David Michael Jackson

The Moses Soliloquy
And it began in the wilderness
With a voice calling out to me in the night
Calling me by name from a bramble
For that is all that grows there
It was as if it was consumed in flame
For it was lighting the darkness

And I have come to know the voice
As the Lord I Am who charged me
And laid this mission on me
To lead the tribes of his people Israel
But I was afraid and told him so
To let him find another but he would not

I am changed somehow by this task
I no longer am the man I once was
But somehow I am uplifted
By the tasks the lord has asked
As if I have climbed a lofty mountain
And have left the normal world

I am transformed by what I do
And no longer watch the flocks
In the night and no longer do
The bidding of Pharaoh and his court and
For all the wonders the Lord has done
This change is the most miraculous

For what I am has asked I have done
When his said extend your hand
My hand was extended and
When he said raise your rod
It was raised and Pharaoh and his
Magicians were confounded

As I now am confounded by
The workings of my God
Who rains meat for our pots
And grows bread for our table
And pours water from the dry
Stone of the desert at my command.

***

Adieu

——————————————————————————–

We were the excesses into the gory,
shameless
nightfalls as teacups and
china and stutters share
a similar face across the years
and the births of our
endless spasms, we were
searching crannies and
darkness to hold each other
fast unto eternity
to swell in your sweat, your
women aroma, your
heaving cups overwhelmed
at the sight of the
darkening areola flooding
our vestiges, overflowing
the shores of your first
virginity, yet you have gone
away and are no more to be
found among the cloisters
of antipoetry. nothing more
is to be lost, apparently, with your
birding away from all those terraces,
poolsides and stairs, passages
and landings that once ached
like our bodies, our laughter
and lost discourses

——————————————————————————–

Prasenjit Maiti (1971-) has published in print and electronic journals in the USA, UK, Australia, Greece and elsewhere. Dr Maiti teaches Political Science at Burdwan University, West Bengal and resides with his family at Calcutta, India.

***

Resolutions
——————————————————————————–

Slapdashed to rear windows like fat rats
belching in gutter spaces and
backwater animosities searching for
spellbound rooms, to call my own my own,
and revel in the caustic sense
of fine rebuttals that are but vicious
and native to your insular worlds,
pink to crimson daffodils
as the summer suns go naked and blue,
haywire at the nuances of the lazy, fey
writhing eventides that we were holding
our spasms together to go on merrily,
bursting upon the seas and
the seven heavens of crystal sorrows
ruptured nightfalls and hazy, sloth
collapsing memories

***

Another Winter

——————————————————————————–

If you think you can speak to me
I can speak to you
speechless and dumb:
speak to me, my
love, my silly fancy, do speak to
me like soundless
waters breaking on the rocks of
yesteryears like
whispers, like fragrances
like nonchalance — don”t
you know and can”t you see
and won”t you care what
ever happens to my folly
my images, my inanity?
Still you paint you honey faces across
bitter and acrid
tea cups as I start collecting my
soul around, the bits
and pieces of shrieks and laughter,
from the myriad
bedrooms of my dark and doubtful sins”¦
O! I say, don’t bla bla around our frozen
pastures, my
naked, bleeding ecstasy — don’t let’s
bleat around again
in pain, don’t let’s lock horns in
mutual, horny memories

***

Linda C. Straub

previously printed in
Cat Fancy September 1999

Kitten

He pauses like a semicolon,
lies down beside her
in a period of rest,
an apostrophe of possession.
The morning brings
question of sustenance,
exclamation of triumph;
then, the bath,
a series of tongued dashes
across silken fur.

first published here 6/15/02:

Spotless

Her paws poke through
the laundry basket;
furred handles wrap
around my arms.
Brighter than bleached whites,
softer than plush towels,
she lies neatly folded
upon clean clothes.

Linda C. Straub has been publishing poetry since January 1997. Her work (approximately 80 poems in 25 zines) has appeared in a
variety of zines, including Writer’s Journal, Cat Fancy, Parnassus Literary Journal, Poetry Motel, PoetryMagazine.com,
Harrisburg Review, Midwest Poetry Review,etc
***