Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Editor's Note:
Welcome to the sixteenth issue of CSR! By now, you regular readers know my baby has no mask for memory in silence unavailable and hates to eat with a bib. It craves chocolate and likes candlelight with a bit of rust in it. Baby has an uncanny ability to turn the words of poets into peanut brittle. Issue Sixteen is an excellent example. This month CSR is filled with stunning photographs by a Russian emigrant, along with art that splashes in sidewalk puddles. Add to that, a group of wonderful poets, an intriguing music maker and one magical book review and you've got the possibility for a bear, a wolf, or maybe more like reindeer tracks. Trust me, when you finish this issue you'll feel like a penny postal rate increase. Or no one could have guessed she wore bi-focals. Either way, this issue will highjack your interest with delights seldom found in military cargo. So escape from your farmer's almanac and get busy...
Welcome to the sixteenth issue of CSR! By now, you regular readers know my baby has no mask for memory in silence unavailable and hates to eat with a bib. It craves chocolate and likes candlelight with a bit of rust in it. Baby has an uncanny ability to turn the words of poets into peanut brittle. Issue Sixteen is an excellent example. This month CSR is filled with stunning photographs by a Russian emigrant, along with art that splashes in sidewalk puddles. Add to that, a group of wonderful poets, an intriguing music maker and one magical book review and you've got the possibility for a bear, a wolf, or maybe more like reindeer tracks. Trust me, when you finish this issue you'll feel like a penny postal rate increase. Or no one could have guessed she wore bi-focals. Either way, this issue will highjack your interest with delights seldom found in military cargo. So escape from your farmer's almanac and get busy...
Mike Estabrook
My Wife Washing Her Hair
At the kitchen sink,
in her pajamas,
(thinly disguising her lush body beneath)
bending over, scrubbing the shampoo
into her shiny hair,
her eyes closed,
her fingers rubbing her scalp
like kneading dough,
then a long rinse,
rinsing the soap out before dabbing
conditioner in, then rubbing again,
then rinsing again,
wrapping the towel around,
throwing her head back
like a mermaid
rising from the foam of the surf,
turning into the room towards me,
like presenting herself
at the Duke’s grand ball.
Been a long time
since I’ve witnessed anything
quite so beautiful.
Lone White Dove
I look at her, gaze at her
sitting like Mary in the corner
of the sofa
her legs folded under,
her pink fingernails shining,
her soft brown hair
grazing her neck and shoulders
like cirrus clouds, white wisps
caressing the edges of the world.
I marvel that I still see
the same beautiful girl
I fell in love with three decades ago
and have protected, cherished
and worshipped as if she were
the very last member of her species,
a lone white dove clinging
with her soft talons onto a ridge
of a craggy mountain cliff
holding back the impending storm.
Barbershop
Raining when I get to
the barbershop. The guys
are rearranging
the display windows,
dusting, setting up bottles
and brushes in
a more interesting way.
Todd the Barber smiles at me,
his white teeth flashing,
as he clears a chair,
as he pumps me up,
and begins to snip away
at my ever-thinning hair:
around my ears,
an inch above my collar.
He doesn't talk thank God.
I'm tired and hate
small talk in barbershops.
Instead I listen
to the old songs playing
on the AM station; listen
to Carly Simon's warm
wonderful mouth,
and wonder as Todd the Barber
snip, snip, snips, how
what's-his-name Taylor
could've ever let her
get away.
I threw my socks
I was so mad (I forget what about)
that when I got home and began
undressing I took off
my socks and threw them,
not at anyone,
simply threw them on the bed.
Yes, I threw my socks. They didn’t even
make a sound as they landed
like dreams on the bedspread.
And there was a time
when I was a fairly respectable
weightlifter and took karate,
and I was a gymnast too and am still
a strong swimmer. What has become of me?
I wonder what I’ll throw
ten years from now when I get mad.
Roadside Party
Cluster of seven or eight pink
and yellow balloons stuck high
in a tree alongside the road.
Winter is setting in,
the tree has lost its leaves,
and the stuck balloons
stay there wobbling around
in the wind. I wonder
how they got there so far
from houses and parties
and the mall, only cars
and trucks whizzing by
all day long and into the night.
My Wife Washing Her Hair
At the kitchen sink,
in her pajamas,
(thinly disguising her lush body beneath)
bending over, scrubbing the shampoo
into her shiny hair,
her eyes closed,
her fingers rubbing her scalp
like kneading dough,
then a long rinse,
rinsing the soap out before dabbing
conditioner in, then rubbing again,
then rinsing again,
wrapping the towel around,
throwing her head back
like a mermaid
rising from the foam of the surf,
turning into the room towards me,
like presenting herself
at the Duke’s grand ball.
Been a long time
since I’ve witnessed anything
quite so beautiful.
Lone White Dove
I look at her, gaze at her
sitting like Mary in the corner
of the sofa
her legs folded under,
her pink fingernails shining,
her soft brown hair
grazing her neck and shoulders
like cirrus clouds, white wisps
caressing the edges of the world.
I marvel that I still see
the same beautiful girl
I fell in love with three decades ago
and have protected, cherished
and worshipped as if she were
the very last member of her species,
a lone white dove clinging
with her soft talons onto a ridge
of a craggy mountain cliff
holding back the impending storm.
Barbershop
Raining when I get to
the barbershop. The guys
are rearranging
the display windows,
dusting, setting up bottles
and brushes in
a more interesting way.
Todd the Barber smiles at me,
his white teeth flashing,
as he clears a chair,
as he pumps me up,
and begins to snip away
at my ever-thinning hair:
around my ears,
an inch above my collar.
He doesn't talk thank God.
I'm tired and hate
small talk in barbershops.
Instead I listen
to the old songs playing
on the AM station; listen
to Carly Simon's warm
wonderful mouth,
and wonder as Todd the Barber
snip, snip, snips, how
what's-his-name Taylor
could've ever let her
get away.
I threw my socks
I was so mad (I forget what about)
that when I got home and began
undressing I took off
my socks and threw them,
not at anyone,
simply threw them on the bed.
Yes, I threw my socks. They didn’t even
make a sound as they landed
like dreams on the bedspread.
And there was a time
when I was a fairly respectable
weightlifter and took karate,
and I was a gymnast too and am still
a strong swimmer. What has become of me?
I wonder what I’ll throw
ten years from now when I get mad.
Roadside Party
Cluster of seven or eight pink
and yellow balloons stuck high
in a tree alongside the road.
Winter is setting in,
the tree has lost its leaves,
and the stuck balloons
stay there wobbling around
in the wind. I wonder
how they got there so far
from houses and parties
and the mall, only cars
and trucks whizzing by
all day long and into the night.
