by Debra Kaufman
Draping the flag
over her shoulders
she said red is for blood
white for innocence
blue for the eyes of my Johnny-o
When Johnny comes marching
comes flying comes stumbling
comes home lost
behind his eyes so blue
so distant so furious so murderous
we'll give him a hearty welcome then
hoorah hoorah
Debra Kaufman is a poet and playwright. She is author of three poetry collections: Family of Strangers, Still Life Burning, and A Certain Light. Her poems have appeared in many literary magazines and several anthologies.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
THOSE WE BURIED, THOSE WE SENT HOME
by Laurie Kuntz
They flash the dead on the screen,
Faces shining like an autumn harvest,
Their serious smiles, framed against stars, against stripes.
The parades this week are cast
With those who returned, they step to the podium,
This bruised harvest, their gait gingered.
One’s eye sockets are melted shut,
Like the waxy remains of a holiday candle.
He hoarsely speaks of serving with pride,
But his words are slurred, as are parts of his memory.
The next boy speaks too loudly, says he has no regrets,
He accepts the injuries, a totem of honor,
his left ear blown off by grenades,
He folds and refolds the yellow lined paper,
Notes to himself on what must be said,
When his speech ends, he sees the clapping,
But cannot hear the applause,
or the few in the audience beginning to gasp.
Laurie Kuntz’s bio is as elusive as her estrogen levels. Sometimes she remembers she is a poet and sometimes not. During her five minutes in the sun Laurie has done the following: She is the winner of the 1999 Texas Review Chapbook Contest and her chapbook, Simple Gestures, is published by Texas review Press (2000). Blue Light Press published her chapbook, Women at the Onsen, in 2003. Edwin Mellen Press published her poetry collection, Somewhere in the Telling in 1999. She is the author of two English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) books, The New Arrival, BKS. 1 &2(Prentice-Hall, 1982, 1992). She was the editor of the University of Maryland's Asian Division's literary magazine, Blue Muse, and was a contributing editor to Hunger Mountain Magazine. Currently, she is a contributing editor for RockSaltPlum online literary magazine. In 2003, three of her poems were nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. More on her life and poetry can be seen on lauriekuntzpoetry.homestead.com. Pining for the tropics, she works and writes in Northern Japan.
They flash the dead on the screen,
Faces shining like an autumn harvest,
Their serious smiles, framed against stars, against stripes.
The parades this week are cast
With those who returned, they step to the podium,
This bruised harvest, their gait gingered.
One’s eye sockets are melted shut,
Like the waxy remains of a holiday candle.
He hoarsely speaks of serving with pride,
But his words are slurred, as are parts of his memory.
The next boy speaks too loudly, says he has no regrets,
He accepts the injuries, a totem of honor,
his left ear blown off by grenades,
He folds and refolds the yellow lined paper,
Notes to himself on what must be said,
When his speech ends, he sees the clapping,
But cannot hear the applause,
or the few in the audience beginning to gasp.
Laurie Kuntz’s bio is as elusive as her estrogen levels. Sometimes she remembers she is a poet and sometimes not. During her five minutes in the sun Laurie has done the following: She is the winner of the 1999 Texas Review Chapbook Contest and her chapbook, Simple Gestures, is published by Texas review Press (2000). Blue Light Press published her chapbook, Women at the Onsen, in 2003. Edwin Mellen Press published her poetry collection, Somewhere in the Telling in 1999. She is the author of two English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) books, The New Arrival, BKS. 1 &2(Prentice-Hall, 1982, 1992). She was the editor of the University of Maryland's Asian Division's literary magazine, Blue Muse, and was a contributing editor to Hunger Mountain Magazine. Currently, she is a contributing editor for RockSaltPlum online literary magazine. In 2003, three of her poems were nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. More on her life and poetry can be seen on lauriekuntzpoetry.homestead.com. Pining for the tropics, she works and writes in Northern Japan.
