DUFUS 10
A Poetry Journal
©2005 Lummox Press
Edited by RD Armstrong & Ed Jamieson, Jr.
I've been getting a lot of flack lately about DUFUS...not criticism but, apparently it just isn't coming out as regularly as some would like. The tickles me no end. You just can't get enough, is that it? Well, I think it was P. T. Barnum who said, "Always leave 'em begging for more!" I guess your prayers have been answered, 'cause here's more great poetry from all over the place. But I feel obligated to explain how this works. It isn't that easy to assemble enough quality poems to make each issue interesting. Ed and I work pretty hard (Ed especially) to sift through the piles of submissions that are sent to the old Lummox. I think Ed is down to accepting about 3% of the subs, which means that it takes a while for enough poetry to accumulate to put out the next issue. Hence the title of this issue: ONCE IN A BLUE MOON. In case you don't know what this expression means, it refers to a month in which two full moons occur (which isn't very often).
DUFUS is like that, occurring every so often. So, don't get in a snit if DUFUS isn't happening fast enough for you...in fact, like we always say to those who complain about being rejected, if you don't like it, start your own damn zine! It's so easy, just about anybody with a few good brain cells left can do it. Hell if I can do it, anybody can!
One more thing, Ed thinks that everyone should subscribe to the Lummox Journal, our print magazine. I hate to say this but I'm the realist here and I'd be happy if everyone who visits DUFUS would kick in a few dollars to our ongoing fund-drive. Look for the donation button. Ed's of the opinion that readers of poetry actually care about the editor/publishers that put these zines together...so let's not let the secret out. Help Ed retain his innocence, send in a few bucks.
Once in a Blue Moon
Photo by RD Armstrong
bon mot
my large red
Webster’ s
is a chocolate box
take one
any good word
lift it from its ruffle
proper usage
bite down
your tongue
discovers a sweet center
definition
done
Adrian Robert Ford
Chicago, IL
Vaporetto
Without a period,
her sentence was a harsh one
dashing to and fro
trapped in a parenthesis
Apothecary Mary,
you hairy carabinero
on guard for
commies and commas
Anvil chorus
pounded to smithereens
and the Met’s medicine bawls
Voce di testa -
vows vociferate
under the Bridge of Size
in stern gondolas polled
Hey, a pulley
for your thoughts
stacked against pillow
cases of merlot
breaking out of paragraphs
drenched by showers
when the curtain came down
Stephen Kopel
San Francisco, CA
The Line King
Tom Waits...
silken pebbles in his throat.
Crooning Lines
he paints with Words,
describing poignant visions - - -
that appear before his eyes
and come to live in my Heart.
And in his Head
the Line King dwells - - -
not like Disney’s Lion King
at all.
Tom Waits...
for Reality
to be reborn in Wonder.
to Become
That which he has caught a Glimpse of - - -
a Glimpse of - - -
Without Form or Substance.
Yet---
maybe Someday,
over the Rainbow.
Tom Waits..
Rita Portent, pseudonym
Oklahoma City, OK
i would 6.
it is no longer about measurements,
or discovering if, you’re really anywhere,
but it is about backing out, bearing out,
going thru art of the frame,
of being of that black out, brownout,
burnout quality, quantum.
slippage is a factor, bottoming out,
being blown out; not being firm
on where the whereabouts went.
you can always hang that question mark up
as if it were an umbrella.
Guy Rushing
Lee, MA
1968
hideous napalm
over the rain swept diary
a photographic shower
somewhere in the tapered light
a deserter in denim
near an L.A. topless bar
a defunct clock
moves a flashback camera
a daily nightmare kicks
in reds, greens and yellows
off the rooming house sheet
a West novel falls
from the locust ceiling
Jane Russell emerges
from “The Outlaw”
at two in the morning
Hitchcock’s “The Birds”
scream and an evangelist
repents on the broken television
smashing the money-changed
laundered bills
giving away his gay son
who runs to escape
the managed whiz kid
band of warfare
the waitress from Las Vegas
here for a convention
of the Third Order of Mary
orders a double Bloody Mary
from the bartender
whose husband became a woman
because life had to change
and Dick disinfects Southeast Asia
and deodorizes Communism
after the Hollywood Ten
in California he eats grapes
and the pregnant black woman
at the campaign stop says
“Nixon’s the One”
and a transvestite carries
a sign to “Bring the Boys Home”
the boys do not come home
as nuclear fallout
enveloping Nevada
drifts over the nation’s
supermarket to the world.
