(February 2002) Page 2

NEIL D. RAY      Neil D. Ray, 2003, is just about the same as Neil D. Ray, 2002, except a little more wired.  I attempt to keep myself busy with many things.  I am still current Chairman of Membership Development for the North Carolina Poetry Society.  Seventy-years of service, to the people of North Carolina and the world, and still going strong.  www.sleepycreek.org/poetry   As editor-in-chief, of The Bohemian Scribe, a literary newsletter published by the Four Finger Writing Group, of which I am a member.  I still live in North Carolina.  A wonderful place, and getting better.      There is still some positive time given to the best “open mic’ poetry in the state, (as said, by a visitor one Sunday evening) The Java Jams, at the Coffee Scene…Gourmet desserts and coffee, will listening to a room full of poets (come early…Usually standing room only, when the loft gets “busy”), and musicians, give themselves away.  The arts scene around here has me moving from place to place, almost on a nightly basis.  (I do need time to rest), and everyone is excited about the “Festival of Flight” coming in May.  They will be honoring the Wright Brothers, and their flight in 1903, at Kitty Hawk, NC.  www.theartscouncil.org       In the summer of 2002, I founded the organization Artists Against Domestic Violence in Our Community.  It is an organization of artists of modalities, advocating the awareness and prevention of domestic and sexual violence and abuse in our society.  www.geocities.com/aadvoc2002/advocpage

AUTUMN CANVAS © Neil D. Ray, Fall 2002 The colors of autumn spill onto the fluid canvas Washed in the down of gossamer mist. The artist is sure in the details, Pure are the strokes on stone, leaf, and wave. The majestic arch of a loon against the silent sky, Is a simple justice preserved in this malt of erratic hues. An engaging relationship spawns the audacious aura Of oak, spruce, and cedar, With the unwavering conviction of pine and hemlock, Sometimes held in the cordial embrace of kudzu. Near the threshold of tall marsh grass and tangling thicket, Young deer gather to graze and gaze into the auspicious aurora. Within the favorable distance, A single column of silver bores through the smoky ceiling Anointing the crown of a sleeping hill, Its excess flowing like tears onto terra's face. PILGRIMS © Neil D. Ray, Winter 2002 A patient dignity evolves with each steadfast turn of distance. Time was the jewel stolen But, there is plenty to be found. Limbs are not shacked with disenchantment Nor hearts martyred to faithless ambitions. Within this quest toward dawn, Is a sterile absolute where exiles can gain shelter. It is useless to suffer the instability of man. Brittle conclusions humbled in swirling turbulence. Darkness submits to a succulent breeze. What arrogant calm suspends this escapade? The easternly pilgrimage of silhouettes Exposed to amber and asphalt, Is a cordial waltz of simplicity. Intrepid steps onto a carnivorous floor Stimulate a crossing of thresholds. This is not a dream of goodness Stilled to the rise of a radiant sun. This destiny unrecognized in a cloak of duration. In its value---a beginning. WISP OF THE BOHEMIAN © Neil D. Ray, Winter 2002 Sometimes, you will find him sequestered to a cushioned sofa taxing the tenure of text in his hand. He is adored by this intimacy of solitude. The sensitive relationship of a slow burning cigarette between his fingers, As caffeine steams in styrofoam accessible to flesh. Sometimes he is invisible, negotiating these plebic streets mastering the observations of cynics. He is the thought resonating within our towers, startling inquiries into sweeps of erratic frenzy that flutter slightly, the quiet returns. And should you speak with him, you will find he is not of simple gears or molding philosophies. He is as one unto the deities spouting the gospel of he laborer, gabled scriptures of clay, canvas, strings, and page. Oh, Prodigal Son of Nazareth, we feel your spirit, your torturous insight, your passion and pain. But, I am reverent to him, When he is his own. It is then the ancients surround him. The ubiquity of poet and prophet. Could not that book have been written about you? This I say to all of you, Who live in your succulent scruples. Behold --- the Deliverer is a renegade. ON HALLOWED GROUND © Neil D. Ray, 2002 Look now, As this grass breathes upon this field. It knows everything - Forgets nothing, And wonders if some things will return With the patience of peace. It is the water Flowing within terra's skin Restoring and cleansing Renewing and rinsing, Still proposing life above death, Strong enough to detail the difference. These rocks are pillows Where dreams sleep under blankets of green satin Formed to slumber - Formed to time, In a bed turned only To assure a proper rest.

