"Bodyfall"

Michael Schippling - circa 1996-7

Small dye sublimation prints created using Adobe Photoshop

Play That Funky Music White Boy!

In My Home Town

San Donato di Ninea

Duel After a Masked Ball

Jean-Leon Gerome (1857)

I’m Still a Virgin…

When it Comes to Publishing a Chapbook or a “Full Length” Collection of Poetry.

By the way what the hell is a “full length” collection anyway? Are we talking poems or pages here? Does one really long poem (100+ pages) constitute a “full length” collection or not? How about 300 haikus? What about the term “chapbook”? The term always sounded kind of uncomfortable if you ask me. It sounds as if I should be applying some kind of balm to it; or take the poor thing to see a dermatologist. Never mind…. In any case, I now have enough published poems to put together a manuscript for a “chapbook”.

Thing is I’ve only been at this “PoBiz” for about five years. Furthermore, I never thought when I started out that I’d ever even be published in poetry journals, let alone entertain the prospect that my work might appear in a book of poetry or an anthology. For me it has always been about the poetry. I never really was in a hurry to publish a chapbook or collection, just for the sake of publishing! I mean – yeah… I’d like the look of my moniker imprinted in bold letters on several hundred copies of an expertly bound, exquisitely presented chapbook. But then again who wouldn’t?

This has been an interesting journey. On my return from Italy in 2000, I started out posting & critiquing poetry on-line. The venues I frequented are too many to name here. But it wasn’t until I started posting at the Gazebo that I really got a kick in the proverbial poetic shins. The experience kick-started my enduring interest in poetry. During the 3 odd years that I participated there I published quite a few poems. I am not a prolific writer, by any stretch of the imagination, but I was fortunate enough to have most of my poems find a home as it were.

Now 35+ published poems later, I feel like I have enough material for a chapbook. Problem is - & I’m serious about this – I really need some help with putting together a manuscript. The poems only span five years of writing but I believe that my writing style & voice really changed over that short period of time. Therefore, I’m not really sure if & how to incorporate these varied stages of development into a marketable manuscript. So, if you’re interested in a challenge, boy have I got one for you!

------------------------------------------------

Addendum: For readers requiring further explication of the marketing of the Chapbook - the following article from Pudding House Press might be of interest: Chapbooks — Flying Like Hummingbirds Exciting the Air Around Them (MARKETING YOUR CHAPS WITH LIMITED IF ANY HELP FROM THE PUBLISHER) can be found in the main directory under the heading: "Chapbook Marketing a How-To"!

Viva Italia! - 2006 World Champions

That's Just The Way it Goes.

After receiving the nod for publication of three of my poems from The Arabesques Review , I received a great letter from Neil Aitken, editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. In it, he basically apologizes that due to his recent move back to Canada, (Welcome back, Neil!) , he was unable to pick up one of the poems selected - "No. 249 on the S.S. Saturnia". Neil thanks for the shot in the arm. I really needed that.

Well, I know one journal that I will be considering for future submissions. Actually, here is the lineup of poets in the recent edition:

Rob Baum, Jared Carter, Iris Dunkle, Joseph Farina, Larry Fontenot, Giles Goodland, Anne Haines, Zoë Landale, Alexander Long, Harold Lorin, Benjamin Morris, Patrick Rosal.

Great lineup. Check it out!

"We don't see things as they are we see things as we are." (Anais Nin)

THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY
by Thomas Lux


is not silent, it is a speaking-
out-loud voice in your head: it is spoken,
a voice is saying it
as you read. It's the writer's voice,
of course, in a literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of your voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling, having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer wrote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally -- some people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and a sensory constellation is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled chirrr of oats from a split sack,
the bony, filthy haunches of cows . . .
And "barn" is only a noun -- no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.


--------------------------------------------------------------
From : New and Selected Poems of Thomas Lux : 1975-1995 (Mariner Books)

Three of my Poems Get Picked up.

The Arabesques Review has accepted three of my poems for publication. The poems in question are: “The 30Hz Hypothesis" (which was previously published in Shenandoah in 2005), "The Shroud" and "N° 249 on the S.S. Saturnia”. Kinda excited about this as I haven't been sending out many submissions lately.

"McPoems"

" The democratic nature [of poetry] is best exemplified in the prevalence of the creative writing workshop where poems are subjected to a majority rule rather than the individual voice of the poet. This "poetry by committee" results in poems that have been mediocratized to the point that they all begin to look alike, and any sense of an individual voice is lost.

Donald Hall calls these workshop generations, "McPoems." As Doug Treem once said, "It's like using McDonald's to rid the world of hunger." One cannot cure society's ills by force feeding them food lacking in substance". Rather, we hear Kenneth Patchen's admonishment: "The one who comes to question himself has cared for mankind." Poets must search within themselves in order to tap into the Muse and allow it to flourish in their lives and more importantly in the life of their poetry. It is this inward going, as Rainer Maria Rilke admonishes when he says "go into yourself," that is missing in contemporary American poetry. "


----------------— Raymond P. Hammond: Editor of The NewYork Quarterly

Poetry by Committee?

Suzanne Frischkorn’s latest post: “Who Do You Share Your Poems With?”, is an intriguing one. It forced me to answer a question that exploded (or perhaps imploded) into many other concerns with regards to poetics & my poetry. I found the responses to the question posed by Suzanne at least as interesting as the original one.

What is implicit in the query is the importance of the process of revision that every poet must face when considering an early draft of a poem or one that is in the “not just there yet” category. The question here is: Is feedback a necessary evil (or an evil at all for that matter)? Some of the poets that responded to the question believe that a reader’s reaction to their work is beneficial while others would rather figure it out themselves trying to exclude the possibility that their poetry be tinged (tainted?) by an outside source.

Is a poem that we receive feedback to - no longer “our” poem? Do we sacrifice originality, perhaps even our voice & style - when we open the door to outside critique? What role, if any, should critique of our poetry play in the creative process? Or is critique “anti-creative” leading to a “poetry by committee” paradigm? These concerns all crossed my mind during my scrutiny of the issue.

Yet poets have been critiquing each other’s work for centuries. Surely, this poetic tradition cannot be valueless. I hope to come back to this & post a further analysis.

"On a Larkin"

The Whitsun Weddings
by Philip Larkin


That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river's level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles inland,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.

