by Helene Swarts

Heat languishes, tired of teasing
strength from stone.
Huge birds tear at the heart of memory;
every headline a crucible,
every gargoyle mute, open-mouthed,
tongues thick as plaster.

There is no line of demarcation.
This hour has been a long time coming.
Soldiers step everywhere and nowhere;
breath and feet rising and falling.

by Helene Swarts

My dreams are burning
like cartoons on fire the characters
run through the frames abandoning form
calling out to me to leap
before I look

by David McCann

Hours, it seemed, motorcycle
riding through Korea’s countryside,
first time I ever spoke
Korean in a dream.
“Going South.  Know how to reach Seoul?”
Rural mob close.  I was north.

It never occurred to me
in a dream to imagine
on a motorcycle making my way
through the North, my Kyôngsang
dialect would be off-putting.
What did they do when I vanished?

by David McCann

“So C me,” he’d call to Judge Moon
As he tried once again to tune
His Greene Stradivarius,
A truly hilarious
Knock-off by Bobby Muldoon.

It wasn’t the wood that was bad,
But the strings?  At least he felt glad
They ran all the way
From — What did he say? —
The bridge of his nose to E–Gad.