Saturday, September 1, 2007

CSR: Issue Nine

Editor's Note

Welcome to issue nine of CSR! By now, everyone knows this is my only child. My baby loves to read and has developed a habit of rubbing elbows with blooming international creative energy,
the kind you sometimes find in the faces of Rorschach clouds. My baby has a mouth-full of pearly white teeth and can chew at mystery's inner-most metaphor then take its little hands and dip the moon's oar in the clear waters of spotted trout rolled in zucchini leaves. What's left is a single strawberry or tomato sauce with too much garlic in it. Either way, this issue is heaven-scented and features glorious images by an Italian photographer and intriguing watercolors by a multi-talented artist from Ecuador. I guess you could call September the "international issue" because only two of the poets featured are Americans, down dusting roads with drainage ditches along either side. So if you want to begin the month feeling miraculously whole or even have hooks protruding from your sleeves, you'd better get busy reading...
CSR: Issue Nine Contributors/Contents


Zdravka Valdova-Momcheva

Andy N

Joanne Merriam

Michele Berti

Bill Dorris

Kristin Hannaford

About Art - Holocaust Memorial (Berlin)

Maureen Gubia

Ben Kemp

About Music - Cesaria Evora

Patricia Kelly

Book Review

Rodney Koeneke
Zadravka Vladova-Momcheva


Tradition

Let's obey the tradition, my Grandma said
in distant memory echoing
with my milk-tooth in her ethereal hand,
bleeding pain in slipping by seconds.

So she threw my innocent tooth on the tiles,
like a dice, attracting good fortune,
and the magic of winds spread my curious roots
miles away into merciless motion.

Like a blessing that lies many years beyond,
at the back of my very beginning,
like a pearl on the tiles, this unbreakable bond,
strings my soul's absolute meaning.

On the tiles of my life I still balance today
all my hopes and priceless illusions.
On the roof of my world, just to cry or to pray,
I climb ropes of deadly delusions.

I store there Cyrillic mute flies-
mother tongue in a guilty-sad folder.
In idyllic and dusty A, G, B tiles
I keep silent, alphabetical order.

Just in case not to lose in the past
Granny's fading, pagan tradition,
I continue to pile tooth by tooth on the tiles
in a lonely tenacious mission.

So today it is time for my daughter to throw
a pearly tooth on the tiles of her fortune.
And I hear the winds of my childhood blow
her beginning to a new luring ocean.


Cycling Backwards

The miracle of loneliness is cycling backwards
through all blind roads of your delusions.
Beyond the meanings of forgotten words,
despite the shame of dead confusions...

The equillibrium if life is cycling backwards,
crushing the walls of bygone years,
destroying memories like stuffed, dead birds,
releasing falls of ushed tears.

The joy lo love is crying backwards,
recalling moments of un-reined affection,
forgiving pains of the inflicted hurts
unting souls in fleeting resurrection.

Finding your essence is cycling backwards
on the lonely and only life-road.
Back to the chain of receptitive births
to the core of the genetical code...


Daily escapes

When all the selfish doors lock sins
and daily curtains cover pains,
sad greedy souls like empty bins
dream stormy, purifying rains.

You come to me and strip aggression,
undress the lies - all dirty clothes.
In silent, old-fashioned confession
reveal your stealthy, naked thoughts.

I pick up pieces for a picture
of fading dreams in fields of hopes.
Two lonely spirits in a mixture
we try to cut off our ropes.

In timelessness of selfish freedom,
we fly away - two reckless kites.
In a giggly, disrespectfu rhythm
we give the neighbors sleepness nights.

we smear wildly rainbow hues
into a purple-yellow-green cocktail.
We live a note for its best use,
trading lives for a fairy tale.


