JACKSON POLLOCK'S DEEP WATER HORIZON DREAM

by Alan Catlin

"the future is oil and gas"

After the blow out,
a metallic spray of
color: burnt manganese,
rust sheeting, black
dollops of oil with an
overlay of fire spread
on a liquid surface; pure
undulate # 9.
In the morning, twin rainbows
of hydrocarbons and gasoline,
a deep water horizon that
has no future in it.


Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full length books of poetry and prose. Pygmy Forest Press is publishing the collected "Deep Water Horizon" poems.
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ROMAN CANDLE

by Laura Rodley

Just Before the Oil Leak Was Capped
With Ongoing Thanks for the Cap Still Working 

Now you are a lightning bug bleating
your lantern against the pitch black core
of the sky, through to the core of the earth

where oil lies almost frozen, sluggish to the touch,
no fire before the flame, no fire before the gusher
no fire before the deep freeze staring dinosaurs

down in the dust, dinosaurs stuck in their tracks,
fossils dissolved in the black gold spewing now,
worthless like confederate money after the Civil War,

trunks full once hidden in attics used to stuff chinks
in the wall to stop cold winds from blowing in,
dowries turned to rubble, brides turned into spinsters,

spinsters hoeing fields meant for cotton turned to wheat,
fields lying fallow, the fields buried under the curtains
of rocks, the shower curtains of methane gases parting,

seeping through, the leaks bubbling to the top, the flame
ignited, the erupting, the gusher, there’s no stopping it, no Eureka,
just God Almighty and a new language called hopelessness

churned into a new currency called we will, we will pray
the sludge off the surface of the ocean, the dinosaur so large,
still breathing, walking on this earth with liquid feet

and prehensile tail, her waves she sends to each shore,
each crevasse left unlicked now licked, we will take our hands,
hew them together, turn them into hoes that roll away

the weedy beds of tar, the seaweed fronds of oil, the leaks,
the drafts coming through the open window of the ocean
the window that only God can shut, the window

that lays open asking for mercy as boats skim across her surface
as kayakers tremble beside dolphins, as the huge loggerhead turtles
tumble back into the sea tired from freshly laying their eggs,

only two tries they take to lay their eggs on sand they’ve forgotten
how to walk on, can only drag their feet on land they were not meant
to traverse, their humps invisible in the darkness of the night,

their eyes shining back unexpectedly in flashlights when my son
took a walk in Florida, their pictures snapped on his cellphone,
one turtle turning its head and huge dark eyes back to look at Erika,

my son’s girlfriend with the long tumbling dark hair, seaweed curls
down her back; the turtle swims now in the Atlantic remembering
the girl on the beach, the turtle swims now with the imprint

of my son’s hands on her mossy back, my answering the cell-phone,
Mom, guess what, I just saw a turtle laying her eggs, I can touch her,
and I say, touch her for me, and back into the dark water beaded

with foam, her face crusted with barnacles, the turtle lumbers to speak inside
the belly of the sea, ask the oil to stop bubbling so the rest
of the world can have a drink and the girl on the beach

and the boy who touched her back can be waiting for her next year
in the same spot, the pathway in the currents clear, her lungs
full of air, her song heard now by you.  


Laura Rodley's chapbook Rappelling Blue Light was nominated for a Mass Book Award. Nominated fora Pushcart Prize, her work has been in anthologies, Massachusetts Review and many others. On the advisory board of the Collected Poet Series, she works as a freelance writer and photographer.
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A FIRE IN MY BELLY

by David Wojnarowicz

"Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian" -- Frank Rich, NYT, December 11, 2010

"'Fire' man: Wojnarowicz, censored by Smithsonian"  
--Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, December 10, 2010

David Wojnarowicz "A Fire in My Belly" - Smithsonian, National Portrait Gallery Edit
from ppow_gallery on Vimeo.

 Press release posted at www.ppowgallery.com:

P·P·O·W and The Estate of David Wojnarowicz disagree with the Smithsonian’s decision to withdraw the artist’s 1987 video piece “A Fire in My Belly” from the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition entitled “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” P·P·O·W has represented Wojnarowicz’s work since 1988 and maintained a close working relationship with the artist until his death in 1992. The gallery now represents his estate.

On behalf of the estate, the gallery would like to offer the artist’s words to illuminate his original intentions. In a 1989 interview Wojnarowicz spoke about the role of animals as symbolic imagery in his work, stating, “Animals allow us to view certain things that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to see in regard to human activity. In the Mexican photographs with the coins and the clock and the gun and the Christ figure and all that, I used the ants as a metaphor for society because the social structure of the ant world is parallel to ours.”

