March 16th, 2009
Link • Poems • Leave a Comment
Marvin Bell
CREATURES
Am I to save the spider in the bathtub,
who lives in the drain
and can scramble up porcelain as if
its feet are suction, or shall I
be done with it,
as I have been done with ants and snails,
with armed yellowjackets
and the mice and the bats? You
tell me, who among us is not
taking steps that preclude the moral
disquisitions of a study group?
And the honeybees are gone this spring,
who lived next door for the last years
of their keeper’s health. He also
tended the graves of the war dead
at the Fort, and he kept, in an old car,
kindling piled to the roof. After
the operation, he could walk on a walker
but not chop wood. A Navy man,
he would have gone to sea
again, had they called,
leaving the civilian buzz of disquiet
without a thought.
–from Rattle 29, Summer 2008
March 15th, 2009
Review by Christian Ward
WRONG
by Laurie Blauner
Cherry Grove Collections
P.O. Box 541106
Cincinnati, OH 45254-1106
ISBN 9781934999264
2008, 84 pp., $18.00
www.cherry-grove.com
Seattle based writer Laurie Blauner’s Wrong is a collection of lyrical poems well worth reading. Blauner has a refreshingly original voice and is unflinchingly honest in her writing, two qualities which I admire in a poet.
Divided in three sections entitled “Weightless,” “Allegations” and “Snap and Crackle,” the poems in Wrong explore the human condition to help make sense of the emotions felt by the speaker in her experiences.
Blauner uses metaphors of weightlessness to question the certainty of life and show us how nothing is what it seems. Natural phenomenons such as weather, for instance, are personified and sexualized. Even the human body is not immune and is shown in many different forms, like the reflections seen in a magic mirror.
The naked male body is “pornographic as the wind’s touch” and an “abandoned ship” in “The Emperor’s Wife” and is gradually transformed into a symbol of abandonment by the speaker, who realizes that it is empty as “the suggestion of vows and smiles” and chooses to stay even though she won’t be able “to stop him from walking out that door.”
March 14th, 2009
Link • Poems, Tributes • Leave a Comment
KRISTA FRANKLIN: “At the heart of my collages is a deep concern for creating complex and interrogative images, dream worlds and psychic landscapes. Deeply inspired by American popular culture and histories, as well as by the frenetic glamour of music videos and magazines, I create my collages in much the same way a hiphop producer creates a beat: through a process comparable to ‘sampling.’ Using a variety of medium—paint, handmade paper, playing cards, old photographs, receipts—I create new visions and totems wherein image is in dialogue with words (sometimes prominent, sometimes obscured), and the complexities of histories are evoked through a purposeful layering.”
Click the image to view a larger version:
–from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
Tribute to Visual Poetry
March 13th, 2009
Link • Poems • Leave a Comment
Matt Zambito
THE LOUVRES
Cows stare with “Mona Lisa” eyes—
mysterious, brown, famous with a genius
behind the creation. Stick a cow
in a museum, and you should be there
with your boots on; you should tromp
right through her mess if you must.The patrons who’d carry $12
cocktails constantly if they could would
stay home, and that’s where you’d feel
staring into those eyes, darker and deeper
than any oils. You’d want to rub
the thin fur covering the thickskull, her face, tilted up toward you,
chewing, and whisper, “Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay….”
Of course, the cow, priceless as a herd
of Louvres, would stand fairly still, tail flapping
at imaginary flies, wondering, as they do
whenever they see us, “What’s wrong?”
–from Rattle 29, Summer 2008
March 12th, 2009
John Yohe
YOU MIGHT
Some women let you feed them chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream
spoonful by spoonful
Some women let you brush their hair before going to bed
Some women seem so terrified of contact you feel sad
Some women wonder why you are so scared of contact
Some women like to be alone, but not a lot
Some women have good relationships with their mothers though I don’t
know if they’re in the majority
Some women dress sexy then get mad when you want to have sex with them
Some women just laugh at you
Some women write poems you want to fuck
Some women will tell you stories while you masturbate even though they
would rather you fuck them
Some women will fuck you
Some women seem to decide whether they want to marry you or not in the
first month
Some women get confused when you don’t want to
Some women don’t want children but will rarely admit it in public
Some women have children alone because fuck it
Some women don’t watch tv, but not a lot
Some women go to movies alone, though not a lot
I don’t know any woman who will go backpacking alone
Some women play guitar or saxophone and you want to be with them just
for that, even if they have a history of insanity in their family
Some women eat spaghetti with chopsticks
Some women smoke pot daily
Some women talk about writing screenplays
Some women actually do
Some women marry rich men because they think the men will be good providers
Some women even tell themselves that they love these men
And when they eventually divorce they marry other rich men for the same reason
And though some women might marry men who earn less money, this causes problems
Some women wanted to be vampires when they were girls
Some wanted to be mermaids
Some wanted to be catwomen with purple fur and tails
Some women act more like girls than some girls, and versa vice, and both are
more attractive because of that though you’re not sure you want to
be with either
Many women will take any excuse to skinny-dip
Some women like sex though many need some catching up to do
Some women have more porn on their computers than you
Some women take their clothes off for money, though these women are not
recommended
Some women are more attractive when they have a boyfriend or husband
Some women bake pumpkin pies and carry them on the plane as a present
when they visit you in New York
Some women sound relieved when you call and say you just can’t move to
Seattle to be with them
Some women keep trying to interest you even after you have moved out,
which hurts more than the moving out
Some women have been fucked (up) by their fathers and will never be right
and it’s not your fault though it maybe seems like it and feeling sorry
for them is not a reason to stay
Some women are fine with being with you for the month you spend in
Salamanca and won’t even necessarily cry when you say goodbye in
Madrid, though you might
Some women like men
Some are scared of men
Some seem to feel both at the same time, which makes you feel weird
Some women will wait for you to decide to get your life together, though not
a lot, and not forever anymore, if that was ever true
Some women are right there, visible, with bruises
just like yours
–from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
