Wendy Videlock

It's often those
who talk a streak

on world affairs
and love and peace

who seem to love
and peace the least.
...

Dear Writers, I'm compiling the first in what I hope is a series of publications I'm calling artists among artists. The theme for issue 1 is "Faggot Dinosaur." I hope to hear from you! Thank you and best wishes.

—Ali, editor, Artists among Artists


I think that I shall never fear
a brontosaurus that is queer,

iguanodon as fetisheer,
a mammoth bringing up the rear,
an astrodon with extra gear,

metrosexual squirrel and deer,
a breeder with a dance career,
a fruit with cauliflower ear,

a lesbianic Chanticleer,
a grinning limpish-wristed Lear,
the weird one or the mutineer,

but those who perfectly adhere,
stay clear, stay clear, stay clear, stay clear.
...

Full of strength and laced
with fragility:

the thoroughbred,
the hummingbird,
and all things
cursed
with agility.
...

Change is the new,

improved

word for god,

lovely enough
to raise a song

or implicate

a sea of wrongs,
mighty enough,

like other gods,

to shelter,
bring together,

and estrange us.

Please, god,
we seem to say,

change us.
...

I should be diligent and firm,
I know I should, and frowning, too;
again you've failed to clean your room.
Not only that, the evidence
of midnight theft is in your bed—
cracked peanut shells and m&m's
are crumbled where you rest your head,
and just above, the windowsill
is crowded with a green giraffe
(who's peering through your telescope),
some dominoes, and half a glass
of orange juice. You hungry child,

how could I be uncharmed by this,
your secret world, your happy mess?
...

for my mother
They are fleeting.
They are fragile.
They require

little water.
They'll surprise you.
They'll remind you

that they aren't
and they are you.
...

The forest is the only place
where green is green and blue is blue.
Walking the forest I have seen
most everything. I've seen a you
with yellow eyes and busted wing.
And deep in the forest, no one knew.
...

The word, the stone,
the ringing phone,
the part of me
that wants to be alone,

the vow of silence
in the reeds;
God descends
in ravenese.

The vinegar tasters
dip their fingers,
make their faces:
stoic, bitter,

strangely sweet.
The seeker leaves
for Bangladesh,
the prophets check

for signs of theft,
the singers sing
for what is left.
The children breathe.

Come of age.
Search the faces
for a taste of
what's to come:

the widening road,
the row your boat,
he choked with weeds,
the rabbit hole.

This holding on.

The word, the stone,
the ringing phone.
The part of we
that answers when alone.
...

I don't buy it, says

the scientist.

Replies the frail

and faithful heart,

it's not for sale.
...

If  you're crowish and you know it
give a caw

Caaaw

If  you're weighted and you bear it
send a moo

Moooo

If  you're owl and you dreamed it,
give a hoo

Hoooo

If  you're thirsty and you mean it
breathe an ahhh

Ahhhh

You are putty in my hands

said the wind

to the stone

said the dawn

to the bloom

said the dark

to the moon.
...

A lizard does not make a sound,
it has no song,
it does not share my love affairs
with flannel sheets,
bearded men, interlocking
silver rings, the moon,
the sea, or ink.

But sitting here the afternoon,
I've come to believe
we do share a love affair
and a belief —
in wink, blink, stone,
and heat.
Also, air.

This is not a fable,
nor is it bliss.

Impatience,
remember this.
...

Big Jack and his walking stick
live on the ridge. Navajo
orphan kids dance for him,
bobcat urine's in the weeds,
the shotgun barrel's up his sleeve,
a Persian coin is on the wind.
The Chinese Mountains smell the moon
and arch their backs. I tell him, Jack,
there's times I wish I was living in
canvas France, the old west,
a picture book, the Sea of
Tranquility, or even in
the den near the hot spring.
He says, kid, to hell with

phantom limbs; spring is a verb,
a wish is a wash, a walking stick
is a gottdam wing.
...

Beneath her nest,
a shrew's head,
a finch's beak
and the bones
of a quail attest

the owl devours
the hour,
and disregards
the rest.
...

It's always darkest before the leopard's kiss.

Where there's smoke there is emphasis.

A bird in the hand is bound for the stove.

The pen is no mightier than the soul.

Never underestimate the nib of corruption.

Better late than suffer the long introduction.

All work and no play is the way of  the sloth.

If  you can dream it bring the child the moth.

He is not wise that parrots the wise.

All that glitters has been revised.

An idle mind is a sign of  the time.

The less things change the more we doubt design.
...

One
teeny tiny
worm

making the earth
turn.
...

I've a friend in possession of
a philosophic spin;
if should I speak of art,
theology,
the universe,
or whim,

he thinks I speak of him.

This enduring tic, indicative
of universal spins,
theology, art
and whim,
nonetheless
makes

conversation grim.
...

It was the blind girl from the rez who
stole the baker's missing bread;
it was the guitar playing fool who crooned
and raced the wild mustangs through our heads.
It was the village idiot who played
his chess without the fool, the bowl
of soup who said too late, too late, too late
to blame the thread, the spoon, the text, the mole.

Beside the waterfall of fallen things
just east of town, it was the bearded man
attaching fallen things to angel's wings
while singing legends to the long, long grass.

It was the moon who laughed and laughed.
It was the moon who laughed herself in half.
...

has a moth in her palm,
a river on her tongue,
a scalpel in her boat,
a lump in her throat,
a gamble in her shoe,
a fire in her den,
a shadow in her flesh,
a flutter in her breast,
like everybody else.
...