Burst

Jonas Kyle-Sidell

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:59:00 +0000

About the Author
I was born in L.A. but am now in Decatur, GA and will
be attending the University of Baltimore in the fall
for the ubiquitous M.F.A. I'm excited to show people
my work. I have a poem in the current L.A. Review,
and forthcoming from Main Street Rag. Also, there are
three posted on Madswirl.com.

Hipster

When it bubbles up out of frenzy – as if

assured by something – that’s the best for

him. The weight that was there has given

away what it knows, and surrendered only

to what will last. After all, we're all having

a breakdown . . . ooooooh how it surprises,

when it shows its grace! Undeniably,

inexplicably, even with all that he can attest

to! But there are other witnesses who have

seen it, too. Neither tragic nor heroic – it is

honest, like the way a song speaks to you,

or how someone exists in their environment.

It’s also romantic as hell, full of love, and to

ignore that much would be a gross injustice.

Growth, blessed life, shall not go unnoticed.

Aesthetically speaking, however, it’s tough.

The past, present, and future fold into a series

of implications. That’s when he’s got to throw

it all in a crock-pot over an endearing flame,

and boil it down to a simple conception. One

which, under certain circumstances, may foil

from the pressure, but ultimately staves off

incineration! As does he.

Cocking his hat, gently now, towards the

sun, his eyelids dancin’ like one’a them kisses . . .

© Jonas Kyle-Sidell

Norman Ball

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:13:00 +0000

About the Author
Norman Ball is a Virginia-based writer, musician and videographer. My stuff's appeared in rattle Home Prairie Companion, Liberty and numerous others. I've been doing a lot of video-poetry and poetry-based music whatever the difference is.

Willy Lepers (song)
Well I found an itch that can't be traced
a line too narrow aiming for the midriff
tell-tale heart and you beat the crime
sleepin on the street an' heavin on a dead rhyme
style, stealing thunder, people wanna play
but you gotta take a number
I ate the blame to get it all worked out
prop me up like a deathrow inmate
deadweight. bangin on the pink house
hangin at the cathouse tappin at the outrage
prance it lance it dance it advance it
slip into a back page pimpin for a new age.

But she's been deaf to my drift and dirt
Slip it to the uplift, hip til it hurt
knocking at the waist, ah sweet taste
arms like licorice, thighs like a bad case
fox chase black lace
zip that woody gonna make a pearl necklace.

pity on the righteous honorin the heroes
dying on the beaches leavin us zeroes
whadda we got left now? whadda we got left?
mish-mash black hash fast cash strange rash
who called me?

You just lost your higher station!
I will help you find salvation!

Well ain't that a stitch. It can't be traced
a pumped up middle struttin like a blowfish
dip that stick and you fish for crabs
kickin up the heat makin like it hurt bad
scrub clam chowder people wanna know
but you gotta have a powder
I ate the blame to get it all laid out
prop me up like a deathrow inmate

pity on the righteous honorin the heroes
dying on the beaches leavin us zeroes
whadda you got now? what you got in there now?
mish-mash black hash fast cash strange rash
who called me?

try my way lemme swab yer deck c'mon!
slip me on like a rubber neck c'mon!
pick my brain on the telephone c'mon!
slap my ass so I'm not alone c'mon!
eat my lunch I'm a mess inside c'mon!
lets do brunch I could use a ride c'mon!
smile right through cause you wear it well c'mon!
die for me cause I'm bored as well c'mon!

You have lost your higher station!
I will help you find salvation!

pity on the righteous honorin the heroes
dying on the beaches leavin us zeroes
tappin you the hum drum stick a fukkie bun-bun
what have you left us? what have you left us?
mish-mash black hash fast cash strange rash
ahh what have you left us? what have you left us?
what have you left? what have you left us?
why has it got to be? What have you done to me?
why can't I make one and one make three...

GINA

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:16:00 +0000

About the Author
GINA is an artist who discovered poetry in 2005.. She lives in Tasmania, Australia with a cat, 2 peacocks and a few outdoor fish in a garden where tomatoes are supported by rose bushes and various peppers grow as colourful shapes in their own right among summer perennials. Over 50 poems of Gina's can be found in various publications such as LYNX, Modern English Tanka, Moonset, Paperwasp, Ribbons, Simply Haiku and the Herons Nest.

