Tuesday, June 14, 2005

VYPER and Wiley Coyote

VYPER, the new teenzine of poetry and art from Rattlesnake Press, is looking for poems and art from kids 13-19. Send us something by this Thursday, June 16. Kaitlyn Sinclair from Oregon sent us this gem:

WE WATCH
—Kaitlyn Sinclair, Eagle Point, OR

The Wiley coyote
around the canyon
his motorized legs
hot on the sound of
MEEP MEEP!

But what’s wrong this time?
He cycles the air for a few seconds,
looks around dramatically
and splats on the rock
just inches from the river.

Stars orbit his head,
but sure enough the nest scene
he’s back at it with a bucket of black paint
and some railroad tracks.
Too late---

We already know what happens yet still we watch in anticipation
at each falling anvil, each stick of TNT.

We watch his hopeless tiptoe and pathetic grin
with the question in the back of our minds:

What if Wiley coyote caught the roadrunner?
What if he lit the right end of the fuse?

________________________

The new Rattlesnake Reviews are out; contributors' copies and subscriptions will be out by the end of the week. If you just can't wait :-) go down to The Book Collector, or meet me at the Urban Voices Poetry Series tomorrow (South Natomas Library), 7pm, Donald Sydney-Fryer.

Medusa