At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that

Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafés
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known

Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
- An Odeon went past, a cooling tower, And
someone running up to bowl - and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Travelling coincidence; and what it held
stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

------------------------------------------------------
From THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS (1964) - Faber & Faber, UK

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Poems in Vitro - Vol. 1, No. 3

The Voice we do Not Have --

Has come down with laryngitis.

Niagra Falls...Eh!

View From Rainbow Bridge at Dusk!












































Niagara Falls or Bust!
Going to see the falls this weekend.
Hopefully, I'll be back refreshed.
If I'm not back start without me.

You Got That Right...You Sure Got That Right!

Poets 101.com "... isn't a city, town, borough or municipal corporation*, but it is a playing field for the ever growing community of blogging poets. so many of them (if not all) encouraged and collected by one Billy the Blogging Poet. and if all those words (city, town, borough...) have one thing in common, it's that they build up around a collection of people, a community. therefore, let Poets101.com be out make believe city, the town hall, the swing set behind the movie theatre, whatever. it's there and it's ours. and i'm taking it upon myself to make billy the mayor the swing set!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Katy

Carolyn Marie Souaid Steps Down as Quebec Representative for the Canadian League of Poets...

& Brian Campbell Replaces Her.

So go on over to Brian's and congratulate him.

A Cup of Java? - I'm a Tea Drinker Myself!...

And so is Paul!

The Kopi Luwak Story

The Luwak (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) denizen of the coffee (kopi) plantations of Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, eats only the ripest coffee cherries. Unable to digest the coffee beans, the Luwak graciously deposits them on the jungle floor where they are eagerly collected by the locals. The stomach acids and enzymatic action involved in this unique fermentation process produces the beans for the world’s rarest coffee beverage.


The Byproduct Sold at $75 per quarter pound:

Jorie Graham

MIND

The slow overture of rain,
each drop breaking
without breaking into
the next, describes
the unrelenting, syncopated
mind. Not unlike
the hummingbirds
imagining their wings
to be their heart, and swallows
believing the horizon
to be a line they lift
and drop. What is it
they cast for? The poplars,
advancing or retreating,
lose their stature
equally, and yet stand firm,
making arrangements
in order to become
imaginary. The city
draws the mind in streets,
and streets compel it
from their intersections
where a little
belongs to no one. It is
what is driven through
all stationary portions
of the world, gravity's
stake in things, the leaves,
pressed against the dank
window of November
soil, remain unwelcome
till transformed, parts
of a puzzle unsolvable
till the edges give a bit
and soften. See how
then the picture becomes clear,
the mind entering the ground
more easily in pieces,
and all the richer for it.

----------------------------------------
Graham is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Overlord (HarperCollins, 2005); Never (HarperCollins, 2002); Swarm (2000); The Errancy (1997); The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Materialism (1993); Region of Unlikeness (1991); The End of Beauty (1987); Erosion (1983); and Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts (1980). She has also edited two anthologies, Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the English Language (1996) and The Best American Poetry 1990.

To read a review of Overlord in The Guardian, click here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1717013,00.html

Into Hall

Je Suis Une Table


by Donald Hall *

It has happened suddenly,
by surprise, in an arbor,
or while drinking good coffee,
after speaking, or before,

that I dumbly inhabit
a density; in language,
there is nothing to stop it,
for nothing retains an edge.

Simple ignorance presents,
later, words for a function,
but it is common pretense
of speech, by a convention,

and there is nothing at all
but inner silence, nothing
to relieve on principle
now this intense thickening.



----------------------------------------------------
* From White Apples and the Taste of Stone : Selected Poems 1946-2006


"Donald Hall was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1928, the only child of Donald Andrew Hall (a businessman) and his wife Lucy (née Wells). He was educated at Phillips Exeter, New Hampshire, and at the Universities of Harvard, Oxford and Stanford.

Hall began writing even before reaching his teens, beginning with poems and short stories, and then moving on to novels and dramatic verse. He recalls the powerful influence on his youthful imagination of Edgar Allan Poe: 'I wanted to be mad, addicted, obsessed, haunted and cursed. I wanted to have deep eyes that burned like coals - profoundly melancholic, profoundly attractive.' "

I'm in a Wistful State of Mind.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is more commonly referred to not as a medical condition or a field of study, but as a feeling that any normal person can have. Nostalgia can often be associated with a fond childhood memory, a certain game or a treasured personal object.

Studies show that many people believe that years or decades past people were better off than they are now, and that there had been a higher standard of living then, even if this is not always the case. This belief can be very characteristic of nostalgia, of the "good ol' days." Items in Pop Culture can often trigger a strong feeling of nostalgia. TV shows like Lost In Space and Moon Pies can bring back memories of the space age. *

----------------------------------------------------------------------(courtesy Wikipedia)

As of late I'm in a nostalgic mood. Songs & visuals that usually did not evoke any response from me are somehow triggering or firing the medial temporal lobes (MTL). The fireworks of emotion are palpable. Sometimes the memory is pleasant conjuring aromas, sounds, sensations, places & people from my past. Others would best be left submerged in some murky neural sconce. Still I suppose that they are part and parcel. Here is some of the baggage that I still carry for better or worse:

25- Gilligan's Island : You'd figure that seven adults would be able to get off that island what with all the traffic of persons we saw from week to week.

24- Gomer Pyle: "Shazaaaaam!"

23- Mission Impossible: Gotta like that theme music & the self-destructing envelopes.

22- Honey Mooners: " Alice!!!..." & "You're a riot, Alice, a regular riot. "

21- Dark Shadows: Just like the name: Barnabas Collins - for some reason. Vampiric Soap Opera.

20- Invaders: "The Invaders - Alien beings from a dying planet Their destination - The Earth. Their purpose - To make it their world "- As far as I'm concerned, as long as they depose Bush they're welcome to it. Come to think of it doesn't Bush have a crooked 4th finger.

19- Man From U.N.C.L.E.: "Man From UNCLE" a spy show featuring Napoleon Solo & Ilya Kuryakin which begat "The Girl from UNCLE" which thankfully did not beget "Aunt From UNCLE".

18- Bonanza: Four bachelors & a Chinese cook. No wonder Hop Sing was always skittish.

17- Ed Sullivan: Where else could you see the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison, Tiny Tim & Topo Gigio all on the same stage "tiptoeing through the tulips".

16- Lost in Space: Warning!...Warning!!...Warning!!! -Robbie the Robot was ostensibly the best actor in the cast.

15- Batman: Holy ""Same bat time. Same bat channel!" , Batman!

14- Hogan's Heroes: You gotta hand it to the writers - turning a World War II Nazi POW camp into a comedy sitcom is either very gutsy or very stupid.

13- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Alfred Hitchcock Quote -"Television has brought murder back into the home - where it belongs".

12- Avengers: Introducing a TV audience to a notable fetishistic undercurrent in many episodes - black leather, a whip & "kinky boots".

11- Green Hornet: Bruce Lee as "Kato" was well worth the price of admission.

10- M.A.S.H.: Hawkeye, Hotlips, Klinger in drag et al...Gotta Love it!

9- Bewitched: Any of the original episodes makes the Ferrell & Kidman vehicle look bad.

8- Secret Agent: Johnny Rivers rendition of the theme song & Patrick McGoohan's deadpan delivery hit home.

7- Twilight Zone: Do you want to see something really scary?

6- Outer Limits: Please do not adjust your sets.

5- Munsters: Talk about marriages that last - Herman & Lily Munster have been married for 100 years.

4- Addams Family: When "Cousin It" started making sense I got worried.

3- Beverly Hillbillies: I think I'll "set a spell" around the "cee-ment pond".

2- Get Smart: "Missed it by that much."

1- Star Trek: "Live long and prosper."

Say This Once...Real Slow!

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

noun:

(NOO-muh-noh-UL-truh-MY-kruh-SKOP-ik-SIL-i-koh-VOL-kay-no-koh-NEE-o-sis, nyoo-)


A lung disease caused by inhaling fine particles of silica.[From New Latin, from Greek pneumono- (lung) + Latin ultra- (beyond,extremely) + Greek micro- (small) + -scopic (looking) + Latin silico(like sand) + volcano + Greek konis (dust) + -osis (condition).]

By any other name this would still be unpronounceable.

"Saratoga"

Wayne Levin
Robert Koch Gallery

Body Language

The Body
by Marianne Boruch


has its little hobbies. The lung
likes its air best after supper,
goes deeper there to trade up
for oxygen, give everything else
away. (And before supper, yes,
during too, but there’s
something about evening, that
slow breath of the day noticed: oh good,
still coming, still going ... ) As for
bones—femur, spine,
the tribe of them in there—they harden
with use. The body would like
a small mile or two. Thank you.
It would like it on a bike
or a run. Or in the water. Blue.
And food. A habit that involves
a larger circumference where a garden’s
involved, beer is brewed, cows
wake the farmer with their fullness,
a field surrenders its wheat, and wheat
understands I will be crushed
into flour and starry-dust
the whole room, the baker
sweating, opening a window
to acknowledge such remarkable
confetti. And the brain,
locked in its strange
dual citizenship, idles there in the body,
neatly terraced and landscaped.
Or left to ruin, such a brain,
wild roses growing
next to the sea. The body is
gracious about that. Oh, their
scent sometimes. Their
tangle. In truth, in secret,
the first thing
in morning the eye longs to see.

-------------------------------------------
Marianne Boruch’s most recent books are Poems: New and Selected (Oberlin College Press, 2004) and In the Blue Pharmacy (Trinity University Press, 2005), her second collection of essays on poetry. She teaches at Purdue University.
[From "Poetry" - June 2006]

Now Why Didn't I Think of That?

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

You Say It's Your Birthday.

Parent's Pantoum
Carolyn Kizer

for Maxine Kumin



Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses

More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.

They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them

As they ignore our pleas to brighten up.
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention
Then we won't try to be dignified like them
Nor they to be so gently patronizing.

Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention.
Don't they know that we're supposed to be the stars?
Instead they are so gently patronizing.
It makes us feel like children--second-childish?

Perhaps we're too accustomed to be stars.
The famous flowers glowing in the garden,
So now we pout like children. Second-childish?
Quaint fragments of forgotten history?

Our daughters stroll together in the garden,
Chatting of news we've chosen to ignore,
Pausing to toss us morsels of their history,
Not questions to which only we know answers.

Eyes closed to news we've chosen to ignore,
We'd rather excavate old memories,
Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors.
Why do they never listen to our stories?

Because they hate to excavate old memories
They don't believe our stories have an end.
They don't ask questions because they dread the answers.
They don't see that we've become their mirrors,

We offspring of our enormous children.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Buon Compleanno Elizabeth Bruno

Forbidden Poster

In 2257, the crew of United Planets Cruiser C-57D, led by Cmdr JJ Adams (Leslie Nielson), Lt Farman (Jack Kelly) and Dr Ostrow (Warren Stevens),come to check on Altair-4's first settlers. All have been killed, except the mysterious Dr. Morbius (Walter Pigeon) and daughter, Altaira (Anne Francis),by an invisible being, per Dr Morbius. Adams is skeptical of Morbius' story, his palacial setting, Earth-type animals seen, & Robby the Robot, who first greeted the crew.













Adams states he'll have to return Morbius to Earth, but Morbius suddenly gives Adams, Farman & Ostrow an underground tour of still-operating technology, left by the Krell, inhabitants who disappeared 2000 centuries ago. Morbius explains that many devices are controlled by the mind & that even his has expanded.
















Adams & Altaira realize they have an attraction, which Morbius is aware. In a night attack on the ship, an invisible creature wipes out half the crew including Farman. Adams & Ostrow confront Morbius, who is unaccepting of Adams' theory that Krell technology is providing the invisible attacker, conjured up by Morbius' innermost mind - the id -to drive away Adams & his crew. Robby alerts that ' something ' is coming, & the group escapes into the underground Krell maze as Morbius' house is torn apart by something invisible.

Apparently my Name Isn't Italian Enough

Your Italian Name Is...

Valentino Conti

What's" Your Italian Name?

Poems in Vitro - Vol. 1, No. 2

The Unencumbered

Thanks for the e-mails.

It Ain't me, Babe!

Today We Are Shooting Poets
by Peter Sansom


not bad or good poets
not metrical, not free verse not concrete
or performance poets,
not poets who write about nothing but poetry
and poets

not confessional poets,
English but like pop groups singing in American,

not poets writing as if they were talking as if
anyone ever talked like that,

not poets who write about what it is
never to be able to write, or love poems
or sex poems or poems about the colour of
their oppression or about the gender
of their oppression or about its class,

not poets with words all
over the place and lowercase i's,
not incomprehensible even to themselves poets

not poets who get famous for something
be it poetry or who they are or what they do
besides writing poems

not neglected poets
nor the experts on their own poems
who read nobody for fear of influence,

not poets up to the ears in scholarship
and not a spark in them

no. We are shooting the other poets.