Blazing Heat

Monokus
~

swimming into the shade its shadow follows

~~~

they shriek with seagulls wading in a rock pool

A PHOTO OF YOU TAKEN IN MOUNTAINS, SOMEWHERE

you, snowflakebearded you
smile there forever
in stainless steel light

beneath an impossibly-blue sky
your eyes follow me
and i move just off-frame

hoping you will
step out of the paper
and kiss me, sometimes

in this tranquil room, i wonder
if a morning will come
when i dont think about you

as memories are all
i have to hold and when
absence inhabits

me, becoming
too much to bear you are turned
in a handful of silence
to face the crack in the wall

Jeff Crouch

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:31:00 +0000

About the artist
Jeff Crouch is an internet artist in Grand Prairie, Texas. Google "Jeff Crouch" to see where he's been on the internet.

A Hive of Tears

Jim Fuess

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:45:00 +0000

About the artist
Jim Fuess was on the Executive Board of Directors and Vice President for Visual Arts at the Watchung Arts Center from 1993 through 1999. He is the Chairperson and Founder of the New Art Group (NAG). For more information visit Jim Fuess Art

Flowers

Fleeing the Furies

War

Savage Machinery by Karen Rigby

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Savage Machinery
by Karen Rigby
Finishing Line Press, Kentucky
$14.00
New releases and forthcoming titles

Savage Machinery opens with a poem that somehow manages to be invigorating, strangely beautiful and soothing all at the same time. Bathing in a Burned House startles – and it is the first of several very good poems in this 16 poem chapbook. There is a lightness, ease of language – a capturing of sorts, of that fleeting shadow of true Beauty in Bathing, as well as in several of the 16 poems included in Karen Rigby's new chapbook.

The poems employ deft sonics and delicious imagery, all while leaving the the Reader with an uneasy discomfort, a sense of Truth and something I do not find nearly enough in contemporary poetry, the desire to return to the poems again and again. The poems unfold with each read, from “The Story of Adam and Eve” inspired by piece of illumination by Boucicaut Master straight through to the “woman on Forbes" (a line from the poem Sleeping on the Buses), the poems travel time effortlessly remaining intelligent, thought provoking and accessible.

In a current poem world where the “I” often overpowers any chance of real poetic experience for the Reader, Karen Rigby seems a comfortable channel letting the voices of many flow to the page without a hint of arrogance, be it in Edward Hopper's Women, Norma Desmond Descending the Staircase as Salome – even Bread, Borscht or Plums. Savage Machinery very pleasantly surprised this reader, the poems linger and call you back.

For more information about Karen's poetry: Karen Rigby

Attitudes in Deportment

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:18:00 +0000

TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2008

Blasted prose is all telly, takes the engine out, no matter, it is what is at hand. All that's left some say. Not much point in disagreeing, since there will be enough of that.

Might be, that by 1930 it was all finished, that is the New--what followed was an interpretation, and elaboration, a thinking through. (yet one would not limit the renaissance to a small span of years, so be not too hasty as yet). Still, the reverberations of those working in those years are still with us, coloring every line of verse whether we acknowledge it or not. It is not even a matter of knowledge in most cases--the sad lot of education being what it is.

Pieces of this or that are taken and declared New, at best there is an evolution--language overtakes the poetry and the poetry itself is forgotten, whatever the genre which one might choose to subscribe to, thus there is dogma and counter-dogma and anti-dogma and the piss blew the ants away and so forth. Somewhere in the center of it all the poetry still remains, and if it is lost who shall we blame, why only the poets who sit in the flame and prefer not to be burnt--and if they are not burnt dare we call them poets?

Dog poopy. It is worse than Plato thought, lies and evasions; such promises as would make a televangelist blush were one capable of such a thing. There is nothing that would make the axes in the grasses spring forth to strike these poets down, and if one should dare; the ridicule from his brethren would deafen the heedless gods themselves. (That was fun, where was I?)

Oh yeh! Political correctness masquerading as poetry would be one way of putting it, another would be banal pap best left in secret diaries with the rest of the public secrets that make the housewives titter and gasp--one wonders if they still do that.

