December 2010
48 posts
2 tags
ROO BORSON: SUMMER'S DRUG
Those nights. They came after days during which my father’s cigarette glowed like a rose caught in sunset on a distant hillside. Then he would stub it out and night would fall.
The air would be traversed by strange scents emanating from night-blooms, and the passion vine broadcast for miles around its coded message, wound along the trellis. The fruit dangled, frosted with...
2 tags
ROO BORSON: SUMMER'S DRUG
Those nights. They came after days during which my father’s cigarette glowed like a rose caught in sunset on a distant hillside. Then he would stub it out and night would fall.
The air would be traversed by strange scents emanating from night-blooms, and the passion vine broadcast for miles around its coded message, wound along the trellis. The fruit dangled, frosted with...
2 tags
ROO BORSON: SAVE US FROM
Save us from night, from bleak open highways without end, and the fluorescent oases of gas stations, from the gunning of immortal engines past midnight, when times has no meaning, from all-night cafes, their ghoulish slices of pie, and the orange ruffle on the apron of the waitress, the matching plastic chairs, from orange and brown and all unearthly colours, banish them back to the...
2 tags
ROO BORSON: SAVE US FROM
Save us from night, from bleak open highways without end, and the fluorescent oases of gas stations, from the gunning of immortal engines past midnight, when times has no meaning, from all-night cafes, their ghoulish slices of pie, and the orange ruffle on the apron of the waitress, the matching plastic chairs, from orange and brown and all unearthly colours, banish them back to the...
2 tags
bill bissett: KINGS CROSS
ium waiting 4 yu in paddington all my memoreez pour out will i get lost in a see uv subjektivitee who wer yu th goddess sz if evreething hurts enuff i can still write lyrik poetree is it i dont remembr 4 sure i remembr th goddess tho its reelee bizee in paddington how long can i b heer its inside a red ...
2 tags
bill bissett: KINGS CROSS
ium waiting 4 yu in paddington all my memoreez pour out will i get lost in a see uv subjektivitee who wer yu th goddess sz if evreething hurts enuff i can still write lyrik poetree is it i dont remembr 4 sure i remembr th goddess tho its reelee bizee in paddington how long can i b heer its inside a red ...
2 tags
RONNA BLOOM: THE JOB OF AN APPLE
The job of an apple is to be hard, to be soft, to be crisp, to be red, yellow, and green. The job of an apple is to be pie, to be given to the teacher, to be rotten. The job of an apple is to be bad and good, to be peeled, cored, cut, bitten, and bruised. The job of an apple is to pose for painters, roll behind fridges, behind grocery aisles, to be hidden, wrapped in paper, stored for months,...
2 tags
RONNA BLOOM: THE JOB OF AN APPLE
The job of an apple is to be hard, to be soft, to be crisp, to be red, yellow, and green. The job of an apple is to be pie, to be given to the teacher, to be rotten. The job of an apple is to be bad and good, to be peeled, cored, cut, bitten, and bruised. The job of an apple is to pose for painters, roll behind fridges, behind grocery aisles, to be hidden, wrapped in paper, stored for months,...
3 tags
M. NOURBESE PHILIP - DISCOURSE ON THE LOGIC OF...
2 tags
M. NOURBESE PHILIP - DISCOURSE ON THE LOGIC OF...
2 tags
JEANETTE LYNES: THE INNER WORLD OF THE ORANGE
My mother’s most beloved trick: take a simple orange, turn it into pure sorrow. She did this in the manner of a spell, a story (the same story over, over). The dark handkerchief of her words whisked away, and presto— the dour ’30s, a girl whose teeth vibrated with ache, who walked barefoot in snow. Who received one orange each year in her Christmas sock. The story really began here—with her ...
2 tags
JEANETTE LYNES: THE INNER WORLD OF THE ORANGE
My mother’s most beloved trick: take a simple orange, turn it into pure sorrow. She did this in the manner of a spell, a story (the same story over, over). The dark handkerchief of her words whisked away, and presto— the dour ’30s, a girl whose teeth vibrated with ache, who walked barefoot in snow. Who received one orange each year in her Christmas sock. The story really began here—with her ...
2 tags
ROBERT PRIEST: READING THE BIBLE BACKWARDS
Reading the bible backwards Christ Jesus pops his nails And comes down To give the karma back to the people Bearing the cross downhill He shrugs off the scourging Of his torturers He escapes unscathed From his backwards trial Returned by Rome To the Judas kiss
Reading the bible backwards Christ Jesus says Cursed are the meek For the rich shall inherit the earth He says turn the...
