The Goodnight Show: The Beat Goes On

Our new podcast of the top ten poems found online for that week is now online. Stop by here to hear it.

metropolis

                    out of          the sanitarium
                    we walked          in backward
                    steps          toward extinction
                                      toward anthropophagia
                                      toward metropolis


because          of the skin
because          of the face
          you are victim          of my           g  a  z  e
                              for me to make
                                    s  o  a  p           and lampshades
                    out of you

               and          t  r  e  e  s          out of umbrellas

books burn          but words remain
like doubloons          in a ship caught
                    in a genoan          f  i  r  e


and into the mouth of a cave i painted by my own hand
i will step


in hunger i came watching the tin witch
crash into a wall of streaming photons
and into the metropolis of glassseapylon

                    can our deformed          b  o  d  i  e  s
                              exist in autonomous margins


naïve primitivism is          an affect
          of the tyranny of our human form
a fact          written in          
                   disappearing          i  n  k


                    as          s  k  i  n          succumbs
to the          fixation of          liquid          l  i  g  h  t
          and          d  i  s  s  o  l  v  e  s          into
                    aggregates of          silver salts

          and          a paper          e  y  e

Closing Time

The comfort of coins echoing in their register
Trays. Contralto quarters, soprano dimes
Chiming the hour above the whisper of paper
Money--counting down the drawer,

Roy, the assistant manager, shakes
Off a late customer rattling the door,
Eyes never straying from the blinking
Cursor on the blue crystal display.

Heather and I feather the wall, fingers
Grooming limp suit sleeves, coaxing
Regimen from remains of the worried
Lambskin, camelhair, merino wool

After shoppers have had their way.
We work from the store's dark belly
Toward well-lighted window displays--
Those undead mannequins that guard

Capitalism. Roy tells us to get our things
And stand still while he sets the alarm.
When he says ok we step over the iron
Gate runner. Roy turns the key and runs

The siren test which sounds, as we walk
Next door to the Palace Hotel for a cocktail,
Like a slightly different emergency
Than high heels clicking on wet sidewalk.

Diptych

Mutable history as seen in a second-string museum,
details become sublimated under dust-lidded

dioramas. A spread-eagled grey squirrel straddled
with a red squirrel's tail. Splayed for all the world.

Pinned down along with other half-done juxtapositions.
I've got one of these centaurs in my own front yard.

He makes me nervous when he runs as if
hoping to escape from his inborn recessive flames.

In a more extravagant installation, a miniature
she-goat, grazing on diurnal hibiscus flowers,

opens up to the exhibition of the forest.
And over here we have the bifurcated

V of taxidermic geese superimposed over
the grayed-down background of a fighter plane.

There's nothing new under the sun and so on.
All go which go in noisome abandon.

Including an entire afternoon. Until we return
to the easily shed and forgotten as now becomes

fanciful through the recollection of critical animals.
Highly charged, phantasmagorical griffons,

half mammal half talon, potent and
physical as anything we spread out to apprehend.

I Take To Heart Your Sleep

The very of it trebling with each rain equals
Immersion's cool possessive else
Approached from embouchure I guess
Unless the terra cotta holds us twinned apart from garden
Manifold impartings lessen steep curves of daylight
Also rising even as I watch and hear the breath of you
This morning

Men

Nothing foretells what to do if
falling in love with him again.
Concrete not made diamond
by felonious softs steps.

No accounting a dubious daddy
ghost wire-singing or
hampering currents
between the legs,

curt breezes seeping. Blink
and they're side by side. The
baby's man had Brylcreemed hair, his
left middle finger topped by

an aircraft propeller,
a war he was (slightly) too old to fight.
Grounded. The
woman's pearly white. Bare.

Clean as umamirose stink.
Hair tufted, for the pulling of. Head
back. Agape in tensile, in expectant,
in throes, in trust

mode. Him and him a slight
ambergris slaver. Metal
or nipples. To choose. And ride and ride and. Yet
saver the present so that nothing

links. Too soon reconciled. Hands,
eyes bletted adult. Love
swoon-beckons a little
death across a greater divide.

Henry’s Rich Black History Month

I saw Kobe driving a 1998 Ford Escort,
I saw Michael Jordan driving
a 1998 Ford Escort.

I saw Shaq driving a 1998 Ford Escort,
I saw Magic Johnson driving
a 1998 Ford Escort.

I saw Kobe and his wife driving a 1998 Ford Escort,
I saw Michael Jordan and his wife driving
in a 1998 Ford Escort.

I saw Kobe and Michael Jordan
and Shaq and Magic Johnson
driving together in a 1998 Ford Escort

and I don’t know how they did it
but they had their wives with them
in that 1998 Ford Escort.

Bonsai Numero # 1 Goes To.......

A Juniper Bonsai is scheduled for delivery on March 30th.

A Promise of Yellow Roses.

Fuck the Christians and the Muslims and the Jews.
Fuck the racist of any color.
Fuck the Democrats and the Republicans.
Fuck the Capulets and the Montagues.

Last night I dreamt we pushed
the earth in unison
and made the galaxy spin backwards,
while God danced to a tune by Marvin Gaye
and handed yellow roses.

But that was not what we did today
nor what we did
the day before.

Lack of comments on poems

Hey guys
Let's try and least to give it the old college try and read/comment on more things posted here. Let your browser walk down this page and see how many poems go by with no comments at all. They can't all be so bad that they don't warrent some sort of reply. I just now looked at the ones that did have comments and the same very few people have made those. Even many of the poets posting their poems haven't gone down, found one they liked and posted a comment. I honestly think that part of being a blog community is to do that much. What do you say??

d, if this is none of my business, pls feel free to delete. Won't bother me at all.

