*`!THE HOLD!`*
Issue 10       November 5, 1998


First off, I want everyone to give a big round of applause to Mr. Scott Dragoo, who spent his valuable time in designing a website for The Hold free of charge. He is a prince among men. Here's the address, as if you all haven't checked it out by now.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/8924/
Let him know you appreciate it.

This issue, we've got a real life poet! He nearly scored the 1996 Pulitzer for his book "Places", which is available via Amazon.com. His name is Scott C. Holstad, not to be confused with our Scott C. Dragoo .

---------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 1998 by Shadow Wall Press. All Rights Reserved.
Published Wheneverwefeelikeit by Shadow Wall Press

Contributors:
Dave Gitomer
Scott Dragoo
Todd Moore
Cait Collins
Scott Holstad
Danielle Welch

Columnists:
Dolomite
Joshman
Cait Collins


BEDTIME STORY


This is something i wrote before i ever started this mag.

LIGHT

     "Oh, my Shepherd!!!!"
     "Beloved child, sleep in peace." Jesus wept at the waste of life. Life he had bought so dearly. Millions, completely gone. Cascades of tears flowed from his perfect eyes. How he wished he could take their places, as he did on Old Earth. All he had to do was ask his Father then. Now it was impossible. Short of Jhaug himself, none could dispatch him. Besides that, Yahweh needed him. He screamed for Michael.
     "Yes, Lord?"
     "Weep for me."
     Jesus walked away, leaving the Archangel with his anguish. The transfer of emotions was instantaneous and simple, and Michael could handle it, he'd done so before. There was not time to mourn. With a beautiful chorus, space rent before him, and he was gone to his Father's palace.

%

     "I would pray, were there deity to pray to." Yahweh bowed his head, then brought it up slowly. White flames flared from his eyes in righteous anger. His beard and hair followed suit.
     "This cannot go on." The voice of Gabriel pounded the ears. A wonderful gift, that. The terror he instilled in those his voice was directed against was not to be shrugged off. Many times had he won tremendous battles with a small battalion of soldiers? The enemy had simply stood there, "as lambs to the slaughter", shaking and stark white, before celestial arrows ended their offensive existence.
     "Mastery of the obvious does us no good, old friend." What Gabriel's voice was, Yahweh's dwarfed it. "Our only recourse lies in absolute purification of our troops. The very instant they anger, the Enemy wins. You'd do well to control your own."
A furtive glance in the direction of music told him his Son had arrived.
     "Father, I..."
     "I know, my son. You did all you could. The fault lies in me. I flawed them, knowing the arrogance perfection can breed. " Lost in thought for the briefest instant, recalling..."Satan." He spoke the name with the only derision he had ever used. "Father, you couldn't have known then."
     The purest smile of love crossed His gorgeous face as He looked at his son. "The very mirror's image." He thought, musing over his use of an old English expression. Even mortal things held wisdom.
     "No, i couldn't have, but how I wish! The Traitor thought Jhaug could free him from my servitude. He was freed, to be sure."
     "Forgive my interruption," Gabriel broke in, not remembering that a plea for forgiveness was unnecessary in the presence of THIS deity. "But how are we to go about this purifying you require?"
     "You are not. I am working on it as we speak. I fear that it will take longer than I'd have liked, but it will come when the time is right."
     "Come, let us leave Him to his task." The voice of Jesus commanded as strongly as His Father's, but in a way as different as water from fire. His listeners obeyed of sheer love, as opposed to the awe inspired by his Father's voice. "I would take my throne."

%

     Jhaug's seductive voice pervaded the black. "We will not win." This echoed sickly off unseen walls and swirling mist.
     Surprise issued from the sniveling host gathered at his feet. One stood.
     "Your Blackness, how can you believe this? We have won our greatest battle yet!" Agreeing, nervous titters. "Surely the White cannot create new warriors of the same caliber?!" More pronounced agreement.
     "He doesn't need to, although that is well within his mildest powers. Remember the Traitor?" A pain concealed flashed through him. "He was created in an instant, and was mightier than Gabriel when he came to me. No, numbers are not his plan. I feel him working even now. Look for yourselves at the darkness fading from his borders."
     Of course, what Jhaug said was correct. Upon crowding to the sole window in the realm, the daemons saw it, like a fog lifting in the noon sun. Terror issued from the very pores of their hideous, impenetrable, spiked skin.