Maybe it is the convergence of science & spirituality--at this crux, this vantage point which we have we are halved by both certainty & uncertainty.---our existence is predicated on the signposts we leave for those who follow; the questions become finer, ethics, consciousness, spirituality--in our hubris we do not wish to be wrong yet cannot escape that destiny even as our artificial society sinks in the mud and we can quite plainly see it. Boogers we say, and argue over the angels on the head of the pin!

Schools they say! Schools of this & that--periwinkles and pop-tarts, pink commas in the hem of the schoolgirls miniskirt, and who's in charge of story time. Techniques is all they are! ways of saying that which must be said. I happily steal from all of them. If I have to--if I don't I putter down whichever road presents itself. If in the before of all that, I absent myself to take a pee you must pardon me.

Thomas Brady

Steve Cartwright

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:58:00 +0000

About the artist
I've done art for several magazines, newspapers, websites, commercial and governmental clients, books, and scribbling - but mostly drooling - on tavern napkins. I also create art pro bono for several animal rescue groups. I was awarded the 2004 James Award for my cover art for Champagne Shivers. I recently illustrated the Cimarron Review and Stories for Children covers. Take a gander ( or a goose ) at my online gallery: Cartoons by Cartwright

Man Dog Lamps

Swimming

Carrie Crow

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:08:00 +0000

About the artist
Carrie Crow is a New York City based photographer. Her photographs can be found at baron & crow in collaboration with poet, John Greiner.

Wall

Tree

Peter Schwartz

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:43:00 +0000

About the artist
Peter Schwartz is a painter, poet and writer. He's also an associate art editor for Mad Hatters' Review. His artwork can be seen all over the Internet but specifically at: www.sitrahahra.com. He's had hundreds of paintings, poems, and stories published both online and in print and is constantly submitting new work as if his very life depended on it. His last show was at the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in Chelsea NYC and went well enough for them to invite him back.

artificial respiration

bangs & whimpers

bones & bruises

Luke MacLean

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:14:00 +0000

About the Author
Luke MacLean is a Canadian boy who has been published in Read This(UK), Centrifugal Eye, Origami Condom, and is forthcoming in various American literary journals this summer.

Absurd Death

Albert Camus, Albert Camus

Albert

don't look in that rear view mirror

The ocean is straight ahead

It's undertow projects your solid and liquid

seeping through shattered windshield

sailing through the headlights of your fortune

and it feels so…

From Villeblevin to…

Can you hear the crickets Albert?

Albert

Just then a star from the sky flickered in your eye

I wish you didn't have to see that star

flicker in your eye

or that fucking cigarette

continuing to burn a hole in your front pocket

where you kept a train ticket.

© Luke MacLean

Anne Mullins

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:57:00 +0000

About the Author
Anne is a teacher-writer-mother-wife-woman who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She likes to travel in the summer for inspiration. She hopes to be a poet one day.

Man Dies, Sheep Bleat, Dog Dances

O’Malley died some twenty years ago
but when you ask about him in the pub
everybody knows you mean old Michael Joe
as if he’d just now finished reciting Yeats
over a pint of Guinness.

Michael Joe could not be buried upright,
like he wanted,
though they walked him up the stony hill
and pick-axed at the ground
for hours, the men at last gave up,
laid him down, and the sod,
and went back down for a draught
of poitin in his name.

Sheep of meek intelligence
sheer the grass about his grave
and bleat like mourners
whether it rains or whether it stops
as it sometimes does.

I saw you bow your head there,
wipe your eyes beneath the oilskin brim.
Pongo the Third, who never knew him,
danced as only sheep dogs can
a merry ring around the cairn.
No headstone, no inscription,
you could only guess he rested here
at the top of the hill, a low pile of rocks
grown mossy.

To Go from Lvov to Djemaa el Fna

There was always too much of Lvov, no one could
comprehend its boroughs, hear
the murmur of each stone scorched
by the sun
~Adam Zagajewski

too much of Lvov
