There are four legends concerning Prometheus. According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was permanently renewed. According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, [...]
Tagged Kafka, parable, thought shardsBURIEDFED This is my last song about myself, about my friends Found something else to sing Try and patch it up with tape and twine Maybe I’ll just break everything that’s mine They wheeled out my casket, They said, “Boy, lay down your head” I said, “Aw shit, man, I ain’t even dead” I won’t [...]
BEFORE THE GAME Shut one eye then the other Peek into every corner of yourself See that there are no nails no thieves See that there are cuckoo’s eggs Shut then the other eye Squat and jump Jump jump high high On top of yourself Fall then with all your weight Fall for days on [...]
Tagged poetry, prose poetry, Vasko PopaSoft stockings coddle them by day and nail-bossed leather shoes buttress them, but my toes refuse to pay attention. Nothing interests them but emitting toenails, horny plates, semi-transparent and elastic, to defend themselves–from whom? Stupid and mistrustful as they alone can be, they never for a moment stop readying that tenuous armament. They reject the [...]
Tagged featured writers, prose poetryWhen I’m done, love, when the impalpable me has made his sullen exit, scrape clean the meat from my bones. String it in ribbons in the back yard trees. Wait for morning rain and hear the glorified pigeons attempt to sing. Summon then the odiferous ones, the shunned ones, the old utilarians who speak to [...]
Left hanging will be a saying in the destined nation a millennia or two after my feet and palms are ripped from this rare piece of pre-owned tree. I thirst for better revelations than bumper stickers promising to free machines from their manifest sins. Sorry friends. No rapture will come to your four-horsemen town. I [...]
Tagged joesmith, poem“Unable as yet to walk, or even to stand up. . . he nevertheless overcomes the obstructions. . . and, fixing his attitude in a slightly leaning-forward position, in order to hold it in his gaze, brings back an instantaneous aspect of the image.” – Jacques Lacan, The Mirror Stage / My baby rolled over [...]
Tonight smells like April Awake and coming hard against March spaces— Forward insistence falling Upon those wakeful and reaching, Touching the way to intersect Before and Not Yet; Navigating unseen language Barefoot, yes! Normal people stand in slippers To drink a glass of warm milk— Eat their days in tiny slices. – Kathleen Eull
Tagged Kathleen EullEarly morning. Trash day. Haul cart to street. Boxers. Button fly. Neighbor smiles, then eyes grow wide. Noticing then, a new day’s breeze.
Tagged pith... twitsHalf-full of someone like a mother or her lover unbuttoned in dad’s traveling robe, turned around in an instant, to the strained grace of pointed cameras. A kleptomaniac of attention, eyes pinched in to lit aluminum, hoarding the latest loss of memory in a cipher nation of nervous oblivion, entertaining what remains of the children. [...]
A man with a backbone is dangerously exposed. This explains a shortage.
While rereading the superb Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, the autobiography by James Knowlson written with Beckett’s blessing, I came across this telling and amazing passage from Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Beckett’s first novel, published in 1932: He lay lapped in a beatitude of indolence that was smoother than oil [...]
Tagged Samuel BeckettAt the end of the horizon is more horizon. The palpable absence of no end. How could one not pursue this?
Tagged pith... twitsI can divine these brambles. Or these gnarled flowers at my feet. They obscure my heels as I float on yellow horizons. Tip the diagonal of my arms into the numbers of years set down like dust. I can, you see, lead you somewhere, over rock and highland green. I can conjure stone from earth [...]
Tagged poetryThe lavender aroma of her apartment lends itself to musty carpet and stale cigarette smoke to the eventual car exhaust and bad food smells as she follows me out, heavy glass swinging shut behind her to the morning orchestra of traffic. Her short stature belies her Miss America gait. She is a scarved, lithe stack [...]
Dear Big Jesus, Please don’t bleed tears tomorrow. I’m just helping St Jenny w/the girls. We’re cool. You’re a hero who didn’t get back up. Regards, Some man’s son
Tagged joesmithreallythe reverberation of the garage door opening tickles me from below, i can’t wait for you to come back up after your morning smoke. i miss your warm breath against my shoulders, your arms around me, the tip of your toes protruding from the blanket’s warmth on an anonymous wisconsin morning – is it sunny, [...]
Lucia, my distant love You predict me, as ever. Yes, the woods again were where I found myself, wolves singing their hungry sleep songs, but returned to our home, a half empty shell of what we haven’t built, but abide there on our finest days. Fuel for my fires was depleted in days and another [...]
In these godless days of the year 2009, of which a quarter has already been gnawed away by the dredging samsara of day to day, week to week workhorse life…
High Windows When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives– Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide [...]
Tagged featured writers, poetry