Caught in tribal rituals
of cleaning out death's stuffy closet--
running my fingers across perfume.
Bedroom slippers pliant soft
like wasted petals of some rose.
Memories in pillow feathers--
sharp center wicks in dovetail spray.

Allergic to emotion's boil,
but hungry to keep your face alive.
Grief's Chernobyl brewing there--
its classy curves--a profile of profundity.
Old Rimauds of agony
gather wits, address a canvas,
moorings of a sorry moon.

Quiet as a programmed guard
who stands beside the London Tower.
You breed that kind of reverence.
Art is tugboats for a yacht
and warm sorbet that doesn't
hit the clearing spot.
I spray for swarms of silent ants
and promise I will play your silk
like snowflakes melting in my hand.

 

Janet Buck has a Ph.D. in English and teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in A Writer's Choice, The Melic Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, San Francisco Salvo, Apples & Oranges, Ceteris Paribus, In Motion, Pogonip, Peshekee Review, Thunder Sandwich, The Suisun Valley Review, The Red Booth Review, The Poetry Kit, Miserere, Niederngasse, Lynx: Poetry from Bath, The Horsethief's Journal, salon D'Art, Pif, The Dragonfly Review, Morpo, Recursive Angel, Big Bridge, Eclectica, and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 1998, 1999, and 2000, she won numerous creative writing awards and been a featured poet for Seeker Magazine, Poetry Today Online, Vortex, Conspire, Poetry Cafe, Dead Letters, the storyteller, Poetry Heaven, Athens City Times, Poetik License, 3:00 AM e-zine, Poetry Super Highway, Carved in Sand, PoetryMagazine.com, and Beachfire Gathering--a publication of Chiron Press. Two of Buck's poems have been nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize in Poetry and she is a recent recipient of The H.G. Wells Award for Literary Excellence.

In December 1999, Newton's Baby Press released her first print collection of poetry entitled Calamity's Quilt: http://www.newtonsbaby.com/calamity.html. Janet is one of ten poets to be featured at the One Heart, One World Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. Her poem Acrylic Thighs will be translated into five languages and paired with original artwork. The tour will travel to France, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, and Japan.

Janet's first e-book of poetry, entitled Reefs We Live, is now available at Word Wrangler Publishing: http://www.wordwrangler.com. In April 2000, Word Wrangler will release Buck's first e-book of humor entitled Desideratum's Doggie Dish. It contains what critics have called: "a biting, hilarious, and original look at the roles of men and women, the foibles of bureaucracy, and the hubris of academia."

Visit Janet's website at:  http://www.janetbuck.com

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