by Amalio Madueñ

I
Two kitchen lemons fused by blue green fuzz;
I hold the perfect citrus skin of one least rotten.

A distant raven sways aside Cerro del Rincón
Doubled in my sharp blue window panes.

The clean sound of water, the highway traffic upslope,
The rim of Mesa Prieta fastens me though I move.

It’s for you, the champurrado with chocolate & maiz
And this the music promised by the season arrived.

The names fall from your tongue: “buñuelos, capirotada,
Canela, piloncillo, aniz, miel virgen.”

II
Bosque path, ice crunching underfoot in leaf wreck,
here are shriveled frozen hongos sheltered in dross,

I cup your curled caps & crusted crowns
that musk up even in my cold gloved hands,

your gnarl of black stem dried and coiled,
infatuate, seeks only moist dark ground.

The departed souls of all the grasses,
Weeds, herbs, & reeds — galaxies snuffed out,

fallen seeds, husks & sepals embrace
in dark humus, exhausted of their magic.

III
During the early years wisdom was scarce.
We wrote our poems about anything we could find:

sibyls, stones, cracks in time, the temple steps,
poor home alleys or a lover’s belly.

The madness in us came & went in cadence
timed to say and keep saying the world is mind.

We saw the change, the slow explosion that is man
the river’s ride on gravel shallows whispering myth,

When the heavy blows came to level our work
we went out again to make bricks out of mud.

by Barbara Siegel Carlson

Two o’clock on his way home.  Sun beats
down his neck, so he takes a different route.
A pigeon begins to gurgle
as though calling Franz, Franz,
your dinner is ready !  The voice sounds
like his old nurse who gave him oatmeal in bed and told him
the story of a man whose back was scarred
with a map of a city.  A building’s
on fire — the walls roar
into the sky.  For a moment a human figure ripples
at one of the windows
into a soundless plume.

by Gerd Stern

when you’ve got to go
it’s a pisser of a when
not just you won’t stay
can’t, that is, however
will you be going now
here, there, whenever
hit, rush, flash, on
suddenly, necessarily
given orders to comply
with balance of payments
for do not commandments

if ten are, were enough
making minyan concensus
for thou shalt not commit
instead of better not do
whatever good goes unpunished
close mouthed, open quoted
on poppa’s one  -way phone
and we can’t call you back
to heal undercover scars
careless love prohibitions
saved message folders
dialing artifactual remembrance
coincident synchronicity

forgot to forgotten
crossed lines, wires, ideas
direction beaming up stars
face opposite dark corners
cojunct intersected crossroads
as out of sight family icons

mindless, off the board, pawns
waiting impatiently for end game
to start over, to return reborn

by Gerd Stern

there was nothing to forgive
then murder impossible to forget
drove your express spirit beyond
this back beat of no time
like no – ow – now presence gone

remembering your cramped tears
homesick ready for return
stone buddy cool dude games
Gofer Topher an’ Rasta Granpa twogather
inhaled our drug o’choice
voicing synced to Stop The Violence
snorkeling o’er Poetreef coral heads

life’s quick if it’s not
where is it there you’re gone
to be scattered ashes on Tamalpaian peak
highbeam grin turned to us
from twenty one years of photolit
token keepsake images portending
immediate fatal finality

that shot too unexpected
to be true

* A local custom; checkin’ out the sunset from Bolinas Ridge
on Mount Tamalpais