Featured poets this month include Janet Buck, Averil Bones, Elisha Porat, Ward Kelley, Ric Masten and Jan Sand. Many thanks to all contributors.

Janet Buck JANET I. BUCK Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in A Writer's Choice, Born Magazine, Stirring, The Melic Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, San Francisco Salvo, Apples & Oranges, Ceteris Paribus, In Motion, Pogonip, Peshekee Review, Thunder Sandwich, The Suisun Valley Review, The Red Booth Review, The Poetry Kit, Miserere, Niederngasse, Lynx: Poetry from Bath, The Horsethief's Journal, Salon D'Arte, Pif, The Dragonfly Review, Morpo, Recursive Angel, Big Bridge, Eclectica, Pith, La Petite Zine, EWG Presents, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 1998, 1999, and 2000, she has won numerous creative writing awards and been a featured poet for Seeker Magazine, Poetry Today Online, Vortex, Conspire, Poetry Cafe, Dead Letters, the storyteller, Poetry Heaven, Athens City Times, Poetic License, 3:00 AM e-zine, Poetry Super Highway, Carved in Sand, Poetry Magazine.com, Beachfire Gathering, and Cafe Society. Two of Buck's poems have been nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize in Poetry and she is a recent recipient of The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence. Janet was also one of ten U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. Her poem "Acrylic Thighs" was translated into five languages and paired with original artwork. The tour will travel to France, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, and Japan. Buck currently has three poetry collections on the market: Calamity's Quilt, Reefs We Live, and Bookmarks in a Hurricane. In November, she will be a featured poet at The Hugo House in Seattle. Art Villa is soon to release her cd entitled Before the Rose, a collection of poetry laced with music by the talented David Jackson. Desideratum's Doggie Dish, Buck's first collection of humor, will be available in print very soon, courtesy of Word Wrangler. To read more of Janet's work, purchase a book, or schedule a reading, go to http://www.janetbuck.com Active Amp.org--Features Janet I. Buck The Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000) San Francisco Salvo Offcourse The October Country Cafe Society: Poetry Life & Times March 2000 Desideratum 's Doggie Dish Wired Art from Wired Hearts Kookamonga Square The Adirondack Review janetbuck.com One World-One Heart Exhibit (click on "On Site Report" and scroll down to the New York Exhibit; then click on "A message from one of the authors, Ms. Janet Buck") Ygdrasil: Issue 9 September 2000