Chocolate Tears

I don't know how many breezy souls
swirl in the spiral of a coffee universe.
And all my thoughts in chocolate flows
melt beams of sunshine in a verse.
It's five o'clock. I know somewhere
somehow you melt in chocolate tears.
I need some jazz to start the talk
spoon of despair and crumbs of fears.
And here I am - beyond the world
beneath a sky of sugar flies,
wild incarnation of the Word -
two drops of hope in coffee eyes.


Pagan September

Silent spilts seconds after the summer orgy.
Only I and the four elements -
earth, air, water, and fire.
Sleeping nature, diamond drops in the grass
The charming Earth lies on her green bed,
waits for the Sun - her brother and lover.

* all poems previously published in Soul To Soul
Andy N


Tanya

You stand at the forefront of the path.
Your head bent slightly forward
In a leftwards angle,
And your hair blown in your face
By the relentless wind.

Your arms are crossed behind your back
Almost like you are unsure
What to do with them
And your coat is dangling open
Like you are almost
A gun-slinger from a gothic western
No matter how deep the snow is behind you.

Your eyes are as pretty as a flower
And I can see a smile on your lips
That I first dimissed as fear
But upon second glances
Came across more as a quiet confidence.

A quiet confidence which showed
In the way you looked slightly
Down at the broken footpath
Beneath your feet without a care in the world
And didn't give you up no matter what
The wind threw at you
And which direction your hair flew.


Identity


You’re strong without
A thought
Though it may not last
As long as you may think.

You’re easy to smile
Though you’re not
That easy
To laugh.

They say, they say
You are shy
And never speak
Unless you are spoken to.

I, however, always see the truth
As like a strange kind
Of intimacy
When you sit there
And clearly
Smile in your sleep.
And in your dreams
Is silence golden?


Smiling In Slow Motion

Slightly left,
His mouth formed
A half smile
Which I originally
Thought had a hint of slyness
But then as I looked again
At his eyes
Which were brushed half shut
I saw it had a small tear
Lingering in the corner
And all my distrust vanished.


No Man's Land


Water brushes against
The coast like Time,
Lives like
Leaves,
Drops palming
Across my hand
Like it was another world
Or was it another word
Lost in the notepad
From another day.

Colours like beats
Brushing in my ears
Like an endless trail
Of footprints
Half broken
In no man’s land.
Was it like another word
Lost in the notepad
From another day
Or was it another life?
Joanne Merriam


Glorybower

The snow lay all about, deep and crisp and even, under pewter
clouds crowning wisps of sky. Inside, incandescent lights slept,
whispering their electric hum to jewel-toned sub-tropicals.

The lingering taste of eggnog swept along your tongue as you
sank your fingertips into the greenhouse soil, slightly dry and
yielding. You were content with the Pleiades and stars of Orion
wavering through the corrugated polycarbonate, and with the
green sprays of leaves brushing the fleece of your shoulder,
though later you'd dream of bird's nest ferns and cat's whiskers,
glorybower and blue ginger, solitaire palms and star fruit.

Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel on
the outsides of the glass. Moonlight on the mistletoe fig, bull horn
acacia, Madagascar periwinkle. Coffee and citrus and cinnamon,
petals aiming for snowblindness. Through the rude wind's wild
lament and the bitter weather, this riot of buds.


The Ghost Road

Looked in maple sugar, wet asphalt, slot machines, ham sandwiches,
the jaunty slant of an eyebrow, grammar; in boatless winter lakes,
shopping malls, in the point of light that resolves into a double star,
faintly red and faintly blue. In the details. Tasted the sacrificial wine,
the whiskey, the sweet milk.

Listened to the shore birds' hesitant cries, to the bells, to the choir
on Sunday. The music moving the car so loud the engine's not necessary.

Breathed the vapours that rise from evening rivers, from hot tar,
from fresh bread, touched his skin in all its moods, felt the blood
drain from my wet palm turning the suds pink, rubbed my fingers
against beaches, against bark, against the jointed stems of polished
bamboo.

In memories of the smell of pickled sugar lingering on his breath
that night in early summer, in swallowing, sinking into chlorine,
smoothing linen. In secrets I've kept, in pyrite, in gold,

most of all in the sky, over and over. I can't say what I found.