B.Z. Niditch
BUKOWSKI IN AUGUST
You drive through town
deadened with absence
your head is heavy
forgetting the revelry
of a foaming beer
where half-darkness pours
until morning rain.
Late to a dreary ache
reading the book of Job
listening to the car radio
without music fever
hoping to pull weights
in a listless body.
You tremble
curved in drowsiness
spirited out of the city
working in leather
knotted together
your beige flesh
wishing for mortality
entangled with verses
blacked out by faith in words.
B.Z. Niditch
Miliville Milford Milton
We honor the gristmill
in our river towns
Water never wasted
just borrowed by sluice
loosed to spin the waterwheel
then returned to the river
The wheel turned the smutter
to sweep spores from the kernels
The miller eyed the dresser’s hands
testing his mettle to furrow the stone
as he gauged the flour quality
ever rubbing it against two fingers
the miller’s rule of thumb
Wooden gearing
with replaceable teeth
levers ropes and pulleys
runnerstones grinding
three stories humming
the heartbeat of our town
The gristmill’s role
our daily bread
Unknown
Photo and Poem by M. Shanna Moore
WRITTEN DURING THE YEAR OF MY CANCER
You who are dead and you who are dying
seek comfort in my morning prayers
and be revisioned.
My day begins with an act of charity
forgiving failure.
Razors glide across our necks aborting future, fame.
We are cannon fodder, clay,
lumped into little balls of mud,
blown away.
A sane response to bloody indifference is to work,
create religiously
before we die.
Unable to breathe, deprived of grace,
we struggle towards a shining light,
searching for a holy place
sweet silent purified.
You who are crippled in immense pain
who don’t know where to go or what to do
in blind confusion
seek solace in these morning prayers
ready when you are ready
simply nod your head
with charity.
Ben Wilensky
Rockaway, NY
i would 5.
if there are stages
which one is this?
should i replace my soul
with a walker
getting up used to be
the trigger that began the day.
i remember placing some pictures
in a metal box, which is now
a mental block.
in order to get thru the day
you must not think idle thoughts;
you must be a ferret
& find the right hole.
Guy Rushing
Lee, MA
a battered rainbow
red fists pound her flesh
as charcoal clouds fill his eyes--
purplish green bruises
and twelve yellow roses yield
next day’s kisses and white lies
Dr. Shari O’Brien
Toledo, OH
She's Sitting Slouched She's sitting slouched Silently sunning herself In a lawn chair in the Yard next door while the Kids play... She's wearing that short Blue sundress the way I like it Country tight I'm washing the dishes Looking out the window and Thanking God for the Sunshine and for my eyes... The skinny hillbilly Boyfriend goes out And as I kneel before her And lick the sweat off her thighs I say Do you remember me now? I know he never does this He comes home drunk and Flops on the bed and snores But listen Let's get real... I don't have much time I love the legs and the Side view of your new tits But since Molly left in the Winter You're all I have So If you don't mind Can you turn the chair a little So I can see your face? I wash another cup and Think about how many pills I have left and maybe going out To get another Jameson's... She's sitting slouched Silently sunning herself In a lawn chair in the Yard next door while the Kids play... Hank Beukema
Pomona, NY
Martina Took her Time Martina took her time Putting her face on… With two words and a gesture She walked out on me Taking everything that was beautiful In my life with her… As I sit tired of the sound Of my own voice ringing In my ears I remember the places we cheated… The dark end of streets The dirty motels the cars… Somehow I knew it would end like this… When you break somebody's heart To give yours to somebody else The Universe will owe you one… And it Will get you back Someday someway… I am only getting What I deserve… Martina took her time Putting her face on… Hank Beukema Pomona, NY
It’s The Odds, Man Where men gather in this Brooklyn storefront parlor, flannel beer bellied, tired worn out unzipped old lumber jackets, women are not welcome: I am an intruder, a peeping Tom within these cracked peeling walls: bets placed: one against all odds recalled in the clarity of wish, lures them exposes men before they were harnessed to lives, jobs that sapped the breath so they could pretend to be men for us bolt: Hurricane Path and Skipper something break through the wooden fence: it’s 1947, Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier 1955, hitting with “Dem bums” ...could hear hearts gallop ashen skin flush with young blood common baby a life time reverse itself on a nicotine finger’s command... common I whisper under my breath, one of them now. Old men lost in newsprint, boys ride the echo of girls’ cheers to be the next Yankee Clipper at bat or the mighty left hooker knocking out time for all time, the next.... fuckin’ horse damn fuckin’ horse.... before vanishing in the cursed cigar breath of old men; a flurry of paper....almost confetti proves they were here. once.
