No Regrets ! Journal
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Winter 2013 Issue 9
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No Regrets is a journal of poetry, prose and images about the twists and turns in the human condition, the search for love, meaning and community. Poems in this issue are by: Clayton Medeiros Neil McKay Robert Lashley ! ! Clayton Medeiros, editor is a poet and collage artist. Neil McKay (Johnny Trash) Webmaster Submissions are by invitation of the editor ! Copyright January 2013
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Jean-Michel Folon
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Head full of birds Top hat Singing quietly Against The red sunset Of star filled Eyes
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Clayton Medeiros
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Sleep Cycle I. Circadian You fall asleep while I do the dishes. Later I fall asleep while you write a letter. Last night you couldn't bear to sleep without me, So I slept with you until 6 a.m. and went home. Tonight I sleep alone and you sleep alone. We somehow do that together. You like to sleep late in the morning. I fall asleep early on the couch. There are times we are both awake, At the same time, in the same room, With the same idea. Later I fall asleep while you read. II. Friday Night The moon strolls by your house With no one watching. A possum tries to get in Or out of your crawlspace On tiptoe so he won't disturb us. You are asleep like a child, Me, snoring like my father. In the morning the paperboy will Wake me with his pitcher's arm. You will wait until the coffee is made. On Saturdays I rise for you. III. Early Morning Eating miniature doughnuts and drinking coffee Alone in your kitchen. On the other side of the wall you Begin to stir. The glow from Last night's laughter still surrounds me. Neil McKay
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Venus
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Luminous iron blue prepares for stars Constellations始 secrets in polaris slow turn And us with them across curved night Round and round halted now for Venus Who peers from the dark horizon Serenely silent despite Greek tales As we fall in love with evening始s star
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Clayton Medeiros
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On Listening to David Foster Wallaceʼs Essays For Allie Medeiros
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Just because you described it going on, Understood the whys and wherefores, Does not mean you can live with Post modern loneliness and complexity;
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Not get overwhelmed by a generationʼs cynicism Encapsulated among indifferent ironies About inherently impossible happiness Regardless of periodic lyrical moments.
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There would never be simple answers, Each thoughtʼs essential footnotes Required explication sometimes left out, In full knowledge that no one is ever known. September 11th in Bloomington “I do the only thing Iʼll do all day by explaining where midtown Manhattan is” so one of the Parishioners wonʼt worry over a distant relative.
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You knew the words wouldn't be enough, Inevitable uncertainties muddled across Endless arcane cognoscentiʼs discourse With intrinsically tricked out philosophy,
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Your heart was taken by Bloomington, Women of an uncertain age, “What these Bloomington ladies are, It seems to me, is innocent.”
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A condition you fully understood In all of its impossibility, in these days Of clever repartee, making fun of faith So desperately needed after all.
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Clayton Medeiros
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Shakespeareʼs Oregon
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A descending sea of heads Flows to the stage In Shakespearean wonder Righteousness dissected in The foibles of love war and politics Tragedyʼs inevitable misunderstanding Resolved by deathʼs dominion Brutusʼ wields his single sword Caesarʼs many bloody daggers No one left to lay claim to truth Strewn across linguistic frailty Lexicographerʼs shattered purpose Celebrated in the standing ovation
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Clayton Medeiros
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Time始s Trap
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Time holds us In memory and expectation The present experience Devolves into history Evolves into the future Forever indeterminate Memory始s literary license Expectation始s false dreams Swirl the passing hours
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Clayton Medeiros
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Funeral Blues For Whitney: ( After Auden's In The Memory Of W.B Yeats) 1: On the day you found what we were missing us skinny, hungry, thugged out young boys stopped dead in front of the boom-box. Runs were froze. Crap Games almost deserted. Hood niggas disfigured by public statutes were transformed by the sound waves of you back in the day. On you and your instrument, we young thugs agreed you were wonderful back in the day. And far from our projects little homies dreamed you in evergreen forests ghetto nerds were transfixed by radio plays scattered over a thousand stations scattered--squared--to a thousand more affections immediately and all at once, immediately, every time we heard you and called ourselves to be better than we were, Immediately, as we dreamed to be something grand if not grandiose if only to win your heart. If only then, we would scheme up some shit to unearth the sword from our gravel stones and win--win you-and live happily in your kingdom but the magic dust ate you alive. 16
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II Earth, receive a troubled guest. Whitney Houston is laid to rest. Let this Newark vessel lie emptied of our dreams.