Ginger Root Not Lavender © Janet I. Buck When the buzzer of your death blasted me out of bed, I sat in that electric shock of disbelief for days on end. Wrote nothing of that nothingness before my eyes, vacuumed bread crumbs of my tears until the sack exploded in the morning light. Greenery of loving you was bags of lettuce full of worms I had to wash. Collection plates and choir pews and all the leather books you bound had saddle sores of wishing I could warm the chill, reverse injustice, kill its virus, stomp its grapes, bite its languid, pouting lip. Pillows on your empty chaise, a mass of birds God had taken rifles to. Paper was a thimble's meat without a tip. Your house coats had that dusty smell of Sanskrit tomes. I owed it to your memory to run the furnace till it cleared. Pungency of grief revived is ginger root, not lavender. The Autumn Rose © Janet I. Buck Last edge of summer's bloom in vulva of a pregnant rose. I never embrace quite long enough. Leaves lose emerald tinge; my gardening thumbs are checking into winter's smug, stacking all my sleeveless shirts and trading them for sweater time. Too soon the colors dissipate. Too soon the painter's brush is dry. Knotted hose upon on the porch; nothing pumping through its vein. Sunburned logs of furniture sit upside down, so rain can rinse their dirty backs. I totter on assuming cliffs that Spring will raise its hand again, both my eyes will focus then-- gentle turns of microscopes. Each maple trace that falls to earth--a sequin falling off a dress I'll soon outgrow or give away. Did I cut the tags from hours and wear them like a pink corsage? Did I miss a hummingbird that pounced upon a drop of sap? A dangerous leap of faith I am-- fingers near a paper cut. The Grasshopper © Janet I. Buck Shuffling through glass slippers of morning dew, there is promise pending, hovering. My prayers this year met scales of broken rosaries. A man I knew and loved erased in a blur of waning youth. Staccato grief punctuated, heralded by deep bassoons, his widow's sighs. She can't paint with dry brush of longing's tongue. Her womanhood an empty beach. A crust that ruins endings to a poem. I dream of doubted possibles. Count my rows of blessing lace. Run my toes down forearms of our braided thighs in ways pianos chase a note. Own myself and grab for reach as grasshoppers rule wayward lawn. Frisk Me © Janet I. Buck I am archive-- you are power. Frisk me and you will find fish hook ribs-- tangled in unbuttoned fire. Thorns around a holly berry-- pain constrained by smiles intact like rainbows in a nursery rhyme. Festering madness, owl trace of heaven's fall. No lady, just time alive and well in steam. Groping ice-cube-- God perceived in off-key tone-- fingers stuck upon the freeze. Placing spine inside a verse as flowers seek a wetted vase. Allergic to Silk © Janet I. Buck You give me silk in a ribbonned box at Christmas time, but sexiness hides in cool closets where it's safe. A victim of old severance (of scissored limb) allergic to insipid risk. Some sense of femininity is wild onions growing in a wayward field. Not yet. The salt of difference rules -- the page a screen for clawing cats. Dalai Lama's blood in veins and prayers for self-- uncleansed by trite confessionals. I want to cut the tags from clothes and secrets of identity. You'd think that galloping labyrinths in a poem, airing cloying artistry, would free the seaweed sense from rock, but womanhood remains eclipse. A starfish in an ocean's grip, not yet washed on aching beach. Light, a layer all its own, sui generis and slow. JBuck22874@aol.com

Averil Bones AVERIL BONES Averil Bones, 27, lives in Sydney, Australia. She has studied journalism and native bushland regeneration, and is currently working in the publishing industry. Averil's work has been included in an anthology of new Australian poets called Sensory, and she is a regular contributor to Poetry Downunder. The most influential part of her life is the ocean, and she tries to remain an active environmental campaigner.

THE VANITY OF THE MOON © Averil Bones Looking down at the sea from a dark pith of sky the moon saw her face pitted and scarred and could not bear to carry her countenance. So, times when her misery was at highest ebb, she would hide her pitted and scarred face and the ocean would mourn in its bed at the loss. He would toss and turn, a wounded creature, crippled, deprived of heaven's flight, lost to half the world, and (with his clutch of lost souls) to his love's abode. He would coax the moon's eyes down with a vast upheld mirror so she could admire her long tendrils of silver hair which she would throw down over his blissful skin, His eye showed her face gold and bright, hued honey-gold, its profiles lifted to leap into the pith of sky; only for her to look down and see again the pits and scars that formed her cheeks and brows, her silvery lips, (so fine and beautiful to her watery lover in whose face was her own brutal ugliness). * * * * * * * The sounding stone of ocean's soul would follow as she passed, night or day, faint-hearted or bright, and his heart would rise and fall at her mood. When his spray-tipped fingers touched cruel shore he would rant and rave that he could not follow as she skipped past the silver breakers to grassland to make love to ponds and rippling streams, in forest glens where her face was not so well-reflected, but her sinewed hair neither so deftly combed. * * * * * * * * * He would wait by the shore, frothing and raging, until he saw again her burnished face appear from tree tops, and his vast soul would slowly calm and his surface sheen that her fingers of light, tendrils whose silver caress were his favourite fire, would throw shades deeper into his body, and her hair lay longer, cooler on his skin. But she would look down only to see the mirror he held, and that hated reflection of her own face (pitted and scarred), and would flee to horizon's light that her ugliness be hidden. The ocean would take a deep and shuddering breath; dash his anguish against cruel shore in looming breakers, slowly crumbling the renewing land which held him from her. His tortured temper would roil, thrash, throwing great splumes high against the pith of sky, that he might not have to bear her downward gaze a moment longer, not a moment; never knowing, not thinking, that in the glory of her own light (in deep darkness), she had not once paused in her eternal passing to see past his mirror, had never even noticed his face. THE NIGHT YOU CALLED ME HOTLIPS © Averil Bones Standing in the dark outside your house, mosquitoes ravenous on bare legs making you wallaby skip. Cool clouds covering hot afternoon summer; rustling possums in undergrowth, looking, laughing, along with kookaburras. It was that feeling I always get with you, not wanting to leave without touching you, my heart in my throat and reaching out towards you. Our arms meeting in wrist-lock, lips in fresh love-lock, eyes slitted half-closed. At parting you smiled and said Hotlips. Averil_Bones@mcgraw-hill.com

