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Desire Street
March, 1996
cyberspace chapbook of
The New Orleans Poetry Forum
established 1971
Desire, Cemeteries, Elysium
Listserv: DESIRE-Request@Sstar.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 R. Johnson
Copyright 1996, The New Orleans Poety Forum
(10 poems for March, 1996)
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Contents:
Variations on a Haiku By Basho
The Courthouse in Gretna
Great Grandma Kocejve
Untitled Movement
Familiar Streets
Seascape
More Shades
It Was You
Twin Sky Studios
I Wear White to Your Funeral
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Variations on a Haiku by Basho
by Athena O. Kildegaard
1. after Robert Frost
Something there is that loves a frog
that wants to jump with it
into the green water of the dark pond.
2. after Lewis Carroll
Twas brillig and a beamish frog
jumped in the tulgey pond
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
3. after T.S. Eliot
Here is no rock but only water
No rock and one frog jumping
Jumping Shantih Shantih Shantih
4. after Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best frog among the whole universe of speckled, torpid,
cold-water frogs
leap incautious as stoned bums on the tracks of the El
into the one pond, the universal sprawling incantation of unholy murk.
5. after e.e. cummings
Frog (old pond
stil green)
jumps (plash)
6. after William Blake
The age of the pond is the permanence of God
the leap of the frog is the joy of God
the sound of the water is the echo of God
7. after my 2-year-old
Mama! Frog
jump in pond--
Splash!
8. after my Uncle Jack
This old pond here
where the frogs jump
it's always noisy
9. after William Carlos Williams
Not the idea
but the frog
jumping into the greeny pond.
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The Courthouse in Gretna
by Barbara Lamont
They brought them in
shackled one onto another
in grimy crewcuts, dirty jerseys
dark, shiny pressed skin
only twelve and thirteen
without lawyers or any other tools.
They sat them down
arms rising over their heads
like a ballet
in chorus they
adjusted their chain
onto their laps.
Possession with intent
stolen property
cocaine, LSD and crack
said the judge
five years hard labor
sign here.
He stalked in alone
tall, blonde,
unmatched linen jacket,
followed by two high priced
Counselors wearing matching headbands
and black wool suits.
Put him First on the docket
fine seventy-five hundred
six hundred a month
no driving for 90 days
don't forget
the volunteer Velocity clinic.
Yes your honor
he waives a jury trial
sentence three years probation
and calls Mom in Peoria,
gasping big breaths of sunshine
and freedom.
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Great Grandma Kocejve
by Ray MacNiece
Great Grandma seamstress, pianist, went mad.
At night the unlocked double-doors float open
and she glides down the sanitarium hallways
hands held before her, all fingers rippling
like water poured into a porcelain basin.
Her backless white gown flutters glowing
as her footfalls descend fragile arpeggios
of a nocturne played on a glass harpsichord.
She's been told repeatedly to keep her hands
busy -- she rubs fingertips pinpricked
by years of stitching, cooling their crookedness
on the bones of keys stroked like holy relics.
The notes pattern silence into a golden cage
from which she flies every morning, f-tha, f-tha,
splayed against the dirty windowpanes
where orderlies find her, the sun pouring through
rusty bars, her hands still sending this music.
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Untitled Movement
by kevin R. johnson
To be
with you
(in the shadow
of a hidden abacus)
is a business of kissing
in silence with a mouth
full of words (the tongue is a
langauge) of untangling clothes
from memories of sheets, (eyes the
imperfect mirrors) of ages spent sculpting
flesh into memory (infinite curves, the hips,
the back) of faded fingerprints on
photographs stealing more
of our meat every time, but
we will never look (less
to forget) just slip in
more under clear
plastic & call it
even (all
for love)
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Familiar Streets
by Joshua Corey
Oak, I swear to God. I lived on Oak Street.
Maple, Maple too, and Willow and Pine.
