by Jan Keough
I would like to meet Ingmar Bergman on Faro,
his island retreat on Sweden’s Baltic east coast –
but he’s dead two years and five marriages ago,
his things to be auctioned at the end of the month,
people will travel from all over to bid on
his awards, furniture, pictures - all that he owned,
all to be sent away with the highest bidder
until that owner dies or decides to resell
the something that once belonged to a famous man.
The film ‘poet’ who quit for a time, accused of
tax fraud, who thought that every film was his last
so he’d be loyal to the film he was making.
I would like to meet Ingmar Bergman on Faro,
meet him walking the tip of this ragged island,
filled with the silence he loved and solace he craved.
Faro stole him and he thanked her by staying,
letting her rescue him from that bright, careless sunlight
he could never quite trust with his fearsome magic.
But he’s dead two years, five marriages, eight children
ago - some who seldom ever met their father
except as a name on the screen or when mentioned,
and maybe, too, they’ll read his last words about all this,
‘that no discussion or emotional tumult
must come as a result’ of selling off his things.
I’d like to have met Ingmar Bergman on Faro
before this great worldliness reached out to claim those
three hundred and thirty-nine things he left behind,
lost in the wake of death, sitting like closed-off feelings,
inert to any value since he is now gone,
waiting to be temporarily owned, again,
until death or decision sells them one-by-one
as something that once belonged to a most famous man.
And the conversations about them will circle
around profits and margins and who gets how much…
but his films are already dispersed and well-owned
by those who only knew his name in the credits.
Jan Keough’s poems have appeared in The New Verse News and, this summer, in the River Poet’s Journal. She is on the committee for the Origami Poems Project of RI and has contributed several poems. She’s still waiting for the Providence Journal to publish the article & her poem ‘A little encouragement’ but the Arts section has been severely cut down in size. Poetry and the economic turndown are not a good mix.
___________________________________________
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A WEEK’S DOINGS DOWNTOWN
by Carolyn Stoloff
The alliance presented a plan for a thoroughfare for adolescents,
a corridor down the middle of several streets
where the invading screamers could congregate.
There were four days of hearings, several lawsuits, grudges sprayed
on city walls. Meanwhile nothing changed.
The speaker still refuses to sit down.
As for night-revelers, the issue became moot, they’re still here.
And the kinky mortgage scams.
The sapling was planted as planned.
An atheist wielded the shovel. When this was announced
Smith rose and silently crossed himself.
As of now Judge U has not yet ruled,
the Governor is still breathing heavily into the phone,
and a developer declared bankruptcy bringing business to a halt.
Making matters worse, both piers collapsed.
The council member made his feelings known: ‘I’m just sick,’
he said, unabashedly holding his head in his hands.
A soft-spoken rainforest activist threatened to throw
a fit unless park benches were constructed with recycled plastic.
The couples present swore
they’d stick together in the absence of an effective solvent.
When, at the next meeting, a landlord insisted his square feet
were worth 25 million,
the announcement was met with silence.
But when the Chairperson moved to mandate
indoor bike lanes in all new buildings, the room erupted in applause.
The Chair looked every bit the proud parent.
A subway rider urged the meeting to continue to begin
expanding mass transit by allowing a passenger to enter
both doors of a train car at once, a proposal that met with 196
percent approval the last we heard, despite
the Mayor’s declaration it was an extreme remedy
that didn’t go far enough.
Carolyn Stoloff is a New York poet and painter, lover of deserts and dogs, Metropolitan Museum and trees, clouds and wildflowers. Six full-length collections and three chapbooks published, and others looking for homes.
___________________________________________
with a bow and an apology to The Villager
The alliance presented a plan for a thoroughfare for adolescents,
a corridor down the middle of several streets
where the invading screamers could congregate.
There were four days of hearings, several lawsuits, grudges sprayed
on city walls. Meanwhile nothing changed.
The speaker still refuses to sit down.
As for night-revelers, the issue became moot, they’re still here.