You know who they are and I do.
Let's go buddy, let's do it.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Sansom is Director of the Poetry Business and editor of The North and Smith/Doorstop Books. His own publications include Writing Poems (Bloodaxe), January and Point of Sale (both from Carcanet). He was poet-in-residence for Marks and Spencer during 1999.

Summertime & the Living is Easy...

Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904)

"Summer Afternoon on a Lake "
(oil on canvas)

All the Games People Play

Sometimes The Answer is Right in Front of You - (or Maybe Not)

There’s an old story about the time Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went camping. They hadn’t been asleep but a short time when Sherlock suddenly awoke and shook his companion.

“Watson, look at the sky and tell me what you see.”

“I see millions of brilliant stars,” answered Watson.

“And what does that tell you?”

“Well, astronomically, it tells me there are countless galaxies. Theologically, I see that God is the Creator of all and we are small and insignificant. And you Holmes?”

Holmes paused. “What I see, Watson, is that someone has stolen our tent!”

Poems in Vitro - Vol. 1, No. 1

The Gathering


Thank you for your comments & insights.


-------------------------------------------------------------

"After a Brief Shower"

John Pototschnik
(oil on canvas)
circa 2005

Poetry Contests on a Shoestring Budget

Thank you for your responses. Most illuminating.

Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)

--------I played my game for keeps--
for love, for poetry,
---- and for eternal life--

---------------------------------------(from "The Testing-Tree ")


The Round

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.


So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the bloated page:
"Light splashed ..."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

--------------------------------------------

From: "A Consideration of Poetry " by Kay Ryan

"...the poem is a trap—that is a release. It’s a small door to a room full of gold that we can have any time we go through the door, but that we can’t take away. "


-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Source: Poetry - May 2006

From The "You Couldn't Make This Up" Department

I recently bought a new barbeque grill. Of course the box included some rather detailed instructions & an owner's manual. The manual's 24 page booklet included four purportedly blank pages. Each page read as follows:






















Brought to you by Char-Broil (Keepers of the Flame)

Saturday in The Park

Max Ginsburg

Park Bench (circa 2005)
(Oil painting - 40 x 60 inches)

Eintou

The Gleaners

They stand
bent over like
a Millet painting by
the train tracks picking dandelion
greens before they flower
as though their time
had come.

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck...?

Woodchucks
Maxine Kumin


Gassing the woodchucks didn't turn out right.
The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange
was featured as merciful, quick at the bone
and the case we had against them was airtight,
both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone,
but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.

Next morning they turned up again, no worse
for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes
and state-store Scotch, all of us up to scratch.
They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course
and then took over the vegetable patch
nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots.

The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling
to the feel of the .22, the bullets' neat noses.
I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace
puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing,
now drew a bead on the little woodchuck's face.
He died down in the everbearing roses.

Ten minutes later I dropped the mother. She
flipflopped in the air and fell, her needle teeth
still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard.
Another baby next. O one-two-three
the murderer inside me rose up hard,
the hawkeye killer came on stage forthwith.

There's one chuck left. Old wily fellow, he keeps
me cocked and ready day after day after day.
All night I hunt his humped-up form. I dream
I sight along the barrel in my sleep.
If only they'd all consented to die unseen
gassed underground the quiet Nazi way.

--------------------------------------------------
From Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief, by Maxine Kumin,
published by Penguin Books. (1972)

Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is?... (Does anybody really care?)

Salvador Dali - Soft Watches (1933)

Multi-Tasking is Taxing The Quality and Depth of Our Thought Processes – Now Where Was I?

Let’s face it, during the last decade or so, our society has become more and more multi-task oriented. What with cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, IPODs, Palm Pilots, Blueberries, Raspberries & Strawberries – I’m not quite sure anymore whether they're electronic gadgets or whether I'm ready to make fruit salad.

“As for multitasking devices, social scientists and educators are just beginning to assess their impact, but the researchers already have some strong opinions. The mental habit of dividing one's attention into many small slices has significant implications for the way young people learn, reason, socialize, do creative work and understand the world. Although such habits may prepare kids for today's frenzied workplace, many cognitive scientists are positively alarmed by the trend. "Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict, aren't going to do well in the long run," says Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Decades of research (not to mention common sense) indicate that the quality of one's output and depth of thought deteriorate as one attends to ever more tasks. Some are concerned about the disappearance of mental downtime to relax and reflect. Roberts notes Stanford students "can't go the few minutes between their 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock classes without talking on their cell phones. It seems to me that there's almost a discomfort with not being stimulated--a kind of 'I can't stand the silence.'" Time Magazine (March 27, 2006)

I.E.: During the simple act of commuting by automobile we are quite often expected to talk on our cell phones, listen to music on an IPOD/ MP3 player or heaven forbid the boring car stereo, watch a DVD, Look at the GPS display for directions, converse with our passengers, tell the kids to stop yelling, “Are we there yet?” & Oh Yeah…and did I forget - drive! If this is not multi-tasking then I don’t understand the concept!

Even as a poet I am often expected to be multi-tasking:

i) surf the net for info on poetry
ii) write a poetry blog
iii) workshop poetry on-line
iv) workshop off-line
v) read on-line poetry journals
vi) read print poetry journals & books
vii) partake in poetry readings
viii) submit to on-line journals
ix) submit to print journals
x) put together a poetry manuscript
xi) write & edit poetry

All this from a guy, who admittedly has trouble keeping a thought, and crossing his legs at the same time. I guess I’m not really a multi-tasking kind of guy -- just a run of the mill taxing kinda guy!

Not Big on Multi-Tasking &/or One Year Blogging Anniversaries

About a year ago this week, I started blogging. Before then I hardly knew what a blog was. I first encountered the word on an on-line poetry workshop. Of course it immediately piqued my curiosity. After finding out that the poet in question, whom I admire blogged, I thought that I’d give it a whirl. What I found was a community of like-minded poets that on the whole gave each other support.

It seems logical that after a year of blogging, I thought that I’d take stock of what I have accomplished in the interim. I am surprised to have had any readership at all let alone my site meter hitting five figures within the last few months. I’m not sure what this tells me but I think that all in all the experience has been a positive one:

1-I have met some interesting people on-line, who also happen to be fine poets and I have enjoyed reading and learning about their work.
2-I have become aware of poetry with a grittier edge than one encounters in workshops.
3-I have become better informed about current poetic trends.
4-I have received feedback on my poetry.
5-My poetry has received more attention from a wider group of people than I ever thought imaginable.
6-I have learnt about a thriving poetry scene in the form of live readings/symposiums both locally and nationally.