Long Weekend

Great quantities of pasta consumed. Intrepid exploration of new
hairstyles. Failure to wash dishes. Trade narratives. Great quantities
of chocolate consumed. Musk of fog twirls in taxi-light. Frothy drinks
in bar. Poem quoted

incorrectly. Failure to tie cherry stem in knot with tongue. Much wit
expended on sex lives of brine shrimp. Great quantities of alcohol
consumed. Not at all moved

by the glisten and blue light on pavement.
Photography by Michele Berti






Bill Dorris


In The Syntax Of Apples And Oranges

you hope for California
and wake up with aunts
in Colorado and Texas
scrub oak
cactus


Free range years
in manila size folders
clamp-on days
at four for a quarter
birthdays and Christmas
published together
frisbee soldiers
in the Waco
Gazette


Dr Pepper bottles
longhorns and Rockefellers
Nielson ratings high
cherry nights
in white satin
2 up and 2 back and
the Madison line
mashed potato time
the Statler Brothers
on ice thin wafers
low bridges
go-cart syringes
wheelchair skids
on veins
of leather


apples and oranges
grown in Texas
toll booth strangers


in the syntax
of cactus


Latin Mass

the reason for
back alleys has something
vaguely to do with candles
and pews
confessionals
and the sound of wine
splashing
pigs trough
soiled gown
something to do with the times before you
father nulty
tin lids
flapping
bald as a shredded
onion
on a cold winter
walking
back door morning
but mostly with
the cat’s breakfast of
it all


Discrete Smoke

discrete smoke is but a screen
leaving cursor tracks
across the room
anointed in locked glass
no interface
no crickets left to bark
no tree like a redwood
pruned

they say be wary of the stones over you
of that virtual elite echoing jibjab.com
of the last time he sat smiling in the plaza
front row
pine box
aluminium siding


but there’s no problem here tonite
no punch codes between us
just the unforgiven
standingin glacial space

our faces lighting up the moon


Marlowe

If you find your name
on a small tattoo
or maybe over the shop
then spare a thought for Collis Huntington
and Leland Stanford Jr
University
or the next man buried in Arlington
with his own eternal flame
cos there’s no straight way to make a buck
only short cuts to the top


If Marlowe ever met Doheny
you can be sure he never asked
after all, what’s a powder burn
or two
on your son’s forehead
when history’s nothing
but the past


The Price Of Coal

His face was soft on winter slate
his voice gentle as the snow

the examiner asked where he would locate his poetry
his prose

He spoke of Carver, of Hemingway, O'Connor
of poppy fields he had known

of scenes he saw in every mirror
scenes we'd never hear

stuck in monotone


Had he ever tried the haiku
it seemed to fit his form

the haiku?

His tie hung like a border between two men
whose face had gone to stone


home, he said, is what you leave forever
only to return alone
Kristin Hannaford


Blackberrying At Woodford

On the path three leaves

extend their slight

jagged edge of menace

adjusting to altitude & surviving

bedrock wash.

The tang of pine resin,

gums the palate & this childhood

is a gum booted summer -

jostling for blackberries

our white ice cream buckets full of juice

bursting blue-purple-black-red

the colours of bruises.


Music For Insects

i.

The sunlight moves

circular constellations

across the glass.

A night of watching the galaxy

cycling past

thick webby crosshatches -

spiders claiming a drift of universe.

ii.

Underbelly jazz notes

django django django

are swift fingered riddles.

Small creatures bouncing against

windows, thudding

fragile wings at light.


