Death Is Communion         


Stay inside. Let the gray matter

undulate against your skull.

Let your flesh

keep a tight

separate peace

with the world.

Wear the “self’

like some impenetrable

suit of armor.

Soon enough

you can let

down your guard,

let the life ooze

from its neat

self-containment.

And then

Commune

with what you must,

Dust to Dust.

 


Father Knows Best, Mother Does The Rest.


* The TV series with Robert Young “Father Knows Best,” was a good example of the “idealized” father of the 50’s.

The bland tyranny

of the cardigan sweater.

His smile

creased in brutal condescension.

Mother corseted in apron strings.

Bud--

with a Greaser’s

black defiant lock

rushes to the freedom

of the front door.

Father calls

“Princess!’

and she arrives

dancing with the dog

with an anxious, scripted

girlish giggle.

And don’t

you think

they would like to

kill him

just a little?

 


Infinity


In its lurid light

my gestures

are warped,

grotesque.

Each word

I write

engulfed, consumed.

The love I feel

petty,

comically ephemeral.

But still

in the

face

of this

frightening

endless expanse

I must still--

take a chance

and

dance.

---

    While this ‘zine hasn’t always been exactly supportive of poems that utilize rhyming, sometimes people come along and help to open things up a bit and shatter some stereotypes. Doug Holder writes some classy and thought provoking poems that do just that. His poems here are going to be part of a collection of poetry to be released in the Fall. "Wrestling With My Father " ( Yellow Pepper Press, Pittsburgh) His work has appeared in : Facets, PoetryBay, the new renaissance, Small Press Review, Poesy, Spare Change News and others. Doug is also the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press, and the Boston editor for Poesy Magazine.

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