Pris

Introducing The Goodnight Show

The Prelude to War

There is political complexity to this, I'm sure.
But impressions stand stolidly in the face
of observation. He wanted his invasion
even as he was stealing the presidency in Florida
and as he was climbing ground zero under a sky
still crying soot and ash. Millions could see it.
Citizens of the world's greatest cities poured into
their streets and they flooded like over-burdened
rivers after torrential rains. There was hope that all
the faces and voices rising from the flood might
convince America there is legitimacy in reason
and sound evidence, not pre-emption. Yet,
the bastards veiled Picasso's Guernica,
covering the symbols of war's brutality. Where
is the screeching woman who is half there?
Her arms stretch across the fiery sky, spanning
the East and West, and she makes her fingers
fly like hooks clawing the rungs of heaven
or the hems of God's holy habiliments. Hidden
is her terrible expression invoking deliverance.
But there will be no God for her in these days.
And this is why they hid from sight the horse,
possibly representing the Apocolypse, racking its
neck, widening its eyes, and spreading its mouth
so wide from screams it must have chewed down
the burning sun. So great is the pain
and this revelation of war.

Losing His Name

The man sits on the sofa,
reading his newspaper.
He doesn’t know
how to write one to ten in words,
though he remembers
that he wrote poetry,
that the names of the friends he knew
come into his dreams at night.

He doesn’t seem to understand time,
walking into a room
again and again
asking the same question
as if to remind him
where it’s gone,
where he can find it.

Outside of stepping in the office,
he rarely goes anywhere.
Perhaps each new place
is like a spiral that turns away
from where he is,
losing his name
and the places he’s been to
like the numbers he can’t write.

Snapshot 22 March 02006

We are between the Chaste
and the Seed Moons, between
Sap and Grass. Winter lingers

on the dark side of the road,
high in the mountains; but here
in the valley, spring touches

the liquid face of the pond, buds
on the birches. Long friends
share stories like knitted scarves,

unravelled, rewoven; nothing
lost or forgotten, nothing unused.
Bamboo needles, silver hairpins,

a hospital balcony, a death bed.
Brutal family holidays, road trips
in deep snow. We pass back

and forth between us, gold ear-
rings; apricots and grapes; what
we know and what we don't.

Ode to a Nature

o, dream horse

stallion

nature

instinct

noblest pure heart

unafraid

face on all

threats all praise

all life not knowing death

living

deep eye

shining ancient darkest

night

bejeweled,

chestnut body

burnished red

copper black tasseled

painted

hooves of

flashed and

flowing power, leg..ged and

wing...ged

flying

lithe in a cloud rolling chant

drumming thunder, dreaming

air

arching

reverent

movement

gone by

jds/sep 1994

Skynight was an imported English Kahelan strain Arab stallion of esteemed lineage, the pride and joy of his owners in Toronto. He died of natural causes in 1994 at age 25 years in his adopted country, Canada.

Henry’s Elegy For A Peruvian Poet

Vallejo was a hater of God
and with good reason,
the day Vallejo was born God was sick,

absent-without-leave, AWOL,
gone over the wall,
he was teenage girls at the mall.

God was a wife-beater,
a child molester,
a mean stepfather to Vallejo.

Vallejo would cover his head
with his arms
as punches rained down on him,

the Ark already departed with pairs,
Noah in the pilot house
filled with sadness like a cup.

The day Vallejo was born
God was sitting on the pot
omnipresent and omnipotent.

words that can't be / spoken

& i / confined to this room
to this house / for my own
safety / peace of mind

oh yes / pieces of my mind
i re main / this is my self imposed
silence

the vapid loss / of my self less ness
stretch ed thin enough / oh / pull me tight enough

i can't get enough / of this /
i'm scream ing a gain
no one is listen ing / a gain /

& the house crash es
& i / mommy dear est / crash /
& wish to do / no thing

& i / clean /
i clean / i clean / & i feel like

yes / it's the drown ing / it's this





/

'Round The Mulberry Bush (slight adj to stanza 3 &line brk in last stanza)

Like so many decisions, made in haste;
his hand on your arm, bidding you stay,
while the crazy bluebirds circle, crying
yes, yes, and the great willows bend
in the wind, moaning yes yes.

And so you lay your head next to his,
listen again to his lies, try to believe
those bluebirds and the willow trees
and the flash rain that comes, soaking
everything back to bright green.

Your body melts to the bed when he enters you,
whispering secrets only two lovers share, but
you know they all lie--the foolish bluebirds,
their feathers now like sharp glass, the two-timing
willows, even the greedy rain, and so you rest
pennies upon your eyes when he has finished, draw
a shroud up across your face.

You recite your prayers to the tooth fairy,
Romeo and Juliet, and the weeping lady
across the street,
knowing
tomorrow he will kill you again.

Siren Song

Listen to the chimes
beneath the waves
break the calm
violet dusk
that slows the hours.

From all the origins of music
nothing is as pleasant
as the ethereal sound of your song
daughter of Neptune,
voice of moon driven rain.

It will outlive my time
as it has all others.
Eternity. Desire. Nimbus.
Be present in my ear
on the last day.

DQ 3/20/06

A Psychology of Space

A Psychology of Space

The window is in front of you
as you’re asked to be seated
so you can break the glass,
so you can fly through if needed.
A view of birds fighting
for seed at an empty feeder
or a playground full of preschoolers
screaming, slide and swings
anchored in pavement.

The instruments are behind you
so you can’t see the silver tools
sharp and cruelly gleaming.
The needles and drills are invisible.
As with god and love, it’s difficult
to believe in what you can’t see
or feel. The walls on either side of you
don’t connect with the ceiling
so your cries won’t go unheard;

all of the patients in the waiting
room flipping impatiently
through magazines without seeing
the pages will feel your pain too.
This is how I want to love you.
I close my eyes as the Novocain
is injected. Not so bad. Just a pinch
then the tongue goes numb.
I can say nothing. I can live
with that. Can’t you?

Bottled Butterflies

for debby b


It's dark as midnight
At six pm in Windsor.

It's Sunday night and
Things are the same

As if it were Saturday
And as you walk you

Kick rocks hands in
Pockets and nose

Covered by the scarf
That someone special

Gave you a few years
Ago and sometimes

You swear you can still
Smell her on it so you

Stop, and sniff, and
In this half filled

Desolate parking lot,
your vision is given;

The perfect afternoon
On grass and strategic

Trees spread out light
Across your horizon

And there is no one
But you two and nothing

Else you can think of
Wanting. As if all the

Tragedy of your last
Year. Your father. Your

Family your purpose in
Life and all the miles

Of love you have left
To give, you never knew

Of; uncapped like a
Bottomless bottle from

This paradise scape
of cracked Windsor

Parking pavement between
The strip club and the casino;

Fluttering into the air
Like clouds of opals,

Diamonds, and worries
Away on a million wings.




