HE, LEO (LEW WELCH) ~

 

R E A D    M E

Oregon State University Press

2023

MAW SHEIN WIN ~

A bed with softer animals



It is raining.
It is Tuesday night.
There are 36 steps up to Alan's apartment on the East Sde.
A bed with softer animals.
A Doberman Pinscher walks into a 7-11 and buys a carton of milk.
I notice these things.

Rain waters the buildings and they grow and grow.
Makes thieves work harder.
Softens mountains.
Ruins sandwiches.

Some paintings make me cry.
I Like Crying.
Gunsmoke was a good show to cry to
Also, the Waltons' Christmas Special.

Alan is reading about cannibals in New Guinea.
The cannibals average at five feet tall.
They roast their dead for 30 days then bury them in the jungle.
Alan told me it rains more in the jungle, but I knew that already.

What I don't know is how lightning feels on the body.
Or what makes a glowworm glow.
Or why the neighbor keeps knocking his head against the wall.


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M A Y     S H I E N     W I N

from Cross-Strokes
Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco
edited by Neeli Cherkovski and Bill Mohr
Otis Books 
The Graduate Writing program
Otis College of Art and Design
2015

photo ~ female glow worm



 

EMERALD POEM ~

L E N O R E    K A N D E L

Emerald Poem



there reaches a point without words
       safe    a point deep within the emerald
       seabright washes over eyes and tongue

frozen the stonebirds fly soft among my fingers
their tiny beaks tapping snowflakes from my thumb
                the color of emeralds
the solid becomes the liquid and I the greenbreather
I am at home among the nebulae
           in the heart of the emerald
       safe    a point without words
one is one and I the green breather
            I the gill singer
oh the liquid green flowers that the small birds carry!
       they fade to lavender
            on my tongue
       they fade to lavender on my eyes
oh the stars that devour me in the heart of the emerald
       safe    in the flowers of the emerald
       safe    at the point without words


________________________


L E N O R E     K A N D E L

from Cross-Strokes
Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco
edited by Neeli Cherkovski and Bill Mohr
Otis Books 
Seismicity Editions
The Graduate Writing program
Otis College of Art and Design
2015

ARAM SAROYAN~

Aram and Gailyn Saroyan, St. Mark's Church, 1969

 Photo by Jayne Nodland

Friendly Persuasion




The body and the mind
Have a talk together

And the mind convinces the body
To go out with it on a date.

Soon afterwards
The mind calls the body up on the telephone

And says,
"Why don't you drop by?"

"When?" the body asks.
"How 'bout this afternoon."

In no time at all the mind and the body
Are doing steady.

Then they get married.
For a while they are very poor

And sometimes they have to go and stay at the body's folks' place
And then they have to stay at the mind's folks' place.

Neither one is a very good place to stay
They decide

And almost immediately they have a child.


________________________

A R A M     S A R O Y A N


from Cross-Strokes
Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco
edited by Neeli Cherkovski and Bill Mohr
Otis Books 
Seismicity Editions
The Graduate Writing program
Otis College of Art and Design
2015