~~~~~~~~~~~~ (the poetry) WORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 39

Welcome to WORM 39. We hope you enjoy this juicy selection of poems.

All poets appearing in ~ (the poetry) Worm ~ have granted a limited
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Don't forget that submissions are welcomed for WORM 40 and all future issues.

Send up to 5 poems, free verse or formal, to Margaret Griffiths at wordbug@btinternet.com .

Please address any queries about WORM 39 to the same address.
All the poems I receive are forwarded (without authors' names) to my
co-editors for each issue, and the selection is made on our combined scores.

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               Lament for Those who Knew Nancy

               “I am forced to write this letter not able to write.
                I sick, and murdered alive.” Nancy Luce

               When each of her babies dies, she digs a grave, tears
               coursing down grimy cheeks. The hunch of her
               back matches a swan's neck. She swims down stream
               towards a waiting brood. Stringy and tattered
               bone of a woman, half-wish–pulled and snapped.

               Ragged finger-nails, brown-marrow eyes.
               A river of cars meanders past West Tisbury cemetery
               where an orange-skinned hag carries a basket of eggs.
               The light plays tricks, a torrent of orange clay
               forms faces off Gayhead cliffs. She hatches her children
               between trees that protect her from gawkers.
               She is a white crown, a bridge over a silver river
               that sways and shudders. Each bone in her spine
               is a wooden rack. Hear the singing water.

               We cannot hear the ruffle of the feathers
               as the swan lifts its neck. We cannot hear
               a club come down. We roast her over
               a fire, eat her bones and all, the way
               we were taught to skewer chicks.

© Laurie Byro

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               Bed

               The bed barely contains me now. I wonder how
               I imagined my future in something so narrow.
               The mattress sags and the slats keep slipping out
               like a truth no one wants to hear.

               All the way to the hospital, tree branches
               point out the exits.

               The player-piano in the waiting room shines,
               a lake of black ice. Keys struck by a phantom
               unsettle me; my sister continues to beat time
               on her knee, index finger a crooked metronome.

               I glimpse tattered veins in the bend of her elbow
               and curse the technician who last bruised her.

               This morning I thought I saw a new beginning.
              She sat at the table, clear-eyed and cheerful.
               How'd you sleep in your old bed? she asked me
               like a hostess. Still afraid of the dark?

© Cheryl Snell

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Buried in Prague

I lean against a white wall in the hot sun,

considering the outnumbering dead

encircled close within high walls and synagogues,

where stingy paths wind through crowding stones

considering the outnumbering dead:

thirty thousand lie buried layer on layer

where stingy paths wind through crowding stones

climbing over each other jostling for space.

Thirty thousand lie buried layer on layer

densely packed and wedged

climbing over each other jostling for space

in the old Jewish cemetery in Prague,

densely packed and wedged

encircled within high walls and synagogues.

In the old Jewish cemetery in Prague

I lean against a white wall in the hot sun.

© Margo Roby

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               How much ground would a groundhog hog, if a groundhog could hog ground?

               Everything a groundhog does depends on the taste of alfalfa:
               calculate one square metre for every mouthful he spits out

               on an average Sunday in September. Multiply by the size of
               a paw. No matter how inviting the texture of sky, how sharp

               his February shadow, a quarter acre is never enough; bear
               in mind: indignant rodents do everything based on the length

               of incisors. Add a patch of ground the size of April puddles;
               a cloud's bite off the dark side of the moon; thirteen times

               the wingspan of the wisest owl in the forest, twice as much
               if bi-polar–one hemisphere for happy feet, the other a valley

               of thistles and thorns. Increase by a stretch of land wider than
               your arms can swing, multiply by the number of hibernation

               heartbeats. Square this, then round it up to the nearest prime
               number–so many hectares, all for a little life underground.

