January 2011
47 posts
2 tags
JIM MOORE: BLOOD IN OUR HEADLIGHTS, CAR WRECKED,...
Out of the darkness, men come with knives. They work quickly, muttering back and forth. By the time the police arrive, the boar is gone. The foreigners, each one of us, stand around the wrecked car, everyone still alive.
And then the moment becomes a story, cut open as completely as the boar had...
2 tags
ROSANNA DEERCHILD: ON THE FIRST DAY
all us kids had to do it eh
a lot of us cried all huddled together like sheep bleating and pushing trying to melt into each other more scared then we’ve ever been
one by one we’re peeled off taken into a little room us left behind catch the glint of a sharp edge hear the crying before the door closes
some never had it done their long perfect braids a measure of their seasons an...
2 tags
BRIAN BLANCHFIELD: SMALLTOWN LIFT
One last stop, he says. And they drive to Westside Lanes. I grew up bowling. I don’t want to bowl. It was raining. We’re not going to bowl, the circus carpet dark with gum beneath them, and he parts the curtains on the best photo booth in town. He feeds it the three dollars, Get in. They somehow share the short ridged stool. In here we have to tell each other one true thing. You first. Click. This...
2 tags
DAMION SEARLS: 808 A.D.
After Po Chü-i and Burton Watson
Not too old, not young anymore, almost three dozen years gone by. Not a failure, not a success— my first real job, a job to grow old in. Some potential, too lazy to use it: I’d watch TV but I like the window more. My money gets spent when I have it; cheap food tastes good too, and a small room’s enough. Even a smaller room would be fine, a shelf of old books,...
2 tags
MARK DOTY: excerpt from MANHATTAN: LUMINISM
*
The sign said K YS MADE, but what will op n,
if the locksmith’s lost his vowel ─his entrance,
edge, his means of egress─ which held together
the four letters of this trade? City of consonants,
city of locks, and he’s lost the E.
2 tags
MARK DOTY: AT THE GYM
This salt-stain spot marks the place where men lay down their heads, back to the bench,
and hoist nothing that need be lifted but some burden they’ve chosen this time: more reps,
more weight, the upward shove of it leaving, collectively, this sign of where we’ve been: shroud-stain, negative
flashed onto the vinyl where we push something unyielding skyward, gaining some...
3 tags
MARVIN BELL: THIRTY-TWO STATEMENTS ABOUT WRITING...
1. Every poet is an experimentalist.
2. Learning to write is a simple process: read something, then write something; read something else, then write something else. And show in your writing what you have read.
3. There is no one way to write and no right way to write.
4. The good stuff and the bad stuff are all part of the stuff. No good stuff without bad stuff.
5. Learn the...
2 tags
CHRISTIAN BÖK: W
To the V that stands for viewing what is all around us, eyes turned outward, toward the conscious surface of things, surrealism has relentlessly opposed W. — André Breton A meaningless distinction on W — leads to automatic disqualification. — Georges Perec It is the V you double, not the U, as if to use two valleys in a valise is to savvy the vacuum of a vowel at a powwow in between sawteeth.
...
2 tags
CHRISTIAN BÖK: VOWELS
loveless vessels
we vow solo love
we see love solve loss
else we see love sow woe
selves we woo we lose
losses we levee we owe we sell loose vows
so we love
less well
so low so level
wolves evolve
2 tags
CHRISTIAN BÖK: LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS FROM OUTER...
Language is a virus from outer space.
Language is a pursuer of covert aims.
Language frames our virus as poetic.
Language tapers our vicious frames.
Language for a sum is a corrupt sieve.
Language for us promises a curative.
2 tags
LINDA BESNER: KNICK KNACK
Mismatch. Gimcrack gewgaws culled from every claptrap souk in the Near East. The bricabrac stacked with lowly crackerjack prizes, that plastic horse you loved—remember? —still ticking fitfully on its rockers.
Tacky, you call it now.
Set of Zodiac coasters, relics from my beatnik days. Wedding pictures—your father and I sunstruck at the Acropolis, intoxicated with...
2 tags
CARMA GRABER: WHERE YOU COME FROM
Where you come from, endless fields stretch green and shining beneath the summer sun; smell of black earth and manure; corn waving, knee-high by the Fourth of July. An inland ocean, broken by islands of farmhouse, barn, shade trees; neighbors out of sight down dusty gravel roads, and hard work for all — man, woman and child.
Where you come from, Sugar Creek flows over the crystal sand where...
