Luke Powers, Michael Estabrook, Robert H. Demaree Jr.

Luke Powers, Michael Estabrook, Robert H. Demaree Jr.

Luke Powers teaches English and Folklore at Tennessee State University an historically black college in Nashville,TN. He has a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University and an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published poetry in a number of magazines including The Vanderbilt Review, Trans: A Journal of Spiritual Discovery, The Melic Review, The Brownstone Quarterly and Echoes.

Premonition

She has a dream
that I gave her
a baby elephant
for her birthday.

A baby elephant
pulling a minibike
with his tail.
She' not sure
about the elephant--
he'll outgrow
the garage--
but likes the idea
of the minibike.

Neither of us
has a clue
what it means.

Fat Angel: A Dream

She’s a big round girl,
at least I think she’s a girl
though it’s hard to tell
with her pageboy haircut
and generous proportion--

besides I've got one eye
cocked up thru the windshield
the other on the road,
watching her the way
you would a helicopter

as I bear down I-40 West
to an unknown destination,
and she breaststrokes
thru the lower atmosphere
some thirty feet above me,

moving with unexpected
grace against gravity
under her own propulsion,
a long distance swimmer
thru the Pythagorean ether.

Though in different planes
our two paths intersect
and my fingertips tingle
on the steering wheel
with static electricity.

Then she veers due South,
to Memphis, Mississippi,
maybe the Gulf of Mexico--
to the minds of other pilgrims
and travelers of other dreams.

Inferno, A Dream

I’m not sure if it was hell
but it was dark and dantean—
a plutonian pile of concrete pillars
almost like a parking garage,
and on each floor, an orgy
pulsing with grim compulsion
like a Busby Berkeley number
gone terribly awry—
a suffocation of flesh
covering every square foot,
corpse-bodies locked in every
conceivable combination
with all of the appropriate
classical undertones:
brain dead Sisyphean sex
in this sepulchral city,
an argosy of orifices,
winking assholes . . .

And my Virgil? It’s Hay Yung,
my ex-wife’s Korean friend,
who died in a car wreck
driving her favorite son
to his freshmen year at U.Va.,
and who, as I remember,
was neither poetic
nor particularly religious—
but she delivers me,
lifting me on aluminum wings
through the red darkness,
humming me a folk song
in a native tongue
that no one understands
it’s something like a lullaby
for a dead child
that comforts and disturbs
as we rise unseen
into the upper reaches of hell.

Michael Estabrook has two beautiful daughters, Laura and Robin, the later having a tattoo of a blue dolphin on her upper thigh, and well, after knowing this, does it really matter what else there is to know...

My Mother Makes Pretty Good Banana Bread Come to Think of It

some sweating goats eating banana bread (my mother makes pretty good banana bread come to think of it) lengthening battering rams blocking bumping ramming jumping (I was a rather decent gymnast once, even won a first place in free-style in high school, that involves some fancy jumping) bleating their pen-names of bleeding blood coral reefs reefs reefers (I was admittedly never much for reefers) beneath the churning seas over Oklahoma (my first serious girlfriend dumped me for some dopey guy named Pete with folded down ears then she moved to Oklahoma but I still like the play) yes this week in Vermont or down on fatuous Jamaican Plains in their bifocals belly-frothing starfish (amazing if you pull off one of their legs it grows back again, oh to be a starfish) with their too-thick arms while eating frozen candles and of course soggy breadsticks watching sit-com re-runs (Seinfeld’s great and MASH and even the Honeymooners, but who has time really) beamed in as it were from outer space (once I dreamt of being an astronomer, was even vice president of the Astronomy Club in college but couldn’t inevitably do all the math and physics it takes nowadays to be a real astronomer) someplace churlish bastards

Robert H. Demaree Jr. has written a History of Greensboro Day School, a chapbook of poems called New Hampshire Pond, and has had over 200 poems published or accepted by approximately 65 periodicals, including Aethlon, Cold Mountain Review, Elk River Review, Louisville Review, Louisiana Review, Mobius, Paris/Atlantic, Pegasus, Thorny Locust and Red River Review.