The call for the removal of “A Fire in My Belly” by Catholic League president William Donahue is based on his misinterpretation that this work was “hate speech pure and simple.” This statement insults the legacy of Wojnarowicz, who dedicated his life to activism and the arts community. David Wojnarowicz’s work is collected by international museums including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Whitney Museum, The Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Reina Sofia in Madrid, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, etc. Wojnarowicz is also an established writer; his most well known memoirs are Close to the Knives and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline, which are included on many university syllabi.

In 1992 the artist won a historic Supreme Court case, David Wojnarowicz v. American Family Association. The courts sided with Wojnarowicz after he filed suit against Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association, who copied, distorted and disseminated the artist’s images in a pamphlet to speak out against the NEA’s funding of exhibits that included art works of Wojnarowicz and other artists. We are deeply troubled that the remarks, which led to the removal of David’s work from Hide/Seek, so closely resemble those of the past. Wojnarowicz’s fight for freedom of artistic expression, once supported by the highest court, is now challenged again. In his absence, we know that his community, his supporters, and the many who believe in his work will carry his convictions forward.

Three versions of “A Fire in My Belly” will be posted on P·P·O·W’s YouTube channel for viewing and screening, http://www.youtube.com/user/PPOWGalleryChelsea?feature=mhum. This includes the original 13-minute version edited by Wojnarowicz, a 7-minute posthumously edited and audio re-mix featuring Diamanda Galas, and the 4-minute version shown at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, edited by Jonathan Katz. We invite anyone to download and to screen; please include this statement with any screening and inform P.P.O.W when the film is being shown so we may keep a record and list venues on our website and social media pages.

Additional images of his other works, including “Christ with Ants” and “Untitled (One Day This Kid…)” can be found on his artist’s page: http://ppowgallery.com/selected_work.php?artist=14

For further information or a DVD of these videos please contact the gallery at

(212) 647-1044 or email info@ppowgallery.com

Download PDF version of statement here: http://ppowgallery.com/news.php

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LEMME SEE

by Kim Doyle


A street person begs for cash,
a woman with facial sores says hi to me,
I stumble on a corner filled with trash,
and report suspicious activity.

A hydrocephalic baby waves her hand,
children live without a family,
I taste water filled with rust and sand,
and report suspicious activity.

Millions die in every way,
raw sewage flushes to the sea,
I get my mail late most every day,
and report suspicious activity.

A President starts a war,
dead soldiers’ faces cry painfully,
I help my neighbor cut his lawn,
and report suspicious activity.


Kim Doyle asks: Just who is on the end of that suspicion hotline, and what do they think of me?
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CL@SSIFIC@TIONISM

by Bill Costley


While you’re reading this
Somebody’s deciding whether
it’s filling empty minds with
stuff of the classifiable category

that oughtn’t be open to just

anybody reading this. Trilemma:
Open, Closed, Classified.

Classified’s a transient value
of sometimes no value @ all.

[Ex. Air is getting sorta scarce.]

Classified /not-quite classified?
Classified; lest panic ensue.

You can all breathe now. Closed.


Bill Costley has served on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union. He lives in Santa Clara, CA.
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DECEMBER EVENING

by W.F. Lantry


The parking structure buzzed. Six stories up,
we circled, and we found an empty space
at last. The snow was coming in.
We slipped, and held each other up. Our coats
let in some wind, until we reached the stairs.
Snowflakes were dusting frozen metal treads.

As we came out, a man was leaning back
against the wall, half settled. On the ground
a nearly empty turned up hat. He shook
the snow flakes off as we went by. The lights
of cars danced by in continuity
and we walked to the restaurant row, where warmth

spurred on our conversation. Chilled with ice
our mixed whiskey and cosmopolitans
where just enough to make the scene outside
seem picturesque: snowdrifts against the trees.
We walked around a little, then turned back
towards the car. He was still there. The wall

gave little shelter. We went by. The snow
had found its way inside: we brushed it off,
backed out, and drove in line around the ramps.
I stopped before the exit, and stepped out.
I gave him what I had. It wasn't much.
The snowflakes settled on his upturned hat.


