thought issue two
may ten 1996
 
(c)1996 mindflow productions
subscriptions, submissions, or any comments to:
email : thought@www.woodford.k12.ky.us
www   : http://sac.uky.edu/~jrruih0/thought

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credit where credit is due...
this is the .txt version of thought issue two.  all complete issues
including visual art (photography, ect) can be found on the web page

cover photo by:  dan wu
cover photo of:  max hatton
creation : josh ruihley
editing : melissa pike
executable versions : keith shapiro
graphics : josh ruihley, dan wu
html : josh ruihley
submissions : josh ruihley

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content:


The Dreamer                                 Olympia Lau
# 2528                                      David Bolduc
concrete                                    Raymond L. Heinrich
sylvia plath is my mother                   Raymond L. Heinrich
Lunch on Thursday                           Kathy Gregory
To the Poet.../New Hope                     Chuck Cooper
Lifeline of a Cryptic Sinner                Christopher Stolle
Marlboro Man                                Sara Compton
Just Thinking                               BeeCee
the ever-expanding 'in between'             josh ruihley 
What Light                                  Micheal McNeilley

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The Dreamer
Olympia Lau

Dreamers transcend the bounds of reality.
Dreamers are not fools. Dreamers actually believe.
Dreamers believe that their dreams will come true
someday when they make their dreams happen.  So keep
dreaming, and always keep BELIEVING!!!!!!!!!

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# 2528
David Bolduc

Gold. Not Sonoma golden--Nebraska.
And blue--cerulean. Like Provence.
The current off Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay.
And as for the intellect--well, brow ridges
explain all. Posture barely Homo sapiens.
  
Gentle hands proportionate to clumsy feet
and a large flaring nose promise--delight.
   
"I don't have a fuckin' life!" summarizes
the mandatory 60! hour week. Shifts
extending 3 to 3. And grateful for the work.
    
We all possess biographies, traumas, secrets.
A century's upheaval remains at full flood.
The personal is the political. The political personal.
     
"That was one of the best orgasms I've had
in a long time. My balls hurt all the way home."
      
Conclude with haunting West Village graffito:
"If you're not happy now--when?"

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concrete
Raymond L. Heinrich

a condominium on the 23rd floor
one with a balcony
is NOT the place
for a poet
or even someone who pretends to be
a poet
you see
there is a sliding glass door to the balcony
and you open it and walk six feet
to the railing which is three feet high
and look down
23 floors
to
pavement
concrete with gravel
that gives it
a little texture
makes it
seem hospitable
but
from 23 floors up
it
is just as hard
as life

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ylvia plath is my mother 
Raymond L. Heinrich

sylvia plath is my mother
i
practiced cutting my finger like her
a few weeks ago
it was
exactly as she said
she
is perfect
the perfect poet
risking everything
and
losing it
and
gaining it
at the same time
i look
at her picture
posted
just to the right of my computer
just beside gary snyder
and the one
smoothly lives
and the other
roughly dies
but looking at the words
left behind
for all i know
they sit side by side
maybe even kiss me in my love for them
mirror images
reflecting paths
down which
any of us
can go

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Lunch on Thursday
Kathy Gregory

high noon, across a table from you
coffee in bottomless thick white cups
newspaper spread all around
we are a familiar sight here
and no one thinks it uncommon
your father-in-law joins us briefly
hugs me and then moves on
no doubt bored with our conversation
effortlessly we resolve community issues
we two have all the answers
to all the questions on the editorial pages
if anyone would listen
and sometimes they do
right now you are intently explaining
something--what was it
yes, I am listening
(you look especially well in jeans)
(that black hair shines today)
(oh God, your eyes speak to me)
your earnest expression
and logical reasonings
normally so intriguing
thought-provoking
are lost on me today
frowning, you borrow my lighter
sit back and smoke, sip coffee
probably thinking I missed the point
...I did
Too powerfully distracted
by a sudden mental picture
of the favorable curve of my leg
rimming your chinline.

--------------------

To the Poet...
Chuck Cooper

To the Poet, I think I did something stupid again.
All these pills inside my brain,
Beating, feeling, wanting something more.
Begging emotion compassion.
Please feel for me.

I found her lying on a floor.
I reacted quickly,
The only way I knew how
Dialed 911 and wondered what would allow
A person to get so low
Trying to drag others in tow
Trying to be what we could not.
Finding solitude with me
Others as an afterthought.

