A Country Rag Gloria!

Graphic: "Flowers" by Cindy Duhe, a nineteen year old writer/artist/musician from Houston, Texas.

Janet Buck teaches composition and literature at the university level. Calamity's Quilt, her first print collection of poetry, will be released by Newton's Baby Press on December 1st. Funky Dog Publishing recently released an online chapbook of Janet’s poetry entitled Strawberry Nipples, which focuses primarily on the role of writing in coping with a disability. Barbara Benepe, editor and publisher of The Horsethief’s Journal and The Green Tricycle, comments on the poet’s work in a recent review: “Buck's strength is her perseverance and focused analysis of human suffering--from the inside looking out. Everyone faces a demon or two in the course of a life--but not everyone has the skill to write about it in such an evocative way. Buck draws the reader into her very soul and we experience her suffering as if it were our own. Janet Buck's outstanding talent succeeds where others stumble. She runs headlong into her personal cauldron, screaming LIFE! and we're there, with her--every step of the way.”

by Janet Buck

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"Deserted Apertures of Time"

The whiz of trains in awkward chunks--
straight toward centers of an opal,
coated some by prairie dust, 
still a stone I pray to keep. 
Naked suns in lollipops
on fingers of a mountain’s hand.
Orange sugar stains my skirt.
Wind rips over pasture grass--
waves that inch toward even shores.

Land becomes a rushing river,
watching all short seasons meet.
Deserted apertures of tile 
like old tattoos that need a bath.
Rust on crooked safety pins.
Tracks in flesh of wrinkled ties.
Space is there.  Then it’s gone.
Quickly as a salmon hooked--
popping off to live its run
with bits of wire in its mouth.
Loving earth and all its seams--
precious as a can of tuna 
passing through a prison camp.

"Mountain Fever"

A climb straight up to paradise 
for bones that knew a body cast 
and gravel beds of surgeries.
Steps that kissed like couples 
under mistletoe.  A blessing 
in the happenstance that 
they would let a crippled girl
attempt the straits of mountain roads.

Seven miles.  Ascending dreams.
Legs that buckled on the path.
She swallowed hard and harder still.
Courage loose like silver fillings 
dropping from a rotted tooth.  
A single spill from fountain eyes 
would mean they had to 
turn around like cars
that lose their way in fog.

The lint of moaning syllables
the rains of Spring would wash away.
Stoic buttons popping off.
Her friends would stop to pick
them up and sew them on
behind her back to ease the
sting of waning pride.
Holding hands and forging on
as stirrups on a wild horse.
They understood the force of will
like hiccups that she couldn’t stop.