Justin Lowe
Faces
somehow
I find myself at the water
the scratch and titter of the city
carried low like murmurs under a blanket
two of everything
two Customs Houses, two Darling Points
two Crosses brilliant in the brackish slick
I wish I had my line
the wind brisk in my face
and everyone asleep behind me
Sydney, AD 1924
as I think I may have mentioned
the gasp of a world away
still everywhere and in everything
and the thief
suddenly a rush of air beside me
your name is Albermarle Long
acting captain, DSO
there is a small rock
shows up by the pontoons at evening tide
the mustard lights from the city
paint a face on it
a sad, drowning man
like old Andrews
swallowed up by himself
kissing the hands of his gaolers
I often gaze at it
think the obvious thoughts
but tonight
I have this other face to mull over
it has been
quite a night for faces
I've been watching you, he says
I know what it's like, cobber
drunk as I am I know the spiel
one side or other wants my body in a hall
I tell him go hang
he grins that grin of captains on whistles
shifts his weight a little
cocks his head
trying to dodge whatever bullet
he imagines me loading
Solitary
they will not leave me in peace
living or dead
imagine me idle
playing quicksilver to the fish
I am merely a shape to them
dough-faced atavar
something in which
they can house their definitions
but they are not the gallant heroes
some would make them
they brought a great malevolence
back with them
they cannot seem to bury it
the soil here too hard
even for so black a seed
there's plenty see me as a chancer
amongst those who stayed behind
chasing girls
dangling hooks off the pier
they don't know about the fire
in the soles of my feet
how I must plan each careful step
Georgia
returning
to find my mother dying
I closed my heart
to the ticker tape salutations
the victory march of thin-lipped creditors
I did what had to be done
although I could not muster enough
boys to carry the coffin
so the storekeepers shouldered up
pressed kind bundles
into my hand for weeks afterward
they were weeks of cloud
and the weight of my old voice returning
aged to a whisper
like the pages of a book hrmpphing at the wind
my mother's dying
was an odd kind of blessing for us both
she saw me home safe
through the patches in her fever
and then she left me
while I was changing her garlic presses
I have known boys
simply up and go from the gruff, halting questions
never to return
and for a while there I followed them
out west to those scratchings in the dirt
the desolate lean-tos
the clink of dead soldiers beyond the dug-out tallow
but eventually I returned
to the vast expanse of this house
where the only questions were mine
and the answers would come in time
until tonight, that is
and Georgia with her great sad eyes
Tiny Flowers
she is a dark girl
in a plain blue dress
she has a white mark
the shape of a lemon along her jaw line
her gloves have little flowers
sprouting blood-red at the wrist
her eyes are a mud brown
void of everything but one deep hurt
she is a little stooped already
like the widow Stuart next door
she cannot quite comprehend
where I have put the dog
she ponders over it
like a shy child pondering a kiss
she has the heavy lids
of a creature who cannot cry
sips her tea
with a little wombat smile
I don't think
she ever asked me my name
simply launched into her story
by which, of course, she means Braidwood
John "Jacky" Braidwood
the source of my great loathing for diminutives
wool classer out west
son of a Forbes wool classer
returned to his town and trade
with no great ceremony
people never gave Jack his due
a handful of victorious boys
swinging their arms wide to fill the spaces
he probably picked her up on the edge of town
one of those fragrant shadows
always ripe to take the heat
off such heroes
Dynamite
I was not
taught dogs as a boy
the time they occupy
the corner of your eye
that space between two thoughts
that is a man's only real estate
but since his friend died
little Satan has become my shadow to the pier
two, three telegraph poles behind
frozen like a furry little statue
if I happen to stop
to check he is the only one
it has been going on for weeks
but still he insists we play this little game
as soon as I settle in my spot
he springs on me
with a grin as wide as Sydney
and that dead eye gone oyster blue with cunning
we both pretend
the day made fools of us
he hails from wolves
but merely scratches at the call of space
while I lose myself
in that ghostly wink of oyster blue
settle my lines
and watch them fish out bodies in the chop
he is too tiny for this world
busy like a nerve-end with some ancient pain
sometimes I can hear them dynamiting
as I clear the rise
a red whisper that clings to the oil
- from “Magellenica” work-in-progress 2008
Faces
somehow
I find myself at the water
the scratch and titter of the city
carried low like murmurs under a blanket
two of everything
two Customs Houses, two Darling Points
two Crosses brilliant in the brackish slick
I wish I had my line
the wind brisk in my face
and everyone asleep behind me
Sydney, AD 1924
as I think I may have mentioned
the gasp of a world away
still everywhere and in everything
and the thief
suddenly a rush of air beside me
your name is Albermarle Long
acting captain, DSO
there is a small rock
shows up by the pontoons at evening tide
the mustard lights from the city
paint a face on it
a sad, drowning man
like old Andrews
swallowed up by himself
kissing the hands of his gaolers
I often gaze at it
think the obvious thoughts
but tonight
I have this other face to mull over
it has been
quite a night for faces
I've been watching you, he says
I know what it's like, cobber
drunk as I am I know the spiel
one side or other wants my body in a hall
I tell him go hang
he grins that grin of captains on whistles
shifts his weight a little
cocks his head
trying to dodge whatever bullet
he imagines me loading
Solitary
they will not leave me in peace
living or dead
imagine me idle
playing quicksilver to the fish
I am merely a shape to them
dough-faced atavar
something in which
they can house their definitions
but they are not the gallant heroes
some would make them
they brought a great malevolence
back with them
they cannot seem to bury it
the soil here too hard
even for so black a seed
there's plenty see me as a chancer
amongst those who stayed behind
chasing girls
dangling hooks off the pier
they don't know about the fire
in the soles of my feet
how I must plan each careful step
Georgia
returning
to find my mother dying
I closed my heart
to the ticker tape salutations
the victory march of thin-lipped creditors
I did what had to be done
although I could not muster enough
boys to carry the coffin
so the storekeepers shouldered up
pressed kind bundles
into my hand for weeks afterward
they were weeks of cloud
and the weight of my old voice returning
aged to a whisper
like the pages of a book hrmpphing at the wind
my mother's dying
was an odd kind of blessing for us both
she saw me home safe
through the patches in her fever
and then she left me
while I was changing her garlic presses
I have known boys
simply up and go from the gruff, halting questions
never to return
and for a while there I followed them
out west to those scratchings in the dirt
the desolate lean-tos
the clink of dead soldiers beyond the dug-out tallow
but eventually I returned
to the vast expanse of this house
where the only questions were mine
and the answers would come in time
until tonight, that is
and Georgia with her great sad eyes
Tiny Flowers
she is a dark girl
in a plain blue dress
she has a white mark
the shape of a lemon along her jaw line
her gloves have little flowers
sprouting blood-red at the wrist
her eyes are a mud brown
void of everything but one deep hurt
she is a little stooped already
like the widow Stuart next door
she cannot quite comprehend
where I have put the dog
she ponders over it
like a shy child pondering a kiss
she has the heavy lids
of a creature who cannot cry
sips her tea
with a little wombat smile
I don't think
she ever asked me my name
simply launched into her story
by which, of course, she means Braidwood
John "Jacky" Braidwood
the source of my great loathing for diminutives
wool classer out west
son of a Forbes wool classer
returned to his town and trade
with no great ceremony
people never gave Jack his due
a handful of victorious boys
swinging their arms wide to fill the spaces
he probably picked her up on the edge of town
one of those fragrant shadows
always ripe to take the heat
off such heroes
Dynamite
I was not
taught dogs as a boy
the time they occupy
the corner of your eye
that space between two thoughts
that is a man's only real estate
but since his friend died
little Satan has become my shadow to the pier
two, three telegraph poles behind
frozen like a furry little statue
if I happen to stop
to check he is the only one
it has been going on for weeks
but still he insists we play this little game
as soon as I settle in my spot
he springs on me
with a grin as wide as Sydney
and that dead eye gone oyster blue with cunning
we both pretend
the day made fools of us
he hails from wolves
but merely scratches at the call of space
while I lose myself
in that ghostly wink of oyster blue
settle my lines
and watch them fish out bodies in the chop
he is too tiny for this world
busy like a nerve-end with some ancient pain
sometimes I can hear them dynamiting
as I clear the rise
a red whisper that clings to the oil
- from “Magellenica” work-in-progress 2008
Laurence W. Thomas
A Town Never Sleeps
--for Lee, after chemo
A town never really sleeps;
there’s always some figure under a light
over the platform at the station
or just walking along under a streetlight,
someone drinking coffee in the only restaurant
and one serving the coffee making small talk.