Elisha Porat picture used with permission ELISHA PORAT, the 1996 winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, has published 17 volumes of fiction and poetry, in Hebrew, since 1973. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada and England. The English translation of his short story collection "The Messiah of LaGuardia", was released in 1997. His latest work, a book of Hebrew poetry, "The Dinosaurs of the Language", was recently published in Israel. He was born in 1938 to a "pioneer" family in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael (pre Israel); his parents were among the founders of Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, a Kibbutz on the Sharon plates near the city of Hadera. Today Porat, devoted to the community ideal, still make his home near the original tent erected by his parents back in the early 30s. In 1956 Porat was draft into the IDF (the Israeli army) and fought in three wars: the Six Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the War of south Lebanon in 1982. Short anthologies from the author's works: Ariga: 4 poems by Elisha Porat poems and short stories. Unlikely Stories: Elisha Porat feature poems, fiction, interview, reviews. The Poet's Haven: Elisha Porat poems, fiction - scroll down to P for Porat Funky Dog Publishing: Elisha Porat collection of poems.

Fall 1999 © Elisha Porat translated from the Hebrew by Asher Harris Now in the fall the curlews assemble In the orchards, and the grey conies Are already changing their colours, while I Too rub on my heart the cream That protects from summer heart, to keep it Safe on wintry days as well. And in my room which darkens in the cloudy light I go up to the wall: I tear off papers, Pictures and reminders of the last two thousand years. I stand in front of the empty rack And once more take a pledge: No bungling now, you treacherous body, You have to bear me still All of me, into the next thousand. As Things Stand © Elisha Porat translated from the Hebrew by Asher Harris Nice of you to phone, it was good to hear Your voice. And how are you? Well done, you've Come on. I saw what you'd had published in the Magazine. Too true, quite a few years have passed since then: And they've had their way, a few grandchildren, I won't say how many. You're really not supposed To count. And what about me? the same walls And forty-two square meters. The ground Shifts, and round about everything is cracked, and at night I tremble: sudden fractures, the plaster Flakes, and on the roof bats spew out bursts of Fruit squishy with vomit and seeds. And if I tune my ear to the silence that comes From your telephone, I can clearly hear: Droves of yearnings galloping away to the distant hills. WITHOUT A EULOGY © Elisha Porat Translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks. What he wanted was to hide among the simple or among the small whose greatness he had always craved. To be at rest with friends cloaked in the pride of the meek without words, and without even a eulogy. And after that, only this: To lie below tender shoots sheltered in the shade of thorns and to hear nothing but Blackbirds singing. © Elisha Porat, All Rights Reserved. porat_el@einhahoresh.org.il

