"The monk drifting across
The bay, afloat on gunnel boards he's tied
Together with his amber sash, inscrutable..."
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
A quick list to poets featured in this issue:
Steve Chamberlain, Ward of the State
Where is he, Steve Chamberlain, ward of the state,
Sprayed over shoulders, shoplifted Bellow,
Graduating group-homes, played patron to fosters,
Left and dossed swankly in a town-house in Chelsea,
Steve Chamberlain, whose sweetness rooted cracks
Son of two hippies, one dead, one a junkie,
Who favored young Richard Burton, square chin
And heavy eyelids, galaxy of freckles
Woolf, and Kundera, gambled his social,
Poly tuition, loved old-fashioned Marxists
And punk-band defectors, took case-workers with him
Mid-wifed their crises, till they crowded his flat
At the top of the towerblock, lighthouse to market
On old Portobello, so he hoodwinked the council,
Kittens to nanny an eccentric rich widow
Raised vegetarian, blind and pouncing, mewling
And toppling, who was he, where is he, young
In the bedrock of sadness, seemed born to attract
All the creatures he shepherded, or was that
Just the cunning of young Steve Chamberlain?
_______________________________________________________________ The One About the Monk
The monk kneeling beneath dry pines, striking _______________________________________________________________
Fire from stones. The monk drifting across
The bay, afloat on gunnel boards he's tied
Together with his amber sash, inscrutable
Third buoy nodding with the channel markers.
The monk chipping through shale and clay with pick
And shovel, a pile of bones to fill the hole.
The monk startling the cows that graze the fields
As he and his kite take off--no tree is tall enough
To catch him, sandals no anchor. Bells, at least,
And lowing, the leaping heeler's puzzled growl
And bark; but too late now for letting go.