two new words

gewgaw & flarf. Both borrowed from Ron Silliman's blog. Look 'em up--they're good 'uns

I got a kick out of this

...and so, re-posted from C Dale Young's blog:


A POEM BY DEAN YOUNG


Don't think for one fucking instant
that I don't have a broken heart.
The man in briefs in an infinite sea
believes there is no subconscious
nor is he aware tempora exists.
Don't think I have not eaten
in the most beautiful Chinese restaurant
in the world. Don't think I have not written
on the walls of my bathtub.
Don't think I have not poisoned a snail.
Don't think I haven't ignited
the sulfur of the fortune teller.
Of course I have written a poem by Dean Young!
More than once I have written a poem by Dean Young.
More than once I have left them by your gate.
More than once I have stuffed the eucalyptus leaves
in your mouth. More than once I have lived,
more than once I have died because of it.
I love you. This remarkable statement
has appeared on earth to substantiate the clams.
Perhaps now we can reach an agreement in the Himalayas,
returning shortly thereafter as gods, the kind kind
largely ignored by larger and more sensitive organisms.
Don't think I wasn't shocked when
you were a traffic signal
and I a woodpecker.


--Mary Ruefle

(a poem titled "A Poem by Mary Ruefle" appears among Ruefle's work but was written by Dean Young)

Talking science with your pets

Explaining Relativity to the Cat

Imagine, if you will, three mice.
Contrary to what you have
heard, they are not blind
but are in a spaceship
traveling near the speed of light.
This makes them unavailable
for your supper, yes.

So these mice, traveling near
the speed of light, appear
quite fat, though there is
no cheese aboard. This is
simply a distortion of mass,
because the mass of a mouse
is nothing more than a bundle
of light, and vice versa. I see
how this might imply mice
are in the light fixtures,
undoubtedly a problem, so let me try again.
If two people attempted
to feed you simultaneously,
no doubt a good situation,
but you were on a train
traveling near the speed
of light, the food would
appear unappetizing, falling
to the plate in slow motion,
an extended glob of protein
that never smelled good,
if you ask me, train or no.
The affinity of the food
for the plate, what we call
gravity, is really just
a stretch in the fabric
of a space-time continuum,
what happens when you
have sat in a seat too long,
perhaps on this very train.

Oh kitty, I know how you hate
to travel and the journey must
have made you tired. Come now,
lick your coat one more time
and let us make haste
from this strange city
of light and fantastic dream.

--Jennifer Gresham from
Diary of a Cell. ©Steel Toe Books.

(the class presentation we did on this was the best. presentation. ever.)

Two Ploughshares Poems

http://www.pshares.org/pastIssues.cfm


Canister and Turkey Vulture
by Nicole Walker

You don’t bug the cops
but you fly like a feather-minded bullet,
fasten the updraft, pivot the jet.
You are the in between
the so far as
the as to.
You note every missing shingle
every drop of vapor
everything that stands between the oh so obvious
and the almost can’t imagine.

Peck the eyes out of the sun.
Cannot see you.
Throw away air,
pound the dust with your demanding wings,
promise that water and seed and enough claw and straw
will mark your rolling
will scrape the sky
keep it from falling.

Promises Promises
Who knew the sky so heavy?
Who knew speed
could catch light’s comeuppance?
Who knew together they would sag,
ruffle, catch, and molt?

Hippocampus
by Larissa Szporluk

A bell is gonged,
the body of a girl
curled up inside it,

a town grown wild,
dogs sniffing skyward—
gong, gong.

They listen all night
for the girl to fall,
her stomach to growl,

or is it a foot
in a mindless gallop,
snorts of delight

as the gods take up
the virgin-offer,
or is it a weird

and beautiful gargle,
the lovemaking sound
of a deep-sea diver?