THE PERILS OF NORRIS CARTOON

The Perils of Norris Cartoon... continuing Norris's misadventures





The Perils of Norris started in August 2000. To catch up on past episodes, click the links below.

The Perils of Norris Page 6 (prior adventure)

The Perils of Norris (earlier adventures)


Index of poets:

Robin Ouzman Hislop
Sara L. Russell
Helga Ross
Michael R. Burch






Robin Ouzman Hislop (Editor)





Out of the Blue Nothing.*

i.)



There will be Dancing.

After the war, there will be dancing.
Buried in the world, world, world,
the raven in the window shrieks,
dressed like a black flamenco.
Cymbals clash in burnished splash
& every one spills in the shapeless
sky shedding rags in pirouettes.

After the dancing, there will be world,
a sulphurous dawn before the mast,
hand in hand on the silvery sand,*
the great sky skull shell sinking
on the scalloped shore, a fellow of
infinite jest,* marooned daft apeth,
dark shard piercing the cleft sunset.   



*Lewis Carol: The Owl and the Pussycat
 *Shakespeare: Hamlet.


ii.


One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression*



Is there enough birth with death
is there proportion to gravitation,
dissemination for all beings:
a universal freedom
beyond good and evil.*

The prophecy foretold
was not fulfilled,
neither the sword nor that word
lost on an archaic tongue
that could no more be heard.


*W. Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
*F. Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil

iii.

Out of the Blue Nothing.*


I came down on the ride run
From a long time ago
Did we ever know
We drove past the fens
Beyond ditch-hedge, stile & sty
The sky like a grave
On the run with no moon
Far echo yester year
As they roared from the valley
Their old broken songs
& in the morn I’d be gone
It being so long
Since I was down around Chepstow
A child with his mother at the Races
She lost & all I remember
Is a town in the rain
& I thought I’d never visit again
Only acquainted with the Mabinogion*
Here where marsh land bog
Like the Broads* no longer holds.



* Title of a painting by Amparo Arrospide, itself after the film Out of the Blue by D. Hopper and later Out of the Blue Nothing by J. Ruggier.
* The Red Book of Hergest
* The Norfolk Broads, East Anglia, which serves as a bio eco-system.

iv.

Primate.


The moon in the window’s
like mercury drops
to the moor’s night rain
in Solstice aftermath.

& he is in the frame,
where time loses almost
all meaning, when the light
has gone & the image
runs to fluid riddle patterns

where there are no more
questions but the one that began
the mood & which vanished
as it came, evermore, yet again.




© All poems by Robin Ouzman Hislop 2007

ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP: Born UK. Childhood in Lyme Regis & Poole Dorset. Lived Scotland & Scandinavia, The East & Spain. He now lives in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK.  Appeared in Dawn Millenium Anthology & Crystal Dawn Anthology published by Kedco Studios. When he first joined the world wide net he abandoned his previous poet performance career, mostly had in Spain and often as bilingual joint translation recitals. His first anthology After the Cave the Comet appeared two years ago & is available here, another anthology is shortly planned. He started as resident poet with Poetry Life & Times in January 2005 & took over its editorship together with Spanish poetess  Amparo Arrospide from Sara Russell in May 2007 .


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Sara russell

The Book of Samothrace
by Sara L. Russell

I
 
"My dearest, sweetest love" the Baron said,
"Now that we two affianced souls are one,
What's mine is thine, for joy that we are wed
And through this house I bid thee freely run.
 
Enjoy the drawing room, the stately hall,
The bedchamber where thee and I shall play;
The blue room for each annual summer ball,
All draped in swags of blue and silver grey;
 
Enjoy the music room, my fine spinet,
The gilded harpsichord that sweetly sings,
With music to dispel all past regret -
Thou hast free rein of all my treasured things.
 
But go with caution to the library,
And only ever in my company."
 

II
 
With that, the Baron shewed her all around
His mighty chambers, all the corridors;
The quarters where the servants could be found,
The painted ceilings and mosaic floors.
 
The library he shewed her last of all;
The key hung on his chest, on a gold chain.
The secrecy thereof held her in thrall;
It seemed the library was his domain.
 
