+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Volume #1 May 17, 1994 Issue #3 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 1, ISSUE 3 A Bob and a Matt . . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason Leaving Costa Rica Before the Election . . . . Leonard S. Edgerly Pederast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bryan Thomas Lorelei Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerome Mandel Driving in Amahrica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James Lewis Untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Leah Cole SuperMenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leonard S. Edgerly Death of a Giant Jack Rabbit Rodeo Star . . . . . Byron Lanning Untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Magnus Y. Alvestad Second Impression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dror Abend Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuomas Kilpi Untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Tarver Open the Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Jacques Hoover What Donna Knew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J.D. Rummel About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors Israeli Poet Traveling Lecture Series . . . . . . . Announcement +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor + Editor Robert Fulkerson The Morpo Review Staff Matthew Mason rfulk@creighton.edu + mtmason@ucdavis.edu Proofreader PostScript Editor ReadRoom Layout Designer Kris Kalil Elizabeth Simmons Mike Gates kkalil@creighton.edu esimmons@usd.edu tsmwg@alaska.edu +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _The Morpo Review_ Volume 1, Issue 3. _The Morpo Review_ is published electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1994, Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason. The ASCII version of _The Morpo Review_ is created in part by using Lynx 2.1 to save ASCII formatted text of the World Wide Web HyperText Markup Language version. The PostScript version of _The Morpo Review_ is created using Aldus Pagemaker 5.0 and Aldus Freehand 3.1 (both from Aldus Corporation) and Adobe Photoshop 2.5 (from Adobe Systems, Incorporated). All literary and artistic works are Copyright 1994 by their respective authors and artists. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ A Bob and a Matt (Editors' Notes) o _Robert Fulkerson, Co-Editor_: Recently, we celebrated Mother's Day here in the States. I'm not sure if other cultures or countries celebrate Mother's Day, but if they don't they should. I'm finally old enough to understand and appreciate the gifts and knowledge that my mother has given to me over the years. One of the great pearls of wisdom she dropped into my lap about ten years ago was that I should take a typing class. At the time, I thought it was one of the geekiest, stupidest classes for a seventh grade kid to take. But now, ten years and somewhere around seventy words a minute later, I can thank her that it doesn't take me very long to type up my Editor's Notes mere hours before this issue goes to press. But one of the most important things that my mother shared with me at a very early age was her love of reading. There was not one room in any of the houses I lived in as a child (all two of them) that didn't have books in it somewhere. Of course, I started out with some of the childhood classics, like _The Velveteen Rabbit_ and numerous _Grimm's Fairy Tales_ both at home and at my grandparent's house. As I grew older, I of course devoured as many of _The Hardy Boys_ books that I could (I still have a few of the hardback books, including the master sleuth book, _The Detective's Handbook_.). I enjoyed _The Lord of the Rings_ by Tolkien and, yes, I indulged in many Stephen King books (my first one was _Christine_). Today, the reading list includes Orson Scott Card, Frederick Pohl, the _DragonLance_ series (written by Weis and Hickman) and many others. Unfortunately, given the amount of time I spend on schoolwork and working, I don't get half as much time as I would like to simply read books for pleasure. Instead, I'm reading books like _High-Performance Computer Architecture_ and _Applied Combinatronics_. Which is why I enjoy editing _The Morpo Review_. People from around the world send in poetry, short stories and essays for me to read, and since I've taken on editing _Morpo_ as a sort of obligation, it's my job to read what gets sent in. For pleasure. Which I enjoy tremendously. Sure, I still manage to sneak a book in now and then (currently it's _The Second Generation_ by Weis and Hickman), but I really enjoy the pieces that pour in for each issue. In this issue, we've brought together a collection of authors from five different countries, with such varying backgrounds as published scholarly author to iron worker. I think you're really going to enjoy the diversity of literature in this issue. To touch on a few of the pieces, Jerome Mandel has written a ghost-love story, _Lorelei Adams_, that is a comedic yet sobering look at reality. Byron Lanning, who appeared in our first issue with _Oh Bean Curd!_, has returned with a story that can only be termed as "slapstick literature" -- _Death of a Giant Jack Rabbit Rodeo Star_. Not to be left out, we have some excellent poetry by James Lewis (_Driving in Amahrica_), Bryan Thomas (_Pederast_) and Chris Hoover (_Open the Day_). We close this issue with a story by J.D. Rummel, who also appeared in our first issue with _Frozen with a Stranger in the Park_, entitled _What Donna Knew_. What Donna knew was what the main character of the story is still searching for -- what exactly does love mean? Which brings me back around to my Mom. If it hadn't been for her, I probably wouldn't be here today, at two in the morning, writing this little Editor's blurb for _TMR_. Thanks, Mom, for one of the greatest gifts. Which also, incidentally, brings me around to saying that I can see that this rich tradition of loving books and reading will continue in my family when I marry Kris Kalil (the proofreader for _TMR_) on July 1st, 1994. She probably has more books than I do, which is a frightening thought. So perhaps, twenty or so years down the road, you'll see my son or daughter editing their very own little _Morpo Review_. The legacy lives on ... o _Matthew Mason, Co-Editor_: If I were to apply to nursery rhymes the same literalist interpretations I apply to the back of cereal boxes, _Donahue_ transcripts, and the _Book of Revelations_, then I would have quite a quandary to contend with at the line _Sugar and spice and everything nice/that's what little girls are made of_ since I have diabetes and it would then only seem logical that dating girls would do outlandishly harmful things to my blood sugar. The only healthy solutions which leap to mind, then, would be to either join a monastery or start dating men. I don't think I could do the dating men bit. No, I don't loath or fear men who date men, I've simply come to the unshakeable conclusion that men in general are pigs when it comes to dating. I've heard the locker room talk and the jokes at parties and the anecdotes over lunch and, yes, heard the snortings of my own pig within and I know that, with only the rarest and unlikliest exceptions, dating a man would drive me insane (this, of course, branches nicely into a separate discussion about the mental status of most women but neither space nor topic will allow this at the moment). And the monastery option? I don't think so. It looks like those robes must chafe something awful. Now then, how does this pertain to _The Morpo Review's_ third issue? Thankfully, that's not up to me to explain as I can leave that to the literary scholars of the future to pick apart and interpret at their will. In the meantime, you, the dedicated reader, must just be sick of me rambling on, so enjoy our latest issue and stop throwing corncobs and moldy cabbage leaves to yours or anyone else's inner pigs. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Leaving Costa Rica Before the Election" by Leonard S. Edgerly The red and blue parade fills my streets children waving flags our side and your side dinner and dessert rising to meet the slogans honking all the horns tomorrow's forecast: green and white the same idea only more so since these tourists will have departed. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Pederast" by Bryan Thomas Winnow it down to a terse tense diatribe just so, you fail you've not even elucidated your loathing and you're back-to-front in the lifestream and you're anxious to turn around because it makes more sense to expect than to regret but your urge to totally debase yourself, in front of as many people as possible, to purge and rebuild stands in the doorway You find that you must have one stick with you up your ass let it pass through you'd go through less if it was just you the whole way and none of this garbage you're trying on postures and poses and hats and they don't fit and you know it but its your personal cross to bear you still masquerade there's a big psychological rationalization potential word there tweeze it out "Yeah, it's my inner child, man. Fucks me up, hardcore." pederast to the last +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Lorelei Adams" by Jerome Mandel The house was quiet now. Not so much silent as still. Lorelei Adams waited for her husband to die, and now that he had done so, she wasn't at all content with the results. They had been together for so long--forty-seven years, except for their honeymoon and the year that followed--that his absence from the house was an amputation. They drove away from the wedding, trailing streamers and rice, directly into the path of a schoolbus which tripped over their car, spilling children across the highway. Everyone thought they were dead. They spent the first hours of their married life in adjacent operating rooms, the first weeks undergoing resurrective surgery, and then months recuperating--he in his parents' house, she in hers. Although they shared the same experience, they healed separately, and, once they actually began to live together, their lives were full of jokes about extended honeymoons, delayed sex, and the danger of children. After that it seemed empty to be with anyone else. And now he was wrapped in earth with a modest stone set upon his head to keep his spirit down. She visited him a few times as though he were recuperating. Sitting on the edge of the gravestone, she spoke to him in the same level voice she used while he was alive. She explained, as carefully as she could and for the thousandth time, the need to separate whites and coloreds, woolens and cottons from synthetics. She reiterated in her earnest way the importance of changing his underwear every single day and that he mustn't wear the same shirt two days in a row. But he was always as impervious to instruction as the cat. She stopped visiting him in the cemetery, which only emphasized his absence. Now, whenever she came into the house, she turned her music up, the way she liked to hear it, on all the speakers at once. And she was just a little disappointed when no one got up to leave. Though every picture in the house was hers, the ones she valued most were the ones they fought over. She threw away that horrid lamp and turned his study into a sewing room. The mash'ad on the floor beside the music center was superior in every way to the bokhara with that foolish medallion he had chosen. And the print he wanted when they reupholstered the chairs in the living room--well, it made Lorelei Adams smile. And finally, finally, she was able to eat the way she wanted to eat. She abandoned his tiny table in the kitchenette and set the octagonal oak table in the dining room with the polished silver and laundered linen placemat and napkin. A goblet of water and a thin glass of pale Vouvrey stood beside her plate. And then she brought in the tureen. She served herself carefully. She ate graciously. She smiled to either side. She tapped the napkin to her lips and cleared away the soup before she brought out the platter of steaming vegetables to which she helped herself with the silver tongs. She cleared away the dishes before she brought out the dessert and the coffee on a silver tray she had prepared before dinner with the sugar bowl and the creamer. She washed and dried the dishes herself, pleased with the newfound elegance of her life, and more than a little irritated by his selfishness. She had to do all his jobs now. She brought the mail up and separated it into his and hers. She answered hers in the timely manner that always earned the admiration of her correspondents, and, as usual, his piled up on his bedside table until she finally had to go through them herself to pay the bills, cancel his subscriptions, and inform his college alumni office. You think he would have had the foresight .... But no, he never considered her or what she constantly had to do to keep their lives together pleasant. When his mother died, he wanted to leap upon the first plane home, never thinking that she would have to pay the hotel bill in a currency she didn't understand, pack and carry all the suitcases herself, and miss the very production of Carmen they had come all that way to see. Didn't he realize that his mother was already dead and that it could not possibly make any difference to her when he returned? He thought only of himself: his work, his clients, his limited vacation time. It rarely occurred to him, as she pointed out on more than one occasion, that she was a person too, that she, too, had work and requirements and never enough time. And if society paid him more than it paid her, that did not measure what was important so much as it declared society's inverted values. Those who serve humanity are every bit as valuable as the technicians who keep the machines running. But nothing about him was ever quite satisfactory. So it didn't surprise her at all when he returned. He was sitting in the living room as she came through the door with an arm full of groceries. She walked right past him, miffed at his lack of consideration. Couldn't he see she was weighted with packages? Her irritation increased as he continued to sit and read, while she put the groceries away. And where had he been the past few weeks while she thought he was dead? Damn inconsiderate. She went into the living room to confront him precisely on this topic. "Where have you been, Manny?" "Dead," he said. "That's no excuse. Really," she said. "The cancer got me." "You might show some consideration for me sometime," she said. "Platelets plummeted," he said. "White cells on the rampage. Red cells metathesizing right and left." "Can't you stop thinking about yourself for once?" she said. "Selfish. That's what you are and that's what you've always been." She turned away in anger and was suddenly back in the kitchen, but when she opened the refrigerator door, there he was, awkwardly stuffed between the second and third shelves. "Frozen sections showed metathesized tumors all over the place," he said. "Manny," she said, "would you please stop!" He unfolded himself from the refrigerator--all arms and spindly gangly legs--and finally inflated to his full height beside her with a dishtowel in one hand and the unwashed salad bowl in the other. "What are you doing?" she cried. "Can't you see that bowl hasn't been washed yet? Put that down." And while she washed the bowl, he disappeared. She spent the rest of the night searching for him in every room of the house. She found him in the study the third time she went in there. "What happened to my lamp?" he asked. She felt the accusation like a lash and woke up before she had a chance to answer him. She was out of sorts. Well, a dream like that! She washed and dressed before going down to breakfast. Now that she was alone, it was important to look her best all the time. Imagine! As if Manny actually cared about that stupid lamp. She set the octagonal table for one: woven placemat, linen napkin, silver fork, knife, two spoons, luncheon plate, bowl, cup and saucer. There! it looked beautiful. She brought the small silver coffeepot to the table, steaming through the spout, filled her cereal bowl, and brought the warm croissant from the micro, but when she went to get the milk, she found his shoe in the refrigerator. Really! how embarrassing! She grabbed it quickly, looked about to make sure she was not observed, and hugging it tightly, she returned it to his side of the bed where it belonged. When she returned to breakfast, Manny was sitting at the table. "Really, Manny," she said, "you shouldn't leave your shoes in the refrigerator. It's disgusting." "Well, what could I do?" he said. "Lymph-nodes were swelling and there was hardly a platelet to be seen anywhere. Absolutely defenseless. Hey!"