Ward Kelley Ward Kelley has seen more than 600 of his poems appear in journals world wide since he began publishing in 1996. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Kelley's publication credits include such journals as: ACM Another Chicago Magazine, Rattle, Sunstone, Spillway, Porcupine Literary Magazine, Pif, 2River View, Poetry Life & Times, Oblique, Offcourse, Potpourri and Skylark. He has been honored as featured poet for Seeker Magazine, Physik Garden, Poetry Life & Times, and Pyrowords. Ward says: "As for me, I'm a 49 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." POETRY COLLECTIONS "Comedy Incarnate," forthcoming on CD ROM by Kedco Studios (Las Vegas, NV) "Histories of Souls" forthcoming as an ebook by Word Wrangler Publishing, Inc. (Montana) "Comedy Incarnate," forthcoming on audio cd by Artvilla (Tennessee) Of the 648 published pieces, some have found their way into: PRINT MAGAZINES ACM, Another Chicago Magazine The GSU Review Limestone The Listening Eye The Lucid Stone Mad Poets Review The Old Red Kimono Porcupine Literary Magazine Potpourri Rattle River King Skylark Spillway Sulphur River Review Sunstone INTERNET Ariga Big Bridge Lynx: poetry from Bath Oblique Offcourse Pif Poetry Life & Times Poetry Magazine.Com Pulse Pyrowords Renaissance The Rose & Thorn San Francisco Salvo Sonata 2River View Unlikely Stories

The Shortcoming © Ward Kelley The senses, oh how powerful they are in the evaluation of truth; they would have us romp and swell, pound and inflate, and spin our logic on a carousel of carnal swoons, yet they will only ever lead us to the fulfilment of the senses or mourning the lack of such. Logic too will only ever take us to philosophic conclusions, for step by step, conclusion by conclusion, we can only go where reason deems it proper. So then, the only path to truth that will not lead to a self-fulfilling end is intuition. By this you can know of the truth, I am certain, but the shortcoming of intuition is you can never prove it to another. Artist's note: William Blake (1757-1827), was an English poet, painter, and engraver. The son of a hosier, Blake was self-taught and a voracious reader. He numbered, among his many intellectual friends, Tom Paine and Mary Wollstonecrafft, the mother of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley. From his childhood on, Blake spoke of visions: angels in a hayfield, monks at Westminister Abbey; some he engaged in conversation, such as the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, and various other historical figures. He even once spoke of seeing -- as he climbed the stairs to bed -- the devil watching him from behind the banister rungs. Blake died in poverty, at the end saying, "I cannot consider death as anything but a removal from one room to another." Dying © Ward Kelley A radiance. There is no fear at the end, for finally this cumbersome body finds the right hormones to kick in, kick in, and in comes the sensation that for once all is right with the world, really the same wondrous feeling that pumped through this body at the moment of birth, but who can remember this primitive point in life? At last there comes a moment when the letting go matches the pulling off, for someone just as wondrous is pulling, pulling, and the moment of astonishing death is the realization it is you who is doing the pulling, the other half of your soul who is pulling while this living half decides to let go, let go, and you at last see this half who long ago pushed and pushed you into a birth. After Several Renditions © Ward Kelley The splattering, the roiling of blood and skin, the shaking and pounding that commands the fluency of thoughts that come shattering the paper endured by the eye . . . there is no sane prescription to insure a proper splatter, for the essence appears to be an unprescribed flow of atoms charging from the ephemeral to the soul to the paper, placement unrestricted but measured, measured, and at last the sense comes in, and can be seen quite clearly after several readings; perhaps a component of intuition where the actual logic is not readily spoken, but might appear after several renditions of the same oddity. Ward708@aol.com

Ric Masten's "One-liner" blacksmith cartoon RIC MASTEN RIC MASTEN was born in Carmel, California, in 1929. He has toured extensively over the last thirty years, reading his poetry in well over 400 colleges and universities in North America, Canada, and England. He is a well-known conference theme speaker and is a regular on many television and radio talk shows. He lives with his poet-wood carver wife Billie Barbara in the Big Sur mountains of California. He has 13 books to his credit. (see amazon.com) There is a special announcement from Ric Masten near the Norris cartoon further down the page.

