The 2004 edition of The Eleventh Muse features an outstanding selection of work by 38 poets.

Staff

Editor: Lois Beebe Hayna
Associate Editors: Ron Noel & Steven D. Schroeder
Design & Layout: Lara Gaydos

The issue is available for $5.

Poetry West
PO Box 2413
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80901

The complete list of people whose poems appear in this issue:
Geoffrey Babbitt, Jackie Bartley, Katherine Blackbird, E. G. Burrows, James Conroy, Robert Cooperman, Bill Cowee, Philip Dacey, Michael Davis, William Doreski, Gerald Fleming, Sandra Claire Foushee, D. H. Georges, Harold Gimpelson, Janice N. Hays, Michael Hettich, Christine Higgins, Andrea Jackson, Charles Jensen, Jacqueline Jules, Katie Kingston, Cheryl Lachowski, Maura MacNeil, Janet McCann, Sandra McNew, Bryan Maxwell, D. C. Miller, Steven D. Schroeder, Sue William Silverman, Askold Skalsky, J. D. Smith, Carol Steinhagen, David Stockwell, David Thornbrugh, Ryan G. Van Cleave, Jane Wampler, Andrea L. Watson, & John Wylam

Congratulations to the following poets on their nominations by The Eleventh Muse for Pushcart Prizes:
E. G. Burrows, "Fortunes of War"
Michael Hettich, "Forgiveness"
Christine Higgins, "Marriage in 3/4 Time"
Andrea Jackson, "Preventive Measures"
J. D. Smith, "For Bad Wine"
Andrea L. Watson, "Doña Luz Cannot Fly"

Congratulations to Michael Hettich, whose poem "Forgiveness" was featured at the Verse Daily website.

Sample poems:

At the Crossing

The man drives around the lowered gates
at the railroad crossing, the bells ringing,
the lights flashing, the train in sight.

He does not know why he does it.
He has been taught not to do such a thing,
to drive around two lowered gates,

but the morning’s still beholden to night,
and he fears the train is long, too long –
the one eye blinds him to an end in sight.

The train seems slow, but time won’t wait.
And that whistle? He hears a siren’s song
calling him through forbidden gates.

Is it his choice to accelerate?
Is a moment’s will right or wrong?
The world twists and turns in his sight.

Later, he sees the word “desperate”
bearing down on him, heading straight
for his sense of himself: no longer young,
his life flashing, nothing anywhere in sight.

—Philip Dacey

Forgiveness

We could wade from that island into clear ocean
for hundreds of yards before the water
was even up to our knees.
We could sit there and watch small birds, and vultures
so high they hardly seemed to move.
We could walk out even further, to where the sand dropped off,
where the water was dark, and muscular—
and we could push ourselves out into that dark deep
full of the ghosts of huge fish we feared
were fished out now, even while we shivered
with the fear of being watched from below.
We could reach a sand bar, almost out of sight.
We could stay out until dusk and swim back through the dark.
Or rain could start to fall, so hard we couldn’t hear
each other, or ourselves. And sea birds, gulls and pelicans,
cormorants, terns, anhingas—could float
to that sand bar to wait out the rain. They could be
close enough to touch, all around us. And when the rain
stopped abruptly, they could take off
in a burst, all directions. The water would feel cold
as we swam back, and the surface we swam through
would be fresh enough to drink. And it would smell of flowers.

—Michael Hettich

Preventive Measures

They say you won’t develop Alzheimer’s
if in addition to all those crossword puzzles
to reinforce the neuronal connections
among assorted trivia in your brain,
you take the trouble to express yourself
in lengthy convoluted sentences;
apparently the discipline required
to contemplate the alpha and omega
of such a sentence, not to mention all
that lies between (subsidiary clauses,
parenthetic whims), strengthens the web
that holds your mind together, which leads me to
the thought that longer would be even better:
ideally, there would never be an end
or a beginning, so that you would have to
catch the sentence as it rumbled past you,
grab a strap and hang on for dear life. . .
but I forget where I was going with this

—Andrea Jackson

For Bad Wine

Once in a field, in a wide rising stretch of paintbrush
& purple vetch, we stuck down

a tent, like punctuation, and drank through the evening
our bottle of bad wine.

Kate Northrop

Because the stores where finer wines are sold
are closed, or too far away to drive
on a rainy night, and because,
truth be told, we’re already a bit tipsy,
we’ll settle for what we can find in town.

Because the bottles of dusty neck and shoulders
that suggest long ageing, and a high price,
lie on their sides on a rack
too low to reach without stooping,
we’ll take one of the bright bottles
that stand close by.

Since so many of the labels are written
in strange languages that bring no comfort,
we narrow down to the plain-spoken domestics.

As even in mid-life, we’re intimidated
by the corkscrew, the very cork,
the intricate and solemn techniques
and auguries of its removal,
we look among the simple screw tops,
such as we turned to open soda and juice
before our first high school drink.

Because we may as well toast our younger selves
who didn’t know Boone’s Farm from Bordeaux,
who knew we would get rich while doing good,
but in the meantime had to scrimp,
we will take the cheapest brand.

Because we now know better,
but have to save for retirement,
we will take the large and cost-effective jug.

—J. D. Smith