Friday, November 09, 2007
N.Y. VOTERS ACCIDENTALLY GET 2 A.M. PHONE CALLS
by Rochelle Ratner
It's two a.m. Do you know where your children are? Do you realize you're less than an hour's drive from New York City. Or did you plan it that way, so your kids could have the best of both worlds? The bars don't close until four. Do you know which ones they frequent? Have you raised them to be Democrats or Independents? Surely they can think for themselves. Surely they're old enough to vote, or they wouldn't be out this late. Please rest assured, as part of the state legislature, I'll always have their interests and safety uppermost in my mind. At all hours.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
It's two a.m. Do you know where your children are? Do you realize you're less than an hour's drive from New York City. Or did you plan it that way, so your kids could have the best of both worlds? The bars don't close until four. Do you know which ones they frequent? Have you raised them to be Democrats or Independents? Surely they can think for themselves. Surely they're old enough to vote, or they wouldn't be out this late. Please rest assured, as part of the state legislature, I'll always have their interests and safety uppermost in my mind. At all hours.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
REPUBLI-GUNS
poeArtry by Charles Frederickson
Republi-guns coming out smoking crackpots
Shooting from Lip-GOP Hip-hop Flip-flops
Bent straight mavericks gunning for
Oval Orifice Reagan stingray-gun wannabes
Cross-dresser skirting ex-ex-wife swap conflicts
Briefly married to own Superego
Photo oops windblown hairless comb-overs
Cell phone set-up delusional fake-believe
Two positions on every issue
Stem rethinking cells NRA inductee
Ex-pro/anti-gay pro-choice pro-life crock hunter
Dithering reborn-again Mormon Osmonds endorsed
Ham what am role-playing gigs
Ex-senator D.A. caveman presidential stand-in
Titanic victim lifeboat sprung leak
Hot wife cheerleader mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Camp-pain hemorrhaging dollars cents-less broke
Overgrown Beach Boy belittling jerk
Gagging on Chelsea – Janet gibes
Bombing Iraq is no joke
Bush-league Cheney gang swift boating
Exploiting 9/11 for political gain
White elephants jumping through loopholes
Ameri-neocon XS hypocrisy hang Right
Dr. Charles Frederickson. Name: D. Mentor Stan Doubt; Nickname: Nun; Address: Genial Devilry State of Denial; Zip: B9-1-1; Phone: Taco Bell; Faxhole: telepathetic moonsense UFOcult; Sexile: manimal; He-male: e-diot dot commie; vagabondAge: Ironic; Blood: Taipei; Vision: 20-20-20; Religion: Born Against trance-incidental Vegetation; Education: U-Nique BSer IV Leak Overachiever; Major: Mickey Mouse Pad Commuter Séance; Club Memberships: A, AA, AAA, AAAA, AAAAA; Special Abilities: Unmentionable Listless Hypist; halluciDate: Blind Man’s Bluff TGIF.
Republi-guns coming out smoking crackpots
Shooting from Lip-GOP Hip-hop Flip-flops
Bent straight mavericks gunning for
Oval Orifice Reagan stingray-gun wannabes
Cross-dresser skirting ex-ex-wife swap conflicts
Briefly married to own Superego
Photo oops windblown hairless comb-overs
Cell phone set-up delusional fake-believe
Two positions on every issue
Stem rethinking cells NRA inductee
Ex-pro/anti-gay pro-choice pro-life crock hunter
Dithering reborn-again Mormon Osmonds endorsed
Ham what am role-playing gigs
Ex-senator D.A. caveman presidential stand-in
Titanic victim lifeboat sprung leak
Hot wife cheerleader mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Camp-pain hemorrhaging dollars cents-less broke
Overgrown Beach Boy belittling jerk
Gagging on Chelsea – Janet gibes
Bombing Iraq is no joke
Bush-league Cheney gang swift boating
Exploiting 9/11 for political gain
White elephants jumping through loopholes
Ameri-neocon XS hypocrisy hang Right
Dr. Charles Frederickson. Name: D. Mentor Stan Doubt; Nickname: Nun; Address: Genial Devilry State of Denial; Zip: B9-1-1; Phone: Taco Bell; Faxhole: telepathetic moonsense UFOcult; Sexile: manimal; He-male: e-diot dot commie; vagabondAge: Ironic; Blood: Taipei; Vision: 20-20-20; Religion: Born Against trance-incidental Vegetation; Education: U-Nique BSer IV Leak Overachiever; Major: Mickey Mouse Pad Commuter Séance; Club Memberships: A, AA, AAA, AAAA, AAAAA; Special Abilities: Unmentionable Listless Hypist; halluciDate: Blind Man’s Bluff TGIF.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
CITY HALL
by Sarah Lazare
"Do you think we are animals—
that you can just throw us onto the street?"
I imagine these words ringing through the city council meeting,
Letting loose a shudder
before disappearing into the transcripts.
"The city is tearing down the housing projects in New Orleans
after thousands of black people have been killed and displaced."
The councilmen will thank them for their comments.
The land has already been sold.
Sarah Lazare is a 24 year old union organizer living in San Francisco. She previously lived in Washington, DC, where she worked as a writer and researcher for a magazine that monitors and exposes corporate abuses. She grew up in Springfield, Illinois.
