Gutter Balls

by Janet I. Buck

The bottle stops the clock.
Silver hair thinks its handle
pours hot tea. And the cold
of the berg dissolves like sugar cubes.
Ghosts are curtains taken down,
spinning clean in ritual.
Blur descends, a soothing
nipple in your mouth.
Deafness slaughters pending deep.
You choose your nectar
and I watch: first the ice
and then the ether,
siamese twins of discontent.

Touch is just a gutter ball
I roll until I break my toe.
Our hugs these nights
like safety pins,
afraid how firm
might pierce the flesh.
Your Dorothy heels
on cobblestones
heading for their yellow home
of artifical sun refrain.
"Can't we have one sober meal?"
I whisper like a butterfly
landing longing on a rock.

Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com, CrossConnect, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, Born Magazine, pif, 3rd Muse, Verse Libre Quarterly, Big Bridge, pith and hundreds of journals world-wide. Buck was one of U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. In January 2001, Art Villa Records released Janet's first audio CD of poetry and music called Before the Rose. It is available at: http://www.artvilla.com/shopping/poetry/rose.htm To hear a sample from the CD, go to: http://www.artvilla.com/mp3/umbrellas.mp3.
Note: Featured author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The Orphan", "Caught in Lesser Tragedies", "The Broken Promise", "The Gargoyle", "The Going", "The Bag Lady", "Rushing Toward Entelechy", "The Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen Sonnets", "New York, New York", "Live on CNN", "America Under Siege", "Gutter Balls"
Links: Hot Links: Janet I. Buck, Janet's Latest Interview, Desideratum's Doggie Dish, Author's Den, Active Amp.org—Features Janet I. Buck, Poetry Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San Francisco Salvo, Moongate: Janet I. Buck, Offcourse, The October Country , Cafe Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga Square, The Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com, Funky Dog Publishing—Janet Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil: Issue 9 September 2000