Friends and neighbors-- For a third mini-anthology of poems, this time inspired by / responding to / related to Barbara Guest's poem "Eating Chocolate Ice Cream: Reading Mayakovsky" and/or the various wars/insurgencies/etc. going on in the world today, please send 1-6 poems and a brief bio to me at [log in to unmask] with the words "Big Bridge" followed by your own name clearly in the subject line. Please, when sending attachments, send all poems in a single attachment. Also include a photo if you'd care to have one used. This mini-anthology will appear in the January 2009 issue of Big Bridge, and work received before the end of November 2008 will be considered. The current mini-anthology can be found at http://www.bigbridge.org/WAR-PAP.HTM. HJ Halvard Johnson ================ [log in to unmask] http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html http://entropyandme.blogspot.com http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com http://www.hamiltonstone.org http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html ==== Eating Chocolate Ice Cream: Reading Mayakovsky Since I've decided to revolutionize my life since " decided " revolutionize " life " How early it is! It is eight o'clock in the morning. Well, the pigeons were up earlier Did you eat all your eggs? Now we shall go for a long walk. Now? There is too much winter. I am going to admire the snow on your coat. Time for hot soup, already? You have worked for three solid hours. I have written forty-eight, no forty-nine, no fifty-one poems. How many states are there? I cannot remember what is uniting America. It is then time for your nap. What a lovely, pleasant dream I just had. But I like waking up better. I do admire reality like snow on my coat. Would you take cream or lemon in your tea? No sugar? And no cigarettes. Daytime is good, but evening is better. I do like our evening discussions. Yesterday we talked about Kant. Today let's think about Hegel. In another week we shall have reached Marx. Goody. Life is a joy if one has industrious hands. Supper? Stew and well-cooked. Delicious. Well, perhaps just one more glass of milk. Nine o'clock! Bath time! Soap and a clean rough towel. Bedtime! The Red Army is marching tonight. They shall march through my dreams in their new shiny leather boots, their freshly laundered shirts. All those ugly stains of caviar and champagne and kisses have been rubbed away. They are going to the barracks. They are answering hundreds of pink and yellow and blue and white telephones. How happy and contented and well-fed they look lounging on their fur divans, chanting "Russia how kind you are to us. How kind you are to everybody. We want to live forever." Before I wake up they will throw away their pistols, and magically factories will spring up where once there was rifle fire, a roulette factory, where once a body fell from an open window. Hurry dear dream I am waiting for you under the eiderdown. And tomorrow will be more real, perhaps, than yesterday. --Barbara Guest fr. Angel Hair 5, Spring 1968 in The Angel Hair Anthology [New York: Granary Books, 2001]