However, there have been some questions raised. The blogging experience has not been beneficial or at best ineffective as follows:

1-I have found that my poetry has not improved during this period.
2-I have found myself with less time to write poetry as a result.
3-I have, for whatever reason, been less inspired to write poetry.
4-I have had less time to critique poetry, which I enjoy tremendously.
5-I seem to be sending out less poetry submissions.
6-Those subs that I do send out seem to be less well-conceived.
7-I have not as yet gotten a chapbook manuscript together at the ready for submission
8-I still don’t know where I would send it, even if I did.

In the course of the last year of blogging I have received several e-mails intimating that I should be more forthcoming about my personal life. You will have noticed if you have dropped in from time to time that I do not like to talk about what I do outside of the sphere of poetry.

1-I have (in the past) traveled extensively but lead a more sedate life at present.
2-I am M.W.C. and loving it.
3-My wife (Aurora) had a thyroidectomy to remove a lump in December 2005.
4-Thank, God, that she’s finally been given a clean bill of health.
5-My recurrent back problem which stems from a herniated disc operation some years ago recently reared its ugly head.
6-I am presently in physiotherapy to alleviate the pain & strengthen the leg that has been affected.
7-My children (two girls) Carmen & Elizabeth never cease to amaze me.
8-I wear the “Poet” hat only intermittently (as frequently as time allows) & am jealous of those of you who can spend inordinate amounts of time on poetics.
9-I’d love to enroll in a part-time Creative Writing program. (Low-Residency MFA Program) but cannot.
10-I have no strong emotional disposition (one way or another) towards etiquette (social or otherwise), but I do not agree with the assertion that appeared in a comment on another blog (which I have paraphrased here) that: ‘etiquette is employed by unstable persons in order to blend in.’

And so this is where I stand at this point in time. I enjoy writing this blog but am not sure at times, if it is in my best interest to do so. What I do know is that it is poetry that has gotten me here. It is poetry that matters to me in all of this.

Clifford Garstang's Analysis of Pushcart Prizes in Fiction

Clifford Notes: "My Pushcart Prize ranking is now complete .... There were several surprises for me in preparing this list, the biggest of which was by the margin by which Ploughshares beats the field. There are several magazines in the Top Twenty that I don’t know particularly well, but you can bet that I’m going to do some investigation."

Here are the top 50 on Clifford 's list. For the complete analysis visit his site: Perpetual Folly

1 Ploughshares 90
2 Paris Review 55
3 Zoetrope: All Story 53
4 Conjunctions 47
5 Southern Review 46
6 Tin House 40
7 Threepenny Review 36
8 Epoch 34
9 TriQuarterly 34
10 Georgia Review 33
11 New England Review 31
12 Witness 31
13 Ontario Review 30
14 Five Points 26
15 Missouri Review 23
16 Gettysburg Review 22
17 Kenyon Review 22
18 McSweeney's 22
19 Chelsea 20
20 StoryQuarterly 20
21 Doubletake 19
22 Shenandoah 18
23 Agni 15
24 Boulevard 15
25 Idaho Review 14
26 Third Coast 14
27 Antioch Review 12
28 Oxford American 12
29 Manoa 11
30 News from the Republic of Letters 11
31 Salmagundi 11
32 Iowa Review 10
33 Glimmer Train 9
34 Harvard Review 9
35 Hudson Review 9
36 New Letters 9
37 Prairie Schooner 9
38 Virginia Quarterly Review 9
39 Willow Spring 8
40 Yale Review 8
41 Alaska Quarterly Review 7
42 Fence 7
43 Graywolf Press 7
44 North American Review 7
45 Pleiades 7
46 Bomb 6
47 Boston Review 6
48 Calyx 6
49 Colorado Review 6
50 Speakeasy 6

Fifty Abstract Paintings Which as Seen from Two Yards Change...

into Three Lenins Masquerading as Chinese and as Seen from Six Yards Appear as the Head of a Royal Bengal Tiger.






















Salvador Dali - (Classic period) - 1963

What The Muse Dragged In...

AND OUT AGAIN!

A TENTATIVE GUIDE TO BLOGGING ETIQUETTE

“This is my Blog”, they snarl, “and I’ll do what I bloody well please.” True – our Blogs are our own but shouldn’t there be some general code that governs our expectations, (as Bloggers), of accepted social behavior in the Blogosphere. Of course this does not preclude the probability that there is in fact an (un)written code that already exists with regard to Blogging etiquette that I am unaware of as I am unabashedly a philistine of sorts when it comes to protocol & decorum. But in the spirit of pretending that I am not the crass twit that some think that I really am, I’d like to present a list of axioms that might well be implemented as rules of etiquette so as to make this a kinder, gentler Blogdom. (Please note that their sequence are not due to their order of importance.):


1) Do not steal another Blogger’s material - unless:

i) It’s damn good & then it’s every Blogger for themselves.

ii) No one would believe that they wrote it anyway.

iii) I’m the one doing the purloining.


2) Do not use profanity or erotica on your Blog - unless:

i) Your “hits counter” has been reading rather low lately.

ii) See number 4(i).


3) Do not ignore readers that post comments on your Blog - unless:

i) They are ignorant when it comes to poetics.

ii) Their posts are lame & uninformed.

iii) You just don’t like them

iv) You suspect that they are Republican.

v) You just don’t feel like acknowledging their existence.


4) Do not post comments on somebody else’s Blog - unless:

i) You’re sleeping with them & you’ve got some compromising photos then see (2)

ii) You’re totally smashed or buzzed.

iii) You adore the ground they walk on (or you’re just into dirt).

iv) You actually have something relevant to say – as if!


5) Do not gang up on another Blogger - unless:

i) You can convince yourself they had it coming anyway.

ii) They are completely clueless.

iii) They are without influential friends – if you know what I mean - wink… wink!

iv) You didn’t like their poetic disposition anyway.


6) Do not publicly humiliate another Blogger - unless:

i) You guessed it they deserved it - those cads.

ii) You enjoy flexing your superior intellect

iii) You didn’t “really mean to”!


7) Do not ignore another Poetry Blogger’s Blog - unless:

i) You really have a bad case of diarrhea & in which case you should be using your laptop and learn how to write with one hand while simultaneously flushing with the other.

ii) They are pseudo-intellectuals.

iii) You caught them secretly reading Maya Angelou.


