Mark Young (Rockhampton, Australia): from Geographies

from GEOGRAPHIES

TIERRA DEL FUEGO

The black hats draw on the
testimony of French combatants
in order to place the object in
a logical relationship to the rest
of the sentence. Mick Jagger
is no exception even though
he appears as an absent image—
all dharmas are ultimately empty
of any distinction that would
separate one dharma from
another. China looms large,
offering free audio pronunciation
of consumer-generated product
reviews. There are no rail-
ways. The beavers must die.

LOMBARDY

It was the spatial
frequencies at the
Fourier transform plane
& the presence of
defense attorneys
dressed in their best
suits that finally
brought him to belief
in the Big Bang theory
of the creation of the

universe.


THE TAKLAMAKAN DESERT

A fairly small
event in terms of
plate tectonics;
but the hard drive
ends up stripped
of all encrypted
data. Tabula rasa.


L'ARC DE TRIOMPHE

Storm surge, river-
boat casinos, the
biggest fertiliser plant
in the world, why
anyone would waste
over a pound of premo
in a giant joint are
some of the nettle-
some paradoxes of
democratic politics.


© Mark Young 2009

Kelley White (New Hampshire, USA): Two Poems

ART OF THE AMERICAS

i.
unhook the latch
blow off dust
lay on the table beneath a single dangling bulb
spine flat
slick leaves open
always to the tight black-lined woodcut
man on man
manu a manu
knife
blade
empty chest
heart beating overhead

ii.
It is said that Crazy Horse ate Custer’s heart.
This is not true. Buffalo liver, perhaps.

iii.
pyramid
disinhearted
throw the rib-shell over the priest’s shoulder

iv.
abyss

v.
this thing
this flabby old muscle
stilled
red and growing darker
fat encrusted
drying to tallow
gristle
in each chamber
one smooth green stone
marbled
like my eyes

vi.
ice arrest
watch
the saw cut
that grinding buzz
the dental whine

vii.
“hey babe,
I’ll give you water,
I already had
my wine”
(wants a dollar,
give him four bits)

viii.
you won’t answer
(the child had
no ear drum)

ix.
Henry carved a green stone heart
on a brass stand and marble base.
The children broke it.
No one confessed.
They were all punished.

x.
finger crook-and-pull
my own ribs
and still this hubbub

xi.
to become invisible
or rather:
the visible woman
clear plastic
head molded with Berry Crocker
hair
hips a little wide, perhaps
a babe in the womb
no

xii.
ectopia coridis
child with the heart
outside the chest
cordae
cordate
card
iac arrest
press
chest
repressed

xiii.
I will be this small stone you might carry,
the brass paperweight that warms
to your touch,
your mother’s, yours.
Replace my wound
with a stone.
Carry the stone.
Live stone
cold.


WHELK

in the city of sand
we build bone houses
we fear the wind
--it stings our eyes
with broken
monuments—


in the city of snow we shelter
in frozen breath—

in the salt city
we live inside our wounds
--we wait for the tongue
of our heavy god—

© Kelley White 2009

Jason Bredle (Chicago, USA): "The Night of the Jaguar"

THE NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

Let’s say this emerges centuries from now in some type of post-apocalyptic
Dumont Dunes hellscape,
people are either going to be blasting around
from membrane to membrane impressed with my forward thinking
or not blasting around from membrane to membrane
amazed by my total insanity
and I expect the latter
is what most people at this point expect me to say to someone
at my neighborhood Dominick’s
because I don’t do very well
with keeping this insanity thing on the down low
but it’s not something most people expect me
to say to the pudding
at my neighborhood Dominick’s
and the reason I think the latter is because come on,
if you’re living in some type of post-apocalyptic Dumont Dunes hellscape
logic would dictate that earth has regressed
from where it is now
unless the educational divide has become so extreme
that the highly educated have wormholed their way
to more tolerable parallel membranes
and left this post-apocalyptic Dumont Dunes hellscape to those of us
who enjoy tearing into a good piece of meat with our hands
and pleading to our faithful squadron to
bring us the head
of Orpheus the Mighty
for the Night of the Jaguar is upon us
and blood will surely flow
red like the river Hades through this long ago forsaken hellscape
in which case
descendents, I salute thee!
is something we’ve all thought about at some point
as we whipped through Dominick’s on our way home from work at night,
but how many of us have outlined
everything we have in common with the jaguar
on the back of our grocery lists
in the hope that we might be revered
in the chance this future outcome happens?
Here’s mine:
We are both solitary, stalk-and-ambush predators.
We are both opportunistic in prey selection.
We both bite directly through the skull of our prey.
We both enjoy swimming.
We both range from Paraguay to México.
We are both compact and well-muscled, with robust heads and powerful jaws.
We both reach sexual maturity at three to four years of age.
We both practice aggression avoidance behavior.
We are both the national animal of Guyana.
Of course it’d be ridiculous for me to want to be worshipped for this type
of forward thinking
but I think revered would be nice
but I don’t know, in this scenario there’s probably not
a lot of reading going on
but instead a lot of heat and blood and dunes
and filth and false idolatry
but the good news is if someone does read this,
I’m not going to seem totally insane
because the Night of the Jaguar is upon us, my brethren,
and blood is about to flow red like the river Hades, red like the river Hades
as you go forth and bring me the head of Orpheus the Mighty!