And the kinky mortgage scams.
The sapling was planted as planned.
An atheist wielded the shovel. When this was announced
Smith rose and silently crossed himself.
As of now Judge U has not yet ruled,
the Governor is still breathing heavily into the phone,
and a developer declared bankruptcy bringing business to a halt.
Making matters worse, both piers collapsed.
The council member made his feelings known: ‘I’m just sick,’
he said, unabashedly holding his head in his hands.
A soft-spoken rainforest activist threatened to throw
a fit unless park benches were constructed with recycled plastic.
The couples present swore
they’d stick together in the absence of an effective solvent.
When, at the next meeting, a landlord insisted his square feet
were worth 25 million,
the announcement was met with silence.
But when the Chairperson moved to mandate
indoor bike lanes in all new buildings, the room erupted in applause.
The Chair looked every bit the proud parent.
A subway rider urged the meeting to continue to begin
expanding mass transit by allowing a passenger to enter
both doors of a train car at once, a proposal that met with 196
percent approval the last we heard, despite
the Mayor’s declaration it was an extreme remedy
that didn’t go far enough.
Carolyn Stoloff is a New York poet and painter, lover of deserts and dogs, Metropolitan Museum and trees, clouds and wildflowers. Six full-length collections and three chapbooks published, and others looking for homes.
___________________________________________
Monday, September 28, 2009
THE LOST PILOT
by David Plumb
You sit in the cockpit still
upright in the May Day position.
Hand on the stick, pistol rusty, shoes too big.
The watch on your wrist bones stopped.
Trees and brush cling to the tangled fuselage.
Birds and snakes inhabit the tail.
Where a shout might have been
a gaping hole in the calendar says
you are seventy one years old.
Fifty years you sat in the cockpit
Your nosedive buried, your war over and no one told you,
No one knew where you went. You just sat
There. Skin rotted off your once handsome face
Insects ate your flesh, everybody went home.
and your sweetheart stopped crying
and became a grandmother.
In this monument to absurdity, insanity
and silence, may you be in some sweet place
where if there is such a thing
it was a good war that you helped win.
God knows it should have been.
May you be with your new lover on a beach at sunrise
your arms stretched your chest to the East, free of this endless killing,
a rich smile of famous teeth, money to go around, wisdom.
May you know, if only for an instant
a truth of your dream.
Now, I step across this world to your Indonesian grave,
reach into the cockpit and take
your yellow bony hand in mine.
Your fragile history crumbles softly.
Flecks of you melt on my skin and I know.
I cannot wear your shoes
In the distance I hear new trumpets, better guns.
David Plumb’s latest fiction book is A Slight Change in the Weather. He has worked as a paramedic, a cab driver, a, cook and tour guide. A long time San Francisco writer, he now lives in South Florida . Will Rogers said, “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” Plumb says, “It depends on the parrot.”
___________________________________________
You sit in the cockpit still
upright in the May Day position.
Hand on the stick, pistol rusty, shoes too big.
The watch on your wrist bones stopped.
Trees and brush cling to the tangled fuselage.
Birds and snakes inhabit the tail.
Where a shout might have been
a gaping hole in the calendar says
you are seventy one years old.
Fifty years you sat in the cockpit
Your nosedive buried, your war over and no one told you,
No one knew where you went. You just sat
There. Skin rotted off your once handsome face
Insects ate your flesh, everybody went home.
and your sweetheart stopped crying
and became a grandmother.
In this monument to absurdity, insanity
and silence, may you be in some sweet place
where if there is such a thing
it was a good war that you helped win.
God knows it should have been.
May you be with your new lover on a beach at sunrise
your arms stretched your chest to the East, free of this endless killing,
a rich smile of famous teeth, money to go around, wisdom.
May you know, if only for an instant
a truth of your dream.
Now, I step across this world to your Indonesian grave,
reach into the cockpit and take
your yellow bony hand in mine.
Your fragile history crumbles softly.