Light behind curtains marks an insomniac
or sleep interrupted. Sometimes on his rounds,
a cop responds to a call to settle some difference
and restore order, or he just saunters along
clicking his night stick on a picket fence.
A dog barks, a car passes, the tower clock
ticks away the hours as unnoticed
as the convalescent moon gliding silently on.
Dissolution
I loved that man.
Through the mud and sweat,
the hardening of bodies and honing of skills,
learning neither to think nor question,
we were trained in the futility of war.
And then we were in it.
Through sand and incessant sun,
the constant threat of mines and suicide bombers,
learning neither patriotism nor victory,
but that the will to live leads to hostility.
We became a team.
Covering each other’s asses
as we burst into homes, blasting the nameless,
mindless of factions and principles,
we sang the song of dissolution,
We loved each other.
With the manly love of trust
and mutual dependence to save our skins
we loved, until one absurd explosion
and all love went out of me.
The Coffee Table Book
--opens to an argument over a nude odalisque
plucking grapes with fingers like mother of pearl
awaiting the veneration of a plumed prince as the page
--moves to a rose-stained window depicting armies
marching in blood-red dusk, the disarray of victory
etched grimly on their faces while the enemy’s fate
--shifts into luxuriant meadows and copses, villagers
celebrating harvests or marriages, wine turning sour
in overindulgence and boys brawling under windmills
--turning into towering cities awash in golden sunsets
beset with fountains spewing gore into the gutters
snarling traffic bent on evacuation, the warning light
--changing to a Madonna and child, their halos aglow
spreading peace in the manger, attended by worshippers
with gifts of gilt treasury bonds and smoked salmon
--that morphs into an amphitheater of wizened worms
crawling to get to the lobby echoing the vulture cries
of those arguing to gain the favors of a nude odalisque.
Aging
Study the aging, how they forget the names they
would have had trouble with at thirty. A sudden
question confuses them like on an examination in
high school, a poser on a quiz show. They do well
for their age like children, praised for their efforts
even when they lose or raise eyebrows when they
make mistakes. Suffer the deliberations of those
getting on; they don't dash out between parked
cars, abuse themselves, nor end up with unwanted
children. Help them to find ways to fill their time like
travel and gardening or bridge and good books, without
ever suggesting roller blades or bunji jumping. If there
were a war, the oldest would remember and say it isn't
worth it or that all strikes are from ignorance blaming
the unions perhaps, or unwillingness to compromise.
They complain too much that no one listens like
teenagers whose ideas are shot down untried, like
subordinates who are prevented from revolutionizing
the work place. Think of those advancing in years not
as prone to maladies like measles or mumps or gaining
the fortunes of others to squander, but as those with
irreversible illnesses such as old age pensions, senior
citizen discounts, destitution, and deaths that someone
else must pay for. Consider the successes or failures of
man as guides to action, but for the condition of the world,
study the aging.
Innate
Beasts supreme in their territoriality
defend what is theirs instinctively.
Big fish do not hate their prey
nor minnows those whose hunger they satisfy.
Birds and squirrels contend
over available food.
Animals cannot argue; they strike--
their monstrous egos blinding them.
Like men
it is easier to strike than talk.
-Taken from his collection, Beyond The Bridge
A Town Never Sleeps
--for Lee, after chemo
A town never really sleeps;
there’s always some figure under a light
over the platform at the station
or just walking along under a streetlight,
someone drinking coffee in the only restaurant
and one serving the coffee making small talk.
Light behind curtains marks an insomniac
or sleep interrupted. Sometimes on his rounds,
a cop responds to a call to settle some difference
and restore order, or he just saunters along
clicking his night stick on a picket fence.
A dog barks, a car passes, the tower clock
ticks away the hours as unnoticed
as the convalescent moon gliding silently on.
Dissolution
I loved that man.
Through the mud and sweat,
the hardening of bodies and honing of skills,
learning neither to think nor question,
we were trained in the futility of war.
And then we were in it.
Through sand and incessant sun,
the constant threat of mines and suicide bombers,
learning neither patriotism nor victory,
but that the will to live leads to hostility.
We became a team.
Covering each other’s asses
as we burst into homes, blasting the nameless,
mindless of factions and principles,
we sang the song of dissolution,
We loved each other.
With the manly love of trust
and mutual dependence to save our skins
we loved, until one absurd explosion
and all love went out of me.
The Coffee Table Book
--opens to an argument over a nude odalisque
plucking grapes with fingers like mother of pearl
awaiting the veneration of a plumed prince as the page
--moves to a rose-stained window depicting armies
marching in blood-red dusk, the disarray of victory
etched grimly on their faces while the enemy’s fate
--shifts into luxuriant meadows and copses, villagers
celebrating harvests or marriages, wine turning sour
in overindulgence and boys brawling under windmills
--turning into towering cities awash in golden sunsets
beset with fountains spewing gore into the gutters
snarling traffic bent on evacuation, the warning light
--changing to a Madonna and child, their halos aglow
spreading peace in the manger, attended by worshippers
with gifts of gilt treasury bonds and smoked salmon
--that morphs into an amphitheater of wizened worms
crawling to get to the lobby echoing the vulture cries
of those arguing to gain the favors of a nude odalisque.
Aging
Study the aging, how they forget the names they
would have had trouble with at thirty. A sudden
question confuses them like on an examination in
high school, a poser on a quiz show. They do well
for their age like children, praised for their efforts
even when they lose or raise eyebrows when they
make mistakes. Suffer the deliberations of those
getting on; they don't dash out between parked
cars, abuse themselves, nor end up with unwanted
children. Help them to find ways to fill their time like
travel and gardening or bridge and good books, without
ever suggesting roller blades or bunji jumping. If there
were a war, the oldest would remember and say it isn't
worth it or that all strikes are from ignorance blaming
the unions perhaps, or unwillingness to compromise.
