May 14-20, 2001: Alex Stolis and Lauren Ashley

Bio (auto)

Alex Stolis lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota  After a ten-year hiatus, during which he had kids, got sober, changed careers (from Hotel Management to Drug and Alcohol Counselor) and got divorced, Alex has returned to writing poetry  In the past year, he has edited the on-line Literary review Samsara and has been published both on-line and in print Recent publications include Ilya’s Honey, Stirring, Nerve Cowboy, Thin Coyote,  Poetry Motel and Chiron Review.

The following work is Copyright © 2001, and owned by Alex Stolis and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

a different sameness i comb burnt leaves from sara’s hair, watch the moon trace triangles on her face, a streetlamp blankets sixth avenue like a bonfire, paints a fleck of morning on her arms i drink from bitter fountains, walk past picture windows, my reflection fades to white-ash, slides in the street cars rust outside the pawnshop, watch me stumble i punch the curb, light my last cigarette, draw pictures of her in wet cement. breaking up in silence sara rides shotgun, sky-blue fingernail polish blurs the windshield, her legs poison the dashboard FM static rests on the laundry basket, wrinkled mayhem, spin-dried delusions smell like burnt rubber she fingers a hole in the seat, watches me drive, the corner of her eye naked on my lips. 2AM at a Motel 6 in Duluth two doors down mandy and rick grapple with bra straps, button-fly jeans stella, the front desk girl, listens to patsy cline on the radio, snaps gum, watches the ice machine rattle in time with the freeway six-pack fishermen wade back from pete’s, lost from a canadian roadtrip    rick tosses a used rubber in the corner of their twenty-dollar room stella looks at her watch, rolls her eyes, takes another cigarette break

Lauren Ashley
Astraea181@aol.com

Bio (auto)

My name is Lauren Ashley and I am from Syracuse, New York I’m a student of Creative Writing.

The following work is Copyright © 2001, and owned by Lauren Ashley and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

HardCore You are coming up like something I should have dealt with, bile so thick on the esophagus that it burns more belligerent than your eyes separated as of late by a crooked white bridge I broke your nose unintentionally, another tirade to drive me from behind over the cliff now jagged as a prehistoric tooth, you jaunty on my hands like a tap-dancer struck by his one true bolt of inspiration I lash out I look at you like landscape What you have I can re-cultivate And you, in turn, must see me as your shaper: a natural disaster, a lover, an earthworm wriggling too far into the rich heat of your soil Mutuality, you plead Please leave me some warmth My blood so Rorschach on these tiles and you are in too far,  too far, unforgiving unscrupulous as though you flat between the thighs are unsatisfied until you find an inch or six or nine Still my satisfaction runs clear I will weave my way through you to honor each tremor that pulses through me in the silent weighty waves of my own heartbeat, until I unite bone to bone and mend the jag, the little rift, glorious, seismic, an earthquake most fluent in the language of reverse. Celestial Body 1 So now I am hollow as a paper towel tube, now the one with the infant hair: you must touch me softly then cringe You must note my change dutifully, the first medic on the scene remembering this morning the unbloodied street beneath her tires You must remember guilt, the guilt that comes with the living, alive and mortal in their short-shorts, treading heavy on their sandals as they wait for the undesired change in season to find that they have wasted plenty, and, cyclical in their human skin, will waste plenty more again and again 2 I wanted to be born a serpent to feel the weight of Mary against my back seductively I remember your lithe statuette of the Virgin: she was prettier than she must have been, and when you cupped your hands around her head, her forehead burned a green-gold fever Yes, Mary glowed in the dark The snake beneath her foot did not I still wonder at that fairness 3 Mostly I’d like to shed my skin I’ve spent too long in it, I’ve grown at last too comfortable There is evil in too much comfort because it signals end I modify my sleeping positions, I neglect to fluff my pillow And still, there it is: I am comfortable I don’t bother setting my alarm clock 4 You tell me I look better You look hurt when I call you a liar You mean to pay me a compliment, but you like all men are misguided You don’t understand the mirth I find in the wet round of an honest mouth Truth upon the tongue is like the finest truffle: later you will ask me for the recipe I will give it to you willingly You will tell me I look awful I will smile unsaddened in the knowledge that I have replaced Saturn I am that much closer to the sun. For My Future Husband Mid-August, and I am staring at the furnace in avid anticipation At night I grow too hot for you, a slow-blooming plant with a four-skinned tongue transparent atop and fuchsia below One lick and your skin steams like branded beef Our bed smells like a steakhouse You scornfully call me the Snow Queen A fawn finds birth in spring but I am wet and awkward splayed on the ground in fall By November I can stand By December I can stand alone But when snow swells in the great broad pocket of Eastern clouds I choose a mate that bears your name Still a flower I am the poinsettia, thriving outside cold as bone but vital in the heat Again you call me Snow Queen, but this time you are smiling.