July the fourth came steaming into port, the lilacs and cotton flags bloomed (not to mention the sun was pounding the earth like a perpetual jackhammer) … I sat under a copper beech and reveled in the white wind, reading Neruda and touching the light-covered stars with my mind, immediately sensing a fleetingness to the salt moments that rubbed my cheeks red and put my heart straight… all this time spent wondering if you ever thought about me in the blaze of passing instants, and I wished you could hold me till I was blue—the hair on my neck right on end… I’d tell the harbor bell to stop ringin

i knew I needed to sink
when the silence was more filling
than the empty words you kept screaming
as I dive deeper
the silence grows thicker
but your words still send ripples down toward me
as you yell from the surface
the sea becomes my safe haven
as it protects me
by consuming me
by shielding me
an armor able to be penetrated
so I dive deeper and deeper
to escape your sword tinged red
from my pierced flesh 
following battles i wasn't able to escape
i would have nearly drowned
but thankfully I learned how to swim

Just six of us left after we crash-landed

on a wasteland where we searched for an oasis,

while bone-dry mesas threatened to erase us

with coats of desert varnish. Lost and stranded

on some forsaken planet, dunes as high

as mountains, trudging in an angry sun

hot as the atoms in a laser gun,

my rations gone, I had two choices: die

or kill the others for their water. Well,

I was the sole survivor. Shambling

along for what seemed years, then scrambling

up endless slopes, death-tired in every cell,

I came upon a wonder, widely known —


Birth of a New Religion



The endless decay of passion into ritual,

Into the substanceless form of an alien cant.

What we firmly believe, the product of pure reason,

Accepted blindly by our children, and ritualized,

Worn smooth by use,

Becoming the plots of crumbling earth in the

Attics of our descendants;

To be swept out the open door when even

The hardened kernels of meaning have worn away.

Swept out to make way for new fabrics,

For the new religion..

TEN TO THE HUNDREDTH, ETC.

A googol decided to engage in sex,
While all of its aughts were still convex.
Like any number on the sly,
It never meant to multiply,
But look out now for googolplex!

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

There was a young man named Levine,
A challenge he could not decline.
With straightedge and knife,
He spent his whole life,
Dissecting the points in a line.

FTL-NESS

When traveling at light speed to Sirius,
The hours can grow quite mysterious.
The clock's ovoid face
Makes numbers erase,

Heroine loved my mother.she loved playing in her veins She danced through mama's body. and took away her pains.she made my mother do things so they could live as one And took away the shame when all was said and done. She made mama carefree,she promised her warmth and peace. She put a smile on her face and offered her release. She made sure that mama wanted her and her alone. She pushed away the world,and made mama feel at home. Heroine gave birth to me,and made mom give me away,when mama did what heroine said,she knew mama would stay. Heroine erased me from mama's thoughts and mind.

She now writes epics
filling pages to make up
for wasting paper.

A Danger to Self and Others
by Tyree Campbell


The postal clerk eyed
her and the thick manila envelope
suspiciously
Shaking it
"Anything printed, liquid, hazardous---?"

"Don't spill it!" she screamed.

But it was too late.
Tiny silver droplets
rained onto the counter
each splash spreading
like a disease

The clerk covered his nose
and bent to read the droplets

". . . to right of them, cannon to . . ."
". . . ages hence:  two roads diverged . . ."
". . . apples of the Moon, the golden . . ."