--looking around at the shiny surface of the dining table--"what am I? an orphan?" Lips in a tight line, she set a place on the mat in front of him without chipping anything. Then she noticed the small silver coffee pot. If only he had said something. She took the coffeepot into the kitchen and, heating the water again, prepared coffee for two in the larger pot, knowing as she did so that her croissant would have to go back to the micro and her cereal was uneatable. Damn irritating! When she turned around with the large coffee pot in her hands, he was sitting at the wretched table in the kitchenette. Two places were set with the daily dishes and mismatched cups. "Much better," he said. "Everything's handy. Don't have to walk so far." She put the silver coffeepot down on the table where it didn't belong. She sat. "Don't you know," she said evenly, "how much I hate eating in the kitchen?" "Hey, I meant to ask you," Manny said, "whatever happened to the lamp in the study?" Oh, she thought, was he going to get it now! +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Driving in Amahrica" by James Lewis I lost my coat in America walked around in the state campsite in what's left of their vast wilderness In America, men have jaws of stone they pulled their few possessions and small children in handcarts to the New World wives walking behind praying They sell comic books for religion down there, have motel beds that massage you for a quarter, T.V. shows about Hitler's teeth, and gossip in the frozen food section In a liquor store a black man called a white man a brother white man protested showing me the colour of their skins I said I thought it was a form of expression they laughed someone mentioned a fight I ducked Damn coat always blame someone else for the things I lost Ma said things will work out in the end that's when I was too young for her to know me That coat's gone for sure So many miles in the desert makes a family want to explode look at that horizon you can't see anything else makes you forget where you left your coat looks like rain hope it won't last long It's getting dark I better go find her I saw a guy today lives in a bathroom off the Interstate Hey, we're tourists picture taking, stone arches stepping around the U-Haul river rafting the Colorado Santa Fe Chicken coffee in the pub driving down from the mountain's deer and poplar trees to the red sugar bowl, by the Colorado feet in the muddy river off roading slickrock, lizards, and bats kids working tables up to my neck in Navaho jewelry This lady tells us her grandad's a medicine man in a teepee up on a mountain eating peyote Sure, we just need a place to sleep The Grand Canyon Ick komme mit Deutschlander The sight every American should see Il ne parle Francais, mais il essaye Cin-cin tip the water jug back Morning, dusk, walls like rust and wind It's a journey, I tell her East Arizona's the bottom of a tide pool barrel cactus and yucca trees Lake Mead - blue playing field Have fun! (they're driving off to gamble) Fat man cleans a fish That's a good fish! Baseball hat on the porch says, Sold three thousand bags of ice! Wind carries the heat under the curry smelling tree smell from the what's-that-flower? rides the heat Viking woman cradles her baby rides a fast boat her husband tows to the lake We talked to a philosopher Knew he was, he smiled so_ unexpectedly lives in a camper with his dog Viva fucking Las Vegas! Wayne Newton's down with flu Three-forty-nine breakfast in the Paradise Buffet We sneak past the slot machines to the res-taur-rant birds sing caa-caa, ooee-ooee Don Ho: moookie looukie loww Guitar: twayiianng An angel: no doggie bags in Paradise On edge I watch butterflies cartwheel over the hood of my new truck going down into Death Valley Wind always blows In California it blows sand from the lake drained for L.A. driving it thirty forty miles an hour down the highway into my new truck I snap get out behind a shack read a threat in the window rub the pits in the windshield listen to country radio sandblast my legs on the highway see a hole and go wind knocks the truck around like those butterflies We stop at a drive-in I consume coffee, Marlboros, french fries see her back as she runs away across the parking lot to call her mother I go quietly fetch her Drive north into June snow so Motel 6 ecstasy Can't wash a truck in Mammoth (like to keep ma truck clean) Over the Sierra love them snowy streams and rocks and trees down to drive the Yosemite 500 take pictures of Park Rangers and waterfalls In the west, grassland lies rumpled like golden fur Lake Shasta, skirted in red dirt needs a top-up I-5 North to home timberline home home green Jungle! +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Untitled" by Leah Cole I visited that place Cloudy summer day A chill breeze Or was it more? Steel grey, no black. No contrast as sharp as The draped wire Still sharp Was that ditch-- The one that grew poppies And had a little gravel-- A moat? Or-- no Muffled mumblings Of tourists That don't speak the language The language of the photographers The army, The language Of hate The language of the dead To them mixed up letters To me hate clothed in beauty Despair lilting and bouncing With gentle syllables The nightmares find me Paris. London. Home. Small towns Obscured even on the Rand McNalley Fleeting black images Chase me to church Break my pious thoughts Sketch themselves faintly Over the Moscow sky And put on a new Mask In Petersburg A pilgrimage Of duty? Of guilt? To seek absolution? Or crucifixion? A common unconscious Opens suddenly before me Like birth waters breaking A flood of life seeping away That ditch-- was it? Yes. They are there. Poppies wrap their sullen roots about the wrists and ribs. In the midst of a flood I dream of a hand exposed Reaching up to God in heaven But there's no Michelangelo To paint this on another Sistine Chapel. Only me. I don't wake crying. I never do. Only half remembered images Over tea and toast. Not so difficult a journey Up before the sun A padded motor coach No forced march No fitful sleep standing closely in a cattle car No twitch of dreams in anticipation Of confronting this evil. I wonder, should I be nervous? Will I stick out as the only aryan? Will they hate me because I have No name to find Because I won't see in a display My dead grandmother staring back? We are hushed. No one else is. They are not pilgrims. They are in Junior High. They are bored on Spring Break. They are here to see the gore. They are here not to understand But to gawk. We stop. She looks in a mirror Or is it a photo that somehow survived? He wonders if the bunk he sees Held his great uncle I am drawn to the monitor. Hidden from the faint of heart By a barrier to shield and lean on. Past the tattered Torahs And the shattered windows Texts I can translate but don't want to read I know it will be there, playing Playing ceaselessly Waiting for me. That moat that used to circle the camp. I know that place. How many people did I walk on? How many grew into the poppy I pressed so lovingly into My German-English dictionary? The barrier meets my body Cool and seductively dark I become locked to the screen I have no power to back away People carried to that moat Like so many rotted chicken legs Dangling loosely for crab bait Or it is-- yes. It grows poppies I am jostled sharply My elbow contacts the barrier The physical pain is revitalizing The decaying scent of the shoes Is almost jarred loose from my nostrils. A woman who can barely Reach the barrier Short and soft Rotted from the inside Cues up Pushes her way through Not willing to wait her turn To get a peep at the freak show At the sensationalist video Propaganda of the West "Damn kids. They're watching It over and over four times" So eager to drizzle her Leering eyes over the record Of the moat Or is it-- no! She cares nothing for our Grandmother Or great uncle Or my poppy And I am become Michelangelo. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "SuperMenu" by Leonard S. Edgerly Internet in the morning: a trip to Brown for poetry creates a menu of all things touching the word (poetry) highlighted in black, a menu all to myself, the poetry at Brown. Imagine if I were a student there now, or at Harvard, or Stanford, this lit by words, this free to order up my own menus. Instead (old song) a meeting of the Steering Committee to Reengineer the Purchasing Function (oh please, oh please) Bring a menu with honey on it! Slick clear juice of the bee, my own digital network, cross-referenced and very, very fast. