Snapshots October 26, 2005
I am planning to dismantle
my written work, and hammer
each glyph to a glistening line
of ink. Drop-spin each page
to a skein of woolly word
and then, if there is not enough,
to card and spin each library book
and from the yarn weave a thousand
tents, where the cold may lie
and from their warming lips
expel new words, filling
shelves with their breath.
Knut Mork Skagen, Trondheim, 26/10/05
***
DARK SKIES
but
somehow
whatever
the ups
and downs
dark skies
clouds and
depressions
and glooms
the grapes
in his garden
were still
ripening.
pmcmanus
Raynesparkuk
***
shy as squirrels, monks.
in their eyes you can see
more than a whale's tale
they climb in their voices
on the human tree
grasp pull claw to be
above the waterline
above
David Bircumshaw
***
axis, what axis, O Achilles donıt ask about my ankle
breasted with sweat is likely in the forecast, on the boil
cherry blossom was on my mind, not the new carpet squares in the lift
digital noise, waves at temples, the cords, the drumming
envelopes calling my name, and this egg on the face of a new version
flex, files, there is nothing fancy grown here
grant or grovel, the telephone juggles the calls
hovercraft or the soul buzzing just above, a handbook tells no story
irritants more than spring's imp, flying into my eyes
jars in the bones, on the shelf, donıt jump
kitchen action, a spider clumped on the switch, kooky all day
legal action, legislative lugubrosities
machine translations and other music anxious moments, my history in my
shoulder
nil return, nothing more until
ormolu ticking in a back alley, near windmills and papyrus, fake
ostrich feathers
paper cups, a leftover, pencils smelling of cedar, a postcard pinned to
the flimsy walls
queen reading poetry, jumping through lush hoops, last nightıs quest
ringing, ringing, ringing, it won't stop
splashes of cloud against blue slopes and filtered horizons
tremors, something behind the eyes testing me
ugly letters with return addresses, there's no going under
veins crossing my palm left to right, without knotting vision yet
with a youth I used to swagger round wearing dazzles
xanthic despite the silver mouse in my hand, o remember the days of
xerox
yoghurt isn't a food, she says, I have yawed by it, fetid and stale
zooshed, and sticky with the product of the world, this zone of my own
Jill Jones
Sydney, all day Wednesday 26 October 2005
***
I am a playwright
I am a play, right?
I am a play I am
Play
- Frank Parker
26 Oct. 05
Tucson, AZ
***
No Longer in Flight
She decided to leave
the airplane and fall
into the clouds below.
After several safe bounces,
she would be caught and held.
That intimate connection understood,
she would consume some of the clouds
with a silver parfait spoon. Other clouds
she would gather, a night bunting,
and tease them into her own fabric.
She would feel, and then think:
"There are no straight lines in nature."
Then she would reward her new brain
with a companion thought:
"Yes, my entire life's
been that way."
But the long slow slide between clouds
would show her unregrettably lost
in the line of a burning horizon.
Judy Prince
10.18.05
Wilton UK
***
Outlying
In the muscular pubs, logistically difficult
blemishes reigned. Presentations cross-
referenced and free of error. Eating his words
at a nearby table, Detritus Ransom spelled
out his plan. A state of permanent ambush,
he claimed, was what was necessary.
Indebtedness biased against the insolvent,
the poor with their awful rifles and handguns.
Catacombing the city, prerecorded messages
spread with boysenberry jam. Appallingly
ostentatious, the cemeteryıs cypresses
pointed their twiggy fingers. Soyuz rockets
rocketed off into the bathysphere. Rampant
diseases spread their wares out on the table.
Halvard Johnson--NYC, 10/26/05
***
Canada
You flavour my stories with farm weekends:
the nights I played commando with my cousin
shimmying under barbed wire searching for enemies
behind silent tractors, silos hiding secret nuclear weapons
Or when it was so dark, we traced our name
with sparklers across the sky
the stars so close they blanketed our heads.
You weave your way into tales of Vancouver bus rides:
the 3 am number 8 bound for Fraser
where if you asked for a knife someone'd
have one tucked in their boot, you'd lose your stuff
if you left your seat - questions of "who took my CDs"
never answered, have a driver who'd rather keep driving
than stop for police that time the bullet
came through the side window.
You are packed cars filled with underage drivers
doing donuts in parking lots, tires skating
across the ice in winter, creating clouds of dust
in summer fields left fallow. You are riverside
birthday celebrations, beers in the back of pickups
fireworks decorating the night with streamers.