Prelude to a Machine

I like your hum

you offer prologue & initial remarks

sleek metal skin

cool grey perhaps a bright eyeful of silver

thing of beauty

an idea of synchronized woman & machine

a creative visualization

this could work she breathes

I like the conversations we have

she might say as way of introduction

you defy expectation and offer design

compatibility somebody’s brainchild

intimate adaptations

she likes that in a machine

sketches of a romance

a first attempt

at contact


Isolation Ward

I expect to be here for this foreign disease

I’ve contracted, the simpering flesh -

this recedes as you touch it,

the faint snarl dragging the lip as grimace

pinched under ten-inch stiletto heel.

Not for some out of court dispute

any two-bit judge would dismiss

as ‘waste of official time’.

Dignitaries are not interested in pillows

I’ve arranged and machine stapled to the wall.

Go ahead laugh. You will anyway.

Not a pretty sight, a woman flailing at foam.

Response is cheap. Little return

for invested energies.

Isolate. Turn off the light.

Let her come to grips with her mood

in the darkness, void as opposed to form.

Splintering, humming as she comes

to sense her distraction.

About Art - Holocaust Memorial

The 19,000 square-meter Memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe (German: Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas), which was opened to the public on May 12, 2005 in Berlin, Germany, consists of 2711 stones placed on sloping, uneven ground in an undulating wave-like pattern, giving visitors the feeling of insecurity as though the stones were on unstable ground.

Visitors can enter from all four sides, day or night, and wander on their own through the maze of stones, as though visiting a graveyard with nameless tombstones. The columns are sunk into the ground to various depths and at some places, they are higher than the heads of the visitors. There are no set paths or sign posts to guide viewers. The memorial was designed by architect Peter Eisenman to deliberately disorient visitors by having all the stones tilted slightly and paths that are not level.

The site of the Jewish Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was formally dedicated on January 27, 2000 in a "symbolic event" which could not be termed a ground-breaking ceremony because the project had not yet received approval from the German parliament. The 27th of January is Europe's international day of mourning for the Jews who were murdered by the Nazis.

The first dedication ceremony for the Memorial was held on November 15, 1993. Originally expected to be finished by January 27, 2004, the Memorial was dedicated on May 10, 2005 and opened to the public on May 12, 2005, exactly 60 years after Germany was liberated from the Nazis in World War II.

The design for the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europes was approved on 25 June 1999 by the German parliament. The vote was 314 to 209 with 14 members abstaining. The project cost the German tax-payers 35.1 million Euros. The 5.5 acre site covers an area the size of three soccer fields. Before 1945, this location was part of the Ministry Gardens and it was adjacent to the large complex of buildings which included Hitler's Chancellery. After the war it was part of the "death strip" along the Berlin wall. The memorial covers an area very close to the underground bunker where Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Find out more about Berlin's new piece of outdoor art at: www.holocaust-mahnmal.de/en
Artwork by Maureen Gubia






Ben Kemp


Ju-ni Gatsu

Japan is delicate,
and in December when snow settles
upon the branches,
it feels like a Buddhist prayer...

Walking to work,
a stonewall shoulders my path...
it was built 700 years ago
by monks who tendered the gardens with
tiny scissors and a clear mind...

Walking to work,
my fingertips hang out from under the
sleeves of my jacket...
tickled by a morning sun and
a frost, fragile, like the ribs of a leaf...

Walking to work,
the peddlers in steaming noodle
carts have faces like nourished hide...
If you get close,
their foreheads are old photos,
with grandfathers, mothers,
brothers and uncles, resting over their brow.

Walking to work,
from Yoyogi-Uehera, where I live...
it's saintly...
for when the sun hits...
the orange tile roofs
knelt down through the night...
they rise to their feet.

and in Shinjuku, where I work...
the People
have the temperament of porcelain,
with cheek bones
like ZEN...and Kurosawa

and in the canal,
the carp bask under muddy glass...
sometimes twelve or thirteen at a time,
trading their safety for
the sun,

and over the bridge,
with wide hips and feet resting in a puddle...

I enter the arteries of Tokyo...
With ears open...
listening for you
for Manutuke...
the Te Arai...
and the sound of oranges growing.