On the new Oak Street there are just saplings
In the sidewalk, stripped bare and scarred
By the lash of autumn, a cold wind from
Canada. (Toronto Street. There is no
Toronto Street. No New York Avenue.
No Rue de la San Francisco.) Do you
Remember the old Oak? Is the veil made
Of penetrable stuff? Then: Halloween.
Stunned by Daylight Savings, the little kids
Straggled from house to house dressed like zombies
In the near black of six o' clock. No ghosts
At that hour, but later, while the zombies slept,
The moon rose and shone on the grid of hills
And gravel valleys--rusting jungle gyms,
Swing sets groaning in the wind, and dust devils
Skittering across the schoolyard (dust: any
Old matter: barn, dried blood, a spray of stones.)
The dead leaves were crusted with silver, like
Tissues discarded by angels, and the
Dead grass ran yellow in the wind like a fire.
From my window I saw, and imagined you
Alive and lost, walking barefoot into
November, blue nightgown flapping around
Your ankles, having gained a witch's hour
In the change of time to walk and brood
In the old neighborhood where you became
A mother. You walked backwards, cramming me
Back into an egg--strode through your marriage,
Stepped over your old job with the government,
Past your Brooklyn childhood--all the way back
To the resettlement camp in the Berlin
Suburbs--to the day your father, twenty-six,
Hustled home to the tiny flat with a
Carton of cigarettes under his arm
From the football game and exclaimed, "Tomorrow
We are leaving for America!" in
Perfect Yiddish. In the subsequent rack
Of joy, you crept unnoticed to the yard
Below, where the German autumn was in
Full swing and the other children were shouting
"America! America!" America
Is the boulevard intersecting streets
Named after General Eisenhower
And President Roosevelt, shooting straight
As an arrow towards the Aleksanderplatz.
You don't know America. You don't know
Your Brooklyn stepmother, your abortion, your
Summer of love, or me. You are a child
In a white dress turning slowly on your heel
Like the ghost of a planet revolving
Into cosmic dust. You run upstairs past your
Parents, making love, to the flat of Frau
Herschel--she lost six children and would welcome
A seventh, you're certain. You knock on the door
And wait, a bullet of hope in your heart.
Please, you pray, take me in. Take me away.
Take me home. But home
is the cratered
Esplanade in Budapest. Home is the
European streets of Brooklyn. Home is
The Lincoln Tunnel and the road to Plainfield.
Home is an endless stretch of grass and oaks
And snow falling softly in the high fields
Of New Jersey. But when the door opens,
Finally, you forget all of this. You see
Only dark eyes. Can l stay with you? Yes.
It's November, and it's cold. Stay. Please, stay.
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Seascape
by Cedelas Hall
With the strength
of the moon
pulling tides
to the seashore,
I long to pull
you to me,
let you wash over me,
warm, foamy,
salty seawater.
But I lack the strength
of the moon.
Your love is not
free flowing like the tide.
More like the sand...
stiff, slow moving
withholding
gritty comfort.
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More Shades
by Robert Menuet
Shrove Tuesday
Subjects raise up greedy cries
for plastic girl and boyment;
a rain will come.
Lent
It's purple shrouds again,
and clappers;
He'll ransom captive Israel.
Ash Wednesday
Mumbling priest smudges
wrinkled faces
wearing the weight of palm cinders.
Palm Sunday
Last year's fronds lie still in cars,
brown,
forgotten like the One they honored.
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It Was You
by Patrice Elizabeth Natteel
murdered February, 1996
age 16
Perhaps if we weren't far apart
I could follow desire that burns in my heart
I meant to say, "I love you,"
But said "Good-bye." I hung up;
You couldn't hear me cry.
I wanted to tell you
What you meant to me
Instead I let love die
and friendship be.
I tried to convince myself
It was best,
But my love,
Just wouldn't rest.
I wish I were here
to see you once more,
To tell you it was you
that I adored.
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Twin Sky Studios
by Duane K. Williams
The soft color of butter melts onto canvas.
