Saturday, September 29, 2007




Breast and Telephone

by Don Schaeffer


Everything is milk white
when I feel it poke against
the tender place. I do something
and the world comes in
through a hole in the field
sweet and rich.

When everything buzzes
with beeps and sirens
and the steam collects on the glass,
the sound breaks through
a hole in the field.

I pick it up and it is you,
sweet and rich
the code
of your intention
rushes into my mind
like milk.

Thursday, September 20, 2007


Empathy for an Unborn Child

by Don Schaeffer



When I see
the image of what is inside her
I think it is an image inside everyone.

I don't quite trust
what was once hidden
and is now revealed.

It will be soft
and only need
without means to take.

I think need like that
is the wildest aspect
of my own heart.

A Wet Dream

by Kathryn Black

Kathryn Black grew up in Provincetown,Massachusetts and has studied poetry there and since.She has been involved in chapbooks (Three Rivers amongthem) and has been published in about 20 e-zines.Lately she's been focusing upon the novel, but stillwrites poetry on a regular basis. This is her second poem in Enthalpy.


I swing between two strong birch trees.
The leaves turn the color of hay,
and the sky is lit smokey quartz moving
to show the spectrum but in dimness.
How do I explain my fear of floods
and spiders? Already one eight-legged
beast is crawling down the rope, nothing
sleek about it but bulbous, chittering.

I have gone too high in my search for blue;
if I drop now, I’ll be dashed to the rocks.
The valley created by my feet is too deep.
Now the rain starts, falling in clumps
around and on me. The spider jumps into
my lap and I fly into the water soaked
puddle. I feel a stinging bite and jump
clear, waking on the wet floor with a glass.

Friday, September 14, 2007


Changeling at Brunch

by Don Schaeffer

Our fellow citizens
come after church on Sunday
for bacon, eggs and cushions,
all serious their faces
lined with the seriousness of
what they want; and the shining
instruments of their escape
wait for them on the edge
of the concrete ribbon.

They sit in rows
around the brunch buffet.

The server is like
a butterfly recently risen
from a chrysalis, face still
smooth and moist. But inside
metamorphizes a banker
and a merchant, a local ma and pa.
Her face contains the balding
bureaucrat, the inside sales consultant
putting in long days.

That stupid urge to be a famous recluse (content)

by Andrew (Sampo81)

Andrew lives in Taree, Australia. Studying for a BA degree. He recently developed an addiction to poetry. Major influences include Carlsberg and Marlboro.




Fuck the momentum of No
from his head-pendulum.
He could implode like his idols --

Drag that thick, green
blanket; lie laughing-up
his leftovers - extend
a marble finger toward
those anyone-after.

(Perhaps a sect to saint him
with a halo-epitaph --

Tethered to this round kennel,
he bayed the failure of fake daylight
until night fell gutted.)

But no forests are spun
to bind him; no leaves veined
with his mind choreography.

...Just the odour of ash
...stagnant in rum cans.
A phones tongue cut-out.
...Dylan's silver mouth
...drawling in the speaker.
And a family of frowns
under mortician-sheet clouds.

Town
to town.
(Nicotine-oiled window
to nicotine-oiled window -
Sun is the crude intruder.)
Traffic passes in distant grunts.
He writes his name
to see himself;
to throw himself away again.

Sunday, September 2, 2007


To a Woman of Baptisms

by Dan Flore


Dan is 29 years old. He does poetry workshops for people with serious mental illness, lives In Pennsylvania. This is the third poem by Dan to appear in "Enthalpy."




it was always night when we were together
I guess we belonged there
in its breeze of disguise
so much of us
was purple and black
with only candles
to watch over us

now tonight
as nothing dreams
those candles are gone
there is only flames
I have tried to know the sky since then
but the darkness only speaks in past tense
when morning comes
I will try to listen to the river
that could only be heard
when our bodies joined

no woman of baptisms
I have not learned
the sounds that kiss
the blessed
I am only familiar with mountains
that have never viewed their peak
but sometimes when the waterfall sings
I see worlds
I almost touch with my faith