Blue Moon in June

sometimes, it's just a moon

sometimes, it's just beautiful

- arem

belief

as I question faith

a woman in the darkness

gives me her flashlight

- arem

eyeing it

because of my friend, john brzezinski,

i got to looking

at the word "eye" in english

and "oko" in polish

and "ojo" in spanish

and the winking word for "eye"

in several scandinavian languages

and found a little face in each.

john's eyes seem to work that way, too;

seeing what others miss.

- rm

last haiku of spring

quiet morning pond

even opening spring leaves

dare not make ripples

- arem

apologia (not a mountainous region)

My apologies to those who made the trip to Wautoma last Thursday to hear my reading. Due to the predictions (which proved to be correct) for tornadoes, hailstorms, and other beastly bits of meteorological mayhem, the gig was cancelled and we have decided to try again on August 2nd. Be there.

- RM

Other Voices

More than a little excited to have half a dozen of my poems chosen for a new anthology of the work of 22 emerging, if not young, artists, authors and poets. This not-so-little beauty, "Other Voices", promises to be a very engrossing series of reads, as packaged by no less than Editor Norbert Blei hisself. To many of you, that should be 'nuff said.

What we'll have here is 304 pages of essays and excerpts, poetry and photography, humor and pathos generated on both sides of the Atlantic by as interesting and interested a bunch of folks as I can think of. It's been my pleasure to meet about half of this tribe, and believe me when I say that I think we're in for a very good time.

But where can we get these wonderful books? - well, I thought you might ask, so I'll tell ya - to get "Other Voices", order direct from the publisher: Cross+Roads Press, P.O. Box 33, Ellison Bay, WI, (USA) 54210. The cost is $17.00 plus $3 shipping and handling, each.

cool

I have a new web page, courtesy of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, to whom I am most grateful. You can find it (I hope) at http://www.wfop.org/poets/murreral.html . It will function, I guess, as a sort of Intro to the Fascinating World of Ralph, but I'll still be here, hiding behind the broad shoulders of Capt. Arvinson.

- RM