They complain too much that no one listens like
teenagers whose ideas are shot down untried, like
subordinates who are prevented from revolutionizing
the work place. Think of those advancing in years not
as prone to maladies like measles or mumps or gaining
the fortunes of others to squander, but as those with
irreversible illnesses such as old age pensions, senior
citizen discounts, destitution, and deaths that someone
else must pay for. Consider the successes or failures of
man as guides to action, but for the condition of the world,
study the aging.
Innate
Beasts supreme in their territoriality
defend what is theirs instinctively.
Big fish do not hate their prey
nor minnows those whose hunger they satisfy.
Birds and squirrels contend
over available food.
Animals cannot argue; they strike--
their monstrous egos blinding them.
Like men
it is easier to strike than talk.
-Taken from his collection, Beyond The Bridge
Andrew Shields
Campfire
The crumpled balls of paper start to burn.
The twigs and sticks above them catch on quick.
The logs on top are harder to convince.
But in the end, they burn, like all the rest.
The embers glow till only Venus shines.
The ashes stir when sunrise brings a breeze.
Mandolin
My chilly fingers
played
across the mandolin's
fret
board and strings,
ringing
into the cool
October
day while I
waited,
on a slightly
damp
bench above the
asphalt
path to the
beach
beside the North
Sea,
for wife and
son,
who were late
again.
Romance
Another minor character dies
and rises up to heaven,
described in just a few short lines.
This author's now killed seven,
sacrifices to the plots
of novels, plays, and stories,
whose protagonists do not
have any major worries,
except for whom they'll finally wed
at their happy ends.
Then they will forget the dead,
their long-lost, minor friends,
until they end up dying someday
in a tale unwritten,
leaving someone else to say,
"I don't care a bit."
Those Who Wake At Night
There's something profound about lying awake at night:
moments of melancholy philosophy
form transitory constellations as bright
as the Milky Way, as orderly
as any Cassiopeia or Orion.
But not for revelation did I wake
last night: I woke to hear the baby crying,
then stayed awake with a cough that made me shake
all over every time I closed my eyes.
In such a night, who can philosophize?
Campfire
The crumpled balls of paper start to burn.
The twigs and sticks above them catch on quick.
The logs on top are harder to convince.
But in the end, they burn, like all the rest.
The embers glow till only Venus shines.
The ashes stir when sunrise brings a breeze.
Mandolin
My chilly fingers
played
across the mandolin's
fret
board and strings,
ringing
into the cool
October
day while I
waited,
on a slightly
damp
bench above the
asphalt
path to the
beach
beside the North
Sea,
for wife and
son,
who were late
again.
Romance
Another minor character dies
and rises up to heaven,
described in just a few short lines.
This author's now killed seven,
sacrifices to the plots
of novels, plays, and stories,
whose protagonists do not
have any major worries,
except for whom they'll finally wed
at their happy ends.
Then they will forget the dead,
their long-lost, minor friends,
until they end up dying someday
in a tale unwritten,
leaving someone else to say,
"I don't care a bit."
Those Who Wake At Night
There's something profound about lying awake at night:
moments of melancholy philosophy
form transitory constellations as bright
as the Milky Way, as orderly
as any Cassiopeia or Orion.
But not for revelation did I wake
last night: I woke to hear the baby crying,
then stayed awake with a cough that made me shake
all over every time I closed my eyes.
In such a night, who can philosophize?
David Michael Wolach
Groundwork
Tonight I left bloody footprints
on the steps leading to my office.
I have no office. We of the part
time have no debt. Isn't that lovely?
I did not commit the crime. I merely
walked through the crime scene.
I am not an accessory. They call
me a witness. I witnessed nothing.
Someone asked if I did it
and I told them the sun fell
long before I was born. These footprints
are not mine, they are my shoe's.
My legs did the walking and my feet
trudged through this fantastically manicured shrubbery
and before I could ask you where I'd gone
those tracks were laid to history.
-Previously published in Night Train, 2007
Janigro’s Revenge
now
the only
music is scattered
says the cellist boy.
as that calcifying golden evening
descends fast like bald lucky vultures
upon the praying hands of Badura Skoda
he manages to pluck our strings smirking
so you like Schubert's trio in
E flat? he died composing
it and you, loverof his sorrowwill die
eatingit
Strange watching daylight behind me sink into the valley.
As he opens now like cunt throwing glass jaws at these
paper times.
Swimming In Multiverse
There is always something nothing broken. Figure.
Bly me is a phrase that I'll never use out loud but I
think it sometimes. Fake, ruinous carnivalesque
theories are here for the heartsickness. You want to say:
in art there is nothing as pure, pregnant and potent as
nothing. Wittgenstein. You want to say to him: do not
die, and by heartsickness you mean heart attack or
conduction block and by pure you mean absent and
by pregnant you really do mean just that—pregnant,
carrying child, etc., etc. There is no mystery in this.
There is no mystery. That period, right over there—
left—is meant to signify: there is nothing more to say.
We would shrug together, you and I. We would shrug in
unison, harmony, discordant rhythm. Synchronous. Had
we a pool and life preservers we would be performing
that ritual they call synchronized swimming. You have
this urge: go to the Summer Olympic Games and qualify.
With all the style, the ornament, the grace of the
Olympic Synchronized Swimmer. Simply so you can, in
the final round, shrug. We of this the pool, shrugging.
Once. The score would be low but the audience would
get it. So much. They too would shrug. Or sigh. Or say:
there is nothing more to say.
-Both previously published in Toasted Cheese
Union Our Union
from Fractions of M
I never worked for you, never stole
your cogs or shavings. Staplers
bully pulpit. My hands are mine
never left my pockets, sixty hour
weeks and the picket, near zero mornings
never. I never pushed your paper
only pushed your paper nine percent
of the time. The rest wrestling lions
offshore at a caffeinated rest home named
Zoots. Or watching men whose filing systems
were certainly more interesting than their files.
Or translating glances into intimations
imminent lunch hour flings. Or and or and
if, and you never had me, I was never there.
I was always officing, sidewalk
sidebars, bludgeoning your huge corpus
callosum with my thrilling multi-tasking.
Until the hush hush chant of bust
and halt, this day, new act broke our lifelong
tryst into the tiniest blunt scarps of directionality.
The language of the universe
I remind you, stakes no claim on us, leftovers.
The Line of the Work
from The Cutting Room
The line of the work is in scars,
the feet of crows balancing moment
by moment. The line of the work
has been crossed, as blood drawn
always houses seeds for unfortunate days.
The line of the work is the work
yet unmined, tracing the outline
of a window's glare, January—
formidable obstacles from porch
to lawn, lawn to shoveled asphalt.
The line of the work lays its head
on the road, listening for something
of potentially no value. The line of the work
wears itself, returns at night brotherless,
handfuls of lipstick, two handfuls ignorant
of their origin beyond the obvious fact
of lips. The line of the work is the electrical
heat of the worker, moving us from street
to street, alert beyond comprehension, underground.
The line of the work ascends, no apotheosis,
a night clear of disaster, just air, hot
it falls upward and disperses. The line of the work
wants more than murmur. The murmur says:
"Quiet, listen to me. I am the sounds
of a whole history of martyrs.”
