December 2010
VOL XVIII, Issue 12, Number 212
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
INTRODUCTION
Leigh Herrick
in the pantry of illusion
CONTENTS
Leigh Herrick
logy with torpidity
Split
with reality,…
maybe
:August
Jayne Lyn Stahl
step out
The Balcony
In the market
BETWEEN SHEETS OF RAIN
A Symphony
Chris G. Vaillancourt
Sandman Calling Lepers
The Zero I Need To Be
Sky Stained with Tones of Red
Roberta Burnett
Blue Flash at Creekside
from the backstroke, in water’s sound
In Breughel’s Icarus . . .
Felino A. Soriano
Approbations 734
Approbations 735
Approbations 736
Approbations 746
Approbations 747
Approbations 748
Approbations 749
Approbations 750
POST SCRIPTUM
Felino A. Soriano
Approbations 751
Leigh Herrick
in the pantry of illusion
contro.l
[an]t[arc[h]t[ic] d.eat.h roll
glacie[red]-fac]e[t]ed] surface
perimeter being
today's feature : monkey-less comparative
in disproportional countenance monetaried to daylight's extreme
dawned
for the totalitarian question marked in a phrase like
this down dimmed dumb made numbly sublime word: false :
which explains
counterfeit transcendence
forged upon green blades
a blown trajectory of
mathematician's poet's scientist's musician's
hallelujah!-howl!
the bomb of it made into neighbors
the bomb of it handed to foreignism
the mouth of it made into al[l]ie[d]
[n]ation[s]
its fricative glottal thrust moving beyond friction fusion fission
a final frontier
turned past
moon watering birth of star
the uni-move
the wave of it forgotten
like
your electric heart
indistinguishably
stopped
.
Leigh Herrick
logy with torpidity
(Hinging to heller levinson)
centurial effects breeding cerebellum excision timed
to hemispheric derision non-
grata-fication in homosapienic font bipedalic scent auroric shimmering ionic
at mos[t] spheric bent
o green!
o orphic non-acrimonious wave! streaming lachrymosity proved posit
-ion
pivotAL
breaking
dawned corrosion
a sky-lined pigmentation horizontally canvassing orb perfunctorily
fused
AND
as opposed is to attain
is as chain is to monotony of Capital Haze
this reply:
Whatever will remain?
Split
When there is no one left
to read my poems to
I will read them to the walls
I will read them to time's ineffable expeditiousness
that calls to the rabbits who come and go each year
from beneath the shed
I will read them to the horrendous breath of daring
filling my lungs with the languid courageousness of air
propelled by the innoucuos action: in out, in out
From the other side of the alveoli I will direct the cells:
Be poems like spores
And in the final hours
In the hours of presumption
against which I have always leaned
toward morning
I will spit into the sky
if for no other reason
than to paint its night with another meaning
with reality,…
television
psycho-electric glare
numb-bubbling screen fade gray to fizz
dots of nothing
dots of the mined
I
pupiled
eye the
ill
legitimately
prime
-timed
to changelingly brain-chaining aim of the changed eye the
watching scanning watching scanning scanning watching feeling nothing
I
in \ am
stereotactically operationally buzz-organized a feeling curvature :
bloodshed making meteoric metaphor and these days
of the word Just
and this is Just
that as Just
as merely
is realistically really
theatre
simply echoing
the world
maybe
maybe we won't
maybe the stooled words of incrementality forging comfort will provide
maybe the haunting voices of unnoticed children missing in polite poems
will remain unobserved and maybe
like the mountain whose name had always been beyond vitriol
maybe the indignant mountain
called Untamable Uprising
will grasp at the Sky
maybe it will
just as maybe
that romantic futurism of the triple-rainbowed event will prove
itself
One Way
or Another
and maybe grass will bow to it
unhidden from secrecy's green desire
maybe clouds will lift their skirts egging the mountain on
and there will be only
a calamity of joy
or maybe
there will be Nothing At All
maybe the fused streaks of ancient graphics loping toward this day's
fabrication of Act as Eradication not asking
Where are the bones of the Mother
will blend into Word Art frozen to monitors
waiting
in the depths
of the Stilled
But
if we do
and let's Pretend
then we can say
there will be No one Else to have to
:August
Today tonight a star the planet cut worm rebirth a generation black
soil hope the pit & sound the goat-skinned head the smoke-of-lamb
green-tomatoed days and one fly biting at big ankles
biting still against the grayly swayed clouds of bent
thought the flickering chill of sun the unloved
are given to burrowing for would-be
progeny as the single rabbit now
so young hides within
the little there
is left
to
say
Jayne Lyn Stahl
step out
step out of
your cloud and
dance
rain will come but
it won’t hear us
leaves will fall
yet the tree
remains
mountains
rise above
magnetic
green fields
still we step past
the deafening
light onto
the edge of
daybreak
a couple of
old souls
none the worse
for wear.