WARD KELLEY Ward Kelley has seen more than 1100 of his poems appear in journals world wide. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Kelley's publication credits include such journals as: ACM Another Chicago Magazine, Rattle, Zuzu's Petals, Ginger Hill, Sunstone, Spillway, Pif, 2River View, Melic Review, Poetry Life & Times, Thunder Sandwich, The Animist, Offcourse, Potpourri and Skylark. Recently he was the recipient of the Nassau Review Poetry Award for 2001. Kelley is the author of two paperbacks: "histories of souls," a poetry collection, and "Divine Murder," a novel; he also has an epic poem, "comedy incarnate" on CD and CD ROM. Quote from Ward: "As for me, I'm a 51 year old business executive with 3,600 people in the division reporting to me. I only mention this because in a sense the daimon that propels my occupation also propels my poetry. For instance, Gertrude Stein once said, "If Mr. Robert Frost is at all good as a poet, it is because he is a farmer -- really in his mind a farmer, I mean." So in my mind am I a businessman who writes poetry, or a very minor poet successful at business? Who knows? Yet I tread carefully with this balance for fear my daimon will leave me, or my greed will taunt me for decades. Formerly I managed distribution centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Arizona and Illinois. My wife and I now live outside of Indianapolis and are currently toiling with much determination on our second crop of children, having adopted four wonderful girls and fostered several others." Of the 1162 published pieces, some have found their way into: POETRY COLLECTIONS & NOVEL "comedy incarnate" on CD ROM by Kedco Studios (Las Vegas, NV) "histories of souls" an ebook & POD by Word Wrangler Publishing, Inc. (Montana) "comedy incarnate" on AUDIO CD by Artvilla (Tennessee) "the naming of parts" an ebbok by Shyflower Press (Minnesota) NEW: "Divine Murder" a novel, paperback by Word Wrangler Publishing, Inc. (Montana)* *Editor's Note: I have read "Divine Murder" and thoroughly recommend this compelling story concerning the divine, the diabolical and the struggles of two mortals to discover their momentous destiny. Of the 1008 published pieces, some have found their way into: PRINT MAGAZINES: ACM, Another Chicago Magazine Ginger Hill The GSU Review Limestone The Listening Eye The Lucid Stone Mad Poets Review Nassau Review The Old Red Kimono Porcupine Literary Magazine Potpourri Rattle River King Skylark Spillway Sulphur River Review Sunstone INTERNET: Adirondack Review The Animist Ariga Big Bridge Lynx: poetry from Bath Melic Review Oblique Offcourse The Paumanok Review Pif Poetry Life & Times Poetry Magazine.Com Pulse Pyrowords Renaissance The Rose & Thorn San Francisco Salvo Sonata Thunder Sandwich 2River View Unlikely Stories Zuzu's Petals

THE HEART IS BLIND © Ward Kelley The heart is blind; without a white cane it steps awkwardly from the curb directly into traffic. It will do this every time it is allowed to venture into public; some of us keep them locked indoors, and you can see these hearts peering sadly from windows. Being blind, hearts have not, though, developed other senses beyond the scope of sighted beings, and their hearing is not wonderful, although I cannot say they are impaired. There in traffic, hearts will often hear warnings blast from horns, and the more adept of them can sidestep such collisions; however many jump the wrong way and end up flattened on the road, looking back at their brethren in the windows, wondering if it were better to stay indoors. No one can answer this, for the suffering of the accident victim is always equal to the prolonged pain of those at the windows. THE SOUL SAYS © Ward Kelley I wonder if the universe gave us a much different sense of time than that bestowed upon our souls. There are times when life cannot be borne, and sadness comes to be seen as normal; the body begins to slowly dissolve. There appears to be little sense in this suffering. But maybe the soul watches from insemination to death as we would view a child blowing a soap bubble: whose purpose is to expand uniquely. "That was an interesting one," the soul says, "let's see another." THE DAY YOUR HAND HEALED © Ward Kelley The veins on the back of your hand say you are not at peace with this land you asked yourself to inhabit. Veins are mortal, tributaries of your life, the life which spills away even as you watch. Between them is a scar. You knew the day your hand healed that this scar would speak to you forty years hence about how your skin could foretell the future. The message, simple now, but unclear back then, was how scars remain the same even though the skin ages around them and wrinkles. You are yourself a scar in the brown river of time, you, with your blue veins of red blood, who must learn how to welcome the journey on the hand. AN APPARATUS FROM LOVE © Ward Kelley I have tried to make an apparatus from our love, a special device that could be attached to your soul. A similar one I placed on my own soul, and when we turned them on, they spoke to each other, a secret code encrypted by unique events in our lives, so we could recognize each other, after we died, in some future life. I think it worked well the first few lives, but in this present one I fear my batteries have failed. I want to recharge them, for I feel out of sync with nearly everyone, and the events in which I participate leave me wondering if anything at all has meaning. You are missing. And there appear to be billions of more souls on this planet. AT THE BURNSIDE BRIDGE © Ward Kelley On the battlefield, you can only make one conclusion when viewing the carnage: we must bury all these armies in the earth, then have them begin their real work. What was so important above ground becomes meaningless once below. Let the work begin. All these souls are shocked to find themselves so abruptly removed from their bodies, and where shortly before they were part of a vibrant group of warrior flesh, now they are alone. The next time they re-form, they must work towards advancing the better desires of the species, rather than becoming a regiment for the removal of bodies. We must not all become soldiers looking always for the proper thing to be killed and buried.