"Love, touch ye not the Book of Samothrace,
Don't venture to the pages held inside!
For when the sun hath turned about its face,
Malevolence finds shadow lands to hide!
 
The pages of our lives are clean and bright,
The Book of Samothrace is endless night!"
 

III
 
"My handsome sweetheart" Said the Baroness,
I'm humbled by thy generosity,
And when my maid has helped me from this dress,
Thou shalt discern how grateful I can be.
 
Thou gavest jewels for my neck and hair
That shine as well by day or candlelight;
And I shall kiss thee all and everywhere -
Prepare for not a wink of sleep tonight!"
 
With that, she led him to their master bed,
Undressed and pressed him down on sheepskin furs;
There proving true to everything she said
Till he declared his soul forever hers.
 
Anon, with trembling lips and blissful sighs,
Yielding to sleep, the Baron closed his eyes.
 

IV
 
How eloquent is beauty in repose
The Baroness reflected, as he lay
With lips half-open, like a dewy rose,
His night-black hair in tousled disarray;
 
And in the central furrow of his chest
One hand lay, as if half-protectively,
Next to the key more treasured than the rest -
The one that could unlock the library.
 
"Love touch ye not The Book of Samothrace"
She heard her love's words echo in her head.
Remembering, her heart began to race,
That such forbidden pages might be read.
 
Thus, yielding unto curiosity,
She let her fingers tiptoe to the key...
 

V
 
The golden catch was easy to undo,
Seconds before the Baron turned away
In blissful dreams of love. He never knew
How vicious time was leading fate astray.
 
The key was gone, while in the corridor,
His wife was creeping, ever-stealthily,
Drawn to the library's beguiling door,
Enchanted by base curiosity.
 
Only one lamp revealed the tall bookshelves
Which bore the most illustrious of tomes;
Huge hide-bound celebrations of themselves
Where God and science found unequal homes.
 
Herein her questing fingers came to trace
The cover of The Book of Samothrace.
 

VI
 
An ancient script met her enchanted gaze,
Whose Foreword mentioned a young sorcerer:
The fabled author of this book of days
And book of spells, unfolding now for her.
 
The spells were fashioned with one grand design,
To be recited in a secret place,
To call upon a spirit most malign -
A terrible demon, named Samothrace.
 
"...And mighty magick shall infuse the one
Who looks the longest in the daemon's eyes;
Undreamed-of power, burning like the sun,
With insights into Hell and Paradise.
 
Go to the garden seat and draw the ring,
Be seated and begin the summoning!"
 

VII
 
If hindsight were the author of our fate
We might find ways to live with less regret.
The Baron woke to realise, too late,
The secrets of his book were safer kept.
 
'Twere better had he mentioned not at all
The Book of Samothrace, so markedly,
For now she did not answer to his call
- He guessed she must be in the library.
 
He raced downstairs to find the door ajar,
The Book of Samothrace had gone astray,
Into the garden, yet it seemed too far -
He tried to walk, his legs would not obey.
 
Beyond the French door glass, a dreadful sight
Had rendered him immobile, mute with fright.
 

VIII
 
His wife sat rigid on the garden seat,
Her hair splayed like a sea anemone,
With a wine chalice lying at her feet,
Her mouth was open, screaming silently.
 
A doppelganger, like in every way,
Unto his mistress, with red splayed-out hair
Was screaming, still he could not turn away
To flee the image of her wild-eyed stare.
 
As time stood still, the Book of Samothrace
Floating on air, was burning by her side,
Eerie green smoke began to veil her face
The earth within the circle opened wide.
 
Out sprang the demon, withered, smoky-grey,
With cruel teeth and eyes as bright as day.
 

IX
 
Hereby the demon Samothrace was freed,
A great evil unleashed upon mankind,
That all life must remember how to bleed
Within a world grown dark and mercy-blind.
 
The terrible futility of war
Decay and all the tyranny of flies
Futility and struggle, all the poor,
A hidden curse on every new sunrise.
 
"Love, touch ye not The Book of Samothrace,
Don't venture to the pages held inside"
The Baron, frozen still in giving chase,
Watched and remembered, grieving for his bride.
 