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Death of a Giant Jack Rabbit Rodeo Star" by Byron J. Lanning The Bernoulli Brothers Gunpowder Circus and Giant Jack Rabbit Rodeo suffered a tragic loss last night when its premier giant jack rabbit rider, Adios Superfly, exploded and burned to death in the middle of his performance. A few seconds into Superfly's act, the giant jack rabbit he rode, Becoming Mr. Fink, bucked him off and propelled him to the top of the big top tent where he flew into the midst of the flaming trapeze act, slamming into the flaming trapeze artist, Napalm Dickey, also known as the human meteor, also known as the Flambeau Rambo because he wears a napalm turban on his head, which burns like a maniacal, pissed off bunsen burner as he swings through the air the with greatest of ease. When Napalm Dickey and Superfly collided, Napalm Dickey's flaming turban ignited Superfly's creosote cowboy hat and volatile crepe paper neckerchief. Flaming embers then dropped on his electric chaps. Superfly detonated, and he fell to the arena floor in a ball of flame. A fire alarm sounded in the big top tent and several rodeo clowns dressed in firefighter outfits drove out onto the arena in a emergency fire wagon pulled by Playboy bunnies. They jumped off the wagon and extinguished Superfly with bottles of seltzer water, but not before the flames had given Superfly an excessive cremation. A clown dressed in a surgeon's costume named Old Doc Laudanum then entered the arena. He took one look at the pile of ashes and stated in his medical opinion, "Superfly could be possibly dead." The Bernoulli brothers respected his medical opinion greatly because before he became a clown he was a surgeon, and he became a circus clown only when he lost his medical license in a botched liver transplant operation in which he mistakenly transplanted a hot water bottle into a man. Giant jack rabbit experts consider Adios Superfly the greatest giant jack rabbit rider in the world and probably the best in the modern era, ever since giant jack rabbit riders began using electric chaps, Pancho Villa foot deodorant, thalidomide chewing tobacco, and wearing frilly underwear under their electric chaps for good luck. Despite his success, Superfly did not have a natural talent for giant jack rabbit riding. For years he never road a giant jack rabbit longer than the required ten seconds and many times he fell off before he mounted one. His riding career took a complete turnaround when he attended Dr. Puzzletwit's two hour confidence-building program, based on certain metaphysical principles of ichthyology and the major teachings of Nazism. The principle part of the seminar consisted of Dr. Puzzletwit grabbing his students by the shoulders, screaming in their faces, "By God, all you need is some confidence!" and slapping them with a live tuna fish. As students progressed in the seminar, Dr. Puzzletwit no longer had to tell them they needed confidence and just hit them with a live tuna fish. Upon completion of the seminar, the students didn't need Dr. Puzzletwit to hit them with a live tuna fish, for they had self-confidence and could hit themselves with a live tuna fish, which they did most severely upon receiving their diplomas. After Superfly graduated from Puzzletwit's seminar, he had to ride a white colored giant jack rabbit named Cream of Punishment that no rider had stayed on longer than three seconds. This did not deter Superfly because now he had confidence. Before mounting Creme of Punishment, Superfly stared him in the eyes and said, "Today's the day you get ridden you overlumpy, moby-jumbo, heathen of an Easter Bunny." He slapped himself with a tuna fish, mounted Creme of Punishment, and rode him for ten seconds, scoring a 9.5 for technical merit and a 9.95 for artistic merit on account he smiled vigorously throughout the ride, pointed his toes, and extended his pinky fingers of both hands. This successful ride launched his rodeo career. No giant jack rabbit threw him again until his death on Becoming Mr. Fink. He wound up the number one giant jack rabbit rider five years consecutively and retired from the rodeo circuit when the Bernoulli Brothers hired him. Upon Superfly's death, Sheriff Heyday of Kranky Karma County suspected foul play. He found evidence that someone had severely buttered Superfly's saddle. Immediately, suspicion fell on Rub Chevalier, another giant jack rabbit rider, for the day of Superfly's death Superfly and Chevalier had an argument over Candylegs Desideratum, Chevalier's exwife. Superfly had started dating her and Chevalier didn't approve of it because Candylegs was a strict full immersion Baptist; whereas, Superfly had no religious convictions other than hot tubbing. In addition, Old Doc Laudanum had seen Chevalier walking around the rodeo grounds with a large stick of butter, licking it like a Popsicle. This did not seem unusual by itself because he always walked around the rodeo grounds licking a stick of butter; however, on this day, he came up to Old Doc Laudanum and asked him, "Theoretically, if a man buttered Adios Superfly's saddle and Superfly died as a result from a giant jack rabbit throwing him and this certain man got convicted of the crime, could that certain man still enter a convent and become a nun?" Doc Laudanum refused to answer. He called it a stupid question that only someone with postgraduate work in philosophy could conceive. Chevalier thanked the doctor, offered him a lick of his butter then left. When Chevalier became the prime suspect, Sheriff Heyday gave him a lie detector test. Chevalier scored only a 55% on the test and failed, so Sheriff Heyday told him to go back home and study the test harder, especially the sections on George Washington cutting down the cherry tree, Baron Munchausen, and the boy who cried wolf. Heyday feels confident Chevalier will pass the lie detector test on his second attempt, and he will charge him with first degree murder and reckless misuse of butter in the act of a felony. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Untitled" by Magnus Y. Alvestad She's dressed in black as if someone died - I think she did. She doesn't look back at me. She laughed and I did - now she cries alone. I'm a stranger but she lets me read her like an open book. I want to fill those pages. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Second Impression" by Dror Abend Not as much as to have left a furious letter behind I didn't even pretend not to care or that I wouldn't be willing to preach Holocaust to Sabbath school kids wherever I was going or that I knew where it was Only that I will never have to wear that canvas uniform in a hundred degrees weather never be owned by a higher ranked sadist never sent on jog in the heat with a pint of stale water never again assist in the oppression of individuals for the general good of a people who would not like to hear my opinion about it so I didn't tell them. Now, behind an ice glazed window in a frozen bottom university out there I have my wish I study eventlessness, holocaust-lessness, bone-breaking-less-ness, not even my bones by town people who think I'm a Martian So well did I step out of my world into the limbo of post recession my neighbor fast asleep, his wife one month pregnant I like pancake for breakfast but no ketchup I ask him how can you have no health insurance he says that he has study loans Universities are so great. lectures and students repeat in fast jargon future minds and experienced philosophers re-read verbally with the use of new methods young scholars and established residents of academia reiterate in professional terms margined thinkers and members of the establishment rephrase in unique language differently trained and degree earned mental writers say differently nothing alone I embark on conventions how further into the snow was I buried at the MLA it was Christmas in Toronto, Paris translated, London at a Cafe` this being arranged by the business people of a word procession I could well afford to sit belly emptied at THE ROYAL YORK and read The New Yorker: "Mrs. Lethwes had no feelings for the idea [of adoption]; ... Their own particular children were the children she wanted, an expression of their love" Mr. Shiltz had no feelings for the idea of AIDS Mr. Fauel had no feelings for the idea of free trade Mr. Mobavitz had no feelings for the idea of penis slashing Ms. Hardings had no feelings for the idea of losing out at the Olympics So my wife has no feeling for the next snow storm nor I for my toothache putting off my check up for two years now it will cost A nice touch of reality under my crowns don't I wish it for those convention people giving lectures of white domination in ten inches, research papers of Walt Disney's policies of employment Now criticized by tenureship junkies manifesting Gay and lesbian - we hate bisexuals - studies, saying "they cause AIDS" - as if blaming the Japanese will help produce better cars. the Russians - better winters the British - snobbier schools the Israelis - lousier wars the Deficiency Syndrome is a part of our lives now a thousand times better than that stale uniform, them canvas water, that one hundred degrees Holocaust that you may not protest for I may have no feelings for the idea of reality Now, I can delay and put it away for a while. