Friday, August 1, 2008
Editor's Note:
Welcome to issue twenty of CSR! By now, you regular readers know my baby likes to escape through the door in the bookcase and hates goats on the Greyhound. It craves juicy peaches and makes cute little sounds when I accidently swallow one of the pits. Baby has an uncanny ability to turn the words of poets into scents only found in a box of candy. Issue Twenty is no exception. This month is filled with helium balloon-light photographs, along with rose petal art. Add to that, a group of stunning poets, an intriguing music maker and one magical book review and you've got the possibility of a poison ivy infection. Trust me, when you finish this issue you'll feel like a cool slice of watermelon. Or he only shoveled compost while the village slept. Either way, this issue will highjack your interest with delights seldom found in crash helmets. So escape from your bumper car and get busy...
Welcome to issue twenty of CSR! By now, you regular readers know my baby likes to escape through the door in the bookcase and hates goats on the Greyhound. It craves juicy peaches and makes cute little sounds when I accidently swallow one of the pits. Baby has an uncanny ability to turn the words of poets into scents only found in a box of candy. Issue Twenty is no exception. This month is filled with helium balloon-light photographs, along with rose petal art. Add to that, a group of stunning poets, an intriguing music maker and one magical book review and you've got the possibility of a poison ivy infection. Trust me, when you finish this issue you'll feel like a cool slice of watermelon. Or he only shoveled compost while the village slept. Either way, this issue will highjack your interest with delights seldom found in crash helmets. So escape from your bumper car and get busy...
Christine Hamm
The Selling Of Parts
I contact Ebay to see if I can sell
my left ventricle. Customer serviceh
as a hard time getting back to me,
their emails keep ending up in my
spam folder, so I decide to call
the free 800 number (it's supposed
to be active 24 hours a day) but
then I just get a recording, and the
funny thing is, the recording has
my name on it, it's kind of hard
to understand, there's the noise
of large machinery and race cars
in the background, and I wonder
for the first time where Ebay
is located, is it in a particular
state? I always imagined it floating
in cyberspace somewhere, and when
I picture cyberspace, my ideas
alternate between a cold black
icy room with green numbers floating
by like large dust particles, and a
vast empty white plane, peopled
by tall white men in form-fitting
plastic body suits. Anyway, the recording
says something about Christine
and then something about Beth Anne
and the requirements to become a gold
member, but I don't want to become
a gold member, I keep telling the recording
machine, I just want to find out
how to sell this tiny part, which is
hard because I don't have a very clear
photo, and I'm not sure how much
to charge for shipping.
Disaster Sushi
While I, while it
drops through my chopsticks
the sticky rice round your chin
you tell me about the baby
elephant who tried to get
into your size 12 pants
in the rest room, where
you had taken them off
to air, as that infection
had come back, and with a rash
this time, and I ask if
you're speaking metaphorically.
You blink as if a lizard
had skittled over your brain
and then the light bulb
bursts over your head;
in the shower of harmless,
deadly glass you say
now we're both in the dark,
what were you talking about, love?
I Tell My Mother
About a dream in which she dies.
There’s a cranky buzz on the
cordless phone, I bring it closer
to the base, farther away,
the buzz stays the same. I can
hear my mother licking her lips
and sipping her coffee. Go on,
she says, tell me the part about
the stairs again.
Hunters Point, 1PM
the girl in front of me
is paying for her cheeseburger
with stripper bills, tens and fives
folded down the middle,
greasy from her thighs
her brown matted braid swings
down as her diamond-starred
fingernails untangle her cash,
wadded at the bottom of a purse
out of its gleaming depths
floats a stray napkin
white unfolding bright
struck by a breeze
from the opening door,
it rises into the street, vanishes
Learning about Mammals
underneath the stairs
the whale grapples with the squid
nothing protects the children from the diorama
the lip of the exhibit comes up
to their knees they step in when
the teacher’s fussing at Greg
and Sheila
on the other side
shake out their pant legs
scratch their scalps
hide in the darkest parts
under the floating animals
dusty mouths the size
of school desks
look at me, he says to her
touching the cool whale belly,
touching his own nose
The Selling Of Parts
I contact Ebay to see if I can sell
my left ventricle. Customer serviceh
as a hard time getting back to me,
their emails keep ending up in my
spam folder, so I decide to call
the free 800 number (it's supposed
to be active 24 hours a day) but
then I just get a recording, and the
funny thing is, the recording has
my name on it, it's kind of hard
to understand, there's the noise
of large machinery and race cars
in the background, and I wonder
for the first time where Ebay
is located, is it in a particular
state? I always imagined it floating
in cyberspace somewhere, and when
I picture cyberspace, my ideas
alternate between a cold black
icy room with green numbers floating
by like large dust particles, and a
vast empty white plane, peopled
by tall white men in form-fitting
plastic body suits. Anyway, the recording
says something about Christine
and then something about Beth Anne
and the requirements to become a gold
member, but I don't want to become
a gold member, I keep telling the recording
machine, I just want to find out
how to sell this tiny part, which is
hard because I don't have a very clear
photo, and I'm not sure how much
to charge for shipping.
Disaster Sushi
While I, while it
drops through my chopsticks
the sticky rice round your chin
you tell me about the baby
elephant who tried to get
into your size 12 pants
in the rest room, where
you had taken them off
to air, as that infection
had come back, and with a rash
this time, and I ask if
you're speaking metaphorically.
You blink as if a lizard
had skittled over your brain
and then the light bulb
bursts over your head;
in the shower of harmless,
deadly glass you say
now we're both in the dark,
what were you talking about, love?
I Tell My Mother
About a dream in which she dies.
There’s a cranky buzz on the
cordless phone, I bring it closer
to the base, farther away,
the buzz stays the same. I can
hear my mother licking her lips
and sipping her coffee. Go on,
she says, tell me the part about
the stairs again.
Hunters Point, 1PM
the girl in front of me
is paying for her cheeseburger
with stripper bills, tens and fives
folded down the middle,
greasy from her thighs
her brown matted braid swings
down as her diamond-starred
fingernails untangle her cash,
wadded at the bottom of a purse
out of its gleaming depths
floats a stray napkin
white unfolding bright
struck by a breeze
from the opening door,
it rises into the street, vanishes
Learning about Mammals
underneath the stairs
the whale grapples with the squid
nothing protects the children from the diorama
the lip of the exhibit comes up
to their knees they step in when
the teacher’s fussing at Greg
and Sheila
on the other side
shake out their pant legs
scratch their scalps
hide in the darkest parts
under the floating animals
dusty mouths the size
of school desks
look at me, he says to her
touching the cool whale belly,
touching his own nose
Cheong Lee San
Couple
i.
I helped her up from the bed,
her frail bony body trembling,
the bedsheets damp from the pain,
and fed the painkillers into
her parched mouth hoping
it will ease her sufferings.
There was fight in her eyes,
she will not give up easily,
as i forced a plastic smile,
hoping she will live till Christmas,
as i repeated to myself,
damn it, no tears, she will not want it this way.
ii.
I was at her grave, with the flowers
and incense, her ashes just a stone slab away,
and i ran my fingers down the indentations
in the marble that was her name.
