The Mermaid & Flea

 An evening down the Pub; & dire Aftermath: With John Whitworth, Ann Drysdale, Les Murray, Geoff Page, Peter Wyton, Anna Evans, Rick Mullin, Stephen Edgar, Patricia Wallace Jones, Ben Jonson, Timothy Murphy, Marly Youmans, Jan Iwaskiewicz, Nicola Daly, Susan Taylor, John Donne, Salli Shepherd &c. &c. Hangover remedies from John Whitworth & Alan Gould. Followed by spiritually-uplifting ejaculations from the Reverend George Herbert.

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue16/index.html

Off the Map

...a kind of conversation that needs no tongue...
— David Malouf, An Imaginary Life


Shuffling in bearskin trousers, his mind
    Burning fervid,
Each hard breath shaping new lyrics —
   Shaggy-haired Ovid.

Love, once his own witty game, is now dragging
   Him after her face, and far over
The limes of his mapped world, the wide
    Final river—

Until, reaching that long-grassed bank, he morphs
    Into the wild,
Singing, Beautiful, careless, sky-eyed,
     Sun-haired Child!

Their tracks become measureless motifs of un-
   Patterned never,
Wind rising, night massing, last sunlight
   Riffing the river.


(Paul Christian Stevens — published in The Raintown Review, Spring 2009)

The Chimaera’s 2010 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Good luck to all!

Alison Brackenbury — ‘Over the field’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Brackenbury.html

Anna Evans — ‘Why I Am Attracted to Men with Dyslexia’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Evans.html

Janet Kenny — ‘Last Danceֹ’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Kenny.html

Ralph La Rosa — ‘Sauntering’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Theme/Poems/LaRosa.html

Lance Levens — ‘The Measuring Hawk’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Levens.html
Parker Tettleton — ‘The Living Lie’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Theme/Poems/Tettleton.html

The Chimaera’s 2010 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Good luck to all!

Alison Brackenbury — ‘Over the field’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Brackenbury.html

Anna Evans — ‘Why I Am Attracted to Men with Dyslexia’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Evans.html

Janet Kenny — ‘Last Danceֹ’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Kenny.html

Ralph La Rosa — ‘Sauntering’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Theme/Poems/LaRosa.html

Lance Levens — ‘The Measuring Hawk’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Levens.html
Parker Tettleton — ‘The Living Lie’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Theme/Poems/Tettleton.html

I was walking across a bridge...

 
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.

So I ran over and said ‘Stop! don’t do it!’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he said.

I said, ‘Well, there’s so much to live for!’

He said, ‘Like what?’

I said, ‘Well… are you religious or atheist?’

He said, ‘Religious.’

I said, ‘Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?’

'Christian.’

I said, ‘Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?’

‘Protestant.’

I said, ‘Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?’

'Baptist!’

I said, ‘Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?’

He said, ‘Baptist Church of God!’

I said, ‘Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?’

He said, ‘Reformed Baptist Church of God!’

I said, ‘Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?’

He said, ‘Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915.’

I said, ‘DIE, HERETIC SCUM!' and pushed him off.

—Emo Philips

Bright Star

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon in death.

                                                      —John Keats

Old West Country Saying

From pompous Professors and pond’rous Po-Pundits and Prats who go Plonk on the Net, may the Goddess deliver us!

Bigville

On submission