Ed Schneeflock grew up in Missouri and lives in Ashburnham, Massachusetts.  He spent fourteen years in the military—including tours in Vietnam—before “figuring out what he wanted to do,” and becoming a software engineer.  He has given readings at the Agape Poetry Series in Boston and at the Monadnoch Writers Group, of which he is now a board member.  His poetry has been published in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, Muddy River Poetry and the Longfellow Poetry Society Journal.
 

Samples of the poet’s work:


Click on one of the links below to hear the poem, as read by Ed at OpenMike Poetry:
ASF audio ("streaming" audio, lower quality sound)   [alternate ASF audio]
MPEG-3 audio file (larger file, higher quality sound)
(more info on audio links)
 
Sundress

Complex splines in cotton thread
obey the laws.
Inertia, gravity, a breeze
define the change of y in x and z.
It’s just physics.
Color absorption, translucent effects;
known phenomena, observed, recorded.
That’s what I see, of course.
No nonsense about the way it falls
upon your skin or holds your curves
like a jealous lover.
No drivel about the way
it brings out your amber eyes,
how it hides and reveals
all in the same instant.
What sort of fool would be seduced
by pieces of cloth
draped so carelessly?
 


 
Time in the Park

My habit is to walk alone, like she and I
did then. But if you'd like a quick tour. See
how thick the brown leaves lie upon the ground
where we sat in summer's green. She found
a four leaf clover there a week before ...
But then she would. Luck followed her. She wore
it like a crown. Did you ever meet her?
She loved this park, always a connoisseur
of fine trees, the best of grass, birdsong.
It was always summer with her headlong
rush to life. How did the winter come?
It must have been by night, creeping like some
beetle in the mud. See the budding willow
by the duck pond! She'd feed the squirrels below
those very branches. They'll turn green again
with no memory at all of us when
we stood in fading light. Let's go back now.
I'm sorry about lunch. I wasn't hungry anyhow.
 


You can find more of Ed Schneeflock's poetry on his homepage.


Back to the OpenMike Poetry homepage



     Notes on the audio links:  The audio links for the poems lead to different file-format versions of the same audio content.  The "ASF audio" link will generate "streaming"-type audio which will download and play at the same time (no waiting!)  This seems to work best with Internet Explorer.  To play "ASF" files you'll need to have installed version 6 (or later) of the Microsoft media player, which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com.
     With some browsers, clicking on the "ASF audio" link will still bring up a "Save As..." window (even after the version 6 Microsoft media player is installed.)  If this happens, use the "Save As..." window to pick a location on your hard drive to save the file (which will end in ".asx") into; then find the file with the "Windows Explorer" and double-click on it to download and play the content.  (Granted, this is not the most elegant work-around; but it's still faster than waiting for the entire audio download to finish before playing it.)
     The "MPEG-3 audio file" link allows you to download a higher-quality MPEG-3 version of the audio (but you have to wait until the download is complete before playing the content.)  The version 6 Microsoft media player will play MPEG-3 files.  The Winamp player will also play these.  (The smaller-sized "alternate ASF audio" files can also be played using MPEG-3 players.)
     The "ASF" file was generated using the Windows Media Encoder found in the Media Tools which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com.