Friday, November 30, 2012

Laura Young




Structure VIII

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Glenn Bach

 from Atlas Peripatetic

108

Let these drawings show
the status of the morning.

Wake, now
in the city they represent.

Evaporation lifts
upwards.

Elsewhere, snowplows
tear into silent corridors.

***


130

Kill and be rough,
wander and render.

Declare sold
    these medicines and correctives,
the purpose of travel
    without stopping.

Who maps this neighborhood
    of points and signals?

Who is intermittently aware?

Who tallies this audience of patrons
    in seat or station,
a quorum of lines drawn,
the twelve parts of heaven?

Who lode,
who burrow?

***

131

Image hover
    through gloss of crow.

A light violet
    on rain gutter.

Handy to the nest,
a signal of land ahead.

What loss of gray weather,
grip loosed from metal.

Sonic, ultrasonic
    terror eyes.

Thus the reason of scare,
a region of all seeing.

***

155

Impossible dust,
listening for water
beneath streets.

Near-miss,
smoke out there
across the river
banking and black
billow, surprise
         of high iron
shower of paper,
late again trains
stranded, crowded
stops, not a small
rubble and acrid.

Rained much of last
         of what was not there
in this sight of smog
against the very blue
empty open
below which
         everything
downwind of water
upon land and earth.

Steel girders down
lens of this cloud
of dirt and ash,
bewildered and bad
sun dark in scale,
secrets far greater.

Shelter in normalcy
harbored, sustained
scale of numbers,
the full text
    of two cities.

Midst of bridges,
how long the trip
cold enough to turn.

Tension, the air.

***


202

Lurch
         against the faint
incline, sparse
    scattering of stars.

         With waves
an evil, shrouds
    of a ship, laurels
worn by nations
                   or thieves.

Beauty we try
    to preserve,
undoing the world
              one morning
         at a time.


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John M. Bennett



no ma

n the cold meaty rain PO
ZO CACATORIO me pu
se la looping gland shirt th
shirt e s tro king ntium
blinding in my  )sh(  oe
]the weaseled feather dung[
leaks inside my thigh
“mi caderonta”  )manga
de riñón purulectivo(  y y
o te descifraba el go
teo relentless ,reloj q
ue nunca se se ca
ña putrefactífica en el
río es ,tan cada ni
)una de mis manos ,mano(

 Para Roberto Ncar

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Peter Ganick






















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Mary Kasimor

requiem for dog

at My FIRST communion the PEONIES
shot off
their HEADS for god in Glorious
red the Anti-ANTS’

sentiment IS no THING
but SCIENCE is the BODY of
CHRIST and not A force of Nature
but the sheer WHITE
SUN wears ME

encased in my natural Family
NEXT To THE china slippers
when I was OF age I found
my BODY fettered by Holiness
SO I sez TO JESUS Christ
there IS more to
THIS than WAXEN breaths OF PAST
dead I Miss

my grandfather and SOON my soul
WILL disappear into the flames
then THE ashes will SETTLE
into My HAIR

I used MY last SILVER dollar
and Salvation eludes EVEN
the ANTS in a piqué of Bloody
peonies that ARE Still
and related to another AUNT
who WAS never
on THE farm WHO lived with Old
DUST next to dogs and
god crocheting her FUTURE

WITHIN fortune and AN Impatient HEART
breaking NEXT to that Holy
photo of me
and DOG Bleeding ALL over my Breast

***

managing the chaos or on to plan b

amid the tension in tensile
form shedding the streets dumped
hucksters sharp darkness
the royal blood among the bees
and be-knots knotting intersections
shake lose the lights in failed language  
in the gestures
keeps everyone tight in intricate knots
the feet fake the moves
stars wrestle on the roofs like messiahs
flashing the earthy flatness
of wonders the words the words
the flash of words keep
the golden words shake the fiery moths
falling onto staged eclipses of shaken wing span
brain spun and myth
struck agog and angry and radiant
and lists of naming of
a flight of numbers like geese
of intensity of falling of something
more than the strokes of wheels
burnishing the calligraphic floor
and inverse echoes and fences of flies
in the calling of bodies and rocking the rocks
and throwing the rocks and the rocks fall
onto the final clinging humans clinging
to trees and bushes and editing
words of motion and form
and tunnels and clinging to a tree
of syllables cross stitched
and tied together
and smashed and bloody and thin
in the streets the blood
flowing from here and here
and 10 miles from the spot x marks
the endless row  houses and blue doors and
neighbors who don’t know
who don’t know who might
know but don’t want to know
when everything is in its place and placed
between the land and is in negative space
and pasted on the wind
and with the wireless horizon  
on to plan b

