UAB Digital Commons (Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham)

Grider, Kelly

Astarte 
Volume 2 Article 21 
1992 
[untitled] 
Kelly Grider 
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Grider, Kelly (1992) "[untitled]," Astarte: Vol. 2, Article 21. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol2/iss1992/21 
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provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
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Untitled 1(!,{[y (jrider 
5fstarte 15 
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Grider: [untitled]
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1992


English

[untitled]

Giles, Richard

Astarte 
Volume 2 Article 31 
1992 
[untitled] 
Richard Giles 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Giles, Richard (1992) "[untitled]," Astarte: Vol. 2, Article 31. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol2/iss1992/31 
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provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
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;ifstarte 25 
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Giles: [untitled]
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1992


Engstrand, Glenn

Astarte 
Volume 3 Article 14 
1993 
Now I Know 
Glenn Engstrand 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Engstrand, Glenn (1993) "Now I Know," Astarte: Vol. 3, Article 14. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol3/iss1993/14 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
10 Jlstarte 
Now I Know 
It was the pistachio in the hallway mirror that clued 
me in to your secret. As I descended the stairway, 
the pistachio whispered its cryptic comments which 
bloomed into the divine revelation now playing in 
most Buddhist heads across the land. The 
sandpiper's accounts of it had all been audited by 
your anal cyclops and full immunity had been 
granted to the parts of the anatomy that end in the 
letters. You started it by spooning a cup of black 
mud from the bottom of the kitchen garbage can to 
the top of the refrigerator without ever looking back, 
not even once. At that time an empty plastic cup 
started pouring its own contents onto the living room 
rug whenever the conversation turned to the favorite 
music of transsexuals. Well you know what I say to 
that: self-determinism. Non-intervention has always 
been my policy. It's how I get my way. Up on the 
mantle, the deer play word games whose central 
focus is saving the ocean but how I will ever build 
you a lobster pit (especially now) is beyond me. 
Another thing that is beyond me is how the media 
succeed in portraying multinational corporations as 
helpless pawns in the game called global economics. 
The clock, next to the pistachio, has decided that the 
time we spend together is irreverent and has now 
switched over to being a thermometer. Never mind, 
I say, that's just the booze talking. But what argu-
ment could be complete without a visit to the bath-
room? The toilet has only met the pistachio in 
passing but the impression is clear. Anatomical 
differences in styles of conversation (i.e. report talk 
vs. rapport talk) mirror perfectly the limits of ac-
ceptability in different styles of color blending. 
Without this simple hope, art would just be another 
type of insulation and intimacy would be useful only 
as a means of escape. 
(j[enn 'Engstrand 
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Engstrand: Now I Know
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Now I Know

Thompson, Jeanie

Astarte 
Volume 4 Article 5 
1994 
Week Day Blues for My Son, Who is Seven 
Jeanie Thompson 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Thompson, Jeanie (1994) "Week Day Blues for My Son, Who is Seven," Astarte: Vol. 4, Article 5. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol4/iss1994/5 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Week Day Blues for My Son, Who is Seven 
Sitting in the unexpectedly pleasant 
afternoon light of Taco Casa, 
I watched as your eyes 
deepened to a blue 
reserved for a lover's dive, 
not a mother's eyes at 6:27 p.m. 
with Boy Scouts three minutes away. 
I was irrational with fatigue, and that question 
surfaced again, 
Who fathered you? 
Where is the man with these eyes 
who held her long enough 
to conceive you, then was gone? 
When these emotions collided in me 
like commuters piling up on 15th Street 
there was a flush of tears I pushed back-
so unwelcome here, at this moment 
of your blue eyes. I didn't want to cry. 
I wanted to be as beautiful as you! 
But I knew what you saw in that flash-photo 
children shoot and hold in their 
hearts: a woman who looked strained and 
somehow sad as she ate a taco, 
though you didn't linger here. 
Perhaps it was the sweetness 
of that collision 
that made me want to hold it, 
sneak one more look into your eyes 
while the afternoon sun filled them 
with color rare as peace. 
Perhaps I wanted to feel that pain 
so that losing you will be familiar, 
and, therefore, possible to endure. 
Jeanie Thompson 
Jtstarte 3 
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Thompson: Week Day Blues for My Son, Who is Seven
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1994