The book, having now caused the demon's birth
Fell deep into the chasm in the earth.
 

c. Sara L. Russell 2007

SARA RUSSELL Poet, cartoonist and short story writer. Founder of Poetry Life & Times.
Newsgroup signature was originally 'Pinky Andrexa, Last Of The Cyber Vixen Poets From Outer Space'. Won Internet Arts Award from Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press. Runner-up in Capricorn International Love Poetry competition 1998. Her website Poetry Life & Times recently won the Alpha Poets' Poetic Eyes web award. Won Poet of the Week in the Poetry For Thought group (The Globe groups) for the week April 28-May 4th, 2001, with the poem "If You Were Mine". Inducted into The Poets' Hall of Fame, 2001, and included in its anthology for that year.
5 illustrated e-books published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press (most recent first): Worlds Inside The Head, Quickies, Spiders And Gliders, A Way With Words (in collaboration with four other poets) and Pinky's Little Book of Shadows.Also published in several Kedco e-book anthologies and Forward Press bound book anthologies.

Michael R. Burch



Observance


Through gnarled oak trees' red clots of leaves
the waning light of autumn weaves;
blue asters shiver in damp clumps;
pale radiance collects, recedes . . .

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have known the years to pass
almost unnoticed, whispering through treetops . . .

For here the valleys fill with sunlight
to the brim, then empty again,
and it seems that only I notice
how the years flood out, and in . . .



www.firesermon.com


your gods have become e-vegetation;   
your saints-pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn't hard   
to populate your web-site; not to mention

cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, [zing some fire];
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: Sex!!! Desire!!!

these are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust :)
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust

of centuries of sameness;   
                                         lameness SUCKS;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.


The Wonder Boys, for Leslie Mellichamp



The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites-amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true . . .       

but came almost as static-background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.

They thought to feel the lightning's brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope . . .

You will not find them here; they blew away-
in tumbling flight beyond nights' stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,

their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.


© All poems by Michael R. Burch 2007

MICHAEL R. BURCH is the editor of The HyperTexts where he has published the work of three Pulitzer Prize nominees and recent winners of the T. S. Eliot, Richard Wilbur and Howard Nemerov awards. He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his work has appeared over 450 times in literary journals and sundry publications in the USA, England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, South Africa and India, including The Chariton Review, Poetry Magazine, Verse, Poet Lore, Unlikely Stories, Light Quarterly, Writer’s Digest – The Year’s Best Writing 2003, The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, The Lyric, ByLine, Icon and Nebo.

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Helga Ross


Reluctant Bride


The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them:
there ought to be as many for love.  ~Margaret Atwood

Where’s the snow that fell the year that fled—Where’s the snow?
~Samuel Lover

Snow, a surprise to see, to like, at last!
The ground lovely white as a wedding gown,
the diaphanous veil drowning the brown,
she beyond beauty, the bride of forecast.
Rumour has it she has cold feet; is fast,
of late, feeling the heat of the count down;
so she shrugs the cold shoulders and fells the frown
as her suitor pleads, who’s pleased that that’s past.
But wait—signs are served along with her vows
of no forever; no death do us part;
meaning, all the seasons of her seasons.
Her feelings melting just as ours arouse,
like her spouse, wedded to her fickle heart,
whose need exceeds want: Love has its reasons.

Past & Present:

Smoothing Stones

Make the most of your regrets. . . . To regret deeply is to live afresh.
~Henry David Thoreau


Zephyrous regrets, need we pin you down
or sift through the dumpsters of the psyche;
dwell with the shames we'd never show the town,
scarce remember, nor assign to Nike*?

Yes, the dues for what’s done we can’t undo;
yes, aches we’d stake through the heart, with their harm
never dreamt nor meant, if only we knew;
yes, the hurts only remorse helps disarm.

What of what we didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t?
Too late to flagellate—stay the foray.
Who’s to say if we had, that we shouldn’t?
Some ones, some things, aren’t meant to come our way.

The stones of regrets all humans quarry:
The Gods, themselves, sort the weight of Sorry.


*Greek Goddess of Victory
Forever Now*


The living moment is everything.  ~D.H. Lawrence

Forever is composed of nows.  ~Emily Dickinson


The present is a present, all we’ve got,
for all we’ve opened; or would ever hope;
the lifeline thrown our drifting raft or yacht
the least of it to stay afloat and cope.