© Michaela A. Gabriel

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Cloudblog

Hermit @ cloudblog:

Out here, beyond most news

and needing to climb uphill to reach the sky,

linger and pray there, you notice air, ground's texture

sodden at the moment after gales and rain.

But always spring and lift

from low fields' clay

to limestone's boning ridge,

the gradual rise,

each footstep firm,

mountains' spread-angelled heights

coming into view behind that stand of beech.

My news?

Clear out to sea for fifty miles,

views stretching to the Mull, a hawthorn's down

pole-axed by gale,

the old barley field's in flood;

fell sheep are settling into winter pastures.

Dark work, this praying,

altar stars, blackened fells;

thin light between night hours this winter season.

I reach out from worn scriptures twice a day

to tune my old radio, angle it for reception,

watch, as I wait that moment's code for cloud.

© Martyn Halsall

(Cloudblog: Editor's Choice of Christina Fletcher ,' I was immediately interested in this poem when I read

the title and first line. What followed was so convincing and in such a real voice. I love the rich, but simple

and evocative language, the music of the poem, its originality and depth.' )

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Egg White Lies

The snow's a foot deep and you're late again.

I order anyway:

bacon, grits, biscuits, two poachies.

Ten minutes and I'm served:

grits in center, eggs an inch apart at one edge,

bacon and biscuits on a second plate.

I drop a biscuit in the middle of the grits,

lay one strip of bacon opposite the eggs,

one strip each above them.

The waitress gives me a dirty look.

I glance back at the plate.

The round, yellow eyes stare at the ceiling,

waiting for my fork to vent their tears.

But I'm in no hurry, time to prod the limits

of breakfast art and waitress indulgence.

My phone rings.

"I'll never make it there on these roads," you say.

"Let's re-schedule."

"No problem," I reply, declining to mention

the last flake fell a week ago.

© Thorsten Taylor

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              Catastrophe's Cusp

               The day you trip down the stairs,
               spill coffee on shower-scalded skin,
               crash the car on the way to the ER
               and return to a kitchen where
               the bleeding never stops, there is
               a burglar with an itchy trigger finger
               lurking on the Welcome mat.

               He watches you misdial 911.
               When a voice impersonating the bank
               comes on the line to steal your identity
               before some fake general's fake son can,
               explain that you're invisible already,
               a shadow mortared to the wall
               of an unfurnished room.

© Cheryl Snell

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               Snow angels

               Oh I was jealous there was no denying it.
               I hadn't been able to get up, so my angel
               was scarred with the prints of my palms
               where I had leaned over to the right
               for some leverage, but his was perfect.
               He had a set of abs like the slow down slats
               on the old state highway out by the Ledges;
               so he just stood up, a little snow on his bottom,
               and I was hot, which he knew anyway,
               so he backed me up against the hood
               of the car, steaming snow play forgotten
               and in the fumble of snow clothes
               his angel was trampled, which I saw later as a jinx.

© Judy Swann

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               Waiting for the Watch

               Take the cigarette from between his fingers.
               His eyes are hammered shut,
               boarded up by sleep.
               Like some great coastal surge
               or the slow undertow of dreams,
               my father's body is a force of nature:
               soot, bone, muscle and wrinkled skin.
               Look around this house–
               the asphalt shingles and siding tick like a clock
               radiating the heat of a long summer day.
               The sun and a drunkard of a foreman
               both beat him down.
               Everything he wears is blue going black.
               See the high water marks,
               the sweat and soil, the diet of grease, tobacco, coffee.
               He nears the age of his father's death,
               hasn't put up a calendar in years.
               We could bury him in these stale clothes,
               the heavy boots, his worn recliner.
               My father's estate is his body.
               He wills it to me too soon.

© Brent Fisk

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               Practical Divinity
               On the birth of Thomas Yiannikkou (December 2006)

               Dear Thom,

               I wonder if that's how you'll spell your name?
               I mean, with or without that crucial H.