Groundwork
Tonight I left bloody footprints
on the steps leading to my office.
I have no office. We of the part
time have no debt. Isn't that lovely?
I did not commit the crime. I merely
walked through the crime scene.
I am not an accessory. They call
me a witness. I witnessed nothing.
Someone asked if I did it
and I told them the sun fell
long before I was born. These footprints
are not mine, they are my shoe's.
My legs did the walking and my feet
trudged through this fantastically manicured shrubbery
and before I could ask you where I'd gone
those tracks were laid to history.
-Previously published in Night Train, 2007
Janigro’s Revenge
now
the only
music is scattered
says the cellist boy.
as that calcifying golden evening
descends fast like bald lucky vultures
upon the praying hands of Badura Skoda
he manages to pluck our strings smirking
so you like Schubert's trio in
E flat? he died composing
it and you, loverof his sorrowwill die
eatingit
Strange watching daylight behind me sink into the valley.
As he opens now like cunt throwing glass jaws at these
paper times.
Swimming In Multiverse
There is always something nothing broken. Figure.
Bly me is a phrase that I'll never use out loud but I
think it sometimes. Fake, ruinous carnivalesque
theories are here for the heartsickness. You want to say:
in art there is nothing as pure, pregnant and potent as
nothing. Wittgenstein. You want to say to him: do not
die, and by heartsickness you mean heart attack or
conduction block and by pure you mean absent and
by pregnant you really do mean just that—pregnant,
carrying child, etc., etc. There is no mystery in this.
There is no mystery. That period, right over there—
left—is meant to signify: there is nothing more to say.
We would shrug together, you and I. We would shrug in
unison, harmony, discordant rhythm. Synchronous. Had
we a pool and life preservers we would be performing
that ritual they call synchronized swimming. You have
this urge: go to the Summer Olympic Games and qualify.
With all the style, the ornament, the grace of the
Olympic Synchronized Swimmer. Simply so you can, in
the final round, shrug. We of this the pool, shrugging.
Once. The score would be low but the audience would
get it. So much. They too would shrug. Or sigh. Or say:
there is nothing more to say.
-Both previously published in Toasted Cheese
Union Our Union
from Fractions of M
I never worked for you, never stole
your cogs or shavings. Staplers
bully pulpit. My hands are mine
never left my pockets, sixty hour
weeks and the picket, near zero mornings
never. I never pushed your paper
only pushed your paper nine percent
of the time. The rest wrestling lions
offshore at a caffeinated rest home named
Zoots. Or watching men whose filing systems
were certainly more interesting than their files.
Or translating glances into intimations
imminent lunch hour flings. Or and or and
if, and you never had me, I was never there.
I was always officing, sidewalk
sidebars, bludgeoning your huge corpus
callosum with my thrilling multi-tasking.
Until the hush hush chant of bust
and halt, this day, new act broke our lifelong
tryst into the tiniest blunt scarps of directionality.
The language of the universe
I remind you, stakes no claim on us, leftovers.
The Line of the Work
from The Cutting Room
The line of the work is in scars,
the feet of crows balancing moment
by moment. The line of the work
has been crossed, as blood drawn
always houses seeds for unfortunate days.
The line of the work is the work
yet unmined, tracing the outline
of a window's glare, January—
formidable obstacles from porch
to lawn, lawn to shoveled asphalt.
The line of the work lays its head
on the road, listening for something
of potentially no value. The line of the work
wears itself, returns at night brotherless,
handfuls of lipstick, two handfuls ignorant
of their origin beyond the obvious fact
of lips. The line of the work is the electrical
heat of the worker, moving us from street
to street, alert beyond comprehension, underground.
The line of the work ascends, no apotheosis,
a night clear of disaster, just air, hot
it falls upward and disperses. The line of the work
wants more than murmur. The murmur says:
"Quiet, listen to me. I am the sounds
of a whole history of martyrs.”
About Art - The Broken Chair
The Broken Chair, was sculpted by Swiss artist, Daniel Berset. Originally erected on August 18, 1997, it was the brainchild of Paul Vermeulen, director of the non-governmental organization, Handicap International, in Geneva. He wanted a strong symbol of the fight against anti-personnel land mines as the world was joining together to sign the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction—or as it is more simply known, The Ottawa Convention or the Mine Ban Treaty. The lost leg symbolizes what so many land mine victims suffer. And they are the lucky ones. The others have lost their lives.
The simple brown wooden chair would look good at any dining room table if it were of normal size and if it had four instead of three and a quarter legs. The fourth leg is broken off, leaving shards of jagged wood, yet the chair does not tip.
It satnds 12-meter (39-foot) tall and is located between spouting fountains at the recently renovated Place des Nations, which leads to the UN European Headquarters. For two years the chair had been in storage while the Place was turned from a muddy field into a decorative plaza.
The statistics for deaths and injuries by unexploded land mines are staggering. Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia have suffered 85% of the world's land mine casualties. It is estimated there are some 37 million mines hidden in 19 African countries just waiting for someone to step on them or unearth them with a plough. In Angola alone, there are 70,000 victims. Eight thousand are children. Each year between 15,000 and 20,000 new land mine causalities occur, according to one UN estimate from Landmine Monitor.
Originally the chair was to be on site only three months, until all countries had signed the Ottawa Convention. Although 122 countries did sign, others did not, so the chair, instead of being removed in December 2005, stayed overlooking different peace demonstrations that were regularly held in the area, not just for land mines, but for oppressed and endangered people all over the world. In the two years the chair was in storage, 30 more countries signed the Ottawa Convention. Forty-two have not, including the US. For a complete list on who has and hasn’t signed it, see www.icbl.org/treaty/.
The Broken Chair, was sculpted by Swiss artist, Daniel Berset. Originally erected on August 18, 1997, it was the brainchild of Paul Vermeulen, director of the non-governmental organization, Handicap International, in Geneva. He wanted a strong symbol of the fight against anti-personnel land mines as the world was joining together to sign the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction—or as it is more simply known, The Ottawa Convention or the Mine Ban Treaty. The lost leg symbolizes what so many land mine victims suffer. And they are the lucky ones. The others have lost their lives.
The simple brown wooden chair would look good at any dining room table if it were of normal size and if it had four instead of three and a quarter legs. The fourth leg is broken off, leaving shards of jagged wood, yet the chair does not tip.
It satnds 12-meter (39-foot) tall and is located between spouting fountains at the recently renovated Place des Nations, which leads to the UN European Headquarters. For two years the chair had been in storage while the Place was turned from a muddy field into a decorative plaza.
The statistics for deaths and injuries by unexploded land mines are staggering. Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia have suffered 85% of the world's land mine casualties. It is estimated there are some 37 million mines hidden in 19 African countries just waiting for someone to step on them or unearth them with a plough. In Angola alone, there are 70,000 victims. Eight thousand are children. Each year between 15,000 and 20,000 new land mine causalities occur, according to one UN estimate from Landmine Monitor.