~luc u! '06

Flavor

Taste that lingers in my mouth,
memoir of walks in the garden.
Dreams that seemed eternal then
are now glass fragments
we can’t piece together.

Perhaps you are here unknowingly
as a instrument of memory,
like those persistent souls
that cling to old homes
looking to be remembered.

I taste and grieve for a man
somewhere in the world
who can’t find your flavor.
It lingers in my mouth,
pleasant until the end.

D.Q. 3/19/06

Parrots

Parrots don't believe in evolution. They squawk about
the missing, hissing links. Talking snakes with legs,
saltine cracker wrappers, side by side with raptor
bones, or Paris fashion hats with T. Rex tails--can't be
found. Religious cults abound; in St. Polly's name
they pray in unknown tongues, repeat their litanies from
inside wired cages, making supplications to their gods
for bleached-flour wafers, cleansed with salt. They hate
deserted islands, pirates, treasure chests, but have such reverence
for tradition, they show up for the pictures--at a minimum,
do a fly-by, as long as it's for scale. They often change
romantic partners after empty nests, don't read
the papers (they're covered with so much crap), get
their news from magazines in check-out lines and barbershops--
Hollywood gossip, politics and hip-hop are their favorite
subjects--they're really into repetition. Parrots don't believe
in revolution. They don't think the world is one big curve,
thrown to strike them out. They don't play baseball
yet. Hence, no hot dogs, peanuts, Cracker Jacks. Nights
are spent perched on barstools sucking cocktails. Tropical
drinks are their weakness. Pink umbrellas in their beaks,
they drink to forget day jobs, wives sitting at home
on the eggs. When out of town on business, they'll hit
some kinky clubs, check out the chicks in cages, swinging
above their cherry heads, fly home just in time for breakfast
with stories of their trip--plantains big as airplanes,
crickets sweet as crispy cremes.

What's new?

Stop by MiPo's Blogisimo.

Or how about stopping by and checking out who is on the cover of MiPOesias Magazine.

Or hey wanna hear some readings from the AWP? Laurel Snyder captured it here.

Or hey still don't have enough, stop by MiPOesias RSS feed here.

And of course the latest miPOradio is here.

what could be; late at night and broken

what could be; late at night and broken

(you)
where are you going with
things in your hand? your
hands are soft even after
everything.

(you and i)
i can only hold you for
another month. because
i am five years too late
already. in the studio
we find a potter's wheel,
your hands and my impatience.

(so many others)
after years and years
they become fiercely hard.
petrified just in time
to die. from florida,
arizona and other sanctuaries
like slow zombies with
more and more and more
money. money that will
blow your mind. or anything
else. and it's coming
from every direction and
i want some. and you know it.



~luc u! '06

Basic Floorplan of a Ranch House

If there is a house, I don't know how to get you to draw it.
Do you want me to be inside it?
Do you want yourself to be the plan of it?
Do you need to sleep outside, on the patio--will that do it?
Will that make the dream come to you,
the blueprint all fixed and starry and purposeful, as you need it?

Because I don't know if I do.
Some words are not nearly as useful as they could be.
For instance, some of these swaths that we have to send back--
I wouldn't mind.

Not really saying as much.
But, I really hate some words.
I hate them with something like ardor.
The ardor of your interiority.

The way certain sounds...

you turn up the flame on the sugar, for instance, to melt it--

or villa,
underscoring the word village, where the world becomes street.

That world is too busy--too black.

For I hate hustle, I hate hegemony, I hate hate.
Also that swayback, I hate it.
I hate plurality.
I hate the fact that just to exist means, being partial.
I hate the row, (just now, the one we just had).
And I hate the salesman who insists on going to his car,
who keeps on rising up to go to his car, who keeps everything in his car--
his damn car--with not a goddamn thing back here,
where we could use it.

Or I hate you--I hate you, sometimes. When you're asleep--
you're not so tender.
You fall asleep and your eyelids rove about.
Your limbs thrash.

Are you thinking about me, is this the house you wanted,
is that why you hate it?

miPOradio: The Weekend Show 03/18/2006

sketches menses to samuel barber's adagio

and this is no chore
          this smoothing of the
sheets
    and this is no act
this serious handwork
                   and this is no secret
this labourlove
                         this the way the
ripples bend to
     following
    from
  flowing
and this is no mistake
      this blood within the crack
and this is no unknowing
       this written in stone cycle
and this is not at all
                        all foregone
      this red
and
       this penciltip cracked like a picked
quick
        this novel and unworkable the
lead tipping
 and this tool spl-
          itting
and this sliver
   and this shallow soft flat place bed
and this muskiron this to the woo origins led
   and this baroqueing ooze so antagonistic to bed
this hand
 this forefinger-thumb blend
soft hatching
             and this no tumultuous occasions but this
bleed
       shed
and this sweet white comfort flat belly
        this no credible home but empty womb-fleece
dead
          this bevelled lip finger in nippleshard lending this
sway
        this hornday pillow cramp stain
and this no ordinary unordinated day
  and this harrowing sorrow this nochildway
and this lack
  and this more than made up for
in someway
quick again
          stay
           stay the flow from out the door more
stay

many kinds in mid-turn

what reversed the droves

often redoubled as renewed idea


that sky in the interim

her perfect word

thrown at the gates underleaf


they still say

nothing sounds the narrative as bells

the crowd of the aging

grind through the weathered instead

Further information

So Didi what exactly is the Bonsai Project 2007 and how do I fit in?

Geez I have to stop talking to myself....

Does anyone have any questions?

Bonsai Project 2007

Coming soon.......

And only available to cafe' cafe' community members....

If you are not sure what Bonsai Project 2007 is, stop by here to see Bonsai Project 2004.