Linda Lerner
NY, NY
Eleanor
At the close of a lecture
on politics and gossip,
I brought up Eleanor Roosevelt.
As if dust had to be blown off
an old attic trunk first,
someone finally remarked,
“Now there’s a name from the past,”
letting the words settle.
Before the sun comes up, Eleanor
throws pebbles against my window.
She joins me at breakfast,
listens to my countless concerns.
We lose track during the day
but catch up alter hours.
Eleanor is bursting. She
doesn’t reserve herself for Hillary.
How did she endure the scorn,
the laughter? J. Edgar wanted
her deported as a traitor;
a wicked cousin mocked her
at the White House.
She won Franklin’s heart,
only to find betrayal
through letters in a suitcase.
Luncheon followed the lecture
at a nearby smart café,
with talk concentrating
on who had dined where last
and past memorable menus.
Eleanor chose not to attend.
She knew no place was set
for her at the table.
Lorraine Loiselle
Pittsburgh, PA
for rent
dodo embyro**infrared{hallo + Sc balloo)\\*cloud nine
karyo - Ouija(first larva)moly}}Chinese restaurant syndrome
ring-a-Ievio@proxy, sin-tax Sisyphus#electroshock
//yellow*)0-coupon nazi, magic square luau
blackmail worth nothing .com
eat me twelve-tone[cancer*sextans**corvus*]
• your words would dangle
she died
in the mirror
Aaron Alexander Cotton
Alexandria, VA
Autopsy of a Drag Queen
butterfly skeleton, palming the blue star plumage
clown chased by juggernaut, girl albino craning
gray matter gravy train, a sum of skin and sun dances
Midas touch on vertigo, Eskimo jack-in-the-box, laughing like hyenas
irises Osiris, semilunar and Berseker-like, nautilus dawn gamma-cameras
this future shock cuckoo clock, porcus(pig) vulva [minimum voltage]
Trojan horse (oat-cel)@a view forward] lambs the silver Pieta
(a menage a trois of clairvoyants and candlelight
a palsied light brigade charges like penguins,
whereas giantism is a sin.)
open army(king crab)Markov-chain cocoon(densely pinwheel bodie(s)}
the astral body cloaked by fleurs-de-lis is deveined
doppelganger}flesh fly orgasm, happy hour hara-kiri
facial index(Draco){win over [Electra complex)kaleidoscopic eyes
oxygen debt(magic lamp), nirvana palindromed by sleep
the remora sores, napalm face, one crown of thorns
some porcelain doll everyone listens to
a man lobotomized by his cry
Aaron Alexander Cotton
Alexandria, VA
THE COURT OF HANDS
--after the fifty something man looked at the hands of the twenty something woman
Look how old her hands,
Thick red fingernails like lipsticked lips,
A ring wrinkled to finger,
The faint shadow of a cut.
A lifeline narrowing to a crease.
She will have two children,
Marry twice, live past her father.
Know more money than she will need,
Build a house carved from rock,
Own three dogs, a parakeet, two cats,
And one day her skin will swell
Tearing the lines at her palm
One inch, two inches, longer.
Michael H. Brownstein
Chicago, IL
A Different Season
I don’t find solace
in the spring winds
that flutter the newborn leaves
at the turn of May,
capture the scents of flowers,
fragrant as altars at Easter.
The summer sun brings
no peace either,
only compels the fruit trees
to yield a juicy harvest,
rouses us to languish
on beaches like cats in grass.
My soul is indifferent
to fall and winter, too,
our bodies bundled in quilts
near fireplaces ablaze with heat,
holiday gatherings abundant
with smiles and gifts.