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. In 2010, he won the Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize (in Israel), the Crucible Editors’ Poetry Prize and the CutBank Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. His work has appeared in Kestrel, Prairie Fire, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, carte blanche and Now Culture. He currently works in Washington, DC and is a contributing editor of Umbrella: A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose.
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FULFILLMENT

by David Radavich

In response to announcements that the government of Arizona

will no longer pay for transplants and other expensive medical procedures.

The dreaded death panels
have come to pass.

In Arizona.
Under Republicans.

What the seers foretold—
ahead of schedule.

Just in time
for the arrival

of the babe
in the manger

but before the wise men
can bring any gifts

that will save
anyone from dying.

The ads
become flesh

in our
dark time.

David Radavich's poetry publications include Slain Species (Court Poetry Press, London), By the Way (Buttonwood Press, 1998),  Greatest Hits (Pudding House Press, 2000), and America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (Plain View Press, 2007)as well as individual poems in anthologies and magazines. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and abroad, including five Off-Off-Broadway productions. He also enjoys writing essays on poetry, drama, and contemporary issues. His latest book is Canonicals: Love’s Hours (Finishing Line, 2009).
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LYING ON THE FLOOR

by Steve Hellyard Swartz


My mother fell in the bathroom and because she’d shattered her hip, the best she could do was to crawl back to the couch in the den

I think she probably went back to sleep, on the floor, which is where I found her

This is a story about meat, by the way, real meat, red meat, as in--

The newspapers she liked to read, by the couch which had become her bed, the newspapers red with blood, her blood

The newspapers and little Teddy Bear notepaper, the phone, and her pillow, all wet with blood and urine

She was confused, she didn’t think to call me, it was the middle of the night--

red meat time - the time when old people bleed on the floor, bleed and pee, confused, spent, gone as far as they’re gonna get, hugging the legs of couches and chairs, two o’clock in America, red meat time, real meat time, finger-poppin’, heart-stoppin’ time

Today I read that former Senator Alan Simpson is saying that he can’t wait for

April, when the debt limit comes up for a vote again

“I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. . . . When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now?”

When I came over and found my mother on the floor she asked me: “What have I done?”

Before calling an ambulance I tried to clean up the mess on the floor

I didn’t want strangers in her house before I’d done something

“What have I done?” my mother said, again and again

In the hospital, a Nurse Supervising Case Manager told me that my mother might not qualify for rehab

I asked her if she’s crazy, which she didn’t like

“What’s your plan for her?” I asked, “What’s your fucking plan for an 85 year-old woman with a broken hip?”

“Well, she can just go home,” the Nurse Superannuated Case Manager said, “and be cared for by friends and loved ones.”

Alan Simpson, Nurse Manager to the nation, has a twinkle in his eye when he says:

“We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat,

 real meat,” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued. 


Steve Hellyard Swartz is Poet Laureate of Schenectady, NY. He is a frequent contributor to New Verse News. Swartz is a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee for Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Patterson Review, The Southern Indiana Review, The Kennesaw Review, and online at Best Poem and switched-on gutenberg. He is the winner of a First Place Award given by the Society of Professional Journalists for Excellence in Broadcasting. In 1990, Never Leave Nevada, a movie he wrote and directed, opened at the US Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
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BASIC PEACE PLAN

by David S. Pointer
 

Burst top banking
erupts not as an
idle volcano, but
as an active friend
oozing collegiality
into woozy lands
brimmed by poverty
coughing the dusty
past days of decaying
centuries frail with
invaders, investors,
and others waving a
vast welcome under
the cool crush of
the ongoing smile


David S. Pointer lives in Murfreesboro, TN. Recent publications include "The Baseball Chronicle," "The American Dissident," and "J Journal: New Writings on Justice." David is a sociologist and has a recent surgical technology diploma.
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THE MOTHER OF ONE OF THE BOYS LOST AT SEA ASKS HIM WHAT THE OCEAN WAS LIKE

by Rasma Haidri


And the boy says:

               After 10 days I said to the Ocean,
               Tell me your name so I will know where I am, but the Ocean replied,
               All water is this water. The ocean is one.

               After 20 days I said to the Ocean,
               You are trying to kill me, but I will drink the rain, and the Ocean replied,
               Rivers return from whence they came. The rain is ocean returning home.

               After 30 days a seabird landed and I said to the Ocean,
               Is this another one of your jokes? The Ocean replied,
               I have many shapes of bird or fish or boy. Did you think I was water?

               After 40 days I said to the Ocean,
               I will die now and be gone. The Ocean replied,
               To the one being born it appears the world is coming to an end.

