POEMS
Willis Barnstone
MOONSTONE
I'm fumbling for a poem in my head,
which fell like Alice down a shaft. It's there,
stored with pornography and the unread
inflated world soul coming up for air
with stars of revelation. But I'm look-
ing for a simple colored word . On or–
dinary days it tortures me. Its book
is an acosmic mountain on black fire,
stinking with smoke, but no poignant gold core
of letters. Frantically I drop a wire
of electric wisdom down to the unknown
bottom: lightning perfumes the inner cell.
I'm like an ape before a bright moonstone
and blind before a simple rose in hell.
David St. John
THINKING OF CUBA
Sometimes when I am thinking
Of you, I think of Cuba; last night,
Dreaming of Havana, I dreamed of
You, not as a woman
Holding a long glinting spoon
Above her coffee
As the sugar spills in its slow
White waterfall into the steaming
Pitch below, but as a girl
Iknow-