Photography-buff

Nothing like a poetry class to get me using my camera.
Also, I'm about to get swept off cafe cafe poetry blog.
Just now noticed my winter snapshots look a bit uterine
as if there's this snowglobe maybe hidden in my abdomen
filled with water for oxygen, talk about your particles and waves!
I haven't had the chance to tell you my ethereal dreams:
blizzardesque and tilting, forward and backward,
cerulean blue alcove just behind the curved glass lens.
The skylight presupposes an endless search. Also, binoculars.
Wild geese overhead with their maps and compasses.
We look up to them and lip-read silent words of stars
or snow or even dust from birds. Our progress thwarted,
we fail to understand the maelstrom of constellations.
Three/quarters of the universe is frozen, the rest up in flames.
Our first clothing nothing more than blankets of smoke.
Newborn air has all this symbolic strength, coming,
as it does, from babies-breath and the biology of leaves.
Beflowered wind has got us lifted out of half-states.
Something like a winter garden only indoors and full-blown.

The Easy Button has finally arrived.Go ahead,press it!

At the End of the Street Lies the Sky

At the end of the street lies the sky
dressed in the purple magician’s robe
of eventide and the winter storm.
Tonight she sculpts stairs of ice and
snow. She casts spells upon the laden
earth and the dying man can hear
her invitations in the blizzard, in
dreams that are like all other dreams
except soundly, deeply, more vividly.
He leaves while his wife is sleeping.
He leaves without any goodbyes.
There is no gentle kiss for her lips
no tussling of the boys’ hair or
kiss for the daughter with the moon-
shaped face. This is not intentional.
How could he know the destination
of this dream? He leaves his house,
walks down the silent street and
past the rows of barren trees
that shield the homes of dear
neighbors who helped round out
the days, grow the kids, and watch
year after year arrive and depart.
He does not think this odd tonight.
He considers this an adventure
walking past the shroud of snow
and onto the glistening stairs
that climb the breast of sky.

a long side strides

only
the creamed
wood lures passing

crowds of singular
attention as
if

tree
lined home
roads also glistened

with spatters of
long light
across

places
to walk
places to live

among the non-
dichotomous beings
belonging

where
the random
likelies bloom like

daily shown flowers
we agree
upon

meaning
shallow meaning
deep meaning real

appearances like projections
of our
chemistry

commanding
focus while
releasing present tense

(danger)'smells(?)

fire
trash burn

",as meaning any
chaos,

formless" wall

high bag plastic
a

in newspaper
(butts) seize muscles


floss

paper (ing)
filtered catch/caught dipped

playing

fingers trash
water (gutter) into
over

edge curved
inch 3 formed


"fire
on" floating
letters out kerned

lines

(eyes across)

dots thighs number

A poet for the Nameless

Outside is everything.
The day and the sun and the trees,
but it is infinitely calm in here
deep inside me.

Perhaps I’m uninhabited.
I, of ancient ownership
and vanished years,
flag of abandoned land.

I leave this collection of poems
written in archaic language
for those who are missing
yet can still dream.

They will read them in silence
and recognize my name
under the gleam of their eyes.

D.Q. 3/13/06

age old / i have be come your hands

heart / is


a place no one can talk about / it goes beyond


love / the slick ness of sweat / sweet taste of life


i am not / heart / only stone / cold they say


an anger press ed down / fill ed up / w sad ness


& simple they say / there is nothing to dying


i don't remember being born / i scarce lee


remember / touch / core thing / that / heavy hand


of / now you've for gotten / & i get up & leave



always leaving / once / last time / /









yes / the days are getting long er now / sun shines

over the mountain / air / frozen roads / ice to remind

we st.ill move around / this year / next year / & i keep

next year's plan to my self / no sense sharing with the dead

To my daughter

most precious to me
you are a gift to one undeserving

so fine, unspoiled
the universe in your eyes gleams

and all mankind historic
in every discovery
many, many times, each second indivisible
you are one with me

out of love you arose
and in the infinite wisdom
of those powers that be

to remain, pure, infused with love and of full living
is my wish for you

my darling baby
girl.

jds

Acrophobia

The boy falling from a balcony three-storey-high

is not falling. Rather, he challenges the rules

of attraction, floating in a bottomless abyss

framed by the black lines

of a comic strip panel. In penumbra,

the action lines smear and fade

from white to red to form the capital letters

of a stop sign. But this does not end here.

I reach my hand out into the viscous substance

of the dark. The fragrance of obsidian

is like the white clay kabuki actors

smear their faces with when they become

oni, Japanese ogres with eyes crimson red

like the wounded head of Apollinaire on a snowy day

of nineteen seventeen when he saw

a bombshell fall into the trenches.

I watch the ochre yellow and cyan blue fumes

of Munch’s The Scream from the interior

of its wooden frame. The paper canvas rolled up

inside of the devil’s pocket, the varnish

and the oil paints crack and chip off,

and my face falls again toward the grid

of the wooden board of a game of go

where no one has the need for a face.

Spring Cleaning

You don't use it, you lose it. I am cleaning out membership from cafe cafe. I am setting up a very important challenge (gift) for community members soon. So even if you are not posting new poems to share with us, leave comments because I am cleaning house.

The Weekend Show

Saturday: Contributors from The Bedside Guide to Notell Motel

Sunday: writers from the current issue of MiPOesias Magazine

(Note at the end of Sunday's show, I somehow mixed in Linh Dinh's poem in with Carol Mirakove's so I will rebroadcast Carol's poem again next week)

The Accent

My friend just back from Iraq
maybe six or seven months
and discharged from the army

was an optometrist at Abu Ghraib,
was back home now
looking for a different kind of job,

a release valve, a working vacation.
Well, one day while working
with a Lebanese guy

who’s been in America for over twenty years,
anyway, my friend gets pissed off
at the Lebanese guy and tells him

to go to hell or wherever it is
that Lebanese guys go
when they are told to do so.

A day later my friend says
“I didn’t know why I went off on him,
it wasn’t until today

that I realized it was the accent!”
Ever since the dawn of time
soldiers bring the war back home

and they have to deal with it
the best way they can.
The accent, the accent, huh? Damn.

Circles

High above the wheat fields
Zephyrus etches poems
in swirls of yellow ochre.
Poems unaware
of their own beauty
and lack of metaphor.

His ancient breath,
cabbalistic and quantum,
sweeps below the moon
like a song that makes
us centuries young
by use of sacred symbols.

Why are we here?