I remembered how i had ran these
same fingers down her svelte body
in a darkened room, when we were
younger and unsure,
the soft moans, the mad entwining
of hot bodies,
and i smiled and cried and called her name.
What’s Left
what's left
of the sunlight
on this bleak
wet evening
dances on
the gleaming
skins of
puddles on
bare pavements
as shadows chase
the day
up the
stone piers
of train viaducts
and the
damp trunks
of rain trees.
what are the
chances of
the silvery slice
of cold moon
cutting through
grey nimbus
like a scimitar?
until then
the last rays
dip and play
and dart
over the city
over the trains
pulling into
the stations
and
the tired
hungry masses
trudging home.
The Gods Are Watching Over us In The Morning
in the half light that is the dawn over
the blocks of flats, when the night wind
gently slaps discarded papers and dead leaves
along the long expanse of corridor of our block,
i leave for work, my cigarette smoke mingling
with the perfumed incense my old neighbour lighted
to the God of Heaven, praying for safe passage
through the day for her and her loved ones.
then i walked past doors protected by talismans,
bogus, even crucifixes, past homes guarded by waifs
of pomeranians that snarled from behind locked gates,
their barks, shrill and indignant, in the cool air,
go past flowerpots with plants badly in need
of watering, down the stairs through the coffeeshop,
through harsh fluorescent lights and whiffs of toast,
past grizzled old men drinking coffee from saucers,
then meet the hordes of sleepy-eyed children
sleepwalking to schools, the grandmothers
shuffling to the wet market to haggle over
fishes and vegetables.
the same gods are watching over us all.
Heavy Metal
the sky was rocking
heavy metal,
clouds bruised
blue black,
as white light slashed
across its face
it growled
as in pain.
i leaned at the window
watched
as my cigarette smoke
curled outside
to die
in the rain.
My Old Sergeant
my old sergeant
calls to me
from a bus stop.
he still remembers me
maybe i am the nerdy one
or
i don't give him trouble.
we talk
and laugh.
we are old men now
how time has aged a soldier,
he walks with a cane today.
was it not long ago
i saw him dismount
from an armored carrier
carbine slung across
his chest
walking through a haze
of red dust
churned up
by battle vehicles?
we talk
about the old days.
we laugh
cough a bit
and then
go about our
separate ways.
Couple
i.
I helped her up from the bed,
her frail bony body trembling,
the bedsheets damp from the pain,
and fed the painkillers into
her parched mouth hoping
it will ease her sufferings.
There was fight in her eyes,
she will not give up easily,
as i forced a plastic smile,
hoping she will live till Christmas,
as i repeated to myself,
damn it, no tears, she will not want it this way.
ii.
I was at her grave, with the flowers
and incense, her ashes just a stone slab away,
and i ran my fingers down the indentations
in the marble that was her name.
I remembered how i had ran these
same fingers down her svelte body
in a darkened room, when we were
younger and unsure,
the soft moans, the mad entwining
of hot bodies,
and i smiled and cried and called her name.
What’s Left
what's left
of the sunlight
on this bleak
wet evening
dances on
the gleaming
skins of
puddles on
bare pavements
as shadows chase
the day
up the
stone piers
of train viaducts
and the
damp trunks
of rain trees.
what are the
chances of
the silvery slice
of cold moon
cutting through
grey nimbus
like a scimitar?
until then
the last rays
dip and play
and dart
over the city
over the trains
pulling into
the stations
and
the tired
hungry masses
trudging home.
The Gods Are Watching Over us In The Morning
in the half light that is the dawn over
the blocks of flats, when the night wind
gently slaps discarded papers and dead leaves
along the long expanse of corridor of our block,
i leave for work, my cigarette smoke mingling
with the perfumed incense my old neighbour lighted
to the God of Heaven, praying for safe passage
through the day for her and her loved ones.
then i walked past doors protected by talismans,
bogus, even crucifixes, past homes guarded by waifs
of pomeranians that snarled from behind locked gates,
their barks, shrill and indignant, in the cool air,
go past flowerpots with plants badly in need
of watering, down the stairs through the coffeeshop,
through harsh fluorescent lights and whiffs of toast,
past grizzled old men drinking coffee from saucers,
then meet the hordes of sleepy-eyed children
sleepwalking to schools, the grandmothers
shuffling to the wet market to haggle over
fishes and vegetables.
the same gods are watching over us all.
Heavy Metal
the sky was rocking
heavy metal,
clouds bruised
blue black,
as white light slashed
across its face
it growled
as in pain.
i leaned at the window
watched
as my cigarette smoke
curled outside
to die
in the rain.
My Old Sergeant
my old sergeant
calls to me
from a bus stop.
he still remembers me
maybe i am the nerdy one
or
i don't give him trouble.
we talk
and laugh.
we are old men now
how time has aged a soldier,
he walks with a cane today.
was it not long ago
i saw him dismount
from an armored carrier
carbine slung across
his chest
walking through a haze
of red dust
churned up
by battle vehicles?
we talk
about the old days.
we laugh
cough a bit
and then
go about our
separate ways.
Tasha Klein
Somewhere
we wake
on this charming
scratchy blanket
sticky again
your face between
my thighs
a star stuck in your hair
pretty & glittering
i think my heart
has turned
into some sort of
white blossom
i think that is your red shoe
stuck up in that tree
And Her Ability To Converse Was Never Affected
After she drank the peyote
Lily Royal dismantled
the decaying takahe exhibit,
steamed some salmon with aioli
then gave her new lover
a wine bath on the kitchen table.
spring apocalypse
I could throw up
running from
overdeveloped hearts
type words in cackles
the font crusher
full
but
I only want the one with the waltz hair glowing
I want the one with the bombed eyes
and the century's erection
the one with the whales
swimming inside
Snowed in at O’Hare
I pull the wires that spin snowflakes
in the half-light of your round table eyes.
On them a flower breathes
its breath song.
Oh, unroll the linen star chart,
pull the sky down to touch it too;
the language of velvet & night
fills all space around us.
And we spin, spin, spin!
Faces bursting through hair only for flashes,
sculpturing our features together.
Far across the ocean
dusk falls behind gargoyles
waiting on a roof above the square.
what I really want to discuss…
is the way
daylight dips into this
wine
why you don't smile
deep snow
and
fear.
-all poems taken from her bolg, Good Vibrations1
Somewhere
we wake
on this charming
scratchy blanket
sticky again
your face between
my thighs
a star stuck in your hair
pretty & glittering
i think my heart
has turned
into some sort of
white blossom
i think that is your red shoe
stuck up in that tree
And Her Ability To Converse Was Never Affected
After she drank the peyote
Lily Royal dismantled
the decaying takahe exhibit,
steamed some salmon with aioli
then gave her new lover
a wine bath on the kitchen table.
spring apocalypse
I could throw up
running from
overdeveloped hearts
type words in cackles
the font crusher
full
but
I only want the one with the waltz hair glowing
I want the one with the bombed eyes
and the century's erection
the one with the whales
swimming inside
Snowed in at O’Hare
I pull the wires that spin snowflakes
in the half-light of your round table eyes.
On them a flower breathes
its breath song.
