Page C7

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From the Starving Artist

By Arlon Staywell
RICHMOND 1998 — After moving from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Richmond, Virginia in June 1997 Arlon noticed many things were quite the same and some things were quite different.  What does one do with one's cowboy boots out here?
    Some might think this next poem inspired the picture of "paradise" that comes with older versions of Windows.  That is not likely and that paradise doesn't appear to have any winter ice anyway.  Others might think the departure from the discipline of the Oklahoma City poems indicates drug abuse, but this poem is actually a protest against drugs and artificiality.

            Combing Galactic Minutia

Combing galactic minutia
In a cool, coy past verb tense
Tuesday arrives at the station
Don't try to slip through the fence
Or run all over creation
Blue March sky breakfasts
On tardy winter ice
Then scoffs at the painter
And heeds not my advice
More dazzling jewels are fainter

© MCMXCVIII by Arlon Ryan Staywell


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