2 tags
J. PIERCE DOUGLAS: AESTHETIC CONTEMPLATION
She is the nightshift head nurse and the only RN who wears a uniform when the others wear smocks and street clothes; only the peons and minions, the nurses’ aides and the janitorial staff wear regular uniforms, in this place for indigent veterans but she insists on the little starched piece of white cotton with a black band for a cap on top of her shiny black hair and white dress so stiff it fails...
3 tags
CHRIS (UNSINKABLE): POEM IN WHICH THE SPEAKER'S...
White noise.
2 tags
JOHN TAMMING: A HOCKEY POEM
This combination of ballet and murder. — Al Purdy
For a decade or more we have found a way. Non-contact, but we have found a way.
We were met on this battlefield of ice, this crossroads at the Keady line. F150s northbound from Desboro. Cube vans west from Chatsworth.
The shrunken dimensions of this barn barely constant the pugilism that was our birthright here in the Queens Bush.
Fifteen...
2 tags
JOHN TAMMING: A HOCKEY POEM
This combination of ballet and murder. — Al Purdy
For a decade or more we have found a way. Non-contact, but we have found a way.
We were met on this battlefield of ice, this crossroads at the Keady line. F150s northbound from Desboro. Cube vans west from Chatsworth.
The shrunken dimensions of this barn barely constant the pugilism that was our birthright here in the Queens Bush.
Fifteen...
2 tags
JERAMY DODDS: EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW WITH CV2
CLARISE FOSTER: There are a lot of writers out there — young and not so young — who want to be successful poets. If you could impart a bit of wisdom to help them on their way, what would it be?
JERAMY DODDS: Run, don't walk, to your library or bookstore or your favourite interweb shopping site and get some poetry to read. No, read more, and read everything. Yes, even the stuff you are too cool for and even the stuff that's too cool for you. Write as if no one's watching. Then edit as if everybody is watching. Then get people, who may not even like you, to edit and read your work. Hell, get five or six of them to do it. Actually, it's better if they don't like you in the least. Then, when you're feeling ready to send them out, you're not really ready. So edit them some more. Throw a bunch of them out. Watch some Godard films. Then, as some point, send them to places like "The Paris Review". And the next thing you know you'll be on a bed in some fancy hotel room rolling around in rejection slips. You never know, it could happen.
3 tags
JERAMY DODDS: EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW WITH CV2
CLARISE FOSTER: There are a lot of writers out there — young and not so young — who want to be successful poets. If you could impart a bit of wisdom to help them on their way, what would it be?
JERAMY DODDS: Run, don't walk, to your library or bookstore or your favourite interweb shopping site and get some poetry to read. No, read more, and read everything. Yes, even the stuff you are too cool for and even the stuff that's too cool for you. Write as if no one's watching. Then edit as if everybody is watching. Then get people, who may not even like you, to edit and read your work. Hell, get five or six of them to do it. Actually, it's better if they don't like you in the least. Then, when you're feeling ready to send them out, you're not really ready. So edit them some more. Throw a bunch of them out. Watch some Godard films. Then, as some point, send them to places like "The Paris Review". And the next thing you know you'll be on a bed in some fancy hotel room rolling around in rejection slips. You never know, it could happen.
2 tags
JERAMY DODDS: THE EPILEPTIC ACUPUNCTURIST
People who get their rocks off in glass houses are the same people who’d bend you over a rain barrel just to give you the wet T-shirts off their backs. You can’t shoot your mouth off if you’re out of earshot. Let bylaws be bygones, don’t mind your own business into the ground, all the glitters is not cold to the touch. You’re only human once. If you’ve taken the American way down a...
2 tags
JERAMY DODDS: THE EPILEPTIC ACUPUNCTURIST
People who get their rocks off in glass houses are the same people who’d bend you over a rain barrel just to give you the wet T-shirts off their backs. You can’t shoot your mouth off if you’re out of earshot. Let bylaws be bygones, don’t mind your own business into the ground, all the glitters is not cold to the touch. You’re only human once. If you’ve taken the American way down a...
2 tags
GERALD STERN: ALL I DID FOR HIM
When I fought the dog we almost danced we loved each other that much and he was strong, not counting even his teeth and claws, and I had trouble pushing against him even though his shoulders were weaker in that position nor was he intended, as Aristotle might say, for fighting standing up like that the way maybe a bear was more intended or certainly an ape with his gross imitation of a human, or a...
