Enigma is everywhere, in the current issue of qarrtsiluni: from the streets of Holland to a girls' school in Africa; in a train from Lubichan to the quiet of a Buddhist temple. Guest editors Dana Guthrie Martin and Carey Wallace will be accepting submissions until January 31st, and the hidden messages will continue to unfold through the month of February, in prose, poetry, images, audio and -- for the first time with this theme - video! This is a last call to please send in your best work; it will be considered carefully and kindly. Don't be intimidated, either, if you are an as-yet-unpublished writer; qarrtsiluni is looking for original, interesting, well-crafted work regardless of the reputation of the artist - unknowns are often published, and well-knowns are sometimes rejected. Each submission is judged on its own merit. And please visit if you haven't already - this online journal is turning out to be a really exciting venture.
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Allan Peterson is one of the writers I've met through the pages of qarrtsiluni; his poem Hallowed and Behold was the first post published under the current theme of Hidden Messages. Allan sent me a link to a recently-published article in Panhandler (University of West Florida Press) containing not only his poetry, but some of his graphic artwork, and I liked both very much. Allan isn't a blogger - yet! - and he gave me permission to publish one of the poems from that group here, and it ties in with my previous post. Thank you, Allan!
Cradles of Civilization
The future does not speak our language
Water rises
and falls in the twin sinks like the breathing tides
Babies are everywhere in bulrushes
Wherever we say it is now it is elsewhere
we cannot surmise
This is purposeless which is not to say useless
Where you came from was not an elsewhere
but here from available parts
You will dissolve where you fall
And when the answer comes back from the inner world
on Hua Shan or Delphi
or Sister Madame Zodiac in the trailer on highway 4
Reader and Advisor
it is cryptic and difficult Yang dragon and Yin phoenix
the spontaneous chatter of all the plastic hangers
in my closet who have shed their bodies to talk
among themselves
We should be ready to find out everything we know
is wrong
sunrise a phosphene something daily pressing the sky
clocks accelerating
enough to one day spin off their arms We read in the skull
bone the history of needs
each example a long story a room crowded with tapestries
hunting scenes kings a cardinal
behind me whose face became sharpened by experience
but not its own
To remember who gave us history follow the money
the greedy the astigmatic
the scared shitless glittering dead from whom all knowledge
has been multiplied then lost
by Allan Peterson
(note: this poem was written with centered lines, but although they display properly in Typepad when formatted that way with HTML tags, they aren't displaying correctly in the browsers. Does anyone know how I can fix this?)
Peterson is a master. The lines "Where you came from was not an elsewhere" and "We should be ready to find out everything we know/ is wrong" really spoke to me here.
I like your image, too. How did you ever find it? It's perfect!
Posted by: Dave | January 26, 2008 at 03:46 PM
Thanks, Dave, I'm glad we agree! I especially liked the line about "babies everywhere in bulrushes" and the image of the naked, chattering plastic hangers.
The photo just happened -- I saw the poster on a wall as I was leaving a shop a week ago, and immediately took the picture -- I've been keeping it in stock and actually had another one ready to post today with this piece. When I looked at all the thumbnails in the recent directory, I saw this one and said, " a-ha!"
Posted by: beth | January 26, 2008 at 06:01 PM
For the formatting: You could try to use [div align="center"] Poem [/div] wher you substitue the [ and ] with and . That might work, but maybe it doesn't.
Posted by: mare | January 27, 2008 at 02:25 AM
I liked this poem very much and I haven't read poetry for years. The line about "elsewhere" made me wonder if he had read Elsewhere, a YA novel about the afterlife. And I really really like the part about being made from "available parts"
Posted by: Zuleme | January 27, 2008 at 07:56 AM