Erik Lundgren

the red barn passing through

The red barn passing through
my schoolbus window
passes through a story.
It’s a mission:
nobody talks and they let me off.
I scout the castle at the end of the lane.
The dirt is bright,
and I have rocks
for the villains in the alfalfa.

Erik Lundgren

Animals Can Talk

I

A deer had gotten his leg twisted in a barbed wire
and tugged and tugged at it.
A giant white gorilla,
like a snow-covered hill
within the forest’s edge,
talked to the deer.
Stars appeared, and he turned the stars
into flapping snowbirds
that the wind blew away into powder.
The deer blacked out.

II

Something was talking to him
with three heads. No,
they were raccoons.
“I say, you certainly are a lucky one,”
said one with a twiddle of its whiskers.
“What is his name, I should like to know?”

III

The shaky wind was getting more howl-y,
floating with snow that could be seen
against the blacks of the trees.
When the raccoon family moved a rock,
a yellow light shone out of the hole.
“And why should we help you?”

IV

Even though it was a cave,
it was a house.
“Tell him to eat his meat.”
“Deers don’t eat meat, Mamma.”
"Well,” his mother looked
directly at him, “just what does he eat?”

warm puff

Laura-Marie Taylor

sleeping

After all the arguments are over,
look at the lines in my palm.

Hold me like a bundle of provisions.
Think about thunderstorm desert.

My heart is yours,
and my problems are yours also.

Think about how ferns look.
Think about how quiet it is.

Erik Lundgren

nothing could be done about the ring

Nothing could be done about the ring,
lost in red water. No glint got through.

When the wind came up,
he knelt down in the shivering weeds
and he prayed, felling his warm
hands pressed together.

Nobody was here but it had just occurred to him
to wonder about it. The wind meant storm.

Then he saw a head bouncing through the trees,
a tunicked body bouncing on a horse,
a knight. The trail was a slippery staircase
that looked at him with muddy eyes.

The ring remained behind
to be a reminder of a creepy change.

Ellen Weiss

A Saga of Symbeciles

Listen up, my literary fellows!
We must advance
our symbolical quest. I shall
shepherd you.

In the beginning
there is darkness – then light –
as you leave your abode.
Take the string of your choice,
of which you have no choice,
and proceed until, at the corner,
a heavenly sign appears to you
in the form of: Serpent, Ionic
Capital, Oracular Ring of Fire, and
Monocular Wand. Kneel, then,
resist the satanic temptations of the
pipe that is not a pipe. Kneel
and continue when traffic is clear.
Don’t forget to look BOTH ways.

In the garden, you will meet your
mother. She may not look
like your mother and might be much
nicer, but she IS your mother. You
are her apple. If you feel
compelled to kill your father,
you may do so–-preferably by means
of stand-up comedy or Felini film.

Caution! Do NOT look directly
at the sun—it WILL confuse you.
From the barrage of god to eye to
wheel to lemon sourball, you will
not have the proper capacity to see
anything by borrowed light. Remember,
the moon is a lunatic.

Soon the Omnibus arrives.
Sit at the right hand of God until you
come to your omen, at which point pay
homage to the metaphorical vehicle
and exit the birthing portal
to enter The Terminal.

Erik Lundgren

tiny dwarves grow out of the frosting

Tiny dwarves grow out of the frosting
looking as though they’re wax candles,
but they’re not –
red wizard’s hats and blue santa coats,
blue santa pants and red boots.
The frosting is waves and they are swimmers in it,
multiplying like mold.

A man with a samurai hair-do
cuts the cake for show – with a kitana –
in one thud.
He sells everything there but his clothes.
He doesn’t know about the dwarves
and the dwarves don’t know about him.

Laura-Marie Taylor

a rattlesnake did its rattlesnake dance

A rattlesnake did its rattlesnake dance in the clearing,
but it had no markings. It was just tan.
So we gathered six gifts for the medicine woman,
three from each of us.
The first I presented:
a small scarlet pipe. She accepted.
The second was a Rattlesnake Feather Charm,
something all lake villages need,
but one of the feathers was wrong.
I’d made a mistake that the old woman noticed.
So all bets are off.
“You see our problem with rattlesnakes here,” she said.
The rattlesnake god was not pleased.
So we walked through a tunnel of grass.

Laura-Marie Taylor

new giant

I am becoming
so tall
no one will recognize me
when we go
a-caroling.

Laura-Marie Taylor

ghost

The dead man who looks for his wife
could make you cry,
his teenaged daughter beside him on the buggy-seat.
The husband-dad goes up to the farmhouse
after getting directions in town for
maybe the hundredth time.
“Is Mrs. Ruggs here?”
he asks the woman who opens the door.
“No, no one by that name’s ever lived here,” she says,
so the ghost gets agitated and asks,
“Are you sure?” because he recognizes it—
those shutters,
the dip in the porch where something happened.
They had been away on a trip—
they were never heard from again
because a storm kicked up
and they weren’t prepared.
The woman says she’s certain,
no Ruggs in those parts,
as far as she knows, ever.
The man says, “No home tonight.”
In another hundred years
maybe they’ll actually make it there again.
When two ghosts who are searching for eachother meet,
is there a thunder clap?
Are they happy,
or do they pass through one another like air?
Or is it part of their punishment
that they’re always looking—
was it his fault the buggy tripped?
Or the road washed out and he didn’t control the horses.
The teenaged daughter isn’t really part of the story,
but she’s looking at you right now.

Did you publish poems in Pocket Trick? Please give me permission to put them here.