Week Day Blues for My Son, Who is Seven

Litherland, Gina

Astarte 
Volume 4 Article 20 
1994 
Lillith's Nightwalk 
Gina Litherland 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Litherland, Gina (1994) "Lillith's Nightwalk," Astarte: Vol. 4, Article 20. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol4/iss1994/20 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Lilith's Nightwalk Gina Litherland 
16 Jtrtartt 
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Litherland: Lillith's Nightwalk
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Lillith\u27s Nightwalk

Templin, Jason

Astarte 
Volume 5 Article 7 
1996 
Aquarius 
Jason Templin 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Templin, Jason (1996) "Aquarius," Astarte: Vol. 5, Article 7. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol5/iss1996/7 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Aquarius 
It appears I have found 
my calling, 
dancing here around the fire of your tongue 
trying to douse your hot spots 
with this cold bucket of a mouth. 
II. 
Or maybe it is compassion 
that is driving me to siphon 
away your precious water. 
A driving desire to have 
your currents spread equally among 
the droughtweary. 
My benevolent smile is spread wet 
and full like two heavy sponges 
across the dam ofmy teeth as 
I stand over your withered husk. 
Ill. 
How about this: 
Jealous of the sky 
I carried you to the desert 
where my talents were unique. 
--Jason Templin 
5 
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Templin: Aquarius
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1996


Aquarius

O\u27Chester, Ed

Astarte 
Volume 5 Article 15 
1996 
In the Hotel at Norfolk 
Ed O'Chester 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
O'Chester, Ed (1996) "In the Hotel at Norfolk," Astarte: Vol. 5, Article 15. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol5/iss1996/15 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
In the Hotel at Norfolk 
at the nearly empty bar 
late at night were a few 
septuagenarian veterans 
from the Flying Tigers convention 
("From World War II," "You never heard 
of Claire Chenault?" "No he wasn't a woman 
he was a general"), one of them the guy 
who the night before had trouble finding 
the elevator and there was a woman, maybe 40, 
in the nearly empty bar, in love or lust 
with the bandleader, who was playing old 
Dave Brubeck arrangements. She was wearing 
a white pleated skirt; she was lying 
on a banquette, spreading her legs in time 
to the slow rhythms, or lifting them and dancing 
in the air, upside down, and the pleated skirt slid 
down her thighs. Between sets she went up 
to hug and kiss him. He was an old guy in a tux 
and once while he was playing the baritone sax 
she pressed her belly into the bell of it 
and he used her belly like a mute. 
The band played old Brubeck and Mulligan stuff--
"Blue Rondo a la Turk," "Stardust," "Perdido"--
and in the harbor, we could see it through 
the hotel window, a few Navy ships were being 
dismantled or repaired, the carrier Inchon--
I was sitting with a group of intellectuals 
so nobody knew where Inchon was, and I was 
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O'Chester: In the Hotel at Norfolk
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1996
the only one who knew about the Flying Tigers, 
those hero pilots, old China hands, who once 
flew solo bombing missions blind through fog but 
now couldn't find an elevator or probably their 
dicks without confusion. This woman was in love 
and drunk, but that doesn't matter. She danced in air. 
She pulled her skirt over her thighs. She laughed 
whenever the guy on the sax blew his horn 
in her direction. They were dismantling the carrier 
Inchon. The Flying Tigers were drunk & talking war. 
Maybe she was happier than you've ever been. 
Maybe she was happier than I've ever been. 
It doesn't matter. She was dancing in air. 
The Inchon was being dismantled in the harbor. 
They were playing "This Can't Be Love," 
"Stardust" and "Just One of Those Things." 
They were playing "Out of Nowhere." 
--Ed Ochester 
This poem appears in O'Chester's chapbook, Allegheny (Adastra: 1995). 
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Astarte, Vol. 5 [1996], Art. 15
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol5/iss1996/15


