Mary Evelyn Harju (West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania): "Portrait: Adam Fieled in the East Village"
© Mary Evelyn Harju 2007
Barry Schwabsky (London, UK): "Poetry Fell In Love With You For A Reason"
Waking up nights: spare rooms crowded with heat.
And the rain outside: sudden music for dull garden
leaves. Remember who’s missing? In the lightning
of a smile, years of long kissing, and a fantasy
sequentially yours. But even though you feel chosen,
you are chosen. Invisible difference lasts long
(this book smells like Murakami), to an eye full
of poses. Oily sky, and goodbye—
© Barry Schwabsky 2007
And the rain outside: sudden music for dull garden
leaves. Remember who’s missing? In the lightning
of a smile, years of long kissing, and a fantasy
sequentially yours. But even though you feel chosen,
you are chosen. Invisible difference lasts long
(this book smells like Murakami), to an eye full
of poses. Oily sky, and goodbye—
© Barry Schwabsky 2007
Andrew Lundwall (Palatine, Illinois, USA): "Chicago"
chicago wind hair
spontaneously making noise
out there it's out there
plucked me from crazy wilderness
the sticks sniffling stoogey
o wild flower inebriated as a loon
what is it that spiritual graffiti
that follows you big lettered "poet"
through halls asteroid
upon halls asteroid hellishly
what in what gentle way
will i fuck her tonight?
in her prime my twilit dancer
this place these prancing people
among these demonically cupie
my pulpit is shabby like dolls' shaved balls
i'm ultimate lush reverend drunk
the killer the pubic hair
caught in your coffee
so irish feel my name kiss me
swim around you in august heat
and the one who asked of me
where's your girlfriend at
what's her answer
where's her tropic where are you
this alliance these vague conversations
about studliness and self-reliance
kerouac i wish i were free too
my lowell my crop my lover so pre-
occupied me i'm so so pre-cummy
and there's this everything hooking up
and you should be too harbinger
warped by your binge wrapped around
spooked in your haunted closet
© Andrew Lundwall 2007
Written from Palatine, Illinois, where Andrew Lundwall was staying with Adam Fieled and Steve Halle in the summer of 2007, and commuting to Chicago. Lundwall was usually based in Beloit, Wisconsin at that time.
spontaneously making noise
out there it's out there
plucked me from crazy wilderness
the sticks sniffling stoogey
o wild flower inebriated as a loon
what is it that spiritual graffiti
that follows you big lettered "poet"
through halls asteroid
upon halls asteroid hellishly
what in what gentle way
will i fuck her tonight?
in her prime my twilit dancer
this place these prancing people
among these demonically cupie
my pulpit is shabby like dolls' shaved balls
i'm ultimate lush reverend drunk
the killer the pubic hair
caught in your coffee
so irish feel my name kiss me
swim around you in august heat
and the one who asked of me
where's your girlfriend at
what's her answer
where's her tropic where are you
this alliance these vague conversations
about studliness and self-reliance
kerouac i wish i were free too
my lowell my crop my lover so pre-
occupied me i'm so so pre-cummy
and there's this everything hooking up
and you should be too harbinger
warped by your binge wrapped around
spooked in your haunted closet
© Andrew Lundwall 2007
Written from Palatine, Illinois, where Andrew Lundwall was staying with Adam Fieled and Steve Halle in the summer of 2007, and commuting to Chicago. Lundwall was usually based in Beloit, Wisconsin at that time.
Adam Fieled (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, USA): from Something Solid, Aughts Philly, "Live Forever"
We had it then— not just the embedded depth
of soul love, but glamour right on the ground,
as the formation formed by which Mary and I spent
all of our nights together. Our route— West
Philly to Logan Square and back— took two
disparate locales, made them whole, out of
a sense that they were meant to be wed, just
as we were; Logan Square with its sleek, modish
urbanity, West Philly with its rusticity, climbing
ivy, plus the obvious inversion of a well-worn
media cliché against it. By New Years Eve, 2003,
there was so much gaiety in the air, we’d pierced
a hole in the obdurate, obtrusive surface of human
life, to find ourselves in a tropical paradise—
I relate to it, now, as a clear demonstration that
Heaven on Earth happens. In Abby, we had a soul
sister; in the large co-op twin on Baltimore Ave.,
a safe haven; my flat in Logan Square created
a different, representatively recent kind of stage;
all were playgrounds where the dope, pills, every
thing else was shared by all, as all of our bodies
were for each other and no one else. The profound
ecstasy of that New Years was that a bunch of
artistic misfits found ways and means of being
completely at home in the world, against constraints
that needn’t have been there, with a serene sense
of what it might mean to live forever. We were
right, then and there, to be who we were, and we knew it—
© Adam Fieled 2022
Live Forever in Lothlorien Poetry Journal
Live Forever in PennSound
of soul love, but glamour right on the ground,
as the formation formed by which Mary and I spent
all of our nights together. Our route— West
Philly to Logan Square and back— took two
disparate locales, made them whole, out of
a sense that they were meant to be wed, just
as we were; Logan Square with its sleek, modish
urbanity, West Philly with its rusticity, climbing
ivy, plus the obvious inversion of a well-worn
media cliché against it. By New Years Eve, 2003,
there was so much gaiety in the air, we’d pierced
a hole in the obdurate, obtrusive surface of human
life, to find ourselves in a tropical paradise—
I relate to it, now, as a clear demonstration that
Heaven on Earth happens. In Abby, we had a soul
sister; in the large co-op twin on Baltimore Ave.,
a safe haven; my flat in Logan Square created
a different, representatively recent kind of stage;
all were playgrounds where the dope, pills, every
thing else was shared by all, as all of our bodies
were for each other and no one else. The profound
ecstasy of that New Years was that a bunch of
artistic misfits found ways and means of being
completely at home in the world, against constraints
that needn’t have been there, with a serene sense
of what it might mean to live forever. We were
right, then and there, to be who we were, and we knew it—
© Adam Fieled 2022
Live Forever in Lothlorien Poetry Journal
Live Forever in PennSound
George Bowering (British Columbia, Canada): from Musing On Some Poets
I have no remaining skill for form,
just feel words jostle each other in doorways on the way out, sit here this
evening remembering a former life. I’m with friends,
all lovely, all restrained by hope. All agreed without saying so—
those poets gave us a way to waste our lives,
saying useless things, smiling indulgently at each other’s personal diaspora,
carrying mismatched goodies on the way to the grave,
tripping, falling into holes, writing on dirt walls
a first and last sonnet—
solving all, coming to rest, combing hair, adjusting socks,
kissing nothing but the image of Jesus, disbursing mind as if it were mercury,
listening for the voices to arrive with the worms.
