Dana John Onifer and resides in Monterey, California. He is on active duty in the United States Navy and is a full time student at Monterey Peninsula College as part of a Navy education program. He chose the Monterey Peninsula as the site for his education because it is a beautiful environment and the rich creative inspiration he knew that he would find there. The poems on this page have all been written during the five months that Mr Onifer has lived in Monterey, Mr. Onifer's poems are directly inspired by the places he has visited in Central California. consideration.
It is the milk
the shape of it now,
to breathe it and not choke,
It is important for me to be
in there is a hunger,
that we rose from so long before
our mothers made milk for us. See
the speed and slither of
s-curves across the glistening rock;
slower, slower, almost silent now,
until again the charging cascade
sets silver to flow. Oh,
to take in across strangely adapted
lips and breathe in and sustain.
close to it,
the thrum and tumble of it.
Rising up, open hand of greeting,
though not always.
I have seen her striking down,
open hand of anger.
I bear the memory of it,
more than once, now,
wear proudly that shiny glint of
insufficient armor,
proclaiming that I have been
called to reckon and
was not left wanting. But
she is always wanting. There,
a longing, a loneliness from
when we left her, strode forth
from her bosom to rise alone,
no longer buoyant but defiant,
leggéd now, and
no longer reliant on her,
becoming more apart from her,
learning to be afraid of her,
knowing to beware of her as
she waits for our
return.
Where should be simply
instead find, rising
at spectrums slightly
no less a part of
a darker swell against the already
darkened sky, rising
up from the two-miles
down undersea chasm - a
dull thrust of California
coastline shrouded in trees and
purity I
up into the now and
the coarse trappings of
man's casual marvels, of
electrons moving across metal
fibers and gaseous arcs that
purport skillful parodies of
astronomy on the
skin of that same rising
shape to rival the diversity of - but
ajar to - starlight and
dream state, a kind of
bioluminescence, twice or thrice
removed, but
renascent nature.
It was
sunlight took over the hemi-
an incomplete punctuation, a
an irresolute conclusion to the night-
proclamation, extended soliloquy,
a short, westward curve
that brought her into
view,
a bit more than three-quarters full
and fading as
sphere. It pushed her under
the pages of its introduction like
period not quite
defined, suspended vaguely mid-
sky, somewhere between Route 156
and the visor at the top of my
windshield, offering
long drive, a conclusion
tenuous enough to
be richly tainted with the
promise of further
perhaps, even a
sequel.
I cannot imagine to sprawl
you not feel it, my love?
so much; I cannot
open my arms so wide
to encompass it all, the
almost forever of verdant viridian
pushing on into the
upraised shoulder-shrug of
mantle that keeps it from
falling off the edge of its
nearly endless page, its
book of covenant between sky
and earth, its
promise, its well kept secret,
tended by beasts and simple
mortal hands. Do
This, this is
the place of bounty.
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway 1999. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for
copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their
original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © Dana John Onifer 1999.
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