Cerebral Contents:

Update for 05.13.08:

Male Model by Phil Doran

Set to Replay by Willie Smith

Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Tree by G. David Schwartz

05.05.08:

Disintegration by Don Hucks

Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord

Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse

Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi

04.29.08:

Lookalikes by Phil Doran

Dinner by Brandi Wells

The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox

Death by Onions by Michael Frissore

04.21.08:

Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser

Identity Theft by George Anderson

The Datists by Adam Engel

A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde

04.14.08:

Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem

California by Caroline Imreibe

Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson

04.07.08:

The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch

Slideshow by Miles J. Bell

Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen

Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin

03.24.08:

The Streak by Jeremy Hendrix

Grab Your Butts by Emme Hor

Far Away by Ashok Niyogi

Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer

03.17.08:

The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy

Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley

Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson

Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney

03.10.08:

Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson

I'm Quiet in Bed by Moctezuma Johnson

Tequila Shakes by Richard Lighthouse

The Power of Blood

by Juliet Lamb

(First Place Winner of the 2007 Bird Flu Poetry Contest!)

I am pulling blood
From the wing of a tern
For America

He is on his back, eyes covered,
Wing outspread — a half-martyr
My fingers hold the tight bones steady
My shadow blocks the sun

I am pulling blood
(blacker than you'd think, muddy,
mercuric) into a syringe using
hydrostatic...
capillary...
fuck it, I'm just a biologist.

From there, it will pass to a lab,
Pool under a lens like sealing wax,
Reveal its secret sexy poisons or
(more likely)
Nothing.

While I, wielding my needle, will stand
In the sun, salt drying to powder on my skin,
Paid to chase phantoms
For America.

And the terns, with a bright bead
Of red among white feathers — his stigmatus,
Will take to the sky
And vanish, contemplating
human folly...
the power of blood... or
(more likely)
"fuck it, I'm just a tern."

______________________________________
posted 11.12.07.

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