so you return to Marrakech
the square at noon a vacant mile
of dust as packed as pavement
too hot to cross
to the crisscross lathe
where the market starts
and the jelaba'd men
maroon and fez'd
stand or slump
by wares not hardly hopeful
hanging yarns
and mounded spices
suntoasted sunsnuggled
tendrils pierce the nose and
crumble the walls
to lay down a memory

labyrinth of stink
and acrid heat
you wander till shadows
overtake the gate
and spill into the chaos
of a place transformed

like dragon's teeth when sown
to sprout an army
sunheat pierces the trodden earth
and planted beams emerge as freaks
and acrobats in white on ebony
pearls in the dark
the nasal horn to dance the snake
the drum to flip the African boys
the thump the shout the sizzle
of fires that echo the sun
the trance
enchants you alive
in this Square
of the Dead

© Anne Mullins

Note: Poitin is Irish moonshine, pronounced something like "potcheen".

David Appelbaum

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:48:00 +0000

About the Author
I'm a hiker and biker who teaches philosophy. I edited Parabola Magazine for a decade and my poems have appeared in such places as APQ, Commonweal, and Verse Daily.

Braille

Reading a book the man

says reading a book

the words

like a fishbone

choke on life

a gasp meaning

the book falls open

the man says the book

a slip of paper

catches the wind

sails the open sky

the man says

until

he taps a white cane

on the way

Alphabet

With the crane's flight

ages flew past also

the babble of the crib

the child's zeal

then the frown

of unfounded words

then the man

in the desert of thought

alone before temptation

bent, yielding

O why do ideas

soar so grandly

with that spoon-billed

long-necked silhouette

flapping molecular north?

Why does passion

lift so thin?

This zeal to

a lone man

emerges from a cistern's

mouth one day

into blaring sun

& their majestic brace

in which all the letters

of all the words

ever to be writ

ever to be writ

are

Jeffrey Calhoun

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:36:00 +0000

About the Author
My writing credits include 2River, elimae, Softblow, Blood Orange Review, Stirring, and Triplopia. I was nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart anthologies for poems in 2007.
For more information, email Jeffrey Calhoun

Love, or how lithium changed my life

for John Updike

Dearest reader, most of my cells
are no longer suspended in fluid, replaced
as if by a miracle, a heavy injection of love.
A doctor inspects the wiring of my soul
to see if it is ordered, properly grounded.

My wife balances on the point of a white pyramid,
screams as I mumble about August rains
and deadly science. I sit on a concrete throne
like a misanthrope god, dismissing
the possibility of a love phenomenon.

I smile at her fingerprint whorls,
the rose wilting adjacent to her ribcage.
She asks about beauty,
but all I can think of are onions,
attractive and sitting forever in a still life.

It is that I have become indifferent to her
nakedness, the lack of anything exotic
which is immutable, unlike cabbage.
What remains is to repair chemistry,
the balance of neurotransmitters in my brain.
She becomes a lithium mirage
against streets plated with cheap gold.

© Jeffrey Calhoun

John Greiner

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:17:00 +0000

About the Author
John Greiner
For more information
Email John Greiner

Forward Strain

After so many

months of silently

sitting

at the ticket

counter counting

change

I find myself

standing shocked

at the thundering

thought

that my tongue

let slip.

My legs are set in motion. I run towards the book depository at Alexandria not realizing that it was long ago burnt to the ground, and that the scribes and snivelers who once resided there are as lost and lifeless as the beautiful conclusions captured in the ashes.

Standing with

a solitary thought

surrounded by ruins

after so much

time sitting saying

neither this,

nor that

at the entrance

to the mansion

where the mind

shut down

impels my heart

towards a heaven

with gates

unchained,

and free

of charge.

Spengler on a Toothpick

Flow river

glass broken

tombs monk’s eyes

falling from face

the nation is in

a panic

the world

is a nutshell

is nothing but

a confidence game

played out by

well born bastards

that’s the way

that it is

that it has

always been

I was reading passing ads

in a Mercedes-Benz

when the engine

exploded the driver

wanted to blame

the Germans

but I just had

to laugh there

wasn’t a bug

in the closet

so there wasn’t a way

for us to find

out who was at

fault because we

are a nation of

pointers

with broken index fingers

who wait at the gates

