Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Three Poems by Alan Britt

TRAPPED IN NOMENCLATURE, CUCUMBER

PLANTS BEGIN TO WITHER
 
That’s the downy woodpecker,
invisible as he cheeps
through a virtual forest
of Japanese maples,
oaks,
cherry trees.
 
Constant clucking
followed by a trill,
the Northeastern sparrow’s
silk ribbon
pulled
through
straw hips
of sunlight.
 
Fingers,
curly green tendrils
of amaranthus,
attempt
to reach
full cacophony
inside the birds’ Purgatory chorus.
 
Suddenly, a tiny red spider
breezes
past the lexicon
of conventional nomenclature.
 
Thank god
he scurries
on all eight legs!
 
 

NEO-FORMALIST POEM

 

*
 
      The topaz streetlight beneath the giant
maple removes her clothes, relaxes in a white
metal chair beside me.

**

      Raindrops sniff white gutters before leaping
down their anaconda throats where, ironically,
they’re held in place, gulp by gulp, by the needle
teeth of topaz light.
***

A pair of rosy finches enters the garden.

The one with blazing red throat and cap preens

a thin wire fence, while his mate pecks at tiny

jade weeds in the glistening black earth.

****
      A boat-tailed grackle waddles through
the yard; his ebony tail crushes the wet grass,
churning raindrops into tiny topaz rivers.
 
 

SPRING CLASSIC

The black
              swallowtail’s
         sign
                   language
filters
                through
                                a
                      doorway.
     A slender brunette
                        with the
                                patience
        of a
               moth
absorbs
            the door’s arch
     with one hand
          while her other
                               hand
   flutters
                 like
                            ashes
          above
                       a
                             burning
            50-gallon drum
   behind
                 the
                         baseball stadium.
The curtains of her voice
                           rustle.
       Tractor trailer
                gears
                            inhale
                                                  damp
                   cool
                            humid
                                       air.
The ribs
                     of a
                                split
                                          rail
                            fence
          are a carcass
                scavenged
     by white
                jackals
                      of lamplight.
              Blue fingernails
                  of lamplight
        comb the
                        petals
                              of an
                                       exploding
          pink
                     rose
                               bush.
A
    child’s
                voice
         is a
                razor
against
               the
                    bare
                         throat
                             of darkness.
     A mockingbird
               immediately
                          begins
        stitching
               the universe.
                     It’s a good
                                  thing
            silence
                    places the
                                    porcelain
                                                      cup
of an
                empty
                                   nightmare
          upon the
                       edge
                                  of an
                                           aluminum
                                sink.
It’s a
            good
                         thing
       the universe
                   consists
             of ashes,
                       papery
                                        ashes
blown like
      toxic
                    dust
                                across
               Europe
           and North America,
                      from the
                          industrial
                                          deserts
                 of South Africa,
from the
               greedy
                              humans
        sucking
                        every
                                     nutrient
   that ever
                     existed
           from
        the earth’s
                           volcanic
                                           soil.
       This is
                   a
                        good
                                  thing
           since
                       otherwise
                   we might be
                                     forced
    to gaze
                  deep
  into the eyes
          of the
                     slender
                                   brunette
    with
                      ashes
          fluttering
from her
                              solitary
                                             hand.
        It is
                  possible
that with
              eye
                         contact
            such as this
    we might
                                 be forced
                  to honor
         smoke rings
             on the
                       jaguar slug’s
            panting ribs
instead of a
                      multimillionaire’s
        name
                   stitched
           on the back
               of a dim-witted
                       third-baseman.
It is
            a
                   damn
                              good
                                         thing
       the average
                          human
             has no
                            aspiration
                   whatsoever
             to transcend
                         the coliseum
                  the domed arena
          the horseshoe stadium
                          with its rainbow
                                                       water
                                                                   falls
                beer vendors
         and ushers
                    as indentured
                                   servants.
        For to
                     ascend
            like an
                          ash
               that dips
                      and rises
                  on a
                             thermal
                                    of freedom
                          brings
                                    with it
                                consequences
                                           a responsibility
                       to touch
                                      the flame
                                 to feel
                                         the swallowtail light
                            in the
                                      dark
                                                hand
                             of the
                                         slender
                                                brunette
                                    who leans
                                          against
                the suffering
                                       arch
                                          of intellect.
 
