ON PANDORA
by Charles T. Franklin

Just beyond Paradise,
Temptation--
Lies just beyond her grasp
A small voice within
Stirring the Inner contents of her soul

Afraid- -
She withdraws from all pleasure
Both within and without

But the night returns- -
And a tortured soul
Will reach for the apple of her desire.
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ETCHED IN EROS
by Robert Lewis Henry

What is this grayish well
Hidden behind some kind of hell
Where our kisses stop? To
Feel for once what was never through
Before it could begin.
With morning-birds’ song again
Aires its tune, but too late.
"Where were you?" It couldn’t wait
You know. Like busy workmen,
Time’s advance drives us berserk. Then,
Let us gaze between two streams,
And pretend this life is made of dreams.

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In myth, Forsythia trips down the path and brings spring with her. Jimmy Warner's poem, below, follows her as she goes

AUTUMN II

Universal colorist, always sketches another desire,
estimating moods, editing the best of one's fire;
brings to color her orange, its roasted armor shell;
feeds sparkle her amber honey scintillating spray;
dangles chrome in her face when the Sun crosses;
goes where lost hues go, the birthplace of rainbows.
She follows the tiny seed down Autumn's footpath
who first came angling as a burst of Forsythia,
decides whose flame she is before color pales
before embers dot stars and snap in the cold.
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The Mermaid, Her Ram, and the Otter: A Saga Ongoing

Chapter One

The Mermaid, Her Ram, and the Otter

Before I set out to tell this Tale,
I must say I really hadn’t ought to,
A Tale so full of Woe you’ll wail
Really should remain untold, or…uttered only in Otter.

But Truth must out, this the Ages prove,
And always Love True will always do
What only Love can: the Universe yes, will move…
The Stars, explode! the Sun…the Moon, yes…and you will too.

Ah yes, yet…this Tale is full of Secrets:
should nots, no, don’t go theres…
Secrets, such as what rhymes with silver, purple and orange, too?

Secrets…sweet, rare, with none or few could you or I compare,
Secrets. You are hanging on each, every word now, aren’t you?

So. I begin at the end as the Mermaid’s tear
Fell, so clearly loud to her pillow it did thud,
A Stone! She thought as she awoke…

yes, stones falling cold, old as fear…
Alone, she felt…and let them fall,
they became eventually, salt on mud.

Her thoughts roamed back to the days the Sun so brightly glowing
Did charge, Fire across Azure! She and her Ram did swiftly run,
Her long locks drying, his fleet-footed feet flying,
their Love wildly growing,
Their hearts…two Drums, stretched, sounding,
together: they were One.

To the Heights of his mountain peaks her Ram did climb,
Ever higher past oak, green holly, past crimson rose, thorny briar,
To where they could look out upon shining
flashing diamond crests: her Sea, so fine.

Gaze they did upon those brilliant Depths,
and understood they could go no Higher.

Alas. We arrive at the Part where you and I sigh,
then weep, then shake!
A fist towards Heaven! A foot…we lift and, stomp on Hell!
For it is not to be, nay…
that they could forever together stay to wake
to their own Day. “Ah well,” she said to herself
as back towards Ultramarine she fell,
“What was that line that starts...
’tis better to have loved and have lost?

What idiot Poet could ever have stooped and wallowed…
O the toll such an Act exacts of the Heart, the Cost!”
She fell through the currents, through the Air, to the Sea…
and a sea of salt she swallowed.

Swimming with eyes brimming this then became her routine,
‘til one night, wearied from working her way upstream,
she did flop to moon upon a river rock,
The Orb’s gleam too bright she found, too mean,
so turned her head and surveyed the scene.

There, stood the Otter, curious, carnation in hand, in the other?
A sock, her lost sock.
“O my Soul, my sock!” now not lost but found…and her Ram, still,
so far afar, yet watching from his height,
“O Love! So Strong!” So True. So Pure…so long forgotten,
not once, but twice? born anew!

Her heart already severely blue, now into two ripped,
apart, now torn, asunder,
Now forever twain. This, their situation you can see is
frightfully more than slightly tight…
What will they do, the Mermaid, her Ram, and the Otter?

As do you, and I, they also Wonder.
So this Tale of Woe, of reaping not that which one
Does so sincerely try to sow,
Here ends surely, although their Secrets,
I know…you want to know.

Their fates will I relate:
It is now as will always be and always was of late:

The Mermaid grows slowly old, in her silent cold Black Deep,
does yet weep, and navigate,
Her Ram in his Cerulean Heights does toil, does yet sweat,
does further roam and climb,
But joyously the Otter does yet leap and splash and play…
in the sparkling sapphire Waters of the River Thyme.

