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March 25, 2005
Taishan
"Sunt lumina" (all things that are are lights)
-John Scotus Erigena
I asked Taishan about Skate Mouth,
and she deferred. He boasts so,
only Shun, Yao, and Wu more so.
So what? You and I are tensile, fragile monuments,
hysterical velar atrophies that “g” cannot deny.
What are we to say to Brillig and the slithy droves?
Approach the bench, rondelle.
In Jabberwock Bandersnatch, the idea for Skate Mouth
was not mine, nor Gudding’s, nor Carroll’s.
Where is the velar beauty, Taishan? Did we make it more so?
Did we conquer you? Did we parcel your folded tongue(s)?
Virtue, your name is a hung marble stone refracting pinpoints,
where an ideogram puppet-shadows the moon, sun, and silk.
Posted by tony at 11:12 AM | Comments (3)
March 21, 2005
The Sound (from The Great Gatsby)
1.
Dive down into sunlit waters, whispers
like moths float skyward from gardens. Motor-
boats slice through soundless bays, drawing over
the blue a foaming cataract layer.
Two hundred oranges pressed by the butler's
thumb, mixed with female guests, cordials, liqueur.
Piccolos and oboes fill the dance floor,
cocktails permeate the air with chatter.
Lights grow brighter, the earth lurches away,
sea-change of faces pause for a moment-
ary hush. Orchestra begins again.
Cocktail table provides an oasis
from lonely roaring-drunk embarrassments,
yielding all to an indifferent person.
2.
Pushing young girls backward in eternal
graceless circles brings to a crescendo
hilarity in champagne finger bowls,
"twins" in costumed baby acts, banjoes crawl-
ing up and down tin-dripping silver scales.
The scene turns profound before one's eyes, grows
into significance. Garden's echo-
lalia swoons into men's arms, playful.
Singing, weeping into champagne, taking
cues from black rivulets coursing South-bound
past malevolent wives kicking into
the night beyond love's credibility.
Surviving laughter, emptiness. Endowed
with uncertainty and a dancing shoe.
Posted by amber at 06:03 PM | Comments (3)
Late Night
When the last drink is dry your
hand shakes while the last
ice cube melts into a
soft-brown caress, you never shiver from the
kick, only place the glass nonchalantly on the
edge of the bar. Ask for another before
you remember what you’re drinking for.
Posted by amber at 05:59 PM | Comments (3)
March 17, 2005
Elitism Okay? Abolish the M.F.A.?
"Poetry and Ambition." An interesting essay by Donald Hall, give it a go if you have a few spare minutes.
Posted by Josh at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2005
Incipit
Portia,
with the large measureless eyes,
speechless messages
turned up the golden fleece
on the Argonaut shore of Colchos.
She increased sideways
as Troy’s second horse.
Blue-black eyeshadow,
her dilations yellow, craned to the moon,
cutting out her outline.
Fountains of tresses of murky particles.
Corinthian, measure this:
Telemachus would not have given you Penelope in such a short time;
that sweet wild boy with the Gaiman-chewing eyes,
Bacchae suitors all in a row.
Posted by tony at 10:32 PM | Comments (4)
March 04, 2005
Nature vs. Nurture
I try to hang my poem on your door
with inventive nails, but textbook tacks
are all I can find. I want to make this
poem leap around and run screaming
up and down the street like it is on
fire, or if not on fire, then at least chased
by its figment.
This poem was told that it was raised in
the mountains. Wholesome and corn fed.
I take it out each day for some air and all
it has to say is, “absurd birds herd.” I tell
it to knock off that nonsense, the neighbors
are staring.
I tell it, be a love poem. Read some sonnets
please. Stop pestering the cat. I tell it about
the day it stood in the mountains, naked and
unashamed. I am lying to it in the nicest way
possible. One day, when it grows up, it will
thank me.
Posted by Josh at 02:05 PM | Comments (3)
March 02, 2005
Evitar/Avoidance
Su pelo tiene estrellas
que yo no lo queiro ver,
pero me detecto pesadillas
en sus ojos, castanos bellisimas.
La lengua tiene mentiras
(Her hair has stars
that I do not want to see,
but I sense nightmares
in her eyes, brown-eyed beauties.
The language contains lies)
that worlds deny.
If I see a chair
or a desk absent, my mind comes last,
derides the journey over
the shout of color. Deliver us
a watering hole that fits my square
-peg, or sketch
me a pattern made of tips of noses
when she is turned sideways.
Pulse garnets become pouty phonetics,
oclusivos of consonantes,
obstructions of
comic strip bubbles that drink emerald silabeos.
Pelo castano, fontanas de agua pura
that say "Hello", in fricative waves.
Solamente en tus suenos
pensarias de mi, mexicana.
Solamente en mi vida sana
durmiera cuando la morena,
mi corazon, es mi dueno.
(Only in your dreams
would you think of me, Mexican girl.
Only in my own safe and healthy life
will I sleep when the brown-skinned girl,
my heart, is my master).
I put my two lips juntos and blow trabalenguas, such as:
Mi mama me mima mucho/rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Posted by tony at 08:04 PM | Comments (2)