* NOTES : A Christmas postcard from Japan to my
family back home in New Zealand. As a child I grew
up on an orchard in Manutuke, Gisborne and the Te
Arai river ran aside our little farm, where my brother
and I spent hours and hours eeling on her sandy banks.


The Girl, The Restaurant and The God

1. Outside a restaurant in Harajuku,
the rain fell like a psalm...
and through the windows the lights folded like yellow origami...
She placed her fingers on the glass...and God listened..

Tofu is a Buddhist monk kneeling on a plate,

2. Winters was a stone throw away,
and snow brewed like ice cream churning in the sky...
God slipped into her closed fist and slowly turned her palms
inside out...
her face turned red as two apples welled under her cheeks...
but she said nothing...

Soba is the same monk meditating with his toes in the water,

3. I was silent in that sea - that was people...
and she was a buoy, bobbled...
for her head had lowered and her shoulders had drooped like
a wilted leaf...
God placed his fingers under her chin...
and upon her tongue he put an olive...
She was so sweet, like torn silk,
Inside me....


Eight Pieces From August 2, 2004

Kurosawa
On Orchianamizu riverbanks...
A Samurai and an Artist turn out their pockets.

Sakura
Pure silk...
utters "spring"

Homeless
Cardboard caves and wounded shoes...
his blood-shot eyes.

Smile
The sun opens...
children move closer to heaven.

Island
Broken ship on sweaty palms,
a voice over blue table-tops.

Kiyomizu-tera
On a hillside,
crouched amongst tree-tops...
a tiger.

Hideyoshi
The general dismounts...
laying bloody sword and ear to earth.
hears "Monkey"


Tribute To Edgar Henry

Edgar was a Poet...

" I feel like you are on the other side of a wall now Edgar"
" I feel like your teeth are no longer broken and stained with
red wine"

" I imagine your ears have become perfectly tuned to the
warm blood of poetry, the grammar has finally caved in"
" I imagine you are whole, inside of spring"

" I envision that the key with which you spoke, will never be
cubby holed into any pentatonic or diatonic scale"
" I envision that the silence you experienced was much deeper,
within the cracks of silence"

" I wonder Edgar...how thick is this wall? 2 feet? 3 and a half
maybe?"
" I wonder if I place my ear to it, and you do the same, Can I
hear you and can you hear me?"

"I will sing for you a thousand times"
" Edgar you are a Poet...

"But it is the Man I mourn.


Kara: Lily

1. The LILY under
your nail, child...

In this yellow light and upon this
table...
is a SONG...
of no key or CHORD,
strings or ivory...

only a tongue...
like the corners of the mouth turned upward...

2. Of the light shaped over
my hands...
In arcs and rectangles...

like the white and black in the eyes, child...
feeling your heart scoped out,
like the seeds of a melon...

3. The LILY is fragrant...
Like a garden of saints,
with scrolls, nibbled at the edges by
moths...
flitting WINGS in a pocket...

4. A lily and tendrils of SALT water, is you...
Swelling under your lip and breaking
On your TONGUE,
rushing to the back of
your throat...

hearing the syllables of your name...
in
nakedness... and PURITY

I have felt this once,
But ONLY moments after it had past...

In the still,
and the sunlight...
with a LILY resting upon your nape.

* NOTES : 'Kara' means 'Lily' in Japanese

About Music - Cesaria Evora

A native of the island nation of Cape Verde, Césaria Évora is known as the country's foremost practitioner of the morna, which is strongly associated with the islands and combines West African percussion with Portuguese fados, Brazilian modhinas, and British sea shanties. Évora began singing morna at age 16 after meeting an attractive young guitarist. Her talent soon had her performing all over the islands, and in the late '60s two of her radio tapes were released as albums in the Netherlands and Portugal, respectively.


