Dan Hoy (NYC, USA): "The Electroplating of all my Friends"

THE ELECTROPLATING OF ALL MY FRIENDS

I told them not to drink from the lake.
I said, "Not all things aqueous are equal,"

but the dissolved metal ions were too small to see
and they knew nothing of reagents

or parameters, voltage or amperage,
temperature, residence times, or purity of bath solutions.

They were thirsty.

Then the clouds rolled in, bristling with electric current—
and with a flash

all my ferrous and non-ferrous friends
solidified from the inside out

into brass & bronze, cadmium & copper,
chromium, gold, iron, lead, nickel, platinum, silver, tin,

& zinc. They fell
like giant cathodic statues, electropositive and lifeless.

Except for the lone friend
subsisting on aluminum, whom I loved

with all my C-22/titanium-7 heart, now isolated
in metallurgical horror

as organic electrolytes rained down upon her.
Then she too fell over.

A microsecond later
I felt a mechasynaptic surge

as my comlink called for an immediate satellite strike
on the lake's coordinates.

I had an estimated 0.6 minutes to grieve.
It was not my decision.

© Dan Hoy 2007

Rosanna Lee (NYC, USA): Two Poems

LOBSTER

Your plated, bespattered shards
enclose the meat of human
delicacy, ripped apart, smothered
in cups of oily lard and slurp.
Your neck, perhaps, or that round
swinging fan of an ass, $18.95 entree.
Some VDA ridden sailor hoisted
this oversized, obscene insect,
with his antennae flailing pathetically about
and the lodged furry creature caught in its neck
flapped out like the buzz of the insane,
and this sailor, see, he was 
very, very hungry! So, alas - crash
against the jetty just like the
Grecian octopus and his life gave out
into the last cringes and epilepsies,
like those huge black summer ants,
he heaved his last obscene breath,
and the sailor -
he made love to the dead lobster.
He stuck himself messily inside the
encased filaments of short haired flesh,
and he feasted, and hollered, and
shrank in awe of this beauteous prospect,
Oh lobster, come back to life, I love you!

APPENDAGES

The first time in my life,
I see them as appendages,
the first time they've been
too big.

As a little girl, lying in bed in the dark,
I would stare at the little budding anthills,
pointy torpedoes, I would imagine them one
day as mountains.

Now, I understand how dangerous it is to
have that life force strapped to you,
hanging from your heart.

In the Grapes of Wrath, she gave that old
starving man her breast after her blue baby
had been buried, such life!

A death spy located at the side, growing,
aching, throbbing. Keep it a secret from
mother.

I've looked at the films, they look like
bleach spilled on seaweed under a microscope:
singing, sing, sing
for me, it'll be fine.

© Rosanna Lee 2007

Kristy Bowen (Chicago, USA): "Experiment in Miniature"

As always, I'm devastated by that shade
of blue. The hint of hotel rooms
and anything French. Tend to fall
for the short notes, the staccato.
This seasick vibrato, like the girl
that opened her mouth so wide
you could hear the wind inside.
Her wreckage of trees and wheel spokes.
One dance card, then another.

No one loves a brushfire, or worse,
a dirty blonde. The grotto with a thousand
bones rinsed so clean it was erotic.
You might carry them home in your pockets
like birds with tiny marbles for eyes,
newspaper where their wings should be.
Might cut their tongues out.
Might name them for your own.

© Kristy Bowen 2007

Melissa Severin (Chicago, USA): "Myth to Meteor"

MYTH TO METEOR

Gestated in the thigh, born twice, rose once
from the head of Zeus, I bit my way out,
through eight great plates, skull bones a catapult.
Indulge me, my heartstrings forged from harpsichords;
this is a myth I keep
rebuilding with dog’s teeth and concrete.
Solicit the backhoe,
dig timing with a slingshot.
Pick a solar system to sift. It’s not the same past
as my future; we’re making me a swarm of meteors,
a shield of shooting stars that want
electricity from another planet,
that distant arc of orbit, hung from scepters and spinning
all around. A profanation.
How can we come so close and not collide?