What stirs my spirit-
eyes widening, blood surging-
a man, his exhale white,
shoe soles edged with snow,
unfolding his wallet,
grabbing his money, book-thick,
to stuff in the donation kettle
of the Salvation Army.
Francis Alix
Jamaica Plain, MA
genesis: extinction
(# 11 in the midwife series)
Sturdy, arrogant and self-assured,
my nephew
clutched my hand
as we headed into the ossuary.
It could’ve been
the giant mastodon, with its
curved, ivory tusks
thrust over his downy head.
The imaginary growls
he heard emanate
from the saber tooth tiger
as it shed its tawny coat
to reveal that prototype coil
in its frame; the kind we only
suspect cats of possessing
as ready themselves
to spring for the kill.
The numerous, ascending rows
of dire wolf skulls
enshrined in glass.
The enmity of their canines
belied the tilt of noble profiles.
It could’ve been any,
or all of these things
that birthed terror in his heart:
A fear so primal,
it caused him to shriek
at the top of his lungs,
plead with me to leave,
and clutch his arms around
my neck so tight,
it still aches days later.
I did not realize,
my intention to imbue him
with a sense of history
would introduce him
to the concept
of his own extinction.
Marie Lecrivain
The Oracle is closed for repairs
Along the planked walkway, I observe an old man with a blindman's cane
slowly tattooing himself a solitary path. Around him swirl the Kamikaze
October leaves, which splinter off and die a little, unfolding their
polychrome fuselage wrecks colour by colour, form by form. Sombre clouds
follow into the scene like a death march while memory slips Atlantis like
into another reckoning. A truck with tinted glass crawls by this rainy
void and surveys the scene, looking ever so much a metallic stalker.
Perhaps the old man's mind contains tinted words and deeds that will mimic
this season's course.
At the edge of the water, his loose raw thoughts float about like those
inflamed leaves on water, as he makes his way towards the incessant
gurgling.
Just looking at him make his way unattended I am in complete awe of his
determination and forthrightness. And then seeing the precipitous cataract
just inches away from his step makes my heart skip a beat. But he's made
it and so have I. It's amazing how times flies and flows. This river seems
to defy all mechanics as it continues relentlessly driving forward,
trickling in un-abated torrents, moment by moment, year after year, as if
on its very first day of creation.
Content follows form.
Like a veritable colony of liquefied ants moving in one continuous ribbon
downward, onward, outward, it never stops to question or find its
essential bottom-ness. Everything is elemental in this scene. Grace
touches this place at every turn. There by the liquid ledge a piece of
torn bark swirls and back peddles, clinging crustacean-like with clawed
intensity, to a clump of mossy rocks.
I stand above the scene watching the old man, mesmerized by the dark spume
encircling the descending bark and leaves. As if somehow looking at it for
so long could some how un-ripple the ripples of this moment, of all
bygones and lead us all back to the magical entrance, the time portal of
our retched existence, back to a time that never was.
It seems the oracle lately, is closed for repairs.
Denis Robillard
Canada
Inauguration Day
the sledgehammer sings hallalujah
blind men walk on tightropes
lay away plans are laid to rest
meet me in the casino tonight
let me see how you roll the dice
dogs of war sniff everything that tries to come down the line
the doctor has found a cure for something that never got sick
and love used to have an office here
but when i went in for my appointment
the carpets were all rolled up and nobody was home
the sledgehammer sings hallalujah
and the grownups have all gone home
or so their last know address says so
meet me in the kennels tonight
let me see if i can still roar
holy men hang upside down from the rafters
and the carnival barkers all have sore throats
the slegehammer sings hallalujah
write when you can
read between the lines
debutantes will take your coat
our table awaits
hope you got an appetite
Scott WannburgLos Angeles, CA
The Promise
A love for people all around us...
...You and I shall be forever.
Say goodbye,
when I can barely say goodnight.
If I can hardly take my eyes from yours,
how far can I go?
Walk away,
the thought would never cross my mind.
I couldn't turn my back on Spring or Fall,
your smile least of all.
When I say always,
I mean forever.
I trust tomorrow as much as today,
I am not afraid to say I love you.
But I promise you,
I'll never say goodbye.
We're dancers,
On a crowded floor.
While other dancers leave from song to song,
our music goes on and on.