Oh, unroll the linen star chart,
pull the sky down to touch it too;
the language of velvet & night
fills all space around us.
And we spin, spin, spin!
Faces bursting through hair only for flashes,
sculpturing our features together.
Far across the ocean
dusk falls behind gargoyles
waiting on a roof above the square.
what I really want to discuss…
is the way
daylight dips into this
wine
why you don't smile
deep snow
and
fear.
-all poems taken from her bolg, Good Vibrations1
Patry Francis
A White Shirt
Later it will hang in a dark closet
beside your blue suit. When you
wear it, it will stand between
the lies you tell the world
and your heart.
But now, dangling on the line,
autumn’s slow conflagration
sparking behind it,
it has shaken off your claims
of ownership.
Startled with sun,
the wind captured in one swollen sleeve,
it is the purest thing on the landscape;
it is the Holy Ghostcome out to stir the flames.
-first appeared in The Tampa Review
Your Waitress
While dreaming a poem about autumn
your waitress thoughtlessly poured
water in your coffee cup,
splashed chowder on your suit.
So sorry and excuse me but
in case you haven’t heard
there’s a high wind in the dining room,
a half-moon in the pie;
there’s a blaze in the crystal,
and wild weather in your eyes.
I know you wanted your meat rare,
some extra sour cream,
but just outside the window, trees
are bleeding leaves;
the sunflowers wear mourning;
there’s desolation at the tables
and tumult in the air;
an anarchy of color
threatens stability everywhere.
I know you wanted your tea hot
and your check promptly tallied;
but in case you haven’t seen,
your waitress has unloosed her hair,
has given up her tray
and absconded with her pen in hand
to catch the world that’s burning.
-first appeared in Nimrod International Journal
On Catching My Husband With A Cigarette After Seven
Years Of Abstinence
It is not the smoke that
coils around your head
in the garage where you’ve
retreated with coffee and The Times
for an early morning butt
that so startles me.
No, it is merely your expression--
the tacit admission
we seldom dare to make
That there is always
a life we hold in secret--
unknown, ungovernable,
fiercely unpossessed.
-first appeared in The Sun
Tornadoes Kill 8 In Arkansas And Tennessee
A photograph taken from the air shows us
what remains.
It is a Jackson Pollock, a confusion of color
on a grey-brown background.
But somewhere in it,
is everything we know of the world:
houses, trucks, roads, people.
And there beneath the familiar--
the chaos
that finds us behind our locked doors,
that tracks us
to the rooms where we lie reading,
that pulls us
from lives we thought we were leading,
and flings us out like broken sticks
into this aerial view
of vast and random darkness.
Summit Hill
It always seems to be winter
when we come back here, miles
of trees glittering with ice,
cornfields flooded white--
and somewhere in the center,
a lonely figure in a snowmobile,
lost inside its mechanical hum.
Going back to the old mining town
that clusters at the top of the hill
is a process of rising, climbing,
ascending into a past as real
and unyielding as these mountains.
And just as unknowable.
Less than a century ago, my husband’s
grandparents came here from
Poland and Slovakia; they fitted themselves
to this sharp landscape.
Here they would go down into
the earth, and draw up an existence
we’ve grown too cossetted
to imagine. Here they would
spend the rest of their lives--
fifty or seventy-five
winters like this one, traveling
a road cut through mountain,
peering through black trees
into rough cut gorges, cold streams,
woods too deep and impenetrable to fathom.
-both poems first appeared in The Ontario Review
A White Shirt
Later it will hang in a dark closet
beside your blue suit. When you
wear it, it will stand between
the lies you tell the world
and your heart.
But now, dangling on the line,
autumn’s slow conflagration
sparking behind it,
it has shaken off your claims
of ownership.
Startled with sun,
the wind captured in one swollen sleeve,
it is the purest thing on the landscape;
it is the Holy Ghostcome out to stir the flames.
-first appeared in The Tampa Review
Your Waitress
While dreaming a poem about autumn
your waitress thoughtlessly poured
water in your coffee cup,
splashed chowder on your suit.
So sorry and excuse me but
in case you haven’t heard
there’s a high wind in the dining room,
a half-moon in the pie;
there’s a blaze in the crystal,
and wild weather in your eyes.
I know you wanted your meat rare,
some extra sour cream,
but just outside the window, trees
are bleeding leaves;
the sunflowers wear mourning;
there’s desolation at the tables
and tumult in the air;
an anarchy of color
threatens stability everywhere.
I know you wanted your tea hot
and your check promptly tallied;
but in case you haven’t seen,
your waitress has unloosed her hair,
has given up her tray
and absconded with her pen in hand
to catch the world that’s burning.
-first appeared in Nimrod International Journal
On Catching My Husband With A Cigarette After Seven
Years Of Abstinence
It is not the smoke that
coils around your head
in the garage where you’ve
retreated with coffee and The Times
for an early morning butt
that so startles me.
No, it is merely your expression--
the tacit admission
we seldom dare to make
That there is always
a life we hold in secret--
unknown, ungovernable,
fiercely unpossessed.
-first appeared in The Sun
Tornadoes Kill 8 In Arkansas And Tennessee
A photograph taken from the air shows us
what remains.
It is a Jackson Pollock, a confusion of color
on a grey-brown background.
But somewhere in it,
is everything we know of the world:
houses, trucks, roads, people.
And there beneath the familiar--
the chaos
that finds us behind our locked doors,
that tracks us
to the rooms where we lie reading,
that pulls us
from lives we thought we were leading,
and flings us out like broken sticks
into this aerial view
of vast and random darkness.
Summit Hill
It always seems to be winter
when we come back here, miles
of trees glittering with ice,
cornfields flooded white--
and somewhere in the center,
a lonely figure in a snowmobile,
lost inside its mechanical hum.
Going back to the old mining town
that clusters at the top of the hill
is a process of rising, climbing,
ascending into a past as real
and unyielding as these mountains.
And just as unknowable.
Less than a century ago, my husband’s
grandparents came here from
Poland and Slovakia; they fitted themselves
to this sharp landscape.
Here they would go down into
the earth, and draw up an existence
we’ve grown too cossetted
to imagine. Here they would
spend the rest of their lives--
fifty or seventy-five
winters like this one, traveling
a road cut through mountain,
peering through black trees
into rough cut gorges, cold streams,
woods too deep and impenetrable to fathom.
-both poems first appeared in The Ontario Review
Stan Apps
Judy Was Never A Barrier
This is a wonderful poem
of words around
a bowl of fruit
with the capacity to move.
A very light flowering
of inner nudity
is where a person is.
As one who works in art, I know.
Took off her sweat suit, took off her tears,
took off the sense and meaning of her work,
and sang words as melodies
into the early morning sky,
and jumped up in it
and wiped sweat off the treadmill.
That is how art goes.
You have to be a human being to understand,
and Judy is a person, with words
coming from all sorts of places in her heart
and taking shapely
forms like ancient ruins.
Though she is uninspired, she inspires!
And that is the key.
That is why we are, really are
winning this, why every day is a holiday
even though we work hard every day.
That is the kind of person Judy has proven to be,
her demeanor is whipped cream
atop the humble bowl of fruit that we all are.