2 tags
GERALD STERN: ALL I DID FOR HIM
When I fought the dog we almost danced we loved each other that much and he was strong, not counting even his teeth and claws, and I had trouble pushing against him even though his shoulders were weaker in that position nor was he intended, as Aristotle might say, for fighting standing up like that the way maybe a bear was more intended or certainly an ape with his gross imitation of a human, or a...
2 tags
GERALD STERN: THE INKSPOTS
The thing about the dove was how he cried in my pocket and stuck his nose out just enough to breathe some air and get some snow in his eye and he would have snuggled in but I was afraid and brought him into the house so he could shit on the New York Times, still I had to kiss him after a minute, I put my lips to his beak and he knew what he was doing, he stretched his neck and touched me With his...
2 tags
GERALD STERN: THE INKSPOTS
The thing about the dove was how he cried in my pocket and stuck his nose out just enough to breathe some air and get some snow in his eye and he would have snuggled in but I was afraid and brought him into the house so he could shit on the New York Times, still I had to kiss him after a minute, I put my lips to his beak and he knew what he was doing, he stretched his neck and touched me With his...
2 tags
MATTHEW FREDERICK GEORGE: NUM LOCK
each key sucks my soul backspace esc i am not a man i am the machine that works the machine i recognize my reflection in my monitor better than in my mirror new updates are ready to install status: not responding ctrl alt delete ctrl alt delete
2 tags
MATTHEW FREDERICK GEORGE: NUM LOCK
each key sucks my soul backspace esc i am not a man i am the machine that works the machine i recognize my reflection in my monitor better than in my mirror new updates are ready to install status: not responding ctrl alt delete ctrl alt delete
2 tags
CARMA GRABER: WHERE YOU COME FROM
Where you come from, endless fields stretch green and shining beneath the summer sun; smell of black earth and manure; corn waving, knee-high by the Fourth of July. An inland ocean, broken by islands of farmhouse, barn, shade trees; neighbors out of sight down dusty gravel roads, and hard work for all — man, woman and child.
Where you come from, Sugar Creek flows over the crystal sand where...
2 tags
J. PIERCE DOUGLAS: AESTHETIC CONTEMPLATION
She is the nightshift head nurse and the only RN who wears a uniform when the others wear smocks and street clothes; only the peons and minions, the nurses’ aides and the janitorial staff wear regular uniforms, in this place for indigent veterans but she insists on the little starched piece of white cotton with a black band for a cap on top of her shiny black hair and white dress so stiff it fails...
2 tags
MATTHEW FREDERICK GEORGE: HAIKU #10
metallic mittens while shovelling snow with dad; tastes like blood and wool
2 tags
MATTHEW FREDERICK GEORGE: HAIKU #10
metallic mittens while shovelling snow with dad; tastes like blood and wool
2 tags
DAVE MARGOSHES: TOTAL ECLIPSE
(for dee)
It’s easy to see how early man fell for the chicanery of religion. Consider the eclipse of the moon, the rape of one celestial body by another, the sun giving in to its most basic of instincts and devouring the object of its desire whole. Now think of some poor besotted caveman, some half-breed Egyptian or Assyrian or rune-addled Celt with nowhere to turn but up, nothing to...
2 tags
DAVE MARGOSHES: TOTAL ECLIPSE
(for dee)
It’s easy to see how early man fell for the chicanery of religion. Consider the eclipse of the moon, the rape of one celestial body by another, the sun giving in to its most basic of instincts and devouring the object of its desire whole. Now think of some poor besotted caveman, some half-breed Egyptian or Assyrian or rune-addled Celt with nowhere to turn but up, nothing to...
2 tags
DAVE MARGOSHES: POETRY LESSON
Stone, heart, bones, light. These are the words we are told to avoid. Our poems are already filled with them ad the critics grow cranky. Better to nurture our poems with science, politics, DNA, sex, let them drown in their own sea of language. But go ahead, ope a vein, spill your fecund blood on barren ground, let a thousand flowers bloom, a thousand stars implode, filling our worlds with velvety...
3 tags
DAVE MARGOSHES: POETRY LESSON
Stone, heart, bones, light. These are the words we are told to avoid. Our poems are already filled with them ad the critics grow cranky. Better to nurture our poems with science, politics, DNA, sex, let them drown in their own sea of language. But go ahead, open a vein, spill your fecund blood on barren ground, let a thousand flowers bloom, a thousand stars implode, filling our worlds with velvety...
2 tags
MARY DI MICHELE: BICYCLE THIEVES
If I could go back to my birthplace, Lanciano, wander all day up and down the corso, stop by the cathedral built on the ruins of a Roman prison and pray, if I could
make my way at night by the glimmering of my brief candle, and if I could see into the darkness and find my father, if he were still living there in...