© George Bowering 2005
just feel words jostle each other in doorways on the way out, sit here this
evening remembering a former life. I’m with friends,
all lovely, all restrained by hope. All agreed without saying so—
those poets gave us a way to waste our lives,
saying useless things, smiling indulgently at each other’s personal diaspora,
carrying mismatched goodies on the way to the grave,
tripping, falling into holes, writing on dirt walls
a first and last sonnet—
solving all, coming to rest, combing hair, adjusting socks,
kissing nothing but the image of Jesus, disbursing mind as if it were mercury,
listening for the voices to arrive with the worms.
© George Bowering 2005
Jeffrey Ethan Lee (Boulder, Colorado, USA): "Invitation To A Disaster"
Skin hungry for your hands,
she comes up to your bedroom as a fan
of your poetry, but you’re Nobody, you say.
It doesn’t matter, she says.
She’s not the woman you love and can’t have,
she’s the baby you can have, and want,
in eccentric old clothes.
She keeps you up late cuddling her blues
which is fine, except she takes everything off,
(complaining it’s so hot!)
except her worn-out panties,
and it’s late but she doesn’t want to.
So, you sleep on the floor,
on something rock-hard, in your clothes.
Also, she wails her loneliness
and jealousy of your past.
But we just met, you say—
it doesn’t matter, she cries.
How can she be mad as a wife
on a first date, you think,
but it’s too late and sleep
overwhelms you and you recede.
Only near dawn, when she stumbles by casually,
half-waking and mostly naked,
and you reach up hungrily for her skin, tug her in,
you roll with her in your lust.
She steams up like dunked toast,
then crumbles into dripping sobs,
and then you have to stop,
soothe her and hold her together,
tenderly, as the non-drunk Dad she never had—
dawn enforces she really wants something else.
© Jeffrey Ethan Lee 2005
she comes up to your bedroom as a fan
of your poetry, but you’re Nobody, you say.
It doesn’t matter, she says.
She’s not the woman you love and can’t have,
she’s the baby you can have, and want,
in eccentric old clothes.
She keeps you up late cuddling her blues
which is fine, except she takes everything off,
(complaining it’s so hot!)
except her worn-out panties,
and it’s late but she doesn’t want to.
So, you sleep on the floor,
on something rock-hard, in your clothes.
Also, she wails her loneliness
and jealousy of your past.
But we just met, you say—
it doesn’t matter, she cries.
How can she be mad as a wife
on a first date, you think,
but it’s too late and sleep
overwhelms you and you recede.
Only near dawn, when she stumbles by casually,
half-waking and mostly naked,
and you reach up hungrily for her skin, tug her in,
you roll with her in your lust.
She steams up like dunked toast,
then crumbles into dripping sobs,
and then you have to stop,
soothe her and hold her together,
tenderly, as the non-drunk Dad she never had—
dawn enforces she really wants something else.
© Jeffrey Ethan Lee 2005
Mary Jo Malo (Forest, Ohio): "New Orleans Elegy: Down in Delacroix"
Blue rose, red brick cottage,
Styx nightmare—
should have passed on the Lethe—
oblivious CNN, numb—
only a matter of time before my eye levees broke,
carried my heart back down to Delacroix—
a gulf between the living and dead—
stilted homes
built on silted islands,
crumble down—
bait and outfitter’s gone,
fishing for babies now—
fuck nature’s seneschal,
Kyoto accord Bush-whacker,
Manchurian Candidate,
hope he perishes covered in black gold,
mired in muck,
lame duck,
choking on all that Texas tea—
no phone, no TV, no radio,
me and my seven babies,
stranded on a dilapidated rope bridge—
three of us can’t carry five—
water rising above our knees—
you choose—
rest in peace my babies,
my Acadian cousins—
© Mary Jo Malo 2005
Styx nightmare—
should have passed on the Lethe—
oblivious CNN, numb—
only a matter of time before my eye levees broke,
carried my heart back down to Delacroix—
a gulf between the living and dead—
stilted homes
built on silted islands,
crumble down—
bait and outfitter’s gone,
fishing for babies now—
fuck nature’s seneschal,
Kyoto accord Bush-whacker,
Manchurian Candidate,
hope he perishes covered in black gold,
mired in muck,
lame duck,
choking on all that Texas tea—
no phone, no TV, no radio,
me and my seven babies,
stranded on a dilapidated rope bridge—
three of us can’t carry five—
water rising above our knees—
you choose—
rest in peace my babies,
my Acadian cousins—
© Mary Jo Malo 2005