               After 50 days I said to the Ocean,
               There is no place where this water does not belong, and the Ocean said,
               You will never go out of the ocean that is you.

The boy’s weeping mother holds him close.
He knows her tears are ocean.


Rasma Haidri is an American writer living on the arctic coast of Norway. 
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MEA CULPABILITY

Poem by Charles Frederickson; Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote
 
The UN Climate Change Conference, Cancun, Mexico, 29 November - 10 December 2010.

Spinning globe axis off kilter
Frothy teal glaze veneer chipped
Phantom oblique myth-takes debunked
In-denial bloated varicose veins burst

Sea levels rise coastlines retreat
Overflowing glacial teardrops flooding basins
Spitfire core molten anima meltdown
Crusty Wonder burnt toast scraped

Climate transition jaded green envy
Ex-spurts gushing longi- lati- platitudes
Tropical storms unbuckle equatorial belt
Paunchy gut overhanging rainforest ravage

Wanton destruction of lonesome planet
Skewed credibility drought bi-polar extremes
Diminishing virgin springs depleting reserve
Recycled excuses mainline taproots soiled

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote together comprise PoeArtry. Flutter Press published Charles’ chapbook fanTHAIsies.
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NOT AT ALL MYSTERIOUS

by Catherine McGuire


As the implacable iceberg of debt
rips industrialization into archipelagoes
of misery, unrelieved by a smidgeon of hope,
the gossamer excuses of the pirates
in charge (colossal rapscallions who can’t be stopped
by exegesis nor exorcism as they hold
steely claws to our carotids), rings
as false as the famed Crystal Skull
of Meso-American fame. They don’t give a banana
for our fate – we are as innocent manatees
amid the blades of their powerboats, as they
endorphin through our savings, our lives.
The ramifications of this? Apprentice yourself
to a smith or weaver – bandanas will have
more value than bonds. Caveat investor.


Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with more than 120 poems published in venues such as The New Verse News, The Cape Rock, Green Fuse, The Quizzical Chair Anthology, The Smoking Poet, Portland Lights Anthology, Folio, Tapjoe and Adagio.
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ODE TO A GILA MONSTER Part 2

by Rochelle Owens

Click here for Part 1 of "Ode to a Gila Monster"

In front of a
carved wood sculpture
in the violet light
Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene
In the violet light
there goes a Gila monster
a Gila monster
majestically formed
a monster of gorgeous color
her body an astrological plan
studded with yellow and black
beadlike tubercules
like atoms locked into a pattern
vibrating particles
dabs of orange blue and green
forming an image in
the violet light
light rays entering the eyes
of a Gila monster
her body sovereign of
stems branches roots  plants
of bones flesh blood vessels
sovereign of the wood sculpture
of the long slender limbs
delicately modeled hands
and feet carved with a chisel
Mary Magdalene cut from cut
from a single length of poplar
her hair highlighted with gold leaf
strands of her hair blowing
blowing across the lidless eyes
eyes of a Gila monster        

Click here for Part 3 of "Ode to a Gila Monster"

Rochelle Owens is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State. This section of "Ode to a Gila Monster" is Rochelle Owens' sixteenth New Verse News poem.
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ARCHIPELAGO

by James Gage

"To do evil a human being must first believe that what he is doing is good.”
                                                            --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Torture is a word
with more than four letters
but of course there are worse,

words like earlobe or gulag or
Bagram Air Base, places you hoped
your concealment might keep you from seeing.

                        *

It has been two years since Aleksandr
returned to the taiga,
two years since he left us for dusk
and the world is the same now but
different, the appeals have grown louder.
The court has drawn down
its heavyweight robes and
butterflies are trapped in its vestments.
The bailiff keeps checking his watch.

Still the old man in the back
stares stalwartly on,
beard spilling from his eyes
like silver tailings from a mine,
he is quiet, there is too much to say
and he’s already said it, bellowed
from the hemlocks and his solitary cells

against the fear and the hate
for the hope and the love          
without raising his voice,
without raising his hand.

                        *

Through ribboning birch
the snow hums down like an iron
branding on skin. A voice rings out
and then fades, swallowed by
a silence that spreads like an inkblot.


James Gage is a freelance writer and editor who has published poems in Main Street Rag, Inkwell, Mountain Gazette, Powhatan Review, The Iconoclast, and Out of Line. A native Vermonter, he is increasingly interested in the Vermont Independence movement.
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