2 tags
MARY DI MICHELE: BICYCLE THIEVES
If I could go back to my birthplace, Lanciano, wander all day up and down the corso, stop by the cathedral built on the ruins of a Roman prison and pray, if I could
make my way at night by the glimmering of my brief candle, and if I could see into the darkness and find my father, if he were still living there in...
2 tags
MARY DI MICHELE: THE LIGHT IN EACH OF US
(for my mother, Concetta Andreacola, 1927-2007)
My grandmother lived in a neighbouring village high in the Apennine mountains, I remember we took the bus to visit her and the diesel smell made me ill.
I remember the church behind my grandmother’s house. After the bombs fell the bell tower had been rebuilt to the side. You could see the sound of the bells ringing.
That year my father was...
2 tags
MARY DI MICHELE: THE LIGHT IN EACH OF US
(for my mother, Concetta Andreacola, 1927-2007)
My grandmother lived in a neighbouring village high in the Apennine mountains, I remember we took the bus to visit her and the diesel smell made me ill.
I remember the church behind my grandmother’s house. After the bombs fell the bell tower had been rebuilt to the side. You could see the sound of the bells ringing.
That year my father was...
4 tags
CHRIS (UNSINKABLE): POEM IN WHICH THE SPEAKER'S...
White noise.
2 tags
CATHERINE HUNTER: GIFTED
I looked up the word recalescence in the dictionary and then became distracted. I was thinking of the way that lovers kiss on February streets. At twenty-nine below they open up their mouths and breathe each other. The geese who fly across the lake have seen the secret core of winter. The mailman is on strike, but every day at noon I still look out the window. You could say procrastination is a...
2 tags
CATHERINE HUNTER: GIFTED
I looked up the word recalescence in the dictionary and then became distracted. I was thinking of the way that lovers kiss on February streets. At twenty-nine below they open up their mouths and breathe each other. The geese who fly across the lake have seen the secret core of winter. The mailman is on strike, but every day at noon I still look out the window. You could say procrastination is a...
2 tags
GEORGE AMABILE: IMPACT
The khaki Humvee hits a bump in the tarmac and the back wheels blow off, the rims scraping sparks as the whole thing slews into sand and those who are leaving forever their bombed out homes turn in the glare and cheer their tongues fluttering shrill falsettos as what they don’t have to fear or hate anymore bursts into flame and the screams of ordinary flesh dim to nothing at all in the...
2 tags
GEORGE AMABILE: IMPACT
The khaki Humvee hits a bump in the tarmac and the back wheels blow off, the rims scraping sparks as the whole thing slews into sand and those who are leaving forever their bombed out homes turn in the glare and cheer their tongues fluttering shrill falsettos as what they don’t have to fear or hate anymore bursts into flame and the screams of ordinary flesh dim to nothing at all in the...
2 tags
BARRY DEMPSTER: SECOND SKIN
When he had her body at the bitten ends of his fingers, he could barely feel the act of touch, strokes and shatters, flashes of a fan’s blade: mixed faints. He could lick away a trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades without a single thought. Smell the space of her, bold and brave, by losing his face in her pores. They were heat and haze, a fullness too languid for taking note. ...
2 tags
BARRY DEMPSTER: SECOND SKIN
When he had her body at the bitten ends of his fingers, he could barely feel the act of touch, strokes and shatters, flashes of a fan’s blade: mixed faints. He could lick away a trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades without a single thought. Smell the space of her, bold and brave, by losing his face in her pores. They were heat and haze, a fullness too languid for taking note. ...
2 tags
BARRY DEMPSTER: BOOKS ARE
Books do not breathe, or share your soup, stroke your arms, inhale your rare perfumes. Books do not spit, love or scheme for more. Books do not live parallel lives. Books do not pray or hold mirrors unto God. Books do not die with regrets. What books do is talk endlessly. Not to you or the sycamores or the china cups, but to no avail at all. Talk, more talk. Books have something...
2 tags
BARRY DEMPSTER: BOOKS ARE
Books do not breathe, or share your soup, stroke your arms, inhale your rare perfumes. Books do not spit, love or scheme for more. Books do not live parallel lives. Books do not pray or hold mirrors unto God. Books do not die with regrets. What books do is talk endlessly. Not to you or the sycamores or the china cups, but to no avail at all. Talk, more talk. Books have something...