Page 5 - 90-94 Meteor

ISSUE 1, 1990
THE METEOR
5
Lights
by Kerry Kleisner
With a graceless movement, she wipes the perspiration off her brow. She doesn't think about it, just stares, blinded, into the hot lights overcrowd- ing the stage. Her costume,
evenly sprinkled with tiny gold sequins across the black satin front, reflects thousands of sparkles over the wall and stage floor. She is weary, however, and takes.no notice of her attire, breathtaking though it is. Occasionally she receives a pat on the back, a "bon courage," but her eyes don't shift and her face re- mains expressionless.
She breaks away from the lightsforasecondandglances toward the stage, a simplistic pale rose background made from dozens of heavy drapes hung this way and that. The ballerinas are building up the conflict of the scene so that her
A winter visit
Reciprocated croci are hardly familiar.
They are not the offensive carrot-peeling apron
your Nana used to wear.
scene, the final pas de deux, will be so climactic that the audience will surrender their emotions and shed tears for the tragic ending of the perfor- mance. But, as if she sees nothing, she turns her head ever so slightly, and again stares at the lights.
Resting her bony elbows on her knees, she hunches over so limply she seems incapable of a coup de pied. The only mus- cle strained is her neck. Her skin is jaundiced from all of her diets, and her eyes look straight through you. They are red from staying up too late, trying, unsuccessfully, to get on with her life. Will she be on- lyafaceandbodyofadance magazine cover? Yes, she stays up too late- if it weren't for those little funny-shaped pills a past lover gave her, she probably wouldn't be able to . finish the show.
She looks up. The dancers on stage have frozen, their arms suspended in mid-air. They have made it through another night. She gets up slowly, her weary face disguised with heavy makeup, her eyes life- less with dark eye color and overbearing eyelashes. She rubs rosin on her pointe shoes, refastens her hairpiece, makes a sign of the Cross, and takes a deep breath. With her eyes fastened on the lights, she takes off. Her partner is al- ready on stage, his hand held toward her, his eyes also see- ing nothing. Suddenly, she is lifted into the air as if she were the most delicate and light- weight creature on earth. The audience is drawn back, moved by the grace of her ac- tions. They can only see the beautiful swan, not the pale skin, the unhappy face , the tear in her eye which the lights cover up.
Here is a white-washed mindstash
Tree by Mingae Cottage
-G•II Morrlaon
.'
an mstant deprivation of blue and violet- with no lucid mean to rearrange.
Hopeful familiarity pales,
and still those upside down flowers!
So; sit to drink a lifecup
(a sweetened covered lifecup)
and assimilate the funny newness.
Do brood the wallpaper stranger
and feel the altered scene
But don't begrudge a winter visit
when Nana's floral print comes to mind.
To ride the unknown
by Josh Simpson
A bed of damp yellow hay
and an ammonianic slur in the musty air
hovers earthen and wet,
and shapes the interlacing pine planks.
A field of shiny brown milk,
slick fur runs warm and smooth on my palm. Thick waves of muscle ripple and swell underneath the surface.
I release the cold metal bit with fumbling fingers. She breathes heavy, sweet appreciation.
Soft low voice wisps wetly
and loud snorts crash like thunder.
A hard hoof slams pistol-like
into a damp wood wall.
The rusty latch grates open and frees.
Like the lash of a whip I throw myself
around the wild wide shoulders
that flow brown beyond understanding.
The seasons of love
by Dean Goodwin
Springtime :
Young l?vers walking hand in hand through the park,
Treasurmg each moment until it gets so dark.
Until they cannot see, and, helplessly fall in Jove Tottering on the brink, until that final shove. ' Fearlessly they face together every April shower Unknowing that they're entering, their very final'hour.
Summertime:
Parents playing with their children on the beach
Their aim in life they feel it has been reached ' Giving all they can, so the family has the best Their love, it now is facing that final test. ' Their radiance glows just as the summer sun Not realizing that they've only just begun. '
Autumntime :
Sitting alone by the fireside, deserted husband and wife The ~hildre~ n?w have grown, and gone to start their life, Outside their lives, the leaves still fall down in the breeze. They are left as barren as the windswept trees.
Part of their lives have gone, but they feel no pain
For they find life is each other, and from that they' do gain.
Wintertime:
Old age and death creeps slowly to your door.
And so you face the day that you will be no more. Rea~izing that no more seeds of lift, they can sow, Their love now carpeted by that final fall of snow Together they enter life on some other plane ' Although theirs may be over, they go to start again.