BLACKSMITH (for Francis Whitaker 1906-1999) © Ric Masten to children Francis was a redwood towering - hammer on anvil shooting stars against leather apron iron bending to his will glowering when we edged in too close then as we backed away softened his expression with a wink called the cops on me once I deserved it - a thoughtless teenager taking pot shots at pelicans Francis knew the shock of an arrest would make a more indelible impression than a good "talking to" feeling crowded he left our town for the higher ground of Colorado his Forge in the Forest a restaurant now the clink of glass - click of cutlery replacing the wheeze and clang of creativity returned for a visit a year or so ago nearly 90 - the conquering hero announcing that his art didn’t start to come together till he was over 70 I was 65 and thinking of retiring he’s gone now passed away "hammer in hand" they say had it with him in his hospital bed the nurses tried but Francis would not let go of it until he died which leaves me part of the anointed cyber-smart "Communication" generation with the pointed question: "When I die what will I be clutching to my heart?" "POOR DEVIL!" © Ric Masten in my early twenties I went along with Dylan Thomas boasting that I wanted to go out not gently but raging shaking my fist staring death down however this daring statement was somewhat revised when in my forties I realized that death does the staring I do the down so I began hoping it would happen to me like it happened to the sentry in all those John Wayne Fort Apache movies found dead in the morning face down — an arrow in the back "Poor devil." the Sergeant always said "Never knew what hit him." at the time I liked that... the end taking me completely by surprise the bravado left in the hands of a hard drinking Welshman still wet behind the ears older and wiser now over seventy and with a terminal disease the only thing right about what the Sergeant said was the "Poor devil" part "Poor devil" never used an opening to tell loved ones he loved them never seized the opportunity to give praise for the sun rise or drink in a sunset moment after moment passing him by while he marched through his life staring straight ahead believing in tomorrow "Poor devil!" how much fuller richer and pleasing life becomes when you are lucky enough to see the arrow coming A SNEAKING SUSPICION © Ric Masten I have given my pets the power and let my little dog Amazing Grace get such a grip on me that more than once I’ve folded maps and called off an extended trip it becoming more than I can bear to watch her napping in the sun so unaware trusting to the moment oblivious to the desire of man and flea the side of me that lags behind and drags its feet gets hold of my imagination till I have myself confined in the wire world of the kennel waiting in canine limbo brave and stoic with pricked ears listening keeping watch on the door expecting each moment to be the moment the master reappears and I do this to myself till I must cancel travel plans deciding not to go unable to stand the thought of missing myself so that and the sneaking suspicion that once on the road I’ll forget her as quickly as I will be replaced by something alive and moving in the brush ric.masten@mindspring.com

Self-portrait by Jan Sand 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. Just one poem is featured this month - an epic-length ballad called THE JANITAUR.

