INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Geoffrey Philp
Chris Lord
Duane Locke
Shutta Crum
Karyn M. Wolven
Joseph McNair
Gerald Clark
Paul B. Roth
Fred Wolven
Alan Britt
Joanie Freeman
Jerry Blanton
Steve Beaulieu
Felino Soriano
Tolu Ogunlesi
Running Cub
Helen Losse
Leviathan presses
The earth groans with stamping out steel
The beat is my father's heart pounding
Coal and limestone iron ore becomes fender motor and spring
He is one of the alchemists
Creating in darkness and fire
The night sky glowing red
My father forms steel
Makes the broken machine whole
This he knows
Not the torment of sons
The light world of home
The unsure ground
Of growing children
The earth is now at ease
The beat has stopped
And what was formed rolls on
ARCANE MAPS
I know that I owe you
Our agreement
Written in dust
Binds my past and future
To satisfy you I'll travel
On paths I cannot see
Where only the barter of soul wrenching labor will do
Stone walls framing an endless road to be pulled apart
Each stone carefully carried and dug back into the earth
Old seeds of creation
Wanderers will shout
You're
crazy
Useless labor
Do something worth while
I hear
And would be pleased to end it
I choose to ignore them and your logic
I should keep on
While
I'm able
Pushing the stones through rivers
Up eroded hills
Digging deep into the ground
One at
a time
Constructing an invisible stone circle
Each covered stone a payment
And a marker for those that journey
A mineral compass
Pointing deep and skyward
Cosmic ordinal directions
For those who follow
As labors end I'll rest my psychic bones and look into the night
A dark astrology
Of invisible stars
Provides the touchstones
I'll chart a course
To the first isle
Set the sail and catch the ebbing tide
The solar wind propels
Toward an unfamiliar shore
My self navigates to islands of respite
Where I'll leave a pebble pushed into a sandy shore
So that I might find it next time
And begin anew
Gerald Clark, Ann Arbor