The Black sky set with a pale Orange-Pink
It seems the sun is sinking
And with it all that peace.
Of mind there is left little
Of wonder little more
Of innocence there is nothing
I found her lying on the Floor.

---

New Hope
Charles Cooper

Drifting, wandering, searching still,
New hope I find within myself.
I found her lying on the floor
plays through my head over and over.
I see myself lying in her place
And wasting away over days and days.
For many a time and many a year
It was myself I found lying here
My hands tucked down between my knees
Wanting only to find someone to please.
My head was bowed my eyes were closed
My prayer, myself, is lost to those
Who wanted less but wandered close
Enough to find what I'd left behind.

And I with you was then without
Without a dream, without a crowd,
Without a season, without a time,
So much I wanted was left behind.
So many decisions
before those eyes
So many fables
So many lies
So much! I wanted was left behind.
The decisions known, the consequences now
You tore into my soul
And then burned me down.
   
I have one thing left,
One gift, left for me
My consciousness,
My dreams,
The pen, the ink, My poetry
Take Care, Chuck
    
"And I with you was then without,
Without a dream, without a crowd,
Without a season, without a time,
So much I wanted was left behind."

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Lifeline of a Cryptic Sinner
Christopher Stolle

memory of the exposed past
when the fits of pain engrossed
every loner without a dime
and then the wind whistled.
 
but now, as if the sinner died,
that memory reaps more than pain
while the ghosts sweep the closets.
 
but one cannot understand the sinner
and how he came to be such a fool
so allow me to explain his ordeal:
 
when William was seven and a half years old
he told his father we wanted to be a lumberjack
and his father just laughed at the lad's desire.
    
William was a lanky boy, who could barely
carry the kettle into the house for the fire
but his dreams were never created with his
strength in mind because he only wanted to be
a lumberjack, floating down various streams.
     
when William was 18, and tired of his father,
he took a rifle from the wall and killed him;
why should a man grow up with no support,
he would ask himself as he cried himself to sleep.

William attended his father's cruel funeral
and no one ever knew that he was the killer;
but William's mother knew her son's fate
and within days, the dreamer was in jail.
 
and he's been there ever since, just dreaming,
of how it would be to be a lumberjack floating
on those logs, dodging river jams and taking
control of his own fate, one he never really had.

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Marlboro Man
by Sara Compton

Light one up as
Loneliness is surrounded by darkness -
and smoke.
The street is wet
by drizzle dancing under street lights,
but the curb is fine.
Got nothing planned,
nobody ever around
except the Marlboro Man.
A hand runs through soaked, plastered hair
and pulls a T-shirt from its cling,
as a depressing solitude is tolerated.
Cars roar by
every so often,
people drunk,
either with beer or love,
neither one healthy.
Trying to open another pack with a hopeless sigh,
the drizzle that once played starts to pour,
but the curb is fine.
Now needing some kind of nicotine,
or any kind of rush,
you come
and offer a light.
Too bad you don't notice the rain.

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Just Thinking
BeeCee

If a poet gives up his truth for all the world to see, then
his poetry has lost its purpose.  For it robs the reader of
his right to incorporate his own image and meanings into
words designed to create an ever-changing picture.

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the ever-expanding 'in between'
josh ruihley

gone but not forever
hit that fork in the road
hit it hard
unconcious*

*concious
you went one way
i went the other
what is this  'in between'?
i dont remember this 'in between' from before
how did it get here?
 
?!??
  
the in between won't be crossed.
not now.
its sunny over here.
at least i think.
and its sunny over there.
at least you think.
and who knows what's in between?
besides the many many miles that separate
you
and me.
    
maybe the roads will cross again.
or maybe not.
maybe they will just grow further apart.
feeding the ever-expanding 'in between'

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What Light
Micheal McNeilley


My heart climbed the wall
of her apartment building
finding good footholds among
heavy old vines,
all the way to the balcony,
where its hand became caught
in the wrought iron railing;
  
and as the fire department came
to rescue my heart again
I saw her watching there,
her face in the window
like the moon among nasturtiums,
nodding her head like
 
a plastic dog
in the back window
of an old Ford,
the kind whose eyes light up
when you hit the brake,
her backlit blonde hair
blowing like
candy wrappers
in the wind.

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