THE JANITAUR © Jan Sand There came a time, at last, for the race of man To pack itself into a huge tin can And, puffing plasma, set out for the stars. With a sidelong glance at Mars they fled From off their planet, which they'd made dead. For a million years they'd picnicked on those grounds, Then left them, bleak with blacks and browns Of ragged rocks and rotting wrecks of trees and stinks And oozing slimes and burning fogs smoke out of chinks. Off to find another place on which to plant the human race. Three quarters of a century it took to far Centaurus. A multitude of winking beer cans marked their daily trail, And stubbed out butts and bottles; a cracked recording Of the Anvil Chorus. They'd scribbled on the firmament With several hundred million miles of toilet paper In jagged lines across their spoor of ion vapour, And tastefully distributed along their run Were gobs of dog and cat shit by the ton. Four hundred trillion cockroach corpses Tumbled in a cometary tail To advertise man's glory In departure from his sun. On planet four, Centaurus Alpha, lived a race of crystals. Pristine, cubic, pyramid, cylindrical, prismatic, Airborne, groundbased, and aquatic. How they shone And twinkled in the sun as they rolled across the stones Of their tesselated highways, threaded 'Round their crystal flowers Reflecting intersecting rays of light Connecting glassy towers. Catching, tossing, juggling light beams just for fun - But then...their huge reflectors duly noted, Since they had been vacuum coated, The approaching garbage complex fleeing from Earth's sun. Facets flashed with fright and horror At this disgusting Earth explorer Come to desecrate their purity, Violate their clarity, security, Rain detritus down on everyone. So, with haste and hyperspacial radio The crystals sent a frantic call to Scorpio, To the Cosmic Cleaner Consultation Center Complaining of the coming filth fomenter. "Earth," they screamed, "has done a flit. And now is wildly flinging shit. Frankly, we are in a snit. By your oath, you must stop it!" And the Center answered, "Cool it kid, We'll make it quit." In Scorpio there is a place between the stars, Stuck out in space, a place with bars Which tight entombs a monster out of death and doom. When the center acted on the call to banish Earth's star ship and make it vanish, It initiated mechanisms to enforce the ostracism By directing cataclysm of the very fabric Of the geodesic of its trace. One parsec tall colossal doors on this place Parted to divide and free the thing they'd kept inside. It took six months to open wide at speeds FTL And wake the beast that snoozed inside this convoluted shell. The Janitaur pricked up its ears, Wiped sleep from off its sensors, It yawned a yawn and belched a belch That squelched three nearby suns And turned them into meteors The size of hot cross buns. "Janitaur," the Center spoke to now evoke An action in this thing it woke, "You are assigned to launch yourself And search and find, eliminate A new distress. Sector five, quadrant eight Is the place you must address. A steel ship out of Sol contains All that now remains of humanity. And with pandemic, systematic Quite erratic antisanity They've trashed their Earth, despised its worth, And now they've quit their native sun To litter up another one. So..sic 'em baby, bite their tails And knock their blocks right off the rails!" At this command, the Janitaur unrolled its lacy wings Which spanned out to a million miles, composed of cosmic strings. Its flashing eyes - two neutron stars, Pulsed out with spinning beams With evil glances, left and right, from out of horrid dreams. Grinning wide gravitic tide, its mouth a large black hole, Each wicked tooth, bereft of ruth, a pointed monopole. On winds of stellar fields it soared in hyperspacial mode And gathered speed in looping glides and gyrals, so it rode Swooping down galactic spirals hewing to its plan To intercept and countervail the garbage can of man. It gobbled moons like salted nuts And sailed through stellar clouds As cosmic dust streamed off its wings In trailing ragged shrouds. At sector five, quadrant eight, the Janitaur soon sighted Where Earth's ship had left its trail And thoroughly had blighted The calm sterility of space. With its black hole, the Janitaur Swept clean the dirty place. But this act could not console The fearful driving force That held it to its destiny in its destructive role. At once, the human ship appeared, The monster twisted, swerved and veered To watch in fascination The Earth ship unfailingly perform its aberration. Spewing out with gobbets, with gigatons of garbage: Apple cores and orange peels and leaves of rotten cabbage, Worn out scraps of rubber heels, Corroded chunks of rusty steels, Dented trays from TV meals And mashed up cars with wiggly wheels. It flapped its wings and moved in close. So much garbage made it savage, Lachrymose and bellicose. Confused, bemused, enthused by so much mess It all induced internal stress. It curled, it twirled, it whirled, became delirious, And swooped in flopping manic arcs Exploding out in corruscate displays Initiating strange atom decays. Bright beams of ions, neutrons, quarks Flashed and fizzled, squirting sparks. The edge of its event horizon twitched. The space around the Janitaur became bewitched With garbage boundlessly enriched. It rippled out gravitic tongues To sweep debris at all degrees And would have laughed if it had lungs. But these wild enthusiasms Convulsed in waves and jerks and spasms Causing cracks, fissures, chasms In its black collapsar core. Into itself it deeply plunged And was, peculiarly, expunged From this known universe of time and space. And so, garbage, all of it, Dogshit, catshit, mainly bullshit, As before, and ever more, Was the savior of the human race. jan_sand@hotmail.com

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM RIC MASTEN

Ric Masten is currently using a very effective Chinese herbal treatment, called PC SPES, for his prostrate cancer, which has now become officially classed as "metastatic" (meaning already out of the prostate capsule having invaded the pelvis bone). He found out, earlier this year, that traditional treatments would no longer work. PC SPES is helping a lot but is very expensive - $420 per month, not covered by insurance or as a tax loss, as it is an alternative treatment. Enter Ric's long-time friend Ron Cook - most recently involving Barbara March of the Carmel Publishing Company. They have talked Ric into bringing out a special limited edition of his Words & One-liners (poems illustrated with single line drawings).