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Snapshots October 5, 2005
Snap Out of It
We compare verse by hundreds
(to the ninth degree) never taking time
to read every possible line
We search, seek and need a civil,
uncomplicated form but we have lost
our journal and scribble abortions
(scratch off tickets of poems)
We slip in new collections - definitions
and recognitions are missing in action,
thought and deed
We sieve through seeds of conversation
(stuttering, awkwardly - this body language)
Our minds are preoccupied with insults,
insinuations and implications
We invent failure and claim defeat
Minutes, seconds and hours
this night of celestial notes;
Stars, moon, terrestrial plains,
do we ever snap out of it?
What about instantaneous poems - stanzas
that attribute prostrate, and emphasize
the way we spend time, as if it were not free?
(even poems don't grow on trees)
Deborah Russell
Fort Collins, Co - 9:42 am
***
This is story 118 from the chapter of the Bustan called
"On Edification." "Ghulams"--line 3--are military slaves, often serving as
bodyguards.
Story 118
I've heard that at a feast of drunken Turks
a postulant wrecked the minstrel's drum and harp;
those ghulams plucked his hair like harp strings
and beat his face as if it were a drum.
The pain kept him awake all night. Next day,
his teacher said to him, "If you don't want
your face torn and battered like a drum,
keep your head down, my son, just like a harp!"
Two people witnessed the dust and turmoil
of a fight, stones flying through the air,
shoes scattered. One, when he saw there was trouble,
walked away. Another dove right in
and got his head broken! No one is more
pleasant than the man with self-control,
who won't involve himself with what is good
or bad in anybody else. Eyes
were put in your head, ears too; you have
a mouth to speak and a heart endowed with sense
so you will know what's down from up and not
say one's too short, while the other's too long.
--Saadi of Shiraz, translated by Richard Jeffrey Newman
***
the lizard poet
wriggles forth
in sunlight
only to
be met by
blank stares
she wriggles
fifth and
drops her tail
wolf whistles
from the
Song Birds
the Lang Pos
are disgusted
& pick it up
they feed it
their egos
its pastiche now
a PoMo LangPo
mess for ants
and other readers
Andrew Burke
***
A universe of birth marks bloom in the face of old aches.
Naturešs green centuries assemble in chains
off centre from timešs convex.
They will taunt for the duration.
We can only be ordered as we are
spectators shanked to ibises along a dead Nile.
The hidden screw continuous its moves.
As such it is pitiless even for one who vacillates
within the dance.
Words are praise of morningšs magpie above
flocks and wingtips.
Therešs a a slip in the outfield, jittery as history.
And a state of hardness whose tastes move bitterly.
We appreciated the double, its deceptive number
on the card, for beauty and then the sky
Old protests were the first place we learnt
to speak the obvious.
Forgets sins which run between our hands.
The gumšs tears are also true
while the spider turns aphorisms on any newcomer.
Despite a thrill that is nightmare
I continue rhythm, images and measures.
I've often stumbled over erasures
a trash of existence piles inevitable graphic conclusions.
My evasions burst their basins.
I live in shade moulded on clutter without act.
I duplicate the infinite. Beyond, bird flown.
Jill Jones
6 October, 12.35 am Marrickville
***
This anniversary of my brother's death
brings snow to the mountains, rain
to the valleys. Still half-sleeping,
I stand at the window and see golden
birds flying,
maple leaves. Today I am told it is
possible to write one's genome in one
long line of code, in a leather-bound
book, and a century from today some
scientist can lift
that book from the shelf and make
your twin. No bit of you need survive,
not one cell, not one eyelash, not one
drop of blood. Rhinoceros, platypus,
maple tree, you.
Sharon Brogan
***
CHARLES MANSON GOES TO THE COMPUTER LAB,
CORCORAN STATE PRISON, CALIFORNIA
WHOA! J. Christ awesome!
What could I have done
if I'd had one of these
become the farmer in the Dell
become a troll
troll that's what it's called
troll haunt your ass
live under the bridge
jump up yell SURPRISE
fuck you carve you
don't i haunt you
all these years later
didn't need no machine
just a Buck pocketknife
to park me in your dreams
look for little girls
see who's out there
oh baby baby
are you lonely tonight
i'm just a poor student
have mercy take pity
spread your knees
i'm still a virgin
but I learn real faster
than you can run from me
I'm electrons I'm binary
stuff my 1 into your zero
before I zero you out
oh baby baby
I guess I never get to tell them i'm 71
that Tate bitch never even knew my name
oh well
but the girls know
the bunch of Family women
themselves grown old
they still cling to me
like old laundry
an old man remembering
screwing Squeaky or Krenwinkle
in the corral
pissing off the horses
there are no antistatic sheets
dirty laundry all of them
still clinging to me.
Kenneth Wolman
***
bright mid afternoon -
river-top shining darkly -
a bridge - unclear woods -
quick warmths push through our window,
upsetting at each absence
Lawrence Upton
***
Everything that went wrong
began when I let
my younger son watch
Waters' Pink Flamingos
I can put up some lame-ass defense
say I didn't LET him
he just walked into the room
where the tape was spinning
but I didn't say "NO!"
he was only 13
he lay down on the couch
watched Divine at work
said "Jesus Christ dad
I'm gonna throw up!"
but stayed anyway
little deviant
and big deviant.
I got mine over the years
grand and glorious
pigbrain karma heaved back at me
doubled because now
the kid is 24 and Pink Flamingos
is one of his favorite movies
he lives in Baltimore and
can take me to Divine's grave
as well as Poe's
big difference except
Poe didn't wear drag
that we know of
and his mustache was better trimmed.