© Jason Bredle 2009

Jean Vengua (Monterey, California, USA): Three Prose Poems

#1
what do you think. half sleepy, once again on the other side of pain, ad nauseum, etc. she thinks about the angry blooms. how they emerge with such force, and with a little careful coaxing they give up black pollen. upended like that. turning volatile inside out, she can’t figure it. wants to sew it up tight with a needle and thread; wants a beginning and an end. she has a body and expects it to tell tales. a tale of a prehensile tail. well what does it have to say for itself? from which joint or talon or lip or tongue issues word? half a word. half a moan, then, in exchange for some tender strokes.

#2
a blossoming non-pain along the elbow, even to the shoulder. pain of short shrift and some dribbles of light, and there among the curved rafters under the breasts. soft containment, the flesh thinning with age. sometimes turning the tongue on a word. nipples that are concise, small territories, templed; and these, once dark, that have paled and lost their boundaries. shift shift click. the knee dreams of fluffy pews. the back of the neck dreaming of ice. the tongue dreaming of ribs. stretch marks pay tributary to the navel, a locked door, both sides. where once there was a vortex of blood, there are a few paths narrowing to a stop.

#3
she feels old. can’t understand she’s beautiful, even naked, plastered in signs and executed like once-perfect britney. “nudity is not a crime.” even when perfectly wet or close up, each hair is an aging fold, a suzanne, or a polly jean in the tub. the aesthetics speak imperfect and fleshy nouns. English wants to be precise. to be indirect is the best prescription. (sigh) i can’t stand these colors. the colors of autumn are electric collars for your gender. this muscle is a girdle that contains all erotics; although your erotics are not my erotics, we may meet in the middle (joined at the navel, so to speak). look: language falls down around my ankles, so revealing.

© Jean Vengua 2009

Adam Fieled (editor, Logan Square, Philadelphia, USA): "Wittgenstein's Song"

Merely brilliant is no match
 
                 for being intimate. When you catch
 
       a wave that breaks, you can only
                
                      half-determine its’ course. Lonely
 
             is the determined man, whether
 
     it’s he who decides his fate or fetters
 
               the world lays on him. This
 
                   I learned from a young man’s kiss.
 
   Thus, I’ve learned, said nothing.
 
       To be silent is something
 
             for the wise to practice. Words
 
                  go too far. How much have we heard
 
     worth holding onto? How much said
 
         that can placate what we dread?


©  Adam Fieled 2005

Paul Siegell (Philly, Pa): Three Poems

*ANSWER: A NEW ERA*

the road otherworldly, “anyone else wanna see themselves
******on tv?”
the road otherworldly, crisis leadership and a discount on
******decisions when we’d really rather pay full price
the road otherworldly, sometimes everything in the salad
******tastes like produce grown on another planet

pick up a couple even tho they might be slightly troublesome

the road otherworldly, truckers who haul hazardous cargo
the road otherworldly, hurried the urine shot through urethra
the road otherworldly, to be gradually gravitating toward
******“Nothing. What’s new with you?”

from the rooftops we watch for the meteors of metaphor

the road otherworldly, Abraham, Alabama, iIn my tears for
*****America: today just needs to get on with it and let us
*********go already
the road otherworldly, poem Obama, Optimus Prime, Obama
******on Mount Olympus: (shepherd a breathtaking backfire?)
*all the hopes for Obama bohemia—
the road otherworldly, my coworker just sneezed


*SCENE AT DUNG GATE*

With prayers left in the crevices, tour-guided Americans lean against
stone, lick vanilla, speak of Wailing Wall and how incredible.

Bareback on a beast, a Palestinian boy plods up, shows off for the brand named,
whacks his donkey’s neck with a stick, quick, made from black irrigation tubing.

“—Whoa!” go the Americans.

