Love At First Sight -- Alan Ziegler

(Poem #68)Love At First Sight     It was a novelty-store and he went in just for the novelty of it. She was in front of the counter, listening to the old  proprietor say: "I have here one of those illusion paintings,  a rare one. You either see a beautiful couple making love, or a skull. They say this one was used by Freud himself on  his patients—if at first sight you see the couple, then you are  a lover of life and love. But if you focus on the skull first,  you're closely involved with death, and there's not much hope  for you."         With that, the proprietor unwrapped the painting. They  both hesitated, looked at the picture, then at each other. They  both saw the skull. And have been together ever since. -- Alan Ziegler

Love At First Sight -- Jennifer Maier

(Poem #67)Love At First Sight You always hear about it— a waitress serves a man two eggs over easy and she says to the cashier, That is the man I'm going to marry, and she does. Or a man spies a woman at a baseball game; she is blond and wearing a blue headband, and, being a man, he doesn't say this or even think it, but his heart is a homing bird  winging to her perch, and next thing you know  they're building birdhouses in the garage.  How do they know, these auspicious lovers?  They are like passengers on a yellow bus painted with the dreams of innumerable lifetimes, a packet of sepia postcards in their pocket. And who's to say they haven't traveled  backward for centuries through borderless  lands, only to arrive at this roadside attraction where Chance meets Necessity and says, What time do you get off?  -- Jennifer Maier

Newsphoto: Basra, Collateral Damage -- Steve Kowit

(Poem #66)Newsphoto: Basra, Collateral Damage Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. —General F.S. Maude, commander of the British      colonial forces in Iraq, 1914 Apparently the little girl is dead. In Basra, bombed to rubble by the Yanks, her stricken father cradles her small head. Her right foot dangles, ghastly, by a thread. Cluster bombs & F-16s & tanks. That is to say the little girl is dead whose fingers curl (small hand brushed with blood) as if to clutch his larger hand. He drinks her—sobbing—in, & cradles her small head, & rocks her in his arms, the final bed but one in which she'll lie. The father clings, as if his broken daughter were not dead, her face, as if in sleep, becalmed, but red, bloodied, bruised. At bottom left, the ranks of those still dying die beneath her head. Legions of the Lords of Plunder: the dread angel of empire offers you thanks! Look, if you dare! See? The child is dead. Her stricken father cradles her small head.  -- Steve Kowit

The Diameter of the Bomb -- Yehuda Amichai

(Poem #65)The Diameter of the Bomb The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters, with four dead and eleven wounded. And around these, in a larger circle of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered and one graveyard. But the young woman who was buried in the city she came from, at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably, and the solitary man mourning her death at the distant shores of a country far across the sea includes the entire world in the circle. And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans that reaches up to the throne of God and beyond, making a circle with no end and no God. -- Yehuda Amichai

Morning -- Billy Collins

(Poem #64)Morning Why do we bother with the rest of the day, the swale of the afternoon, the sudden dip into evening, then night with his notorious perfumes, his many-pointed stars? This is the best— throwing off the light covers, feet on the cold floor, and buzzing around the house on espresso— maybe a splash of water on the face, a palmful of vitamins— but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso, dictionary and atlas open on the rug, the typewriter waiting for the key of the head, a cello on the radio, and if necessary, the windows— trees fifty, a hundred years old out there, heavy clouds on the way and the lawn steaming like a horse in the early morning. -- Billy Collins

Television -- Roald Dahl

(Poem #63)Television The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out. (Last week in someone's place we saw A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotised by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, They don't climb out the window sill, They never fight or kick or punch, They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink -- But did you ever stop to think, To wonder just exactly what This does to your beloved tot? IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ, AND READ and READ, and then proceed To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books! The nursery shelves held books galore! Books cluttered up the nursery floor! And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read! Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars, And pirates wearing purple pants, And sailing ships and elephants, And cannibals crouching 'round the pot, Stirring away at something hot. (It smells so good, what can it be? Good gracious, it's Penelope.) The younger ones had Beatrix Potter With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter, And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and- Just How The Camel Got His Hump, And How the Monkey Lost His Rump, And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul, There's Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole- Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago! So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install A lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books, Ignoring all the dirty looks, The screams and yells, the bites and kicks, And children hitting you with sticks- Fear not, because we promise you That, in about a week or two Of having nothing else to do, They'll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read. And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy! You watch the slowly growing joy That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen They'll wonder what they'd ever seen In that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! And later, each and every kid Will love you more for what you did. -- Roald Dahl

And the Word -- Richard Jones

(Poem #62)And the Word I find things inside books borrowed from the library— foreign postcards, rose petals, opera tickets, laundry lists, and, once, a bloody piece of cloth.  Today, inside a volume of Cid Corman's elegant poetry, a snapshot— a man in a dark nightclub embracing a red-haired stripper.  The man grabs the woman brashly about her waist, displaying her nakedness to the camera. The flash illumines the man's flushed face, his single-minded lust as he bends to touch his tongue to her nipple,  while she, arching her back, coolly turns to the camera, her face flooded with light, as if asking, "So, what do you think  about the book you're reading now?" -- Richard Jones

suppose -- e e cummings

(Poem #61)suppose suppose Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head. young death sits in a café smiling,a piece of money held between his thumb and first finger (i say "will he buy flowers" to you and "Death is young life wears velour trousers life totters, life has a beard" i say to you who are silent. - "Do you see Life? he is there and here, or that, or this or nothing or an old man 3 thirds asleep, on his head flowers, always crying to nobody something about les roses les bluets yes, will He buy? Les belles bottes - oh hear , pas chères") and my love slowly answered I think so. But I think I see someone else there is a lady,whose name is Afterwards she is sitting beside young death,is slender; likes flowers. -- e e cummings