You Put Your Thursday In You Put Your Friday Out
I never know what day it is goodbye
Hello I never know what day it is
I shucked the packaging off of the sky
and what was there was airy like a fizz
hello I never know what day it is
I know a guy who owns things that are his
he owns a lot of things, an average guy
I never know what day it is goodbye
There is a special day when details die
they shrivel up like worn-out noises
hello I never know what day it is
I try to know what day it is it is
some sort of holiday or almost is
goodbye I almost know what day it is
sometimes I’m just tired of when the day is
it shortens them when they are in a line
and I’m putting a foot in that one this
one I don’t know what day my foot is in
you put your Thursday in you put your Fri-
day out and you shake them all hello
you do today tomorrow and goodbye
you do tomorrow and you go hello
Mirror Filler
In the natural environment of real stories
outsiders facing the same questions as yourself
question why people would tell their own stories
a compilation of truly personal others
Eleven Teenagers Transformed by Your Money
Imaginary Terror, just as we each face our own
‘God forgives me’ going to look so shiny
themselves facing the same real lives
all of the time telling us how they are people
numerous people in crisis are great and the opportunities are denied
brief accounts of the lives of the money that we pay
real friends enjoy first-class citizenship and successful Mind
images and personal recollections of being included
25 million people learned a great deal about Camilla
hosting a day documenting the game of Life
Gladiators
I used to dream of actually
cutting language—dividing one part of a sound
from another, like halving an “ow”—
with a sword!
The juicy halves
would quiver, slick
as pre-chewed bubble-gum
on the floor—Wait! Sounds can’t stick there.
I need a piece of paper
to save the little wounded bits of noise,
little birdies “oh” and “uh”
The sow that puts the ow in wow,
that pow’s wounded now
And poets are bubble-gum fighters
chewin and chewin up words
into a revolticatin wet pink mess
that blossoms when you blow into it
and then hangs on your face in disgrace
strange pink sugar-palaces of breathy truth
go floppy and reduce truth to a mood
After The Hilltop
After the hilltop
adjusts its shadow
anger hurts masks
for smiling like shame
After the sunbolt
blurbs the face
of the new accomplice
the one without arithmetic
After the moonholster
unpacks its curseshine
in the face of the battery
codenamed “All”
The opinion known by the name of “Public Opinion”
shared by a few men
couches where the champagne of celibacy glares
blurbs where anger hurts its curseshine fame
After the starbristles
agitates upholstered harmony
to the detriment of smile one hurts its “All”
-all poems taken from Refried Oracle Phone
Judy Was Never A Barrier
This is a wonderful poem
of words around
a bowl of fruit
with the capacity to move.
A very light flowering
of inner nudity
is where a person is.
As one who works in art, I know.
Took off her sweat suit, took off her tears,
took off the sense and meaning of her work,
and sang words as melodies
into the early morning sky,
and jumped up in it
and wiped sweat off the treadmill.
That is how art goes.
You have to be a human being to understand,
and Judy is a person, with words
coming from all sorts of places in her heart
and taking shapely
forms like ancient ruins.
Though she is uninspired, she inspires!
And that is the key.
That is why we are, really are
winning this, why every day is a holiday
even though we work hard every day.
That is the kind of person Judy has proven to be,
her demeanor is whipped cream
atop the humble bowl of fruit that we all are.
You Put Your Thursday In You Put Your Friday Out
I never know what day it is goodbye
Hello I never know what day it is
I shucked the packaging off of the sky
and what was there was airy like a fizz
hello I never know what day it is
I know a guy who owns things that are his
he owns a lot of things, an average guy
I never know what day it is goodbye
There is a special day when details die
they shrivel up like worn-out noises
hello I never know what day it is
I try to know what day it is it is
some sort of holiday or almost is
goodbye I almost know what day it is
sometimes I’m just tired of when the day is
it shortens them when they are in a line
and I’m putting a foot in that one this
one I don’t know what day my foot is in
you put your Thursday in you put your Fri-
day out and you shake them all hello
you do today tomorrow and goodbye
you do tomorrow and you go hello
Mirror Filler
In the natural environment of real stories
outsiders facing the same questions as yourself
question why people would tell their own stories
a compilation of truly personal others
Eleven Teenagers Transformed by Your Money
Imaginary Terror, just as we each face our own
‘God forgives me’ going to look so shiny
themselves facing the same real lives
all of the time telling us how they are people
numerous people in crisis are great and the opportunities are denied
brief accounts of the lives of the money that we pay
real friends enjoy first-class citizenship and successful Mind
images and personal recollections of being included
25 million people learned a great deal about Camilla
hosting a day documenting the game of Life
Gladiators
I used to dream of actually
cutting language—dividing one part of a sound
from another, like halving an “ow”—
with a sword!
The juicy halves
would quiver, slick
as pre-chewed bubble-gum
on the floor—Wait! Sounds can’t stick there.
I need a piece of paper
to save the little wounded bits of noise,
little birdies “oh” and “uh”
The sow that puts the ow in wow,
that pow’s wounded now
And poets are bubble-gum fighters
chewin and chewin up words
into a revolticatin wet pink mess
that blossoms when you blow into it
and then hangs on your face in disgrace
strange pink sugar-palaces of breathy truth
go floppy and reduce truth to a mood
After The Hilltop
After the hilltop
adjusts its shadow
anger hurts masks
for smiling like shame
After the sunbolt
blurbs the face
of the new accomplice
the one without arithmetic
After the moonholster
unpacks its curseshine
in the face of the battery
codenamed “All”
The opinion known by the name of “Public Opinion”
shared by a few men
couches where the champagne of celibacy glares
blurbs where anger hurts its curseshine fame
After the starbristles
agitates upholstered harmony
to the detriment of smile one hurts its “All”
-all poems taken from Refried Oracle Phone
January O’Neil
Funny Poem
This is a funny poem. It is also polite—
it’s pleased to make your acquaintance.
It stands alone in that it likes to be petted,
held, taken out for a walk, scratched behind
the ears, and enjoys the occasional hearty chortle.
This poem is not afraid to mention random
funny things like bananas, ponies,
feet, flan, unicorns, or Britney Spears.
This poem was funny when funny wasn't cool.
It revels in its difference, it likes that
it’s not your standard free verse,
formal, confessional, or sad bastard poem.
This poem has always wanted to use the word
boomerang. If you say to it, “A man walks
down the street with a duck under its arm,”
it will feign amusement because it’s heard
that one before, and come back to you with,
“What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?
A stick.” This poem is proud of itself
for working in that joke. If this poem
made you smile at all, it will say, “mission
accomplished,” and mean it in a good way
My Body After Kids
Sags everywhere.
Looks like a chicken
in a butcher’s storefront.
Wet tea bags for breasts,
oatmeal for thighs, as if
my old self was recalled
and I was given this.
See how my body
redistributes itself
cell by cell by cell
into a new circumference,
almost global? My hands
once bright as fans
used to envelop the dusk
and twirl in dance. Now they
belong to a shape shifter—
someone called out of one world
and thrown into another.
Monday
After the accident, strangers hurry past
as we pull into the median to check for dents.
Our car armor, polished yet worn,
is now streaked with damage. We dig
in our purses, find proof of existence,
although we're not really sure what that means.
