Desire Street September, 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 (16 Messages for September, 1995) --------------------------------- Adam by Kerry Poree every man should in principle name his son Adam and be to him the ready ear and the sovereign hand --------------------------- Breathing by Christine Trimbo Forget about clocks. I've seen such pinched faces and their tiny hands leave no evidence on the cherrywood. Days spread quite easily into night, an arched back cat, curving around a chair leg. Time is for those who wait, wanting. I might drown in the sundown before morning leaves me gasping, a breath one breath. ----------------------------------------- Double Vision VI Loss by Bonnie Crumly-Fastring I Wolf's pup is out out of her mother's den seduced by another. Wolf whines licks the empty paw prints, worries anxiously with her teeth the tiny tufts of hair left in the den. She wants to pounce to tear the limbs off this intruder to rip gashes down an unguarded shoulder to pull her daughter back but she's afraid. She doesn't know whose blood will be on her paws. II. This is my body. Eat this bread. The living seed ground into a fine white powder. Take this bread into my body. Let the yeast rise, stretch, until I let these bodies go. My daughter's body stands a room away from me. One hand covers the bone between her breasts. Crow's breast, my mother told me, flying down from generation to generation. The other hand holds on to the doorknob, as she reassures me she loves me, she isn't really going to leave. My own body whispers "fifty" behind dark glasses that shield me from the awful light rays, Cold lasers slow down corneal tissue erosion, but nothing erases the empty skin of my lover's touch. And my mother. "Don't stay," they said, "the undertakers are coming," but I had just arrived, just felt her hand, warm, could not walk off from her body so quickly. So I stayed outside the door, until they brought the brown zippered bag out of the room. Eat this bread. It is my body. ----------------------------------------------------- World Class Fishing by Andrea Saunders Gereighty For piranha at San Leonardo deep in the Orinoco Rio basin with beef/huge chunks of blood red meat raw with bleeding The razors of the piranha snap Saw reeds, flesh, stilettoİstyle. Snarling fish growl their impatience Scarlet and green ibis fly overhead into the dust grey dusk Monkeys moan Caimen babies whimper like puppies to mother who slides thirty feet in five seconds into 27 feet of water. Hooked on the river Hooked on the sounds Hooked, I get a bite Look at my guide hold up the fish. Piranha, you are crying tears of blood I have to stop. Lay down the rod. --------------------------------------------- Hazel by kevin R. johnson So there's this girl I know, right? she don't wear underwear, and man, when she looks into my eyes, I swear, it's like my brain's all laid out - like a heart shaped bed, right? Get this - I'm talkin' bout weather patterns and chaos theory with some real bad-asses when she butts in with "the soul's an anarchist but the hands are fascist", what the fuck?, get this though, her voice was like Venus singin' The other day, man, hey you listenin?, I'm sayin you remember that really trippin' sunset- all polluted and gorgeous and shit?, that day she comes up while I'm meditating, right, and can you believe it - she says "as long as you remember the color of my eyes, i'll love you till the day before I die", what the fuck? I say "why till the day before you die?", she says "cause, since the first day of life is a public spectacle, I want my last to be private" Enuff is enuff so I get her alone and it's like, you know the fierce eloquence of butterflies, right, and man you won't believe what happened, she said- "open your eyes & I'll tell you what you've got inside, but first tell me what color are mine?", then she blind-folded me and kissed my stomach till I whispered the answer Damn, the bitch has turned me into a raggedy man, what? ... yeah, I'm one with or without her, yeah. Say, how bout you and me, we get some mad dog and write haiku under the new moon tonight - real quick tell me what you think: beasts tricked out anything, for love puppets.. naked.. disguised -------------------------------------------------- King Pierus Speaks to His Daughters by Athena O. Kildegaard King Pierus challenged the Muses to a singing contest with his nine daughters. When the daughters lost, Apollo changed them to magpies. I see you out there standing in the cypress like a hung jury waiting for the judge's note-- am I to be the writer?-- your tail feathers fluffed by a half-earth wind. Below you, on the grass, lie all that you have hoarded: muscadines from the lintel my tiny gold amulet foot your mother's burnished brooch the stylus from the metronome nine earthenware beads snipped from a lampshade knicks and knacks you've spied out here and there, treasures you chattered over for years. They're yours, keep them, idle comforts, hardly enough to make up. Help yourselves. So what can I say my pica-picas my noisy songstresses to make up for my pride? For whom is the punishment greater? For you, all nine flying (stanza break) King Pierus/Kildegaard with flags unfurled your phosphorescent feathers dropping rainbows? Or for me, who has to listen to your raspy queg queg queg where once you sang to make springs rise up the sun turn hallow-gold? I was wrong, that's plain. But listen, they are haughty, Zeus' daughters, not so easy to love. And I have seen your