You are packed snowballs and carrot noses,
tents by midnight skinny-dipping lakes, campfire
crackles turning marshmallows brown and
here you guide my tongue to tell your history
over and over until it's my own.
Heather Taylor
***
Tangled Strands
The oceans complex
whirls arrest eyes and senses,
the silent rise of dawn
over the distant shore . . .
Wind tangled strands,
in gentle hands, loosen
as before, I twist my hair
in a well-versed braid
Your poem unravels -
erases and fades,
recomposes time,
in a narrative of love;
your poetry weaves
through the shadow of
my lashes . . . it seems
long ago, and so hard
to believe; when we
wrote of love, illegible
Deborah Russell
***
snap - Mousehole*
snap - Mousehole
Foreground: an old black cat with dusty fur,
low-crouched behind dustbins, biting
a lump of fatty gristle, surveilled by
a cautious seagull standing on one leg;
and, then, the harbour water, gated calm;
and, then, the harbour walls, ten foot high, more,
stretching across a mere five inches card.
Beneath them: a clean and well-brushed dog, propped
pissing on a small capstan, keen to be done
and catching up; a gang in middle age
making a noisy gestural havoc -
though one's apart - bright red hair, large boots, grin -
each clothed in artificial fabric, arse
on to granite, back against port furniture;
someone parking their car; a man hefting
a lobster pot
and above the walls' line
glittering fragments of an enormous hidden wave,
separating, coming down upon them.
The cat and gull will be quite undisturbed.
For them, the day continues as it must.
*just in case, to save anyone going off at a tangent - this is the fishing
village on the S.W. coast of Cornwall, really called Mousehole, pronounced
without any attempt to disguise its meaning _Mowzel_, stress on the first
syllable - itself rather unCornish. Kernewek
***
old stream's banks
alive again this spring
with wildflowers
Andrew Burke
27 October 2006
Mt Lawley
***
Love To Myself
screams,
messages
on the screen -
your cellular therapy
flails like laundry
in March
i'm no techno queen
but writing is
just like
standing here
doin my half-assed
James Dean
(unlit cigarette, in the corner
of my mouth)
i revive a dream scene -
scratchin your eyes out
but, not being ambidextrious
(at the same time )
my long fingers
split sound barriers
i sky my eyes knee-deep
in half a rainbow
write more promises
to keep
love to myself
Deborah Russell
***
Nano
I.
Clear now
No miniscule remorse or infinitesimal decay
Not splintered by sunlight
Devoid of tubes and dots
Plundering mathematics
This map of science
We navigate from
Looking smaller and smaller
For our answers
As if there is a point
Where we will either
Disappear
Or understand
II.
No sunlight tubes
As if our not is smaller
And our infinitesimal answers
To navigate this decaying map of smaller
As if we were dots ourselves
Or the clearest Plunderings Disappear
Microscopically splintered
We were mathematics
For there this either understands
Or devoid of remorse
Looking here and point towards science
Peter Ciccariello
Providence, RI
26 October 2005
***
It is a day of grey skies
and orange trees, strange
birds passing through.
Is this my life?
Ten years of mountain
weather and the leather
cord broke and the bell
fell from the gate,
copper bell and blue glass
beads scattered on stone.
This pain, what is pain?
It is just this
October moment, this
warbler with its tail up
in the air, looking for seeds
in the fenced garden.
Sharon Brogan
***
the unrolling fields in
the Golden Polish Autumnı
stretched out thin lines of
green or beige or black
in long rectangular blocks
(an occasional thin triangle
dark green tangled
pumpkins aglow)
beneath hot sun
thin white clouds
pale blue sky
we roll along taking
everything passing by in
Douglas Barbour
Wednesday October 26 2005
***
Que Tal!
A Mexican man enters Que Tal!, a local coffee shop.
His formal raincoat is buttoned to above his chest.
He orders at the counter.
He puts a tall glass of café latte in the middle of a small table.
There's a cap of white cream over the light chocolate colored coffee.
He takes out two tiny cell phones from under his overcoat.
One is bright silver. One is black.
He opens the lid on each one.
He separates them on to the table - each one to the front.
He leaves the table to go back to the counter:
The coffee, the silver and black phones form an equilateral triangle.
The silence, the isolation and collaboration of each with the other.
The slanted, post-rain light of the morning.
As with a great still life, on such occasions.
Stephen Vincent
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