However, Évora never left her country, and gave up singing in the mid-'70s owing to lack of profit. In 1985, at the age of 45, she decided to return to music and traveled to Portugal to record two songs for an anthology of female Cape Verdean singers. This led to subsequent recording sessions in Paris, which resulted in four albums from 1988 to 1992. Her international fame grew, and she toured Europe, Africa, Brazil, and Canada, with stops in the United States to perform for Cape Verdean audiences. In the fall of 1995, she mounted her first large-scale American tour; subsequent recordings include 1997's Cabo Verde and 1999's Mar Azul and Cafe Atlantico.


With Évora now a certified international star, the new millennium didn't see any loss of momentum for the singer and she continued to record and tour the globe. Her 2001 release, Sao Vicente, featured numerous collaborations, including appearances from Bonnie Raitt, Orquesta Aragón, and Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso. Already a well-televised figure in Europe, her growing popularity in North America led to an appearance on The David Letterman Show; a DVD, Live in Paris; the reissue of her 1974 album Distino di Belita; and the 2004 Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music recording for Voz d'Amor. The same year she was recognized by French culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon as an Officer des Arts et des Lettres. After another extensive tour, in 2006 Évora released Rogamar, much of which was recorded in her hometown of Mindelo. Find out more about this unique artist at: www.cesaria-evora.com

Research info provided by: www.allmusic.com (Steve Huey, writter)
Patricia Kelly


Invitation From a Fat Woman

Give yourself to a grand sculpting:
my darkling seashore
threatening briefly
to keep your hands' hot shape.

Feed at the great breast of my body:
this surging queendom
whose cold surface lights
now barely survive
in the blue of my eyes.

Be covered and cradled,
shipwrecked and born again,
to land and lie restingin the salty shadows
of my slowly shifting dunes.

Then close your quieting eyes.

And feel my waves
breaking their habit of cold
against the sky.


On Collecting
(based on a dream)

The woman in my dream
writes poem after poem.
She is tall and golden, with a smile
like a crescent moon lazily rocking
on the rim of the world.

She reels in line after languid
line, her words strung like nebulae
in which my envy spins,
a shadow catch.

Wakefulness intrudes,
trailing a stark wire across
the sky on which dark birds
perch, waiting to escape through
the blue door of dawn.

Her lines unravel, the dream
more a black hole now that traps
its own lingering light.

I cull and hoard lines from her lost poems
like Grandma in the Great Depression
saved the least bit of string, knotted end
to end and wound round and round
in a motley globe.


Grieving

I do not know where your grief walks,
perhaps through an icy fog
across a long forgotten field,
or dives, perhaps through a winter sky,
dodging acute arrows of sympathy.

But I do know this bright beaked bird
can speed through your blood
leaving hollows in its wake
to be filled into healing stillness
by a slow seeping.


The Trees Within

These ancient woods that dwell within
hold the broken sky together.

Tall familiar friends, whose sides I climbed
in other times to mend the sky.

Wise ones, whose shadows I curl up beneath
and dream of climbing dark sweet bark
that creaks and nods,

dream of being offered up to sky again,
to touch and heal, rooted.


Wish Bones

When I have mined my memory for its last poem
will my past collapse in on itself
like an old mine shaft and gratefully
give up its ghosts

or will the sum of ancient years
lie shining in the sun of consciousness
like a bird's bones picked clean by scavengers

and might I firmly grasp the breastbone
that once sheltered a wounded heart,

then, pulling on that arched rib
finally make the break?

And, what then?

Will my wish come true
once my past is dust?

About Books:

Title: Blood And Salsa/Painting Rust
Author: Jonathan Penton

Description: "I love lean and muscular poetry...You use humor as a weapon, an act of violence. Suffused with it, your poetry is, therefore, a sublime yet manifestation of pained aggression." - Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant self Love-Narcissism Revisted.

Product Details:

Printed: Two chapbooks bound together, 72 pages, 5.5" x 8.5"
ISBN:
Copyright: 2006
Language: English
Country: United States
Publisher's Link: http://jonathan.unlikelystories.org
Rodney Koeneke


Structure The Myth

how gods & nymphs always

come with rapes

spread like benedictions

to the faithful

in orange sarongs

on the soft sand


History Of Zero

love and casino war poker

did you mean qawalli Fibonacci?

