inter\face 8
                         Fall  1994


inter\face is:
--------------

    the yellow light at the intersection of manic street and agony way;
    the cusp of the human heart, behind rib bones of steel;
    a spiraling bullet of sudden understanding;
    the lead dog, steaming, pulling into Nome;
    where the rubber meets the rose.

***********************************************************************

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=======================================================================

Jim Esch

------------------------------

Certain of these lyrics have been put to music by a composer named
Jim Morris who lives in the Philadelphia area. His email address is
morrisj@shrsys.hslc.org

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

          A SONG CYCLE...

     PICTURES AND PAINTINGS

     i see pictures and paintings
     they are staring at me
     like a tree who's lost his brothers,
     the orange wrinkled leaves

     and they stare at me.

     he laughed and cried out
     "what does it mean?"
     (as he stared at me)
     unbuckled on a mattress,
     bracing, framed in the breeze

     and they stare at me


     EVERYONE HAD A GOOD TIME

     everyone had a good time
     till the witching hour struck
     just in time,
     for the brooms went
     and swept them away


     WE HAD IT ALL

     we had it all
     all we had
     we had it all
     all we had

     tell me the gossip isn't true
     brush your teeth and get dressed
     oh, they'll be so impressed
     when they find it wasn't you

     but the gossip takes it all
     all we had
     we had it all
     all we had


     PARALLEL VOID

     running through a hallway
     long and narrow brick walls

     there is no ceiling
     there is no floor
     there is no feeling
     there are no doors

     get me out of this hallway
     take me away
     I cannot stop going
     nowhere today

     running, falling up
     the brick has no cracks
     there are no cracks in the brick
     rising till it meets my feet

     I cannot fill the parallel void
     big as the space between ears
     and I can hear no tapping

     the black men are dancing on Lawrence Welk's
     linoleum floor
             (there is no floor!)

     the hoodlums are lighting
     the dogshit at someone's front door
            (there are no doors!)

     In my hallway, my parallel void
     the freeway has no exit ramps,
     no winners, no champs,
     no pictures, no paintings


     GO TELL MAMA

     go tell mama the parson died
     and Frosty will be naked tonight
     the church is in the valley
     and the stars are bright
     but the Parson passed on
     on a silent night

     frame him in a box,
     nail it shut,
     his body's six feet under,
     but his soul shoots to the stars?

     papa's cracking chestnuts
     in a warmlit fire
     the snow is falling outside
     the family's sad 'bout his wooden plight
     and Frosty will be naked tonight

     LONGTAIL RIDES

     I don't need a song,
     the rain, a shoe that fits

     I don't need a woman,
     or a cowboy hat

     just give me my long tails
     Longtail will ride tonight


     GIVE ME A LIGHT

     the bars are too thick
     the drinks are too stiff
     the jailbird never flies
     he dies and sleeps all day

     Mr. Yahtzee said
     "I have a theory that
     everyone who graduates
     gets a game named after him

     I told you it's true
     you don't need glasses
     see, I'm on the box,
     my goldylocks fine.

           I need a light

     Haven't seen sketches
     of paintings on walls
     in sterile brick halls
     staring at me

     Cannot see void
     but I know that it's there
     it's darkness I bear
     in the valley, the void

           I need a light

     shooting to the stars
     jumping through bars
     feeling the tide
     dying inside

          I need a light
          Give me a light

=======================================================================

Benjamin E Magid

---------------------

     The punishment

     i can only imagine, as the shots roar,
     where they land.
     what they do.
     who they return to earth.

     perhaps a thief; a liar. a cheat.
     dealing drugs.
     killer of innocents, raper of justice.
     i suppose he got what he deserves,
     what we all deserve.

     maybe a user, abuser, mother
     of three children. husband of none.
     paper apartment, rusty sink.
     punch card, shoe box living.
     wad of life under the mattress.
     for new york, for broadway.
     going nowhere, knowing no one.
     what does she deserve?
     what does it mean to you?

     Maybe a gray man. with a collar of blue.
     angry wife, filthy house,
     a beer stain on second hand clothing.
     drinking for second hand wrongs.
     can't seem to see, can't be to seem.
     knows rats, taxes,
     rank tabloid chop, bible of man.
     meaningless, hopeless,
     stagnant existence.
     what does he care? he deserves, right?

     maybe its you,
     empty soul,
     caught by surprise behind the ear
     in your car. on the phone.
     places to go, places to demolish
     are they yours?.
     people to see, people to trample.
     fast lane, eh?
     bullets are faster,
     your the liar, the cheat,
     the corrosion, the rust,
     your the spit and grease,
     the waste and the  loss
     you are the poverty,
     the perverse pain.
     you are the cause
     do you deserve death,
     hardly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Unfertilism.

     my soul,
     one wandering alone.
     uninspired,unfertilized
     stagnant, roting, wasting away.
     smoldering in a downward spiral,
     longing to burn with angst
     fear, frustration, growth
     appretiation,
     horizons of the soul,
     the setting sun,
     the waning moon,
     the aging man,
     erosion,
     corrosion,
     loss.
     waste and crust
     slippage of the hands
     of time, of desire
     of the need to go on .
     fingers weakend by their
     constant grasp on
     a bewildering falsehood.
     the horizon, the sapling
     the dream.

