Here's a beautiful New Year's greeting from
Charles Bernstein, who has given us permission
to publish "Lost in Drowned Bliss",
one of a series of eleven short poems
called *World on Fire*, which will be published
later this month by *Nomados Press* in Vancouver.
It was also published in the Fall/Winter
2003 issue of*Golden Handcuffs Review*.


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Lost In Drowned Bliss

"Things are what they are, but we are never
what we are," she said as she wrapped the sand-
wich in plastic and tucked away the tears
in a flute.

"No it's things. They hourly
change before our eyes while we stay stuck in
who we are and where we have been."

"Things are
solid; we stumble, unglue, recombine."

"Or what we see is no more a part of
us then the baby who beckons from the
forest: we splinter in the void to catch
the light, then hail the sparks as paradise."

-Charles Bernstein


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