2 tags
ROBERT PRIEST: READING THE BIBLE BACKWARDS
Reading the bible backwards Christ Jesus pops his nails And comes down To give the karma back to the people Bearing the cross downhill He shrugs off the scourging Of his torturers He escapes unscathed From his backwards trial Returned by Rome To the Judas kiss
Reading the bible backwards Christ Jesus says Cursed are the meek For the rich shall inherit the earth He says turn the...
2 tags
SANDRA PETTMAN: ASSEMBLAGE
i.
At the heart of the gallery, a dead tree is assembled. Cut from the place it grew, the tree is in pieces; screws, bolts, steel string now hold it together. I’ve come looking for stories, always in search of completion. I drank one more coffee than usual this morning. Allowances. If matter and energy could be rearranged like chunks of wood, like particles, how many formations before...
2 tags
SANDRA PETTMAN: ASSEMBLAGE
i.
At the heart of the gallery, a dead tree is assembled. Cut from the place it grew, the tree is in pieces; screws, bolts, steel string now hold it together. I’ve come looking for stories, always in search of completion. I drank one more coffee than usual this morning. Allowances. If matter and energy could be rearranged like chunks of wood, like particles, how many formations before...
2 tags
ANTONY DI NARDO: ARBOBITUARY: A FOUND POEM
American University of Beirut Newsletter January 2009
An old Mediterranean stone pine tree
after a silent decline died this past year at AUB.
Cause of death unknown.
Possible factors: extended periods of drought, soil compaction,
strong winds, air pollution,
among other pressures,
causing it to woefully succumb to attacks by pests and diseases
or die of physiological disorders.
There will...
2 tags
ANTONY DI NARDO: ARBOBITUARY: A FOUND POEM
American University of Beirut Newsletter January 2009
An old Mediterranean stone pine tree
after a silent decline died this past year at AUB.
Cause of death unknown.
Possible factors: extended periods of drought, soil compaction,
strong winds, air pollution,
among other pressures,
causing it to woefully succumb to attacks by pests and diseases
or die of physiological disorders.
There will...
2 tags
SHELLEY A. LEEDAHL: THE WEDNESDAY HOUR
You remember it now. Curled on his couch, it was child- like. A not-quite-comfortable angle, your head against a blue blanket. His ex-girlfriend’s cat, making human noises and warming your bare feet, didn’t care about any of this. Outside, historic yellow roses lit a bush in a hundred bonfires (no different than what was happening all over the town.) You were...
2 tags
SHELLEY A. LEEDAHL: THE WEDNESDAY HOUR
You remember it now. Curled on his couch, it was child- like. A not-quite-comfortable angle, your head against a blue blanket. His ex-girlfriend’s cat, making human noises and warming your bare feet, didn’t care about any of this. Outside, historic yellow roses lit a bush in a hundred bonfires (no different than what was happening all over the town.) You were...
2 tags
KATH MACLEAN: SO AND SO
Gray France, February 1915
We talk so much a whole life passes in an afternoon already we’re been to India, South America, France—
This room might be our ocean, far off & nowhere our rowboat rowing the dark wave upon wave waves of you.
We agree to undress slowly, naturally, to make our way to the bed where love is so and so; it’s hard not to laugh about our kiss, mumbling, here...
2 tags
KATH MACLEAN: SO AND SO
Gray France, February 1915
We talk so much a whole life passes in an afternoon already we’re been to India, South America, France—
This room might be our ocean, far off & nowhere our rowboat rowing the dark wave upon wave waves of you.
We agree to undress slowly, naturally, to make our way to the bed where love is so and so; it’s hard not to laugh about our kiss, mumbling, here...
2 tags
RIA VOROS: HOW TO BURY YOUR MOTHER
As he lies newly in the ground, pretend to be touched by the neighbours’ stories of her youthful whims: Thunderbird/Mustang races, fuchsia silk scarves. Invite them to your house as if they didn’t gossip about their cottage cheese thighs last week. Run red lights to get there first, to prepare the wake-party. Set out cookies and juice—a preschool picnic, but all you have—on a Christmas...
2 tags
RIA VOROS: HOW TO BURY YOUR MOTHER
As he lies newly in the ground, pretend to be touched by the neighbours’ stories of her youthful whims: Thunderbird/Mustang races, fuchsia silk scarves. Invite them to your house as if they didn’t gossip about their cottage cheese thighs last week. Run red lights to get there first, to prepare the wake-party. Set out cookies and juice—a preschool picnic, but all you have—on a Christmas...
2 tags
BRUCE WYSE: MOTEL MORNING
the day does not disturb and the urgent bladder knows only itself; inference is half-awake
the darkness in the room, as closed as a closet, is prized open by a wall-tall chisel of smoke coloured dimness, a film of unofficial day edging entry
on their shared bed my two young daughters are locked in martial arts sleep, oblivious black belts in...