Kenneth Wolman
***
today I've fielded
working class vernacular
of the fifties to
compare with the drug culture lingo
of the sixties
to write about diction differences
and their influence on plot lines:
time and space of one novel to the other -
real time, narrative time and plot time.
then I burped a 12 day old baby
over my shoulder
as I watched a
One Day International cricket game
with a two hour time difference
between where I watched
and where they played.
time and space are
tricky co-ordinates
even in terms of the question
that has bothered me so long:
when is the poem a poem?
perhaps poems
are dropped-off tails
that wriggle for awhile
from lizard-poets
who grow more tails
for dropping-off later.
time and space, fear
and loving - all expressed
in a momentary dying wriggle.
andrew burke
6 October 2005
Mt Lawley
***
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article317235.ece
See this new book?
jist picked it up, sitting nixt
tae ra Da Vinci Code on
Dunoon Airport Bookstall.
real hot nous --
seems that
illiterate wee shite
frae Stratford
*dinnae* write Shakespeare:
knock me doon wi a hammer!
tirns oot ra whole
baw u wax
wiz written by
RABBIE BURNS!!!
Whaurs yir Wullie
Shakspew noo?
His Name is Norval
Robin Hamilton
***
PUCKER AND BLOW
Lemons pucker the mouth, shrink the skin, burn
and cleanse like Hell.
The better they are the more they make it hurt.
A Twist for the Twisted.
"If you want me, just whistle," she said.
"You know how to whistle. Just pucker up
and blow."
Ten years ago today began the pucker
the crushing inward that is with me yet,
face caved in, brains pushed upward and out
Thoughts this morning of Donald Hall,
(yes, this is another referential poem and
you have to send dues to my coterie to join)
"When The Young Husband"
Misquote: "This misery you begin today will follow you
all your life." Close misquote.
Misery the grain of sand.
One curse or another, just pick your Circle.
"Meinetwegen, es ist Alles eins!"
If you get lemon, suck on it.
Pucker and blow.
Kenneth Wolman
***
Late Night Bus Stop
In the shuttered shop doorway,
He sets his targets, a collared shirt man,
the glossy woman that hangs on his arm,
and begins a slow circle, the shark of Oxford Street,
a toothpick dangling from the side of lips.
"You're givin' me friend looks there"
Setting bait, his words punch the night,
a net released to blanket the couple, entangle them
"If it were me, you wouldn't be standin'"
Hooked by a five lager purpose,
the man untangles himself from his arm candy
to stagger, mouth slurring, toward the taunts,
his arm curving a fist through darkness,
her nails digging a plea for salvation into the back of his shirt.
After ambulances arrive and police question passer-bys,
the woman searches for the eyes of the man she came with
now buried in swelling flesh turned a faint aubergine,
her dress splattered like a fur coat attacked by animal activists,
his aggressors long fled, laughing into the maze of Soho.
The cops ask us if we were witness,
a question that always leads to hours in cold stations,
tea like dishwater, so we say we were
just looking at numbers, times for absent buses
amongst the crisp packs and kebab wrappers
that blow past us like London tumbleweeds.
Heather Taylor
***
LEAKING
to his dismay
to his horror
he discovered
that some
of his poems
were leaking
others melting
but worse
were those
that kept
spontaneously
combusting
destroying
whole anthologies
threatening libraries
and he had
for legal reasons
to resort
to supplying
fire extinguishers
and a sand bucket
with each copy.
pmcmanus
Raynesparkuk
***
As some Snap readers may remember,
I have been doing 'writing exercises' with my Mom,
Who is 89 years old. Actually a very active, productive
And many times successful politician (urban planning, parks,
Environmental issues, etc.), she ignores all of that these days,
And laments that she never got to become a writer - though
Even in this realm she published some stores and wrote many
An article on public affairs. So the good son has taken to being
Her catalyst & scribe. Here are a couple. I should add that she has
What some call "pleasant dementia" so her mind takes its own turns
And logics, often surprising both language and her son!
I give her a lemon off a tree in the backyard,
Then ask her to write a story called,
The Lemon
A lemon is lightened up inside itself.
I am more of an outgoing person.
I enjoy human association if it is good,
Decent - and I don't mean it's not
Naughty. I like it to be good conversation.
You want me to talk to the lemon? OK.
"Why are you so pale and hard?
How did you get the the spots on your skin?
Did somebody hit you? Will you be able to
Take our your stem without hurting? If you don't
Take it out right away, will it make it hard
To get ripened?"
Without having had advance clearance,
Before you meet one, what can one
anticipate from a lemon?
I anticipate a delightful taste in the
Hot water that many of our friends
Use with a little sugar. Not very creative
Some might say.
What is a lemon in the female sense
of the word? I have not seen a real lemon
In a long time. I think this lemon is real hard
To make you think it's not nourishing.
I have not seen a real lemon in a long time.
"I thought maybe you could tell me a story
That we can call, 'Sunday with Mom'."
"Well, Sunday with Mom can be pretty dull
Or it can be quite lively. It's very
Difficult to tell what a man is going to
Be like when he wakes up in the morning.
However, if his heart is in the right place
He can have his heart turning what the
Books could. Why is this so?
Because during a course of half of
His life, he has acquired many
Books, some of which are interesting,
Some are duds. How does one
Know what kind of books he's going
To pick up? That depends a lot
On how he passed the rest of
The day. And with whom he has
Decided to associate.
I have had so much difficulty with
Gentlemen who thought they had
Written good books by what they
Had written in their notebooks
But in reality they were pretty
Limited.
Stephen Vincent
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