In the Hotel at Norfolk

Vollmer, Judith

Astarte 
Volume 5 Article 26 
1996 
The Sound of the Slap 
Judith Vollmer 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Vollmer, Judith (1996) "The Sound of the Slap," Astarte: Vol. 5, Article 26. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol5/iss1996/26 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
The Sound or the Slap 
I've carried the scream 
all afternoon in O'Hare. 
Maybe I'm the only person 
carrying the sound 
from the ladies room where I found her 
bracing herself against the cold tile wall 
hiding from her mother 
her mother's voice insistent 
calling her for medicine & cleaning 
calling her to the white sink 
I walked in as the woman with well-dressed hair 
& well-fed body pulled her child by the hair 
slapped her full across the face then shoved 
the medicine stopper into the twisted mouth 
while the child screamed and tried to move. 
Inside my stall I could hear other women 
running water & tearing paper, then clicking out 
avoiding the mirrors at the sink 
where the woman held onto her child, 
now cleaning, now stopping to slap 
the red nutmeat of her face. 
The skin of my cheeks stings 
I'm just one person 
But I have a mouth 
But I said nothing 
--Judith Vollmer 
37 
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Vollmer: The Sound of the Slap
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1996


The Sound of the Slap

Astarte 
Volume 5 Article 29 
1996 
Scoundrels 
Ed O'Chester 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
O'Chester, Ed (1996) "Scoundrels," Astarte: Vol. 5, Article 29. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol5/iss1996/29 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Scoundrels 
Are we a deeply religious people? 
What a question. Do you know 
how I got rich? Every day I repeat 
fifty times: "Every day in every way 
I am getting better and better" and 
"Be still, and know that I am God." 
Fifty times. I'm not really claiming 
that in former lives I was 
William the Conqueror, the emperor Julian 
and Joan of Arc but you have to decide 
for yourself what it means that I 
can repeat the right mantras 
fifty times a day and be rewarded 
as I was for my book One Minute Managing 
which has been printed in twenty seven languages 
and been adopted as a basic training text 
by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. 
There is a God, and He wants us 
to be rich, not just for doing nothing--
like the God of certain famous TV 
evangelicals who tell you just pray 
for a purple Winnebago and you'll 
get it, as though God didn't judge 
good and evil and religion was just 
giving, just the cargo cult of 
monopoly capitalism--it's not that easy! 
You need the right mantras but 
as the Japanese poet said 
"at dawn every push of the oar 
is audible to a passing boat." 
As for the Bishop of Pittsburgh who 
took back a grant of$4000 to feed the hungry 
from the Rainbow Kitchen because its director 
attended a pro-choice rally, I can't speak 
since controversy agitates the heart, but 
I can tell you that the great contemporary 
French philosopher Jacques Derrida 
tells us we should stop pretending 
we can understand one another and 
start pretending that we can't 
understand one another. 
--Ed Oche~ ter 
41 
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O'Chester: Scoundrels
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1996


Scoundrels

Seah, Joel

Astarte 
Volume 6 Article 29 
1999 
Daphne 
Joel Seah 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Seah, Joel (1999) "Daphne," Astarte: Vol. 6, Article 29. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol6/iss1999/29 
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I I 
_,._ 
', _ ':. . . -.. -
hn - Joel Seah Dap e 
52 
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Seah: Daphne
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1999


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[untitled]

[untitled]

Now I Know

Week Day Blues for My Son, Who is Seven

Lillith\u27s Nightwalk

Aquarius

In the Hotel at Norfolk

The Sound of the Slap

Scoundrels

Daphne

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