Originally the chair was to be on site only three months, until all countries had signed the Ottawa Convention. Although 122 countries did sign, others did not, so the chair, instead of being removed in December 2005, stayed overlooking different peace demonstrations that were regularly held in the area, not just for land mines, but for oppressed and endangered people all over the world. In the two years the chair was in storage, 30 more countries signed the Ottawa Convention. Forty-two have not, including the US. For a complete list on who has and hasn’t signed it, see www.icbl.org/treaty/.
About Books:
Title: Stories Of The Feet
Author: Les Wicks
Description: Kurosawa from Oz? Reading the work in Stories of the feet made me wonder if Les Wicks is an Australian poetic equivalent of Kurosawa. Someone once said that you shouldn’t use poetry to tell a story. Either Les hasn’t heard this, or he chooses to ignore it. Much of his work consists of poetic snapshots which are acerbic cross-sections of the narratives of ordinary people; and it’s the very ordinariness of Wick’s characters which elevates them to heroic status. He’s at his best documenting the good, the bad and the ugly of the city...by the time I’d reached the final poem in the North section, I was hooked. Les Wicks seems to have some sort of photographic eye as he wanders through the landscape, focussing the lens on a detail most of us might miss, then interpreting the image in his own idiosyncratic style-- excerpts from review in Cordite by Rob Walker
Product Details:
Printed: 88 pages, 8 x 4.5 x 0.25 inches
ISBN: 1741280427
Copyright: 2004
Language: English
Country: Australia
Publisher's Link: http://www.poetryaustraliafoundation.org.au/FIP.htm
Title: Stories Of The Feet
Author: Les Wicks
Description: Kurosawa from Oz? Reading the work in Stories of the feet made me wonder if Les Wicks is an Australian poetic equivalent of Kurosawa. Someone once said that you shouldn’t use poetry to tell a story. Either Les hasn’t heard this, or he chooses to ignore it. Much of his work consists of poetic snapshots which are acerbic cross-sections of the narratives of ordinary people; and it’s the very ordinariness of Wick’s characters which elevates them to heroic status. He’s at his best documenting the good, the bad and the ugly of the city...by the time I’d reached the final poem in the North section, I was hooked. Les Wicks seems to have some sort of photographic eye as he wanders through the landscape, focussing the lens on a detail most of us might miss, then interpreting the image in his own idiosyncratic style-- excerpts from review in Cordite by Rob Walker
Product Details:
Printed: 88 pages, 8 x 4.5 x 0.25 inches
ISBN: 1741280427
Copyright: 2004
Language: English
Country: Australia
Publisher's Link: http://www.poetryaustraliafoundation.org.au/FIP.htm
About Music - Musica Antiqua Koln
For 27 years now, Musica Antiqua Köln (MAK) with its leader Reinhard Goebel have been associated with virtually every important musical center and festival at which early music is performed. The ensemble is renowned for their lively interpretations of 17th- and 18th -century works and for their virtuoso and imaginative historical performance practice.
Founded in 1973 by Reinhard Goebel and fellow students from the Cologne Conservatory, Musica Antiqua Köln initially devoted itself to the performance of Baroque chamber and sacred music. Musica Antiqua Köln's international breakthrough came in 1979, when the ensemble made its debut at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall during the annual English Bach Festival and gave five concerts at the Holland Festival.
On the occasion of their 10th anniversary, Reinhard Goebel augmented the ensemble's chamber-group nucleus with additional string and wind players to allow the performance of orchestral music as well - both in the concert hall and in the recording studio. Since 1981, Musica Antiqua Köln and Reinhard Goebel have made regular tours of the USA, visiting Australia and South America several times and touring China in "Bach Year", 1985. Musica Antiqua Köln received the Buxtehude Prize from the City of Lubeck and has also received awards from Siemens and the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen. In 1981 the ensemble was named "Artist of the Year" by the Deutsche Phono-akademie.
The group has been the exclusive artists of Archiv Produktion since 1978. Their innovative role in early music repertoire has been acknowledged internationally with numerous awards including the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis in 1981 and 1982, the Grand Prix International du Disque in 1984 and 1987, a Gramophone Award in 1984, and a CD Compact Award in 1990 Their recording of Heinichen's Dresden Concerti has won five major awards: the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 1993, the Gramophone Award 1993, the Prix Caecilia 1993, the Schallplattenpreis Echo-Klassik 1994 and the CD Compact Award 1994.
Some of their other celebrated releases include a recording of Handel's Marian Cantatas and Arias with Anne Sofie von Otter, which received the CD Compact Award 1995 in the "Baroque Vocal" category. The 1996 2-CD set featuring sacred music by Heinichen. 1996 also marked the release of the group's CD "Chaconne," a collection of varying composers' takes on that popular 17th-century dance form. The recording received rave reviews and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Get an idea what they sound like at www.rhapsody.com/musicaantiquakoln
For 27 years now, Musica Antiqua Köln (MAK) with its leader Reinhard Goebel have been associated with virtually every important musical center and festival at which early music is performed. The ensemble is renowned for their lively interpretations of 17th- and 18th -century works and for their virtuoso and imaginative historical performance practice.
Founded in 1973 by Reinhard Goebel and fellow students from the Cologne Conservatory, Musica Antiqua Köln initially devoted itself to the performance of Baroque chamber and sacred music. Musica Antiqua Köln's international breakthrough came in 1979, when the ensemble made its debut at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall during the annual English Bach Festival and gave five concerts at the Holland Festival.
On the occasion of their 10th anniversary, Reinhard Goebel augmented the ensemble's chamber-group nucleus with additional string and wind players to allow the performance of orchestral music as well - both in the concert hall and in the recording studio. Since 1981, Musica Antiqua Köln and Reinhard Goebel have made regular tours of the USA, visiting Australia and South America several times and touring China in "Bach Year", 1985. Musica Antiqua Köln received the Buxtehude Prize from the City of Lubeck and has also received awards from Siemens and the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen. In 1981 the ensemble was named "Artist of the Year" by the Deutsche Phono-akademie.
The group has been the exclusive artists of Archiv Produktion since 1978. Their innovative role in early music repertoire has been acknowledged internationally with numerous awards including the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis in 1981 and 1982, the Grand Prix International du Disque in 1984 and 1987, a Gramophone Award in 1984, and a CD Compact Award in 1990 Their recording of Heinichen's Dresden Concerti has won five major awards: the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 1993, the Gramophone Award 1993, the Prix Caecilia 1993, the Schallplattenpreis Echo-Klassik 1994 and the CD Compact Award 1994.
Some of their other celebrated releases include a recording of Handel's Marian Cantatas and Arias with Anne Sofie von Otter, which received the CD Compact Award 1995 in the "Baroque Vocal" category. The 1996 2-CD set featuring sacred music by Heinichen. 1996 also marked the release of the group's CD "Chaconne," a collection of varying composers' takes on that popular 17th-century dance form. The recording received rave reviews and was nominated for a Grammy Award. Get an idea what they sound like at www.rhapsody.com/musicaantiquakoln
David Morgan
Walking
Footsteps slacken then speed, hips dip and pivot;
We all walk strangely in our own way in here-
Hands tied in thought,
Keep the feet moving keep the feet moving-
Through brick climbing upon brick
To form the longlonglong
High building.
