Free-range Sunbeam

Pierced with bright flames, Norman fury
My musketeer
Comes faster than Christmas
Faster than the Vespa-riding Casanova who says:
"Raising great angry children on the lawns of Europe
Opened me up like a frozen blue fetus
In the open palm of the sun"
My icy Gray's anatomy like Ingres aroused
Perhaps it is teh hue of teh sun caught flying
A brilliant Kodachrome pallette of sushi colors
With cocaine, cosmic distance
& a flourish of burgeoning typologies
The poem stiffens & I becomes born, filmy yet bright
Amid the Pearly mists of Shelley" or whathaveyou
Sometimes I feel that I am in a moving postcard that I don't know
where it's
Addressed: "The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful."

Jeni Olin

Opinion Is Not Observation

When lions scream I shrink and try
head-tilted distractions. I devise
witty games until what wit supplies
shocks my vanity. My wincing eyes
un-lion the screamer as I rise
and see that what vanoty disgusied
meows domestic and recognized:
a sick cat, not lion but lionized—
a coward (like me) quite small (my size).

Marie Ponsot

your vodka your aisle seat your pillow
your in-flight your reading light your ice rings

with overhead with occupied with Nicole and
with Lake Erie with Lake Michigan with sailboats

your key card your press pass your doorman
your hotel your motel your cab ride

with plane drunk and dance drunk and drunk dials
with Daphne and Jonah and Marion

your bad ear your good eye your blogged mind
your mai tai your pencils your boxed books

with mouthwash with business cards with sticky tabs
with grocery lists with phone bills with Tom Hop

your dial-up your panel room your dance hall
your coffee cups your lipstick with Meghan

with deep-dish with notebook with swizzle
with carefree with surcharge with whistle

your haircuts your molé your escalators
your hot links your centos, sestinas

with Joshua with Vincent with Jordan
with iPods with bookbags with kisses

your rivered hills your widowshades your seatbelt sign
your laptop your headrest your turbulence

with damp towels with toothbrush with beer steins
with all the emotional animals

Shanna Compton