Already the day feels old in its caustic
morning thrum. Every five minutes
an accident occurs—bumper to bumper
in the stop-start lingo of the highway.
We are made vulnerable by the April exhaust,
just one more thing that makes this life heavy.
Makes me think our days are marked with bulleyes
on the backs of cars, how a crack in the road
veers us toward the crack in everything. What else
can we do but shake hands and strap ourselves
back in? My car rattles like bones in the trunk.
The Wilting
Sometimes at nightI rise from bed
to look at my dark skin.
I make sure I can still see
my mother’s red clayand my father’s kudzu
growing around
these roadside eyes,
a vista that fades
with each passing season.
The two noses I carry
come together as a hill
on a ruddy landscape.
In the soil of my flesh
once grew dogwood
and crepe myrtle—
the harvest of where I came.
How lucky I am
to witness this wilting,
night after night,
as field returns to field.
Contrasts
The camera loves us,
it bravely looks us in the eyes,
does its best to defend us from light
and dark, though it seekswhat is not there.
If I turn my head,
bring my face my husband’s
there is always contrast.
See my husband’s slight smile?
He is light bouncing off of light
that I absorb. The camera
has a dumb eye, makes me glow
in the noonday sun.
Funny Poem
This is a funny poem. It is also polite—
it’s pleased to make your acquaintance.
It stands alone in that it likes to be petted,
held, taken out for a walk, scratched behind
the ears, and enjoys the occasional hearty chortle.
This poem is not afraid to mention random
funny things like bananas, ponies,
feet, flan, unicorns, or Britney Spears.
This poem was funny when funny wasn't cool.
It revels in its difference, it likes that
it’s not your standard free verse,
formal, confessional, or sad bastard poem.
This poem has always wanted to use the word
boomerang. If you say to it, “A man walks
down the street with a duck under its arm,”
it will feign amusement because it’s heard
that one before, and come back to you with,
“What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?
A stick.” This poem is proud of itself
for working in that joke. If this poem
made you smile at all, it will say, “mission
accomplished,” and mean it in a good way
My Body After Kids
Sags everywhere.
Looks like a chicken
in a butcher’s storefront.
Wet tea bags for breasts,
oatmeal for thighs, as if
my old self was recalled
and I was given this.
See how my body
redistributes itself
cell by cell by cell
into a new circumference,
almost global? My hands
once bright as fans
used to envelop the dusk
and twirl in dance. Now they
belong to a shape shifter—
someone called out of one world
and thrown into another.
Monday
After the accident, strangers hurry past
as we pull into the median to check for dents.
Our car armor, polished yet worn,
is now streaked with damage. We dig
in our purses, find proof of existence,
although we're not really sure what that means.
Already the day feels old in its caustic
morning thrum. Every five minutes
an accident occurs—bumper to bumper
in the stop-start lingo of the highway.
We are made vulnerable by the April exhaust,
just one more thing that makes this life heavy.
Makes me think our days are marked with bulleyes
on the backs of cars, how a crack in the road
veers us toward the crack in everything. What else
can we do but shake hands and strap ourselves
back in? My car rattles like bones in the trunk.
The Wilting
Sometimes at nightI rise from bed
to look at my dark skin.
I make sure I can still see
my mother’s red clayand my father’s kudzu
growing around
these roadside eyes,
a vista that fades
with each passing season.
The two noses I carry
come together as a hill
on a ruddy landscape.
In the soil of my flesh
once grew dogwood
and crepe myrtle—
the harvest of where I came.
How lucky I am
to witness this wilting,
night after night,
as field returns to field.
Contrasts
The camera loves us,
it bravely looks us in the eyes,
does its best to defend us from light
and dark, though it seekswhat is not there.
If I turn my head,
bring my face my husband’s
there is always contrast.
See my husband’s slight smile?
He is light bouncing off of light
that I absorb. The camera
has a dumb eye, makes me glow
in the noonday sun.
About Art - Molecule ManApparently floating on the river Spree in Berlin, Germany, the massive Molecule Man casts a striking shadow which leaves you in no doubt what it’s a sculpture of. However from ground level you really see how well the illusion is realized.
Molecule Man was designed in aluminum by an American artist Jonathan Borofsky, who is better known for another of his works, Hammering Man. Molecule Man is actually a series of three sculptures installed in various cities throughout the world. It is located near Treptowers. It stands near the middle of the Spree River with many workboats and tourist boats passing it every day and can be seen clearly from the S-Bahn train looking down the River Spree towards the centre of Berlin, just left of the Fernsehturm or TV tower.
The giant artwork built in 1998 to 1999 for the new Allianz Corporation headquarters in Berlin (architect: Peter Schwegler). The sculpture consists of three male figures each around 30 metres or 100 feet high. The figures have holes symbolising molecules.
Borofsky's first Molecule Man sculptures were made in 1977 and 1978 in Los Angeles. Early molecule structures included a molecule chair, a ceramic molecule vase, a molecule figure and a model for a molecule building made from styrofoam balls. Originally, he was fascinated by this molecule idea because even though we appear to be quite solid, we are in fact composed of a molecule structure which, in itself is mostly composed of water and air.
He says that this hundred-foot tall aluminum sculpture composed of three figures meeting in the center, not only refers to the lightness inside our own solid bodies, but also the figures joining in the center, refer to the molecules of all human beings coming together to create our existence. Find out more about the artist at: http://www.borofsky.com/
About Books:Title: Yoik
Author: Bob Beagrie
Description: A volume of poems, conveying a remarkable range of tone and reference, verbal dexterity, strong, muscular, visceral use of language, yet, at the same time, a softness. They range from seemingly rough-hewn dialect chat, to the myths and folklore of the Celts, the Native Americans or the Finns.
Product Details:
Printed: Paperback, 216x140 mm, 80 pages
ISBN: 9781905614400 (1905614403)
Copyright: December 2007
Language: English
Country: UK
Publisher's Link: www.gwales.com/home/?lang=ENtsid=2
About Music - Doc GynecoDoc Gynéco (real name, Bruno Beausir) is a popular French hip hop artist of Guadeloupean origin. His music is typically characterized as a raggae/rap style, that has found its fan base in France. Born in Clichy-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis, on July 7, 1974, Beausir's mother was Caribbean and his father white. The latter left them in 1990, and partly as a result of this, Beausir was poor in his later teen years.
He launched his career at the age of 19, writing a few tracks for the hardcore rap group Ministère AMER. After this rap group parted, Virgin Records signed him with the intent of converting his demos into an album in Paris, but the project fell through, which resulted in him leaving for Los Angeles to work with a famous American producer, Ken Kessie.
The collaboration produced “Première Consultation”, released in 1996, which received large media praise and huge success both in France and the world. Singles from the album include “Est-ce que ça le fait?”, “Viens voir le docteur”, “Dans Ma Rue”, “Passements de Jambes”, and “Né Ici”.
Two years later on the December 1st of 1998 his second album appeared in the shops, entitled “Liaisons Dangereuses”. Although the main single — “C’est Beau La Vie” — created with the help of a politician (Bernard Tapie) was a flop, the album still sold reasonably well and earned its author even more notoriety.