Flecks of you melt on my skin and I know.
I cannot wear your shoes
In the distance I hear new trumpets, better guns.
David Plumb’s latest fiction book is A Slight Change in the Weather. He has worked as a paramedic, a cab driver, a, cook and tour guide. A long time San Francisco writer, he now lives in South Florida . Will Rogers said, “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” Plumb says, “It depends on the parrot.”
___________________________________________
Sunday, September 27, 2009
ABOVE US, PLANES LIKE SILVER CRUCIFIXES
by Howie Good
Darkening streets.
Impossible to avoid
the scurrying figures
huddled in their ratty coats.
Some live in the cabs
of the big machines,
others in the jagged hole
the machines were digging
before the work was abandoned.
A dog on a chain smiles fiercely
at me with discolored teeth.
Voices whisper in the hall outside
my door when I try to think.
Later, I’ll stand on the porch
with my hand on the dog’s head
and watch as the bombs approach
through the familiar mist
of the customary painkillers.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of ten poetry chapbooks, including Visiting the Dead (2009) from Flutter Press. His first full-length collection of poetry, Lovesick, has just been published by Press Americana.
___________________________________________
Darkening streets.
Impossible to avoid
the scurrying figures
huddled in their ratty coats.
Some live in the cabs
of the big machines,
others in the jagged hole
the machines were digging
before the work was abandoned.
A dog on a chain smiles fiercely
at me with discolored teeth.
Voices whisper in the hall outside
my door when I try to think.
Later, I’ll stand on the porch
with my hand on the dog’s head
and watch as the bombs approach
through the familiar mist
of the customary painkillers.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of ten poetry chapbooks, including Visiting the Dead (2009) from Flutter Press. His first full-length collection of poetry, Lovesick, has just been published by Press Americana.
___________________________________________
Saturday, September 26, 2009
UNEMPLOYMENT
by Andrew Hilbert
outside the liquor store
there’s a guy in a wheelchair
with both feet gone,
where they were
are now two rubber bands
holding the pant legs together
to hide the wounds
he’s in between two other Mexicans
waiting to be picked up
for some work
my girlfriend has to hear me complain
about how much i hate my job every day
and today she’s driving me to work
when i see this
on my way home at 11pm
a well dressed Cambodian is biking
as fast as he can somewhere
i guess to work because i want
to feel worse about feeling
sorry for myself
the streets are littered in Norwalk
and i complain in an air conditioned vehicle
to and from work
because i can afford to complain
because i don’t have to look or wait for work
Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
___________________________________________
outside the liquor store
there’s a guy in a wheelchair
with both feet gone,
where they were
are now two rubber bands
holding the pant legs together
to hide the wounds
he’s in between two other Mexicans
waiting to be picked up
for some work
my girlfriend has to hear me complain
about how much i hate my job every day
and today she’s driving me to work
when i see this
on my way home at 11pm
a well dressed Cambodian is biking
as fast as he can somewhere
i guess to work because i want
to feel worse about feeling
sorry for myself
the streets are littered in Norwalk
and i complain in an air conditioned vehicle
to and from work
because i can afford to complain
because i don’t have to look or wait for work
Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
___________________________________________
Friday, September 25, 2009
REPUBLICAN RHETORIC TO IMPROVE YOUR RELATIONSHIP
by Kenneth Nichols
In honor of the American soldier, could you do the dishes tonight?
If you’re not with your mother-in-law, you’re against me.
Turn that burner down. We don’t want the signal for dinner time to come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Let’s fight with each other in the car so we don’t have to fight each other at the party.
I’m trying to answer your questions to the best of my ability, but there’s not much I can do if I don’t recall the answer.
I am not a cook.
Don’t mess with breakfast.
Remember: You’re here at the pleasure of the president of this house.
Come now, we haven’t preserved the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman in over a month!
Kenneth Nichols is currently in the Creative Writing MFA Program at Ohio State and teaches in the English Department. His poetry has appeared in the online edition of Hobart, and he reviews literary journals for NewPages.
