Week of July 7 - July 13

Scott Dexter and Dusty

BECOME A POET OF THE WEEK

by e-mailing a few of your shorter pieces or one long piece to me ALONG WITH a brief bio. It's fun, it's easy, it's free. Impress your friends. Impress your mother.

Send to: POTW@PoetrySuperHighway.com

Scott Dexter
sgd@fastlane.net

Bio(auto)

Scott Dexter is a computer geek. He's also a sport nut. He's also a bar back/bartender at a dance club. No, he doesn't write drunk. Probably should, though. Bug him at sgd@fastlane.net.

The following work is Copyright © 1997 and owned by Scott Dexter and may not be distributed or reprinted in any manner whatsover without written permission from the author.

spoon me. (and dont say a word)

air light white noise
dancing in my eardrums,
pound hounding away in bubblegum bouncing time;
the dogsled races
chasing the cup around my head

--these thoughts thundering down
backwards bought and selling me
vegas wares and share
and share alike.

i know how to scuba dive:
reach down shuck in time
just in time,
pearl treasure a sunset
a free frequent flyer mile trip
home.

these send me to the moon, alice, to the moon.

look at this
electrical surge
bottom bracket low brow budgetting
and tell me you dont like
minnesota snow starry eyed nights
lip dancing ski lodge upbringings
--firelog simple start affairs.

flick a switch solve an itch,
and finish.

when mona slept on top of me

there was a fire. and in an instant
i was water, but unquenching as i
could not really be putting you out
but more or less on. i blew your candle,
an elm like resistance became your
rally crying to race against my turtled
shoein for a tongue.

then there was the best sheets to deal
with, not really light as your kitchen,
but unsubstantially bitten and cut.
along the longest edge was i, there to keep you
from sinking into my abysmal for a taunt.

there was argument, sappy and unbewildered
bickering dogs running up and down, up
and down. this time leaving the ferry behind.
dealing with unsubstantiated was just. that.
clueless i maintained, with a telescoping
probing. guiding my ignorance and your misguidance.
dancing on top of me as you burned. i dealt to put
you out not more or less on, failure redeeming
as i thought.

Dusty
webmaster@illyria.com
http://www.illyria.com/dustyhp.html

Bio(auto)

Dusty served with the Army Nurse Corps and was stationed at several hospitals and a clearing company during her two tours of duty in Vietnam. Her service was from 1966-68.

The following work is Copyright © 1997 and owned by Dusty and may not be distributed or reprinted in any manner whatsover without written permission from the author.

12th Evac

(First appeared in "Incoming!", Vol. I, Issue 2, Island Poets 1995.
Ed. Barbara Menghini Whitmarsh. )

The hands remember what the mind evades:
death's quiet chill creeping from toes toward heart
the crepitation of pneumothorax
skin become pebbly where blasted with shrapnel
the tentative fluttering of terminal shock

The nightmares remember what the hands forget:
blowflies feasting on clotted bandages
the pounding of Hueys counting cadence for pulses
boots sliding and sticking in gore on the floor
the stormy tint of blasted bone
ranks of IV bottles clinking in chorus--
temple bells of mindfulness standing as sentinels
vigilant against the next crimson monsoon

The soul remembers what the heart disavows:
being mortally wounded by each soldier who died.

"Vietnam Canon"

(Originally appeared in Between the Heartbeats, Univ. of Iowa Press, 1995. Eds. Cortney Davis and Judy Schaeffer.)

Counting pulses and marking measures, she notes
clamorous tempos staccato and terrified,
sprightly meters syncopated and shocky,
sinuous adagios and ultimate arpeggios
sliding down codas of boogie-woogie boylives.

Amid bebop, bluegrass, hardrock warriors
she feels one small boysoul conducting Mozart
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on the border of Cambodia
his countenance evocative of El Greco
his age more apropos of Beatles
But men and wars do have a way
of mixing things up.