%

     He sat listening raptly to his subjects coming one by one to offer their praise. It would take weeks to hear them all, but what was time to the Son of God? He existed outside of it, and did not need to heed it to rule. The poems and music were sublime, all of them expressing perfectly the feelings of the writer for the great King.
     At length it was over, until next year. Years. Time was provided for the convenience of the former humans. They didn't age, but this small crutch helped them immeasurably. Someday they would throw it away. "Someday very soon." Jesus was sure.
He rose and walked out into the courtyard. Green trees and grass perfect, as though they could be otherwise in Heaven. Birds sang. The sweet, sweet, air blessed his nostrils, and he could feel his Father's love even as the omniscient labored.
     Patience. One of the innumerable virtues inherent in a perfect being. He would wait forever, if need be. He knew that it would be considerably less than that, however, and this thought was followed by instructions from Yahweh.

%

     It had taken the human reckoning of an eye's blink to gather the hosts required, and scarcely more to see them to their destination. They trembled and wailed at the thought of coming battle, for there was room for no more in their minds. Millions upon millions of black shapes distinguishable only through the sparks they made with their armor and swords as they convulsed and struck together.
     "Evil is surely ignorance." Spoke Jhaug, perhaps more to himself than the sole composed figure next to him.
     Judas. The story of how a human escaped destruction that claimed gods isn't mine to tell. Suffice it to say that one good betrayal deserves another.
     "All evil born of malice, surely. Not so for you, oh Darkness." Judas' serpentine voice had lost all human timbre the day he'd come into immortality.
     "Nor you, Iscariot. The lack of ignorance in you disturbs me more often than i care to admit. I trust your mission did NOT fail?"
     "Most certainly not. His armies dwell in splendid isolation from the knowledge of their coming empowerment. They're nearly as terrified as ours!"

%

     Valor is reserved for the good. Obedience is not. This was proven, if not fully realized yet, in this horrid clash of daemons. Judas had secretly commandeered more than half of his master's armies to aid in this his third great rebellion. The remainder had stayed loyal to Jhaug only because Judas hadn't the time to seduce them before the battle. Jhaug's pessimism and depression, flaws inbred in evil, betrayed him as Judas had. Now he lay mortally (!) wounded in the face of the forces commanded by the hairless ape who embodied the deception he knew so well. He looked around in disbelief at the sick spectacle. Dark on dark clawed and bit, having shattered weapons and armor long before. His dread foe stalked him, black sword in hand, cunning eyes glancing about, amidst clamor unmentionable, until the sight he craved reached his brain. The smile cast in this morbid eternity chilled Jhaug to depths he never dreamed, but one thought broke through and manifest in voice frightening to hear.
     "Judas, i am defeated. I die now with an honor you can never know. Fare thee well, Iscariot! You will find Him a harder God than I."
     With that, and a nod of his head, he resigned himself to death, a new Christ for the damned. The virtue revealed in this act cast an appalling brightness about the battlefield, illuminating hearts as well as bodies. Judas knew before he looked about that daemon had turned angel, so he refused to open his eyes until his knees gave way. Now wide-eyed and staring in disbelief at the heavenly bodies striding toward him, he wept of frustration and horror.. One final scream, but such a scream had never even the Blackness known. One word, it's meaning shrouded in the languages he had once known, but forgotten long ago. One word, filled with hatred so abhorrent the angels quailed at it. He remembered now, the one word that told of the triumph he could not take part in.
     "LUCIFER!!!!!!!!!!!"

%

     "I realize fully why you are Father, and i but Son. " Jesus doted on his Father. Admiration, complete love, and the awe that mortals had long known but He never before felt filled him and his crucifix-scarred body.
     "Lucifer had longed to come back into my love since he first fell. He CREATED Jhaug, yes, the mighty Jhaug, and inhabited him. My son, do you see how he pitied the angels that fell with him? How he loved them as best he could? Giving his very existence that they might revel in my glory once more!"
     At this, the only tear ever shed by the Almighty fell, and where it fell, a tiny green shoot came up in the royal courtyard. The New Eden.
     "This is Lucifer, meaning "Light" in that ancient language of my beloved apostles, his name before the fall. I have given him the perfect rest he sought, and we will leave this palace now. It is his for eternity. He has earned it."
     As they looked back, the sapling grew into a huge magnolia with jade leaves and completely pure, white blossoms. The glorious God-made sanctuary glowed with a light brighter than all His other angels, for such had been the radiance of the former traitor, before his fall from grace.

Dave


THE FORUM
The place where all your small press email extremely local publishing dreams come true.