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For in the nightmare of the dark all the masks we had of your majesty ate your face, all our refusals to look into your blackness have blinded and scarred our eyes. Have turned to brown ash all our crystal strewn pedestals in a parable of genius and dust. And now you hang in memory over us our lady of chemical and too human sorrows trapped eternally in a crystal cage only free in the shadow of Sirius, only free in fleeting notes and electrons of youth, love and limitless potential before yours turned slow to a curse.
Robert Lashley
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Chunkybrotherlovepoem For you, I an unwashed pear. I peel all my masks synthetic and temporary then offer any or all for want of comfort desirable and clean. I spread my sections below and beneath you, lay bare as an array of walls and canvases, lay, in the seconds and minutes you want as a space for your imagination. Spin me. Spin me. My globes are yours, love. My circumference is a land that centers on your presence that seasons around your moods and your movement in the times you feel a need. Robert Lashley
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Empty Sky
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The skyʼ s empty Incomplete blue In this momentʼs Flight against Timeʼs flutter
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Clear noon pales To dusky Sunset glow Harbinger of dreams Song lines performed
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Among evening star White constellations Spiraled birth Lights inquiries Into darkest night
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Bent timeʼs Momentary birth Infinite meandering Endlessly strewn In nightʼs euphoria
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Clayton Medeiros
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Spring Song For Mary Oliver始s Autumn
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Do you imagine how Birds dream now? How comfortable it is To touch the soft air Without earth始s furrows. Do you think the trees, With buds breaking free, Look for birds to come, Settle in nest and branch? Do you hear the daffodil始s Brief blossoms whisper To the first dew of spring? A smooth pond, green field, A hawk over the meadow, Long golden shadows. Wind wags its many tails, Flowers close to rest, Waiting for morning.
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Clayton Medeiros
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Rain
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Rain pelts high windows Streaks the sky in rivulets Gray against the light Of a Tuesday afternoon
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Rain sweeps the waves Peppers the frothy steel Curling toward the beach! ! Empty but for a single gaze
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Rain falls to puddles Flows across the rocks Surges down the road Grows comfortable
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Rain drops suddenly Darken the warm cement Curved around the plaza Shoppers scurry for canopies
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Rain sheets over streets In the dusky dark Between places and things No longer dust covered
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Who will watch the rain On this long quiet day With nothing to be done And none required to do it
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Clayton Medeiros
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Tenets
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Does our love have tenets That we carefully hew to Should we climb a mountain To retrieve them carved in stone Contain them in a romantic ark Love始s covenant between us In a temple built in cubits Where our love walks freely Among infinite oil lamps
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Clayton Medeiros
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Chicago始s Lake Chicago始s bound shoreline Gray water fogged to what Could have been a horizon Beyond the world始s edge Gray white caps cool their heels Breakwater guardians assure Propriety between lake and city Late morning spring hope in A baptismal of sun blue hints Lake Michigan始s big shouldered Saints and heartland churches White clapboard bell towers Onion skinned orthodoxy Send prayers and save souls Clayton Medeiros
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Lake Guards ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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By the lake Sentinels Stand against Night blue sky Guard our dreams Owls slow glide Eyes dark grass Cedars reach To the stars
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Steel Blue Curved Sky A steel blue curved sky No stars now or ever If the world ends For my eyes The only ones For this night Time Place View of things Not to come Never to be A moment lost A curved steel blue sky Timeless Bound to a past Disappeared No history written No books read No poems recited To ears No longer available To listen The quelled voice Wrings no discord
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A steel curved blue sky Starless New moon dark A night No dreams No dreamer No quest Ever begun To capture In prose In rhyme In free verse
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A small quiet play Nostalgia filled Purposeful in Lost nonchalance Of a moment Only I saw Spread through Sudden ageless Wanderings of Calm eyes Closed against A steel blue curved sky
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Clayton Medeiros 31
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No Regrets Journal Web site noregretsjournal.com claymedeiros@aol.com issuu.com/claymedeiros/docs facebook.com/NoRegretsJournal
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