The Balcony
The balcony is
filled with
fruit and
dead men’s bones.
The balcony is
filled with
the cries of
young warriors
come home
and the slow,
sudden
dance of a child
where frost
forms on
the windows
We are robbed of
each other
like a couple of
old sailors waving
goodbye for
the last time.
In the market
In the market
you are walking around with
ghosts in
your pocket
convinced they
can talk
still they defy you.
In the market
you are reading
a spider web
your address book is
filled with dead
people who
learned how
to talk like glass.
how is it
you remember
the day you were
born.
BETWEEN SHEETS OF RAIN
There is nothing like
getting naked between
sheets of
rain
the tickle of
thunder on
the back of
your neck.
There is nothing like
the whisper of
night on
top of
a lake
a quiet storm
the kind that
melts even
daybreak.
A Symphony
a symphony
is a
place where
time
stands still
and
waits for
music.
Chris G. Vaillancourt
Sandman Calling Lepers
Sandman calling lepers in the middle of the afternoon.
He wants them to leap and dance
in thorough mobile phone fashion.
Drop the act.
Drop the act.
Be the member of the hive
you're supposed to be.
And
let the smell of marihuana drift
like
gravel
through the incense soaked necklace.
Be the yes.
Be the yes.
Be the midnight sun
blinking on and off
like an underwater
city being bombed by the propaganda.
There are always flies in the house.
Always ants underfoot.
Always skin toned dyed hair
littering the black pants
left at the back of a chair.
We can break the mould of desperation.
First though,
we must break the
mould of an "ism" type of living.
The Zero I Need To Be
I've emptied myself of all
the surrealistic garbage
imposed on me by the boggled
society we've let grow
like a stone around us.
With images of brushing hair
and
applying
oils into my hair, I've become
the antithesis of
corporate bullsh*it.
I won't wear your name on my chest.
Company logos do not define me.
I won't eat your advertised food.
Instead
I eat the filth of truth.
The groveling of reality
as it flickers into thought.
Just let me be the
zero I need to be.
Sky Stained with Tones of Red
Sky stained with tones of red
dripping faucets correct the marching soldiers
as they blossom towards their murder
Screaming cries of patriotic nonsense
in souvenirs of flags and medals
that they'll be presented with
either on chests or graves
Breath tinted with lust
war drums pounding in the celestial
sanctuary of the broken hearted puzzle
which demands to be reconciled
with its own sense of disaster
green dressed robots parading
in their endless lines of death
Heart caressed by hate
speeches offered by suit and tied gremlins
that stay at home under their beds
while the young men travel far
bringing their disease like a plague
moronic images of courage driven
into their underdeveloped minds
someone has declared a police action
once again someone will die
Roberta Burnett
Blue Flash at Creekside
two-second plunderer
kingfisher for hearts:
your azure plunge,
unerring, brings up
membrane memory
translucent, savory,
at two-foot, confident
depths,
at hundreds, still in thrust.
burials open
from your plummetings––
the dangerous moments
of no veils.
underwater, three feet:
under ledges, slitting through reeds,
only safety, lulling.
go as I please.
from the backstroke, in water’s sound
all the dark birds’
skittering eurhythmics
sans sound
under the X-ray sky
in the unsunset
of this night’s overcast.
felt melodies, endlessly,
in this I live.
In Breughel’s Icarus . . .
“. . . the splash, the forsaken cry.”
––W. H. Auden
Sure, we phone on the wrong day, look
in a direction where,
it’s true,
nothing much happens,
mis-hear or misspeak
the line that could seal
love in.
