CALL TO POETS Original poetry wi

CALL TO POETS
Original poetry with strong imagery; poems of cultural flux and interactions; personal translation of favorite works from the world's verse---these can be submitted at alyguy@hotmail.com. As can commentary on poem eating. So folks, send it on in.

...Here's a voice from our pasts and presences, enjoy, comment, take exception, poem eating presents Barry Rohrbach.

Aloha, dear readers,

Alan

Barry Rohrbach

Barry Rohrbach is a playwright, poet, essayist, copywriter, actor, stand-up comic, singer, and freelance raconteur. A performer from the age of seven, he was a stand-up comic at fourteen. He studied poetry, playwriting, photography, cinematography, television production, acting, theatrical direction, and personal decadence at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Prior to college he studied vehicle production on the fire engine assembly line of Mack Trucks, Inc. His Vietnam War combat service had inspired more enlightened souls to call him a baby-killer. He regrets that the multitasking required to evade incoming bullets, shrapnel, rockets, and mortars, made the task of checking enemy birth certificates an impractical one. Oh, and he is an atheist.

BLESSED BE God of love god of light, god who crushes hearts for spite. God of truth god of lies, god omniscient god unwise. God of word god of sword god of undeserved reward. God of kings god of lice, god eternal soul of ice. God of smoke god of breath, god of everlasting death. God of fear god of war, jihad, Jesus, Yahweh, whore. God of poor god of rich, god the lord son of a bitch.
		HIDDEN WOUND I had no wound when I returned from war no wound revealed by day or firelight, no injury made manifest as gore unscathed survivor of the firefight. A breathing thing a wound hid unawares it burrowed in my mind's dark catacomb, it found the kindest and most cruel of lairs my bleeding soul became its bloody home. Though I was yet too young to buy a beer or vote for those who ordered me to kill, I aged ten thousand days within a year my youth consumed by napalm on that hill. Now fifteen thousand days and nights have gone, and still I have not seen a single dawn.

RESTORATION

They're ripping-out the neurons of my brain
my ego-structure razed to wooden stud,
my skeletal persona will remain
the framework of my self-mutated blood.

The rain drained through my skull into my gloom,
some rock doves we call pigeons roosted there,
a mausoleum for my manhood's tomb
condemned, neglected, ruined, unaware.

But I, it seems, am being gentrified
my house restored to its past perfect state,
its sins of architecture sanctified
its ancient youthful sins they consecrate.

With demolition of my mind's conceit,
redemption's restoration is complete.

OUR FOOD

Our food is something more than what we eat
our food may nourish body, mind, and joy,
our food which heals the soul with bloody meat
our food which dream and hunger both alloy.

Our food unites with rituals sublime
our food divides with prejudice and hate,
our food to some is nothing but a crime
our food to those we eat we desecrate.

Our food seduces lovers with a taste
our food inspires passionate caress,
our food may deepen friendship for the chaste
our food may thoughtless injury redress.

Our wit and intellect may be conceit,
we after all are only what we eat.