Tre entro tre

L.G. Corey ~ Ray Hadley ~ Kavitha Rath

 

 

 

L.G. Corey

PERSEPHONE’S LAMENT

 

            “Play, orchestra, play.” ~Noel Coward

 

Doom is on my shoulder.

Yet all things begin and end
in doom.

Even the unfinished kiss,
the unfinished ending
of a finished poem
on lined paper
lighted from behind.

There, too,
doom is in the lines
connecting something
on the page,
in the poem,
behind the paper.

“We shall have none of this,”

 

the blind eye says
to the empty coffee cup
in the hand of what was once a man.

“We must have music,”

 

says the shoemaker to the shoes
of the fisherman standing at the door
of the deaf man’s cottage.

“We must have music,
we must have music,
to drive the doom away.”

 

Says the third man
standing on the bottom stair.

 

 

NOTES FOR A NEW ECCLESIASTES

 

“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, 
king in Jerusalem.” ~ Book of Ecclesiastes 1:1

Vanities of the Gods
preening in sweaty mirrors,

pimping their vanities
to children of the bushes
giggling in the bushes
and squirming in the eaves,
unseen and squirming in the eaves.

And nasty giggles in the closet,
and the smell of offal
on their fingers
squirming in the dirt,

seeking other fingers
squirming in the dirt,
in the offal,
in the compost

of memento mori.

 

 

THE SECRET WORD

 

“Jesus said: What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.” ~ Matthew 10:27

 

Sticks and stones and broken bones
litter the highway to hell
we’re walking along on tiptoe

and an occasional look behind
to see what follows us,
calls us by name,
carries a photograph of us
in the altogether
covered in kisses.

Come, cover me in kisses,
shadow of kisses,
monarch of litter, curator of
sticks and stones and broken bones
lining the highway
we tiptoe across
to the other side,
only to be asked,

 

“Why?
Why have you crossed
to this other side?”

 

 

L.G. Corey has written four collections of poetry: Sausalito Poems (Platypus Press, London, November 2015); Rats’ Alley Poems, Platypus Press, London, January 2016); The Kalidas Verses (Amazon.Com, February 2015); and Deconstructions, currently under consideration by a well known book publisher.

 

Recently, several of his poems have been selected to appear in three anthologies of experimental poetry: Fug.ues: An Anthology of Minimalist Poetry, Haiku and Asemic Writing, ed. by poet Jack Galmitz, June 2015); Rogue Poets Anthology, published  by Punk Writers Press, December 2015); and Snapping Twig Yearly Anthology, selected by the editors of Snapping Twig Literary Magazine, December 2015).

 

Corey’s individual poems appear (or is scheduled to appear) in California Journal of Poetics;  Chaffey Review; Red Savina Review, Empty Sink Publishing, Poetry Pacific, FUG.UES (3), Kalyna International Review, the Corvus, Hot Tub Astronaut (Scotland), Screech Owl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Review, Pif: A Magazine of Art & Technology; and now Danse Macabre. Over the years it also has appeared in such Evergreen Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Midstream, Choice, the Critic, and Zeek.

 

Larry lives and writes in a small mountain community, 7 thousand ft. above sea level in the San Bernardino Mountains of SoCal, with his two pit bulls, one black lab, and three formerly-feral, indoor cats. He turned 80 last November.

 

 

 

Ray Hadley

Depot in the Great Basin

 

Old fashion depot, wooden platform, way out of town,

but no town left, no iron train running on  these rails.

 

No one waiting with a carpet bag or a paper suitcase.

Doors locked so we look inside.

 

What do we do now? The poet fears to put in a train

or a ghost, or even sagebrush or a bottle sitting

on the post of a barb-wire fence.

 

He looks down the rails converging at infinity, but

actually still parallel (he knows) and leaves it at that.

 

Somewhere there’s a railroad buff who knows everything

about this little station. He has the schedules, the punch

that punches the tickets, the conductor’s hat and way too

much information for his own good.

 

 

Teeth

 

We didn’t think much then about shark’s teeth

and how the gap between them made for so much

more damage like the bed of nails in which the nails

are so close together that anyone can lay down

in comfort without breaking the skin.

 

Remove every other nail and you have a bed of torture.

You can get flowers to stand straight up in an arrangement

by jabbing the stems into that spiked paperweight thing

in the bottom and you can rest that devise comfortably

in the palm of your hand and close your fingers.

 

Look for the dark space between the teeth and you’ll know

they are for shredding. and tearing. Look for teeth set even

and close together and you’ll know they are meant

for grinding. Think about it.

The teeth of a cow vs. the teeth of a shark.

 

 

Funeral at Green Lake, Wisconsin

 

                                     I

 

Before they lowered him, they leaned over the grave to see

that it smelled of earth. A few drops fell on the canvass

that covered the small crowd, an atheist himself, a Catholic

priest who no longer believed presided. How appropriate

that two non-believers welcomed each other at the threshold

of Heaven and Nothingness.

 

Trees were losing their leaves and soon the ground would be

too cold to dig, and there were layers of them slick at the bottom

kicked up by children in their little dance of fall.

