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Talking River
Lewis-Clark State College
500 8th Avenue
Lewiston, ID  83501
Phone: 208-792-2716
E-mail: TalkingRiver

Celebrating 10 Years of Continuous Publication:

Scroll down for examples of the Winter 2000 issue.

Poetry Excerpts:
 

WILLIAM AIKEN

ALL THAT HAS BEEN SAID

All that has been said
          reconstitutes the air.
                    Nothing was ever lost.
                             The coffee shops of Kosovo
                                        are resonant on the shore.
The carbon dioxide from your mouth
           feeds the shyest bluebell.
                   The slightest whisper in the dark
                             tangles in the white-barked sycamore.
All that has been touched
           stays on the lonely hand.
                  There are no pockets
                             that can hide a last warm bird.
All that has been seen
           clouds the pure retina,
                  sowing the rain that goes from eye to eye.
                            There is only this hello to the world,
                  a vast salute from the dead.
There is no morning that can say goodbye.

AFTER A LONG WALK
for K.

Tired, the body speaks in pictures.

We are dwellings, simple, expansive,
so are drawn to dwellings, houses and barns.

We dream of them, ascending stairs, here
a door, there a dry leaf
adrift in an empty fountain.

Imagine a barn, one I've dreamt or
one of your own, its timbers silver

with wind, and a farmhouse, square
and useful, the narrow path between
a scratch across moonlight. Fences.

The black hills beyond are satisfied
in sleep, in sleeps, all of their bodies,

furred or green, or stones, ridges, a great
breathing the porch dog
hears, and circles, lies down in....