Snapshots May 18, 2005
Snap drag on- a forgotten poem
Forgotten Poem
Alone, to find
my way through
negative spaces -
places, where you
used to arrange
compassionate verbs
I must modify your
actions and reverse
the heart and soul
and somehow
step upon these
freshly fallen ashes
Here, alone, alone
here I am – as alone
as before I met you…
Why did this seem
impossible, I can not
imagine – alone to
question myself
and not knowing
what to ask or even
how to respond
Alone, perhaps
to become
as beautiful
as a pastel blossom
or as useless
as a forgotten poem
Alone, alone - I am
cold and wordless
as a frozen stream
Deborah Russell, 05/19/05
Fort Collins, Co 9:22 am
***
is there anything you want
to tell me
want
&
want
to tell me television rot
or where your motor cycle is
~
what are they
trying
prisoners or to say
for example a grand
collective
iota
might be interpreted
as an evil
sigh
similarly not
asking what
is it
for
war
~
they are saying
a gray
blanket
of ash caused
this
congress
of
whose
shut down
~
then to lose
all
at once
~
they are saying
some say an army
of
whoresmen
or
here's
the girl
the girl
~
chris murray, snapshot of voices under/overheard today
wednesday 18 May 05, Dallas TX
***
for Rose
ink flows
in your veins
i know that
yet you walk
ahead of me
insolent defiant
they are trying
to give you back
your vulnerability
i hold you in me
my body a blanket
around you
there are rules
they say
after all
'hybrid
highly scented
grows wild
hardy survivor
does well
in sandy beds'
Andrew Burke
Mt Lawley 18/5/05
***
cinema
a girl 30 feet ahead
defined walking
for a few seconds
in the light breeze
a shower
of maple seeds
between us
golden
Daniel Zimmerman
***
snapshot pedalling an expensive avenue:
bigger
s not better
s not beggar
s knot
ted loss
snot
architecture
the giant boxes
bland banal
blocked out
of imagination
s home this brown
bulk bleeds
light over
whelms its plot
paranoid
greed power
built battlements
along this urb
an avenue badly
planned castle
oh how the money
rolls out
Douglas Barbour
Edmonton
Wednesday May 18 2005
***
OF DOUGLAS GORDON
for you, but it's probably important for me to
disrupt the architecture
of my idea. Of the museum
up now I think around,
guaranteed a souvenir that was going thru a process.
Life, with
a diaper in the dark.
Svelte, when I was not.
Goings
of art are so time-based,
retell a joke that's extremely funny—-
down for the future.
Other way open: your mouth,
now!
Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, MD US / 5-18-05 (7:16 PM)
Initially drafted during a live interview with this Scottish artist (born
1966, Glasgow) but delayed because of continuing dissatisfaction with the
second acrostic sonnet. In the interim, much to my surprise, my source has
become available online (http://smithsonian.tv/videos/hirshhorn/gordon/),
so now I'm presented with a rare possibility of revision. My governing
assumption/stimulation has been that I have one shot at the source material
and then it's gone forever (or too much trouble to retrieve).
***
HEARTS FILLED WITH PASSION AND JEALOUSY, AT LEAST
Someone I know writes achingly
of a family death, of loss and hope,
the words of the Latin Mass a glory--
and all I can feel is envy.
TunnelVision: you don't get
to buy one in a store, there is no
HDTV model for extreme focus
human concerns are forced
in one direction after five years
of listening to the verbal shoves
Do The Book Do The Book
like so squawking macaw in a pet store
so at last I am listening
it is almost done and it might be okay
Envy reigns, focuses life
I wanna grow one like everyone else
only bigger
"Schmuck" is appropriate
For do what with?--not get rich
name a rich poet <tick tick tick>
told you so
Back to the top, Latin words
departure and consolation
beat back the brain of death with words
collected all over my skull
like dust bunnies, seek my
immortality.
Waste of time unless I define
immortality as a remainder table
or a layer of dust bunnies
on a book in a bookshop.
But must: not to cheat death.
Not to be the poetry stud of the northeast
but because it is a task, and it is my task,
my ego, my love, and it's better than sex,
which only means my sex life has
gone real boring.
Kenneth Wolman
***
MEDIEVAL
A life lived among. Hence
insistence on the full catalogue, the field
of folk, but also flowers, beasts,
and in the water fishes, in the air a density of wings.
All that delights the eye.
Perspective flattened--it's all at once
impossible fullness, for short time
eternally present. What else
to hope for?
Let us be overwhelmed, our senses
flooded, while we may,
it says.
IN A WORD
1
Those who bore the burden bore children
were bears.
2
We descend from the wild,
we call them fore
bears,
for bears
are our ancestry.
IN TRIPS SWEET MAY, ETC
All praise the generosity of those
who spread their thighs to the touch
whatever their meaning.
GUESTS
In silhouette on a high branch
a mockingbird. Above,
a hawk swoops about the canopy.
It's almost summer, and the foliage turns
from lace to cloth.
Emerge at the top amidst lightning-blasted
Chestnuts gone elm going spruce next.
What follows?
The mocking bird forced north by warming.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF BASEBALL
Springtime:
slow drift of a high fly
on the slightest breeze,
the bitterness of the world forgotten.
BIRDWOMAN
Arms on her knees, breasts flat
against her thighs, her toes
curled over the edge
of the bench, as if holding on.
A SCOTTISH FANTASY: HUME IN LOVE
The kiss
of billiard balls
he says
does not
make visible
the motor force.
STUDY IN GRAY
Could have been a ballerina:
the long neck and the bun
pulling her upwards. In a dormant state
that mimics despondency, her body lax, her face
downwards. Much schooled
in thew practice of waiting.