"Do you think we are animals—
that you can just throw us onto the street?"
I imagine these words ringing through the city council meeting,
Letting loose a shudder
before disappearing into the transcripts.
"The city is tearing down the housing projects in New Orleans
after thousands of black people have been killed and displaced."
The councilmen will thank them for their comments.
The land has already been sold.
Sarah Lazare is a 24 year old union organizer living in San Francisco. She previously lived in Washington, DC, where she worked as a writer and researcher for a magazine that monitors and exposes corporate abuses. She grew up in Springfield, Illinois.
WAITING FOR GODOT IN NEW ORLEANS
by Alan Catlin
In November 2006, [Paul] Chan was invited to lecture at Tulane University. During his stay, he toured the flood-ravaged city. The stark landscape led him to think of New Orleans as the perfect setting for an outdoor version of Godot. "In the (Lower) 9th Ward and parts of Gentilly, you saw these barren streets," he said. "In Godot, the only setting is a road and a tree." But Chan, who lives in New York, said it was "not only a visual sensation that suggested (Samuel) Beckett's play, but the sense of waiting, waiting for Road Home money, or friends in Houston and Atlanta, waiting for them to return."
staged in
hurricane
wasteland
9th Ward
audience
members
say, "Waiting,
I can tell you
about waiting."
Waiting for rescue
waiting for FEMA
for Red Cross
for National Guard
all deployed to Iraq
Waiting for housing
waiting for jobs
for new schools
Waiting for Bush
Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. One year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.
In November 2006, [Paul] Chan was invited to lecture at Tulane University. During his stay, he toured the flood-ravaged city. The stark landscape led him to think of New Orleans as the perfect setting for an outdoor version of Godot. "In the (Lower) 9th Ward and parts of Gentilly, you saw these barren streets," he said. "In Godot, the only setting is a road and a tree." But Chan, who lives in New York, said it was "not only a visual sensation that suggested (Samuel) Beckett's play, but the sense of waiting, waiting for Road Home money, or friends in Houston and Atlanta, waiting for them to return."
--"Artist Paul Chan brings his 'Godot' to a waiting city,"
by Doug MacCash and David Cuthbert, NOLA.com November 06, 2007
by Doug MacCash and David Cuthbert, NOLA.com November 06, 2007
staged in
hurricane
wasteland
9th Ward
audience
members
say, "Waiting,
I can tell you
about waiting."
Waiting for rescue
waiting for FEMA
for Red Cross
for National Guard
all deployed to Iraq
Waiting for housing
waiting for jobs
for new schools
Waiting for Bush
Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. One year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
NO REGRETS
by Persis M. Karim
You could say “I’ve seen it all baby”
and no one could dispute that.
At 92, you’d lived to say “I have no
regrets”-- even while remembering
the blue flash of light, the mushroom cloud
you must have seen as beautiful and clean
when the plane you piloted
circled the dark island one last time.
It was you, Mr. Tibbets who pushed the button
and let drop the “Little Boy,”
that made history for you and it,
ended one kind of war and started another.
And that the thing beneath you slipped out
like a baby, waiting to be born,
overdue and eager to make contact
with life, made it somehow less regrettable.
Even in death, you’ll be murmuring,
“I have no regrets,” in the belly of the plane
where they’ll drop your ashes
over the great ocean to avoid
a burial site, a headstone
that would attract detractors who still assert
that any man who spreads death,
no matter how and in what form,
whether in the cockpit, under a heavy vest
of munitions, or sitting behind a round table—
cannot say, “I have no regrets.”
No, you didn’t invent destruction
and you didn’t perfect it either.
Before you partnered with the cold machine
that you gave your mother’s sweet-
sounding name, “Enola Gay,”
plenty of others before you let loose
their furor and terror.
They were never heroes though, never
given the power to think
their beautiful violence
would save somebody, save
this shattered world
from more shattering.
And many more came after
who never lost a wink of sleep
when their blankets of death
covered a corner of the planet.
Men like Pol Pot and Kissinger,
Pinochet and Bin Laden.
All of them resting easy
in warm beds or some other
place they might call heaven.
Mr. Tibbets, I bid you a hero’s farewell
and say I’m sorry
that you didn’t get to know
how much more human a man is
when he lives to regret
some things.
Persis M. Karim lives in the Berkeley, CA with her husband and two sons. She teaches literature and creative writing at San Jose State University and is editor and contributing poet to Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (2006). She can be reached at http://www.persiskarim.com.
On hearing of Paul Tibbets’s death--November 1, 2007
You could say “I’ve seen it all baby”
and no one could dispute that.