8) Do not laugh at another Blogger’s faux pas - unless:

i) It’s really damn funny.

ii) You tell me first.

iii) You’re willing to get up in front of the class and tell everybody what’s so damn funny.


9) Don’t post denigrating anecdotes about yourself on your Blog - unless:

i) You guessed it you’ve got pictures.

ii) You’re completely out of material to Blog.

iii) You’ve missed your session & are in need of cathartic release.


10) Don’t be self-serving - unless:

i) Nobody else will do it for you.

ii) Your existence begins & ends with navel lint.

iii) You’re drunk.

iv) You’ve got nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

v) Hint: If you’re so self-serving that’s why you probably have nothing to do on a Saturday night.


11) Don’t Blog about etiquette - unless:

i) You know nothing about it.

ii) You’ll never adhere to it yourself.

iii) You’re so drunk that you think it’s Saturday night!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course this is by no means an exhaustive list & I invite anyone to concoct a list of their own or just add to this one which would of course be breaking rule number 1.

Take The Long Way Home

Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904) - "Polyphemus"
Oil on canvas
24 x 39 1/4 inches (61 x 100 cm)

Forthcoming

VALPARAISO POETRY REVIEW
Contemporary Poetry and Poetics


Volume VIII, Number 1
Fall/Winter 2006-2007 (Forthcoming: October 2)

Featured Poet: Mark Conway

Additional Poets: Rane Arroyo, Sarah Brownsberger, Nick Bruno, E.G. Burrows, Jared Carter, Heidi Czerwiec, Jeanine DeRusha, Taylor Graham, Carol Hamilton, Jason Huskey, Elizabeth Kirschner, Jeff Knorr, Frannie Lindsay, Richard O'Connell, Thomas Reynolds, Helen Ruggiero, Jordan Sanderson, J.D. Schraffenberger, Beth Simon, Lynn Strongin, Scott Welvaert

Essay: Claire Keyes on Marianne Boruch

Poets Reviewed: Linda Bierds, Mark Conway, Robert Crawford, Lance Larsen, Vivian Shipley

Cover Art Commentary: Gregg Hertzlieb on Dean Porter

---------------------------------------------------------------
From VPR List of Issues

Featured Translation: From "Poetry" - April 2006

In the Fog

by Giovanni Pascoli

I stared into the valley: it was gone—
wholly submerged! A vast flat sea remained,
gray, with no waves, no beaches; all was one.

And here and there I noticed, when I strained,
the alien clamoring of small, wild voices:
birds that had lost their way in that vain land.

And high above, the skeletons of beeches,
as if suspended, and the reveries
of ruins and of the hermit’s hidden reaches.

And a dog yelped and yelped, as if in fear,
I knew not where nor why. Perhaps he heard
strange footsteps, neither far away nor near—

echoing footsteps, neither slow nor quick,
alternating, eternal. Down I stared,
but I saw nothing, no one, looking back.

The reveries of ruins asked: “Will no
one come?” The skeletons of trees inquired:
“And who are you, forever on the go?”

I may have seen a shadow then, an errant
shadow, bearing a bundle on its head.
I saw—and no more saw, in the same instant.

All I could hear were the uneasy screeches
of the lost birds, the yelping of the stray,
and, on that sea that lacked both waves and beaches,

the footsteps, neither near nor far away.

----------------------------------------------------
Translated from the Italian by Geoffrey Brock - Poetry- April 2006

What a Day For a Daydream.

Jean-Leon Gerome

Arab Encampment (1895)

Oil on canvas - 19 5/8 x 32 1/4 inches (50 x 82 cm)

Once Again I'm "Johnny-Come-Lately"...

Excerpt From: Camille Paglia's - "BREAK, BLOW, BURN."




















WANDA COLEMAN


Wanda Why Aren't You Dead

wanda when are you gonna wear your hair down
wanda. that's a whore's name
wanda why ain't you rich
wanda you know no man in his right mind want a
--------ready-made family----------------------------------05
why don't you lose weight
wanda why are you so angry
how come your feet are so goddamn big
can't you afford to move out of this hell hole
if i were you were you were you---------------------------10
wanda what is it like being black
i hear you don't like black men
tell me you're ac/dc. tell me you're a nympho. tell me you're
--------into chains
wanda i don't think you really mean that------------------15
you're joking. girl, you crazy
wanda what makes you so angry
wanda i think you need this
wanda you have no humor in you you too serious
wanda i didn't know i was hurting you---------------------20
that was an accident
wanda i know what you're thinking
wanda i don't think they'll take that off of you

wanda why are you so angry

i'm sorry i didn't remember that that that------------------25
that that that was so important to you

wanda you're ALWAYS on the attack

wanda wanda wanda i wonder

why ain't you dead



"A poem struggles to be born. The poet's mind is invaded by a raucous
gang of nags, snoops, gripers, and doomsayers. Wanda Coleman's
eponymous protagonist at first seems invisible. But the haranguing
voices, with their multiple points of view, gradually sketch her ghost
portrait, like a shimmering hologram. Making us share her exasperation
and despair, she gains substance and presence until by the end she
looms like an avenging Fury, beating off all opponents and willing the
poem into existence.

Coleman's vernacular is so alive it practically jumps off the page.
The snatches of boisterous conversation, as if overheard on the street
or through a window, become hilarious through sheer excess. We get
slang and profanity ("ain't," "goddamn") as well as African-American
syncopated speech rhythms and idiomatic verb forms (a man "want"
rather than "wants"; "girl, you crazy"; "you too serious"; 4, 16, 19).
There's a strange effect of claustrophobia yet speed, produced by the
absence of stanza breaks and full punctuation. We can't escape the
chattering racket. Language is an affliction or epidemic. Eleven
questions (including the title) stream by without a question mark
because the interrogators don't really want answers. Their loaded
questions are acts of hostile encroachment-or at least that's how the
poet processes them in her cynicism and fatigue.

Coleman's persona adopts a stoic silence like George Herbert's in "The
Quip," where the poet is derided by worldly temptations. Herbert
italicizes his inner voice ("But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me")
because it's unheard-or rather heard only by the reader. Coleman too
uses italics to signal her inner voice of resistance to materialism
and status envy: "wanda why are you so angry"(24). But Herbert's
serene, priestly detachment is impossible for a single mother with "a
ready-made family," deemed by others an obstacle to romance (4-5).
She's enmeshed in practical responsibilities.