 

Alan Britt's interview with Grace Cavalieri for The Poet and the Poem will air on Pacifica Radio in January 2013 (http://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetpoem.html). He read poems at the World Trade Center/Tribute WTC Visitor Center (TributeWTC.org) in Manhattan/NYC, April 2012, at the We Are You Project (WeAreYouProject.Org) Wilmer Jennings Gallery, East Village/NYC, April 2012, and at New Jersey City University's Ten Year 9/11 Commemoration in Jersey City, NJ, September 2011. His poem, "September 11, 2001," appeared in International Gallerie: Poetry in Art/Art in Poetry Issue, v13 No.2 (India): 2011. His recent books are Alone with the Terrible Universe (2011), Greatest Hits (2010), Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing a free access digital library of 20th & 21st century English poetry magazines with the aim of preserving them for the future has included Britt’s work published in Fire (UK) in their project. Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, The Robin Hood Book: Poets in Support of the Robin Hood Tax, by Caparison, United Kingdom, 2012, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin, 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008. Readings & Presentations: Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry for the PCA/ACA Conference 2008 in Boston, Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ (2009 & 2012), the WPA Gallery/Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, NY (2008), Ultra Violet Studio, Chelsea/NYC (2008 & 2009), White Marsh Library, Baltimore (2011 & 2012), Enoch Pratt Free Library (Canton Branch) Baltimore (2011), Pedestal Magazine Reading at the Writers Center, Bethesda, MD (2012). Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown, Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formerly feral cats. Links: http://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/potw.html#fp1;
http://spectrumofpoeticfire.com/Reader%20Directory/Alan_Britt.htm;
http://theliteraryunderground.org/wiki/index.php?title=Alan_Britt;
http://aliensareus.wordpress.com/

 

Monday, August 27, 2012

A Poem by Tamara Simpson

Fragments
 
The   world   is   gone   hopes   and   dreams
 
shattered   eternal   life   swallowed   by 
 
the   flame   I   lie 
 
in   pieces   stones   among
 
the   ruins   resurrection   of   the   living
 
a   hopeless   toil
 
 
Evrèmonde   Evrèmonde   ye   show
 
no   mercy   to   the   fallen 
 
child   paid   the   price   in 
 
exile
 
 
torn   heart   body   fragmented
 
mind   advocates   of   the   tortured
 
soul   whirlwind   scattered   thoughts   among
 
the   dusty   air.
 
 
 
 
Tamara Simpson is a current student University of Western Australia who spends most of her time writing poetry and fiction when she should be studying.
She has had previous work published in the Road Not Taken Journal of Formal Poetry, Every Day Poets Magazine, and Open Minds Quarterly.
 

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Two Poems by Duane Locke

TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION, NO 271

The diary
               Was a
                         Stumbling block, the familiar was lost
And his thinking about his seeing of Signorelli bodies in Orvietto
Turned his mind into brown ovals and brown contours.

He meant to record the event but it was scratched out by white wine.
His mind begin to leak, like the leaking roof at his home he now avoided.
His mind fell out of his head and dropped in drips to chill his bare feet.
His shoes
Was placed on bare broad floor
Adjacent to wad of paper once a love letter
The shoes was to serve as a model for his next painting, hoping they
Would be immortalized in the philosophy of some future Martin Heidegger.

Recalled the charm of her when they watched a skylark arise from grass
Over the Stonehenge to disappear in an upper distance.

He ran over, picked up his shoes, and put on his feet
To warm the cold caused by the drops that dripped from his mind
Leaking out of his gray haired head.



TERRESTRIAL ILLUMIATION, NO 272

My mind was a fallen farm house
                                                             And red
Morning-sunlit comb of a white rooster as we, whoever she was, sat
On a light grey circular cushion looking at an early Mondrian
In which the swerving pencil marks caused recall of a lost forest
In the building that housed the Guggenheim collection before
Frank Lloyd Wright built a circle and called it an art gallery.

Life was yet to be unrolled in a long blank scroll. There would be
A few dots on pages where a pen point touched and meant to scribble,
But became awkward and paralyzed and would leave revised, blurred memories.

I watched unseen a yellow-stripped black butterfly flutters in an
invisible atmosphere.
I was trying to translate the unheard sounds of the imagined bassoon
whose sounds were French.



