The Comedians

Alan Wickes

Amongst us, who is ever what they seem?
The priest caught pilfering lingerie will take
A whore's confession all the same; both fake:
His murmured blessing, her orgasmic scream.
The great and good pursue utopian schemes;
The rest of us, consigned to minor roles -
Mere apparatchiks, might well sell our souls,
But cherish still our sadly tarnished dreams.
What lies beneath the P.A.'s polished poise,
The surly waiter's supercilious glance,
The barmaid's flirty quip 'just for the boys'?
For others, not themselves, they play their part;
Suppressed: a kid who never got the chance,
A hidden life, the lover's broken heart.

Summertime - Edward Hopper

Alan Wickes

I might have guessed you'd pick out Summertime.
The Nighthawk's low-life chic is not at all
your style. At dawn, when pale ephemeral
light sanctifies the seedy side-street's grime,
autumnal sunshine streams into the room,
a woman wakes, to find herself alone,
angelic brightness cannot then atone
for emptiness - your nagging sense of doom.
These images that haunt your hidden dream
will never grace your wall. Instead you choose
a scene of inadvertent hope. Above
the solitary girl, white buildings gleam;
she waits, in cotton frock and high-heeled shoes:
the Summer breeze enfolds her like new love

Alan Wickes was born and raised in rural Northumberland, England. He studied History of Art and English at Manchester and The Open University. After a brief spell in office-work, He had some work published in the early 1970s in small magazines in the North East of England. More recently, Alan has contributed to Sonnet Central, and other on-line poetry sites dedicated to the exploration of formal verse in a modern context. In particular he is interested in reconciling the structures formal verse with contemporary diction, usage and themes.

The Holy Spirit

Sara Sadousky

holy,
dust covered closed minds
peer through open windows
to see kneeling little boys
bowed heads and white robes
while their Father drinks of
sex and scotch through
the golden goblet
tasting wine disguised
as grape juice
with decomposed lips
that laugh at them all.

Sara Sadousky is a native of Arlington, Texas and a product of the University of Texas at Arlington with a B.A. in English. Sara comes from a family of authors who have published fiction and poetry. Her inspiration for her writing is a result of watching the world around her and noticing all the different characters in her everyday life. Sara plans on becoming a highschool English teacher and writing during her summer breaks.