Chapter Two

The Ram, the Otter…their Mermaid.

Now, you tactfully ask, press me, as facts you lack…
What exactly did transpire that night
under a moon purely white, meanly bright?

Keen, in your eye a gleam, just why do you seem
so in need of further insight?
Their fate…all is unfolding, yes. Smolder as nothing Older
will the Fire of Desire to Know, kindle, then roar!

now fueling your mind;
All we need truly, is Secret, all we can know that is,
without rudely intruding,
is if to their own Nature they were Kind.

And how to arrive at the veracity of that?

It is as it is with all things:
Truth lies not within my realm to convey to your mind:
relate I will of all they did seek but not of what they did find…

Ah, yes… I know Meaning haunts,
its Secret us all teases and taunts.

“What now?” the Otter breath baited, inquired,
then quietly quite assuredly awaited response.

The Mermaid on her rock lolled sadly, yearning,
badly needing diverting, and mused…
what adventure do I fancy… quiet? chancy?

“If it’s chilly…how ‘bout goin’ climbin’…
someplace quite high, someplace hilly?”
…where a glimpse of her Ram she did sigh,
she just might catch …oh how silly.

“If it’s sunny, let’s…go to the beach,
walk l o n g sands the color of honey…”
… the one, that with her Ram she did gaze down upon,
her Sea does yet lap, its crests brilliantly gleaming...
oh now her eyes were teeming,
nose runny...no, this is not at all funny

“If it’s mild, let’s…flat out run through woods so wild…”
…oh to be soaring with her Ram through Azure Skies so high,
she moaned, then groaned… oh stop being a baby child…

“If it’s cold, oh…” she hesitated.
“Me, I will want you to closely hold.”
...that’s better, yes. There now, forget she must,

now, before she grew cold, old,
and with her heart could no longer be any where near to bold…

“If it’s hot, a clear cool river surely we’ll find the sweetest spot.”
…swimming with an Otter, this Otter… she eyed him freshly.

In his eye of Hope she caught a glimmer …
why, there just hardly could not be a better lot.

“But…as it’s likely to yet be storming, I need ask that you please, Otter… I plead that you heed this warning:
In short? Your arms I trust to be Safe Port.”

...if my heart again can ever even begin to try, oh… to love
this Otter, I must believe, why yes, he is just the very sort.

“O Otter”…she began, but stopped and thought:
should you know? If down not just any path we are to go,
to start… yes. “My heart,” she continued, “which I did again
try to let sing, and soar, I did with just of late part.

I had turned sail, intent to return, as I did realize calm seas,
bright skies might turn a most unseemly green...
when just then the Wind…oh how the Wind did arise.

O grueling fierce, furious South of East!
I did not reach shore just in time, too long at Sea I did tarry.
I was not at all near enough to wary…I failed to believe
Love capable of a deed indeed so very, truly cruel…

As, In Love, once again completely I had trusted.
Snared, caught unawares, startled, betrayed…my heart
That gross gale Force did impale, tear, torque and trample.

I am afraid healing time simply
has not been anywhere near too ample.”

So very calmly,
as waters deep, still, sweet and balmy,
her hand he did touch.

These words without sputter the Otter did utter:
“Much, so very much, my merry Maid of Mer,
‘pends ‘pon the Weather.

now …what of your Song…
shall we, must we wait, and why, and if we do so, for how long?”
so, now, my inquiring Friend…in the end this is all I know:
we are all counting, marking seconds slow…
my God! I just can't wait ‘til once again we are together.

Chapter Three

The Whereabouts of the Otter’s Cave

(secret)

Chapter Four

The Mermaid’s Song

(secret)

Chapter Five

The Ram’s Fate of Late

(secret)

Theodora Anne Merry

Winter Solstice

12.21.05


NATURE MAKES MUSIC OF US NYE
- adaptation of "The Wind and the Rain" by Jimmy Warner

The winds blow across our bones like a flute
Where pain is the blowin of an ancient truth
Of knowledge passed on but not well known.

There’s a cryin to make for truth made plain
For dearly beloveds and the gatherd in pain,
Tis a wind that gathers the few of the slain.

The truth will out if the bone is carved, if her
Thigh is filled with the vents for a wittnessin
All of the sayin and cryin made fit for them.

Spaces are drilled for the finger to touch but
The notes are unique to the clan of the ear:
They yearn to learn of past worlds and such.

What kindred music is it sayin to us nye
Bout the sister who pushed her other one in?

Tis a bone of truth on the wind and the rain.

Oh winds play across our bones like a flute
And where lies truth of an ancient thought
Of what passed on but was not understood?