RICHARD VALLANCE About Richard Vallance Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, March 11th., 1945, Richard is a member of AuthorsDen, under his family name, Richard Vallance Janke.  A graduate of Wilfred Laurier University (1968) and The University of Western Ontario (MLS), he is fluently bilingual in English and French, and reads Spanish and Italian, ancient Greek and Latin well.  He wrote his first poems at the ages of 17 and 18, in 1962-63.  For years, Richard wrote mainly in the field of Library and Information Science. At Chicago, in October, 1983, he won the $1,000 Data Courier Award for Excellence in Online Published Papers for an article in Online, Vol. 7, no. 5. Poetry: While he wrote some 200 poems before the age of 47, since then Richard has composed over 1,500 poems. His first published poem was, “Lasts the First Light”, in Arts and Literature Review (Canada, 1972). In 1998, he published his first full book of poetry, A Quilt of Sonnets: Forty Four Familiar Poems, Ottawa: Providence Road Press, © 1998. 56 pp. ISBN 1-896243-07-x. In February, 2001, Richard founded his first poetry discussion group, Describe Adonis, for sonneteers. We have since grown to 10 poetry, art and digital photography groups, which you may find at our discussion forum: la nouvelle Pléiade = The New Pleiades ©. Richard's poetry page is Poesie’s laissez-faire Faire Foire, a clearing-house for poets from nations like Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and the Netherlands. PLFFF features sonnets and contemporary poems, updated quarterly, a links page to sites of other poets, and grants the monthly Prix laissez-faire Faire Foire Award . PLFFF is a member of Phenomenal Men of The Web: Arts & Humanities . Richard is the Editor of 2 Canadian poetry E-Zines.  These are advertised monthly at the end of The Vallance Review in Poetry Life and Times.  In the Winter of 2003, a third E-Zine, Kawasaki Zen Haiku, will be a showcase for haikuists. Since September, 2001, Richard has been the poetry reviewer for Poetry Life and Times, which features the monthly Vallance Review. He is also regular contributor to the same E-Zine.  Richard is also often featured with the U.S. Amerindian E-Zine, Autumn Leaves. CD-ROM Books: 1. The New Millennium Dawn Anthology (Kedco Press): 10 of Richard's poems were included in Millennium Dawn: an Anthology of Award Winning Fantasy Stories, Poetry, Novels etc.,  Kedco Studios Press, Las Vegas, NV, © 2002  ISBN 1-878431-38-2. 2. Richard’s latest CD-ROM book, Canadian Spirit Voices, © 2003, ISBN: 1-878431-44-7, is in its final pre-publication stages, and will be published by Kedco in the Spring of 2003.  You may view a summary of the book here:  Pre-publication Notice. To contact the author, please e-mail: Richard Vallance (Yahoo) (for inquiries on our poetry discussion groups) – OR –  Richard Vallance (Activator Mail) for poetry-related inquiries or submissions to our Canadian E-Zines).