Above the triumphant bricks,
That stand-to-attention the army of windows,
Mist clouds flap like cloth;
Snagged on the sharp spikes of the rooftop….
Keep the feet moving keep the feet ….
Away in the grounds, lying beneath a tree,
I see last year, out-of-reach;
Last year doesn’t look like this,
For I was lying then beneath a tree
Hearing, on quiet evenings, the distant footsteps
Fill the building….
Keep the feet moving keep the feet….
Winds hiss round a ruined sunflower,
Blood clots the hawthorns….
Keep the feet…. Keep the feet….
Slow feet fast feet mad feet moving.
Eyes glare within;
Nostrils stretched thin by effort and strain-
Keep the feet moving keep the feet moving.
Loss, a painful rash, with each step,
Breaks out over and over again,
On the inside of the skin.
Addition
For the child has hidden
The bird in his desk
And all the children
Hear its song
And all the children
Hear the music
Turn off they go
And four and four in their
Turn and two and two
Fade away
And one and one make
Neither one nor two
But one and one off they go
And the lyre bird sings
And the child sings
And the teacher shouts
When you’re quite finished
Playing the fool
But all the children
Are listening to the music
And the walls of the classroom
Quietly crumble
The window panes turn
Once more to sand
The ink is sea
The desk is trees
The chalk is cliffs
And the feather
In the ancient quill
On display
A bird again soaring skyward
And eight and eight in their
Beda Venerabilis
Life, a sparrow’s flight
through a banqueting hall in winter.
In the middle of the hall
A comforting fire heats all within.
Outside the hall existential storms rage-
rain and wind and swirling snow.
Sparrow flies through one door, so soon
out the other that so easily opens.
Whilst inside sparrow’s safe,
yet the bitter eternity beyond
compulsively beckons to sparrow
to return from whence it came.
So we sparrows, for so brief a while,
fly through our haphazard halls,
but of what went before
or of what follows …
we guess everything-
preening our feathers in circular flight
of religious rituals of readiness-
but know nothing…nothing.
Owl
The sleeping owl is in the tree all day,
at night he comes out to hoot and hunt.
Do not wait for him to come out
before you play your parts.
He sleeps in the old shrewd oak-tree
but at night, his eyes are whirlpools
and when he floats over the house his spirit
carries the house with it above the oaks
to a lonely shining oasis where calm eyes watch awake
in the moonlight — but our eyes are always dreaming.
Ghosts On Toast
Don’t stand south side waiting for the Ferryman;
hay will not remain another day to be cut;
nor the snow lie in the winding, silent lane
next winter, until the children come.
Rain is insects scurrying along, active droplets
exploring cracks in pavements, being and non-being one.
Inside-outside we must acknowledge and act upon
the birth of each of life’s new illuminations.
Blackberries hang deliciously; clumps of congealed blood.
Persephone slams the door of her Range Rover
and carries the Tesco bags home through mist –
It’s ghosts on toast for the Ferryman tonight.
Away from the shore, south of the border,
familiar voices offer companionship; autumn
amorous starts to embrace summer (Hades smiles)
and me? … I’m still searching for the spring to come
Walking
Footsteps slacken then speed, hips dip and pivot;
We all walk strangely in our own way in here-
Hands tied in thought,
Keep the feet moving keep the feet moving-
Through brick climbing upon brick
To form the longlonglong
High building.
Above the triumphant bricks,
That stand-to-attention the army of windows,
Mist clouds flap like cloth;
Snagged on the sharp spikes of the rooftop….
Keep the feet moving keep the feet ….
Away in the grounds, lying beneath a tree,
I see last year, out-of-reach;
Last year doesn’t look like this,
For I was lying then beneath a tree
Hearing, on quiet evenings, the distant footsteps
Fill the building….
Keep the feet moving keep the feet….
Winds hiss round a ruined sunflower,
Blood clots the hawthorns….
Keep the feet…. Keep the feet….
Slow feet fast feet mad feet moving.
Eyes glare within;
Nostrils stretched thin by effort and strain-
Keep the feet moving keep the feet moving.
Loss, a painful rash, with each step,
Breaks out over and over again,
On the inside of the skin.
Addition
For the child has hidden
The bird in his desk
And all the children
Hear its song
And all the children
Hear the music
Turn off they go
And four and four in their
Turn and two and two
Fade away
And one and one make
Neither one nor two
But one and one off they go
And the lyre bird sings
And the child sings
And the teacher shouts
When you’re quite finished
Playing the fool
But all the children
Are listening to the music
And the walls of the classroom
Quietly crumble
The window panes turn
Once more to sand
The ink is sea
The desk is trees
The chalk is cliffs
And the feather
In the ancient quill
On display
A bird again soaring skyward
And eight and eight in their
Beda Venerabilis
Life, a sparrow’s flight
through a banqueting hall in winter.
In the middle of the hall
A comforting fire heats all within.
Outside the hall existential storms rage-
rain and wind and swirling snow.
Sparrow flies through one door, so soon
out the other that so easily opens.
Whilst inside sparrow’s safe,
yet the bitter eternity beyond
compulsively beckons to sparrow
to return from whence it came.
So we sparrows, for so brief a while,
fly through our haphazard halls,
but of what went before
or of what follows …
we guess everything-
preening our feathers in circular flight
of religious rituals of readiness-
but know nothing…nothing.
Owl
The sleeping owl is in the tree all day,
at night he comes out to hoot and hunt.
Do not wait for him to come out
before you play your parts.
He sleeps in the old shrewd oak-tree
but at night, his eyes are whirlpools
and when he floats over the house his spirit
carries the house with it above the oaks
to a lonely shining oasis where calm eyes watch awake
in the moonlight — but our eyes are always dreaming.
Ghosts On Toast
Don’t stand south side waiting for the Ferryman;
hay will not remain another day to be cut;
nor the snow lie in the winding, silent lane
next winter, until the children come.
Rain is insects scurrying along, active droplets
exploring cracks in pavements, being and non-being one.
Inside-outside we must acknowledge and act upon
the birth of each of life’s new illuminations.
Blackberries hang deliciously; clumps of congealed blood.
Persephone slams the door of her Range Rover
and carries the Tesco bags home through mist –
It’s ghosts on toast for the Ferryman tonight.
Away from the shore, south of the border,
familiar voices offer companionship; autumn
amorous starts to embrace summer (Hades smiles)
and me? … I’m still searching for the spring to come
Alicia Hoffman
Ephemeral
I used to wonder why the canvas of unwashed cars
pleaded for abolition, the ones with wash me
written on dusted pages of glass and chrome, fugitives
begging departure from the mobile canon, the traveling patois,
the entire lexicon of erasure. Then, the random gale
of a dream I dreamed dried up with morning
till nothing was left but imagistic dust, the kind
that finds itself caught in the duct of an eye
on days like today, when the skirts of the wind
blow sideways and the trees are a frenzy
from so much dancing and no one knows
what time it is. I used to wonder why
anyone would sweat such trouble for the short-lived:
Ice-sculptures in July, sandcastles at high tide, a popsicle
forgotten by the public swimming pool, but now this itself
is wonder, this leftover that will tear up, flush out,
this cleansing I can do nothing about but wait until
the slate wipes clean and starts over, so I will cherish
this evanescent remnant, this archaeological artifact, this
bit of picture fantastic for its ability to fade
like chalk drawings in Covent Garden after a day of rain.
