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Sep '03 [Home]    Degree 365—Year One of 9/11:  Sep '02 12 (Photo Source: NASA) Pied Piper Paul McGlynn Perseus and the Lime Trees Catherynne M. Valente Grief Duties Claire Moroney Washington Nachtmusik Wil Hallgren Landscape and Being Iain Britton Bad Things Happen Near an Equinox An Abundance of Material Must Be Shaped and Pondered Daniel Gallik The Rights of Man Nicholas Johnson ~ . ~ . ~ Pied Piper Paul McGlynn He leads your children away singing, Takes us all away. Something's happening, I know, Been happening. I never noticed, Till the priest showed up, cleared his throat. Incense and formaldehyde. Six pallbearers, laughing, Shooting craps outside St. Leo's. Come on to Papa, Jesus, Let it be eight. Save your soul, Or find a quarter between the cushions. The children leave. No one sees them. I look in the mirror And I see my father's ghost, My mother's haggard eyes in mine. I used to be a kid, play ball, play tag; Can't find that kid anywhere. The priest talks about eternity. Young girl waves bubbles from a wand, Little brother watches popeyed. Then they follow the stranger out of sight. ~ . ~ Perseus and the Lime Trees Catherynne M. Valente The U.S.S. Kitty Hawk and elements of her battle group were deployed January 20, 2003 on exercises off Iwo Jima. It is not clear whether they will be directed to the Persian Gulf at the conclusion of those exercises. Under lime trees bearing their green fruit like leering babies I stand in Persean sandals and a ridiculously red dress, watching the grey-haired sea laugh as it swallows you whole. My face breaks open along poles and meridians— I have no bones— the sun drives a howl of wind through my womb. The lime leaves slice my throat, a thousand tiny crescent-cuts— my voice dyed black as a gun barrel I fire my choked 5 inch cries over the breakers. Bronze shells clatter at my ragged feet. What grinning earth can my pretty gold sandals touch that will not be washed by waves flaunting their foam like summer whites? Where can I escape the taste of your absence like old batteries? Under lime leaves like a salmon net I stand in a cap of darkness and silver earrings, clenching my body tight against thudding sea-boots whose ice-blue heels scald my breasts. You are gone and every coffee-and-fried-egg morning. The sea shrugs and is satisfied. ~ . ~ Grief Duties Claire Moroney Faux leather 'cause the meat is diseased. Outside, the breeze barely lifts the smell of rotting hides. The leather factory that has been eaten by its own acids inside rows of blackened shoes of multilevel heights washed down in acids to achieve a quick softness disregarding the small enjoyment of the wearing and breaking of the skin. Store door swing shut and random raindrops mist the window front. The air current cuts off as the clerk guards the walkway until the sale is through. Entombed, I select shoes of dark European fashion to walk her down in the procession then to bring back home and wear in nightlife gothic style without meaning—too. Whether it's the drunkenness of the previous hours of trying to still the unexpected null or the chill of her shadow shopping with us I sweat and gasp. Others ignore us as I grasp the door swing outside she follows in silence. The church, empty at the top of the hill, visible from every corner of the Irish Square greets me and she files past blurring the gray street into buildings and sky. Floral wreaths atop the ground too pretty to be thrown under the need to be practical in the choosing emerges as though we would use them more than once. As people pass, the color comes back The sky reflects the emerald space which surely surpasses death's pallor I chose black wedge clogs for the hearse. ~ . ~ Washington Nachtmusik (Around midnight July 4, 2003) Wil Hallgren 1) John Ashcroft relaxes with a covered statue #1 What if her veil should fall? She's just a statue after all. 2) The incredible shrinking Condoleezza Rice I have lain in the crux of his ear and folded it over me like a comforter. The only National Security Advisor ever to wear such pretty shoes and look so good in a mid-thigh skirt, I have seen slavering Southern and Mid-Western Senators of various renown stumble over my title. The only woman in the room, a cuttlefish among Intelligence hands, a clanging yet echoless voice, I, too, have had the Bible Study Showdown, the moments clear, crisp and certain locked in eternal dichotomy. Only now I seem to whisper, out-elbowed by the old boys and cradled under the father's hand. Oh where are you going my little one. Oh where are you going my dear. Oh where are you going my little one, your troubles lie far and near. 3) John Ashcroft relaxes with a covered statue #2 I pass, a hand or button trailing … An accident, not a moral failing. 4) Colin Powell's metronome Floor-wall … glove. Floor-wall … glove. Floor-wall … glove. (pause) The stunning regularity of McQueen in the sweat box, six reps per minute, sixty minutes per hour, twenty-four hours per day, and fourteen hundred sixty-one days in a four-year term. At the end of each third rep there is time to think, to mull, to plan, and there is the rhythm as time comes round again. Floor-wall … glove. Floor-wall … glove. Floor-wall … glove. (pause) Only somewhere near five million more … Floor-wall … glove. Floor-wall … glove. Floor-wall … glove. (pause) 5) John Ashcroft relaxes with a covered statue #3 If a holy man gave in to sin with no one there to see him… 6) Tom Ridge dreams of Uncle Billy going to the bank Tie a string around my finger. Why? Oh yes, of course, of course. A horse. A dark horse and horsemen. Tut, Tut, it looks like rain. Polyethylene and duct tape. No, no not again. From Wobbleton to Wibbleton is fifteen miles. Down the rabbit hole and who the hell is under my bed? It's Tony Blair. Now there's a good boy — deserves fine. Yes, he does. Fines? Fines for what? Fines for something that shouldn't be done. Memo to John, John will know. Brother John. Sleeping. Sleeping Bill. Clinton? No, not Clinton. Never William Clinton, not in my dreams. Bill … Bill of Rights. Number two has got to go. No guns running around for Tom Ridge but Dick, John and George won't go for that. Some Freedom of Religion … or Freedom of some Religions, that's okay I think. Turn the other cheek and all that. Turn cheeks. Ben Doon and Phil Mc'Cr.