2 tags
BRUCE WYSE: MOTEL MORNING
the day does not disturb and the urgent bladder knows only itself; inference is half-awake
the darkness in the room, as closed as a closet, is prized open by a wall-tall chisel of smoke coloured dimness, a film of unofficial day edging entry
on their shared bed my two young daughters are locked in martial arts sleep, oblivious black belts in...
2 tags
J.L. BOND: PAIN
Pain is a prowler at your back door, scuffing his boots, smudging the window, rattling the knob; a robber stomping on your glassed photographs, scooping your grandfather’s pocket watch, your mother’s pearls, your antique radio. It’s a stalker with thumping footfall, and the breath of browning mango peels in an alley; a mugger who claws at your chest, tears away the red petal...
2 tags
J.L. BOND: PAIN
Pain is a prowler at your back door, scuffing his boots, smudging the window, rattling the knob; a robber stomping on your glassed photographs, scooping your grandfather’s pocket watch, your mother’s pearls, your antique radio. It’s a stalker with thumping footfall, and the breath of browning mango peels in an alley; a mugger who claws at your chest, tears away the red petal...
2 tags
DANIEL GOODWIN: ICARUS
You are always there, Icarus, frozen in our minds in mid-fall for the sport of us poets who are compelled to wring meaning out of the thinnest air like second-rate magicians. You are always there with your trite moral and wax wings for us to trip over in our lemming rush to frame your mythical fumble. Each night we see you in our nightmares, the bright flash going off just as your wings melt away...
2 tags
DANIEL GOODWIN: ICARUS
You are always there, Icarus, frozen in our minds in mid-fall for the sport of us poets who are compelled to wring meaning out of the thinnest air like second-rate magicians. You are always there with your trite moral and wax wings for us to trip over in our lemming rush to frame your mythical fumble. Each night we see you in our nightmares, the bright flash going off just as your wings melt away...
2 tags
RICHARD NORMAN: SCAN
The stars triangulate the cell phone call: a woman captured in mid-song. She bathes in an Italian bath almost two thousand years ago. The waves CAT-scan the cistern wall and see the bones behind the brick. The light reads each black bar of code and makes a time and place you live.
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LESLIE CASEY: RESCUE
The lake before dawn— sudden thrash of a deer through the ice. The sirens wake me; beyond the window, flashed of red— lights, and the suits of the firefighters, ropes around their waists as the belly out from the shore.
These last weeks of winter— sunless cold weights the days. We are held in darkness, the slow lament of illuminated light.
It’s too dark to see his eyes, pools of shock and...
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JULIE PAUL: THE TABLE MUST ALWAYS BE CLEAN BEFORE...
A pair of scissors on the table is bad fortune Shoes or elbows on the table is bad manners Beer bottles on the table is a bad hangover Cat on the table is a bad cat
Crossed knives or bellows At the table mean a bad argument Sitting on the table temps fate Crossed forks at the table mean bad rumour Dropped cutlery mean a visitor (potentially bad)
But what of crumbs and grains of rice, And...
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RYAN QUINN FLANAGAN: HUBRIS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
I find it hard to believe I would be swept up and killed in a passing tornado.
I almost challenge the gods as much.
I’ve done so many reckless things in my life and should have died so many times that I now know I have nine lives
or at the very least a few more get out of jail free cards kicking around.
Every time there’s thunder and lightning I go stand out in the rain with a nine...
2 tags
MADHUR ANAND: TWO DAYS AFTER HER WEDDING IN...
She takes me to the Universidad del Valle’s ornighology collection. Down dimly lit dusty hallways to long fluorescent room lines with floor to ceiling drawers.
She pulls one open at about thigh-height to reveal hundreds of humming birds tucked in neatly, as if put to bed by a loving hand, each beak painstakingly labeled in black and white.
They are sorted small to large. But my definition...
2 tags
MADHUR ANAND: TWO DAYS AFTER HER WEDDING IN...
She takes me to the Universidad del Valle’s ornighology collection. Down dimly lit dusty hallways to long fluorescent room lines with floor to ceiling drawers.
She pulls one open at about thigh-height to reveal hundreds of humming birds tucked in neatly, as if put to bed by a loving hand, each beak painstakingly labeled in black and white.
They are sorted small to large. But my definition...
2 tags
JAN ZWICKY: CROSSING THE DEZADEASH, HAINES...
It comes to you often in the moments that you have alone: perhaps you’ve died. Climbing the stairs between offices, you’ve noticed it, a slowing of perception, a slightly altered angle of attack, the smell, for example, of the plastic sealant in the windows, heating in the sun. It would be, you think, the reason that you seem to care so little, why you take such risks. Or now, the...
