There was a fanfare blowing to the sun
that was floating on the breeze


Kerel Appel, untitled

The Hand
--by Michael Burkard

No one knows the honest
end or beginning -- no one
knows the important details
-- living like this causes
one like her to fold her
hand early, no bluffing
left, and only distracted
ideas as to what's out there.

Sand
-- by Patty Seyburn

It's not mine
but I should have seen it coming —
the gradual pulverizing — you know,
eventually it will all disappear,
as will you.
I did not mean for everything
to get smaller.
I did not mean for the rich, richer
and the poor, poorer,
nor for everything to be fair
though my translators
bandy about "justice" and "righteousness"
with abandon
as though words were meant to correlate to thoughts.
As though ideas matter.
And things matter.
Do dunes compensate?
I did not invent intent.
You did.
And the way indented footprints disappear
on the ocean's arrival?
That was yours, too.
How eloquent.


About the Money
-- by Liam Rector

When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
— Anon.

By the turn of the century
Talking about the money
Replaced talking about the sex,

Talking about one’s so-called
Religious life, and all that
Earlier yak about the psyche.

Talking about the money
Got down to it and captured
The hunger, the hope

The love, and the fear:
Let me hear your money talk,
Many sang.

Money was a good time
(What people want most is
Good times and insurance?)

And money picked up
The garbage the following
Morning. (Someone’s

Got to do it and someone gets
Money to do it.) There was
Really nothing like talking

About the money if you wanted
To really get to know someone,
To get to know what animated,

What moved the American.
Do me. Do it to me, honey.
Do my money. Let’s get cynical:

Let me hear your money talk.

Writing in Water
-- by Rad Smith

Here lies one whose name was writ in water
— Keats' epitaph for himself

It is not like writing in blood:
no vein to open, oath to break.

Just look how it shudders
when I touch my pen to it,
its infatuation with circles,
their escape to the shore
smuggling my text out.

And the illustrations full
of landlessness: fluvial
blues, a rippling
banner of imperial Chinese yellow,

those clouds that float face down
searching for a bottom,
someplace to plant their feet.