	RodMer Poem Package A A Sample of Two Short Poems [2 poems, 60 lines]
by Merike Lugus & Rod Anderson	for on-line reading now in your browser

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Hi. Here is Poem Package A. It's small -- only two short poems (one by each of us) -- a sort of initial sample, so you can see if they're to your taste.

You can also download this package in rtf format.

All material is copyright. Some of the poems and stories in these packages have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and in Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow by Rod Anderson (published by Wolsak & Wynn, Toronto, 1989) and in Ophelia After Centuries of TryingOphelia After Centuries of Trying by Merike Lugus (published by watershedBooks, Toronto, 1998). Where the rights involved were other than first serial rights, we are grateful to the respective publishers (and particularly Wolsak & Wynn) for permission to offer this material on the Web.

# of lines	Poem Title opening lines
37	Ophelia After Centuries of Trying . . . . by Merike Lugus
	you came to me and said/ you might have some love to give
23	Bicameral Breakdown . . . . . . . . . by Rod Anderson
	we used to hear a voice/ reading us stories

Ophelia has been a figure that has wandered through my art (both paintings and poems) -- as I discuss in one of my articles on art. This particular poem was one of four published by Poetry Toronto in 1988. It was reviewed in spring 1999 by Event, Douglas College Review

Ophelia After Centuries of Trying

			you came to me and said
			you might have some love to give
			and then you looked at me
			as if I were a sandbox
			and you thought perhaps it was time
			to put childish things away

			I saw a young man poised like a prince
			you are not free I said    noticing
			paper-doll perforations all around you
			only one foot loosened from the page
			and that resolutely set
			on the path of your destruction

			I could have lifted you off the page

			you said you loved me    but
			there was nothing questioning in your touch-
			as if your life were spoken for
			when in my skin you smelled the ocean's hunger
			you were afraid that
			you had played at passion
			as you would play at madness
			then kept away and hoped that I'd remain
			pure vessel for what could be priceless
			in another play

Published in Ophelia After Centuries of Trying,
Toronto: watershedBooks, 1998
First published in Poetry Toronto (Nov/88)

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Many of my poems are science-related. The title refers to the wonderful book by Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. David Peat (whose epigram is quoted) is an Ottawa physicist and co-author of Turbulent Mirror, the best layperson's guide to chaos theory I've seen.

Bicameral Breakdown

					Theories today are really emerging out of
					other theories, and their testing ground is
					no longer the experimentalist's laboratory
					but aesthetics, mathematical consistency, and
					their interrelationship to yet other theories.
								Physicist David Peat


		we used to hear a voice
		reading us stories
		intricate patterns of beauties and beasts
		we loved but could not understand

		a little older we'd ask questions
		never quite the right ones of course
		what's inside the nucleus?
		can we make charm-quarks ourselves?
		precocious we pressed our infinitesimal points

		and softly      patiently
						the answers came back
		puzzling us even more
		we missed every second word

		still it was a conversation
		we knew someone was at the other end
		subtle but not malicious
		someone who cared
		who never got angry      who never told lies

		now the line's gone dead
		or we no longer believe in voices
		lies? truth?   why the very concepts sound quaint!
		what dimensions have superstrings?
		we ponder     trade speculations     weigh elegance
		grown up we seek no external answer
		only our own
				innumerable
						designs

		as for the universe (if there ever was one)
		it's clammed up
		we're on our own

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ophelia After Centuries of Trying

Bicameral Breakdown