All parties compete on equal terms

in even rows

Yemeni chicks dig that

Sequins are snowflakes that stay on my nose

who digs the oil is western

Bones heal, chicks scar

ARCHAEOLO-chicks are digging

Bosnian skull pyramids

built this system

on rock ‘n’ roll

Nor stupid pictures

Xenakis in asspants

chant religieux soufiste qui doit

utility of numerals

to staunch Kristofferson


Memo To Henson

“We can grow a cow in purple—

on your ass.” We can shop and change color and rest

and shop again. We exist in space

or minds of teens with vermillion toenails

stroking our grover

out in the open,

just stroking him out there like that.

We can be swink

and shop Shopzilla.

do serious purple

in the turntable lab:

Dancehall Stars of 1986.

We can look to the book of Ezra

for solutions to the Bandar:

sickly people, sticky purple.

Muppet love sans drugs (we can turn them back).

We can entertain ambiguous images

of extras lounged in studio canteens,

we can devastate Cliff’s hands

at the office pool: “Moo

-chas grassy-ass, See-nor

ass-hat!” Look man, NO MORE HANDS!

We can be the essential funk

recordings of the ‘70s, circle the best

in purple. We can be the ‘80s, the dancy synthy ‘80s

that’s happening over again already.

Consider it

inside your dank glamour,

the simple charisma involved

in our dream:

Grover. Grover in asspants.

Sparkly asspant purple.


2 Poems From "Rogue State"

#14

Seaplanes crashing through windowpanes,
Moon passing river in paper cup.
The camels get restless—God whistles
Through the night like lewd boys
At the prison wrestling squad.

The Magi know their Atari—
Long drives from the bar to vacation bible school
Sear in the hotter mercies of the East
That leave one a-melt at landingstrips, a sherbet
Too orange for summer afternoons
Waiting to be licked up into tongues.

#15

Here at the garden’s hot marges
Events soften into fire ants.
We cock ideas at prairie dogs
To watch them smoke, then squeal

Pythagoreans cross their ‘t’s
With dim narcissus fresh-picked from the clefs
Of that vast, inaudible cosmic symphony
The cow thieves once called home.

Zeus lets fly with the lightning rods
His hot heart flaming like shish-kebabs
Off a Deer Park backyard grill. Marshmellows
Crisp to swart mothers, I burn—pterodactyl
Dactyls sing over me with ease.

* Both poems previously published in Shampoo/Issue-11
Contributors Biographies


Zdravka Vladova-Momcheva: was born in Bulgaria in 1967. She finished her higher education at the University of Sofia in 1993. She has worked as a teacher of Bulgarian language and World Literatures in Sofia. In 1999 she published her first collection of poems called Transformations (Bulgarian language). A second book, A Child, A Woman And A Prophet was published in 2000 followed by bilingual These Simple Things that same year. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Soul To Soul, Artists Without Frontiers, The Other Voices, and elsewhere. She has lived in the UK since 2000. Visit her website at: www.thracian-treasure.com.

Andy N: is a poet, musician, and performer who has been published world-wide since 1992. He is the lead singer/vocalist of the band "DIH" and records also for "M.A.N." among other groups. He is currently working on his first novel, a collection of poetry, and has written two plays performed in 2006. His website Setting Sun, showcases up and coming artists from the UK, America, and Russia and covers all areas of the musical spectrum. He lives in Manchester, UK. His website is: www.geocities.com/aen1mpo

Joanne Merriam: was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1973. After graduating from Dalhousie University she worked as a courier dispatcher, telemarketer, charity fundraiser, sheet music librarian, web designer, and office co-ordinator. Her poetry has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Chiarroscuro, Room of One's Own, Vallum Contemporary Poetry, and elsewhere. Her first book, The Glaze From Breaking (Stride 2005) is a poetry collection based on travels throughtout Canada and the USA with her husband. She immigranted to the USA in 2004 and now lives in Concord, NH. Her site is: www.joannemerriam.com