               Tom seems a bit familiar, Thom recalls
               its fall from sometime dissyllabic grace.
               That sort of thing would matter lots to me,
               whether that little cross was there or not,
               though I get a bit more worked up about
               these tiny details than perhaps I should.
               The pernickety appeals, don't you think?

               I've always said so, though I don't always
               come through: your dad once had the bright idea
               of giving me a birthday cactus plant
               (I know, I know, but don't be overharsh–
               this was Oxford: no-one had bright ideas).
               I smiled a smile which pointedly asked: why?
               I was killing myself most of the time,
               What hope for this spiked dildo of the sands?
               Your dad explained how my neurotic care
               for the fragmentum philologicum
               was not so different from the sort of care
               you needed to sustain a living thing.
               Although the dildo died, your dad was right.
               He kept the faith, though he had none. I'm not
               much good at much, but I have kept his faith.
               Be good to him. Don't mock his funny walk,
               appalling puns (though he left words behind
               while I was still trying to catch his up).
               There's no-one finer, even though his thoughts
               on death and Puritans are not quite right:
               your dad fatally underestimates
               the role of ancient and non-Christian thought
               in shaping practical divinity,
               his Seneca treatment's especially scant.
               Still, perhaps that's just a question of degree
               and not a fundamental difference.
               I mention it, perhaps because I like
               to hear myself in pedagogic mode.
               Besides, you're one month old and you can't talk
               and by the time you can, I might be dead
               or my tolerance for children might falter,
               and hence I wouldn't want you babbling on:
               Now now, I never said that I was nice.
               I remember the day your mum and dad
               got married. I had cruelly joked about
               my morning-suit: I know you're not supposed
               to upstage bride or groom, but frankly that's
               a challenge. Never had I seen Ruth look
               more beautiful, a radiance that hung

               a soft still train of sunlight cross the church.
               Of course, the Welsh choir was abominable,
               but I had long irrationally loathed the place.
               I was, let me admit, somewhat ambivalent
               about the whole thing taking place in Church:
               for as you know, your father does not believe
               in Christ: I blame his family (who were Jews).
               Ruth had, however, set her heart on church
               (or chapel, as they call it over there)
               I can't remember what gift I gave.
               It will most probably have been a book.
               I doubt you'll want to waste your life with books,
               especially ones in languages beyond
               our ken: But read whatever Epicurus
               wrote (if Mum and Dad sound somewhat sketchy,
               and they probably are, just look him up).
               He's one of my favourites. He wrote letters
               stuffed with sense, though formally a little loose,
               just bags of old saws like laqe biwsaV
               A loose translation would be: Find your groove.
               Or turn your volume down. Don't try to force
               this world into the spare rooms of your ego:
               You'll die trying, and the removal costs
               will be beyond belief. Trust me on this.
               Love your parents. Whatever good you do
               belongs to them. The bad? It only has
               the life you give to it. Your ego is
               a gift from God–give it away. Enough
               of sermons in this wintry Yorkshire night.
               A noise outside. The wind is high tonight.
               This highrise flat feels like it's made of weather.
               The moonlight slants across the room and forms
               two little slats (just like the cross-bar of
               that H in Thom) depending how you look.
               Or not; perhaps a subtlety beyond
               belief which maybe makes no difference.
               I've gone on a bit: probably I was
               from Babylon in one of my past lives.
               I hope you like the pun. My best advice:
               Is listen to your parents when they say:
               Thomas, live long, have faith in doubt;
               Don't let anyone tell you what to do.
               It's late. God bless. This brief letter seeks out
               NW11 6XU.

© Daniel Andersson

( Practical Divinity: Editor's Choice of K.R. Copeland,' A brilliant wit sinuates its way through the entirety

of this longish poem. From "crucial H to Babylon", this reader was smitten to the nth degree.' )

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The Watching

'They are most commonly insensible, and feele neither pin, needle, aule, &c. thrust through them...they

were watched, only to keepe them waking: for indeed when they be suffered so to couch, immediately

comes their Familiars into the room and scareth the watchers, and heartneth on the Witch..'

