http://42opus.com/ en-us An online magazine of the literary arts. Takes the Scotch out of your tape, / the plaid out of your shirt, / the poodle off of your skirt. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/vNjfFEyEJF4/slow-creeping-death Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n4/slow-creeping-death With your Amish clothes / and your bakelite eyes. / Your towhead and your devil caw. / Your overenunciation. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/miDBps3DRHA/mysterious-orphan Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n4/mysterious-orphan She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished; and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education. She was simple since she could not be adorned; but she was unhappy as though kept out of her own class; for women have no caste and no descent, their beauty, their grace, and their charm serving them instead of birth and fortune. Their native keenness, their instinctive elegance, their flexibility of mind, are their only hierarchy; and these make the daughters of the people the equals of the most lofty dames. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/43cQW01Vb5U/the-necklace Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n4/the-necklace All the same, we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves. So there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily at the boss, who rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he, and still going strong, still at the helm. It did one good to see him. Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added, "It's snug in here, upon my word!" http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/tWA85wpyoUs/the-fly Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n4/the-fly As death is the wages of sin it is due to me; as death is the end of sickness it belongs to me; and though so disobedient a servant as I may be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a master as thou I cannot be afraid to come; and therefore into thy hands, O my God, I commend my spirit… http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/Fb7y-Z0RVKk/prayer Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n3/prayer My God, my God, is this one of thy ways of drawing light out of darkness, to make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness of his sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a bishop, to as many as hear his voice in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in this action? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/_Yehz16cRoA/expostulation Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n3/expostulation Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/sArECu0QGP4/meditation Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n3/meditation The spine snapped in two. / Showers of sparks—burning snowflakes—then out. / His rib-punctured lung… Stop it. // Start here. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/lKmzFVSjxF0/sleepwalker-in-the-medicine-wheel Sun, 5 Sep 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n3/sleepwalker-in-the-medicine-wheel Bald white trunk & dead black bark, toc-toc. Small shrugs / in long black coats, their stripped pine whipping at the skyline… // swiftly unveiled, in twos and threes, ravens and the ideas / of ravens drip down onto the air, black silk scarves // pulling each other through the silk blue sleeves / in a wintry sky & out into the mind's eye to stall and dip… http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/r2SQa9BNoY0/ravens-at-tamalpais Thu, 2 Sep 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n3/ravens-at-tamalpais Born under the sign of Stromboli, wrinkled / As the face of the two-thousand-year-old man / With skin cap tied with braided thong beneath / His chin, pulled from the bog with forceps, Ingrid / My mother, my father a guy who lived in the sky. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/B_oTxRVGexc/sputnik-as-holy-ghost Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/sputnik-as-holy-ghost The shaman finds a mirror carefully slipped / beneath the water of a running stream / will open a window in the land of the dead. // Here, the yellow and umber leaves, doom boats / strapping the current, slip quickly over the dappled / bottom where rusted wheels and bent scaffolds backdrop / The Triumph of the Will as it simmers there, bubbling, / awaiting the buoys of resurrection. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/z58Indui7vw/triumph-of-the-will Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/triumph-of-the-will When I first bought my plastic ficus he was small, about as high as my knees. The bottom half of him was buried in a plastic, earth colored pot that looked heavier than it really was and there was a bed of faux-moss covering his lack of roots. I wanted him for my home office because I was missing summer in the middle of November. He had been dumped onto the sale shelf and I saw him and knew that it was meant to be. His glossy leaves reflected the fluorescent lights in a way that was perfectly unnatural and completely beautiful to me. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/Xar447bbQj0/ficus Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/ficus How many public sinks left running for ghost hands? / Your change given in foreign coins and still / coming up short. Imagine all the salt shakers / loosened upon the world; names scrawled into sidewalks; / people who hate people and work in services / you have to tip; patrons making waitresses cry right now. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/thE2m6-qtV8/on-soft-terror Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/on-soft-terror Poor dear, she'll never get to disappear / until we tire of her taste. Like the minute hand / that doesn't move, our eyes' formaldehyde / keep her glued. And our literature, like her, / stares forever back at nothing much left. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/iUL_ETirXWQ/lots-wifes-lot Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/lots-wifes-lot May you live long under our beds and in our closets, / in our washing machines and our quiet showers. // We undress for you like no one else. / May you breathe across me as I learn to sit with you… http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/~3/XVG2VchnAUY/blessing-for-the-middle Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/blessing-for-the-middle