week of June 5-12, 2005
Larry O Dean and Ljiljana Coklin
BECOME A POET OF THE WEEK
click here for submission guidelines
Larry O Dean
larryodean@yahoo.com
Bio (auto)
Larry O Dean was born and raised in Flint, Michigan As a young man he worked with Academy Award-winning film maker, Michael Moore, was widely published in the alternative press and also worked as a cartoonist He attended the University of Michigan at Flint and Ann Arbor, during which time he won three Hopwood Awards In 2004, he was recipient of the Hands on Stanzas Gwendolyn Brooks Award Although a card-carrying college graduate, he is non-academic both by choice and temperament, and makes his living outside the pedagogical realm
In addition to writing, he is a singer and songwriter, working both solo as well as with several pop bands, including Post Office, The Me Decade and currently, The Injured Parties After living in San Francisco for over a decade, and despite current rampant gentrification, he makes his home in Chicago
Visit Larry on the web here: http://www.larryodean.com/The following work is Copyright © 2005, and owned by Larry O Dean and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
I admit, I am
yesterday I took
my One A Day .twice
and now
it’s tomorrow
FeetMy right is bigger
than the left,
although you wouldn’t
know it just
to look; hers
.are dirty
from going barefoot
Out of curiosity,
I consider my hands
after giving them
a massage: the memory
of her arches,ankles and toes lingers
there in an odor
unnoticeable
to any but the well-
trained in podiatry
* * *.Walking, I keep
my eyes peeled
for broken glass
on the ground,
never breaking stride
as we move onup the street,
past lilac bushes,
the sun going
down
.behind us
like a shiny dime.
HopeWork, for her, is something
that holds the day together,
and in place She walks in
in the morning and her desk
is there, her chair,
the dark computer screen
blinks to life She sits Hours pass Her fingers
float over the keys It’s all so
simple, it hurts
being this dependable.
Nixon Era Panda DiesHe was 28, an extraordinarily advanced
.age for a panda
Unresponsive to his keepers,
nearly blind, plagued
with arthritis
and barely able to rouse himself to eat,zookeepers gave Hsing-Hsing
a lethal injection
after deciding
that irreversible kidney disease
had made his life
too painful to endure
His final meal
consisted of a large
blueberry muffin,
boiled yams, a bit of rice
broth, and some bamboo
Gift from Mao to Nixon
.in April 1972,
with his longtime female denmate Ling-Ling,
who died in 1992 of sudden heart failure The pandas mated frequently,
.on their own
and with the aid of science,
but left no survivors.
Ljiljana Coklin
lcoklin@hotmail.com
Bio
Ljiljana Coklin lives, writes, and teaches in Santa Barbara, CA.
The following work is Copyright © 2005, and owned by Ljiljana Coklin and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Billing Questions
I have two bills to pay:
One a furry himalayan ball
The other, my man, lanky and tall
My two bills keep me warm
One puts his paw on my chest
The other caresses my breast
One purrs contently
The other kisses softly
My two boys like to look They like to touch, and
play outside I kiss the blue eyes,
lick the wounds, and
pick the leaves left behind
I pay my bills duly,
I write handsome checks I feed them, groom them, love them
But I am broke now and no longer
Trade in the currency feline My boys like me, and
they like to leave.