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Names" by Tuomas Kilpi I have no dreams just visual remorse lies remembered badly in an imaginary landscape black noise on all channels life ends in a commercial break no transmission without transgression I have no face just a distant cloud of dust chinese particles and junk bonds tattooed on my forehead an empire destined to expire and nothing more +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Untitled" by John Tarver These people bother me. Walnut-shaped, satanic, they stand in a leafy wind, poking and prodding the fun out of autumn sounds. Smoldering rubbish heaps for heads, they turn away after expressing strong, mixed feelings. The black outfits billow. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Open the Day" by Christopher Jacques Hoover Open the day With the slightest of breath That rises to point and pirouettes into the coming light It crystallizes in the bedroom's cold first air Takes form to seize life from the jaws of dawn To your side, she has not awakened And continues to dream Of a river, strong and slumbering Of warm coffee And a daughter And a future And of music without ending And opens unfocused eyes at last To a drowsy, lopsided smile And "good morning" +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "What Donna Knew" by J.D. Rummel The first time I entered Locklin's mind, I was every bit as surprised as you might imagine. It was a strange union to be sure; I was limited to just seeing what he saw and hearing what he heard. I was never privy to his thoughts or impressions, nor do I have any explanation for the phenomenon. I have never shared the details with anyone. Unusual as it was, it wasn't a lot of fun, not after the initial novelty wore off, anyway. In fact, after a while it was a lot like going to a long and boring movie. Locklin was no secret agent. He did pretty much the same things I did. He ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. He watched a god-awful amount of television, and when he wasn't going to the gym he was working or sleeping. I stopped this ultimate invasion of privacy not out of any high moral code, but out of a sort of boredom. Then he introduced me to Donna. The damn fool introduced me to soft, sexy, and completely captivating Donna. How was I supposed to behave myself after meeting her? To this day I don't know how to express the effect she had on me. I knew that prettier women existed. Sometimes she wore too much eye make-up and sometimes her nose was a trifle outstanding, but in her presence I felt an electricity, as if every system in my body were on alert; I thought faster, I observed more, and every statement I made came under careful scrutiny before I would release it for public consumption. Maybe it was her laughter. When she laughed at one of my jokes it was an honest laugh, not polite. When she listened to me she actually heard what I said and acted as if my opinion mattered. I knew that I was headed for trouble, and for one of the few times in my twenty-five years I didn't want to run. I wanted this trouble more than anything I could remember. And I wanted more; I wanted to see myself in her eyes; I wanted to hear her voice call my name; I wanted to make the blood rush in her veins. But if any one person can belong to someone else, she belonged to Locklin. I have to be fair, Locklin was not some jerk, and I could understand how a woman could find him attractive. Locklin was tall, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip. He had white teeth and all of his own hair. He looked great with his shirt off. I am none of those things. The best that can be said of me is that I have a peculiar charm which permits me to have never suffered a dog bite. I tried to behave in a decent fashion. I played the game and tried to live through it as I'm sure lots of people have before me. I was only allowed to play because of Rule Three: _NO NON-EMPLOYEES ON THE LOADING DOCK_ When Donna would come around to pick Locklin up, or just to say "Hello", she had to wait in my shoebox-sized office. One day she came in looking like she had unloaded and puddled a hundred yards of concrete; she was the most gorgeous non-union labor I had ever seen. "Good afternoon," and as I spoke I could feel my metabolism shifting into that Donna-fueled overdrive. "Howdy-doo," she replied, and plopped down in the molded plastic chair against the wall. I was careful not to stare and yet maintain the sort of pleasant eye contact that she would expect from a friendly, nice man. "We look like we've been working," I said. She blew a breath of air upwards pushing back a fallen tress of red hair. "My brother is putting a patio in my Dad's backyard and nobody told me to be out of town." "Gee, I'm sorry," I said, "But look at it this way, it could be worse." She aimed a questioning look at me, "How?" I gave it my best "intense cogitation" look, adding a sort of Rodin's "Thinker" posture, even stroking my chin. "No, I guess it can't get any worse." She smiled. That smile meant so much; If a meteor burned through the roof and killed me it would hurt a little less because she smiled. "Are you going to buzz the Man, or do I have to get tough and break Rule Three?" she asked. "Oh-ho. Mother warned me about girls like you--never thought I'd be lucky enough to meet one though." I wiggled my eyebrows Groucho-style. She laughed. What a day! Christ, maybe there was a check from Publisher's Clearing House at home. I paged Locklin. "Tell me something," she asked, "why are you working this job?" A question about me?! Did she care? She was asking about me! I had to be cool, but not flip--down-to-earth. "What do you mean?" I answered, trying to look thoughtful. "You have an education and a lot on the ball, why are you working in this office? You could do better." "I don't know. Maybe I've never found what I want to do." She sucked in her bottom lip and nodded, "I know what you mean. For a long time I thought God would send me a telegram saying, _"BE A DOCTOR, DONNA"_ but he never did. I guess it's something most of us have to work on." "I think. . ." I started to reply, but I never got to finish, for at that moment Locklin came in and my small magic was broken. I no longer existed in the same room: there was a chemistry present in which I was a completely inactive element. Looking back I know of course how much she must have cared for him, but at the time the reality of it was too great and I purposely denied what my eyes saw and my heart most feared. I've done it before. How could I be attracted to someone who wasn't interested in me? Or more accurately, why was I always attracted to such people? For one reason or another I have played this scene virtually all my life. There was a very major difference this time, however: I could enter Locklin's mind. I guess that's why I did it. I just wanted to be with a woman who wanted to be with me, even if it wasn't really me she was with. At first I wrestled with the morality of it. Later, I questioned the healthiness of it. But I guess the weather was what finally wore me down. I couldn't stand watching the snow swirl down outside my window and stay in that house knowing that Donna was alive in some part of the world but wasn't with me. I had been given a marvelous gift and only a fool would not use it. So, on a Sunday afternoon I quietly slipped out of my own mind and slid into Locklin's experience. It