======================================================================

John Rescigno
trout@yay.tim.ORG (Trout.Complex)
---------------------------------

     Surrounded by fish
     The helpless victims of war
     Descend the food chain

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     Creating Haiku
     Gratuitous Adjectives
     Swallow Syllables

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Xanthic circumstance
     Indominable limelight
     A deified man

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Aristocratic
     Magnanimity failing
     Sailors, faretheewell

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     Rheumatic, aging
     conquistador, cold whitened
     ; ; spoils ; ; delivery!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Celebratory
     return; to fidelity
     Eternalever

     [NOTE: first ever haiku trifecta: 5-7-5 words]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Compression of years,
     Magic hours pass, overnight.
     Our hearts broke with dawn.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Galactic waiter
     With a flourish, serves up warm
     Primordial soup

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Retracing his steps
     Laws of thermodynamics
     Broken asunder

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     Rippling across
     the undisturbed lake, a stone
     mocks tranquility

=======================================================================

michael mcneilley

----------------------

Michael McNeilley is editor of _The Olympia Review_,
writes for magazines large and small, worldwide, and
publishes frequent nonsense on the Usenet newsgroups.

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     Hell
     ----

     imagine brains floating in jars
          small jars of saline solution
          hard-wired to green
          Army-surplus Kaypros

     every passing truck setting up
          ripples
               shaking the cheap
                    shelving that holds us
               above a dank and
          unswept floor

     in Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
          you couldn't go to sleep or
          they'd get you
          replace you

     it's like that here
     for us podpoets
               sometimes

     secreting as we rant
     we color their our liquid
               a vile yellow

     our nerve endings no longer register
          the chafing of the wires

     never wanted
          to write you can only do it alone but
     there was no choice
     just the illusion
          of choice

     floating in production
     uniquely our own
          railing against
               the light
          we wait for the white
     coats to come

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

          from rec.arts.iraq
          ------------------


          hey I got these cheap used
          computers over on
          rec.arts.iraq
          army surplus
               those cool GRID laptops
               with bubble memory and
               the red plasma screens
          seems the military
          left thousands of them
          in the sand hey they're
          $28 each cash only
               iraq needs the money for
               baby food and bandages and
               what the hell I bought 3
          one for bush
          one for quayle
          one for me

=======================================================================

F. Scott Cudmore

---------------------------

        The Electric Siren Sings

        All those with ears, her tune doubtless shall hear
        As the electric siren sings her song:
        Cast nets upon the electronic water
        All you sailors of the quantum sea.
        Boundless realms of wonder shall it offer
        Out of ether and the reverie.

=======================================================================

A.J. Wright
617 Valleyview Dr
Pelham AL 35124-1525
meds002@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu
--------------------------

     tattoos on the mind
     -------------------

     merely a fragment of moon floats
     over the early evening sky

     a crescent as white as bone
     rising in my sleep

     and nearly forgotten tomorrow;
     as authenic and forsaken

     as test patterns once decorating
     dark rooms across america

     as safe as fingerprints
     discarded on the sand.

     later in the night
     as an image joins the skin

     we can dream
     the souvenirs together.

=======================================================================

Gregor Wynnyczuk
gw2882@rachel.albany.edu
------------------------

"[This] is as good as you will get [in this format].  The piece was
 composed in a grafics program and the lines don't match up.  That
 last bit is meant to be half cut off on the bottom."

"You could say that I write alot and nap whenever possible. Oh yeah,
 I am the poet laureate of Eagle Mills.  Pretty cool huh?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------



                             polished aluminum       alright
                             and the
             Go ahead        future       I keep walking
             help yourself                and I figure
 worry                                    that I am in    it looks
                  It's been a long        historic        entirely
                  time since you          Savanah         like a
    I have        have seen Alan          Georgia         Frank
    never         and his flying disk                     Gehry
    been                                                  cardboard
    here                               everything is      experiment
    before        very clean           alright
                  not a scrap          although I
                  of dirt anywhere     did worry
                  not a chair          while I         don't
     sometimes    out of place         was gone        answer
     even though you are home
     you don't

=======================================================================

Benjamin Henry
bh4781@cnsunix.albany.edu
-------------------------

material of words:
(three poems of Judy Johnson and Poetics)

              1.

              transparent
              conveyance
              of meaning

              or

              resistance

              and/or

      use and quality of communication

                        impede the clear flow of meaning
                        defect in un-clarity
                        become obvious through serious study

                        a certain heft of weight,
                        to change heft to weight
                        and feel a physical object
                        apparently/subsequently

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

2.

words that stop you
        -like atmosphere, dense fuzz (of language/meaning)
        -like (Dante's) shaggy words
        -(like) a peculiar contradiction

about exploration [beyond] geographical
        [and] Vasco de Gama   by his song, reflected
                              all the way over
                              to the pale Vasco

        coming out of language like a fault line
        Alter-wise [is] Dylan Thomas - pure poetry
                   [is] meaning secondary or irrelevant

        no word-by-word translation
        surface use stops short of impedeing

        hunked together consonants
        half-remember
        half-reconstruct                places in a narrative journey
                                        that a story has to go

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

        3.

        historical context of poetic practice
        Western history
                dialetics - argument
                                reptesentation

                        thinking about  <------->  doing

        operative becomes invisible
                natural assumption behind doings of art ---->
                exhausted possibilities
                        smash open assumptions +
                                        representations of art

        parts of assumption of change in conflict
        not useful to [those] whose
                viewpoint
        has not been represented
                                no concern with inventing
                                new forms to invent reality

        marginalized: have a story that hasn't been told

                telling [the] story is more necessary.

=======================================================================
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                              inter\face 8
                                Fall 1994

"It is helpful to recall in this context that all the devices of the
 book apparatus, which are codified in the treatise (and enforced in
 practice from the five-part essay through the doctoral dissertation
 to the book that secures tenure), were themselves invented as the
 `interface' for print technology." [Gregory L. Ulmer, _Heuretics_]
***********************************************************************

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the header and this footer information. For information on specific
pieces contained in inter\face, please contact the individual authors
or bh4781@cnsunix.albany.edu. Brought to you by HUB Press, Albany.
========================================================================
                                                                   {end}