The perfect day for walking
in gardens is
when we must squander
time on paying bills,
write resumes for jobs. The day
we really should marry gets
put by; instead
that’s when someone’s child, maybe
you, signs into the military, a tour,
say, for Afghanistan, 2010. Mostly
we run on
intuition when logic or facts
need plugging in (or when a solid circumstance
needs a feel for things), and so we choose
a passing play or a vault
skyward––something daring––while we trust
the pole and hope the soaring heel
won’t nick the bar or, for heaven’s sake,
that the tip of the tulip bulb,
planted point down
when the land line rings ––I
run in to answer, thinking too
of rain––will, like the core of hope,
right itself
on its inevitable course to the sun.
Felino A. Soriano
Approbations 734
—after Marco Benevento’s Greenpoint
Fulcrum ideology
spa ced momentum )honored(
by which a supplied symptom
recreates antiquated versions of
now
in the ideal form
marked
mirrored
mentioned
on basis-mathematics
tremble-pointing fingers
realigning realizations
with
refreshed renewed
passions of an outlook’s
ornamental
existence.
Approbations 735
—after Vijay Iyer’s Threnody
Paused life, a
death among living reactions, of tears
crawling descending
contoured windows
opened
sections broken among delineated passions.
The life, gone.
Broken within hallowed constructs
programmatic illusions
broken within halved constellations
through foggy fleece of dusk’s warming addendum:
distance draws face of the recent articulation
eyes’
closed continuance: memory, thus:
orchestrated findings of a life’s habitual
nearness.
Approbations 736
—after Jaga Jazzist’s For All You Happy People
The skeptic is watching
observant dissection
teem on skin logical antagonist.
Few stumble
caricature
dimension
of a self’s verdant anticipated newness. Emotional fathoms
proclaims unexpected virtue, expose contaminated views
exploring
dimensional algorithms
depicting fundamental paradigms
illustrating bipolar renditions of a
feeling’s exploratory function.
Approbations 746
—after Ketil Bjørnstad’s & David Darling’s The River V
Splayed
barren
dust-cliché
canopied delirium
present passive
asymmetry
presumed
fabricated
violence, ensued
spirals of
interrupted physiological dilemma. Opened
mouth rarity of softened dew
near your emaciated jawline
reeds
portend entrancing dialect of danceable appraisal:
soon and here
your waist shall
refill: approaching
apparitional reforms a
storm-momentary birthing
panged abbreviation birth deluge
orchestra of need.
Approbations 747
—after Vassilis Tsabropoulos’ Reading from a sacred book
eye lit
pageantry oracle, ailments uncover dissipated
method
carving
flesh-white deliberated moments bouquet unraveling
verbatim
silences
deem
persuasive locking
unholding
intentional meaning
entrancing the body’s paralleling virtue
untying
emblems from stagnant consideration
renewing accolades but of abstract findings amid maze’s underlining features.
Approbations 748
—after Tord Gustavsen Ensemble’s Left Over Lullaby No. 1 - O Stand, Stand At The Window
Child unspoken
amid restful posture, lean
interpretation hankering
specific his mother’s over watching
riddles. Of
meaning
seen by esoteric corneas
kaleidoscope of mirrors
echo-syllables tracing origami silhouettes
looking inward emotional premise
revisiting this night’s version
of causational intensified sopor.
Approbations 749
—after Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Fingers In The Wind
rotate
fold
compress
reconfigure
collate
various rhythms’ anecdotal
existence
maturated emblems of the constructed method
held
and supine
revealing comfortable aspects of reinvented forms
hearsay
combined revelation textures
unfolding aspects of vocal manipulation
Approbations 750
—after Pharoah Sanders’ Naima
Arpeggio
broken halved a bouquet fractioned alive
though
incessant
stylized your
name a purpose a pronounced expanse of sound tumbling
and
among the spoken autumn appearing behind haze of curtained rain
the hand of your method
rotates modes of excessive interpretation
gilding and prominent, experimental reaction.
Felino A. Soriano
Approbations 751
—after Toru Takemitsu's I - The Night
You – The Morning
combine
we – The Noon
approximation
winged verbs
anticipating angled
holding
lean
a
distance absolute then us
working context mimesis wildlife
harboring
unremitting density togetherness, origami.
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2010 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
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