And, what IS our woodwind kin keep sayin
For the sister who pushed her other one in?
Tis a bone of truth, this weeping of the rain.

Tis a boon of truth on the wind AND the rain.


IN SPRING WHEN THE MUSE IS REAL
BY Jimmy Warner

It’s a flash-white, hot-DOG idea like
The very ego of spring taking over
And causing all of your dreams to

Leave their hiding places and play
Those first notes that grow out of
Musical curiosity, that key of “C”

Mentality still a hay-sweet breeze
That plays the notes of a secret soul,
Only now, she’s real and more than
A musing of tenderly strong wishes
On the daydream chain of existence
Where toys on the lawn used to be.

In spring when the muse is so
Powerful inside your heart and
The sounds you make together
Come from another world that
Didn’t exist before you thought
Of each other, a children’s music
Playfully kind, numinous and
Round as songs, deep sounding
And sensuous as poets’ longings.

When the muse is real and her
Rare fever trips in again on bare
Yellow feet, the dream is renewed.

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More poetry by Jimmy Warner:

UNIVERSAL IDEA

Looking for the universal idea?
A way out of the body, perhaps?
not a mere escape to another carnival,
no, the spit of the gods, an inspiration,
ultimate harmony of self and nature,
that mythical metaphor like the will to live...
but on a higher level, that supernal kingdom,
at the foot of the grand panjandrum,
non-stop Easter epics all around,
a flood of karmic meaning in an ocean of divinity.

You want to climb up that glass helix of the soul
to the comet head of non-being, step right up!
Here it is, guarantied not to rip, snort, tear or bag-knee.
Since you choose to live your life
by distorted memories, why not have
an equal array of distorted goals?
Confucius say: goals very bad for you.

Don't embrace the idle wish,
don't just wait for the saucer pilot,
prepare for the great techno-being,
he who has long since overcome
ambiguous concepts such as
love, hate, desire and rejection.

Wait till they get their hands on you, space age wimps,
as they tear you a new air hose, plant zener diodes
in the pleasure pathways of your brain.

You see, gods and ancient myths
were never meant to be taken literally.
We just made 'em up to tell the real story,
let people know how the culture works,
and teach the kids what we're made of.

You can still go to the holy places, but
the best thing you'll find there is yourself.

I got one more question, a no-brainer, one
that none of my teachers was ever allowed to ask:
don't human beings have instincts?

I mean, they know who the bogeyman is, right?


VIRGO

1. Her Pragmatic View
She’s the navy and gray babe
Legs crossed, a karmic assistant
In charge of the 10,000 things,
Watchful, self-improving, just
The mental mercury to strive,
Upwardly mobile in both
Service and repair, always
Remodeling the human clay.

Her stomach is tense, her nerves
Are nervous in the cubical of life,
Toes dusty from the women’s camp.
She has everyone’s issues at heart,
But without grim news to report
Her life would be unbearable,
She prays for the foreign.

Only the overseas correspondent
With his native idiom and know-how
Can overcome her self-alienation,
Her congenital virginity.

2. Her Tragic Role

“I’m a lifer, glum and pert, camped out
In the office of health and survival,
Interfering, my tongue lashing out.
You regard me
In the changing light of a tyranny of suspense,
Like a storm front or a smoldering volcano.

You will never appreciate that
I am the perfect model of the world,
The practical answer to everything.
Though I’m no effusive gusher
I’m thirsty for your soulful remarks,
Your connection to my tragedy.

If you are anything like me, a clone
Of efficiency, keep on moving, scram.
I want your random improbabilities."

3. In Case Of Emergency
Trail mix, powdered milk,
Dried seaweed cakes stashed
In your desk drawers, that big one
Has a 50lb bag of brown rice
In case they drop the bomb
And you have to feed everyone.

No one knows how prepared
Or how domestic you are, or
How much you count on opportunity
To give service and project strength,
After the comet, the outbreak,
The global disaster, no more nerves,
The war zone takes out all the kinks.

Dire straits will be the biggest
Kick in the teeth you ever got
But worth every minute,
The joy of masochism, pain
And suffering unchained, a draining
Melodrama of pitiful needs
And heroic sacrifices.

In case of emergency, break glass.

4. Soul Shopper
Poetic justice cannot be Medieval
enough, more bittersweet, more
heart-pierced with cherub arrow.
No dungeon can condemn you more,
Bury your life more deeply than
Mothering earth, slithering soil,
The brickwork depths of self-control.
Your job is open, waiting, wherever
You go, the task schedule is full.
Employers totally depend on your
Effective way of getting things done.

Welcome to global bivouac, camp
Is where you make it, the office
Will never be the same without you.