INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Paul B Roth
Duane Locke
Alan Britt
Silvia Scheibli
Steve Barfield
Duane Locke
Alex Ferde
Kristina Krumova
Richard Gartee
Lyn Lifshin
Gale Acuff
Alicia Mathias
Sunday Eyitayo Michael
Running Cub
Laszlo Slomovits
Shutta Crum
Solomon Musa Haruna
Elisavietta Ritchie
Yuan Hongri
Helen Grigya
Fahredin Shehu
Karyn M. Bruce
Michael Lee Johnson
Keith Moul
Jennifer Burd
John Grey
Rekha Valliaypan
Fred Wolven
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2019
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 51 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
Poems by Duane Locke *
1
He revised the fairy tales
Told him
By duteous and daydreaming adults.
“Do you know me?,”
He asked his playmate in pink,
“Only your hands,” she answered.
He jabbed a sylph
Dressed in white silk
That was diaphanous
In his panic dream.
She said, “Tell me another version
Of Theseus and his cerise sail.”
I can only speak of turquoise sails.
“Can you speak of sails
That are purple or mauve,
Mixtures of blue and red?”
“No, never, no comprise,” He said
This was when she vanished
In a brisk beach wind
He wondered what her hands
Could have taught him
If she had not disappeared
With a curtsy and a smile.
2
His next-to-the-last request
Was to be buried in his pajamas,
The white one with the green stripes.
He said that he was born
To be non-standard, and none
Of his clothes ever fit.
All his life, he wore clothes
Either too loose, or too tight.
He always felt out of place
Among those neatly dressed
With a small, medium, or large fit.
Now, his pajamas were comfortable,
Not awkward and annoying
Like his other clothes.
The dying man, his cancer
Gave him four more days, said
I want to be buried in my pajamas,
Because the undertaker, the preacher,
My wife, my children,
All the rest refused my final request
To be buried naked.
3
She, bold, assertive, called
Herself, “The new postmodern woman,”
Asked me if she could buy me a drink.
“Yes,” I shyly said, “Campari.”
She said, “I am attracted to the
Dimple in your chin and your
Knowledge of Simonides,
Would you like to be my happy minute?”
She was tall and blonde,
Her long legs reached the floor
From the high bar stool.
Her high heels restlessly
Shoved around the peanut shells
And sawdust on the floor.
I asked her if she would be
My happy hour.
“Too long, in this fast moving
Fast-spaced economy. When
A new electronic gadget
Is put on the market, it is
Obsolete after a month.
It is replaced by a new improvement.”
4
I asked her about strawberries,
The teenaged girl
From Plant City, Florida,
Who was prone
In a scant bikini
By a motel swimming pool
Somewhere near El Paso, Texas.
She said nothing, but
Answered by a sign language,
The shaking
Of her Whisky Sour.
Her language was clear
And distinct.
I recognized
The Hungarian accent.
Although the coloration
Of her skin indicated
She was born in Iceland.
The shaking of her Whiskey Sour,
The movement of the ice cubes
Conveyed to me
That although she had lived
Most of her life
In a nunnery near Firenze.
She was studying at
An Italian University.
How Augustine differed
From Aquinas in their
Interpretation of Aristotle’s Ousia.
I ordered two more whiskey sours,
Changed the subject,
And I learned more
Than I ever have before
About strawberries.
5
The Greeks, Plato and Aristotle,
Thought the circle was perfection.
Roman coins
Tried to be circles,
But failed
The coins came wrapped, corrupt,
Deviating
From their intended circular shape.
The circumference instead
Of being devout and smooth,
Conned, was pocked, pimpled.
Constantine, after his dream
And conversion had crosses
Embossed on anything, except coins.
On coins, he put Sol or the Sun.
The Sun’s rays resembled the
Marks left on sand dunes
By the sliding of a sidewinder,
Nothing ever seems to come
From mints as it was intended.
But the human mind is made
To believe in and obey fictions.
When I rubbed a fingertip
Around a Roman coin,
I believe the coin is a circle,
Although empirically my touch
Knows what I am feeling
Is something else than what I think.
Duane Locke (late, Tampa, Florida),
From poems in progress for a
new
book when Duane passed in Feb.
(Poems selected by Steve Barfield,
longtime friend )