To seek divinity
in eveyday things.
Far and luminous
like the stars
intricate and beautiful
like crop circles.

DQ 3/10/06

AWP happenings with MiPO

MiPOesias in New York

The Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia Street, NYC 10014  212-989-9319
MiPOesias Reading
March 30th, 2006 at 6PM
Gabriel Gudding, Amy King, David Lehman and Annie Finch

We’ve been married fifty years

Now I never talk
with anyone

without you beside me,
hearing my words
almost yours equally to speak.

What do we have
that love can’t be itself,

that when a person
thinks of another,

she leaves herself
to be gathered
like a word overheard.

reaching'for'the'spatula

inside

futures word
said there agree

to

state (notes)
clearing masturbation ((ular)

to)

successions surround
to (s) (backover)

double'd

language word
direction back nominating

double

sound (ed)
(s) life hearing

block

slime "briefing
nominated" and clothes

undoes

"whom as
times" circle word

Grace Cavalieri's Audio Column: INNUENDOES

Feb IBPC winning poems

1st Place

Stovetop
Sarah Sloat
Desert Moon Review

Stovetop

the girls have grown so much
the ceiling shatters
kitchen chairs collapse

but a quart of milk stays simple
it will do for brewing
custard in the sweet hereafter

recital of steps so few
even a daughter might muster
a cloudburst of milk

mudslide of sugar
egg albumen expanding
like a most virginal flower

stovetop, slop shrine
nothing special about
stewing, ruminating

over smoke in the kitchen
why, because
the mind simmers

like melancholy it boils over
and what else can one do
up to the elbows in flour



2nd Place

high altitude in the lips of clams
Cy Street
Splash Hall Poetry

high altitude in the lips of clams

i saw a buttercup blinking
above a florentine door
hotel de lanzi
the street ran empty
a ghost biker passed thru
rubesco bottles patiently wait
dimly lit buildings
drank the dew
dreamed
expressing concerns privately
off camera
an interview with the stars
thru flashbacks
criterion for thunder and rain
overlapping darkness
a passage to where
beneath the bench
a shadow
an earthy
and stone faced night sky
a pitch black invitation
what is your name
do you unknown

i was taken by a storefront
uttering evidence of solitude
free from the baker s wood oven
another song writing tourist
an angry angel singing
some soul take
war cries
pledges to speak up
a rusty harmonica
a picture off the shelf
another glass of aspirinio
i begin to remember myself
from the eighteenth century
a white wig i think
two years ago
when i bought the photo
smoking my spirit
a burning box
now resting on the eastern wall
facing the ocean
and a million barrels a day

from the shotgun
i get lost around the corner
looking ahead
i walk away into the unseen
a red rooster
having a nap
bored by the lecture
clear creek practices
in the ancient art of tomato farming
and olive pressing
i remember my introduction to panic
and high altitude in the lips of clams
glazed with the ocean floor
and lost phone numbers



3rd place

The Gospel According to David Copperfield
Nathan McClain
Inside The Writer’s Studio

The Gospel According to David Copperfield

At six, Jesus drapes a velvet cape
over broken chair legs, curls his fingers
and yells Abracadabra in Aramaic.

Mary applauds the dove of sawdust beneath.

John lowers Jesus into Jordan’s
backyard pool. He emerges and yanks
quarters from the mouths of inflated goldfish.

Jesus dunks his hands in stone water pots
filled to the brim, pomegranate fog
spreading like Easter egg dye.

Peter hands out fliers for a three-day show
in Galilee. It reads: “Jesus, the Magnificent:
to wake sparrows from sleep

and saw Death in two! Watch as he parts
the flaming halves like the Red Sea!
(and of course, Jesus nails every trick)

For the grand finale, he’ll make himself
vanish from a pad-locked coffin
and reappear off-stage in a sequin-

crusted suit. Watch the women wail and faint
as He guesses the cards they choose.
And as a special encore—Jesus levitates!”



1st Honorable Mention

Of a Journal Partially Smeared from a Summer Flood
Yolanda Calderon-Horn
Desert Moon Review


August is too hot to be sexy outdoors.
Blue strip indicates a new period.
New art is forming.

I become a fossil on the spare bedroom carpet
shaped out of time I spent being petrified and eager,
but fire-trucking to the bowl makes it
impossible to stay stoned.

Because he’s baptized in my water,
there’ll be deliverance. He?
When did I conceive this notion?

He’s settled among my springy pillars
and has become my daily meditation.
I will look fastidiously after him. I hope he looks
a little like me to pull me out of grownup context.

I gobble and gobble chili-con-carne
as the legs of October rest high on a timetable.
He does not seem to mind my new weakness.

I have never been equally full and hungry
of/for an individual so little, so huge.

I barely sleep as I go from my right side,
back, and then left side.
He crashes comfortably: sleeps well.

His mutiny through my Nile absorbed
an entire day.

Upon delivery, a poem
that would jam in my belly soared
to epistles baby-bluing the neck
of that April sky.

The hurt he caused my yielding walls
with startled fists and feet
is now an obscure backdrop
like ink that blurs colorlessness
on the page it evangelizes to.

7lbs, 9ozs of sun.



2nd Honorable Mention

Coming To Terms With Delinquency
Author: Wendy Howe
The Versifier Online Poetry and Art Forum

I wish I could say the furnace
squatting in my yard
is a sculpture by Alexander Calder.

Scrap metal drum
with pipes and faucet prone
to spit water

could be his way of defining
the housewife whose breath
is steam-hissing through bones

and a radiator of shoulder blades
that stands nonchalant
letting a stray breeze
shrug off the dust.

That would make its presence
significant, a work of art
to contrast the silent poise
of stones and wide-sleeved pine
bending like a geisha to serve tea.

I can only say the furnace lingers
because a plumber honored
half his contract. He installed
a new system and neglected
to haul the old one from my garden.

When it rains
water floats on the rusted surface,
birds bathe in tequila
and I become their patron saint
wearing clogs and blue denim.



3rd Honorable Mention

Villanelle on the Sky
Mitchell Geller
Desert Moon Review

The sky has many faces, many hues,
from cobalt to a pale chalcedony;
a scintillant kaleidoscope of blues.

