Featured Poet: K.R. Copeland

K.R. Copeland is a Chicago poet/ digital photographer who has recently relocated to Lansing Illinois, where the land is cheaper and the inspiration, meager. Prior to moving, her muse was unfettered, and she was published quite frequently in zines and journals such as, Cranky, Stirring, Wicked Alice, Swivel and many others. Her first chapbook, "Anatomically Correct" is currently available through Dancing Girl Press. K.R. hopes to resume writing and publishing soon, once the shock of small town living wears off.

Guilt Induced Riff with Eyeballs and Fish

I sew the mouths of trout closed, mount them

stiffly-finned upon the wall, recall how long it took

to pry the hooks loose. All I know,

ice melts more slowly when it’s cold out.

A hole may house a rabbit, mole, or bear.

An eyelash is an eyelash, is a hair. Not much

to go on. A thread embeds itself in needle’s orb

with pushy fingers, while shaky fingered figures

miss their mark. The light is just the dark

in different order. I border on the balance of success.

A mess unviewed is tidy, dead are spry. A shriek could be

a gleeful guttural or else a menace. A kennel is a kernel

if a typo is at play. What I mean to say, is look

at who is looking. Tattoo your eyeballs’ likeness on your lids.

Blink and make believe the still-gilled fish are half-alive and smiling wildly.

(Previously published, Wicked Alice)

The Law of Very Large Numbers

“With a large enough sample, any outrageous thing is apt to happen”

Persi Diaconis, Frederick Mosteller, Harvard University

I draw my thoughts out in long lines, word after enervating word as if trying to catch a fish off in the distance. My wrist grows tired from the casting, my mind reels. It’s easy to get caught in strings of lingo, when interlaced they make a mighty net. Still I’d bet there’s been a dozen other mongers who have said the same thing using much less sweat. So I’ll take a break, a breather, here beneath this shady tree, have a sandwich and a drink of something sweet. Greet a mega-swarm of several swarms of Africanized bees, the vibrato of their buzzing causing pleasure far beyond the pond or seas.

(Previously published, Stirring)

Evolution of the Shadow Frog

Shadow frog, your tadpoles in a bubble nest begin

with fish-like fins, soon muscled limbs will flight them.

The urge to get ahead will spread, fur-bearers will shed fur,

pursue the attributes our future’s newts have.

Land will swim and all the wakeful things will fall from logs, asleep.

Be raucous frog, and cause this boggy creek’s stir.

Leap tetrapod, from lily pad, unclog these muddy waters,

I’m below you slowly counting to one hundred.

(Published in Cranky September ‘04)

Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Scope of a Couple Dopey Humans or Equestrienne Retrospective

We will ride off into the sunrise

after a night of full-blown gallop,

walk, trot, gallop.

Four stirrups full of feet, a sheet of daylight, no right way

to turn, a burn, no, more a thirst, for chronic knowledge.

We’ll reach the edge, drink tonic

from a trough meant for your fetid hogs,

find a dog-door, crawl through

slews of poisoned windings. Sighting seems much better

crouching on the outside, spying in;

One hundred high-strung horses in the barnyard of your brain,

a gate of words, a needle in each haystack.

You used to be a beekeeper

alone with all the honeycombs and drones in Manitoba.

Beehives lined your balcony like low-strung amber lanterns.

Near-silence buzzed your brain like homemade wine.

The quicker wing-beats set your mind to dancing

the slower led your mind to just recline.

You imagined what it might be like to suck the wow from flowers,

how powerful to pollinate the land. An extra stomach wouldn’t be bad, either.

But you were neither honeybee nor beetle, you were human,

a sad, impassioned insect-loving man. Nobody by your side to share

the sweetness, to lick the sticky richness from your hand.

You decided to leave life, fly off, you went completely mad,

grabbed a gun, blasted a bullet through your head.

You didn’t set your bees free first you didn’t say goodbye, instead,

three tiny glubs of grub-soft vowels cowered from your mouth, espoused the sky.

©Copyright 2006 K.R. Copeland