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POETRY

 

 

 

 

By Peter Russell

  1. Four short poems
  2. Theorem

By Dave Benson

  1. if not in the nothingness…
  2. first love and other stories

By Mandy Hinson

  1. Who am I today?

 

By Carolyn Smale

  1. like a cat

By L.E.Hinson Sr

  1. In this dream
  2. Terror in the night

By John Rigg

  1. Flying
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOUR SHORT POEMS by Peter Russell

 

THE TWO BIRDS

Always in the forest I see two birds

Opposed on a single tree.

One is pecking the Quits, the other observes,

Silently, mockingly.

One day seeing me come, they utter words,

The one white as snow, the other as black as coal,

And in turn they say "I am your body" "I am your soul."

 

ANOTHER DREAM SONG

 

A one-eyed woman sat by a well

With a cat and a hazel-fork.

She rose, and the hazel-fork fell,—

Her face was the face of the sparrow-hawk.

A ripe fig on a giant fig-tree

I fall to the ground and lie still,—

The sweet river flows down to the sea

And the wind blows round the hill.

 

 

WATER TO OCEAN

 

She can renew and can create

Green from the ground and flowers from stones

In valleys parched set streams in spate

And raise up with a word dry bones.

 

VENICE IN WINTER

for Gitta in Berlin

 

The clouds obscure the island and the church

And the cold sea is streaked with grey like mud;

Dark cypresses (but not a single birch

As in Berlin), edge the Venetian flood.

Follow the Lido with your wind-swept eye

---Long needle of the land that threads the sea---

Where white gulls in the stormy distance, fly

Past lonely gardens and the last green tree.

You wouldn't think the citizens would dare

To venture out upon the streets below

With all this frosty dampness in the air;

But when night falls you'll see the scarlet glow

Of braziers roasting chestnuts near the Square,

And sweet potatoes in Sant'Angelo.

 

 

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Here is the theme poem of Peter Russell's Theories

THEOREM

 

How can one bear to be alive?

Five hundred thousand things to do!

Solitary dreamer in a honey-hive.

I dream of you...

 

The problem is, of course, to be,

In a dead world of waxen cells,

Not that there's monotony

Even in insect hells.

 

To be, --it's no good buzzing around

Doing as people do in Rome,

Droning of penny, shilling, pound--

To build the honey-comb.

 

 

The honey comes from what you do

Each rushing second, minute, hour;

Yours is the sweetness that is true,

No matter what the flower.

 

The plants and trees are all in tune,

Petals and anthers ranged in space;

The tilings are simultaneous, I'm

Out of time, out of place.

 

For when I light on this or that

I'm neither there nor am I here;

I can't see what I'm staring at,

Though nothing's there to interfere.

 

The air is clear and I am free

At any time of day or night,

To visit any flower or tree

In sunshine, shadow, or moonlight

 

What is it then that hinders me?

Why is it that I don't arrived

- I am a solitary bee

Dreaming in a beehive

 

Where Time and Space have ceased to be,

And so there are no things;

I'm everywhere and nowhere,—me,

On imaginary wings.

 

Solitary but never alone,

Freeholder of the emptied soul;

Let workers say I'm just a drone

And drive me out the entrance-hole,

 

Beyond the stratosphere and stars,

Past even humming nuclei,

My life which was hyperbolas

Is now a single "l',

 

All sets and theorems put aside,

All space and matter lost to view.

Let insects make insecticide!

Honey, for me and you...

 

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Peter Russell

Lido di Venezia

31st January 1973

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flying

 

 

Sitting.Watching.As a fly flies.Watching the pattern.As the fly traces out a square.Seeming to bounce from invisible walls,suddenly accelerated out of control.Out of equilibrium.The pattern changing.Always tracing straight lines.Precise angles.But now triangles,now lop-sided squares.Sitting watching.Feeling a way.Moving.Up there.Searching for reason.Feeling ill.Suddenly ill.Worried into fears.The sudden changes of direction pulling.Mind cold,sickening.Wanting form,finding random,fragmented flight.Sit watching till the dullness of it,the mindlessness of it,palls. Bores.Wipe out the disturbance.Look away.

Act yourself.Cover the space

 

 

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