On and on.
And if I ever leave your arms,
I really would have traveled everywhere.
For my world is here with you.
When I say always,
I mean forever.
I trust tomorrow as much as I do today.
I am not afraid to say I love you.
And I promise you,
I'll never say goodbye.
How could I ever say goodbye?
Len Bourret
len6789@juno.com
unwanted child - for kenneth patchen
yeh -
the way that young boy
kissed skin
long after relics mulled it over
the way that young girl
raced her dreams
like phillies @ the break-away
from pasture
then the house we live in
jus' crumble
when all sights o' men make war
in peace's name
to save it
then the chile did wonder
in a calculated chaos o' dread
unwanted even by those that bore it
wow'dya see that young boy
kiss the skin
the sight we could not/would not even
deny
the way i alter
& you think that you will not
the we go as the eves grow
all about us
all about us
i's all about us
Steve Dalachinsky
NYC,NY
helping my
father burn his
novel a western he'd
hand me the pages a
few at a time & i'd
stuff them into an
old trash barrel
next to a junked
stove behind the
hotel here's the
big gunfight chap
ter he'd say flames
going higher than
his hand we can
still stop i know
all the stuff
that happened
this far father'd
wave the offer away
& hand me more then
he'd chug some
whiskey & make a
face the last thing
he sd that after
noon was you have
to be drunk to
do this it's like
burning my name
Todd Moore
ABQ, NM
this poem appeared first in Bogg and then in the chapbook FIRE & BLOOD & BROKEN GLASS published by Psychotex back in 1995.
Squares
Squares rule through television,
through soft screaming insinuations of guilt.
Like restless birds, the same old
words rush by us with contempt;
Sharp demands spoken
in the angry language of command.
We're in a fight with Father Time
The blind old man hobbles by,
canes of fury:
"We're in a hurry!"
"Wait 'till I fall behind and the world no longer
listens for my gentle whisper," came
the soft reply.
Lisa Haviland
New Orleans, LA
Clot
I can't complete
the thoughts I have
yet to speak
The hacksaw doesn't cut
that deep.
Lisa Haviland
New Orleans, LA
Escape
Romance is dead, cackled the whore,
while the wolves whistled
their agreement.
Feelings are only splinters for the mind to cling to
Your outstretched arms engulf my loneliness
and keep those wolves at bay
A timeless reprieve
Like holding your breath under water
Pale
blue
beauty
Lisa Haviland
New Orleans, LA
Last Light and Rain at the Window
This evening
I want nothing more than a cigarette,
a bag of potato chips,
a dill pickle,
& the Zen god of the lower case g.
Good scripture is too terse
for song.
What is known
can fit on a business card.
The eye is often as wrong
as the head.
Mike James
The Ship of Ivory
Go and make a ship of ivory—a refugee boat
To escape this troubled times, smoother than
A girl’s thigh, the color of pale yellow egg—shell,
Floating in the middle of transparency and muddiness.
Now let us depart! The silence is ended. Into the depth
Of the wine—dark sea, into the incessant passions of infinity.
The white sun’s rays reflect the beyond that the ship
Moves towards, trailing behind the crazy scud of bubbles.
O the soul that is moist with the ocean—dew! And seized with
The fear of waiting! Dost thou know that awakening
Is only a tender flame of memory? The waves rush forth
Like white horses and the conch—shell whispers softly in your ear.
Sail on 0 brave ship. Go forward on your endless voyage and
Throw overboard the time of frustration. Discard pain and fear
And sorrow in the azure where all creation is reborn.
The ship of ivory glides beneath the clouds without sail or oar.
The sky? The sea? What matters in the primal unity
Of the sun and moon? In the colors that the night—insects emit
When they cover the sea—surface lies the shape of the universe.
Sail on the ship of ivory, gently sail on.
Daniel Kang
BUT IN WHOSE NAME?
My memory of war is all second hand
-- was not at Mai Lai. I was not running down the road
with napalm etching into my flesh.
I did not watch my feet rot in trenches
or wake up with my neighbors blood dying my shirt
or believed, somehow, that my battles lead to freedom and to peace.
I was not on a bridge in Belgrade or
at an airport in Grenada or
in a schoolroom in Baghdad or
in a factory in Dresden or
at a church in Nagasaki or
in a hospital in Stalingrad or
in an office in New York.