___________________________________________
In honor of the American soldier, could you do the dishes tonight?
If you’re not with your mother-in-law, you’re against me.
Turn that burner down. We don’t want the signal for dinner time to come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Let’s fight with each other in the car so we don’t have to fight each other at the party.
I’m trying to answer your questions to the best of my ability, but there’s not much I can do if I don’t recall the answer.
I am not a cook.
Don’t mess with breakfast.
Remember: You’re here at the pleasure of the president of this house.
Come now, we haven’t preserved the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman in over a month!
Kenneth Nichols is currently in the Creative Writing MFA Program at Ohio State and teaches in the English Department. His poetry has appeared in the online edition of Hobart, and he reviews literary journals for NewPages.
___________________________________________
Thursday, September 24, 2009
JOURNEY OF THE TRAGI
by Earl J. Wilcox
A warm time we had getting here,
Just the best of times—selling off
Oil fields to the Brits for our bomber boy’s freedom,
Camping out in a tent overnight
In Donnie Trump’s back yard,
Watching the babes walk their
Poodles in the neighborhood.
Yesterday, my pal Ahkie from Iran
Stopped in for a quick puff on the big pipe
(unbeknownst, of course to the Khomani)
and we talked into the night about all
things oil and weapons and nuclear fission.
Today, we shall go over to the tall building
With the elevators. I hate elevators,
But they say I can walk up the stairs,
Swish my beautiful jeweled turban,
My silk robe, gold inlaid sandals.
It’s important to display gifts given
To me by the big boys just before
They make their speeches today.
It’s been a while since I was here.
But I should be glad to wait again.
Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
___________________________________________
After T.S. Eliot
A warm time we had getting here,
Just the best of times—selling off
Oil fields to the Brits for our bomber boy’s freedom,
Camping out in a tent overnight
In Donnie Trump’s back yard,
Watching the babes walk their
Poodles in the neighborhood.
Yesterday, my pal Ahkie from Iran
Stopped in for a quick puff on the big pipe
(unbeknownst, of course to the Khomani)
and we talked into the night about all
things oil and weapons and nuclear fission.
Today, we shall go over to the tall building
With the elevators. I hate elevators,
But they say I can walk up the stairs,
Swish my beautiful jeweled turban,
My silk robe, gold inlaid sandals.
It’s important to display gifts given
To me by the big boys just before
They make their speeches today.
It’s been a while since I was here.
But I should be glad to wait again.
Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
___________________________________________
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
DALAI LAMA LATTE HITS TAIWAN
by Amy Holman
Dashes, circles, lines and an egg shape are all he is
in the milk froth not yet descended.
Suddenly, it's all too political. What is the etiquette
between your open mouth and his? Do you kiss
his holy caricature and swallow, or wait,
like China, for him to disappear?
Amy Holman has been playing around with current news and/or headlines for a couple of years, here and there, including publications in Failbetter, Archaeology (online), Unpleasant Event Schedule, Rattapallax, Shade, and soon, on the Red Morning Press web site. She is the author of Wait For Me, I'm Gone, which won the 2004 Dream Horse Press annual chapbook prize. She writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and work freelance as a Literary Consultant out of her tiny apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
___________________________________________
Dashes, circles, lines and an egg shape are all he is
in the milk froth not yet descended.
Suddenly, it's all too political. What is the etiquette
between your open mouth and his? Do you kiss
his holy caricature and swallow, or wait,
like China, for him to disappear?
Amy Holman has been playing around with current news and/or headlines for a couple of years, here and there, including publications in Failbetter, Archaeology (online), Unpleasant Event Schedule, Rattapallax, Shade, and soon, on the Red Morning Press web site. She is the author of Wait For Me, I'm Gone, which won the 2004 Dream Horse Press annual chapbook prize. She writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and work freelance as a Literary Consultant out of her tiny apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
___________________________________________
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
BARBIE FRIETCHIE AT THE GLENN BECK RALLY
by Steve Hellyard Swartz
Up from the suburbs of downloaded porn,
Irate on this cool September morn
The clustered squires of Fox News stand
Red-faced near the hills of Maryland.