He launched his career at the age of 19, writing a few tracks for the hardcore rap group Ministère AMER. After this rap group parted, Virgin Records signed him with the intent of converting his demos into an album in Paris, but the project fell through, which resulted in him leaving for Los Angeles to work with a famous American producer, Ken Kessie.
The collaboration produced “Première Consultation”, released in 1996, which received large media praise and huge success both in France and the world. Singles from the album include “Est-ce que ça le fait?”, “Viens voir le docteur”, “Dans Ma Rue”, “Passements de Jambes”, and “Né Ici”.
Two years later on the December 1st of 1998 his second album appeared in the shops, entitled “Liaisons Dangereuses”. Although the main single — “C’est Beau La Vie” — created with the help of a politician (Bernard Tapie) was a flop, the album still sold reasonably well and earned its author even more notoriety.
In the spring of 2001, Doc Gynéco tried to come back at the front of the music scene after a few years of silence with his third creation “Quality Street” . The single “Caramel”, the first release from this new album met little success; yet guest stars on the album include the Wu-Tang Clan and Gregory Isaac.
In August of 2002, the 4th album called “Solitaire” came out. This last realization found its audience and gave Doc Gynéco the “Victoire de La Musique” award for “Best hip-hop/rap album of the Year”. Singles include “Funky Maxime”, “Frotti Frotta”, and “Flash”. A collection of his hit singles since the beginning of his career was released during 2004 (called 'Menu Best-of'). During 2006 the album Homme Nature was released. Find out more about him at: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Gyneco
In August of 2002, the 4th album called “Solitaire” came out. This last realization found its audience and gave Doc Gynéco the “Victoire de La Musique” award for “Best hip-hop/rap album of the Year”. Singles include “Funky Maxime”, “Frotti Frotta”, and “Flash”. A collection of his hit singles since the beginning of his career was released during 2004 (called 'Menu Best-of'). During 2006 the album Homme Nature was released. Find out more about him at: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Gyneco
Tim Martin
How ‘Bout Them Apples
then two trains latter and
imariachi singer at the forties
monday to friday hourly relates
in tempo changes that porter
tunes in crystal tube radio hobbies
or in counseling we awkward
robots with unpretty dates
‘tis your silent witness here
that rises early in smoke
stand on any moving object
is that faces make me hurt
and force countdowns when
home along oil down dust road
sit’s spring and all we misplace
The Spanish Lover
sunday is an empty cup by noon
there a leafed through copy left
of everything in a scary movie
it is a dance of chickens once more
whose russian bosses give noise
to promises of one day of rest
in foreign, it is easy to be taken in
to give over and boy scout on
with rumors that it is the business
here in summer she sips the kool-aid
it is points of tongue that occur
when citrus tastes old in march
perform faster to memorize her side
in the end, only our winters matter
Sonnet For My Jaw
1986, i am a pointless secret agent
silently that kidnaps off sands
what riot of only brown power
too close to draw from memory
i don’t like the way this sounds
that pirates could have blamed
for texting a function of twenties
it’s true, they congregate guiltlessly
and sure to bring a wingman
this is an accused vocabuary
that did this to me in atari
in a lifetime that yearns to faint
at any one word that comes
to us in the guise as days of service
Broke Even
in this video my class of men
not yet sepia before new decades
what is the last car of our
bachelordom on bamboo screens
all the way half on electricity
holiday recasts his autobiography
this is the sad part of hope city
ten chips down slaps the wheel
it sounds so much more polite
to put lady in front of your terms
womanly at the bottom on the ocean
true believers end their discussions
that outcome is empty gold bird
that twists blades of light on our backs
Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
two hundred-three dollars mid-august
cried for luck this bourbon contribution
of next steps, some rings, baby names
& the western slope which is burning
and the one plays it out in lonely wind
for taciturn gods in full opera voice
just back from gathering folks
in stoic imaginations of the neighbors
police calls through rainy sundays
who makes this ratio of yin and yang
five years and misplaced address book
for our only meetingplace is these events
thunderless when you are entertainers
we hold the fire back for you to cross
-all poems from his blog, and to think I saw it on floyd terrace
How ‘Bout Them Apples
then two trains latter and
imariachi singer at the forties
monday to friday hourly relates
in tempo changes that porter
tunes in crystal tube radio hobbies
or in counseling we awkward
robots with unpretty dates
‘tis your silent witness here
that rises early in smoke
stand on any moving object
is that faces make me hurt
and force countdowns when
home along oil down dust road
sit’s spring and all we misplace
The Spanish Lover
sunday is an empty cup by noon
there a leafed through copy left
of everything in a scary movie
it is a dance of chickens once more
whose russian bosses give noise
to promises of one day of rest
in foreign, it is easy to be taken in
to give over and boy scout on
with rumors that it is the business
here in summer she sips the kool-aid
it is points of tongue that occur
when citrus tastes old in march
perform faster to memorize her side
in the end, only our winters matter
Sonnet For My Jaw
1986, i am a pointless secret agent
silently that kidnaps off sands
what riot of only brown power
too close to draw from memory
i don’t like the way this sounds
that pirates could have blamed
for texting a function of twenties
it’s true, they congregate guiltlessly
and sure to bring a wingman
this is an accused vocabuary
that did this to me in atari
in a lifetime that yearns to faint
at any one word that comes
to us in the guise as days of service
Broke Even
in this video my class of men
not yet sepia before new decades
what is the last car of our
bachelordom on bamboo screens
all the way half on electricity
holiday recasts his autobiography
this is the sad part of hope city
ten chips down slaps the wheel
it sounds so much more polite
to put lady in front of your terms
womanly at the bottom on the ocean
true believers end their discussions
that outcome is empty gold bird
that twists blades of light on our backs
Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
two hundred-three dollars mid-august
cried for luck this bourbon contribution
of next steps, some rings, baby names
& the western slope which is burning
and the one plays it out in lonely wind
for taciturn gods in full opera voice
just back from gathering folks
in stoic imaginations of the neighbors
police calls through rainy sundays
who makes this ratio of yin and yang
five years and misplaced address book
for our only meetingplace is these events
thunderless when you are entertainers
we hold the fire back for you to cross
-all poems from his blog, and to think I saw it on floyd terrace
Shanna Compton
We’re loving it.
A blue photograph of course contains sky.
It was taken from a car window.
A push upward during a movement forward.
Stripes flick through the asphalt sling.
What’s passed unseen.
What’s remarked.
All that’s never said, needs to be said.
Images lined up rows. Hoarded for later.
Night arcs add to a continuous sense
of April, of this year. Please welcome.
To the pink pages, thank you.
Thank you parasol. Thank you fuzzy voiced
at the mike. Thank you ice in a glass.
The road is a method, or a line joining
one possible former with a likely latter
like a ladder.
And yes, the sky is blue.
& it can be photographed.
Our official position is class piñata.
Our innermost breaks.
The Bloody Intellect
What has she done
with her white feathered dressing gown
her getaway rococo as dream?
Misplaced her tongue
along a redundant ear in error,
in sorrow, with intent.
Beginning with white
is to erase the body,
silence the voice, blank the self
to receive the costumes it consumes.