Duane Locke lives in Tampa, Florida near anhinga,
gallinules, raccoons, alligators, etc.
He has published 6,680 poems, includes 29 books of poems. His latest
book publication, April 2012,
Is DUANE LOCKE, THE FIRST DECADE, 1968-1978, BITTER OLEANDER PRESS.
This book is a republication
Of his first eleven books, contains 333 pages. Order from
http://www.bitteroleander.com/releases.html,
Or Amazon.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

A Poem by Heller Levinson

perpenDICuLARity 
 
uprise               zenith stealth                stilt wagon
                        lurch riddle
                       Agastache cheeks
pointing indicative thrust push/pull toward perpetual portend
perspensation precipitation the perpendicular provides the
isosceles triangle urban punctuation erotic gender switchbacks
merrily morning glories
 
vertical    horticultural    strategical heretical       remote demote
reinforce pushup reinstate
holidays ://: gunshot          spurious ://: ramrod     counterfeit
enables law enforcement the bones make no bears about it
broadside barely bareback       a mark a jot a hand up a holdup
upright bass mast baton flagpoles candles headstones
oppositional
to flat
 
 
Heller Levinson lives in NYC where he studies animal behavior. He has published in over a hundred journals and magazines including Alligatorzine, The Cartier Street Review, Counterexample Poetics, ditch poetry, First Literary Review-East, Hunger, Jacket,The Jivin’ Ladybug, Mad Hatters’ Review, Mad Swirl, Mid-June, Moria, Omega, Otoliths, Poets for Living Water, Skidrow Penthouse, Street Cake Magazine, Sugar Mule, Sulfur, Talisman, Tears In The Fence, The Wandering Hermit, The Toronto Quarterly, A Trunk Full of Delirium, Venereal Kittens, andWood Coin. His publication, Smelling Mary (Howling Dog Press, 2008), was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Griffin Prize. Black Widow Press published his from stone this running in 2011. Additionally, he is the originator of Hinge Theory
 
 

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Three Poems by Michael Mc Aloran

all sung-

(‘the winds have ruffled my assassin hair‘).

                                                            Georges Bataille
ache unto/
                     bled

(dry cough in a barren white roomscape)

a black turning
           of lungs lashed from the caress of

night’s sheer
       bone heart(less)

liquid flowers of decimated shit
                 I/ eye of vortices

meat to caress from out of which to turn from lack or longing
    (blanked the eye…)

subtle as a snapped neck’s whispering
    (heave-ho)

drag/ drag/ drag alone
       of the bitten blood

semblance of dry light
                         and the smoke of

(pyre unto absence/
                                         of…)



dead zone-

I-skinned

I silent as the none of it/
                             all sung

         (to skin the…)

fallen from/
               denuded silences
and the pulse of
                      dreaming

locked till eye/
                     forgotten

dreamed speech and the buttress of transparent words
yet still the nothing of which ever-dreamed of

steel blade
the fingers severed
asked of

of the return till knock
silenced then

I spoken for/ aloft

and the buckled eye/ shadowed/ emptily
       (bring out your dead…)

the carcass of it dripping blood upon

night/ temperate
the sealed eye’s whisperings

I out of which
dead zone
rocking the cradle of listless echoes



if/ ever

welt/ breath of silent winds
stun/
        else


till mark/ spun/ exigent
of the ruin rush ash and the wilting blood


asked of
spasm lock till claimed


(image of a sky’s black longing set to light)


kicking dust from sunk eye till break of none
spun aloud/
               naught


silenced lest the petals birth the rot of hours
    stitched colourings


ruin of
as if there ever was


scattered remnants of what/
                    or else/ if /ever/…


Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). His most recent work has appeared in ditch, Meat Songs, Gobbet Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, Ygdrasil, Establishment, Carcinogenic, etc. He has authored a number of chapbooks, including 'The Gathered Bones', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'Final Fragments', (Calliope Nerve) & 'Unto Naught', (Erbacce-Press). A full length collection of poems, 'Attributes', was published by 'Desperanto' in 2011. 'Lapwing Publications, (Ireland), will also be publishing a collection of his poems, 'The Non Herein', in 2012. Writing Knights Press has recently released another chapbook, 'Breath(en) Fall' & The Knives, Forks & Spoons Press, (U.K), will release 'Emblems' and also an ekphrastic book of text/ art, 'Machinations' later this summer.