The opal dusk surrounds a maple whose
black branches etch a haggard tracery.
The sky has many faces, many hues.

Like sequins dotting indigo charmeuse,
the constellations contrast hauntingly
a scintillant kaleidoscope of blues.

When amber and vermilion tones suffuse
a sunset blazing incandescently,
the sky has many faces, many hues.

Amorphous, dark, the scudding storm clouds cruise
across a mass of lapis lazuli --
a scintillant kaleidoscope of blues.

The heavens' lights, eternally the muse
inspire music, dance and poetry.
The sky has many faces, many hues --
a scintillant kaleidoscope of blues.



-Congrats to all winners!
The IBPC Team

AWP POET? Po' Blogger in Austin? You're Invited to Lorna Dee's Book Bash

CANCELLED - sorry - See my blog for more details. Let's meet at this:

SUPERFLUX LAUNCH PARTY, March 8
Readers include Eileen Myles, Susan Wheeler, Rosa Alcalá, Lee Ann Brown, Lara Glenum, Arielle Greenberg, Rachel Levitsky, and Denise Szymczak. There will be a screening of a short film by Jill Chamberlain. 7:00 pm on Wednesday, March 8 at the Cactus Café in the Texas Union (UT Campus)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CANCELLED:

READ 'n' EAT, MEET & GREET POETRY BLOGGERS!
ALL POETS - WELCOME HOME!
Wednesday 6 - 7:30 pm
Poets' Pot-Luck Picnic Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway
(esquina del rio y carretera)
Town Lake Park

7:30 - 10pm+
marathon monopoem spin-the-bottle reading
Poets Book Fest
Pecan Tree Restaurant - Blue Bonnet Banquet Room
Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake
20 North Highway 35
Hot & Cold Hors D'oeuvres
bring your own drinks from
THE TAVERN

TOWN LAKE: POETS CENTRAL


Orale! TIME TO GREEZE! Who's up for meeting po'bloggers everywhere? I'm up for hosting a meet & greet marathon monopoem spin-the-bottle reading (A la the good old days of the Annual MANGO Toast 'n' Jam), food, drinks on wednesday evening especially for all my poetry blog buddies - that means you, buddy! Esa! Bring your guitar, all youse local yokels. [yes, yesy, I know, geographic socioeconomic melange: all by intent for deconstructive purpose and strategy y con plenos poderes.]

So, let me know as soon as you can, RSVP, come in on the spur, come as you are -- no cost but a gulp & someone will gulp what you don't. Hey, we're all poets, we're all poor. We'll buy our tacos elsewhere, break bread together and convene later in the boardroom. So just let me know who can come - the more the merrier & more economical, especially if y'all can chip in. Otherwise, we'll have food, water, juice, beer, wine, witty new friends (even if only on the page) and poetry until they all run out except for the friends -- including the ones we haven't yet met. What else is there? Love? PISH-TUSH. O, was that a hair? So, hey, grab your sweetie, round up your buddies, avoid the posse and poesy over to Town Lake (the river, son) and convene beneath the shadow of the freeway with me & my "bums and babblers." Any time you get there is when you're there. "Real Poets" are rumored to arrive -- could be you. All are invited. And, it's free. Come sell your books before the conference. I'll have a table for poets participating in the open-mike spin-the-bottle monopoem marathon and you can buy books direct from the authors.

Come help me celebrate my new book in 15 years, DRIVE: The First Quartet by reading me your best poem. You can contribute to the cost of a cool place to meet up with other poets by buying my book direct from me ($25.00, cloth, 320 pps.) Or not. And help us unite - You have nothing to lose but your poems! Don't be shy (like me) - POETRY ON!

So, spread it around!

Besides my reading Thursday Night at the Con Tinta Event Celebrating 40 Years of Chicano Literature - among other things - and my panel at noon on Friday, and as many of your events as I humanly can, I'll be La Bird hanging loose by my WINGS on 442 Prayers -- just think of my poem, "Coffee" -- I'll be near the coffee, in the back, #442, Wings Press, where I'll be signing books periodically. (CU-CWP students get heavy discount).

You & your buds can contact me at PoetDee AT LornaDeeCervantes DOT ya'know -- or not. See y'all there! (Tejana by birth: my son's.) ¡Ajúa! I LOVE TEXAS.

YEA!! (I'm hearing Donna Summers in my head - somebody help me! Read me a good poem! )

I'm so excited/ And I just can't hide it. . .

LDC
c/s

An Uncredited Achievement

When I walk
I visit
places where I
used to be a fool.

Although I
know I'm wiser now,
I see them
laughing at what
they remember of me.

Outside,
a fool
and alone,
I humored
many a heart.

~la seductrice~

because of how you are standing
and how you are leaning and stuff,
and how your hair is bobbed and
took care of, i doubt i will

have much to say to you since
your glass is full. it's been full
for hours. i wonder if you know
any good jokes. i wonder if you

know french. the french really
have it together. i know this
because of their very long and
reasonably stable history.

shall i speak of french history?
that's a rhetorical question by
the way, so don't worry about
giving me a grin or something.

maybe i'll just tell you the truth;
all your stuff, especially your face
lessness, makes me feel like i am way
too broke and old fashioned to dally.

~

Po' Bloggers Meet In Austin - AWP - Lorna Dee's Book Bash Invite

MEET, EAT & GREET POETRY BLOGGERS!
Wednesday 6:30 - ? 6 - 9?
Pecan Tree Restaurant & Blue Bonnet Banquet Room
Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake
20 North Highway 35
(esquina del rio y carretera)

Orale! TIME TO GREEZE! Who's up for meeting po'bloggers everywhere? I'm up for hosting a meet & greet marathon monopoem reading, dinner, drinks on wednesday evening especially for all my poetry blog buddies - that means you, buddy! Esa!

Let me know as soon as you can, RSVP, and give me a ball park figure on who all would be interested in private sit-down banquet buffet for $25, buffet & host bar for $40, or bar in room for reading (sit-down & order food & drink off restaurant menu first) or, hey, we're all poets, we're all poor. We'll buy our tacos elsewhere and convene later in the boardroom. So just let me know who can come - the more the merrier & more economical, especially if y'all can chip in. Otherwise, we'll have food, water, juice, beer, wine, witty new friends (even if only on the page) and poetry. What else is there? Love? PISH-TUSH. O, was that a hair? So, hey, grab your sweetie, round up your buddies, avoid the posse and poesy over to Town Lake (the river, son) and convene beneath the shadow of the freeway with me & my "bums and babblers." Any time you get there is when you're there.

