riverbabble 18, winter 2011

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riverbabble 18 --------winter 2011

Icicles by Lauren Howard

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riverbabble 18

Winter Issue

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Featured Poem

Ixchel, la diosa luna/Ixchel, the Moon Goddess

Ruth Pérez Aquirre:
Ixchel, la diosa luna (Spanish)

Nina Seranno:
Ixchel, the Moon Goddess (English translation)


Poetry

Rafael Jesús González:
Canción de cuna: las luces de Marfa /
Cradle Song: the Lights of Marfa
Consejo/Adice
Conversión de un tamborilero/Conversion of a Drummer

Laura McCullough:
To the God of Pryrography
The Small God of Winter, a Little God of Temperatures


April Michelle Bratten:
White Flowers in Winter 2000
Nighttime Range

Suchoon Mo: Snow Flake

jd Daniels: Ghazal of the Now

Timothy Gager: When It Is Still Winter

Maude Larke: Center Congregational Church/19 January 1979

Stephanie Bryant Anderson: White Ground, Glares

Colin Dardis: Deepest Breath

Joanne Faries: Innocuous

Zoë Gabriel: Pendulum, Not Tightrope

Morgan Harlow: Accumulation

Travis Hedge Coke: Impromptu 49er, 1:25 a.m. Los Angeles

Robert Jacoby: the voices in the hallway I'll never tell you about

Jocelyn Paige Kelly: Soul Flakes

Anthony Adrian Pino: Of Storms and Cities

Tim Tomlinson: Gulf Stream

Ekphrastic Poems

William Landis: The Nude The Sea The Sky Standing Open

Aleathia Drehmer: Cy Twombly / Animula Vagula, 1979


Fiction
Jon Sindell: Donuts

Anthony Adrian Pino: A Meditation on Snow: The Death of J. J. Finkelstein

Eric Prochaska: Shadows in Midgard

Renos Nicos Spanoudes: Status

Tim Tomlinson: Just Tell Me Who It Was


Flash Fiction

Ted Chiles: Lot's Wife

Francine Witte: Halfway Up the Mountain

Chella Courington: Bad Night

Joyce Lautens O'Brien: Dystopia

Michael K. Gause: The Work of Snow

Essay
Jannie M. Dresser: Is the Music Over? Has Free Verse Made Poets Tone Deaf?

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(communes with the night) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen to him. (he murmurs.) . . . swear that I will always hail. ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts, . . . (he murmurs) . . . in the rough sands of the sea . . . a cabletow's length from the shore . . . where the tide ebbs . . . and flows . . .

James Joyce, Ulysses, p. 4901-4954

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riverbabble
http://iceflow.com/riverbabble/Welcome.html
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Acquarius

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------------Acuario

A Acuario,
---el airoso,
------fijo en su servicio,
lo vigila Urano desde lejos;
Saturno le pesa como plomo
y su luz como granate ardiente
destella en el cántaro de amatista
que carga Acuario,
----sus tobillos, sus pantorrillas
----bañados en el aire fijo
----de sus ideales luminosos.



---------© Rafael Jesús González 2011




-------------Aquarius

Aquarius,
---the graceful,
------at ease in his service,
is watched by Uranus from afar;
Saturn weighs on him like lead
& its light like a burning garnet
bounces sparks on the amethyst jar
that Aquarius carries,
----his ankles, his calves
----bathed in the fixed air
----of his luminous ideals.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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Full Moon Over Mexico City

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---Luna llena sobre la Cd. de México



La luz de la luna plena
----cascabeles en las mejillas
-------se rompe en las ventanas,
----------------------los espejos,
----------------------las vidrieras,
----en las escaleras del Templo Mayor,
------------las torres de la catedral.
La marca del conejo
-----------que lleva en la mejilla
parece incitar la embriaguez
pero no se le puede achacar
la locura del nuevo Tenochtitlan.



---------© Rafael Jesús González 2011







---Full Moon Over Mexico City


The light of the full moon
----------bells on her cheeks
breaks on the windows,
------------the mirrors,
------------the windshields,
on the stairs of the Great Temple,
--------the towers of the cathedral.
The mark of the rabbit
------------she bears on her cheek
seems to incite drunkenness
but she cannot be blamed
for the madness of the new Tenochtitlan.



------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011



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Noche de reyes/12th night

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Adoration of the Magi, Andrea Mantegna 1495-1505

------------------ Magos


Pensar que yo, Baltasar de Caldea,
------tenedor de las cosas sacras,
------dejé los observatorios,
------cargado de incienso,
------para ir allí.
Aun hasta al punto de encuentro fue largo;
para Melchor de Nubia cargado de oro,
para Gaspar de Tarso cargado de mirra,
fue aun más largo.
-----Y de allí a Judea
-----y más allá condujo el lucero —
-----------a la morada de animales,
-----------lugar natal del infante mendigo.
Si era dios,
---como todo dios,
---------ha de haber llegado a mal fin.
¿Qué significaban los agüeros?
-----Tal vez sería el viaje mismo,
---------oír de los leones de Nubia,
---------de los ríos de Tarso;
y sobre todo,
-----sí, tal vez sobre todo,
---------- el ofrendar.



---------© Rafael Jesús González 2011





---------------Magos


To think that I, Balthazar of Chaldea,
----keeper of the sacred things,
----left the observatories,
----laden with frankincense,
----to come there.
Even to the point of meeting it was long;
for Melchior of Nubia laden with gold,
for Gaspar of Tarshish laden with myrrh,
it was longer.
---And from there to Judea
---and the star led on —
--------to the abode of animals,
--------birthplace of the infant beggar.
If he was a god,
-----like all gods,
-----he must have come to a bad end.
What meant the auguries?
----Perhaps it was the trip itself,
-------to hear of the lions of Nubia,
-------of the rivers of Tarshish;
and above all,
----yes, perhaps above all,
-----------the gifting.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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(first published in Dear Winter: Poems for the Solstice;
Marie Harris, Ed.; Northwood Press, Thomaston, Maine 1984;
Author’s © copyrights)
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