was a great deal like waking up in a strange place. I closed my eyes in my living room and the surprise was that, when I opened them again I wasn't in my own life anymore. I was in luck. Donna and Locklin were together. They were walking in the park, watching children skate on the frozen lagoon surface. We held hands. "Do you know how to skate?" she asked him. "No," he replied. "Want to learn?" she squeezed our hand as she asked. I wanted to learn, I wanted to positively fly across the ice. When he answered "No," it made me angry. I wondered if he didn't want to look foolish. Hell, I was used to that. She leaned her head against us as we walked, and I felt special, like the only child at Christmas in a house full of adults. We walked in relative silence, listening to the frozen earth crack, occasionally watching it crumble to chocolate bits. I watched, as best Locklin's eyes would let me, her chilled breath rise in clouds and disappear. She dumped a mitten-load of snow down our back and we chased her up a hill. I noticed her hiding place but wouldn't have given her away even if I could have. She jumped on our back and kissed our left ear. Locklin dumped her in a snow drift and I wanted to tell her a joke about her rising from the powdery pile looking like a cartoon Santa. But I couldn't. On a remote hill by the snow-filled swimming pool she led us to a hole in the cyclone fencing and guided us over toward a cement bench. She sat down on the cold surface and pulled us down to her. We kissed. My heart was slamming inside me, or maybe it was inside him, I wasn't sure. She tasted so good, her scent was so incredible; the sheer rush on the senses was staggering. As she circled her arms around us and drew herself onto our lap, I was suddenly aware of how rarely I touch anyone, and how few were the times anyone has wanted to touch me. It became very clear at that moment how much I missed something I'd never had. I began to feel ashamed; this was not my life. I left him at that point, returning to my living room aware of a salty, burning sensation behind my eyes, aware that I was alone. _________________________________________________________________ Although I am not proud of any of the times I intruded on them, the night at the bar was perhaps the most significant. It was certainly the worst. My involvement was purely accidental--to a point anyway. I was drinking in a hotel lounge, watching a live D.J. perform the unenviable task of motivating a Monday night crowd to dance. As I stepped from the bar, looking for a rest room, I observed Donna seated in the lobby, checking her watch, obviously waiting on someone. I'd had a few, so I approached her. "Come here often?" God! I regretted it instantly. What a stupid thing to say. She looked up, apparently oblivious to my blunder, "Hi, what are you doing here?" "I'm working undercover for the F.B.I., it's their new Bottom of the Barrel Program." I wiggled my eyebrows Groucho-style, falling back on proven material. "You have great eyebrows," she said. That was all it took, just that one comment and suddenly my desperate imagination was off and running, turning "You have great eyebrows" into, "I am secretly attracted to you, please ask me out." Fortunately, although my imagination is strong, it doesn't overpower my rational side. I replied, "Yeah, they're great on cold winter nights." My mind raced to think of anything to say that would prolong staying with her, but after a few moments of unspectacular small talk, the air between us began to hang in heavy, drooping pauses. It was time to move on. So, I waited in the parking lot, seated behind the wheel of my car, checking to see if it was Locklin she was meeting. I don't know why, but somewhere in the back of my head maybe I thought if she was meeting someone besides him, maybe I had a chance. Desperate, very desperate. Of course Locklin drove in, parked, and at once affirmed my faith in Donna and brought me down to reality. My reality. Not my favorite place to be. So once more I entered Locklin's world. In the hotel room they had dinner, and he said things I could have said better. I should have left then. But I stayed. I stayed as he drew her to him and undressed her. When I saw Donna naked, my throat tightened--somebody's throat tightened. I saw the desire in those wonderful eyes--such a different look than she gave me when praising my eyebrows; this look was pure and hungry. He was making the blood rush in her veins, and I hated him for it. And I stayed, I stayed as he made her cry out his name; I felt her excitement, and the rhythm they built between them excluded me far more than any mere conversation. I will never forget the sheer warmth inside her, nor forget the fear that finally drove me out: the stunning dread that I might never have what they had, that such passion and acceptance was something it was my fate to only desire and envy but never attain. I was vomiting in the cold parking lot, watching the accumulation of several hours spill itself down the side of my car, the acidic stink waking me, but not halting the memory of her face as they coupled. A bald security guard was standing beside the car, telling me that he didn't come to my job and throw-up. Asshole. _________________________________________________________________ It was particularly hot that Friday night. For years, Fridays have always been special to me. When I was a boy, Friday meant that I had survived another week of abuse in school and could escape into my comic books for the weekend. For two days and nights I was Superman, Spiderman, or all of the Mighty Avengers. Friday night, when I was very lucky, had monster movies on late, and my Mother watching them with me, half-asleep on the sofa. And Friday night inevitably led to Saturday morning and cartoons: Fantastic Four, Johnny Quest, Bugs Bunny. But those were the Fridays of my youth. The Fridays of my manhood were spent alone, watching reruns and going to bed early, knowing that cartoons today suck. I had not been in Locklin's mind for the entire spring and a fair chunk of summer. After the night in the hotel I was consumed by a period of self-loathing and depression. I had resolved to respect their privacy. But it was particularly hot that summer--that night. I was in bed watching lightning flash in the eastern midnight sky. I was damp; my exposed flesh clung to the sheets, and long pools of moisture gathered in the creases of my skin. The wind gusted, steadily bringing the storm closer. It shook the leaves in the trees and whistled and moaned around the corners of the house. I felt sweat collecting under my eyes and tasted salt against my lips as wetness gathered on my face. The air in my room was heavy and moist and the rattling fan on the dresser pressed it into me like a damp towel. My thoughts were of Donna. They were the kinds of thoughts that are never mentioned in daytime. How pathetic. Lying in bed enjoying memories of sex with a woman I couldn't call my own. Not just the woman, but the memories themselves. All the past came back to me, faces of girls I never dared speak to, and the rejections of those I did. In comics, sometimes there are drawings of the hero surrounded by all the villains he's fought. I was in the center of a circle comprised of Mary, Janet, Pam, and Cindy. I thought long and hard in my seclusion, trying to grasp why I had to endure such alienation. In the end the weather beat me again. It was too hot to deny myself; I had been good long enough. With a storm brewing in the east, and my skinny body pasted to the linen, I reached out to Locklin's mind. Ordinarily the transition to his experience was a smooth process. Tonight, however, was different. Terrible. At first there was the unpleasant sensation of biting tinfoil, then lots of little pinpricks, an uncomfortable tingling that resembled a fever chill. Slowly, wave after wave of some sort of horrible perception, a realization on Locklin's part that so affected him it was transmitted almost as physical pain. I have never been privy to his memory or his own view of reality during our joinings, so I had no idea what was assaulting him. I could only be aware, as always, of our immediate surroundings. Locklin was crying. Crying and driving. It was raining and the water rushed out of the sky in black, blinding waves. The car was moving very fast, too fast for the road under such conditions. He was alone. The sky lit up and