2 tags
MELANIE SIEBERT: DITCH
Strange how we go on looking in the lessening light, along the highway, looking for the things thieves pitched from the smashed windows of our van as they drove and rifled through: maps, gospel cassettes, ball gloves, receipts and sermon notes, sleeping bag and candles, scattered over miles, deemed worthless, the ditches deep with grass, unmown. We’re steeped in the overrun, the laid low,...
2 tags
RICHARD CAPENER: MODULATING LANGUAGE: VOWEL CYCLES
A write poems.
E write poems.
I write poems.
O write poems.
U write poems.
A wrAte poems. E wrEte poems. I write poems. O wrOte poems U wrUte poems.
A wrAtI poems.
E wrEtO poems.
I writU poems.
O wrOtA poems.
U wrUte poems.
A wrAtI pUems. E wrEtO pAems. I writU pEems. O wrOtA pIems U wrUte poems.
A wrAtI pUIms.
E wrEtO pAOms.
I writU pEUms.
O wrOtA pIAms.
U wrUte poems.
2 tags
JEANETTE LYNES: THE FARM SALE
From far and wide the men arrived, tamping our barnyard mud with their Kodiaks, turning their backs against the raw March wind. First the big machines—our tractor, harrow, seeder and plow. Forage harvester. Baler. Thresher so ancient only a museum collector might bite. The men huddled for the bidding to begin, the auctioneer’s voice to volley through the cold—who’ll start me off—wilya...
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CONNIE VOISINE: DANGEROUS FOR GIRLS
It was the summer of Chandra Levy, disappearing from Washington D.C., her lover a Congressman, evasive and blow-dried from Modesto, the TV wondering
in every room in America to an image of her tight jeans and piles of curls frozen in a studio pose. It was the summer the only woman known as a serial killer, a ten-dollar whore trolling
the plains of central Florida, said she knew she would ...
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PROFESSOR CUDDLECORE: UNTITLED
i’m that guy in the corner of the coffee shop who brings his own cup fills it with magic pellets drops a dollar in the tip jar frowning, forcing an awkward smile disheveled smells funny asks for boiling water watches his magic pellets turn into green tea leaves tells himself each time it’s not magic it’s physics. he imagines the black dude in the corner nodding his head to hip hop in the...
2 tags
RACHEL: A DOLLAR BILL
I wish I were a dollar bill
instead of a teenage girl. I’d be
crisp, green- face always boasting that same outdated smile
I would be constantly on the move,
though treasured wherever I might dwell- whether it be
the soft, leathery inside of an expensive wallet,
or atop a rickey dresser- I might be
in New York one day and California the next,
wandering nomad with no real home, but it would...
2 tags
RACHEL: A DOLLAR BILL
I wish I were a dollar bill
instead of a teenage girl. I’d be
crisp, green- face always boasting that same outdated smile
I would be constantly on the move,
though treasured wherever I might dwell- whether it be
the soft, leathery inside of an expensive wallet,
or atop a rickey dresser- I might be
in New York one day and California the next,
wandering nomad with no real home, but it would...
2 tags
RACHEL: A DOLLAR BILL
I wish I were a dollar bill
instead of a teenage girl. I’d be
crisp, green- face always boasting that same outdated smile
I would be constantly on the move,
though treasured wherever I might dwell- whether it be
the soft, leathery inside of an expensive wallet,
or atop a rickey dresser- I might be
in New York one day and California the next,
wandering nomad with no real home, but it would...
2 tags
KORNELIA: 10 SECONDS
10 I wish I could live my life in slow motion, because the happiest moments in life go by so fast. 9 Ten seconds, would feel like ten minutes, ten hours, ten days. 8 Imagine living one moment all over again and again and again, stuck on repeat. 7 My hands, your hips. Your cheek, my lips. Repeat. 6 Two hearts beating a staccato, skipping beats like scratched Cds. Repeat. 5 Breathing in. 4...
2 tags
DALLAS CLAYTON: SERVICE
You should leave your house today with an empty garbage bag and some walking shoes and start off toward no where at all. On the way you should pick up every piece of trash you find that hasn’t already been claimed by a smaller animal and stuff it into your bag. You should see how far you make it before your bag is full, and once it is you should turn around and walk back. On the way...
2 tags
MICK IMLAH: DRINK V. DRUGS
I was worked up about some other matter when I saw that phone box off the Talbot Road being smashed outwards by someone inside it, after closing on Sunday (Sunday’s the day they all go mad on crack); which is why I didn’t as usual walk by on the other side but advanced with a purpose, and as he swivelled nonchalant out of the frost, grabbed his lapels, and setting him roughly against the railings,...