Michele Berti: does not feel particularly comfortable talking about himself. He would rather talk about his cameras, lenses, and his favorite kind of film. But he doesn't think that would make much difference either. So in the end he simply talks about his photographs, many of which are landscapes taken in the region of Tuscany, Italy, several on a strip of land called "Valdorcia" and "Crete Senesi". His portfolios include "Traces" which captures old decaying farms and a 2005 portfolio of the Foiano della Chiana Carnivals, the oldest in Italy. He resides in Siena, Itlay. His website is: www.micheleberti.it

Bill Dorris: at one time or another has been a social psychologist and has had his own radio program, "Dr. Bill's Myths, Lies, Facts, and Songs". Then he says he "spent 15 years in the back of Burger King writing a book on how the great become great". Later, he got into Flash authoring software and most recently poetry. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. His website site is: http://homepage.eircom.net/~wdorris/greatnesshome.html

Kristin Hannaford: her poetry has appeared most recently in Otoliths, foam:e, Papertiger Media, Famous Reporter, Treci Trg (Serbia), Small Packages 2005 QPF Anthology and on ABC Radio National's Poetica. Selected poems from her Wetland Sonnets sequence won the 2004 Leichhardt New Media Poetry Prize. Her first poetry collection is called Inhale (Interactive Press 2003). She is a tutor for the Queensland Writer's Center and is working on her second collection of poems. She lives on the Capricorn Coast of Queensland, Australia, withher husband and two sons. Visit her: www.kristinhannaford.com

Maureen Gubia: is an autodiactic freelance artist who uses art materials form watercolors and pastels to oil paint. Her techique could be described as loose and intuitive in her use of color and brush choices/strokes which is prevelant in all her work. Her work has appeared in group shows at Fette's Gallery in Culver City, CA and Ai Gallery in Chicago, IL and elesewhere. Muti-talented, her other creative outlets include photography and music recordings. She was born in 1984 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where she continues to live and work. Her artistic website is: www.gubia.neurasthenic.net

Ben Kemp: is of Maori/Pakeha parents. he is a poet and singer/songwriter, having performed with the Japanese-based band "Uminari". After graduating from Otago University, he lived in Tokyo for two and a half years. His poetry has been published widely throughout New Zealand where he was invited to read at New Zealand Poetry Day as one of two emerging poets honored. His poems have appeared in Blackmail Press, Snorkel, and elsewhere. He released his debut album "A River's Mouth" in 2005. He lives in New Zealand. His website is: www.benkemp.com

Patricia Kelly: her poetry has won first prizes from The Feminist Writers Guild and The New York Center Goddess Festival. Her work appears on Literary House among other online locales, and in many print publications as "An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind", an award-winning 9/11 anthology. She is currently channeling her creative talents into designing a Tarot deck, "The Taiga Tarot" (illustrated tanka). She lives in New York. Visit her unique blog at: http://roswila-dreamspoetry.blogspot.com

Rodney Koeneke: his work has appeared in MiPOesias Magazine, Chicago Postmodern Poetry, Shampoo, Moria Poetry, Coconut Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections, Musee Mechanique (BlazeVox, 2006) and Rogue State (Pavement Saw, 2003). He has recently moved to Portland, Oregon with his wife Lesley Poirer and young son Auden. You can find his blog at: www.modampo.blogspot.com


Closing Notes: The editor would like to thank the contributors for the use of their work. Each contributor reserves their original rights. Look for the next issue of CSR online on Oct. 1st. Copyright 2007 by Maurice Oliver. All Rights Reserved.


Visit the editor’s personal blog: http://www.copyat5.blogspot.com/
And his music blog: http://www.medleymakersant.blogspot.com/