffeehouses
worldwide. One member, Yusef Komunyakaa, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for Poetry for 1994. Members have won other distinguished prizes and
have taken advanced degrees in creative writing at local and national
universities.
In 1995, The New Orleans Poetry Forum began to publish a monthly
electronic magazine, Desire Street, for distribution on the Internet
and computer bulletin boards. It is believed that Desire Street is
the first e-zine published by an established group of poets. Our
cyberspace chapbook contains poems that have been presented at the
weekly workshop meetings, and submitted by members for publication.
Publication will be in both message and file formats in various
locations in cyberspace. To subscribe to Desire Street via Listserv,
send an Email message to DESIRE-ST@BOURBON-ST.COM and put the word
SUBSCRIBE in the topic field of the message. You will receive an automated
confirmation of your enrollment. Subscription is free of charge.
Workshops are held every Wednesday from 8:00 PM until 10:30 at the
Broadmoor Branch of the New Orleans Public Library, 4300 South Broad,
at Napoleon. Annual dues of $10.00 include admission to Forum events
and a one-year subscription to the Forum newsletter, Lend Us An Ear.
To present, contact us for details and bring 15 copies of your poem
to the workshop.
The mailing address is as follows:
Andrea Saunders Gereighty, President
New Orleans Poetry Forum
257 Bonnabel Boulevard
Metairie, Louisiana 70005
Email: Robert Menuet
robmenuet@aol.com
-------------------
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Desire Street, June, 1995, copyright 1995, The New Orleans Poetry Forum.
14 poems for May, 1995. Message format: 17 messages for June, 1995.
Various file formats.
Desire Street is a monthly electronic publication of the New Orleans
Poetry Forum. All poems published have been presented at weekly meetings
of the New Orleans Poetry Forum by members of the Forum.
The New Orleans Poetry Forum encourages widespread electronic
reproduction and distribution of its monthly magazine without cost,
subject to the few limitations described below. A request is made
to electronic publishers and bulletin board system operators that
they notify us by email when the publication is converted to
executable, text, or compressed file formats, or otherwise stored
for retrieval and download. This is not a requirement for publication,
but we would like to know who is reading us and where we are being
distributed. Email: robmenuet@aol.com (Robert Menuet). We also publish
this magazine in various file formats and in several locations in
cyberspace.
Copyright of individual poems is owned by the writer of each poem.
In addition, the monthly edition of Desire Street is copyright by
the New Orleans Poetry Forum. Individual copyright owners and the
New Orleans Poetry Forum hereby permit the reproduction of this
publication subject to the following limitations:
The entire monthly edition, consisting of the number of poems and/or
messages stated above for the current month, also shown above, may be
reproduced electronically in either message or file format for
distribution by computer bulletin boards, file transfer protocol,
other methods of file transfer, and in public conferences and
newsgroups. The entire monthly edition may be converted to executable,
text, or compressed file formats, and from one file format to another,
for the purpose of distribution. Reproduction of this publication must
be whole and intact, including this notice, the masthead, table of
contents, and other parts as originally published. Portions (i.e.,
individual poems) of this edition may not be excerpted and reproduced
except for the personal use of an individual.
Individual poems may be reproduced electronically only by express
paper-written permission of the author(s). To obtain express permission,
contact the publisher for details. Neither Desire Street nor the
individual poems may be reproduced on CD-ROM without the express
permission of The New Orleans Poetry Forum and the individual copyright
owners. Email robmenuet@aol.com (Robert Menuet) for details.
Hardcopy printouts are permitted for the personal use of a single
individual. Distribution of hardcopy printouts will be permitted
for educational purposes only, by express permission of the publisher;
such distribution must be of the entire contents of the edition
in question of Desire Street. This publication may not be sold in
either hardcopy or electronic forms without the express paper-written
permission of the copyright owners.