At 92, you’d lived to say “I have no
regrets”-- even while remembering
the blue flash of light, the mushroom cloud
you must have seen as beautiful and clean
when the plane you piloted
circled the dark island one last time.
It was you, Mr. Tibbets who pushed the button
and let drop the “Little Boy,”
that made history for you and it,
ended one kind of war and started another.
And that the thing beneath you slipped out
like a baby, waiting to be born,
overdue and eager to make contact
with life, made it somehow less regrettable.
Even in death, you’ll be murmuring,
“I have no regrets,” in the belly of the plane
where they’ll drop your ashes
over the great ocean to avoid
a burial site, a headstone
that would attract detractors who still assert
that any man who spreads death,
no matter how and in what form,
whether in the cockpit, under a heavy vest
of munitions, or sitting behind a round table—
cannot say, “I have no regrets.”
No, you didn’t invent destruction
and you didn’t perfect it either.
Before you partnered with the cold machine
that you gave your mother’s sweet-
sounding name, “Enola Gay,”
plenty of others before you let loose
their furor and terror.
They were never heroes though, never
given the power to think
their beautiful violence
would save somebody, save
this shattered world
from more shattering.
And many more came after
who never lost a wink of sleep
when their blankets of death
covered a corner of the planet.
Men like Pol Pot and Kissinger,
Pinochet and Bin Laden.
All of them resting easy
in warm beds or some other
place they might call heaven.
Mr. Tibbets, I bid you a hero’s farewell
and say I’m sorry
that you didn’t get to know
how much more human a man is
when he lives to regret
some things.
Persis M. Karim lives in the Berkeley, CA with her husband and two sons. She teaches literature and creative writing at San Jose State University and is editor and contributing poet to Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (2006). She can be reached at http://www.persiskarim.com.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
RESIGNATION
by Patricia Brooks
Leave me be, America,
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore.
Your bombs have burst
my eardrums, popped
my nerves like junkies’ veins.
They’re now as numb.
In my youth,
I faced down bigots’
shotguns for
your honor.
Whatever happened
to that honor, America?
Did you trade it
for this power?
Leave me be, America,
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore.
Two wars ago,
you gassed me on the
steps of your five-sided
house of terror.
Now your gases
poison soils and air
everywhere. What will you tell
the children who get ill?
Will you slap the hands
that reach to you for care?
All our riches cannot
make them well?
Leave me be, America,
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore.
You keep building prisons
for your forever-slaves and
desperate others. Their walls
are ringed by hired rifles.
No room left for your latest
self-made enemies; you ship them
all off-shore, like the mansions
of those CEOs who own us.
Your first flag of ownership
was planted on the moon, has now
proliferated to the homes of every
frightened patriot and invaded land.
This year, they say, on Hiroshima Day,
some offered our apologies. The reply of
their descendents: now our lust for conquest
has passed to you. Thank you.
I cannot hope…
I cannot hope…
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore,
America.
Patricia Brooks was Fiction Editor of the Northwest Review during the three years she spent in the MFA program at the University of Oregon. She has published two novels,and had a play produced in Edward Albee's workshop at the Circle in the Square Theater in NYC. Her poetry has appeared in an assortment of journals, large and small.
This poem follows my summer trip to D.C., to do a hunger strike (following my successful three-week strike from home last fall) in the galleries of the House and Senate. I ended it because no water is allowed inside the Capitol Building (a glass an hour is required to maintain the body while not eating) and my body let me know it would not go through that again. But by then I was also convinced that there was no way the Democrats were going to take responsibility for this war on their own shoulders while that burden is now borne by the Republicans. I couldn't see a single soul on the floors of either house who would do anything they feared unwise politically. I've been a peace activist all my life, and am now resigning.
Leave me be, America,
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore.
Your bombs have burst
my eardrums, popped
my nerves like junkies’ veins.
They’re now as numb.
In my youth,
I faced down bigots’
shotguns for
your honor.
Whatever happened
to that honor, America?
Did you trade it
for this power?
Leave me be, America,
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore.
Two wars ago,
you gassed me on the
steps of your five-sided
house of terror.
Now your gases
poison soils and air
everywhere. What will you tell
the children who get ill?
Will you slap the hands
that reach to you for care?
All our riches cannot
make them well?
Leave me be, America,
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore.
You keep building prisons
for your forever-slaves and
desperate others. Their walls
are ringed by hired rifles.
No room left for your latest
self-made enemies; you ship them
all off-shore, like the mansions
of those CEOs who own us.