My grandson has been assigning dinosaurs,


				*Luke Powers, Michael Estabrook, Robert H. Demaree Jr.*



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		Luke Powers teaches English and Folklore at Tennessee State University an historically black college in Nashville,TN. He has a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University and an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published poetry in a number of magazines including The Vanderbilt Review, Trans: A Journal of Spiritual Discovery, The Melic Review, The Brownstone Quarterly and Echoes. Premonition She has a dream that I gave her a baby elephant for her birthday. A baby elephant pulling a minibike with his tail. She' not sure about the elephant-- he'll outgrow the garage-- but likes the idea of the minibike. Neither of us has a clue what it means. Fat Angel: A Dream She’s a big round girl, at least I think she’s a girl though it’s hard to tell with her pageboy haircut and generous proportion-- besides I've got one eye cocked up thru the windshield the other on the road, watching her the way you would a helicopter as I bear down I-40 West to an unknown destination, and she breaststrokes thru the lower atmosphere some thirty feet above me, moving with unexpected grace against gravity under her own propulsion, a long distance swimmer thru the Pythagorean ether. Though in different planes our two paths intersect and my fingertips tingle on the steering wheel with static electricity. Then she veers due South, to Memphis, Mississippi, maybe the Gulf of Mexico-- to the minds of other pilgrims and travelers of other dreams. Inferno, A Dream I’m not sure if it was hell but it was dark and dantean— a plutonian pile of concrete pillars almost like a parking garage, and on each floor, an orgy pulsing with grim compulsion like a Busby Berkeley number gone terribly awry— a suffocation of flesh covering every square foot, corpse-bodies locked in every conceivable combination with all of the appropriate classical undertones: brain dead Sisyphean sex in this sepulchral city, an argosy of orifices, winking assholes . . . And my Virgil? It’s Hay Yung, my ex-wife’s Korean friend, who died in a car wreck driving her favorite son to his freshmen year at U.Va., and who, as I remember, was neither poetic nor particularly religious— but she delivers me, lifting me on aluminum wings through the red darkness, humming me a folk song in a native tongue that no one understands it’s something like a lullaby for a dead child that comforts and disturbs as we rise unseen into the upper reaches of hell. Michael Estabrook has two beautiful daughters, Laura and Robin, the later having a tattoo of a blue dolphin on her upper thigh, and well, after knowing this, does it really matter what else there is to know... My Mother Makes Pretty Good Banana Bread Come to Think of It some sweating goats eating banana bread (my mother makes pretty good banana bread come to think of it) lengthening battering rams blocking bumping ramming jumping (I was a rather decent gymnast once, even won a first place in free-style in high school, that involves some fancy jumping) bleating their pen-names of bleeding blood coral reefs reefs reefers (I was admittedly never much for reefers) beneath the churning seas over Oklahoma (my first serious girlfriend dumped me for some dopey guy named Pete with folded down ears then she moved to Oklahoma but I still like the play) yes this week in Vermont or down on fatuous Jamaican Plains in their bifocals belly-frothing starfish (amazing if you pull off one of their legs it grows back again, oh to be a starfish) with their too-thick arms while eating frozen candles and of course soggy breadsticks watching sit-com re-runs (Seinfeld’s great and MASH and even the Honeymooners, but who has time really) beamed in as it were from outer space (once I dreamt of being an astronomer, was even vice president of the Astronomy Club in college but couldn’t inevitably do all the math and physics it takes nowadays to be a real astronomer) someplace churlish bastards Robert H. Demaree Jr. has written a History of Greensboro Day School, a chapbook of poems called New Hampshire Pond, and has had over 200 poems published or accepted by approximately 65 periodicals, including Aethlon, Cold Mountain Review, Elk River Review, Louisville Review, Louisiana Review, Mobius, Paris/Atlantic, Pegasus, Thorny Locust and Red River Review. Dinosaurs My grandson has been assigning dinosaurs, And my poor diplodocus lost again. So did my truck And the stick he laid upon the pond for me, Outraced once more by his. His family left this morning, And I wept for that brief window When for him I have been The holder of a secret knowledge. He is not the first to name the rocks along this shore. In a bed of soft needles at the water’s edge I leave undisturbed The remains of an allosaurus Traced in pine cones and broken sticks.



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