 

Everyone loves a small town cemetery a block away from church

with cars wising by the long row parked on an angle

on the shoulder that led to a ditch taking the rainwater to a culvert

and then on to a tributary of the Fox River.

 

They asked me to move the coffin and something rolled about

Years later I learned that people from the mortuary did that

if someone looked too happy. “Takes the smile right off

their face. “ they said.

 

Then the usual, crows and other birds, flying around the steeple,

the low, iron, spiked fence waist high to a child and everyone

looking for a place that’s open Sunday afternoon where they can

gather their thoughts before the family reunion on the deck

that over-looked the empty field that lead down to the lake.

 

                                     II

 

Soon, it was inevitable, someone gets a call. The diseased is

needed to replace someone who’s gone on leave. It’s only three

days a week so no time- and- a- half  for overtime

and no health insurance for someone who’s already died..

 

                                      III

 

A ghost takes the train into downtown Chicago arrives at 10:35.

Dictates a letter. Goes for a swim. Eats lunch at the Union League,

then walks down a dark hallway of empty chairs.

and framed landscapes of the country side.

 

 

 

Ray Hadley writes from South Lake Tahoe, CA where he owns Keynote Used Records and Books. An old Friend of the Macabre, Ray has recently placed poems in Poet Lore, Suisun Review, and the Macguffin. He’s up there, seventy-year old bones wrapped in still ample, though not too ample, flesh.

 

 

 

Kavitha Rath

The Water-Lily Girl

At the museum, I sit with you

under softest amber light.

 

I merge into the garden of mist and water,

the purple lilies dilate on the panel,

my mermaid fin

brisks the edgeless pink petal reflections,

I pay tribute to Narcissus in the after-life,

and all the other hydro-inclined.

 

In the tripartite journey,

I progress from warm green love

to candy hues of comfort

coalescing, then ripped apart.

 

I offer oblations to the water gods,

and meander past the nymphs
through the malevolent, dark space-like

night, and touch a single bright-red flower

to poison my aqueous transmutation.

 

The dense tree branches rustled,

and I glimpsed Monet's world,​

where wind became water,
sparkles shimmered through the dusk air,

and I swam while walking.

 

​After we left,

The star burst of June disintegrated from yellow to gray,

morphed into a lunar scape,

immersed the universal conspiracy.

I went home to water the burgundy roses,

and when I caught your eye in the rear mirror,

it disappeared against the cloud-blue.

 

 

Fantasy Fair

 

Lying beside a stranger,

Moon streaks on her coffee skin.

Lashes flutter, eyes open

to reflect a world full of irony,

 

She thinks he thinks to himself

Beauty rings skin deep.

Yet she feels prettier asleep

within the November night.

 

Existential theory unravels fast

at all-night cocktail parties

and she feels his presence

not all too displeasing.

 

Gargoyles roam Russell Square,

vampires look for love in Covent Garden.

Rising along the embankment,

ghosts wrap around Whitehall.

 

Socialites reside in this Tower,

blood chills their hearts and minds.

Nightmares haunt our chamber,

curling round the curtains and lamps.

 

Deeply, she dreams of the earth

and the quiet flame inside.

Visions spiral on the ceiling.

Undone, shadows fall on the sheets.

 

An angel calls at the window,

a witch murmurs under the bed,

a priestess sighs in the closet,

and the girl ignores them all.

 

The apple glows with poison,

some brew taints the milk.

Locked into her black rooms,

she melts every last key.

 

Her heart falters to feel his mind,

awake, she quells a faint impulse

to run her wrist through cold water

and carve it out with a kitchen knife.

 

She thinks he thinks to himself

how nice it might be to see her again

over strawberries and toast.

If he keeps quiet, she'd never know.

 

Lying so close to a stranger,

morning creeps into the horizon,

drowsy and soft over the metropolis,

stilling her moment of serenity.

 

 

The Gardens of Versailles

In the gardens of Versailles, I meet all lovers past and present,
and all their lovers, past and present.

In the thicket grown tropical in my dream,
I greet the boys one by one, touch one on the left cheek
catch his half-smile, leave a streak of blood, move away.

I see my love across the Grand Canal, calling
The hour is late, he says, for the train to take us back.
It leaves when the horizon blurs, and if we miss it
we’ll spend another tour through the mesh.

The pressure of the hedges excruciates.
The palace looms, but I won’t go inside.

Here is my home, in the garden, I declare
where all is mine and all is pure.
But he comes for me, after a sight of cloth,
Tracking through the Labyrinthe.

A trickle across my face, the jets d’eau,
I move like Hyacinth, under the gaze of Apollo.

The shards of memory disappear, trifling trees.
Rising from the Orangerie, I emerge clean.

He comes to take me from the tangle.
I capture a torchère,
light fire to the unsolved puzzles
and exit through the allés, new and proud.

 

 

Kavitha Rath has lived in Atlanta, Chennai, and London, and is currently in Washington, DC. In the past, she received an honorable mention in Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Prize contest and recognition from the Georgia Poetry Society. She writes poetry and short stories in the vein of magical realism. Her poetry has appeared on New Asian Writing. She also writes about television, literature, and post-colonialism on her blog Ilume at Eight.