JEFF CALHOUN

Jeff is an upperclassmen at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.
Well-crafted poetry intrigues him with its ability to evoke emotion
and provoke thinking. He is striving to become a research biologist
while writing during his free time. His writing credits include Tilt,
MAG: Muse Apprentice Guild, The Centrifugal Eye, decomp, Poems
Niederngasse, and the Loch Raven Review.

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Looking down from an outer space precipice, I find a monarchy

The sun is an Aztec god's revenge.
Watch a butterfly form strict angles
with light, watch a salamander scare
away a cold noose on a warm rock,
watch a businessmen stare skyward
for thirty minutes to find some unspoken philosophy
that coaxes him to do pointless drivel
for eight long hours.

Note the enslaved planets, how they orbit
in the same plane, afraid to rise
and kill the captain who is taking
them over the Middle Passage to die
or work knots in chains hoping
one day they'll break. They never do.

Watch a child with no conception
of how plants are photosynthetically bound
to space. He will piss in the grass
when no one is looking, and attempt
to kiss a girl if she doesn't run away first.

Look at the sun when you finish this poem
and you will find its electric monotony,
discover that it feeds plants which feed humans
which kill everything in sight, unless
it is beneficial to refrain from a murderous sonata.

In the doldrums of the void,
a bit of music leaves the stars: not a cold violin solo
nor a hot jazz lick, but some metal,
amplified guitars to proclaim an empty kingdom.






Love: An Epistemological Approach

It is an albatross with clipped wings,
captured and held in a small cage.
Mariners taunt it with fists
and iron words. The first mate
would bury a bullet in its neck
if he knew of this lapse in discipline.






Sandman attends an AA meeting

Hello, my name is Sandman, he says,
but no one replies. They are supposed to welcome
newcomers, but this is an old crowd.
These are immigrant fathers with whiskey blood;
they complain about daughters
who make them attend stupid meetings.
What's wrong with a beer, they ask.
Sandman cannot answer such ontology,
so he avoids patterns of stained undershirts,
sweat-saturated backs, and bruises
to find a well-dressed man in the back
who never moves, except to call his wife.
He hopes one day the ringing will be interrupted
by her voice on the other line. Nothing.
He waits five minutes and dials again.






Anchorage, or how I became an ice ghoul

You grow sick of 2 AM car alarms.
We move to Alaska, learn how to have breakfast
on igloo mornings. Inaudible sighs
blend in with cold kitchen appliances.

I see the tsunami, warn you over my truck's CB;
I rescue you with radio waves, mutter dust to dust
should have been wood to wood. Water uproots
my feet and the dock's rotten planks. At my funeral,
remorse sprouts like a geyser.

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