 
THE ROADSIDE MOTEL 6

neon screams in subtle yellow
as mirrored ceilings shimmer silver.
metallic restraints clank
with a dominant click.
the ardor turns nasty.
~
victim and suspect argue.
roles engage, violence.
no longer game, the fun
house exit closes, there
is no longer an out.
~
he takes her with abandon.
fondling her in degradation.
the battle escalates and
the humiliation increases.
he laughs, balding and fat.
~
thrill seeking turns bruises
as the master flails victim.
his allure loses luster.
she fights back, attacking.
assaulting his maleness.
~
did your old squeeze mess
with that guy? yeah she did
him all right. he is stabbed in
the ego heart. now the prison
guard turns into prisoner.
~
four hours up now this room
is now empty, screams and
sweat lingers on clean linens.
though the bed is made again
self inflected scars linger on...
~
both parties realize the
total defiance, total degradation.

Dave Gitomer

------------------------------

Not So Random Poems
On Isolation, Inspiration, Materialism, Imperialism, Insignificance and More Insignificance

grievance of you and you and you and me
prevents my going
to the world of inhabitants
gorgeous skies flicker upon my eyes
and shower the power of life into me
and give me the urgence I need to be free
deliverance from temptation
is a thing few have had
in a material world of today
it is near impossible
enjoy the weather
kudos to the wars
who emptied this planet of brutish men
-now if the tool to kill the makers of the incidents
that turns the population to arms
would make its birth
journeymen of dumplings and sauce
deserve nothing better
than the fat waists and thin arteries
like me
this means nothing
make no marks
the definition of life is the nothing before you
death is simple and glorious
but the attempt of taking that path yourself
is unholy if there is such a thing as unholy
in avoidance of your question
it is a fine day, but rainy
and the sky is falling
but in response, I answer this
if it was all just answers
where could we go?

------------------------------------



Ode To She In 3 Parts

your obtuse terrarium you call a gorgeous body
I agree with that and your egotism
would be much simpler
if never you spoke
in tones of deafened zeal and plagiarism
calling your own
or never uttered a word at all
just sat and looked
with your hands tied
behind your back
to prevent you from making gestures
I can deal with your naked eyes
and their piercing bulbs

Scott Dragoo

------------------------------

The Poet As Outlaw
Todd Moore

When I hear the word outlaw, I think of Jesse James, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, Willie Sutton, and Al Capone. I think of guys who robbed banks, bootlegged liquor, ran mobs, and took by force what society would not otherwise give them.

But there are other kinds of outlaws as well. Sexual outlaws, sociopaths, and all the lower echelon outlaws who've picked pockets, conned people, shoplifted, burgled houses, torched buildings, and on, and on.

The fact is, I hadn't thought too much recently about the idea of the outlaw until Alan Kaufman sent me a piece he wrote called AN OUTLAW POETS MANIFESTO. Reading that got me cranked into going back and thinking about the whole outlaw thing again.

AN OUTLAW POETS MANIFESTO is a piece of writing I can't find a thing to argue with. I can almost see him writing it with the ghosts of Kerouac, Cassiday, Micheline, Ginsberg, and Bukowski looking over his shoulder. And, at the very heart of the MANIFESTO, Kaufman is taking a moral stance. That it's better to be down and out and true to the poem and the way you slam the line down on the page than it is to be an establishment poet, kissing ass for the fellowships, grants, and prizes.

Most poets that I know are outlaws only because they've bucked the system and sometimes fucked with it and were fucked by it. To be fucked by the system is more than enough to qualify anyone as an outlaw because outlaws and most outlaw poets are victims of a society that eats the best of its you and rewards, on average, the mediocre and the worst of its kind.

Which is why I've always admired outlaws. When you've been down so long, you have to admire those few who've defied the odds, stolen the fire, beaten the establishment, gotten the girl and the gold. When you're a twelve year old kid, your old man is an alkie and has lost everything he owned, you're living in a skid row hotel with a whore house running on the second floor, and it looks like there's no way out, then you are an outlaw.

And, that's what I was when I was twelve right up to the time I was about twenty three. Unlike Bukowski or Kerouac, I didn't have to hit the road because I'd already dropped way underneath it and--- besides --- there was no place to go. I knew every variety of thief there was and became one. I knew killers, gamblers, con artists, hookers, and an assorted variety of drifters and sociopaths. I lived with outlaws, I ran with outlaws, I was an outlaw. And, still am.

While almost every non academic poet these days is an outlaw poet, I don't know many poets who were really outlaws. Maybe a handful at most. The classic ones are Villon and Rimbaud. If you've killed a man or became a gun runner, then you are automatically an outlaw poet.

Or, if you spent some time in the slammer like Mark Weber or Greg Courso nor Jimmy Santiago Baca, or if you've been know to carry a gun like Kell Roberts on or a knife like Charles Bukowski, or if you work in a factory like Ron Androla or Gary Goude or Fred Voss where it's constant war with the kiss ass foreman and his cronies, or if you've been fucked up by the Viet Nam War like Bill Shields, or if you live in your car because you don't have a home to go to like Dustin Prestridge, or if the city of Cleveland has kicked your ass into a corner so that you have nothing left to do but stick the business end of a 22rifle into your mouth and pull the trigger, then you are an outlaw.