Round about them Birthers sweep,
Nutty as fruitcakes and fruited deep;
Fair as their warden, their Overlord
Aye! Aye! croak the family-valued horde.
On this pleasant morn of early fall
Answering Rush and Sean's mutinous call:
Countless flags with their silver stars
Countless flags with their crimson bars,
Up rose young punk Barbie Frietchie then,
Unbowed, unmanned e'er the demise of Ken;
Bravest of all in DC town
She took up for the fags that Beck put down;
On her VW Golf the staff she set
To show that one was loyal yet.
On the ellipse the rebels tread
Michelle Bachman riding ahead.
Under her gaze glazed by Prozac and a tiny IQ
Bachman glanced at Barbie, mistook her for a Jew.
Halt! - the angry pale minions stood fast
Fire! - the NRA'ers loosed a blast.
Barbie leaned out her car after popping some pills
And shook forth her Pro-Choice banner with a royal will.
"Shoot, if you must, this young goth head,
But spare my Rainbow Coalition decal," she said.
A shade of madness, a blush of insane
Over the face of Michelle Bachman came.
The drugs kicked in, Bachman stirred
To a Pro-Life position at Barbie's words:
"Who touches a hair of yon skank's head
Earns a weekend in Myrtle Beach with Joe Wilson," she said.
All day long through the DC streets
Sounded the tread of Payless-shod marching feet;
All day long that OBAMA '08 flag tossed
O'er the Bic lighters of the rebel host.
Barbie Frietchie's work is o'er and done
The Bircher/Birther/Deathers had their fun.
Over Barbie Frietchie's grave
Flags of the AFL and SEFCU wave!
Peace and order and beauty, Hee Haw!
Crash thy cymbals, trample our laws!
And ever the liberal stars of Hollywood look down
On the stars in the gutters of DC town!
Steve Hellyard Swartz is Poet Laureate of Schenectady County in upstate NY. A regular contributor to New Verse News, Swartz has also been featured in Best Poem, switched-on gutenberg, and The Kennesaw Review. A two-time Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, Swartz is also a filmmaker. Never Leave Nevada, which he wrote and directed and in which he co-starred, opened at The US Sundance Film Festival in 1990.
___________________________________________
with apologies to John Greenleaf Whittier
Up from the suburbs of downloaded porn,
Irate on this cool September morn
The clustered squires of Fox News stand
Red-faced near the hills of Maryland.
Round about them Birthers sweep,
Nutty as fruitcakes and fruited deep;
Fair as their warden, their Overlord
Aye! Aye! croak the family-valued horde.
On this pleasant morn of early fall
Answering Rush and Sean's mutinous call:
Countless flags with their silver stars
Countless flags with their crimson bars,
Up rose young punk Barbie Frietchie then,
Unbowed, unmanned e'er the demise of Ken;
Bravest of all in DC town
She took up for the fags that Beck put down;
On her VW Golf the staff she set
To show that one was loyal yet.
On the ellipse the rebels tread
Michelle Bachman riding ahead.
Under her gaze glazed by Prozac and a tiny IQ
Bachman glanced at Barbie, mistook her for a Jew.
Halt! - the angry pale minions stood fast
Fire! - the NRA'ers loosed a blast.
Barbie leaned out her car after popping some pills
And shook forth her Pro-Choice banner with a royal will.
"Shoot, if you must, this young goth head,
But spare my Rainbow Coalition decal," she said.
A shade of madness, a blush of insane
Over the face of Michelle Bachman came.
The drugs kicked in, Bachman stirred
To a Pro-Life position at Barbie's words:
"Who touches a hair of yon skank's head
Earns a weekend in Myrtle Beach with Joe Wilson," she said.