… Oh, oh, don't go there, not in mixed company. All company's mixed these days and … Eureka! Dammit George, that's it. I've got it now, by golly. We can put the fix in. Tie a string around my finger. Gimme power boy and I'll outlaw me some things. Keep 'em clear, clean, and all the same. It's just what John wants, George, ain't it? 7) John Ashcroft relaxes with a covered statue #4 A marble hand is smooth and cool. To fear its touch is to be a fool. ~ . ~ Landscape and Being Iain Britton What is it makes me want to hop into someone else's landscape and not be content with what I've already got? Why is it I have to go and jump the fence push through a door break a window to get my fill of somebody's beauty or lack of it? How come I have to be like the rest and impose myself on abstract natures or the picture postcard simplicities of others whose lives I don't know don't want to know and yet I do? Look at me in that frame standing between the flat featureless plain burned brown by a summer drought and that solitary power pole splitting the picture in two. It must be midday my shadow's a thalidomide shape stunted at my feet. My eyes stare outwards a frown darkens my face obliterates the expression that softens my age. There are hills in the distance rolled out like bread and a column of smoke rising from a gully. How puny's my permanence on this landscape. It's not even mine and yet I stand in the vast emptiness of someone else's making and no matter what I can't be removed can't be budged will never be even when I walk leave the room leave myself trapped in another's stare and go out and kiss the sun and moon goodbye. ~ . ~ Bad Things Happen Near an Equinox Daniel Gallik "This tenor was large and fresh as the orbic flex of his mouth. It poured forth large bits of sound. He was black, well, at least, he did look the color." All the hate of a fat, pale man sang into the gutters of his second floor roof. His wife pretended to gaze at Uranus. Flies hung that summer near every window. The town's grand opera that season played a woman's heart's complaint. The fat man added, "And we call this being." Death came to his garage in August; his Ford. ~ . An Abundance of Material Must Be Shaped and Pondered Daniel Gallik This dupe says the search for meaning is an irreligious search and his wife adds that irreligion is a response to the dual reality of having to die and paying the bills. Their two children sit watching the tube eating kumquats. A religious animal knocks at the door. He errs because he first asks for $, and then, chats about the Father and how there is order in all things. He is wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie, tied wrongly. Mortals hate mortals who talk of God. Dupes talk too much. Wives add way too much. Kids watch too much tv too much and yack too much about stuff they do not watch. And words, well, words mean… too much; are just composed of letters. ~ . ~ The Rights of Man Nicholas Johnson       after Magritte I'm just a man on a pedestal, more like the idea of a man, looking out over the promenade at the bric-a-brac of the sea, smug as the harbor. I resemble the lamp post, a light house that warns of accidents, an accident myself perhaps, but proud of my views. Because my head is a cannon, I can shoot off my mouth. My right: my glass full of water will always be full. Arbitrarily, I hold up a leaf in one hand as a green index of consistency. The French horn in flame at my feet plays The Liberty Waltz, a few bars I know by heart. Like the idea of The Just World, a hypothesis, as constant as leaves taking their turn. Here the sea breeze rises with the drum roll of clouds—only a red cape on my shoulders wards off the chill of liberty. ~ . ~ . ~ Paul McGlynn's work has appeared widely—and frequently in 12. He lives in Michigan. Originally from Seattle, Catherynne M. Valente is currently on hiatus from her master's program (Comp. Lit.), living in central Japan and working on a book on Greek drama and her third novel. A specialist in Homeric literature and Greek linguistics, she recently presented at the World Conference for the Humanities in Greece. Her poetry or fiction has appeared in Approaching El Dorado, a California anthology, the Pomona Valley Review, and Poetic Injustice. This is her first appearance on the magazine. Claire Moroney lives in Massachusetts. This is her first appearance on the magazine. Wil Hallgren's work appeared on the first in the magazine's "Degrees of Apprenticeship" MFA series in Dec '00. He lives in Brooklyn. Iain Britton's poetry has appeared in Takahe, Poetry NZ, JAAM, Spin (NZ), Manifold, Links, Iota, Orbis (UK), Slope 16, The Drunken Boat, Conspire (USA) and recently John Tranter's Jacket 22 (AUS). Poems are forthcoming in Tinfish, Free Verse (USA) and Carillon (UK). He lives in New Zealand. This is his first appearance on the magazine. Daniel Gallik's poetry and fiction have appeared in A.I.M.(Americašs Intercultural Magazine), Parabola, Nimrod, Limestone (Univ. of Ken.), the Hiram Poetry Review, Aura (Univ. of Ala.), and Whiskey Island (Cleveland State Univ.). He lives in Ohio. This is his first appearance on the magazine. Nicholas Johnson is the magazine's Senior Poetry Editor.