But I have to order (commit cash) by today, and I have no idea if there are a dozen of us or 4 times that.

Come help me celebrate my new book in 15 years, DRIVE: The First Quartet by reading me your best poem. And help us unite - You have nothing to lose but your poems! Don't be shy (like me) - POETRY ON!

$50 will get you a signed copy of DRIVE, a banquet buffet (selection of 2 entrees, sides, desserts, etc. let me know veggie/ vegan food preferences), no-host bar & a cool place to meet up with other poets.

Or, whatever level you can contribute & I'll spring for the room, service & tax, maybe snacks. Or, just let me know you'd like to just come, or contribute only so much, or would prefer we all order off the menu (more time) and carry our drinks from The Tavern. (We can't bring any food or drink into the hotel.) We may even have SONG!

So, spread it around!


PoetDee AT LornaDeeCervantes DOT ya'know

YEA!! (I'm hearing Donna Summers in my head - somebody help me! Read me a poem!

I'm so excited. . .

"La Seductrice"

allure hangs my

suspended disbelief
to the third floor, door number four this time,

been here before too.

my god, instant recog ignition
all there. all on.

her siren call burns me so immediate
my thought plugs fry
useless

must go look for their bits, I guess on the floor
and oddly enough,

barely see a red light, blinking small, just quite
tiny really, on my shoe.

strange

but a rope smoked from her flame
flys ME back to the moon alice
into a
crystal gaze sweat drop
reflecting you know who

and that whack
cherubim
terrible
off stage door left.... behind the potted plant
sips pink drink, and smiles slightly
pointing.

"pinche chicano moon: es sestina ese"

pinche chicano moon: es sestina ese


~ for Henry & Mr. Bones



Noriega provides us with an want anything.
LOONEY WELL I COME FROM HALF MOON BAY!
Between images of the moon and
Chicano scholar Chon A. Noriega
Judgment day come and come soon — I — unPURO
Him — he seemed like — 3. You can

Bet not even talcum powder can
Can Watts. (never will I forget anything)
Sur 13, so hit me up at - PURO
EL PELON (2-3 VATOS) — HALF MOON BAY
Film critic and scholar Chon A. Noriega
Has the image of a Yellow Star and

On. . . . If "hombre" and
Forums think soo — pero i just can
Read film critic/scholar Chon A. Noriega
And tint person (so I can’t give you anything)
Chicano Rap from DA VALLEY to DA Bay
Mexico pero i was born in Califaz — Puro

Style was what he called the puro
To the Sun, the Moon, the Wind And
FINEST. City: SHaoLiN KiLLaH BaY
(Head to a breakbeat) ... ones we can
Not shape. "His sister couldn’t do anything
Baldwin Park to USA," says Chon Noriega

"Park the USA!” says one Noriega
EX'S. Male or Female - SOY PURO
They were cowards and never did anything
_____ Shoot for the moon! and
Tint not be what riches a person, so he can
Say: Contextualizes the a - bay

And contextualizes the A Bay
"Park the US!” says Chon Noriega
It aint HIP HOP it's shit I can
You got a lot riding on this puro
Night, I would lasso the moon, and
It's real good i love to read and post anything

From watts... Never will I forget anything
To the Sun, the Moon, the Wind — And
You got a lot riding on this puro.


Compiled 3/4/2006  6:44:38 PM GMT
and edited minimally by Lorna Dee Cervantes 11:50 AM

get a google poem c/o Leevi Lehto
More poetry in English/Finnish:
www.leevilehto.net

La Seductrice

I would feel like an Iraqi insurgent
would feel like when blown apart
by 50 caliber machine gun fire,

I would feel like six very young children
eviscerated by a car bomb
meant to further a cause,

I would feel like an American soldier
whose brain flies in pieces through desert air
after the roadside bomb explodes,

I would feel like an Iraqi policeman
gunned down in my police car
at an intersection,

I would feel like an Iraqi mother
looking at her bloody children
made unrecognizable by Air Force bombs,

I would feel like an American father
receiving the news that his son is no more
shot while on patrol protecting the oil pipeline,

I would feel like I should do something
and you would feel like you should do something
but we won’t.

These, My Politics

Last on list (enlist) are brittle
after hold from hurt still
there are actualities to rend
er there are branches from
north breezes the imagination
fosters will have fostered
an enormous shift the limber left
is singular (in wingspan)
commas bridge the little segue
from (say) fluctuate to stay
here just a piece I want
to freshen your connect point
(be with me) only this glyphs
to show we're in parentheses
thus mere thus partial
so the curved way of the thin road
needs each way-place to be
covered versus cautious
and the trail to rooftop
needs to hold encompassing
breeze peace a prayer is
most important to have home
and in this fluency
one takes the earth from
piece to shambles and dis-
mantles prior look unto
a first born semblance
to arrive at thus
how insurmountable is effortless
and colorless brilliant pure
perception that for all
eternity will hinge
the infinite appearing
unhinged

texts, sighs and café café

how wiL i knO hu U R?

im leaning on d bar warin a lng orange skirt. ther's a ,>--l @ my rght elbow whch f i stNd hEr much longer i mite knock Ovr. cum qixlE.

wot f i git d wrng woman?

dun wori - ive got my L h& Ovr my puC & ther cnt b mNE women stNdN hEr lIk DIS cn ther?

wot shaL i sA wen i git ther so dat U knO itz me?

sA: LO - havnt i cn U on a poetry site? & f i throw d ,>--l Ovr U U knO uve got d wrng woman

wot f U dun lIk me wen U c me?

Ill throw d ,>--l Ovr U NEway & remind myself nevr 2 post on a poetry borD 'gen

Bollywood

for A.D.

Wait. Let's waltz.
What is your caste system?

                                                          Is your hymen intact?
                                                          Flames.
                                                          Frames.
                                                          I need to eat something.