Some days I squeeze out the orange of citrus sadness.
My wrinkled tubes give birth to worms of color.
The slime of pasty paint makes the sky through my eyes
more tangible; a cotton candy grasp into the stickiness of clouds.
Finger painting the facade of this silver city,
my tin hands are callous and mechanical.
Underneath my fingernails the compact grittiness feels suffocating.
Makes me want to clean myself of this town.
Sweat sells; I'm the working inertia of a speeding rock.
Sometimes I try to talk it out of shattering
the targeted mirror. I wish there was a less damaging way to break through.
The animated shadow's grey glide becomes still.....
her silhouette a fixed pattern on the beige wall.
My auburn-haired lover showers in the morning light of the
naked studio window. As she peers down over the forty-eighth story view,
the tips of her peach nipples press against the frigid glass.
C H I L L S, like telephone lines of a current in motion running
throughout her electrical emotions are calling, waking every nerve
sleeping in the textured curves of her supple city.
"What do you see?" I say,
"I see rooftops and smoke pipes, a messy maze of fast forward
ant-like lights," she rhythmically replies.
Her baby lotioned body embracing me is a blanket of silent warmth.
White feelings dive into pinkish hues when a heated breath mixes
and mingles with lipstick rouge, when milky skin of her cheeks
blush from caressing her into a smiling mood.
In these moments I forget the cold, steel jaws of the city below us.
Unfinished paintings wait around the spacious studio.
The pregnant tubes of varied color birth are scattered among
gallons of paint cans dripping prismed rays;
from the brown tones of my skin, to the sun reflecting brightness of chrome.
The morning movement of coughing cars breaks the purity of our
healthy silence like the scuttle-butting of rainbow brushes
muddle-puddling the clearness of turpentine.
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I wear white to your funeral
by Christine Trimbo
I wear white to your funeral
something satin like the cream lining your coffin
lying smooth and cold against your starched arms.
I waltz through black dress women,
a dancing debutante whose coming-out-party
came and went.
The white-collared priest whirls me
past a row of three somber women,
legs crossed tight,
a neat line of mourning chorus dancers.
They have earned the right to wear black.
Their cries rise above the drone of whimpers
resurrecting the ghost of your living limbs.
I luminate the pale light of an arctic sun
casting a shadow,
cooling your body,
a shade to stain your blanched face soot.
I wear my white alone.
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THE POETS OF DESIRE STREET
Joshua Corey
Cedelas Hall is from Brookhaven, Mississippi. Her chapbook
Before They Paved the Road recounts her experiences in that state.
A writer/actress, she appeared as "M'Lynn" in "Steel Magnolias" at
LePetit Theatre du Vieux Carre.
Kevin Johnson, Piscean, enjoys Tequila under the stars and
writes about the physiology of nothingness.
Barbara Lamont writes about fear.
Athena O. Kildegaard is a freelancer writer and mother and
makes time between for writing poetry.
Robert Menuet is a psychotherapist, marital therapist, and
clinical supervisor. He is a former social planner.
Ray McNiece
Patrice Elizabeth Natteel was a student.
Christine Trimbo lives in a house that once neighbored Degas'
house. She has two bicycles but no cats.
Duane K. Williams is a 21 year old artist from New Orleans.
Besides creating colorful images on canvas, he enjoys caressing
kitty-cats and beating on drums; he is most inspired when soaked
in a musical sanctuary of candle-lit ambience.
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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.
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 background, 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.
Beginning in 1995, The New Orleans Poetry Forum has
published 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, All poems presented at Forum meetings may be
published in their original form unless permisssion is specifically
withheld by the poet. Revisions are accepted until the publication
deadline of Desire Street. Publication is in both message and file
formats in various locations in cyberspace.
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.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Desire Street, March,1996 Copyright 1996, The New Orleans
Poetry Forum. 10 poems for March, 1996. Message format: 14
messages for March, 1996. 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.
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