HOW DO I TELL? © Richard Vallance, January 29th., 1999 For Louis-Dominique Genest, in the midst of winter 1999 How do I tell you now how I’d missed you if all too well? There was a lesser of two discernible lights. The moon was waning so fallow over the flickering forest’s spell it cast phantoms in a lake’s little drops of tallow, stars of reminiscence shed on a summer’s ecstasy of tears. And we would run and wax over that wild place on the same but snowed in path where our very own shadows, hint of covert migrations, cast as dopplers amidst the flax and golden aspens surfing before us before our summer’d set, settling its mantles of light in such gradual tones that sang such flautists long into night. This is winter’s house! Why must I recall your footsteps deftly vanish on a ledge cool of a fall? This poem is to be published in Richard’s new book, Canadian Spirit Voices © 2003 (Spring) RENASCENCE © Richard Vallance, January 20th., 2003 On wings of frostiness, cold days ascend In one resplendent arc welled out towards The zenith, and while stinging nights descend On us the while, in a while well sharp swords Of suns' Renascence shall be cleanly struck In filaments whose stronger silvers glance Off snows and frosts until (with any luck!) Stiff icicles will drip, and drip or dance Off drops in the moonlight even and at Dawn, and though they may abide, bide your day, And they shall fall on semi-frost, go, "Splat!" As Aurora, Spring's, comes to disarray Them all, pathetic shards Jack Frost clings to, As rob' robin wings in his prescient blue! PSALMS OF COMPASSION: Nowhere to be Found © Richard Vallance, 1999 for my Mother, Agnes Watson Vallance (died, August 23rd., 1997) “God is nowhere to be found.” You could have said. No children’s steps fall there. Who’s made no soft approaching sound, as though you’d too long mumbled in your chair? Your rocking chair’s a wicker’s sound. Your rosary’s rubbed you down to bone. You swivel and rock out daylight, drowned, until you drift off & wake & fingers flit. Merely to find your eye graze out a window’s glassy moon sheared panes, only to hear your ears dumb shout “Where is my Jesus, for all my pains?” We found mom’s scribbled note that said, “Bury me lightly when I am dead.” [This poem is to be published in Richard’s new book, Canadian Spirit Voices © 2003 (Spring) THE MOTHER IS THE CHILD © Richard Vallance, November 20, 2002 So be it when I shall grow old; Or let me die! The Child is the father of the Man. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) The Mother is the Child In every Son’s demesne: In every Daughter’s eye She lives, reborn again. Observe her joyous smile As first she must observe Your tiny infant’s smile Wherever she may be. For, while you laugh awhile, And, April’s children, play, Perhaps you might as well Observe her brightest day. When you arise and leave For marriage or not, She will as soon as you Be left to your Fate’s lot. Although the day she dies, You surely shall not fail To share her sufferings Upon her coffin’s veil.

Jan Sand in New York JAN SAND, poet and illustrator from New York, is a regular contributor to Poetry Life & Times and the newsgroup alt.arts.poetry.comments. A great deal of his work is about animals, or science fiction. Recently Jan was published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press, on their latest CD ROM e-book, "A Way With Words (Poetry Real and Surreal), which also includes complete books by Dale Houstman, Sara L. Russell and Keith Gabriel Hendricks. Jan's illustrated book on the CD is called "Wild Figments And Odd Conjectures", which is also sold separately, in a limited-edition "single" CD. To see an illustrated article about Jan's poems, visit the November '98 issue of Poetry Life & Times, and scroll down past the Editor's Letter. He also has his own poetry pages on Charlotte's Web at Artvilla.

REGRETS © Jan Sand The gnarly boys and crinkle girls With roquefort limbs and blue white curls Are counting down their clock hand swings With thoughts on long departed things. The films of time can magnify The glories of the years gone by When forests sentineled the land, When beaches bathed in pure white sand, When tigers prowled jungles in droves, When pink smooth bodies rolled in loves. And food was spiced with sparkled tastes, Full life lived, frenetic haste. But mornings still announce the day And minutes each can have their say To make the treasured minutes glow So that regrets, when time to go, Dictates that life still has its gems To dominate daily mayhems. PRAGMATIC © Jan Sand Expedience contains the force Of most actions of the day. It drives the busses, wipes the nose Of children, on their sleeves, at play. It plugs up holes with chewing gum, And when this fails, we kneel and pray. A piece of tape, a crooked nail Can hold most things whole When alternates may fail And if the troubles mount and pile, It doesn’t hurt to have a smile. BIRTHDAY OPTIMISM © Jan Sand Another year has skulked away With treasures, troubles, odd confusions, A few new happenings that may Become, with the right transfusions, A novel worthwhile form of play. Our lives are short, perceptions slack, There’s always much that we have missed. We’re happy with “I’m alright Jack” If our lives can consist Of looking forward, not much back. I have no pains, I still can see. My hearing’s good I must agree That guy, with hood Is far away, two thousand three. ALPHA BETS ARE OFF © Jan Sand Be wary of the dictionary. Watch out for the thesaurus. Attractions can be quite contrary. Words can be a kooky chorus. They sing of “A”s in many ways, Their “B”s are a disease That titillate by arcane phrase To bring good reason to its knees. The “C”s can please with chocolate Or give a case of cancer, “D”s can make you desolate Or be a cute romancer. “E”s and “F”s and “G”s can be Somewhat entertaining, “F”s quite foul and sometimes “G” Leaves nothing for the gaining. “H” is hell, “I” -oh my! “J” is all its own way, “K” you never can deny May have feats of Klee. “L” can give a lovely word, “M” is often masochist. “N”, a nerd, could be absurd, “O” a large obstructionist. “P”s and “Q”s are purposeful And very vaguely querulous. While “R”s, resourceful, Frequently are garrulous. “S”, a mess, simply slick, salacious, Precedes “T” which can be Totally tenacious. “U” might find no peace or glee Positioned just before “V” Which sometimes turns out vicious While “W” can trouble you With fantastic wishes. “X” can only lead to wrecks, “Y” goes into yearning. “Z” can never stack the decks. It finalizes learning.