All day long through the DC streets
Sounded the tread of Payless-shod marching feet;
All day long that OBAMA '08 flag tossed
O'er the Bic lighters of the rebel host.
Barbie Frietchie's work is o'er and done
The Bircher/Birther/Deathers had their fun.
Over Barbie Frietchie's grave
Flags of the AFL and SEFCU wave!
Peace and order and beauty, Hee Haw!
Crash thy cymbals, trample our laws!
And ever the liberal stars of Hollywood look down
On the stars in the gutters of DC town!
Steve Hellyard Swartz is Poet Laureate of Schenectady County in upstate NY. A regular contributor to New Verse News, Swartz has also been featured in Best Poem, switched-on gutenberg, and The Kennesaw Review. A two-time Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, Swartz is also a filmmaker. Never Leave Nevada, which he wrote and directed and in which he co-starred, opened at The US Sundance Film Festival in 1990.
___________________________________________
Monday, September 21, 2009
POLAR BEAR
by Rob Lewis
The helicopter swings out
banking over the shelf ice
as the biologist points his Nikon
and clicks on the polar bear
looking up from her shrinking floe
doing the only thing she knows to do
keeping, to perfection, her half
of the promise, while the other half
melts around her.
Rob Lewis is a natural materials painter and plasterer living in the northern puget sound city of Bellingham, Washington. His poem “The Painter” received the 1999 International Poetry Award in the Atlanta Review.
___________________________________________
The helicopter swings out
banking over the shelf ice
as the biologist points his Nikon
and clicks on the polar bear
looking up from her shrinking floe
doing the only thing she knows to do
keeping, to perfection, her half
of the promise, while the other half
melts around her.
Rob Lewis is a natural materials painter and plasterer living in the northern puget sound city of Bellingham, Washington. His poem “The Painter” received the 1999 International Poetry Award in the Atlanta Review.
___________________________________________
Sunday, September 20, 2009
KARL ROVE
by J.R. Solonche
I hear Karl Rove is an agnostic.
And I thought he was just a prick.
J.R. Solonche is coauthor (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
___________________________________________
I hear Karl Rove is an agnostic.
And I thought he was just a prick.
J.R. Solonche is coauthor (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
___________________________________________
Saturday, September 19, 2009
MALTA DREAM
by Anca Vlasopolos
this is how it will be
and only for those who can pay
the way it is here and now
half a million souls on a rock
farming water from seas ever hotter
shallower
each saint day with its gay banners and papier-mâché debris choked in fumes
each trip taking
a little longer
each boat bobbing in other’s wake
at large no more
squared like terraced earth
only
fish hemmed into aquaculture
only
birdsong from balcony cage
then
ever more
reading
lights
water
interrupted
breath
even holding hands
kissing
in unbearable violent
heat
Anca Vlasopolos has published a detective novel, a memoir, various short stories, over 200 poems, the poetry collection Penguins in a Warming World, and the non-fiction novel The New Bedford Samurai.
___________________________________________
this is how it will be
and only for those who can pay
the way it is here and now
half a million souls on a rock
farming water from seas ever hotter
shallower
each saint day with its gay banners and papier-mâché debris choked in fumes
each trip taking
a little longer
each boat bobbing in other’s wake
at large no more
squared like terraced earth
only
fish hemmed into aquaculture
only
birdsong from balcony cage
then
ever more
reading
lights
water
interrupted
breath
even holding hands
kissing
in unbearable violent
heat
Anca Vlasopolos has published a detective novel, a memoir, various short stories, over 200 poems, the poetry collection Penguins in a Warming World, and the non-fiction novel The New Bedford Samurai.
___________________________________________
Friday, September 18, 2009
KRENOV
by W.F. Lantry
Take down the plane and turn it in your hands:
Krenov is dead. The man who showed us form
was something else entirely is lost.
No longer will those hands shape spalted wood
into the unimagined silhouettes
of rhapsodies remade in textured grain.
