Contributor: Clinton Van Inman

- -
I hear they have placed
A pretty blue plaque
High above your flat
So that tourists can find you
And say that this is the spot
Where you killed yourself.

Lucky girl, you modern Sappho
To take the quantum leap
Like a comet to take your place
Among the darkest regions of empty space
With a brilliance that few can keep
And even less the mind to know
Where no dull planet can perturb you
As fallen flowers have no faces.


- - -
Born in England, graduated SDSU 1977, high school teacher.

Contributor: Clinton Van Inman

- -
I hear they have placed
A pretty blue plaque
High above your flat
So that tourists can find you
And say that this is the spot
Where you killed yourself.

Lucky girl, you modern Sappho
To take the quantum leap
Like a comet to take your place
Among the darkest regions of empty space
With a brilliance that few can keep
And even less the mind to know
Where no dull planet can perturb you
As fallen flowers have no faces.


- - -
I was born in Walton on Thames, England in 1945, received my BA from San Diego State in 1977. I am a high school teacher in Tampa Bay and plan to retire at the end of the school year. I live in Sun City Center, Florida with my wife, Elba.

Contributor: Clinton Van Inman

- -
Each year the light is less.
We can barely see it now,
The faint necklace of
The Milky Way.

The old ones were wrong,
You know with their waxed fingers
Pointing up like abandoned adobe.

Yet you know better in your cubical gardens
And half moth-eaten moons,
You have arrived in
Handcuffs.


- - -
I was born in Walton on Thames, England in 1945, received my BA from San Diego State in 1977. I am a high school teacher in Tampa Bay and plan to retire at the end of the school year. I live in Sun City Center, Florida with my wife, Elba.

Contributor: Clinton Van Inman

- -
Drag your white skull before blind seas
That tumble dazed to your mono-eyed magic.
Go tell Neptune when the night is through.
Charm him, too, with your waxing and waning.
But you can’t catch me with those veiled half smiles.
Your borrowed brilliance exposes you
As I know your darker side.
Go charm some other star struck rhapsodist.


- - -
I was born in Walton on Thames, England in 1945, received my BA from San Diego State in 1977. I am a high school teacher in Tampa Bay and plan to retire at the end of the school year. I live in Sun City Center, Florida with my wife, Elba.

Contributor: Clinton Van Inman

- -
It was no accident my coming here
For they must have known long before
I wandered to their farmhouse near
That soon I’d knock upon their door
During this darkest season of the year.

Call it more than a good neighbor’s sense
In snow to leave a porch lamp lighted
Or post the sign upon the picket fence
For those in need are all equally invited
Even if I thought it mere coincidence.


- - -
I was born in Walton on Thames, England in 1945, received my BA from San Diego State in 1977. I am a high school teacher in Tampa Bay and plan to retire at the end of the school year. I live in Sun City Center, Florida with my wife, Elba.