melodies follow them like shadows under a stubborn sun. They will come back to you, they will. -------------------------------------------------- Advanced Mathematics by Andrea Saunders Gereighty Your wet dream, age twelve an Andre Gide fantasy woman spread-eagle: alive, though wrists handcuffed. Free style, breast stroke: arms earthbound wings tied to stakes, mattress springs. Legs tethered in leather her body a perfect mathematical X the one variant, a real restraint Constricts constraints silk blindfold. My style? Astride, side by side or some position more akin to Y, the other unknown. ---------------------------------------------- Night by Kerry Poree There is poetry for night, when land and night turn to face each other and the press of their kiss is pressed upon the hearts of men, and the heart of man is pressed upon his breast bone and made tender, tender like fat hands that just won't callous, tender like old eyes, old eyes that know the night and the tenderness of night, when words return, darkened, and used. -------------------------------------------------------- Oneness Engine Low on Gas by kevin R. johnson Zen notwithstanding, I am empty as a poem without an O, like the place called nowhere, or like bombed-out cathedrals because a girl tripping on acid asked me: using the desert as a metaphor describe the flesh of love and I, just beginning to trip, said: mother, she drank, did smack, slept around she loved us, really she did, she filled our ears with "good for nothing, low-down, dirty scumbags" filled our nights with moans because the girl had exquisitely pierced nipples and tattoos that meant nothing to her, because given the opportunity, two people who don't want to feel dead, who are enamored with a place called breakage, will fuck because like the cabby, who eked out extra turns of the meter by letting me weep in his back seat or like anyone, whose parts summed equal something less than a whole, what else is there to do? --------------------------------------------------- She said "Yes" by Bob Rainer When our SoHo apartment seemed confining and the job offered the move to Anaheim, I volunteered to go knowing that she would come with me and bring over the boys from Sligo. I was not prepared for the tears and tribulations that accompanied her protest, but I had put my job on the line and felt we could make the best of it. She finally agreed to come out later and I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most forgiving word in the English language. Anaheim on St. Patrick's Day is the loneliest place in the world when, just two days before, You were planning to march up Fifth Avenue in a real parade. Goofy in a leprechaun suit is as Irish as gefilte fish, and made my eyes swell with self-pity. FantasyLand was a cruel reminder that my hopes and dreams were now just a fantasy, And TomorrowLand was all I had to live for until I called her from the motel lobby across Harbor Boulevard, and knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most inspiring word in the English language. She called me at work from Kennedy before her flight left to tell me when to pick her up at LAX. At best, she thinly disguised her wish that I would tell her to go back to the apartment in Manhattan, and, God knows, I wanted to but this trap/plan was too far gone to quit now and I made myself sound cheerful. I did not say: "Stay there and I will come back to you and we can live forever in the place I never should have left, and not have to spend Sundays at FrontierLand wishing we were at a ceili in Montauk." But I made myself sound cheerful, and told her it would be a nice vacation for her, and I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most patronizing word in the English language. She called me at work from LAX to say goodbye, that she would miss me As she spent the summer in Greece with Michael and Tara. She said the three months In California were like toothpicks in her eyes, that she would never brings out the boys from Sligo, and that if I ever wanted to see her again it would be in New York, Sligo, Dublin or Greece. I told her my lunch hour wasn't long enough. She told me she was taking the American Express card and I cried. I asked her if this was a really bad joke and she told me to fuck off and hung up the phone to board her plane back to New York, where the rent was Three months in the hole. In my mind's ear I could hear her response as she returned in a fantasy Cab and I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most elusive word in the English language. She called me at work from the little phone box in Drumfarnaughty and said that I should come for a visit so she could tell about the summer in Greece. She said Michael and Tara were lovely hosts and she had not had to put too much on the American Express card. Although I had sufficient reason to doubt her last statement, my mind reeled in crisis mode as I planned my getaway. Visions of becoming an indentured servant to TWA mixed with high-side hopes of operating the Guinness in a Galway prison for what was going to happen when I left Anaheim to go find happiness in the Connemara outback -- quite a stretch. As my mind pondered my dubious future it was packing for the journey. The trap/plan was reversed and I asked her if she would be there when I arrived, that it would take a few days and I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most compelling word in the English language. Driving the Renault out of Shannon was already an adventure as I tried