for a moment became high noon tinged in eerie, electric blue, then blackness swallowed us up again and the car plummeted along into the evening. But the darkness outside could not compare with the sort of shadow that was welling up in Locklin. The pain he was enduring was gigantic, it loomed around my own consciousness, looking for a way in, seeking to consume any intelligence it found. The road was unfamiliar, and the speedometer needled higher and faster. The engine was whining, straining against the overdrive. The rubber blades couldn't clear the glass fast enough; the road was a flashing, twisted blur. "Get out of my head!" I heard him say. I was frozen. He said, "Get out, bitch!" What in the world was he talking about? The tears came faster now, his vision was gone. He mashed the accelerator to the floor, and I felt the tires break loose from the slick blacktop. Locklin took his hands off the wheel and covered his head. The vehicle seemed airborne, it tilted and the wet, flashing world turned sideways. I felt his throat constrict as I left him. _________________________________________________________________ It was a hot summer, much like the one in which Locklin died. Years have passed since that night, many things have changed, and many remained the same. Seated on the front steps I looked up at the stars, then down at the highway, comparing the still lights above with the rambling glitter below. My last conversation with Donna was at Locklin's funeral. I recall the day being sun warmed and pleasant, a comfortable environment oblivious to suffering. The preacher said a few words. It was very generic, since I don't think he knew anything about Locklin. But then neither did I, really. After the service, Donna and I walked towards our respective cars. Mine was not near hers but I walked beside her anyway. "If there's anything I can do for you. . ." I said. She walked very carefully over the grass and occasional stranger, "No, but thank you." She seemed very controlled, very calm. I certainly didn't have the right to ask what she thought had happened, let alone explain that I had been present. There was so much that I wanted to say, but all I could finally bring to her was the only thing I was certain of. "I want you to know he loved you," I told her. "I know he loved me," she answered, and her voice had a trace of regret as she added, "Wouldn't it be nice if that were all it took?" And she smiled at me, not a happy smile, but a face that seemed to say other days were coming, and these days did not stop or wait. She said goodbye and drove away. I never saw her again. The only conclusion I ever came to was the result of thinking about it over and over on nights just like this. It's quite possible that we forget something about ourselves: In the beginning we are born alone, in the end we die alone, and in the interim, ultimately, no matter who we love, or who might love us, we must live alone. I'm not sure, but maybe Donna always knew this. I think most of us have to work on it. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ABOUT THE AUTHORS, VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3, TMR o Dror Abend (bc05323%bingvaxa.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu) is a graduate student of English at New York State University at Binghamton. He writes poetry and engages in creative criticism. o Magnus Y. Alvestad (magnus@ii.uib.no) is a student, consultant and poet in Bergen, Norway. o Leah Cole (colel@alleg.edu) is a first year student at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. She plans on majoring in English and minoring in German, with a concentration of double teaching certification. Her ultimate goal: To get a job in a wealthy school district (ha) and wear her birkenstocks to work. o Leonard S. Edgerly (edgerly@ng.kne.com) is a poet and corporate executive who lives in Casper, Wyoming. He has poems published or forthcoming in _Amelia_, _Owen Wister Review_, and _Visions of Wyoming_. He has published a chapbook titled _Disputed Territory_. o Robert A. Fulkerson (Co-Editor, rfulk@creighton.edu) just finished his first year of graduate school. He will soon graduate from another school, that of bachelorhood, when he marries Kris Kalil on July 1, 1994. o Mike Gates (ReadRoom Layout Designer, tsmwg@alaska.edu) is a cyberholic who runs a small BBS in Ketchikan, Alaska. Mike is a closet writer who sells explosives for a living (really!) and has a humming room full of computers in a house he shares with his wife and two infant daughters. o Christopher Jacques Hoover (choover@usd.edu), known in certain Morponian circles as Shadowspawn, is a network coordinator at the University of South Dakota. His poetry and short fiction have previously appeared in _The Longneck_, an annual publication of the Northbank Writers Group in his home town of Vermillion (e-mail him for details). He hasn't written anything about cows yet, but does own a really cool handmade necktie with holsteins on a red background. o Kris M. Kalil (Proofreader, kkalil@creighton.edu), a graduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is eagerly anticipating her marriage to Robert Fulkerson on July 1st--a mere 5.5 weeks away! o Tuomas Kilpi (tkilpi@cc.helsinki.fi) is currently studying philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He also edits a small press journal that deals with everything from comix to Bach. So far he has written four published books and a fifth is on the way. o Byron Lanning (bjlanning@delphi.com) lives in Missouri. He is working on a script for an interactive CD ROM and a collection of humor, which includes the story _Death of a Giant Jack Rabbit Rodeo Star_. His story, _Oh Bean Curd!_, appeared in Volume 1, Issue 1. o James Lewis (James_Lewis@mindlink.bc.ca) grew up in Vancouver, B.C. and has lived there all his life. He worked for years as a structural ironworker, but hasn't worked much recently, so he bought a suit and is looking at being a salesman. He lives with his wife and their baby. o Jerome Mandel (jerome@ccsg.tau.ac.il) is a professor of English at Tel Aviv University. Although primarily a medievalist (his most recent book is _Geoffrey Chaucer: Building the Fragments of the Canterbury Tales_) he has also published on Shakespeare, Fielding, Lawrence, Joyce, Fitzgerald, and Houseman as well as short stories in American and Israeli magazines. o Matthew Mason (Co-Editor, mtmason@ucdavis.edu) eater of many bagels, is currently putting the finishing touches on his master's thesis of poetry now titled _The Thin Line of What I Know_. He just received the Celeste Turner Wright Award for Poetry from UC Davis but hasn't let this go to his head (yah, right). o J.D. Rummel (rummel@phoenix.creighton.edu) is a mysterious figure who seeks after the truth and has sworn to use his great powers only for good. Or at least he'd like to be. His story, _Frozen With a Stranger in the Park_ appeared in Volume 1, Issue 1. Other stories of his can be found on his personal World Wide Web page at http://phoenix.creighton.edu/~rummel/. o Elizabeth A. Simmons (PostScript Editor, esimmons@usd.edu) is a graphic artist and editorial assistant living in Vermillion, SD. She designs advertising layouts, posters and logos for clients as far away as Washington state. Her publications include _Wildlife on the Cheyenne River and Lower Brule Sioux Reservations_, two U.S. history texts (currently being published by Harcourt-Brace), _History of Bon Homme County_, the new format for _Schatzkammer_ (an international journal for German teachers), cover art for numerous locally published textbooks, and far too many pending projects. She usually wakes up before her husband, Chris. o John Tarver (tortorsen@aol.com) practices administrative law in Baton Rouge, LA. o Bryan Thomas (ez006593@bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu) is a third-year student at UC Davis and is a victim of the 'i' for an 'I' syndrome, afflicting those habituated to the real-time-stream-of-consciousness-ness of the teleconference. He is currently paralyzed by bliss, unable to write poetry. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ IN THEIR OWN WORDS o _Leaving Costa Rica Before the Election_ by Leonard S. Edgerly "[The Costa Rica poem] was inspired by the recent election campaign, which sent colorful flags of the two major parties racing through the streets when my wife I vacationed there in January." o _Pederast_ by Bryan Thomas "_Pederast_ was written 12-15-93, and is very much a dialogue between the poet and himself about the forcible removal of guilt. I actually spoke a few of the lines aloud as I typed them, and it's still a frighteningly vertiginous read for me." o _Lorelei Adams_ by Jerome Mandel "I attend a writing class with some fine Israeli writers and the novelist Chayyim Zeldis. I had just finished two unworldly stories, with time-slips and the impossible, and then started this with the third sentence. As I worked on it, adding the accident and manipulating the language, it took the shape of a multiple-resurrection story. Just before I read it to the group, one member told an anecdote of a friend who carried on a conversation with her dead husband. Felt damn silly." o _Driving in Amahrica_ by James Lewis "I seldom take photographs, so this poem, I suppose, is composed of word-graphs from a road trip through the Southwest US. I did a lot of work with a musician and produced a poetry & drums show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival in '92. We used a hip hop beat in the background, and I just 'drove' through the poem, keeping up a steady fast pace in the reading of it." o _Untitled_ by Leah Cole Leah visited Dachau several summers ago. Her interest in the Shoa has continued throughout high school. She was able to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washinton, D.C., earlier in the spring. Much of what she experienced both connected with her visit to Dachau and a later trip to the seige-scarred city of St. Petersburg. Images haunted her until she trapped them on paper. This poem is the result. o _SuperMenu_ by Leonard S. Edgerly "My daughter is a freshman at Brown, where my search for the word 'poetry' sparked musings. What if I had majored in poetry at Harvard instead of heading for business, what if I were in college now?" o _Death of a Giant Jack Rabbit Rodeo Star_ by Byron Lanning "The image of a giant jack rabbit ridden by a cowboy entered my head. At first, I thought I had a religious vision. However, after careful research, picking through a myriad of religious texts from the _Kabbala_ to _The Bhagavad-Gita_ to Hans Kung's _On Being a Christian_, I could find no religion based on giant jack rabbits. So I wrote a story with them in it. o _Untitled_ by Magnus Y. Alvestad "I wrote this little poem a year or so ago because there wasn't anything else I could do for that sad girl. Maybe one day I'll show it to her." o _Names_ by Tuomas Kilpi "I'm just trying to see if I could actually write poetry and prose in English (which has been my primary language for about ten years as far as reading is concerned). I enjoy the ability to create tense images that just would not work in my native language, Finnish. I tried to create a vivid poem - kind of 24 hours of CNN trashed into five seconds..." o _Open the Day_ by Christopher Jacques Hoover "Sometimes, when I tell my wife I love her and she happens to be in a perverse mood, she'll ask 'why?' The answer that sometimes feels the closest to the truth is simply 'because of the way it feels to wake up with you.' 'Open the Day' is my attempt to put that feeling into a poem. My wife maintains that it must be fiction, because 'he never wakes up first.' Go figure." o _What Donna Knew_ by J.D. Rummel "_Donna_ was inspired by two circumstances. I used to work with this nice guy who felt very deeply for this exceptional woman who was absolutely out of his league. Two, I was confounded by a physical attraction for a woman that I found personally very dull. Despite the fact that we could never have a meaningful discussion, I felt aroused in her presence. So, one day, as her significant other was dropping her off at work, I looked at him and wondered what it would be like to be in his head while they did the nasty. Those who wish to, can send "get help" hate mail to: rummel@phoenix.creighton.edu" +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ISRAELI POET TRAVELING LECTURE SERIES The Israeli Consulate in New York is sponsoring a traveling lecture series of six significant Israeli Poets. If you or your university are interested in more details regarding this series, please write to Dror Abend at E-Mail: BC05323@BINGVAXA.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU or Post Mail: Binghamton University Box 10355 Binghamton NY, 13902-6010 Tel 1-607-777-7762 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Where to Find _The Morpo Review_ Current and past issues of _TMR_ can be located and obtained via the following means: o Interactive Methods: The following methods of accessing _TMR_ allow you to interactively pick and choose what you want to read. WWW and ReadRoom support are the most interactive, allowing you to select individual pieces to read. Gopher access simply provides access to _TMR_ as one whole issue. o Via the World Wide Web. Point your WWW browswer to: http://morpo.creighton.edu/morpo/ o Via Gopher. Just point your Gopher client to one of the following sites: morpo.creighton.edu in /The Morpo Review ftp.etext.org in /Zines/Morpo.Review o Via the following Bulletin Board Systems: The Outlands (Ketchikan, Alaska, USA) +1 907-247-4733, +1 907-225-1219, +1 907-225-1220. _The Outlands_ is the home BBS system for the ReadRoom BBS Door format. You can download the IBM-PC/DOS ReadRoom version here. o Semi-interactive methods: You can grab the full text of past issues from the following sites. o Via Anonymous FTP. - Just point your FTP client to ftp.etext.org in /pub/Zines/Morpo.Review - You can also use morpo.creighton.edu in any of the following directories: /pub/morpo/ascii for ASCII versions /pub/morpo/dos for Reading Room formatted versions /pub/morpo/ps for PostScript o Via Electronic Mail Server. Send the message "get morpo morpo.index" to lists@morpo.creighton.edu and you will receive instructions on how to use our email archive server to retrieve ASCII versions of _The Morpo Review_. o Via America Online Just use Keyword: PDA and then select Palmtop Paperbacks/ Electronic Articles and Newsletters. You can find the DOS-based ReadRoom version here, also. o Subscriptions: You can obtain an electronic mail subscription and have the full ASCII version of _TMR_ arrive automatically in your e-mail box when it is released to the public. Send Internet mail with a subject of "Moo!" (or some variation thereof) to morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu and you will be added to the distribution list. There are currently 238 world-wide subscribers. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Addresses for _The Morpo Review_ rfulk@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson, Co-Editor mtmason@ucdavis.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Mason, Co-Editor esimmons@usd.edu . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth Simmons, PostScript Editor kkalil@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kris Kalil, Proofreader tsmwg@alaska.edu . . . . . . . . . . Mike Gates, ReadRoom Layout Designer morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu . Submissions to _The Morpo Review_ morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Requests for E-Mail subscriptions morpo-comments@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Comments about _The Morpo Review_ morpo-editors@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . Reach all the editors at once +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Submit to _The Morpo Review_ What kind of work do we want? How about Sonnets to Captain Kangaroo, free-verse ruminations comparing plastic lawn ornaments to _Love Boat_ or nearly anything with cows in it. No, not cute, Smurfy little "ha ha" ditties--back reality into a corner and snarl! Some good examples are "Oatmeal" by Galway Kinnell, "A Supermarket In California" by Allen Ginsberg, or the 6th section of Wallace Stevens' "Six Significant Landscapes." But, hey, if this makes little or no sense, just send us good stuff; if we like it, we'll print it, even if it's nothing close to the above description of what we want (life's like that at times). Just send us good stuff, get published, and impress your peers and neighbors. So send us your unhinged poetry, prose and essay contemplations at morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Our next issue will be available around August 15, 1994. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+