Archive for February, 2009
Poetry: “Romance Language” by Maryann Corbett
At first, when sounds were shifting,
(although the moves were noiseless)
by unresisted drifting
we voiced what should be voiceless
and though your moves were noiseless,
still I was moved, the cause
your voice. No longer voiceless,
we broke the ancient laws,
moved by a modern cause
to mock a classic notion.
We broke the ancient laws
and set the tongues in motion,
but mock a classic notion
(grim are the laws of change)
and tongues, once set in motion,
can let the words grow strange.
Grim are the laws of change:
the syllables, unstrung,
have let the words grow strange
so now a vulgar tongue,
its syllables unstrung,
leaves endings unresolved.
We speak a vulgar tongue.
Its case cannot not be solved
by endings. Unresolved,
the lips, the cheeks grow hollow.
Their case cannot be solved.
Their logic does not follow.
The lips and cheeks grow hollow
at last, and sounds are shifting.
We let the logic follow
its unresisted drifting.
Sneak Preview: “Appreciation in G-Major” by John Hart
This week’s Winter 2009 sneak preview: “Appreciation in G-Major,” a poem by John Hart.
Non-Fiction: “Army Math: Bringing it all Back Home” by Sam Mills
“I see a black light.” – Composer Joseph Haydn’s last words – and he had never seen a lava lamp.
Word went around Madison that summer of 1970 that something “heavy” was “coming down.” Already, the New Year’s Gang, a local terror cell of SDS Weather Underground, had bombed both locations of campus ROTC and the power plant that supplied Badger Ordnance – makers of napalm – on the outskirts of town. On New Year’s Eve, they had bombed – from the air symbolically in a stolen plane – the bomb plant itself – and had even – in an attempt to firebomb Selective Service – bombed UW’s famed Primate Lab by mistake. The Kent State shootings were barely three months old; the new National Anthem was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Ohio.” Little wonder that by August, talk of all-out revolution was in the air. (more…)
Sneak Preview: “Breakfast at the All-Nude Revue” by Ingrid Satelmajer
Our Winter 2009 page now has a great humorous short story, one of three that’ll be appearing in our upcoming issue.
