Four Poems by One Man

AT TWELVE
Jan Wroclaw

She bends her head
over her tablet, drawing
splendid maidens and silky
steeds that surely fly.

Outside the room
wars rise and fall again.


THE VERY LAST LILAC
Jan Wroclaw

There are all these gods,
these voices that went dead,
all these reasons why
we forget

some sons will rape
and some will kill,
and sons will weep
for what happens to the seed.


BARTONSVILLE IDYLL
Kenneth Oldmixon

Fire Is.
It fills the road with sun
striking cries of children, forging
fields to copper sung
with a clang of children.

Come brazen as the grain
banging your thighs and ring
your hair,
make me the liturgy of seed.


KETURAH CANDY (1858-1869)
Kenneth Oldmixon

Hello lover! How does it go
down there? All stone and leather?
Or settled to the mulch of our
best years. Do shards of lace
tease the tunnels of your bones?
I need to touch and thrill a rise
of skull to know if laughter
leaves a scar or tears erode
some way out, to trace
my maze of now become, a face,
although it hardly matters.


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These poems are from a portfolio printed in 1989 at AXIAL PRESS in Hublersburg, Pennsylvania, by Richard Rutkowski. Twenty-four sets were made. The portfolio was hand printed by Rutkowski using the silk-screen process. There were also four illustrations by E. M. Hollis. The poems and illustrations were all created by Rutkowski himself, and attribituted to the various imaginary authors. Richard Rutkowski died several years ago, and AXIAL PRESS is no longer in operation.

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