Your first flag of ownership
was planted on the moon, has now
proliferated to the homes of every
frightened patriot and invaded land.
This year, they say, on Hiroshima Day,
some offered our apologies. The reply of
their descendents: now our lust for conquest
has passed to you. Thank you.
I cannot hope…
I cannot hope…
I cannot hope
to save you
anymore,
America.
Patricia Brooks was Fiction Editor of the Northwest Review during the three years she spent in the MFA program at the University of Oregon. She has published two novels,and had a play produced in Edward Albee's workshop at the Circle in the Square Theater in NYC. Her poetry has appeared in an assortment of journals, large and small.
Monday, November 05, 2007
A BOWL OF LESSONS FOR HALLOWEEN
by Frank Sloan
My neighbor, the prison guard, aims a .22 Ruger at a crater on
thet fat yellow moon that
hangs low above a row of spooky hedge trees.
He probably believes he can hit it from here.
He’s very fond of his delusions, gets them wholesale from Fox TV News.
“My nephew borrowed a hundred bucks and never paid it back, so I took his gun! I don’t need another gun, but he needs the lesson!” When he pulls
the trigger nothing happens. The gun’s not loaded. “All you kids
need to wake up to the real world.” (I’m three
years younger than he is.)
I live in a gun happy state. We live in a gun happy country. My neighbor feels comfortable with a house full of guns, and I found my Halloween costume: a wounded
moon leaking her luminous guts into a vast bowl of gunpowder.
Ex-firefighter, ex-beat cop, ex-dirt farmer/cowhand/bouncer and current garden center flunky; Frank Sloan lives and writes in a small shack near the heart of the American empire. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes it’s a heart that merits salvation.
My neighbor, the prison guard, aims a .22 Ruger at a crater on
thet fat yellow moon that
hangs low above a row of spooky hedge trees.
He probably believes he can hit it from here.
He’s very fond of his delusions, gets them wholesale from Fox TV News.
“My nephew borrowed a hundred bucks and never paid it back, so I took his gun! I don’t need another gun, but he needs the lesson!” When he pulls
the trigger nothing happens. The gun’s not loaded. “All you kids
need to wake up to the real world.” (I’m three
years younger than he is.)
I live in a gun happy state. We live in a gun happy country. My neighbor feels comfortable with a house full of guns, and I found my Halloween costume: a wounded
moon leaking her luminous guts into a vast bowl of gunpowder.
Ex-firefighter, ex-beat cop, ex-dirt farmer/cowhand/bouncer and current garden center flunky; Frank Sloan lives and writes in a small shack near the heart of the American empire. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes it’s a heart that merits salvation.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
MALIBU FIRE
by Tamara Madison
A red boil rises
in the eastern sky to show
a film of ash on asphalt:
your wedding photos
your tax returns, the couch
you could not get rid of.
Like a timid snowfall
the flakes sift down:
your closets full of clothes
for each of your changing sizes;
a decade of newspapers stored
in neat columns in your spare
garage; a marriage full
of Christmas ornaments.
When the wind is right
The sky shows its shy blue face
until the smoke returns
bringing with it your law books,
your socks, your brand new
king size bed.
Flames glitter on the hillside:
This is something big,
they tell us, We are stronger
than you will ever be.
And they bring us their booty:
all those ancient phone books
the magazines you had no time
to read, the bible you held
at confirmation, your mask
and snorkel, your careful
landscaping, and plastic,
all that plastic.
Tamara Madison teaches French in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is a long-time participant in Donna Hilbert's poetry workshop in Long Beach, California. Her chapbook The Belly Remembers won the Jane Buel Bradley Chapbook Award in 2005 and is available through pearlmag.com.
A red boil rises
in the eastern sky to show
a film of ash on asphalt:
your wedding photos
your tax returns, the couch
you could not get rid of.
Like a timid snowfall
the flakes sift down:
your closets full of clothes
for each of your changing sizes;
a decade of newspapers stored
in neat columns in your spare
garage; a marriage full
of Christmas ornaments.
When the wind is right
The sky shows its shy blue face
until the smoke returns
bringing with it your law books,
your socks, your brand new
king size bed.
Flames glitter on the hillside:
This is something big,
they tell us, We are stronger
than you will ever be.
And they bring us their booty:
all those ancient phone books
the magazines you had no time
to read, the bible you held
at confirmation, your mask
and snorkel, your careful
landscaping, and plastic,
all that plastic.
Tamara Madison teaches French in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is a long-time participant in Donna Hilbert's poetry workshop in Long Beach, California. Her chapbook The Belly Remembers won the Jane Buel Bradley Chapbook Award in 2005 and is available through pearlmag.com.