before annihilating

history.

© John Greiner

reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:58:00 +0000

Type your summary here

Poets Name
A bit about the poet, small details and such.

link | another link

Type rest of the post here

Issue Two

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:59:00 +0000

David Appelbaum

Alphabet

With the crane's flight
ages flew past also
the babble of the crib
the child's zeal
then the frown (...)

Braille

Reading a book the man
says reading a book
the words
like a fishbone
choke on life (...)

Norman Ball

Willy Lepers (song)

Well I found an itch that can't be traced
a line too narrow aiming for the midriff
tell-tale heart and you beat the crime (...)

Jeffrey Calhoun

Love, or how lithium changed my life

for John Updike

Dearest reader, most of my cells
are no longer suspended in fluid, replaced
as if by a miracle, a heavy injection of love. (...)

John Greiner

Forward Strain

After so many
months of silently
sitting
at the ticket
counter counting
change (...)

Spengler on a Toothpick

Flow river
glass broken
tombs monk’s eyes
falling from face
the nation is in
a panic (...)

GINA

Monokus

~
swimming into the shade its shadow follows (...)

A PHOTO OF YOU TAKEN IN MOUNTAINS, SOMEWHERE

you, snowflakebearded you
smile there forever
in stainless steel light (...)

Luke MacLean

Absurd Death

Albert Camus, Albert Camus
Albert
don't look in that rear view mirror
The ocean is straight ahead
It's undertow projects your solid and liquid (...)

Anne Mullins

Man Dies, Sheep Bleat, Dog Dances

O’Malley died some twenty years ago
but when you ask about him in the pub
everybody knows you mean old Michael Joe (...)

To Go from Lvov to Djemaa el Fna

too much of Lvov
so you return to Marrakech
the square at noon a vacant mile
of dust as packed as pavement
too hot to cross (...)

Jonas Kyle-Sidell

Hipster

When it bubbles up out of frenzy – as if
assured by something – that’s the best for
him. The weight that was there has given
away what it knows, and surrendered only (...)

Wall &Tree

by Carrie Crow.

artificial respiration bones & bruises & bangs & whimpers

by Peter Schwartz.

Fleeing the Furies Flowers & War

by Jim Fuess.

A Hive of Tears

by Jeff Crouch.

Man Dog Lamps & Swimming

by Steve Cartwright.

Alex C

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:27:00 +0000

About the artist
Alex C. born October 1975 – deceased May or June 1994 (he can't remember the exact date) and again on 24 March 2005 is some sort of awkward container for restless things that don’t fit anywhere. His drawings are not entirely real but not entirely virtual either and are all about nothing more than something else as long as there’s not anything real in the else – if surrealism is based on some sort of reality non-realism is completely opposed to any reality, other than the fact that the only reality is illusion.

Stary Night

Angry Nude

New Land

Janet Richards

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:17:00 +0000

About the author
Janet Richards is a poet & journalist living in the Bay of Quinte area of Ontario, Canada.
She shares her home with her husband, three daughters, & a changeable number of pets.
Janet’s poetry has been published in the anthologies “Brother, My Cup” & “Eyes of the Poet”. She is also a member of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance. Her first poetry collection “Glass Skin” (Hidden Brook Press, 2008) will be launched May 11, 2008.

Camera Shake

[The Shooter’s Blues]

shutter shudder click

one aboriginal activist released from jail
two house fires: no injuries
three mayors

click shutter shudder

four architectural features
five head shots
six Scottish dancers

shudder shutter click

seven wall of fame inductees
eight amusements at the exhibition
nine child smiles

ten accidents passed plainclothes

without camera
there is always the pretense

it never really happened

Becoming acquainted with Laura

Laura tells me she used to wear clothes
four sizes too big.
She wanted to be invisible.
She had children early while friends were educated,
her husband passed away.

Tonight, velvet green with dark red
and gold drapes her slight frame;
animated, she captivates the crowd
with a trip through who she wants to be.

Doug whispers secrets in my ear,
about an accident, how she had to learn
to read and speak again.

After, as she listens, she slips bare feet from black sandals.
Her toenails are painted red.

© Janet Richards

Sylvia Silberger

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:10:00 +0000

About the Authors