Nor is my memory of serving peace first hand.
I have not sat in the Gulf Peace Camp or
prayed in Chiapas or
planted trees outside Hebron or
disrupted the School of the Americas or
handed out leaflets in Burma or
sat with the families in East Timor or
fasted with the wives outside Gestapo headquarters.
But I have held the children of war.
I have talked with the veterans of war.
I have added my prayers to the voices for peace.
It has to start somewhere.
in the here and now war is being waged
and in the here and now the seeds of peace are being looked for.
The war is waged in someone else’s name. Not in mine.
The work for peace is in the hands of us all, including mine.
Brian Burch
(previously published in third space, Recluse, The Peak, Catholic New Times, Justice Express, Poetry Now, Time of Singing, Our Schools Ourselves, Quills and Talvipèivènseisaus Special # 7)
I'LL NEVER GO THERE, EVER
These are sad times
the phone rings and
it is she
again
vomiting up the latest
million dollar purchase
And, oh, Don't I Want To Be Apart Of It?
\Yes, the answer is
I want nothing more,
nothing more
Nothing
I have tired of dangling vegetables
begun with my father's father
who never caught on
to the game of catch
It takes two, you know
This land is your land
not my land
I'll never step foot on it
I'll think of my ancestor Crazy Horse
The stone monument to all our sufferings
Through all the pseudo-forefathers
the ones who didn't try to get through to anything
except the small slit that bore them, will not be purchased
It will amount to nothing more
than an exceptional place to die
there's certainly enough room for that
but I won't go there, ever.
Bretton B. Holmes
RAIN
The rain batters my roof
It is relentless
Pushing ever downward
Gravitational
Returning to the sea
The lowest point
Washing the land clean
No matter what lays in its path
Pushing
Undermining
Upending
Making its own way
Despite our best efforts
To control it
The rain seemingly knows
No master
Drop by drop
Bucket by bucket
The rain comes DOWN
And wave by wave
It touches our lives
A sinkhole here
A traffic jam there
Flooding
Mudslides
A road washed out
Nineteen feet of snow
I five closed
A leaky roof
Flash flood warnings
Tornado alerts
What a catastrophe
The rain distracts us from
The horrors of the Asian
Tsunami which took the lives of over
150,000 people many of whom were
Merely eking out a living
Fishing or
Serving the tourists
Who flocked to the
Coastal paradises along the
Bay of Bengal
Tonight
The rain batters my roof
But it is a temporary inconvenience
Insignificant compared to the tears
Shed by millions of weeping eyes
Scattered across the world
RD Armstrong
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
The deeper I penetrate into the word jungle DUFUS the more satisfied I become! All That HitchHikin, Sparling nails that road many of us have traveled.. I hate to single out anyone for fear of slighting another. I'll just say I feel kinship with all these poets/writers and am humbled to be included with people I've respected for a very long time. And RAINDOG your editing (i.e., positioning) flows and ebbs like a wild river. Your piece, the opening salvo, sets the tone, pace and sure-footedness you continue to exhibit! YUHAH!!! -- G. H. Hill
LINKS
Unicef-Tsunami FundJim Coke Photography
Gerry Locklin
Christopher
Mulrooney
Scott Wannberg
Other Lummox Poets
Cesar Chavez Tribute
The San Pedro Poems
by RD Armstrong
DUFUS #3
DUFUS #4
DUFUS #5
DUFUS #6
DUFUS #7
Recent
Photos of Events & Craftsmanship of Raindog NEW PHOTOS
Todd Moore's Wolf in
the Cornfield
Todd
Moore
NEW from Lummox Press - Rebecca Morrison's
Raining All Over
A
Seasonal Haiku by Rebecca Morrison
JUICE ONLINE - POETRY LINKS
Four Sep Publications
POESY Magazine
The Temple Bookstore
The Artwork of Dee Rimbaud
12 Gauge Press publisher of
ROADKILL by RD Armstrong
Remark Ezine
Abalone Moon Ezine
Zygote in my coffee Ezine
Lily Lit Review
The Chiron Review
Open Wide Magazine
This site updated Feb. 2005
© 1997-2005
Send comments to RD Armstrong (Raindog)
Get your own Free Home Page