GREEN TEA
by Al Simmons
Once upon a time, between
Love affairs,
On an island called Alameda,
He sat drinking green tea.
Real ducks, not rubber ones,
Swam in the pool,
And the morning sounds
Were vibrant
And interrupted only by the roars
From jet planes taking off from Oakland
International.
They used to take off above
Industrial Hayward to the south.
The mighty scream and quake from the GE Jet P.
Engines were the sounds
Of filth, systematically applied
Layer upon layer upon layer,
Upon our community, without rest.
Aviation
Industry of Filth.
This Sunday morning
On the coast, it’s 62 degrees,
Pleasant, sunny and mild.
I don’t fear death,
I fear being cheated
Out of life.
I sit,
Drink green tea,
Write poems,
Take a walk,
Promise myself
Not to befoul anything
This entire day.
Al Simmons was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 21, 1948. He studied with Ed Dorn at Northeastern Illinois University. He was faculty assistant and student aide to Ted Berrigan, who replaced Ed Dorn at Northeastern Illinois University. In the early 70s he was part of the Stone Wind Poets who began the first regular poetry reading series in Chicago since Sherwood Anderson. He won several Illinois Arts Council Awards as Editor for Stone Wind Magazine. He served as Artist-In-Residence City of Chicago Council on Fine Arts, 1979-80, he is recognized as the founder of The Spoken Word Movement, Commissioner of the WPA/WPBA, World Poetry Association, and the World Poetry Bout Association, creator of the World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Fights, Co-Producer of the Taos Poetry Circus from 1981-2000. His column, "Coasting," appeared in Strong Coffee Magazine, Chicago, from 1994-1997. During that time he was also a regular contributor to The Temple and Exquisite Corpse. He has two books, King Blue and Care Free. He currently lives in Alameda, California.
Once upon a time, between
Love affairs,
On an island called Alameda,
He sat drinking green tea.
Real ducks, not rubber ones,
Swam in the pool,
And the morning sounds
Were vibrant
And interrupted only by the roars
From jet planes taking off from Oakland
International.
They used to take off above
Industrial Hayward to the south.
The mighty scream and quake from the GE Jet P.
Engines were the sounds
Of filth, systematically applied
Layer upon layer upon layer,
Upon our community, without rest.
Aviation
Industry of Filth.
This Sunday morning
On the coast, it’s 62 degrees,
Pleasant, sunny and mild.
I don’t fear death,
I fear being cheated
Out of life.
I sit,
Drink green tea,
Write poems,
Take a walk,
Promise myself
Not to befoul anything
This entire day.
Al Simmons was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 21, 1948. He studied with Ed Dorn at Northeastern Illinois University. He was faculty assistant and student aide to Ted Berrigan, who replaced Ed Dorn at Northeastern Illinois University. In the early 70s he was part of the Stone Wind Poets who began the first regular poetry reading series in Chicago since Sherwood Anderson. He won several Illinois Arts Council Awards as Editor for Stone Wind Magazine. He served as Artist-In-Residence City of Chicago Council on Fine Arts, 1979-80, he is recognized as the founder of The Spoken Word Movement, Commissioner of the WPA/WPBA, World Poetry Association, and the World Poetry Bout Association, creator of the World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Fights, Co-Producer of the Taos Poetry Circus from 1981-2000. His column, "Coasting," appeared in Strong Coffee Magazine, Chicago, from 1994-1997. During that time he was also a regular contributor to The Temple and Exquisite Corpse. He has two books, King Blue and Care Free. He currently lives in Alameda, California.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
LOOK THE TERMINATOR, THAT WAY
by Steve Hellyard Swartz
Adults in Australia
Are filling up the lists
Of artful orthodontists
To look a certain way
Aussie realtor, twenty-something
Kimmie B.
Says: In my profession it makes all the difference in the
World to look a certain way
Which way is that?