Smirks. Goes around the corner.

Tzit tzit dangling, yarmulke’d yeshiva boys carry planks of wood
into the Old City for Lag B’Omer bonfires. Picnic festive and family full.

Little, they use the wall, masonry a few feet high, to slide the planks and rest.
Ice cream Americans smile, say Shalom, giggle with and get outta their way.

Returned, boy-with-burden meets boys-with-firewood and the Holy Land
comes out of camouflage.

Each in each other’s way. Language is used. Grips on the planks of wood
change, tighten, raise, as does the irrigation tube—

“—Yeladim!” detonates down from an apartment window above.
“—Yeladim! Yeladim!” a barrel chest yells. Yeladim means children.


*IT IS ITS SELF TO BE*

out of an avid gale, a hurricane of shape-shifting persuasion, the line
“of being born a trumpet” steers its sharps into the audience of dance

moves & their domain names: am I not the notes being played as well?

no ordinary hit a-the old http://, such weight of wakeful conversation:
out of the clarion lift, in the calisthenics of the scenery, wide breaths

[esc] toward something

Joseph Bradshaw (Portland, Oregon): Two Poems

IN THE TERMINAL

“the Roman god of borders, Terminus taught us our limits but also showed us the unknown”
—Kathleen Peterson


In the terminal
shadows cast block
unyellowed light.

A room opens
to rooms, smaller
to larger, stucco

chipped, conceals
a swimming baby within
these walls, a

bird flown in through absent
chimney rustles
in the black that

separation
of heard and known.
In the terminal, stepping

from the house
we have written we are
in the house, we cross it

out with a dash placed
between us as if
to connect, as if

a house was there—
here
the T stands alone, separates

He stands, alone.
In the terminal, I
see him walking as

if crossing a bridge, nothing
stands between to hold
past to will.


THE BALLAD OF WEDNESDAY, A SPIDER
for Spicer


Wednesday
windy, eddies
before Thanksgiving.

A spider crawling
out the door
receives goodbye

the same as I
8 legs Wednesday
four Friday. Less

windy the sea-
shore in landlock
states: Shut the door

on a spider
Wednesday
the song goes:

Shut the door
or the words
we receive

a legless Goodbye
in this wedding
of Wednesday

a spider:
The saying of,
not the spoken of

Wednesday
Windy, eddies
before Thanksgiving

is hereby wedded
to a storm
a storm I said

The door is shut.
There isn’t a door.
Shut the door.

By Sunday
we won’t have any
need for that jar.


© Joseph Bradshaw 2009

Lars Palm (Sweden): pieces of lanzarote

turned out it's
a bar where the cab
drivers go for a
beer or two between
fares

.............


(bosnia/lanzarote)

jajce, yaiza
both towns
pronounced
almost exactly
the same
way by
the locals at
hand

.............

(note on informal employment)

in arrecife, as in las palmas, as probably in santa cruz de tenerife, as possibly all over the archipelago (& maybe elsewhere in the world) some of the homeless serve as half-official parking guides/attendants. for which they get a couple of euro from the drivers using the service. they divide the streets between them, usually downtown side-streets, & work from seven or so in the morning until nine or ten at night. the only criteria are that you be reasonably sane & sober during working hours

.............

most flies in town maintain
a deeply intimate relation
ship with poeple's feet

is there a weather fore
cast to be gained from
that? rain? of what?

or does it tell us more
about the flies & their
current fetish? now

seriously flies. in public?

..............

a house that
speaks. a beach
that moved. a
sun that plays
hide-&-seek, &
guitar

.............

pigeon
perched on
the back of

a chair waiting
to be
photographed

2

shutterbug
pigeon returning
to the chair

across the table
for another
photo

..............

(another kind of playground)

& in the middle
of rambla medular
in downtown arrecife
there is a temporary out
doors gym

..............

(poema de arrecife)

this apparently abandoned
ancient black dog turning
grey takes up guard behind
my stool at the bus station
bar first sitting then laying
down just looking around
& occasionally up at me as
if i could take him out of here

................

but who shall
tolerate who?

that is

who is in fact
superior to the other?

.............

(architecture)

would be easy building a house here. the basics are: white facade. no more than two floors. doors & window frames may have other colours, although the darker spectrum of greens seems to be the preferred one

.............

a house
burning on
the hillside
in a little
village called
la asomada
leaving the
village
significantly
smaller

..........

then with
out warning
the torrent
came &
flushed
the streets
& as
it appears
the minds
of
some of
the people
& the
stray dogs
splash
with every
step they
take