to forget about the right side of the road. Many new changes were coming at me and, still, all I could look forward to was arriving at Drumfarnaughty. The map said I had to get into Ennis and head North to Galway, then take the lesser road through Tuam, Gorteen, Ballymote, and the ageless relics that I passed were shouting their history on deaf ears until I stopped to give a lift to the two plump sheep ranchers' daughters who asked me if I liked sheep more than cattle. I said nothing until I put them out in front of a country cottage the size of New Jersey, but they wished me well and told me to stop off for stew on my way back to America. Befuddled, I soon stopped to ask another young woman if I was on the road to Galway. She pointed to the sign above my head, and I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most motivating word in the English language. Having stopped underneath several more road signs to ask young women if I was on the road That the sign said I was on, I made much-interrupted progress but delayed, perhaps for reasons of masochistic self-depravation, for a few sweet hours my arrival at the cottage. The collie greeted me like we both spoke the same language, and the Russian heating oil in the exterior tank Promised me modern comfort from the ancient turf hearth. Massive udders swelled under the slow-moving Fresian cattle, smoke curled from just-high-enough chimneys, and Uncle Jack's twelve children came walking up from the cottage below, and I was inspected and interrogated, and given their blessing. She called from the cottage that if I hurried on in, I would be in time for supper. Afterwards, I was shown the huge slooping bed where we were to sleep, ALL of us. When she and Aunt Jane and Sister Kate and the boys and the collie and Miss Lillie from down the road and I settled in for the night, I whispered To her that it was good to be home, and she whispered back, and I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most beckoning word in the English language. So many lifetimes passed. New York was never colder, my life was never more alone, she was never more gone from me. The promises I kept for her were not strong enough to entrap us in life she would not have. We had made the best of Dublin and Youghal, and had chipped a piece off Blarney Castle, and we swam naked off Dingle Peninsula with fifty German bicyclists we never saw before or after, and it all meant nothing. Outside the Eagle Tavern, she came towards me in the dark, saying to her companion,"That's the man I warned you about. Take care he doesn't start something. Southerners are crazy, you know." I held my gaze at Fourteenth Street while he asked her if she was sure she wanted to go into the Eagle For the Seisiun. As she led him past me, I knew that an Irish woman saying "Yes" is the most traitorous word in the English language. ------------------------------------------------- Steel Guitar by Cedelas Hall Fear inside, strung tighter than a steel guitar. Pluck my strings. They sing a twangy song. Faithful as a St. Bernard. Would have stayed with one mate, mourned his death like the swan. Betrayed, life script shredded. New blank page set before me, ending unclear. Try to re-write with fits and starts. Discordant song plays. Country novice on a bad practice day. Hope the strings will hold me together. Broken strings are hard to repair, the music suffers. ------------------------------------------- Amplified obscenities by Robert Menuet After it was said of us, they kill their king, they eat their God, the Montagnards cut months into three, abolished weeks, condemned Sunday, suppressed worship, except new rites at Notre Dame renamed, incredibly, the Temple of Reason. Through Thermidor and beyond we children born before the Year I watched our National Razor chop and slice right and left heads of families, next of kin, whole towns, aristocrats, burghers, servants, Montagnards. Grown to manhood after the Terror I joined the Incroyables at the victims' balls; Sons of the decapitated, we promenaded through the Tuilleries talking baby talk, our marvelous women robed a la grecque, diaphanous drapes, red piping round their necks. In oversized collars, grotesque, we strolled seeming headless till we lisped: Ma pa'ole d'honneu', c'est inc'oyable! I look upon the Terror of this unchurched time, a place of amplified and broadcast obscenities: a new world order of drive-by shootings at the taco bell. With no Committee for Public Safety certified victims carry side arms to protect themselves from mortal enemies and school chums that demand their shoes. Parents pay for earrings and tattoos. One sees fine young cannibals, some with Attitude, and talking heads that sing of burning down the house, hears of pierced tongues and nipples, wives, husbands, children, body parts cut down, severed, eaten, or re-attached to jeers and cheers; Ma pa'ole d'honneu', c'est inc'oyable! We are outdone: they kill their God, they eat their young! THE POETS OF DESIRE STREET Bonnie Fastring is a poet and teacher from New Orleans. 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. Robert Menuet is a psychotherapist, marital therapist, and clinical supervisor. Previously he was a social planner. Kerry Poree is an electrician from New Orleans. 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, September, 1995, copyright 1995, The New Orleans Poetry Forum. 12 poems for September, 1995. Message format: 16 messages for September, 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.