Mark Weiss
***
CATFLAP
cat flap
flies open
cat leaps
back in
stands
transfixed
his food bowl
has been moved
even if
only very
slightly
pmcmanus 8am
Raynesparkuk
***
#1
A blue metal bench, facing, empty,
heavy, on the other train platform,
lights either side, above it, causing shadow;
slight blur - look at the bright front leg - once seen
makes it seem as if seat, and the wall behind,
are being moved at speed through interstellar spaces
#2
one,
so still,
so brightly
yellow, head
behind a bus stop flag,
might be a ticket machine,
but for steam from the fist-held coffee
Lawrence Upton
***
This daybreak's bait
gradually lit my
dreams to waking...
Since my supply was
so very small, I
went along with the plan.
I read, I wrote
the happenings of moments,
always the willing
recipient of all ahead.
Though aloft in words
I am trying
to understand
from tomorrow to
yesterday
why there is
nothing but noise
and violence.
Gerald Schwartz
West Irondequoit/ New York/ US/ 4:30 am
***
Thought for the Day
I had a concrete poet for tea the other day --
he tasted delicious.
The Stone Dormouse
(Robin Hamilton)
***
Where, in paradisum?
staring into rain
memory going north
by red brick burrows
in paradisum deducant te angeli
there¹s the grey wing
the dark trees
decades of sleep
over the glassy way
left into the river valley
this we both know
in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres
but of the things
no-one can know
can we sing?
cypresses out of place
out of any place
out of body and history
et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem
here¹s the carpark
the unknown familia
the white ladies
sorry, these are lies
two black crows
the mischief knows
chorus angelorum te suscipiat
finally a sedative response
truth stays outside
we¹d go there
wooden, concealed
beyond drone and lists
beyond any more capture
et cum Lazaro quondam paupere
sickness in the blood
age¹s close down
hides any bruise
say not
say
ay
aeternam habeas requiem
rescue
now the sun
on the living
(D.E.W. 1931-2005)
Jill Jones
Northern Suburbs Crematorium, 1pm, 18 May 2005
***
Forgiveness
Is the Fragrance
Of a Flower
When Trampled
Upon
"The Flower Shop"
Signage Aside the Entrance
Peoples Park, Berkeley, 1969
I had not heard this quote before. I found it on a black and white
photograph in Bancroft Library archives taken during the demonstrations to
liberate the Park from University control and plans to use the land to build
a new dormitory. Demonstrators chased by the police and the National Guard,
and tear gas permeate the photograph of which the proverbs white painted
scripted lettering provides an ironic plea, now aesthetic pleasure.
It's a curious syntactic question isn't it, that is when does one
generations experience of a "plea" become another generation's source of
aesthetic "pleasure", as when we say, "That's a great photograph."
Stephen Vincent
***
Empty
See I couldn¹t have known
You called out to me
In another language
A bird screech reptile
Unbearable shuddering moan
When I reached out
You were disappeared
Traces of what had taken you
Scattered
useless words
http://www.cgi7.com/peterimages/empty.jpg
Peter Ciccariello
***
Returning
I return again and again to you,
to the mirror that looks back
and sees nothing.
That face is still recognizable—
thin lips, wide eyes,
forehead of a stranger
who gave you leave.
The issues of silence
hanging like wires
to wind free, palms open
as leaves loving rain.
The returning isn't the hard part.
It is the turning again to remember,
recounting the bruises
that swelled like rivers…
I move
to shake off the rain
and leave the mirror alone.
Jill Chan
***
Lucrative lyric writing
(found, mostly)
Mike Brady to speak on lyric writing
at the Williamstown Literary Festival.
Brady will explain how song lyrics Œcan be
like a story condensed down
to the minimum of words.
In commercials you have to tell a story
in 30 seconds of words.
Radio is the theatre of the mind, the listener
creates the pictures in their own mind.¹
Brady worked as an insurance collector
in Williamstown for five years.
ŒI was collecting from one in three households,
and so I got to know nearly every nook
and cranny of the town,¹ he said.
He¹s created thousands of
radio and TV commercials,
including ŒLucky You¹re with AAMI¹,
ŒSPC Baked Beans and Spaghetti¹,
and ŒHard Yakka¹.
25 years ago his football song,
ŒUp There Cazaly¹, became
Australia¹s best-selling single,
till eclipsed more recently by his releasing
Joe Dolce's ŒShaddup Your Face¹.
Hear Mike Brady
Town Hall Supper Room, Saturday at 10.
Council Chamber, Sunday at 4 :
Alison Croggon and Helen Morse play readings.
Missed him. They were good -
also theatre of the mind.
But are they in the wrong line of business?
Max Richards
North Balwyn, Melbourne
Wednesday May 18, 2005
***
I'm out of my web.
Look back into my eyes.
That's another story.
Tomorrow she comes, my keypal,
the only friend I have no business with
She made of brittle twigs and I of spun steel
yet she surroundsound widescreen, I patch of earth
she fragile and polished, I tough and ragged
Together: a shelter
She heat, I light
she flower, I leaf
she burning fusion sun, I yearning captive moon
she reef of bright fish, I rock of one white bird
Together: all of it
One day a month we get
together, in our careful hair
she with henna, I with bleach
she in makeup, I bareface
she in her plush fleshlayers, I in my skin and bones
In our jeans,
in our black jackets,
in our voices,
in our noise and our listening
Out of our webs, into one another's eyes
One hug hello or cheek-kiss: smooth remembered skin
and our voices
Maybe a shoulder-touch or laugh-nudge
and our voices
Usually a hug goodbye
then out of our voices, into our webs
One day our boundaries crossed
sets intersected
patterns matched
lit up and bleeped like we'd won something
Glad I found u babe
Not (let it) fade
Janet Jackson
Tue May 17 23:36:38 WST 2005
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