Waiting On Edgar Allan Poe

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
 

“REMEMBER…”
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
proclaims the English Club poster, hawking
the deadline for submissions to a campus
lit-mag. Yes, V for Vendetta’s Guy Fawkes
mask’s just about the gear-speed of these young
culturally clued-in editors, alive to the sinister
leaps and lusts of mind in their green and gold time.

Must each tree be unleaving?
And is that Hugo Weaving?

When, oh when did too many Halloweens find
our Màrgarèts and our Goldengroves corroding
from within? When did our Skeletors, our Boris
Badunovs and Natashas, our Lex Luthors, turn
real evil, and us with them, internally,
“where the meanings are?”

Must peach trees learn unleaving?
What scheme is Hugo weaving?

Are ghouls’ cries merely grieving?

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

TOWARD THE SKY
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Waiting on
Edgar Allan Poe
by dunes and wistaria
near the shore's
impassive edge
your likeness
appears by the sighs
of a tomb
on mediums of the sun
from gossamer veils
if you might speak
of the currents
sailing on windy clouds
across an ocean's tide,
as out of breath,
your spirits jumbling
in veins of sands
with doubled glances
at the island ferry
trying to catch butterflies
both neon and red
with clenched hands
not doubting my wish
to capture only a daydream
from a lost nightmare.

—Photo by D.R. Wagner
 

INSOMNIAC POET
—B.Z. Niditch

After an Octoberfest beer
every object
set me on edge,
the lawyer
already had my will
when there is none,
the landlord
had my rent
when there was nothing
in the cookie jar,
the pawnbroker
already had my sax,
the grave digger
wanted to find
a poet's ashes,
science wanted my eyes
to point to
but that belongs to you
who after my translation
will read me.

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

OCTOBER INSPIRATION
—B.Z. Niditch

Out of human chaos
arresting time
on distant orange fields
from piled up pumpkins
once filed with soccer balls
it's rumored that ghosts
have secretly sprung up
from distant bodies
parting us
in suspended
bright stars
on the simulacrum
of a poet's universe
in an astrological chart
from traces
of outer space
as secret druid motives
in hidden attics
with the bottled alchemy
as this poet bobs for apples.

 Day of the Dead Display, SMUD

—Katy Brown, Davis

 

MEDUSA
—B.Z. Niditch

Your statue
rises from stone and fire
of our imagination
enchanting like a Phoenix
divining,
inspiring
or devastating
from a seductive glow
at our human artiface
a poet without text
or pretext
wonders what
you are cooking up
from your kitchen
in October
when ghosts return
from great aunts
and all stones
and carbuncles
are given from our uncles
when revenants pass
from our pipe dreams
and daily nightmares
on your Medusa watch.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

TORN PAGES
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento

Yesterday began breaking against the
edge of darkness where memory cannot
reach.

Listening to the sound of shadows, where
silence isn't always heard.

Behind this hour is the veil of death
and poetry's torn pages.

_____________________

RAVENS' MOON
—Olga Blu Browne

Shades of twilight, beneath
this ravens' moon.

The stir of echoes, gone
silent.

Death is not a dream.

_____________________

—Medusa, wishing today's contributors and all the rest of you a Happy Halloween!

—Photo by Katy Brown