Wonders the Iraqi girl who hears Kimmie B. quoted on the BBC
Which way, the girl in Baghdad wonders as she lies on her bedroom floor
and opens a map of the world
Which way, the girl in Baghdad wonders, imagining Kimmie B. halfway
around the world
Imagining Kimmie B. praying to
Diamonds on the map, east west north south, all the rough paper stones
she's heard about, this girl
in dreams that gag her in the dark of night, one two three thousand times
What, the girl wonders
kneeling on the world
did Kimmie B. mean when she said:
I need a celebrity mouth
The Iraqi girl was told by her mother just yesterday not to look left or right,
not up or down, but only straight ahead
Let your nose guide you, Mama said
There are dead bodies everywhere
On the streets of the girl’s neighborhood
There is nothing you can do
If the men come to pick them up, good, if not
The girl looks at the map
The girl sees California and thinks about looking a certain way
from Australia to California and all around the sun splashed world
There is a poster of Disney World on her wall
There is a poster of Arnold Schwartzenegger as The Terminator
If the men come to pick up the bodies, we are very, very happy
If not, there’s nothing to say, nothing to do
If not, then you just have to look a certain way
And go on
Steve Hellyard Swartz is an award-winning filmmaker, broadcaster, and poet. This year, he won an Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. His poetry has been published in The Kennesaw Review, levelpoetry.com, switched-on guttenberg, and Haggard and Halloo.
Adults in Australia
Are filling up the lists
Of artful orthodontists
To look a certain way
Aussie realtor, twenty-something
Kimmie B.
Says: In my profession it makes all the difference in the
World to look a certain way
Which way is that?
Wonders the Iraqi girl who hears Kimmie B. quoted on the BBC
Which way, the girl in Baghdad wonders as she lies on her bedroom floor
and opens a map of the world
Which way, the girl in Baghdad wonders, imagining Kimmie B. halfway
around the world
Imagining Kimmie B. praying to
Diamonds on the map, east west north south, all the rough paper stones
she's heard about, this girl
in dreams that gag her in the dark of night, one two three thousand times
What, the girl wonders
kneeling on the world
did Kimmie B. mean when she said:
I need a celebrity mouth
The Iraqi girl was told by her mother just yesterday not to look left or right,
not up or down, but only straight ahead
Let your nose guide you, Mama said
There are dead bodies everywhere
On the streets of the girl’s neighborhood
There is nothing you can do
If the men come to pick them up, good, if not
The girl looks at the map
The girl sees California and thinks about looking a certain way
from Australia to California and all around the sun splashed world
There is a poster of Disney World on her wall
There is a poster of Arnold Schwartzenegger as The Terminator
If the men come to pick up the bodies, we are very, very happy
If not, there’s nothing to say, nothing to do
If not, then you just have to look a certain way
And go on
Steve Hellyard Swartz is an award-winning filmmaker, broadcaster, and poet. This year, he won an Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. His poetry has been published in The Kennesaw Review, levelpoetry.com, switched-on guttenberg, and Haggard and Halloo.
Friday, November 02, 2007
VETO POWER
by Sondra Zeidenstein
My father always had veto power over his wife and four daughters
and, backing him up, like when I ran away, underage, to be with my boyfriend,
the police, the handcuffs, the cop car to search me out and bring me home,
where my mother had taken to her bed in disgrace,
big,Tudor style house on the corner, shaken to its laundress-inhabited cellar.
My mother never once spoke back to my father.
Mostly, she’d turn a blank face to his constant sniping,
but once, when he threw a fork at her across the table
because she didn’t serve the dishes in the right order or at the right pace,
or didn’t put a separate set of salt and pepper shakers by his plate
so he, stutterer, halted by s’s, wouldn’t have to keep asking pass the salt,
she ran upstairs to the third floor, as far away as she could get,
her daughters crowding in behind her, quivering, and called her mother.
I’m putting my money on Nancy Pelosi, her courage to talk back
to the men, the despots, my father all over again, on her unsmudged
wet lipstick, her wide mouth, such shiny white teeth,
flat, pink, clean tongue, on the cut of her silk blouses in every color,
under a soft jacket, over a skirt, her legs still beautiful. On the pearls.
I’ve never seen a woman of seventy, attractive, sexual,
look with such confidence in the eyes of a man in power and claim her opposition,
you are wrong, your policies are blunders,
in slow, clear sentences. True, she’s had a hard time.
After months at the gavel, her eyes are set deeper,
her neck is thinner, strands of her coiffed, dyed hair fall out of place.
When the Senate whip, her ally, stands too close beside her in front of the mike,
puts his arm around her back, his fingers coming up over her other shoulder,
she keeps her trained face poised for the camera,
but her eyes flicker, to all of us, her disdain.
Not like my downtrodden mother,
rough-skinned, plump, penniless without my father,
in that secure hold at the corner of Bryant and King,
never standing up for herself or her four skinny, fidgety daughters.
