Sonnet-by Quinn Tyler Jackson

My sonnets are not free, they come at worth,
And pain and tears complete each iamb's beat,
And though from blood is poured each verse's mete,
What mark is put upon my stanza's birth?
Called by my rhyming heart to fill the dearth
With something that from nothing is to beat,
So golden coins keep falling at my feet,
And I ignore gold gaudy Caesar's girth.
I am the Barbarian Fiend of Words,
At temple and empire gates come crashing,
With a purposeful, flowing circumspect
My only shield, and ravens as the birds
To carry my words as they come chanting,
But always the Price is paid by introspect.

ZERO POWER! by Dr. Greg A. Grove

If Zero could talk, what would he say
   In our age of ERA?
Would he tolerate the label "aught"
   Or would he think he ought not?

So this day we'll take time out
   To hear the gent sing and shout
We'll let him set the record straight
   With a parley, not in debate.

"Tell the world I'm important, I'm me!
   I represent eternity
I symbolize unity, love, and much more
   If I were 'nothing,' I'd be such a bore!

I may not be straight like 1 or as thin
   My feet aren't large as 2's are to him
But I've a spine, as you can see,
   So there, mystical Mister 3!

Personality's not pointed like 4 or 7
   I'm definitely not a schizoid 11
Neither heady like 9 nor hearty like 6
   Or psychotic like 5 (who's 6 in disguise).

So the next time you want to discount me
   Look much closer and you will see
I'm important, I'm perfect, as any number can be!"

Whittled to Nothing-by Quinn Tyler Jackson

The poet boy who steadfastly refused Best
to become a dead cliché became one not talk
anyway, and although he fought of unique or
with hot fisted fury against the of sui generis
banality of his own voice, when all we really
slowly his unique ways have is this and we
gave way to everyday cannot be certain of
nothingness and he something special coming
was not unlike ten from the pen or mind of this
hundred hundred insipid repeat, so do not be
thousand scores claiming or praising this one
of starving men until something comes that
who made their shocks the senses and brings
bread by verse down our post-modern fence
and meter in defenses with a thundering thud
chapbooks and a hollering hallelujah the first
sold in the moment our eyes takes in the word
bookstore and our concentration breaks at
and put the very sight of what he has to say
on old to us, no matter how eager we may be
dusty for something new and never before
racks said, or we may find this new voice is
with no newer than any other voice and we
the will look the consummate asses for having
rest. praised another dead poet boy cliché.

Buckstop Orange- by Elliot Siemon

Beauty of beasts nibbling on my lawn,
eerie,
tan,
silent...
young bucks with fuzzy antlers
and dignified doe,
gather around the old apple tree,
yummy green apples...
fawns, dainty and carefree frolic,
testing boundaries of parental anxiety,
the sound of hoofs in the yard at night,
the hoof marks in the dirt and,
in winter, in the snow,
the frosty blanket, barely marred,
except...  a large, bright orange spot...
where one relieved itself.

Paper #1-by Elliot Siemon   

Come, let us mock the mock heroic style of Robert Burns.
What is life without the humor and mirth of some mockery?
 

Burns, Burns a simple man for such diversity,
‘tis why we sit here and study him in the University:

 To a Mouse, To a Louse, exalt them all.
Holy Willie's Prayer, let us have a brawl.
 Of the heroic, Tam O' Shanter is a little bare,
but quite much mirth if we dare.

 Poking fun for quite a serious effect
he delivers his message never by neglect.
 For serious thought, and much draft,
have gone into refining his winsome craft.

 ‘Tis the pith of sense, and the pride o' worth,
that gives such exalted words their birth.
 For woven into supple verse, he has...
golden threads of haute class.

 His celestial thought and words of life
have made it to us through history's strife,
 To exalt a louse, Below the fatt'rels snug and tight,
for immortal status an' two hundred years of poetic might,
 made a mirror of our soul, so much fuss,
for a louse to see ousels as others see us!

 Though Truly sorry man's dominion
has wrecked the nest of some poor rodent's opinion.
 Deep in heart wrung tears he has us, warm
and flowing sweet Aften on some green summer morn.
 An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
for it leaves the little beastie in the cauld rain.

 The Love of life as low as a louse,
giving life to Love as frisky as a mouse.
 to have us ponder Love and A Red, Red Rose
as well as tiny critters and where Tam o' Shanter goes,
 taunted by Cutty-sark and such hellish fare,
so we can reflect on his stupor and tail-less mare.