Somewhere, Jenny, I believe
I feel like I am in a field?
where there are big storms

and oh, something else
something allright with us--
you decide.

(Krishna, Garuda...
in the dentist's head
a big flaming bed
he shouldn't operate without light)

                                                                Sometimes I feel like
                                                      we are in a gigantic universe,
                                                                   just a little bit older
                                                                          than this one.

bit of skirt haiku

she stands at the bar
             despite her seductive pose
                                she's pulled already

"La Seductrice"

She is none of the ones
you clearly have in mind.
None you could have as your own.

Still, faces don’t matter.
She finds the colours
to make yours.

When the sun sets,
in time, her dress
would become the river
you swim in.

View of a Woman (La Seductrice)

Woman myth
moon sylph

If she had a cocktail
it would be Strawberry Bliss,
like pink detergent, interacting
with the side of a glass.

No matter where she leant,
up against a bar,
or at the kitchen sink,
the inverted cone of alcohol
perched beside her would re-frame
the golden flow of evening gown

Elixer of hunger
resides in the glass.

She has bought the tailored dream,
the promise of her own movie,
the command of camera eye,
machinery of the image.

But now she's bought it,
can she sell it?

"The Kiss"

THE KISS

~ after a painting by Rabi Khan



The kiss is hollowed
awesome blood caverns
to purgatory--a small aqua
spot projected out your inner
ear, projecting. Imagine that. A
circumference of lust, a wrap of throb,
destiny from them until arrival. Shining
on. A magistrate of emptiness in
the vascular heart. Autumn seeping
through. A new design, architect
of the next arousal. Just missing
her final button. The kiss is hallowed.

Mr. P runs around the line

'flector

reversal window
argues pants socks

it
smell coffee

door pleasant no


shirt

no shoe
no (time another


on

",coupling
was that said

had
they" keyboard

uses time another


on

it sings
walked boot trap


wait
wooden "subject

human that" it

for

bending piece
tongue in hands


below
moored (it

defines it nonsense


rolls

it tied
down button again

February in Queens

Her name is Sabina but she looks like my sister.
I visit her in Astoria. A sound, like astonishment
maybe mixed with stars. She tools around,
all day long, cheek by jowl, with the Guru of Flushing.
He has all these plans to give lectures on big things
that look like small things. He says, always keep
an extra place-setting for the unseen guest
who comes to your bed. Having slept, so long,
in the secular sense. Nag Champa incense in the air
and the water and the bread. Sabina says, persistence
of vision is the retina's hieroglyphic palimpsest.
From up in our window, we watch the Queen of Night
pedal by on her bicycle. She is heading eastward
but her wheels spin backwards. Here in this cavern,
the horizon line must be imagined circling around us,
as with a fish-eye lens. He always says, deep focus
makes ground turn figurative and swings back again.
The way we overlook one million tiny windows of the
contiguous cities themselves. Become haunted by ghosts
of our own faces when the lights come on. Just above
the rooftops, clouds and a moon-sized sun.

miPOradio: A Conversation With Annie Finch

Amy King interviews Annie Finch from New York.

Classic Interlude: Henry’s Bob Dylan Elegy For Bogie
And Blonde On Blonde

Elvis walks into Rick’s Café Americain
with a blonde on his arm,
this ain’t the Algonquin Round Table,

watch her bosom jiggle,
this ain’t no water table.
A young punk sits nearby

clinging to his life by a thread
as all young punks do.
I think I seen him in the Nighthawk window once.

The blonde used to be Rick’s lover long ago,
somewhere in a wartime Paris,
“berets meant something then,

at least, on men!” quipped Dorothy Parker.
Even in sunshine Europe was darker
and the Arch of Triumph didn’t triumph.

The blonde made Sam play it again
for old time’s sake she told him
until Rick came by to scold him

before old Rick sensed her presence
and wimped out, poured himself a drink---
if love is not exhilarating it stinks.

The young punk walked away,
his inner organs the same as Peter Lorre’s.
The fat man wanted to re-sign Elvis the Pelvis.

Rick continued to feel morose
while the bartender picked his nose.
The blonde got up from the table,

tugged her panties out of her butt
and tried to console Rick
with the very same fingers

by caressing his face.
Rick, of course, caved in,
turned into the romantic poetry of puppy love.

When she and Elvis got into the airplane
to head to New York or New Jersey,
Rick shot a German named Herman

just for the hell of it
he told Sam when he got back from the airport.
Sam’s eyes bulged out but there was no retort.

2.

The plane took off into the sky
awkward in the eyes of birds,
Bogie thought he was gonna cry
so he shied away from words.

He stood there on the tarmac
surrealistic things crossed his mind,
he thought to himself, “I have a knack,
always sacrificing myself for mankind.”

But mankind didn’t give a fuck
and would not have given up the girl,
let somebody else play the schmuck,
you only live in one world.

There is no heaven and hell,
there’s only momentary pleasure.
a fighter listens for the bell,
throws punches, there is no time to measure.

Bogie could not see the poetry
and clung to what he perceived as real
unaware that if you pee into the wind
your heart can’t tell you how you feel.

3.

Back at Rick’s
the porcelain was porcelain
and furniture was furniture,

the sky above the airport
was unimpressed that blue meant blue
and clouds made of stone

remained afloat,
basaltic and sedimentary
above the ants that labored without love,

the desert reduced to one sand grain
would still be a desert,
the wind blowing across the wind.

No human thought could make a dent
upon nature steadfast
and natural.

4.

In the airplane Elvis was talking
about his upcoming tour
in some other desert city,

her eyes were sparkling
and the propeller noise
hid the insinuation of her voice,

he leaned in and his sideburn
brushed her cheek,
her smile misplaced in a smile.

His black hair reflected in the window,
clashed with the sky outside
where Gulf Stream currents collide.

Love doesn’t really have to be love,
we substitute it for everything else
but we don’t need to tell that to ourselves.

5.

The handsome young punk
had an appointment in the desert,
his golden hair flowing from the convertible,

the desert flowers bloomed inside a room,
gila monsters with bolts in their necks
appeared to God in flecks,

the absent-minded jackass
forgets all the shit
he has created

so don’t depend on his omnipresence
just because he appears as omnipotent
as Disney’s rodent.