Featured Poets this month include Ward Kelley, The Rhyme Master (Jim Dunlap), Dave Jackson, Cara Alson, Richard Vallance and Jan Sand. Many thanks to all contributors.

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

VESTIGES © Ward Kelley One can intuit the past lives of the soul, for their vestiges are sometimes visible, lingering like the pleasant wisps from a cap gun used in childhood to kill those imaginary villains... each life a single cap: exploded, popped, its evidence only wishes or knowledge or certainty that pokes your intuition. So where elusive, it can still be seen; but why do we forget the exact former lives themselves? Why must we intuit, instead of remember? What are the physical reasons for this? I cannot yet say, but only know how the world of the soul works. It's physics, not metaphysics, and one day some scientist will discover the physical reason for these vestiges. Artist's note: Will and Ariel Durant (1885-1981 and 1898-1981) wrote in "The Lessons of History", paraphrasing Plato: "The soul is the self-moving force in man, and is part of the self-moving Soul of all things. It is pure vitality, incorporeal and immortal. It existed before the body, and has brought with it from antecedent incarnations many memories which, when awakened by new life, are mistaken for new knowledge". A WOMAN IS A MIST © Ward Kelley A woman is a mist, alluring to that which she cannot grasp until he comes so close he loses his own exact dimensions and begins to believe it is he who is the mist. A woman is a mist; she is a thing of beauty and mystery until the sun of age slowly appears to gradually dissemble her. A woman is a mist, and that which she forms is at first hidden by this ephemeral smoke until she chooses to uncover her creation, not unlike birth, although she frequently claims to have not been a part of this production, or at least not to have been fully aware of its occurrence inside the mist of love. ITS PARTICULAR GLARE © Ward Kelley The eye at the top of the pyramid makes one most uneasy in its particular glare, its unblinking knowledge of proper allurement, its call to some unspoken mystery that we're supposed to know... but we really don't. It will sit and wait, a tad impatient, folded in our wallet, ready to pounce at our command or whim... and we think we might learn someday how to live without it, yearn somehow to require less, but we really don't. RUMPLED ON THE OAK CHAIR © Ward Kelley I never knew why you put on those clothes of mourning, that one night, the grey veil, the black dress with nothing underneath. I could not know your meaning, but you agreed with me it was the most passionate night of our lives. Years later I see part of this lust was your refusal to describe your choice of apparel; another part was the way these black clothes lay rumpled on the oak chair. ORDER IS NOT THE PURPOSE © Ward Kelley The blood throbs; we have a pulse capable of quickening - us metaphors - our veins living examples of the unseen soulish currents that swarm constantly as they envelop the planet. Order is not the purpose, or even a decent goal. Instead it is the pounding of life against the stark cold that induces the currents, the brown river of time, from which we all must come to take our turn again in the labors. MATING EXOTIC FRUIT FLIES © Ward Kelley Poetry delivers the greatest punch of any art, but it does so on an extremely selective basis, like the mating of exotic fruit flies. The tygers and the sick roses could have been lost forever without the proper editor or the poet willing to publish, yet a brilliant poem does little good without a receptive reader.

JIM DUNLAP (Rhyme Master) Jim is in the Marquis, Who's Who In America and will be in the Marquis Who's Who In The World in it's next edition as well. He is also in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. His list of publications include "Candelabrum", "Plainsongs" and the "Paris/ Atlantic"; and he is now (or has been) online at "Die Niderngasse", "Poetry Repair Shop", "Midnight Edition" and Poetry Life & Times". He is a resident poet, and an Alpha poet at the Poet's Porch, is usually on Poetry Down Under and has had about six hundred poems published to date. He has been in the Writer's Digest top 100 three times, although he doesn't usually enter their contests any more, as their entry fees have gone out of sight. However, he has decided to send a single poem this time. He is currently the newsletter editor for the Des Moines Area Writers' Network. Jim's website, which included a lot of favorite poems by other writers, as well as his own work, is sadly now defunct, as Netscape discontinued their wonderful sites.netscape and now have a new site which is basically worthless for all practical purposes. His work appears online at: http://www.thepoetsporch.com http://www.aceonline.com.au/~db/ http://www.valmagnuson.com/ on Describe_Adonis in the Yahoo groups, poetryrepairs.com and in a number of other places as well.

