Jill Chan
Steve Tills
Christopher Barnes
Jill Chan
Attendance
There is a certain unrehearsed anxiety
about the value of words
and how they affect
more than they are willing to.
Like having your hand in mine
and not being able
to hold what comes after.
Silence that leaves meaning alone.
Copyright © 2004 Jill Chan
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Becoming Like Them
Even at home,
you take care
to slip
arm through sleeve.
Composure has limits
reeling.
Form becomes
the skin
you no longer need.
Still, a part of you
cups a hand
waiting, waiting
for the rain
to spill.
Copyright © 2004 Jill Chan
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Image
In the garden, I still manage
to stay above ground.
You admonish me for my use
of the second person.
I cannot even pronounce
your last name.
Beautiful face
in the mirror turning into pond.
Copyright © 2004 Jill Chan
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Voice
I've been quiet. Really quiet. So quiet the inside so
unusually reflects the most dark. Yet it is a darkness
I can see through. I've held it everyday since the
start of ending this way came to me quite unlike me,
still unusual and dark and strange.
When you call me on Sunday, you will speak to me
without speaking. And I will listen without speaking.
All the voice ever does is leave.
Copyright © 2004 Jill Chan
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Bio: Jill Chan started writing poetry
after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. "It was like some part I'd forgotten finally found
me." She is the editor of PoetrySz and this is her first appearance. Her debut collection, The
Smell of Oranges (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, New Zealand) was published last year. Enquiries
about the book could be sent to the publisher at pukapuka@paradise.net.nz .
Steve Tills
I
Helen Keller
would
Would,
wooden
you
*
That I might smell what
isn't given to me,
as others smell danger
or a rat
when none is there
*
Oh, I have my touch,
and I can feel wind,
tears, loneliness, gratitude
some things some others
have ideas about
*
What is a woman
with her sight and her sound
paying her attentions
I have my own intentions
to find out.
*
No, seriously, why should you
be different for one requiring
a human mirror with hands
and fingertips for eyes
and voice formed of fingerprints?
Copyright © 2004 Steve Tills
Bio: Lives in small town in western
New York. Taught English 10 years in Northern California (Santa Rosa Junior College). Publishes
occasionally, last in First Intensity, #17. Developing/Editing/Publishing Black Spring Online;
theenk Press; and therepublicofcalifornia.com presently. Wiped out badly by Stock Market
Rip-offs in 2001 but still alive and kickin.
Christopher Barnes
Buster Keaton
"Sympathy For The Devil"
resuscitates our adrenalin strongbox.
The trailer park's strip lights twink
as we fish up the lift-thumbing Beat
by the painted milepost
at The Far Side Of Reality.
And snatchin' at the blinker-signal
dodge-dust up Thunder Road
onto the cloverleaf freeway interchange
and open the throttle
for a chuckle at the drive-in movies.
Copyright © 2004 Christopher Barnes
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Pit Stop
The carhop at Begley's Diner
inherits sunup, a breather to log
tonight's storyline for her novel...
...Ghazi glowers from nave to mosque
catching the chink of toe bells.
She flicks stone, dry then spatters.
An overripe afternoon.
The tinkering dust storm sidesteps dunes,
milling satin hooked up over a mallee tree.
She is Morocco
sings to the echo of distant cliffs.
A sniff of salt,
wear-and-tear sand meddles with the Venus Fly Trap.
She miscarries amongst locusts
awaiting sounds of whirlwindish rhythm
that welcomes the coming of rain.
Copyright © 2004 Christopher Barnes
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Bio: Christopher lives in England.
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