When Sylvia and Bill aren't writing, they spend their time conspiring to overthrow the various unscrupulous four-legged furry pet dictators in their lives. Oh, and Sylvia likes to do a little math, teach sometimes, roller blade and bike, too. Sylvia usually publishes under the name Birchwood online, while Bill publishes under the then Burnt_at_both_ends.

Godel's Ghost

We,
the aged fragments
of hope, fear, love and loss,
on this last tree
wait,
watching vultures
devour their last meal.

The desert before us
stretches
from dreams to desire.

Your eyes burn,
pierce the horizon,
wager its curve.

None:
there’s no return.

Some:
we meet ourselves again.

…

as withered plants
wager only on rain.

…

You wait for Godel’s ghost to recant,

I wait
for you.

© Sylvia Silberger and Bill Larsen 2007

Note: Godel was a logician from the early 20th century. He proved Godel's incompleteness theorem which says that no finite set of axioms is sufficient. That is, given any finite set of axioms, there is at least one statement that can't be proven true or false.

Edward Peterson

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:49:00 +0000

About the Author
Edward Peterson is an artist/poet. He lives in Lockport, IL and grows vegetables to feed his children and alien wife. His work has most recently appeared in After Hours and Reverly.

Waking Jack

Said Sophie to Jack,
"Do you feel
distant from your family?"

& the answer shot
"of course,"

and when the gun refrained
Jack's mouth collapsed
on gums, the way a week's decay
makes the Jack-O-Lantern appear
more human and frightening

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Fold up the faces
Don the ritual smocks
Pinch closed all the beaks
Flock silent as raindrops

Then, if you please,
the speeches and finger foods
freckled cubes of cheese.

"Jack was so plump & round
& I loved him from every angle.
He was my march of time
my most effective line.
He was my helplessness, my fear.
Queer how the snarl
on his lip endeared
right until the end
& I have never grown a pie
& I have never known a friend
never nothing really
until this very moment, when
now I know it all,
free & sickening as the fall."

Sophie's face crumpled
(weakened, but as art stronger still
for the shrinking of sly smiles,
grimaces of rot, likely as not
from a week on the sill)

yes, it crumpled, pushing wrinkles toward her lips
when Sophie lit a cigarette
then smoothed the black skirt on her hips.

Poetry

maybe there hung a light on a pole in an alley
and maybe it made just the top of the car shine
and maybe there was a cricket that chirped for its life
as the days turned cold
and not enough eggs
or new crickets
or high grass

the trees had certainly been cut back
to accommodate the phone wires

maybe the neighbor lady opened an envelope
and cringed inward for many minutes
and maybe she shut it all down
preferring the antithought

she certainly rose to go to work in the morning
though those who knew her would say she looked
uncharacteristically disheveled

Frank had always opened the mail
and maybe she thought of that final beer
sweating a circle on the trash-can lid as smoke
curled in and out of the light
and maybe her knuckles whitened on the wheel

there certainly was the street roar
of rubber and glass
hard and poetic
bereft of warmth or friend

© Edward Peterson

Niko

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:53:00 +0000

about the author
Niko is also known as "The Bear".

(I saw the) Elephant

Spiteful Natasha told Dmitri
I never saw an elephant
when I went to Leningrad.
So while she dreamed her girlish dreams
Fast asleep in bed that night
I cut her hair off at the scalp
stroked my cheek in satisfaction
with the silky flaxen braids
smelled a memory in the darkness
of meadowsweet and chamomile.
I bit hard on Tanya’s hanky
as she rubbed salt into my back.

Brokenworld

They speak of shameful things
in the brokenworld
where arms and legs and heads
fall away into limepits

I will keep your dreams
bound with mine in an envelope
inside a chocolate box
with views of Venice
on the lid

Tread with care
over the rubble of aspirations
gather small things
to protect you
a child’s lost shoe
the ribbon of my nightshift
the bone clip carved to hold my hair
from tumbling down
showing my wantonness

These relics
And our shattered deathmask effigies
Chiseled with sorrowful expression
Will be the things
By which
Our humanity is judged.

© Niko

Defining Things

noreply@blogger.com (Liza) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Ca ne fait rien
(with apologies to Ogden Nash)
"Even though the people stare,
I am the man who wasn't there,
I am not there again today,
I wish to God I'd go away."

Defining Things

Ordinary people like Tina and Mike have always existed. Folks, who care for their children, care for their parents; family is first. They observe traditional role models, they are honest, decent -- they work hard.