Sondra Zeidenstein's poems have been published in magazines, journals and anthologies, and in a chapbook collection entitled Late Afternoon Woman. A Detail in that Story is her first book, Resistance is her second. She is editor of several anthologies including A Wider Giving: Women Writing after a Long Silence and Family Reunion: Poems about Parenting Grown Children, and publisher of Chicory Blue Press, a small literary press, now twenty years old, that focuses on writing by older women.
for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
My father always had veto power over his wife and four daughters
and, backing him up, like when I ran away, underage, to be with my boyfriend,
the police, the handcuffs, the cop car to search me out and bring me home,
where my mother had taken to her bed in disgrace,
big,Tudor style house on the corner, shaken to its laundress-inhabited cellar.
My mother never once spoke back to my father.
Mostly, she’d turn a blank face to his constant sniping,
but once, when he threw a fork at her across the table
because she didn’t serve the dishes in the right order or at the right pace,
or didn’t put a separate set of salt and pepper shakers by his plate
so he, stutterer, halted by s’s, wouldn’t have to keep asking pass the salt,
she ran upstairs to the third floor, as far away as she could get,
her daughters crowding in behind her, quivering, and called her mother.
I’m putting my money on Nancy Pelosi, her courage to talk back
to the men, the despots, my father all over again, on her unsmudged
wet lipstick, her wide mouth, such shiny white teeth,
flat, pink, clean tongue, on the cut of her silk blouses in every color,
under a soft jacket, over a skirt, her legs still beautiful. On the pearls.
I’ve never seen a woman of seventy, attractive, sexual,
look with such confidence in the eyes of a man in power and claim her opposition,
you are wrong, your policies are blunders,
in slow, clear sentences. True, she’s had a hard time.
After months at the gavel, her eyes are set deeper,
her neck is thinner, strands of her coiffed, dyed hair fall out of place.
When the Senate whip, her ally, stands too close beside her in front of the mike,
puts his arm around her back, his fingers coming up over her other shoulder,
she keeps her trained face poised for the camera,
but her eyes flicker, to all of us, her disdain.
Not like my downtrodden mother,
rough-skinned, plump, penniless without my father,
in that secure hold at the corner of Bryant and King,
never standing up for herself or her four skinny, fidgety daughters.
Sondra Zeidenstein's poems have been published in magazines, journals and anthologies, and in a chapbook collection entitled Late Afternoon Woman. A Detail in that Story is her first book, Resistance is her second. She is editor of several anthologies including A Wider Giving: Women Writing after a Long Silence and Family Reunion: Poems about Parenting Grown Children, and publisher of Chicory Blue Press, a small literary press, now twenty years old, that focuses on writing by older women.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
AND NOT A SYMPATHY CARD LEFT IN THE EMPTY BINS
by Rochelle Ratner
We Card Everyone, the sign at the register says. It’s what they teach employees. And high school girls with pimply faces working for minimum wage are proud to have learned it.
At the back of the market, two Marines home on leave from Iraq are trying to get together a poker game. The father of one has a deck of cards, government issue, with all the names and faces of the terrorists sought right after 9/11. The names are unfamiliar. The bearded faces all look the same to them. The cards were bought on eBay.
They’re told there will be new cards soon. Cards meant to teach the soldiers about historic sites and artifacts. Diamonds for artifacts and treasures, spades for archaeological digs. Whispering, of course, steal this, or take this home with you. Something besides their wounds to show the family. If the family can bear to look at them.
A 77-year-old man, who vaguely remembers one boy as a child, eavesdrops as he steps around them to fill his cart with six packs of Coors and Miller Light, refreshments for the book club at the senior center. They say he looks young for his age. He keeps his weight down. He’s been shopping at this market for over 40 years. When the cashier asks for proof of age it all becomes too much for him.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
We Card Everyone, the sign at the register says. It’s what they teach employees. And high school girls with pimply faces working for minimum wage are proud to have learned it.
At the back of the market, two Marines home on leave from Iraq are trying to get together a poker game. The father of one has a deck of cards, government issue, with all the names and faces of the terrorists sought right after 9/11. The names are unfamiliar. The bearded faces all look the same to them. The cards were bought on eBay.
They’re told there will be new cards soon. Cards meant to teach the soldiers about historic sites and artifacts. Diamonds for artifacts and treasures, spades for archaeological digs. Whispering, of course, steal this, or take this home with you. Something besides their wounds to show the family. If the family can bear to look at them.
A 77-year-old man, who vaguely remembers one boy as a child, eavesdrops as he steps around them to fill his cart with six packs of Coors and Miller Light, refreshments for the book club at the senior center. They say he looks young for his age. He keeps his weight down. He’s been shopping at this market for over 40 years. When the cashier asks for proof of age it all becomes too much for him.
Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Leads (Otoliths Press, 2007), Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)