…courtesy of Natasha Marin

pics from two southwests reading, 23 February 2008

thanks, Natasha!

If life is a frozen pond etched by skates
of Flemish youths built like oxen,
scarved and ruddy in fields of snow,
sniffing winter the way a hound
scents a rabbit darting into the woods,

then death is a colony of faceless souls,
a forest of scarred skin, lost fingers, claws
and stumps, its leaves a canopy of bindings
that tape a hand together, or patch a foot
for walking crutchless.

And heaven is a jungle teeming with orchids,
filling a hole where a nose once was, with stems
of clean bone and petals of immaculate flesh,
where strong hands, once mittened and stinging,
lace leather work boots and wield a hammer
to build white houses and a church on the green.

And hell is an island where lava of ash and fire
cannot scour pocked cheeks, cannot swallow
lesions inch by senseless inch or, where nostrils
merge, cannot mend the dark void of breath.

So sighs a Belgian priest in the hills of Kalaupapa
who peels off his socks, and, in an evening ritual,
soaks his feet in a scalding tub, only to discover
he cannot feel his toes.

from Chasing the Saints, by Donna Pucciani

must transpose
the heart’s algebra
into sounds –
“pomegranate” –
where “I to you”
blurs love and death
this incest between
musics of language
and the codes of myth

from Harmony in Babel, by Paul Friedrich

East is full two days
before moon, draws
winter silver circles
in autumn sky breath
by breath while moon
reflects a day blazing
on the other side.

from The Imperfection of the Eye, by Steven Schroeder

它曾经从浑圆的蛋壳中引我出来
它曾是恼人的风和雨，也是翅膀
它吹然了火堆，可又浇湿了灰烬
它让月光耗尽了皎洁的气息
让潮水在礁石上咆哮，滚下来
它挖掘海底，堆积白沙

我的巴赫，它的勃兰登堡的空虚
我的肖斯塔科维奇，它的俄罗斯的眼泪
树叶还在枝上，低垂着村姑的耳坠
蚂蚁还在扛着它们的蛋，向前，向前
我需要长出声音的核，长出嘴巴
它却安静地放在陌生的房间里
琴像是虚构的，微弱的光亮也来自虚构
弓和弦，陌生得像峰峦与云雾

it once led me out from muddy round egg shells
it used to be annoying wind and rain, and wings
it kindled fire, but soaked the embers
it let the moonlight exhaust its pure breath
let the tidewater roar over rocks, roll down
it dug up the sea floor, piled white sand

my Bach, its Brandenburg’s void
my Shostakovitch, its Russian tears
tree leaves still on the branches, farm girls’ hanging ear rings
ants still carry their eggs, onward, onward
i need to grow a kernel of sound, grow a mouth
it is quiet, placed in a strange room
the viola seems imaginary, the dim light from imagination too
bow and string, strange mountains in clouds of mist

from Chinese Windmill, by Li Sen

画须添龙

Draw Whiskers, Add Dragon

A new production from Fat Bird Theatre in Shenzhen

Old Moon (HE Lemiao) and Guan Yin (Yang Qian) live only as long as devotees offer incense. However, modern Chinese people no longer believe in them. Consequently, Old Moon and Guan Yin decide to resurrect some traditional Chinese people and mate them with the Moderns. These new people will both follow tradition and be able to live in the new world. What follows is a comedic series of attempts to bring tradition and modernity together.

http://blip.tv/file/308984

Charlie Newman and My Secret Service perform “Dust,” from Dead Machine City, published by Fractal Edge Press.

 

 Standard Podcast [3:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A bird sings six note song
at sunrise; leaves gather
in dry clusters, whisper
when morning breeze rises.
An old woman swept there
by the same wind raises
a bowl when wealth passes
no less wanting than she.
Blind lead blind, need begs need,
absence gathers in dry
clusters, whispers a song
composed of six notes, not
whether wanting but what,
and silence on silence.

from Fallen Prose, by Steven Schroeder

In my dream the crabs from my still life
come alive inside the refrigerator;
iridescent again, they tap their little claws
on violet shadows, color beyond control.
I have licked myself clean as a
steel spoon, have scraped myself
bare. Please burn down my house
while I am out, you who have
fitted it around me like a niche,
extracted me pure over flame
like rendering bacon for good food.
This melange I created and fed
separates. Hollow, I slip on the floors
shiny with quick leave-taking,
with the odors of long simmering still warm,
fitting together like broken vertebrae.

from Fugitive Connections, by Inara Cedrins

I wrote out all my dream poems last year,
one hundred and sixteen I’d been collecting
like acorns, jotted down on scraps of paper
and tucked away in a little wooden chest
while I scampered up and down the ash tree
of my disintegrating world sowing
discord and forgetfulness of what memory
was trying to tell about building–not
bridges of hickory–but subatomic
shapes of the mind that waver in filtered light
like the roots of water lilies–stark
to the grasping, drowning man. His panic
got him entangled down where a single
leaf–from beneath–was the final vision.

from From Root to Flower, by Paul Friedrich