Potted plants stand in trios,
pointed & pruned. Trained
with snipping & ties.
So public a face, hers,
it hardly belongs.
A camera. All poses. All lies.
-both poems previously published at Dusie
In half-asleep love
I hush the peaches
the darkened kitchen
eerily clean in the
stainless gleam of the
fridge and stove
redoubling the bounce.
The cat bootlegs some
chow bleating like
some other animal,
ripping at the carpet
with an alien noise.
He’s a shroud of a pet.
Earlier we barhopped,
avoided the jiffy algebras
of shifting seats at tables
by simply leaving.
A door functions both ways.
Open for water.
Open for air.
Even A Zoo
The dawn arrived and the plums fell.
We were both naïve and bold.
Down it dropped into fields of saffron.
Like flakes in winter triumph
in the face of shine on snow
the sand conditions things
for change or burial.
Who knows? The camels of this caravan
might expand into cheap memories
in the national language.
But there is more to me than this.
183,000 pampered miles more
and in great condition.
Bubble Up
Blue drunk on applejacked burst
bulbs the buzzed of lower lawns mown
down the gullet with a POD glossy cover
galley of thighs ricochets impromptu
critique with sexy no coverup fleshy
bareness! it's spring in Brooklyn
and we're all poets everybody
I am you are babies dogs
their walkers and nannies the mailman
the barber whole pack of teen bangers
the dude going Dirty Fruit! Dirty Fruit!
something it took me years
to learn suddenly clear:
poems at no charge here
-all three previously published at Coconut Poetry
We’re loving it.
A blue photograph of course contains sky.
It was taken from a car window.
A push upward during a movement forward.
Stripes flick through the asphalt sling.
What’s passed unseen.
What’s remarked.
All that’s never said, needs to be said.
Images lined up rows. Hoarded for later.
Night arcs add to a continuous sense
of April, of this year. Please welcome.
To the pink pages, thank you.
Thank you parasol. Thank you fuzzy voiced
at the mike. Thank you ice in a glass.
The road is a method, or a line joining
one possible former with a likely latter
like a ladder.
And yes, the sky is blue.
& it can be photographed.
Our official position is class piñata.
Our innermost breaks.
The Bloody Intellect
What has she done
with her white feathered dressing gown
her getaway rococo as dream?
Misplaced her tongue
along a redundant ear in error,
in sorrow, with intent.
Beginning with white
is to erase the body,
silence the voice, blank the self
to receive the costumes it consumes.
Potted plants stand in trios,
pointed & pruned. Trained
with snipping & ties.
So public a face, hers,
it hardly belongs.
A camera. All poses. All lies.
-both poems previously published at Dusie
In half-asleep love
I hush the peaches
the darkened kitchen
eerily clean in the
stainless gleam of the
fridge and stove
redoubling the bounce.
The cat bootlegs some
chow bleating like
some other animal,
ripping at the carpet
with an alien noise.
He’s a shroud of a pet.
Earlier we barhopped,
avoided the jiffy algebras
of shifting seats at tables
by simply leaving.
A door functions both ways.
Open for water.
Open for air.
Even A Zoo
The dawn arrived and the plums fell.
We were both naïve and bold.
Down it dropped into fields of saffron.
Like flakes in winter triumph
in the face of shine on snow
the sand conditions things
for change or burial.
Who knows? The camels of this caravan
might expand into cheap memories
in the national language.
But there is more to me than this.
183,000 pampered miles more
and in great condition.
Bubble Up
Blue drunk on applejacked burst
bulbs the buzzed of lower lawns mown
down the gullet with a POD glossy cover
galley of thighs ricochets impromptu
critique with sexy no coverup fleshy
bareness! it's spring in Brooklyn
and we're all poets everybody
I am you are babies dogs
their walkers and nannies the mailman
the barber whole pack of teen bangers
the dude going Dirty Fruit! Dirty Fruit!
something it took me years
to learn suddenly clear:
poems at no charge here
-all three previously published at Coconut Poetry
Contributors Biographies
Christine Hamm: she is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University. In 2007, she was a runner up to Queens' Poet Laureate. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake Review, Horseless Press, Lodestar Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, Snow Monkey and Exquisite Corpse, among others. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and once for "The Best of the Web". Her collection of poems is called The Transparent Dinner (Mayapple Press, 2006). She teaches English at Rutgers University and poetry writing at Women's Studio Center in Queens, NY. She has publised three chapbooks and lives in NYC area.Find her blog at www.christinehamm.org
Cheong Lee San: works in a telecommunication industry where he spends his days writing boring reports, excuses and subtle threats. The only conclusion he can come up with for continuing his profession is that it pays the bills, which in turn keeps insomnia at bay. His real passion is poetry, something he writes in his spare time. What inspires him are the mundane, ordinary events and people that he observes during his work and play in his urban world. His work has appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and The Sidewalk's End. He resides in Singapore. You can read more of his works at his poetry blog at http://dsnake1.blogspot.com
Tasha Klein: she is a receptionist for a retirement facility and a telecommunications business. She is inspired by the poetry of Anne Sexton, Jim Morrison and E.E. Cummings. She has been published in numerous web eZines including Conspire, 2River View, Snakeskin, The Melic Review, The Rose & Thorn, Gumball Poetry, Mentress Moon, Mind Caviar, The Green Tricycle, Mi Poesias, Poems Niederngasse, MindKites, Snow Monkey, 3rd Muse Poetry, New World Poetry, Southern Ocean Review, and so on. She lives in a grain solo in Dekalb, IL. Find out more about her at www.myspace.com/dreamsonnets
Micha Boland: he believes his photography can speak words he never thought were in his soul. So he lets his pictures do the talking. Some of his motifs include Monumental Valley, Florence, Berlin, Las Vegas, and carnivals. He shots with a keen artistic talent whether the subject matter is the Glen Canyon Dam or the Mercedes Benz Museum. He lives and works in Zollernalbkreis, Germany. Find more at: www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/pcat/339019
Patry Francis: she grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, a city known for its legendary boxers and its heritage as "the shoe city of the world". Both her father and grandfather labored in the leather factories. She likes classic novels like David Copperfield and Crime and Punishment. Her first novel, The Liar's Diary, was published by Dutton and Brilliance Audio in February, 2007, and there are plans for it being published in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic. She continues to reside in New England. Find her blogsite at www.waitresspoems.blogspot.com
Stan Apps: he is a poet and essayist, originally from Toronto, Canada, and Waco, Texas. Currently though, the gusty winds of D.C. are tearing him loose from his root-system in Los Angeles, California, and transplanting him to Tampa, Florida. His books include Info Ration (Make Now) and Soft Hands (Ugly Duckling); upcoming books include God's Livestock Policy (Les Figues) and Why I Joined the Avant-Garde (essays from Combo Books). Drive one mile more and take the first exit to his blog at: http://nonprovocativeurl.blogspot.com
January O'Neil: she is a 39 year old teacher, poet, writer and editor with a keen interest in literature and the Boston Red Sox. Her poetry and articles have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Literary Mama, Field, Callaloo, Seattle Review, Stuff Magazine, Poetry Thursday, and Cave Canem Anthologies II and IV, among others. She is a fellow with Cave Canem poets, and is cofounder and cohost of New and Emerging Writers Series (NEWS), a blossoming reading series in Arlington, MA. Her first collection of poems, titled Underlife, will be published by CavanKerry Press in October 2009. She lives with her husband and two kids in North Shore, MA. Her blog is called Poet Mom at http://poetmom.blogspot.com
Xiaoyang Galas: she was born in 1973 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. From 1993-95 she studied art at Sichuan Fine Arts Academy. By 2002, she had had first solo exhibition of her oil paintings which she titled “From China To Europe” at the Rentes Genevoises in Geneva, Switzerland. She says there is so much sorrow in the world, but she does not want to paint that side. She wants to be a contributor to the world’s beauty. She currently lives in Varennes Saint. Sauveur, France. Visit her website at www.artbreath21.com
Tim Martin: he has a BA in Writing and Literature. His serial poem, ricochet, has been recorded twice and recently turned into a performance piece.His work has appeared in iOutlaw, One Less Magazine,Fugacity,Hamilton Stone Review, Big Bridge, Altered Books Project, The Attic Which is Desire and other small magazines. A professional stage manager, he has worked with many theatres in the Philly area (Enchantment Theatre, Theatre Ariel, New Paradise Laboratories, and many others.) He is the production manager for Mum Puppettheatre and Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company. He lives in Philadelphia, PA. His blog can be found at http://timothymartin.blogspot.com
Shanna Compton: her books and chapbooks include Down Spooky, (Winnow Press, 2005), Closest Major Town (HEHF, 2006), and For Girls (Bloof Books, 2007). Her poems and essays have appeared in dozens of publications and several anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2005, and the Poetry Foundation website. She founded the DIY Poetry Publishing Cooperative in 2005 and publishes poetry chapbooks and broadsides via her micropress Half Empty/Half Full. She works as a freelance copywriter/publisher and occasionally teaches poetry. She lives in NYC. Her website can be found at http://shannacompton.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 Sept. 1st.