This poem is a classic drama of an individual pitted against the
tyranny of the group. Coleman's protagonist is in transition between
generations, races, and social classes. Little solidarity is evident
within her home community, which is portrayed as competitive and
coercive. Her habits and nascent wishes snake through the grapevine
for review and debate by a catty chorus of family, friends, lovers,
neighbors, and coworkers. Whatever her aspirations or achievements,
she is doggedly judged by her appearance and male attachments. Even
wellmeaning advice becomes subtly undermining.

Everything about her needs to be fixed-according to the meddlers whose
critiques she has dangerously begun to internalize. Her hairdo isn't
black or hip enough. She's too fat, and her feet are too big. Her
pay's mingy, her apartment's a dump, and despite all that, she should
lighten up! Her sex life is under withering scrutiny: she's used
goods, with dependents in tow. She's uppity for shunning black men-a
cunning provocation, of course, if it comes from a black man trying to
seduce her (12). Even her exotic name is reductively redefined
("that's a whore's name"), making her scrabble for every iota of
identity (2). She's bullied to embellish: any kinkiness-bisexuality,
promiscuity, sadomasochism-would be better than her humdrum self
(13-14).

Her tormentors' baiting insinuations mire her in subtext. "I think you
need this" is a pusher's tagline coming from an intimate: drinks or
drugs are just the elixir to normalize her-or rather to make her
receptive to the speaker's hidden agenda (18). Banal or squalid scenes
are glimpsed as if by strobe light-episodes of insensitivity,
forgetfulness, or bad or careless sex ("i didn't know i was hurting
you / that was an accident," 20-21). Medical crises make the body yet
another betrayer. "I don't think they'll take that off of you": moles,
tumors, and unplanned pregnancies all look the same to an arbitrary,
impersonal health system (23).

Strangers patronize: "wanda what is it like being black"-as if she
were an anointed spokesman for her race, ready to recite on cue and
condense an epic to an anecdote (11). The bystanders' most
presumptuous claims-"i know what you're thinking" and "i don't think
you really mean that"-evict her from her own mental space (22, 15).
The pestering voices are as mechanical as a broken record: "if i were
you were you were you"; "that that that / that that that" (10, 25-26).
Fill in the blanks. The real "hell hole" is not her shabby flat but
the echo chamber of her overwrought brain (9). Words dull and drain or
infest with clichés. The poem's refrain is her anger, alleged by third
parties. Though we don't hear her responses, the climax-"wanda you're
ALWAYS on the attack"-becomes intelligible by increments: anger is her
energizer and defensiveness her armor, allowing her to think and write
(27).

In the poem's visual design, the dense mass of negative comment rises
like a black slab, a Tower of Babel. At the end, escaping lines float
free, as if the poem were taking breath. Slowly gaining distance, the
poet muses, "wanda wanda wanda i wonder / why ain't you dead" (28-29).
The wonder is that she survives and thrives. The poem asserts the life
force amid daily wear and tear, small humiliations and frustrations.
She endures, a Wonder Woman who can't vanquish enemies but knows how
to deflect their bullets off her magic bracelets. Yoked to duty and
routine, this Wanda can't wander like Walt Whitman but must hold her
ground as she fends off the guilttrippers, parasites, and con artists.
But she turns the painful struggle for selfhood into deliciously
quirky comedy. The poem's lashing lines resemble "snaps" in an old
African-American game, the "dozens," where duelists trade mock insults
("Yo' mama's so ugly, she'd scare moss off a rock"). It's an exercise
in mental toughening: when the worst can be said, reality seems less
harsh.

Chanting "wanda" nineteen times, the poem is like an exorcism,
banishing impish spirits that grasp and scratch. Who is Wanda? The
poem answers for her, as she wickedly parodies her detractors' voices.
Their yammering stops with the door slam of the last word ("dead")-the
line recapitulating the more formal, teacherly title ("aren't" rather
than "ain't"). The poet is definitely not dead: her salvation is her
grit, resilience, and commitment to art making. This poem would be
explosive in performance, with the poet's grumpy, sarcastic persona
barreling through hindrances, then pausing a beat before bursting
free. She has regained control of language and made it hers. "

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Break, Blow, Burn
Written by Camille Paglia
Trade paperback Vintage
Poetry - History & Criticism
0-375-72539-3 January 2006

Tibetan Highlands

Hong Nian Zhang
circa 2005
Oil on canvas
60 x 68 inches

Lesser Known Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet

CLAUDIA EMERSON



Surface Hunting

You always washed artifacts
--------at the kitchen sink, your back
------------------to the room, to me, to the mud

you'd tracked in from whatever
--------neighbor's field had just been plowed.
------------------Spearpoints, birdpoints, awls and leaf-

shaped blades surfaced from the turned earth
--------as though from beneath some thicker
------------------water you tried to see into.

You never tired, you told me, of the tangible
--------past you could admire, turn over
------------------and over in your hand—the first

to touch it since the dead one that had
--------worked the stone. You lined bookshelves
------------------and end tables with them; obsidian,

quartz, flint, they measured the hours you'd spent
--------with your head down, searching for others,
------------------and also the prized hours of my own

solitude—collected, prized,
--------saved alongside those artifacts
------------------that had been for so long lost.


--------------------------------------------------------
Claudia Emerson is an associate professor of English at Mary Washington College. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and UNC- Greensboro, where she was poetry editor of The Greensboro Review. Her books are Pharaoh, Pharaoh and Pinion: An Elegy, both from LSU, and her work has appeared in The Southern Review, The New England Review and Prairie Schooner. She has been a recipient of literature fellowships from the NEA and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. (She is also a contributing editor for Shenandoah.)

Good Friday

Arkansas Good Friday
by Franz Wright


I

Everyone knows what the cross means, or will
----------before long

It is the body

It resembles the first stick-figure depictions
---------of it found in caves (some
---------with the heads of birds)

Depictions reproduced to this day by young children
---------just learning to draw

Its aerodynamic properties ought to be obvious I suppose

to us,
the wingless


How many years we have been carrying it
And before too much longer it will reveal itself
the source of a forsakenness and agony
nobody would have dared foresee
I saw it
over twenty years ago

Every day as the darkness came down on New York
I went up to my father and saw

(More and more I meet him
in the mirror, it is his blood I have
to clean up if I shave--...)

