The waves of water suck the exposed land.
The ocean rocks non-stop midnight to noon ―
low to high to low; rocks of salt and sand,
some black, some white, a saturated boon
of organic soups & pools; a small cat
stalks hermit crabs in the surf. A donkey
― held by a man in a white straw hat ― sat
too far away to be broken, honky
white; dark, live ― labeled at the hollow door,
noose wrapped in the fork of an old tree
root starved in the sand; the edge of the poor
creek filled by loose stubble moss shadows of me;
-a wave falls fly-body green and foams white
-in a cold moon Mendocino midnight.
Steven Morse (1945―2010), who studied at the University of Oregon, California State University (Hayward) and at San Francisco State University, was the publisher of the small print poetry journal, Juice. The Toronto Quarterly: Literary & Arts Journal (Jan. 30 2010) refers to him as “Stephen Morse: the Last American Beat Poet”. The author goes on to say:
I fondly remember listening to him read his poetry on the Jane Crown blog radio show, sharing a few laughs and remembrances… passim… I remember how excited he was when I told him the news of an interview he’d done a while back with Louis Bourgeois and Zachary Bush would be published in The Toronto Quarterly … passim… He was deeply supportive of small print literary journals like mine, having run Juice with his wife Judy for years, he knew that world well and he often told me, “keep going and don’t listen to the critics, never give up, you’re doing great things, and we need journals like yours around.”
As Editor-in-Chief of this anthology, I deeply share such sentiments about Stephen, whom I always found extremely likeable, personable and approachable. I also find his sonnet, “Mendocino Moonlight”, one of the most remarkable in this anthology.
This sonnet is pre-published with the permission of the Editor-in-chief from:Richard Vallance, editor-in-chief. The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium = Le Phénix renaissant de ses cendres : Anthologie de sonnets au début du troisième millénaire. Friesen Presse, Victoria, B.C., Canada. © 2013. approx. 240 pp. ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-4602-1700-9 Price: $28.00 Paperback: 978-1-4602-1701-6 Price: $18.00 e-Book: 978-1-4602-1702-3 Price: TBA
300 sonnets & ghazals in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese & Persia, 30 sonnets in this anthology are to be pre-published by our permission in Poetry Life & Times (UK) which has exclusive sole rights prior to the publication of the anthology itself. Readers may also contact Richard Vallance, Editor-in-Chief, at: vallance22@gmx.com for further information. http://vallance22.hpage.com/
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