***

               butterflies passing through

identified as normal no things in flowers daughters
& sons spare the rod from guilt spliced & diced into
& my lot in life passing by the tomato gods stepped
on by roses of claw feet the fountains  bleeding
succession of humans passing on the fingerprint or
losing children on the way to the store found hidden
in radiant thoughts or elbow magnetic impulses or
magnets of the refrigerator with photos of identification
the loss of baby skin & I apologize for that forgetfulness
& what you like about yourself & photos of flies &
              pasta dishes & falling teeth from this we return

***

mother & pieces

what time was your Shape                          at birth
              as you broke into pieces                 & a Piece    
    slept in my bed           I named it after            You &
it took days            in the sun & the rain     Down by
        the river it        glinted like pain          my heart  
a speck         in the distance              the Man in the moon
           explained          a tangent                   of the film
only it was about            a Lemon         I didn’t understand
it until             now I don’t exist                         & if I do it is
       Because of the label    that I        wear Organic poet
        small sole               Space                                    person
         let me sleep       for hours                as Anonymous


                           ***


blank boxes

I wanted to hear light shake before the event
so I placed my heart
in my hunger
& it might have been home

but the myth started
as a sound & it braved the dark forests  
hidden waters &
it was in the middle
suspended moon shape
is chilly
without heat
& goddesses played for blood & drank in lost
directions & the myth became a dream
desired at night under
feathers & green cotton
a romantic brain
the fear of the body
before food was discovered
I looked out from my eyes & couldn’t
decide if I existed as an idea or skin
a lung ears intestines or
the taste of water
I revolted
from boundaries on my tongue
moving my shape along
a clumsy wet vegetable
a heart thrown
Into the river & past
the oceans
deeper than thought it proved
it was silence & I never heard myself
at the end when beginning
occurred I slept
with my arms holding onto a box of holes

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John C. Goodman


The light is ordinary

on an ordinary day
          – our greatest tragedies rouse nothing more than a shrug
          – such ordinary misfortunes
          – mere heart-rendings

So much is contained in a moment
a passing of music, the scent of cinnamon and cloves,
a shadow across a table, the soft catch of a closing door

An ordinary moment, indistinguishable from a wind torn wisp of cloud

It’s the silence that is so big
          swallowing everything
          gulping down the light
          erasing the ordinary footfalls on the blue and white tiles of the ordinary floor
                that lead to the closing of the ordinary door


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Teresa Peipins


The Century Turns           

Amphibious we swim
some of the time,
emerge sticky, dun colored
from the murk of our ancestry.
           
You are too much mine.
Erased by foreign lands,
for us there is no tomorrow,
no promise of children.

Your suit hangs,
shoes polished to the sonance
of Paris streets.
Your country, Congo,
is left behind.

At night,
the distant drip
of blood 
seeps behind our walls.

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Friday, November 23, 2012

Volodymyr Bilyk



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David Harrison Horton


fr. Great Coat


Without signs, the visual

a walk around the complex

mapping landmarks

Lei Kai didn’t use a manual

to teach Lei Feng to use a rifle

he showed him

*

When you join the Army

you get some socks

later you are taught the art

of darning

thank you Wangcheng County

I will work hard

and love my country

*

Dust so thick the bridge

disappears, blocking the view

of the destination

3 x 3, in line, in unison

the slow march forward

Lei Feng remembering his debt

to Peng Demao

never once looked back

to the village

*

Left home

to witness the emptiness

between the branches of every tree

to get blood payment

for blood debt

Mr. Lusk couldn’t remember

how he cut his hand

but knew it had been cut

and that Spring

was a sorry excuse

for a season

*

To study well

to hope for advancement

the bigger narrative curve

farming

undisguised as agriculture

a teat without milk

a concern that outweighs

the desire

to watch the sun

set


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Friday, November 16, 2012

Lars Palm


Nobody's Wedding
 
invisible bride & groom
exiting possibly non
existent town hall
 
not quite in time for
their honeymoon due
to bees on the runway
 
the survivors all say
it was a blast

*** 
 
Two Left Feet
 
were crossing the street
         one got run over &
the other one was speechless
 
tangled up in shoes out
on the dance floor
to the delight of
 
cops stumbling around on
their beat not having
a clue what's up or down

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