The outlaw part of being an american poet is an existential encounter filled with rage and fear. Rage because you can't do shit with a natural talent and fear because you're afraid you'll wind up living in a cardboard box waiting for the end in death's alley.

The one good thing about being an outlaw poet is that when the words are coming, when the words are kicking your ass so sweetly you can't do anything but feel the rocket burn of them all over your skin, then it's worth all the shit you've gone thru, for awhile.

Todd Moore

------------------------------

"big purple foamhead"

every fucking morning
he's there waiting
for me
with a joyfull
gay, skiptadeeloola
and some stupid
idiotic looking hat
parent controlled
child star wannabees
jon benets
dancing for paydays
barneys got a lawsuit
his happy voice
cuts like a knife
you repetitive piece of
purple garbage
im hung over and
i need to sleep
'he's lookin
in the barney bag"
is it male or female?
man, i'll fuckin take
the three stooges
the good captain kangaroo
mr. greenjeans
and even eddie flumnum
and caboosehead
over this moron
any day of the week

Skull

------------------------

**city dump**

I'm trapped between
1 thousand walls
on the other side of
nowhere
and I sit here
an hour or so
into the
new morning
on my 10th cigarette
blowing my life away
from this cluttered desk
it's Monday and I
grin at myself through
a rear-view mirror
and finally realize
it all ends up where
it belongs.

cait collins

------------------

**I'll see you in my dreams**

again
there's vulgarity
I can't stand
you
can't fuck me
neither can
they now
bent
papered clips
worn out
#'s
pinned
inside
unknown pockets
you
seem
fashionably
big and
swollen
inside
flowery
cunt
places
and
a small
rumor where
you stuff
other
hidden dreams
and now,
I know
and I
dismiss it
one more
time and
you get
private with
me
dream with
me
bed with
me
wet with
me
and
that was
four Friday's
ago
secret
motherfucker

cait collins

---------------------------------

fuck 'em

fuck 'em

i don't bother
hiding my pain
which leads to
a myriad of
responses from
individuals i
interact with
such as the
hardasses
telling me to
get the fuck
over it
or the pityites
trying to
calm and soothe
or the fucking
religious
telling me
their god is
the answer to
everything
no
fuck 'em all
i wear my pain
proudly
like a loud scarf
around some
Manhattan
bitch's neck
and
i hold the leash
of the poodle
otherwise known
as
dead to the world
proudly in front of me
as it takes a shit
on the lawn of
city hall

Scott Holstad

just go ahead

just go ahead

those sick fucks
above me are stomping
on the floor again
to get me to turn
down
My Dying Bride -
hey, they're one of
my favorite bands
and it's not too late
so you're lucky
mofos
i'm not peppering
the ceiling with
.40 slugs
i
was in cuffs last
month and outta
them in 30 minutes
i
was in court last
week and on my
way free and easy
in a couple of
hours
so
stomp all you want
cause if you do it
too much more
it's your fucking
grave, my friend

Scott Holstad

-----------------------

A storybook.

the safety in yellowed pages
Ink thirty years old
relaxed with pina-coladas
and smores
by a fire.
gray hairs wrapped in
fish-net
.speak, eagerly.
silently.
life passed thru those
silvery strands
and as her delicate fingers
fingered the delicate-still pages,
her weathered voice sparkled
thru the night

cuddly bedtime lives.
living, lived inside the pigtailed
mind.
eyes heavy, heavier,
closed. off to candyland rapunzel.
i'll meet you there.
so silver dollar ended her
antique tale.
closed.
the chapter has ended.
she woke up.
by her hands,
a silvery strand.

the fairy tale ended.
life began.

here's another one:

Golden dusted floating falling
gracing the strands of hair silver now
it traces forms soft and assured
lips closed, but dreaming still.
dreaming sleeping warm and closed.
i try not to wake you so
i try to rake your back gently,
without push, just trace
little circles little squares
"i love you" draw up and down
a breath. a sigh. escapes as you
are given away.
but you're asleep and it's just me beside you,
picturing your dreams
maybe of me
maybe of another girl
or the one who leaves you behind
tomorrow
i rest my head beside yours
on the pillow, painted soft
with the dim golden lamplight
the breeze plays with our hairs
kind of spiking, twirling, twisting
loosely.
and with each other: the toes play sonatinas

Danielle Welch

The Rest of This Issue - lost

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