Matthew Hopkins:The Discovery of Witches

A flicker of quick shadow in the eye's

corner speaks more proof to me than volumes

bound in red leather, set in neat array;

an imp of connotation infallibly

points where no goodwife, under her husband's hand,

should be revealed complaisant to the letch:

points out the third teat luring Vinegar Tom,

Hop and Pyewacket to her secret parts.

Naked, awake, watch through nights and days

to learn that one, true syllable you know

you long to say. My prick about your body

charts sensationless from agony,

thrills out the very spot, the compact zone

you made with him you never could deny.

© Paul Stevens

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Jesus Christ, Superstore

A Rock-bottom Opera

Jesus Christ, Superstore,

what is the end cost of saving more?

Jesus Christ, do you think

you have us fooled with that yellow wink?

Yellow wink? Like golden-skinned

children of Bangladesh that you’ve locked-in?

Or Yellow wink, as in mean,

faux all-American stock machine?

Businesses, large or small,

find out the deal’s at your beck and call.

They must fall in line; or fail,

then settle their debts with an auction sale.

Vlasic had pickles cold,

till they became strapped by ‘gallon gold’.

When they tried to back out–

Jesus, they found out who had the clout.

Superstore, you pulverize

company’s coupons to advertise

product lines. “Cut our price.

No need in giving the credit twice.”

Kinkade won't care–he'll concede

ghost painters paint till their fingers bleed.

Irony? "Cottage" art

take-offs are sold by a discount mart.

Jesus Christ, Superstore,

most of your stuff's from a foreign shore.

Recalls claim, "Paint with lead

mistakenly used." (Geez–no kids are dead!)

Stoners stock, late at night.

A stretch of the Equal Employer, right?

Shoppers dodge, if they’re swift,

high-speeding forklifts that have the shift.

Watch young Moms grocery shop:

10 lbs. of french fries in one big plop.

Generic foods can be dull.

Does she need cheaper bean casserole?

By-the-hour wage is poor,

but work on a Sunday, they’ll pay you more.

Yes, they know–Sunday's Church.

But they can't leave their patrons in the lurch.

Jesus Christ–Union Free.

Workers, according to you, agree.

Income in Quebec stores slowed–

So that’s why their new union stores have closed.

Benefit counseling:

No health, for two years–the state will spring:

staff insure with Medicaid

or spouses’ employers, whose costs cascade.

Jesus Christ, we're enticed,

but who in the long run is sacrificed?

Mom & Pop's. Factories.

Families, both here & those overseas.

Jesus Christ, Discount Mart.

who’s on the top of your Business Chart–

Jesus Christ? Superstore,

your Chief of Staff's on a lower floor.

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Boadicea in New York

You look at her and think of whalebone–

scaffolding and width and girth

of clipper ship–a latitude

and longitude of hip: a horizontal sway–

she is the scarifying blue and white

and freezing day–billowing

like some unleashed revenge–

an uncontained appalling female might:

she aims her breasts like cannon–

sails right at the brittle city–woe

to its fragility!–I bow as she proceeds–

and watch her court catastrophe:

striding off the curb: a grudging

cab stops short of her disturbing mass–

she deigns to let his growling engine pass.

Large lady, are you what you

seem–what I surmise?–a cold dream

fallen from the skies–Boadicea

come to rescue us from battle-gray

Manhattan and our January sighs?

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Shining Steel Tempered in the Fire

               Wrote the only literate bobbin boy from #7 room:
               "Dear Mr.Henry Quackenbush, Factory Overseer:
               I'm leaving this note to inform you
               that the loom fixer, the sample weaver,
               the mill right and the finish percher
               have gone home.

               "We have stripped your bobbins,
               cleaned off your looms,
               swept your floors,