 A guide a buckler, an example to thy flock,
Holly Willie prayed as if wrapped in a frock.
 Flashed wi' fleshy lust. . . . Meg- thy pardon I sincerely beg,
for seeing not irony he prays, An I'll ne'er lift a lawless leg.

 For it ‘twas a time fashionable to believe,
one's fate is sealed and to much relief,
 that while most - though try they may,
they'll never go to hell, no matter what they do or say.

 With the world truly seen as a stage,
predetermined fate was all the rage.
 A leading part is mine!  No one conceived at all,
that hell would ever be their doom, or call.

 ‘Twas rural life at the cusp of the industr'l rev'lut'n,
a night in the tavern or pub was life's solution.
 To sing through the night with friends of the trade,
far from cities and theater, entertainment was self made.

 So, songs of Burns, six hundred collected and scribed
for all to sing, some stout ‘tis all we need... bribed.
 A tankard or two, or three, or four,
sing, and sing, and sing for one more...!

 And though the world may be yet young in age,
with many generations poised to take the stage;
 whenever an apocalypse causes the end of time,
you'll surely find someone, some where, singing...
 Auld Lang Syne.

STAY TUNED...-by Elliot Siemon

This is a letter to editor of The Sciences (a highly recommended cerebral rag, for the so inclined) commenting on the article On Close Inspection, about the size of the time space continuum.

Little could we have guessed
 what the question would be,
But things have to be
 both time and matter,
And betwixt the two, a boundary,
 like air and sea,
The question whether its
 waves, foam or tatter.

Then enter the quaint question
 of string theory,
With it's connotation of being
 the fabric of life:
The time/space continuum
 may be a wrinkled query,
And the Plank length for physicists,
 a matter of strife.

So enter Ng-van Dam
 and a larger figure,
And Amelino-Camelia,
 with a longer one still,
And the LIGO detector to define
 the most obscure,
Gravitation wave frequency
 to fill the bill.

All this dedication and
 resources to find,
The time/space variance,
 and cliff to hang,
A cliff hanger of
 an infinitesimal kind,
All to define the size
 of the Ying and Yang.

(ps; which, like all yings and yangs, they may find varies considerably)

Young Woman:

Must I wake, endure this day,
Of menial tasks and meagre pay,
I’ve dreams to live and passion too,
No time to tarry in this zoo…

Why can’t I simply live and love,
As do the deer and pearly dove,
But deer you too it seems must wait,
And your pounding heart placate,
Another prisoner wild and caged,
By death released when weak and aged…

…and Father preaches ‘trust no man’,
And mother wields a heavy hand,
And Granny chews her soggy bread…
I’m sick of shoulders and old heads! 

Middle-age:

But father had a valid case-
If not a lot of verbal grace,
Still merrily this life goes round,
And footprints deepen in the ground…

The cage I once conceived in youth,
Had neither substance real nor truth,
I played the game of boys and men,
Signed thrice the contract with my pen…

But Spring has changed its vibrant song,
With shadows grown both dark and long,
Exchanging husbands as I wish,
No longer brings the stately fish,
This rose once red as ruby ink,
Blanched to a somewhat sob’rer pink…
 

Advanced in Years:

The Summer’s past, old Autumn too,
But ever shall I covet you,
Though winter’s icy fingers claw,
This flesh by far too old to thaw…

My skin no longer soft nor smooth,
Is cracked with ever deep’ning grooves
Like chiselled beds of chalky rust,
Where flows the past in clouds of dust…

How young I once entranced the crowd,
With sumptuous thighs and breasts endowed,
Now fallen as the yellowed leaves,
Time neither pities, halts nor grieves,
Nor can we hope to hold it back,
From tinting all our roses black…

Cataract carotid catastrophe on a
river of the Nile apostrophe while I
rip the riptide of hyperbole
into endless endings of lobotomies
and pictograph dichotomies and
hyper cubed hypotheses near
the apotheosis and symbiosis
under ontological heretical
alphabetical reverse ancillary
incendiary apocalypses.

Ten through tendril inkwell
treadmill decimated, constipated
atrocities of inner cities and
Irish ditties as Queens and Kings
dub laureate knights in bright
stained restraint of satin cotton
batten and tesseracts flatten.

Look down me, through me, around me
introspect fully wooly careen
pulley, but don't bully me fully with
my own frantic semantic folly.

Cat ass trophy of tea, weary.