Fall 2009

Table of Contents - Vol. V, No. 3

Fredrick Zydek

Dream Animals: Regretasaurus

This is a creature best kept at bay.
They come in all sizes, shapes and colors.
Some of them have wings, almost all
of them have a bite worse than a viper's.

Regretasaurus is like a vapor. It can
breeze its way into our lungs with the wind.
Once in, it heads for the mind and attaches
itself--- a leech feasting on strange things.

It will spend as much time contemplating
the coupon one forgot to use at the market
as the last words one never got the chance
to say to a dying loved one or friend.

One or two of these should drive a man
insane. But the fact is that we play host
to hordes of them as if our brains were hives
and they the workers, drones, and queen bees.

By the time we are old, they're the only friends
worth having. All the what ifs and I should'ves
pile up like logs in a beaver dam until a pool
of regret, repentance and repetition appears.

In the end, it floods everything. It is from
this pool we must fish out our supper,
wash our dirty linens, quench our thirst,
baptize our lives and make our bitter teas.

Music for the Parade

He was not so much a witness
as an observer of his life.
He knew no prayers that might
sweeten the darkness,
no litany of sacred words
that could soothe his little fears.

One never really held conversations
with him--- one was talked to,
informed, chided, and dismissed.
It wasn't that he couldn't listen,
it was more likely he was too busy
preparing his comeback to hear.

And there was the problem with music.
He knew nothing about it but what
he liked and didn't. He needed nothing
more and never went calling unless
he brought with him the music to be
listened to during his little parade.

He collected opinions like other people
collect string and knew more about
gates than anyone I've ever met. He
knew how to keep them closed. These
included the gates to heart, his home,
and whatever gardens he tried to grow.

Poetry Reviews Fiction