Ice Cold Water Ice Cold Water
The palate clears, but the flavor of regional words sticks to the roof of the mind, salt, style slapped to theme: the categorical difference between a shooting star, otherworldly as it is, and its oceanic twin, slippery as a child at the playground, contracting its five arms toward its center, twirling, turning around, riding itself and abiding in its secret pleasures, neither bitter nor dour, which would suggest preference or its absence, something that simply goes from here to there, from one port to another, from this to that shade of meaning. Listen carefully to what is whispered in your ear: bring me “a glass of ice cold water” which, no doubt, will be found in the “ice-box.” But this request has nothing to do with quenching thirst. It has a twin meaning, maybe Siamese. It’s a highly personal way of considering and particularizing a universe that, all of a sudden, belongs to everyone, a currency, the familiar voice of all who open their doors and respond the same way with the same gestures and by so doing come to be themselves. What, otherwise, are a provincial’s daily pleasures? At ease speaking the vernacular God mandates and calling a spade a spade, avoiding any direct link between what was requested and served and what truly corresponds, the said and the received. And so what in other places might be called falling head over heels is rendered here as “a bucketful of ice cold water,” an expression derived from purely metaphoric “snows.” (translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander)
Nov 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Pura Lopez Colome
Blue Ridge: Streams Are Roaring Blue Ridge: Streams Are Roaring
Morning in the shade of a persimmon tree. Later, downstream below a hornbeam. A shy man hollers from across the valley. Every other rhododendron flower holds a tiny bee, just the way each macaroni shell in pasta e fagioli eventually holds a bean. A little Italian goes well up here. Latin, too&emdash;castanea, ruficapilla, caroliniana: Paroles: Dogwood calls the catbirds. Black cherry calls the blue.
Nov 16, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Merrill Gilfillan
slow poem slow poem
slow things heard in old songs sad songs sung by the sides of old inns dry roses clutched by a lover a wedding dress downriver you will ask them their names the women who remember will ask you in turn where you come from inside this small country you are writing a book it’s unfinished the evening enfolding you slowly a soreness in the fingers who are you they ask you will get in the car with the mirror with the silver flaking in the back the book will receive much criticism you knew it from the story the bride gone downriver where dusk pulls the sunset quarter after quarter so many have written they will ask you with roses will ask what to call you by the river where you come.
Nov 9, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Rodney Koeneke
improphised improphised
1imagine peter, not nodding over his palms that dawn, but praying the vindictive 2prayers of the righteous, drawing enough testosterone up from his balls to light 3all the dew in the garden afire, more than enough to keep him awake, enough 4even to make him slap judas’s silvery lips before they could kiss the sacrifice, 5causing chaos among the spear- bearing romans : imagine him alive with the fury 6of love and utterly blind to the lacerated look on his friend-of-friends’ face, denying 7nothing, not his name, not his faith, not his rage, hurling affirmations at his inquisitors— 8yes, i am the man! : this peter, all flesh and flood, imagine him murderously steadfast, 9less rock than stone, a self- made weapon, still weeping at the cock’s crow, every pre- 10diction re-writing itself anew in his woeful image : human if he did and human if he didn’t.
Nov 2, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Evie Shockley
Letter From a Prisoner Letter From a Prisoner
You, who only write letters in your dreams Hello mother! your son now engraves in his heart letters to send you he would like to send you a snail loving the ground passionately he would like to print burning kisses everywhere, where your steps take you he would like to send you a snail to read your poems on the sand to gather them in a shell and send them to the sea this sea whose azure you share where she rests Hello mother! Have you received the snail? (translated from the French by Doog T. Wood)
Oct 12, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Abdallah Zrika
The Planetary Currents The Planetary Currents
We live on the third rock from the sun In our living rooms We handle the remote and touch off integrated circuits compelling content, non-integrated circuits such as the chitlin’ circuit, and disintegrated circuits such as the extended family now stretched across six continents Plus one under ice The rapid flows of global capital Put us to sleep and wake us We come on in on a wing and a come on We slide right across the ice We stop to catch up, so like a breathing tree Instead of reading about the unconscious we decide to enter it, that is, by falling asleep Dream of a document signed by CEO William K. Tasker by which we are offered a position as director of corporate communications for a company called Correct We are romantics still, who stand and/or sit in shade Looking straight down to the valley floor Vertiginous, lofty, cerebral, lazy and tight This poem may be recorded for quality assurance purposes There we encounter planets whose colors we shall not forget
Sep 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Kit Robinson
The Planetary Currents The Planetary Currents
We live on the third rock from the sun In our living rooms We handle the remote and touch off integrated circuits compelling content, non-integrated circuits such as the chitlin’ circuit, and disintegrated circuits such as the extended family now stretched across six continents Plus one under ice The rapid flows of global capital Put us to sleep and wake us We come on in on a wing and a come on We slide right across the ice We stop to catch up, so like a breathing tree Instead of reading about the unconscious we decide to enter it, that is, by falling asleep Dream of a document signed by CEO William K. Tasker by which we are offered a position as director of corporate communications for a company called Correct We are romantics still, who stand and/or sit in shade Looking straight down to the valley floor Vertiginous, lofty, cerebral, lazy and tight This poem may be recorded for quality assurance purposes There we encounter planets whose colors we shall not forget
Sep 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Kit Robinson
Tulum Tulum
in ceasing to exist gods create in air an emptiness where the light comes to settle all their monuments gather around the edge the earth underneath congeals its ancient waves see the god descending from a pediment he was supposed to induce the rain’s downfall it’s the sky today that drops into the rock to very gingerly liberate our heart and elongate the view toward the end of time same at its core to the Caribbean Sea its green water took the divine in its folds all then ends up in rumbling and murmuring all began in an identical manner (translated from the French by Eléna Rivera)
Sep 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Bernard Nöel
Treatment Treatment
The relationship between a handsome young broker and a lovely young curator is in trouble. Before they can marry, he must come to tolerate, then feel guarded affection for a good natured buffoon who populates dioramas with stuffed mouse couples in period dress, then for an assortment of others, some less likeable, who also take passionate interest in an activity that generates no profit
Sep 14, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Rae Armantrout
Undersong Undersong
When the bottom drops out of August when the bottom drops and the summer disc burns deep in its bed when nerves sing, blaze, and flame their circuit when the bottom of August sticks out and clouds above change shape when bodies inside spin and change shape the bottom falls and meaning peeks out with chagrin the hot skin of August no longer sending messages of summer birds no longer at rest when the winds pick up and the cool air is just behind it all the bottom of the news story reveals itself the story is cold
Aug 22, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Peter Gizzi