Christina Kay Tower

She is a editor for The Washington Square Review
and a poet.

Glass doors open into the Midnight Jasmine Garden, here the jasmine are always in bloom. Their blossoms are the most luscious at night. To the left is a large stone bath. Water pours out of the hands of Venus, on one end from the cupped palms of David, on the other. The garden is filled with Greek statues, gods and goddesses, their cavorting captured in smooth milky marble. In the middle of the garden is a huge weeping willow. Under it's silky branches, which brush the lush grass, you'll often find CK~Mistress Vixxen~Keeper of the garden. Here she often sits, quietly reading and writing verse, waiting for more intriguing company...

I need to be you, remembering
I am of the Mediterranean family, gift
from the azure-eyed goddess, sprung forth,
a Pallas.  Not to welcome guests
on Cowper's spicy shores,
nothing so consequential,
just love.

He will take me in the night, harvest,
as were you, my milky star;  darkness
offering the most intense aromas, plumbed
from the silk of day-hesitant petals.

He longs for you, your scent,
I am indifferent, just another exotic,
but could be content, as the breath
of angels.

CK Tower

      "So that's what Hell is.  I'd never have
       believed it..."
                            -Jean-Paul Sartre

You sit in your swivel chair
let your tie slip through fingers
as you turn and try to place me
inside your vision of the Collective
Unconscious.  You offer a new view
of Creation but what will I do with
more of this?

Certainly Michelangelo had grander
intentions within his Vatican fresco;
that space between fingers like the gaps
between synapses, almost touching.  And yes
I see, not a great cloak about Him, but a brain
the gift from Creator to child. But you
are no artist, so why recreate me with your
insight?

And what of Sartre?  I know his
queasiness, often go to bed with it
even court it some days. I find no
greatness in the discovery of responsibility.
That kind of thinking is gray
dysphoria.  I do not have to read
his plots for that. I am acquainted
with the color.  It is the backdrop
for most of my scenes.

In this room, this parallel pause
here outside reality's pressing gaze
the nausea is patient. So I wonder. Is it
only my talent for embracing delusion
or do you have these feelings too?

I thought I saw them bloom once
like red poppies in the light
of my own narcotic spirit.  But you
were compelled by an appropriate
drought and they withered
in the shade of your consciousness
to boundaries.

What is your insight to me, when dreams
are realized as nonsense?

CK Tower

Ushers of Renaissance

Green leathery wings born of Egypt's dreams,
kiss the smooth mouth of the Nile
with waxen opal lips, lie naked only
in twilight.  Suspicious of loud daystars,
too buoyant for dawn's harsh discipline,
they must be sirens, calling to a dehydrated people
with their night-blooming petals.  And save men
from  mingling with grim dusty landscapes.

These floating bouquets, verdant whispers
on mahogany rivers, drenched vehicles,
too arrogant for less than the seat of prophets, 
offer words not for daylight or December,
and civilizations born to myth, listen.

CK Tower

Tony Fenton

Don't fade away, always stay
In my eyes - desert mirage, silvery haze
In my mind, your eyes so kind
Your touch so soft, your kisses that amaze
Your beauty I'll remember always
My Western dream, ocean love.

Don't fade away, always stay
In my heart - Pacific blue, Sierra love
In my dreams, or so it seems
The one I am chasing, laughing the breeze
Of air-conditioned lies, so hard to please
My Pacific blue, Sierra love.

AJF September 1996

Night rain trickles down the window
As I sit and stare into the dark
Looking for hope
Finding nothing
Fleeting memories
Brush at my mind
Regrets are too late now.
Only Time is left
But Time sweeps the floor.

by Tony Fenton

Gradually the road climbed out of the groves and away
from the unassuming scenery to the higher ground where
suddenly the unsurpassed beauty of the land broke out
to engulf him.  It was like a starburst of crystal pure light
from which everything in sight was composed, ethereal to the
point of making you cry from the sheer improbability of such
a place existing.  The further into the interior Jason drove,
the more the place had an effect upon him.  Each passing mile
added both awe and wonder and subtracted something from himself.
His standing as a person was diminished as the mountains soared
above him, dwarfing all ego and self-esteem. The craziness
of his trek faded, finding Cassie started to lose out to the
scenery.

Halfway along the Tioga Pass Road was Tenaya Lake, the water
a perfect mirror to the Yosemite of light, such that there were
two skies, if that could ever be.  It became hard to tell which
way was up, in this country of such beauty he felt as though he
had lost his way.  It was transitory only in that it constantly
changed, nothing was ever lost, merely changed form.

He almost drove past her car, parked in a scenic turnout in the
softness of Tuolumne Meadows.  Backing up, he parked next to her
car and wandered down to the river.  Cassie was sitting on the
riverside, feet dangling in the ice-clear water, staring out
blankly across the alpine meadows.  Traces of recent tears down
each cheek, eyes slightly puffy and red.

"You've been crying".  The observation just sounded lame and as
soon as he had said it he regretted it.  Cassie looked up at him,
not even surprised that he was here almost as if anything magical
could and would happen in this majestic land.

"A ranger once said if you only have one day here then go sit
down by the river and have a good cry."