Red lipstick. White Teeth.
This is what lingers in the after-flash.
The dilution of color, the fade before
the clear. It is as if I was never there,
which is true, even after the revision
of names and the buffet began to offer
a more diversified selection, though
this is what I would like to remember –
the clink of the glasses unexpected
and clamoring in the dark, the waiters
sensed only by the shush-shush
of their starched slacks rushing
by in blackness, the Moo Shoo and
the Kung Pao overwhelming
the voices of strangers rising like steam
from metallic platters, unavoidable and
closer now than they ever were before.
In Workshops
Katherine spoke of her boyfriend’s guitar,
the way the chords of his ribs became
the dissonance between the riffs.
At one point, the instrument hung
like a blossom between their absence
before it shed. Caroline was obsessed
with Virginia Woolf. The way her sweaters
always buttoned perfect to the cleft
of her peach colored neck was just annoying.
Once, the lightning took the power out.
Within the darkness of a Chinese Restaurant
someone lifted their chop-stick and laughed.
Patterns
There are patterns here.
Here, there are even
quirks in disappearing.
Once, to get away,
six months into the stay
I met a man who has seen me.
This is something, these verbs
linking what we try to unchain.
This is not meant to be
a confession. Here, there
is no booth. Listen. Here
there is the rustling of
the pages of the notes,
the tempo of the waves
the seabirds carry with them
in their exotic names,
the albatross and petrel,
the ordinary gull,
not to mention the plovers
of New Jersey sticking
their pine-needle beaks
like siphons into east-coast sand.
This has nothing to do with
them. This has nothing to do
with anything at all. This just
with anything at all. This just is
an attempt to understand
what appears random is not
as random as it tends to appear.
Mud Soup
- For Lexi
I will not have to give you the recipe
when you are old enough to know.
It is something I will not write down.
How Glidden paint cans strewn across
the landscape of a yard are the only vessel
for collecting rainwater. How it is important
to add summer grass first, green and
handpicked. Two scoopfuls of dirt,
sorrel, skunk cabbage, grit stolen
from a place I will wish you never to go.
You will marvel how each ingredient
colors the broth as I will notice
the brightness bringing me out. I will laugh
and say you’ve made your first mirepoix, and
will make no mention of the sun, the sheen
of halo around your tawny head, legs
tanned and laughter lifting everything higher.
We used to make a stew, old Glidden paint barrels,
broken landscape of yard, four parts
rainwater, a Pocono storm. Jack in the Box,
Queen Anne’s lace, the tartness of currants
stolen from bushes behind the abandoned tracks
we were not supposed to pass. How each ingredient
colors the broth, a mirepoix of gravel, sun in our hair,
how we spend our lives looking for the recipe of this,
how I was a child once and will not forget
it is nothing I need to write down.
- First published in Redactions
Ephemeral
I used to wonder why the canvas of unwashed cars
pleaded for abolition, the ones with wash me
written on dusted pages of glass and chrome, fugitives
begging departure from the mobile canon, the traveling patois,
the entire lexicon of erasure. Then, the random gale
of a dream I dreamed dried up with morning
till nothing was left but imagistic dust, the kind
that finds itself caught in the duct of an eye
on days like today, when the skirts of the wind
blow sideways and the trees are a frenzy
from so much dancing and no one knows
what time it is. I used to wonder why
anyone would sweat such trouble for the short-lived:
Ice-sculptures in July, sandcastles at high tide, a popsicle
forgotten by the public swimming pool, but now this itself
is wonder, this leftover that will tear up, flush out,
this cleansing I can do nothing about but wait until
the slate wipes clean and starts over, so I will cherish
this evanescent remnant, this archaeological artifact, this
bit of picture fantastic for its ability to fade
like chalk drawings in Covent Garden after a day of rain.
Red lipstick. White Teeth.
This is what lingers in the after-flash.
The dilution of color, the fade before
the clear. It is as if I was never there,
which is true, even after the revision
of names and the buffet began to offer
a more diversified selection, though
this is what I would like to remember –
the clink of the glasses unexpected
and clamoring in the dark, the waiters
sensed only by the shush-shush
of their starched slacks rushing
by in blackness, the Moo Shoo and
the Kung Pao overwhelming
the voices of strangers rising like steam
from metallic platters, unavoidable and
closer now than they ever were before.
In Workshops
Katherine spoke of her boyfriend’s guitar,
the way the chords of his ribs became
the dissonance between the riffs.
At one point, the instrument hung
like a blossom between their absence
before it shed. Caroline was obsessed
with Virginia Woolf. The way her sweaters
always buttoned perfect to the cleft
of her peach colored neck was just annoying.
Once, the lightning took the power out.
Within the darkness of a Chinese Restaurant
someone lifted their chop-stick and laughed.
Patterns
There are patterns here.
Here, there are even
quirks in disappearing.
Once, to get away,
six months into the stay
I met a man who has seen me.
This is something, these verbs
linking what we try to unchain.
This is not meant to be
a confession. Here, there
is no booth. Listen. Here
there is the rustling of
the pages of the notes,
the tempo of the waves
the seabirds carry with them
in their exotic names,
the albatross and petrel,
the ordinary gull,
not to mention the plovers
of New Jersey sticking
their pine-needle beaks
like siphons into east-coast sand.
This has nothing to do with
them. This has nothing to do
with anything at all. This just
with anything at all. This just is
an attempt to understand
what appears random is not
as random as it tends to appear.
Mud Soup
- For Lexi
I will not have to give you the recipe
when you are old enough to know.
It is something I will not write down.
How Glidden paint cans strewn across
the landscape of a yard are the only vessel
for collecting rainwater. How it is important
to add summer grass first, green and
handpicked. Two scoopfuls of dirt,
sorrel, skunk cabbage, grit stolen
from a place I will wish you never to go.
You will marvel how each ingredient
colors the broth as I will notice
the brightness bringing me out. I will laugh
and say you’ve made your first mirepoix, and
will make no mention of the sun, the sheen
of halo around your tawny head, legs
tanned and laughter lifting everything higher.
We used to make a stew, old Glidden paint barrels,
broken landscape of yard, four parts
rainwater, a Pocono storm. Jack in the Box,
Queen Anne’s lace, the tartness of currants
stolen from bushes behind the abandoned tracks
we were not supposed to pass. How each ingredient
colors the broth, a mirepoix of gravel, sun in our hair,
how we spend our lives looking for the recipe of this,
how I was a child once and will not forget
it is nothing I need to write down.
- First published in Redactions
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