We tend to look behind and live ahead,
the past, the pains, the lustrous peerless kiss,
the not-yet-mets the ones to which we’re wed,
the pungent now the senses mostly miss.

With guilt and worry springboards into now,
regret, nostalgia, rumbas down the deck,
while here the sun sets sweeter off the bow,
and we, the lovers, clinging life’s shipwreck.

The presents come, and come, one at-a-time,
as they're meant to be undone. Taste the thyme?



© Helga Ross 2007



On the Cusp of Something

Pinocchio: [noticing the raft] A raft? That's it! We'll take the raft. And when the whale opens his mouth...


A tawdry and a dreary time
a dictator's dead and there is no snow
but rogue storms through the Rockies
winter in limbo.
A phony season pretending spring,
lovely, yet a peculiar thing
lulls the hot heads from its hint of threat
off-focus of the battle zone.
On the flanks, toboggans in the basement,
cooler heads worry so.
December drizzle and a war without end
with the daily drip, drip, drip, of the dead
to the three-thousandth repeat round number
and the New Year still in old throes;
the breaking Arctic ice shelf alarming the caring,
of the drowning polar bears;
"we're winning!" what global warming?" let's pretend.
Yet the real is not the reality show;
the denouement, not the drop of puppeteer prop—
a sham of a martyrdom—
and the moral tale Pinocchio's*.
What's to fear you prefer? Nature's wrath? Nuclear holocaust?
Where's the Hero we hunger for, or the hope?
Who can save us the Future from the looming harms?


*Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1881-1883)

Fisticuffs Fallout


This piece inspired by "The Greatest"

Float like a butterfly
Sting like a bee.
Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see.
 ~Mohammed Ali



Good inside

I feel...


Exhausted

from the throes

of fighting my way

through

R-E-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E

from

C
O
N
T
R
A
R
Y

souls.


The ordeal
is over.
Not for forever.
Just for today.

But, I feel better.
Much relieved
and

D
R
A
I
N
E
D

Spent,
altogether.


I said my piece.
I did my bit.
I did my best.
I got it off my chest.
Spilled the beans.
Spoke from my gut
without
hitting below the belt.

Bully for me!


That wasn’t easy—believe me.
Big mouth, big belly
inviting, let me tell you!
Ideal target for verbal blows.


Impolite epithets, rude labels,
caterwauls and name calls,
complaints, accusations, recriminations,
met with
incredible, impossible,
down-for-the-count knockout!
I’m amazed and D-A-Z-E-D…

'Member when Ali rumbled Forman?

This may have been
some of how it happened,
according to legend,
boxing lingo:


My opponent:

Jab, jab right, left bob and weave, left hook, right cross, right knee, left knee, right elbow, left elbow, right round ...
Lead with jab to eyes; throw right winging punch to ribs. ... Shoulder barge, right hook, left hook to body, right upper cut to chin, left hook to jaw, right cross…


Pardon me...I don’t remember a thing about it!

Except what I’ve been told.


c. All poems by Helga Ross, 2007


Canadian poet, HELGA ROSS loves the well-written word and loves to write her own; derives great pleasure from great literature, art and life, and the great outdoors. Everything old is new again in 2007 – She’s moved back to her old home town, Burlington, Ontario, after half a lifetime--for a new start. "You can't go home again" so they say -- She shall see. Helga expresses herself through an eclectic writing repertoire of material, style and form. 2004, however, was her literary turning point: She 'discovered' poetry in a big way. Now, poetry is her passion and focus, particularly Sonnet forms, though not exclusively. For Helga, the theme is 'Passion' in the broadest sense. She believes and illustrates in her writing: "The creative mind plays with the objects it loves". - Carl Jung Her poetic voice is playful, provocative, uplifting. Her serious pieces conclude on a positive note; reflect her approach to life: "Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for." — Ray Bradbury On the key to success Recent Accomplishments: Prix Poesie's laissez-faire Faire Award, April 2004. Poetry selections published in Sonnetto Poesia Vol.3 no.2 Spring 2004; Vol.4 no.4 Autumn 2005; Vol. 5 no.2 Spring 2007.

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