Pear wood, burr elm, pink ivory and ash
combined into a single piece, the legs,
bubinga, curved by hand, and cedar slats,
all harmonized, each graceful element
shaped and enriched by hands that even made
the implements he used to craft and teach
there in the redwoods, far from his lost home:
Siberia, Shanghai, Seattle, then
put out to sea from Puget Sound, the war
took him to Vladivostok, and he stopped
in Sweden, where at last he learned to love
the simple arc one only makes by hand
and only with great patience. As he planed
he knew that other hands would touch the forms
and so would never compromise, he said
one shortcut leads to many, and he held
beauty and harmony above all else
and taught the rest of us to slow our work.
W.F. Lantry received his Licence and Maîtrise from the Université de Nice, M.A. in English from Boston University and Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. He is the recipient of the Paris/Atlantic Young Writers Award. His poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, Literary Bohemian, Soundzine, Unsplendid and The Chimaera. He currently serves as the Director of Academic Technology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
___________________________________________
Take down the plane and turn it in your hands:
Krenov is dead. The man who showed us form
was something else entirely is lost.
No longer will those hands shape spalted wood
into the unimagined silhouettes
of rhapsodies remade in textured grain.
Pear wood, burr elm, pink ivory and ash
combined into a single piece, the legs,
bubinga, curved by hand, and cedar slats,
all harmonized, each graceful element
shaped and enriched by hands that even made
the implements he used to craft and teach
there in the redwoods, far from his lost home:
Siberia, Shanghai, Seattle, then
put out to sea from Puget Sound, the war
took him to Vladivostok, and he stopped
in Sweden, where at last he learned to love
the simple arc one only makes by hand
and only with great patience. As he planed
he knew that other hands would touch the forms
and so would never compromise, he said
one shortcut leads to many, and he held
beauty and harmony above all else
and taught the rest of us to slow our work.
W.F. Lantry received his Licence and Maîtrise from the Université de Nice, M.A. in English from Boston University and Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. He is the recipient of the Paris/Atlantic Young Writers Award. His poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, Literary Bohemian, Soundzine, Unsplendid and The Chimaera. He currently serves as the Director of Academic Technology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
___________________________________________
Thursday, September 17, 2009
A MUSICAL AFTERNOON
by David Chorlton
A crown of thorns hangs by the door
of our hosts’ spacious home
and a black old Bible rests
on the table next to programs
for an afternoon of Brahms and Chopin.
The pictures on the walls
in living room and hallway are
scenes by Thomas Kinkade in which
village windows glow with tranquility.
A poem framed retells
in rhyme what a sand dollar has to say
about Christ, and from here with a glance
back across the foyer
the eye settles on the weapon displayed
on the cabinet top close
to the wedding portrait. I’m trying
to settle down for the soprano
but the cross on the wall makes me feel
like a vampire
and the hunting magazines
fanned beside the Bible
suggest the Lord’s last words
may have had something to do with reloading.
David Chorlton watches the world from central Phoenix where he lives and writes. His new chapbook, From the Age of Miracles, appears this summer from Slipstream Press as the winner of its latest competition.
___________________________________________
A crown of thorns hangs by the door
of our hosts’ spacious home
and a black old Bible rests
on the table next to programs
for an afternoon of Brahms and Chopin.
The pictures on the walls
in living room and hallway are
scenes by Thomas Kinkade in which
village windows glow with tranquility.
A poem framed retells
in rhyme what a sand dollar has to say
about Christ, and from here with a glance
back across the foyer
the eye settles on the weapon displayed
on the cabinet top close
to the wedding portrait. I’m trying
to settle down for the soprano
but the cross on the wall makes me feel
like a vampire
and the hunting magazines
fanned beside the Bible
suggest the Lord’s last words
may have had something to do with reloading.
David Chorlton watches the world from central Phoenix where he lives and writes. His new chapbook, From the Age of Miracles, appears this summer from Slipstream Press as the winner of its latest competition.
___________________________________________
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