Aldebaran Review no. 1
March 1967
a selection of poems
•
•
The power of darkness equals the power of light
The power of darkness equals the power of light
the flight of the wings making a dark rushing,
the speed of which was the sound of Einstein thinking
with his soft eyes, Jewish, and strange mind
which went straight to the sky,
through it out to the outermost inmost the skin of the circle
sloughing around in his slippers, the old man in his bedroom,
his study, his classroom: all rooms were one
room, the pace of his mind; the deep darkness
through which the birds of his mind made their thought,
The power of thought equals the power of darkness
equals the power of light.
—Gail Dusenbery (Chiarello)
•
RE-ENTRY
I get the feeling that he's very high.
I get the feeling that he's coming down
slowly. I see him float
into the forest. His study
surrounds him. I see clear pine trees
pierce his glass-like palace.
His form bent over
a manuscript,
his mind,
bent over a pencil.
I hear the parachute
but never see it fall.
—Richard Krech
•
TO BOB
WE HAVE LOST THE LAND
OR
HAVE BECOME SEPARATED
FROM OURSELVES
AS GRASS PULLED FROM
ITS SHAFT
WE STAND WITH NO MEANING
IN SPACES
THE OPENED GROUND IS AS
STRANGE AS THE OPENINGS
BETWEEN OUR FINGERS.
—Eileen Adams
•
#76 Mrch 8 67
G o d b y e s
whiles
the poem, a small
and common
thing
we're living it up
in the quiet snow
#140 Oct 28 67
S. Thomas More said
Tarry while I
put aside my beard it
has not committed treason
canonized 1935
up at the City Gates
the dreamers face
invisible
—Larry Eigner
•
A HUNDRED VOICES AT ONCE
You hear this calling.A bird
again and again.
Again and again.What sign
can I give to myself?
What is the night,to such
a calling bird?
Again and again,I ask
to speak only to myself.
You hear this calling.A bird
again and again.
Again and again.Now I
listen to be hearing.
Again and again.The voice
falls off of me,found dumb.
You hear this calling.You hear
this calling.Again and again.
Again and again.I have
lost my voice,for want of myself.
You hear this calling.A bird
again and again.
Sept 28 1966
—Doug Palmer
•
LETTER SEVEN (for Jeff)
Nighttime and I died
and all the pieces of me
scattered through
the sharp curve of sky
and came to rest on
their own hesitations
(my restlessness
proven and the hope of a sometime)
peace mockery
as cheerful as the laughing girl at Playland
you said the years from 18-22
were the most important in anybody's life
so I tried to think about what had happened
to me then (since I should think
about these things at the last
and I wanted to know what I did
with myself
I know what I waited
what was it like you say
it was under water and breathing blood
and it was like waiting
it was like waiting
I can't tell you the dead
see themselves suspended in a spiderweb
caught between
and they do not touch back again
so you must ask me another night
when you have begun to live a second time
and I can give you a third answer
to what is after all only one question
—(Sister) Mary Norbert Körte (O.P.)
•
THREE MONTHS
For three months I debated:
acorn, walnut,
butter brickle,
When I discovered it was my mother's nip
I was already in the womb.
—Michael Attie
•
JAPANESE THOUGHTS OF AN AMERICAN POET
*
first rains
neon fireflies
beside a black river
*
giving poems
away
disguised as political pamphlets.
*
corn is ripe somewhere
a warehouse of scarecrows?
soup after prayers.
*
the poem must be done
just right
no one will notice
—Gene Fowler