And I was born just as I found him there

a little bald
toothless man
screaming,
not for long though
(I refer to Mother Morphine's left tit)



II


Now I'll tell you something you don't know, you hurt
by the past, just like me, crushed
by the future and blind
to the present,
blind
to the moment--

But there is nothing you don't know
I got up every morning here
a long way from home
and cried for ten minutes
then showered and dressed
and got back down to work
assisted, on occasion, by one or two magical mystery
---------pills


III


I can tell you this
Who dwarfs my pain I cling to
the genuinely broken
and poor
And I cling to the Before
The spirit face
behind the face
yearning for light
the water and the light
And I am flowing back to the Before, the infinite
years which transpired while I was not
here, and did not know
I was not


here...
---------I came just like you
from inconceivableness, the eternal
before-we-arrived, flowing
from God's mouth, and come here to say
"this world" and
-------------"God," as if
they needed
names
-------- And what lies beyond is no doubt the beginning
I wouldn't know but I'm going
to find out
The what lies beyond
this loneliness and panic
I call dying, time, remorse, this cold
and purifying
fire, which hurts so much, which burns
away the world and all I was
who walked and breathed and spoke
how real it all seemed
for a few years, but I was always
immortal and will be
once more, when I return
to the infinite time
which elapsed before I was conceived;
when the heavenward face is burned away
and its scared eyes
and its tears
and its euphoria, which no one can imagine
(wrong: someone in love can imagine!)
And I have heard God's silence like the sun
now I long to return to it
no matter my infantile clinging
to this gorgeous material of such early wisteria and
---------lilacs, the wind
in the redbud and light-giving new heart-shaped leaves
music visible if completely unheard, I'll return
The angel's going to raise his arms and sing that time is
---------no more
nor tears: that numbered
sea of them is gone--
now there is a new sea, a new earth, a new sky--
and I will know what to say at the end: What end?
And I can add I found this world sufficiently miraculous
----------for me, before I'm changed.

--------------------------------------------------------
From GOD'S SILENCE. - Franz Wright 2006

I Don't Know About You, But I've Always Wanted to Crash a 73 Million Dollar, 2-Ton Probe

NASA announced plans to crash the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter into the moon, twice, in 2008. The primary mission of the $73 million, 2-ton probe, shown in this illustration, will be to search for water that could be used for manned missions.

Credit: NASA/John Frassanito and Associates

4 Sawbucks & Change For Your Thoughts

"Gray"

Nelson Olivera

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"

Overheard at Bemsha Swing:

"Speaking of rants, I wish people wouldn't sign their posts with only their first name. People generally come with at least a first and a last name for a reason. Anyway, just wanted to mention that the above, which is interesting and politely written and all, was not written by this Nick." (Nick Piombino)

"Yes. Just plain "Nick" is Nick Bruno? Or Nick somebody? "Nick Piombino" is Nick Piombino. "(Jonathan Mayhew)

"guilty of #1--I blame Blogger--but I usually sign my posts....is this really such a big deal? i mean, what if I had 10 avatars or something? what if I claimed to be Nick Piombino and got him in trouble? I was once accused of being Jacques Debrot under a fictional name..." (Nick LoLordo )


Glad that the appropriate "Nick" came forward to claim his quote. I agree that people should sign their complete names to their posts. Speaking of doppelgangers - I do not get around to googling myself much, but I recently found out that there is a "Nick Bruno" out there who's a music producer of mostly Gospel music:

Nick Bruno , well known producer and musician was among those honored on October 30, 2000 by being inducted in to the Gospel Music Hall of Fame as a member of the legendary Kingsmen. The Kingsmen made history with their song, "Excuses," produced for them by Nick Bruno, which maintained its number one chart position for 19 months. Nick Bruno was a member of the Kingsmen, as well as being the producer of their most popular and highest selling albums.

With all due respect to Nick LoLordo; why is it that nobody confuses me with that "Nick"? I guess that - I don't got the music in me!

The Holy Wall

Solomon's Wall Jerusalem
Artist: Jean-Leon Gerome (1824 - 1904)
Oil on canvas

Here's to You Mr. Robinson.

"But I try not to take either criticism or praise too seriously because I know that everyone has their cup of tea."

Hear...hear!

Can You Dig It?

The Fun Gallery
by Kevin Young


A buzz in the air
already, Basquiat
beaming. RAY GUN

set to stun
--maximum--a hold
up in this hole

in the wall,
a billion
paintings pinned

to dry wall
like butterflies,
stomachs. He's made it

all from scratch
& paint.
The work's too low

his dealer warned
--everything should be higher
to keep up

your prices,
speed. All night
the crowds line

outside like Disneyland
& love it. Taken
over Manhattan

he's King
Kong or Mighty Joe
Young, social

climbing--gone
from trains
to scale the Empire

State. Keeping most
of the show
for hisself, hitches

a limo to Bklyn
by dawn--the armored
car hour--up

early--or late
--as if to his own
funeral--

"Papa I’ve made it"

hugs & hands
him a blooming
bouquet.



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From To Repel Ghosts by Kevin Young - Revamped from its original "double album" version of 350 pages into this unique "remix," To Repel Ghosts captures the dynamic work and brief life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Can’t Write a Poem a Day in April – “Poetry Month” – In no Particular Order!

1) I can’t write that fast.

2) I can’t read that fast.

3) Scratch number 2; I never read my own poetry.

4) In my house we never do the same thing everyday for a month, and I mean anything!

5) My muse only works part time – three days a week she works at COSTCO.

6) I just don’t have that much poetry in me – hell I don’t have that much of anything in me!

7) With two young children in the house, I’m lucky if I go to the bathroom once a day.

8) I’m too busy writing this BLOG.

9) I’m too busy reading your BLOG. Yeah yours! Where do you think I get all my material?

10)-I’ve received a petition with over 1000 signatures begging me to spare their poetic sensibilities.

If He Only Had a Brain!

The Muezzins' Call to Prayer

Artist: Jean-Leon Gerome (1824 - 1904)

Oil on canvas

A Particular Disposition

The Fear of Open Faces

Hell is other people!
--------------------------------- Jean Paul Sartre


Tonight they gather to his credit; drink
to his name. Laughter hangs on the clothesline
of his liquored breath. He notes the first increments:

preliminary steps towards the scaffold
where disdain for the social is built;
the crawl down a fire escape
away from the flame of open spaces --
the burning skies of free discourse.

Trapped in that place between
agoraphobic alibis and the embrace
of the dramaturgical. He feels suffocated
by intrusive faces and the pungent smell
of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. - Humanity twice removed
would suit him fine right about now.


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Previously published in Spring 2004 – Snow Monkey - Anemone Sidecar - Ch 2