They look forward to their holidays, enjoy them, enjoy each other’s company and still kiss each other when they have been apart for half an hour. They dance holding each other close or jive together whenever and wherever they feel like it, even when only they can hear the music.

They do not ask for anything from anyone, give to others as much as the boundaries of their lives permit them to give. They live and let live.

In times gone by Tina and Mike would have produced child after child, some living , some dying in infancy, they would have been part of a close knit community where few travelled away from where their families had lived for generations.

Tina had her tubes tied when the second and youngest girl was thirteen because Mike’s eyes watered at the thought of a vasectomy and they decided that their family was complete. They would have coped with birth, death, illness; saved a little for retirement and waited for their children to bring grandchildren to Sunday tea.

Today, Tina goes to bingo or line dancing with her friends. Mike stands at the bar, has a few pints, talks sport with the other Mikes. He sometimes agrees with them, sometimes he doesn’t about the big issues. His prejudices are strong in some areas, in other he is laid back and liberal. They are all the same. Discussion revolves around degree, not innovation. Opinions rarely change, they are merely tempered according to company and mood and amount of alcohol consumed.

Tina and Mike do not aspire to high art, or art at all beyond popular ephemera. They do not need to read much when they have a flat screen TV, a state of the art DVD recorder and computers with wireless routers for internet access for everyone in the house. They are content with plain cooking and a take away once a week.

Mike is worried because Tina is in pain. Tina has been to the doctor with the pain, but a couple of weeks ago she collapsed with the pains coming on sharpish in her stomach and Mike called an ambulance because he does not have a driving license. Tina does, and that is enough, he does not need to drive, but Tina can get the shopping and that of her mother and mother in law, and take the family out on day trips, so she learned a few years ago and they have a nice, but unexciting middle-aged car. The ambulance rushed Tina to the hospital in the next town, where she was kept in over night for tests and observation then she was allowed home. Mike’s face was drawn, the corners of his mouth pulled down and the knot between his eyes tighter even than when England are doing really badly in a test match, as he tried not to be too clumsy as he hugged her and helped her into the taxi.

The tests showed that more tests were needed. Tina and Mike tried to carry on cheerfully and as normal, and Tina tried not to mention anything about the pain, not even when she was asked, for three months while the waited for results of tests upon tests. Tina had already been through something like this when she worked as a dinner lady , or ‘lunchtime assistant’ at the local school and knelt down to clean some spillage on the floor and her knee twisted awkwardly from underneath her and subsequently swelled up to the size of a rugby ball. It never fully recovered. The precise nature of the injury -- never ascertained regardless of several tests and X-Rays. The outcome was that it was just something she had to live with, as she had to live within the parameters of being Mike and Tina the same as her forebears had had to live within similar parameters for the last thousand years or so. It swells up if she walks or stands too long and she needs to borrow an arm to walk from time to time and it is always willingly given.

If Mike was a little more attentive to her at the club of late than as usual, if he was a little less tolerant of idiots, called people cunts more than usual and sometimes forgot not to say fucking or fuck in front of the women, no one said anything. The women whispered about lumps and avoided the ‘really scary’ C word. Me, I was afraid to ask how she was in case acknowledgment of illness made it a fact. If she didn’t mention it, it was probably best-left hanging, camouflaged, hopefully, like the giraffe in the toilet. I told Mike that not asking was not for want of caring but for want of not being Tina and not knowing how to care without making things worse.

Yesterday Tina had the ‘All Clear’. Her pain -- defined as Not Cancer. It is still there, it still hurts, nothing has changed, but it is Not Cancer. Tina has gone shopping for new clothes in celebration. Mike has booked flights to America.

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