GELASSENHEIT UBER ALLES © Jim Dunlap Caught up in trivialities, Perhaps bogged down in life -- We lose all spontaneity In daily rounds and strife. Large scale disasters hurt, And cause their share of pain -- But little niggling problems Eat deep... like acid rain. The generalities of life, With most insidious stealth, Erode calm and composure -- And tarnish mental health. Yet sometimes little things can help -- Like sunsets... or a toasted wiener Over bonfires on an autumn day: They recalibrate demeanor. Few of us can move the earth -- But unlike the beasts and birds, Some can shake the world's foundations With a few well-chosen words. REFLECTIONS ON WATCHING YET ANOTHER MACHO DIPSTICK EXIT THE BATHROOM WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS © Jim Dunlap Like ostriches bury their heads in the sand, We pretend that many bad things don't exist. Infectious diseases continuously expand. We're often screwed without being kissed. The cautions we've painfully learned over time Are disregarded by fools, lean and tanned... While warning bells fruitlessly chime. Thinking we're better than poor foreign lands, We exit latrines without washing our hands. We take antibiotics just till we 'feel better', Then we brusquely put them away -- Since we won't follow direction to the letter, Drug-resistant bacteria may someday hold sway -- And humanity yield to a 'bug', small and gray. It's far from manly to put loved ones at risk By disregarding the most basic hygiene -- Efforts to protect a computer floppy disk Far outdo the desire to keep our hands clean. Lethal diseases proliferate apace, And the body counts rise with each passing year. Stupidity could simply condemn our whole race -- It seems that bacteria have little to fear. COITUS INTERRUPTUS © Jim Dunlap The cop stopped alongside Of a nondescript old car On a secluded country lane (Besmirched with grime and tar.) His eyes were met, on looking in, With a spectacle of fun: An old man, on his lady, Was trying out his gun... The cop knocked on the window, And things came to a halt. While they rearranged their clothes, He questioned the old salt. "Have you no home to go to?" The officer inquired. "I've spent a lifetime there," Was said, "just since I've retired." "But these things are hard to come by, And the wife said, 'Let's make haste, And put that to good use Before it goes to waste.' " PURELY PANICKY © Jim Dunlap Though he struggle and pant, Impotence...can't. NO MORE EQUIVOCATIONS © Jim Dunlap The gauntlet's been thrown down -- Prepare to meet your fate! Disheartened dawdling may improve Your chance of being late. Yet it's too late to panic, So go bravely to your post; But pinch your pallid cheek a bit, Or they'll think you've seen a ghost. You forgot, your Daddy told you, As you sat upon his knee, "There's no need to buy the cow If the milk is yours for free." Thus all pales before the purpose That's noosed you in this halter: Your fate is now upon you, lad: She's waiting at the altar. Author's Note: I have to give credit here to Jean Hull Hermann, Editor of Mobius, who basically co-wrote this one with me.

David Jackson Editor of artvilla.com Born in 1948 to small acreage tobacco farmers in Tennessee. His mother is Brazilian, his father Scottish/Irish. Educated and supported as a mechanical engineer who designs products for a major appliance maker. He wrote nothing, painted nothing until age 39. His first painting is dated 1987. Wayne Jackson was the first to hang David's painting in his house. He even put a light under it. David has a briefcase full of words by Wayne which he is slowly presenting. Sometime after Wayne's death in 1989 he started writing poetry again and still does. He is also into family, music, songwriting, recording, web publishing, cats, and Schmutt, his dog. "People are starting to notice the poetry more lately." David tells me. "I'm becoming known a little as an editor for sure. ArtPage Images is between Atlantic Monthly and the Atlanta Review at Yahoo. The little guy can compete on the web. So I'm reaching people but I'm still outsider Dave and I constantly remind myself that these 1800 pages I have published on the web depend on $23.50 a month to the hosting guys. It's all a mirage, but so is life. It's all done with mirrors. I know. I'm an engineer."

UNTITLED 1 © David Jackson I looked out the window as I drove to work and saw wonders through the trees wonders through the telephone poles, through the suburban sprawl, wonders like an indescript bird flying through the corner of my eye. It's in the corner over there, where you can find it, what you are looking for, over there, behind the papers of your life behind the photos. It's there and sometimes in the papers the photos the art whatever you left behind, man ya know? UNTITLED © David Jackson Let me begin here in this small room where I've painted myself into a corner of who I am. I never wanted that to get out. I was a work in progress, in motion. You could not pin me down. I was something and now I have become what? this sometimes poet in a moment of imagined glory when what? when someone reads? when life flutters like what? Like the wind rattling the leaves. like the modern poet reads like the dead poets read like what? when life shines like what? Like the sunlight shines in your hair like a fool who writes poems golly gee Mr. wiggly you ain't gotta get to me golly gee in the morning in the fog in the sincere touch of kindness a touch not physical not mental just a touch of healing Sleepless Nights © David Jackson Sleepless nights spent fighting pillows or our collective demons of worry and discontent find me reaching at 3a.m. reaching for that solitude found only in the wee hours reaching for time lost sleep lost love lost reaching for memories or hopes amidst the sadness of the night amidst the light of a solitary lamp. cAPS lOCK © David Jackson In the window the green fields shine through and the shadows are subdued green too. These times speak, speak green dreams, green dreams of....... aND THEN i STOP AND THEN i WONDER IF GREEN TURNS TO BROWN TURNS TO BLACK Oh then don't worry you just hit Caps Lock in error so there's no worry the NUKE'S ARE SAFE

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