Copyright 2008 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/
Christine Hamm: she is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University. In 2007, she was a runner up to Queens' Poet Laureate. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake Review, Horseless Press, Lodestar Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, Snow Monkey and Exquisite Corpse, among others. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and once for "The Best of the Web". Her collection of poems is called The Transparent Dinner (Mayapple Press, 2006). She teaches English at Rutgers University and poetry writing at Women's Studio Center in Queens, NY. She has publised three chapbooks and lives in NYC area.Find her blog at www.christinehamm.org
Cheong Lee San: works in a telecommunication industry where he spends his days writing boring reports, excuses and subtle threats. The only conclusion he can come up with for continuing his profession is that it pays the bills, which in turn keeps insomnia at bay. His real passion is poetry, something he writes in his spare time. What inspires him are the mundane, ordinary events and people that he observes during his work and play in his urban world. His work has appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and The Sidewalk's End. He resides in Singapore. You can read more of his works at his poetry blog at http://dsnake1.blogspot.com
Tasha Klein: she is a receptionist for a retirement facility and a telecommunications business. She is inspired by the poetry of Anne Sexton, Jim Morrison and E.E. Cummings. She has been published in numerous web eZines including Conspire, 2River View, Snakeskin, The Melic Review, The Rose & Thorn, Gumball Poetry, Mentress Moon, Mind Caviar, The Green Tricycle, Mi Poesias, Poems Niederngasse, MindKites, Snow Monkey, 3rd Muse Poetry, New World Poetry, Southern Ocean Review, and so on. She lives in a grain solo in Dekalb, IL. Find out more about her at www.myspace.com/dreamsonnets
Micha Boland: he believes his photography can speak words he never thought were in his soul. So he lets his pictures do the talking. Some of his motifs include Monumental Valley, Florence, Berlin, Las Vegas, and carnivals. He shots with a keen artistic talent whether the subject matter is the Glen Canyon Dam or the Mercedes Benz Museum. He lives and works in Zollernalbkreis, Germany. Find more at: www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/pcat/339019
Patry Francis: she grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, a city known for its legendary boxers and its heritage as "the shoe city of the world". Both her father and grandfather labored in the leather factories. She likes classic novels like David Copperfield and Crime and Punishment. Her first novel, The Liar's Diary, was published by Dutton and Brilliance Audio in February, 2007, and there are plans for it being published in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic. She continues to reside in New England. Find her blogsite at www.waitresspoems.blogspot.com
Stan Apps: he is a poet and essayist, originally from Toronto, Canada, and Waco, Texas. Currently though, the gusty winds of D.C. are tearing him loose from his root-system in Los Angeles, California, and transplanting him to Tampa, Florida. His books include Info Ration (Make Now) and Soft Hands (Ugly Duckling); upcoming books include God's Livestock Policy (Les Figues) and Why I Joined the Avant-Garde (essays from Combo Books). Drive one mile more and take the first exit to his blog at: http://nonprovocativeurl.blogspot.com
January O'Neil: she is a 39 year old teacher, poet, writer and editor with a keen interest in literature and the Boston Red Sox. Her poetry and articles have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Literary Mama, Field, Callaloo, Seattle Review, Stuff Magazine, Poetry Thursday, and Cave Canem Anthologies II and IV, among others. She is a fellow with Cave Canem poets, and is cofounder and cohost of New and Emerging Writers Series (NEWS), a blossoming reading series in Arlington, MA. Her first collection of poems, titled Underlife, will be published by CavanKerry Press in October 2009. She lives with her husband and two kids in North Shore, MA. Her blog is called Poet Mom at http://poetmom.blogspot.com
Xiaoyang Galas: she was born in 1973 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. From 1993-95 she studied art at Sichuan Fine Arts Academy. By 2002, she had had first solo exhibition of her oil paintings which she titled “From China To Europe” at the Rentes Genevoises in Geneva, Switzerland. She says there is so much sorrow in the world, but she does not want to paint that side. She wants to be a contributor to the world’s beauty. She currently lives in Varennes Saint. Sauveur, France. Visit her website at www.artbreath21.com
Tim Martin: he has a BA in Writing and Literature. His serial poem, ricochet, has been recorded twice and recently turned into a performance piece.His work has appeared in iOutlaw, One Less Magazine,Fugacity,Hamilton Stone Review, Big Bridge, Altered Books Project, The Attic Which is Desire and other small magazines. A professional stage manager, he has worked with many theatres in the Philly area (Enchantment Theatre, Theatre Ariel, New Paradise Laboratories, and many others.) He is the production manager for Mum Puppettheatre and Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company. He lives in Philadelphia, PA. His blog can be found at http://timothymartin.blogspot.com
Shanna Compton: her books and chapbooks include Down Spooky, (Winnow Press, 2005), Closest Major Town (HEHF, 2006), and For Girls (Bloof Books, 2007). Her poems and essays have appeared in dozens of publications and several anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2005, and the Poetry Foundation website. She founded the DIY Poetry Publishing Cooperative in 2005 and publishes poetry chapbooks and broadsides via her micropress Half Empty/Half Full. She works as a freelance copywriter/publisher and occasionally teaches poetry. She lives in NYC. Her website can be found at http://shannacompton.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 Sept. 1st.
Copyright 2008 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/
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