To the eternally misapplied present I wear several garments in texture
to fortify the means by which I keep out the day, or keep in
this shirt stitched by someone else. And re-stitched later with brown thread
in the 1960s. The time inside your imprisonment has informed the day of your sleeping past
where these streets, and here, the clothes, bagged lie table-top on that happenstance
(2)
Before feeling the wind, before thinking about the wind,
the summer darknesses feud, the branches of sense swirl in darker cups,
and we drink from but not the same stream of life-- to feed through yeast and hops, golden water
to pass through the inner rain, anxious in my room in its plastic cups, a disuse
among people; some thing is always left undone among born imperfections and backyard spigots.
They part their ways through grasses and rely unbittered in the wind before itself
that even if you spell it out there is no guarantee it looks like the thing you're thinking of.
The Amateur Librarian
The masks of intelligentsia stride over the face of pure logic,
and it could be said that the Venn diagram or word of mouth could claim as much
as this room and its roomate-turned-anarchists. So much talking a cabinet of thought-
potions and unthorough ambitions that have made the sidewalk a patchwork
of ideas stolen, and stretched long, the air imploring it's time for new clothes as they crack
and end at the library or around the houses with unused attics or at the stone eagle at the PO.
That I may be intelligible is the eventide of pure emotion, a clothwork binding
the old bound thought even further toward a classicist's first one,
the anvil pressing into a conversation of the sun as it moves through the stacks
unevenly. The conversation I imagine with myself is the mask repelled
like a frontispiece in onionskin, the germ of intellect caught between
but more often found in the penciled margins and the old forethinkers old-fashionable
thought. How ironic is it that I found the following in Andre Gide's The Immoralist?:
I am intelligent. Others are more intelligent. I know it. They know it. Even the ones who aren't know it. I must accept it. I cannot change it. But I must work to the limit of my capacity. But what is its limit. I shall go mad.
Sun-willed and starved for loneliness, the spines are holding thought nobly
and unfairly against the burdens of thought cut-bound to the matter at hand.
Fastidious, the contemplations glide into a detail-less mass like the
roomates-turned-anarchists whose history swerves by on a rusty bicycle and waits
in line at the PO under the mural of the real risk-takers, hoe in one hand,
guitar in the other, the farmers at the tip of our mind like a thinness:
from their hands they grafted anew. I can ask myself in the context
is this the windowsill? And even as the people embark on their final
adventure called work, the librarians and their assistants venture to call
themselves "we" as they brush eraser scraps from the margins with a swift hand.
Brian Mornar currently lives in Oakland, California and is finishing his MFA thesis at St. Mary's College.
His work has been published in Loop and Poetry Salzburg Review.
Brian says:
"i'm looking into PhD programs in literature now. i was born in chicago. i look forward to moving back to the midwest, but with a stop in finland, to teach english, first."
Nick Roberts
Sitting Inside
Who said I can't lay in bed all day with you, beside you, inside you, next to you, tracing the small hairs of your skin with my tongue, the small hairs that exist everywhere, a felt map who said I can't lay beside you, on top of you, you on top of me, the clock on the ground hiding his head like an ostrich, embarrassed of what we do, who said I can't spend all afternoon looking into the knots of your hair, imagining cave woman, something conquered, you knocked out on my sheets without violence, a smile perched on top of your mouth, calling me was she the voice calling me home, do I even have a home, isn't everything borrowed and named and claimed by all, nothing independent of each other, just others getting turned on at different times then sharing the story of their enlightenment, is it not true who are you, that reads me, that stirs me, that makes me write this, that makes me read these words, think these words, bleed and create these words, while sleeping, to wake up from sleep to write this to you, why are your stories mine, can you feel the connection here, why must I write for you too, bleed for you too, why are your stories and knowledge secret, give them to me, give them freely unto the world, it takes the weight off, I promise, it takes the weight off, turns the scar into a beauty mark, the knotted fist into a handshake, or dap, call it what you will, but an introduction, a new beginning to an old lifetime, yours sometimes I sit still inside and watch and the language and excuses and imagined knowhow flow by me like rivers sometimes I hear your voice so clear throughout the microphone of memory that I take it, mold it, shape it into flat rocks, rocks shaped by time and the conviction, the patience of my hands, I take that rock and skip it across the river, watching it puddle jump and sink to the bottom, the home, the bottom of my soul where I can pull you out at will remember you at will, sometimes I sit inside crying and have no reason for it, can place no memory or wound or example or mind picture, no sounds, I just find myself crying with the weight of things, just the weight of things, not my things, not my carry-on luggage, just things, everything why name all.. Can't you see language is a disguise, a mask that dresses our stupidity, can't you see I don't believe in what you have taught, can't you see that I agree it is necessary only because we have let it, it is a hindrance to us, a hole to us, a vacuum of lite where the true and natural existence and pure form of something can no longer be known because WE GAVE IT A NAME, you think the cats purrrrrr says nothing, invites nothing, it stirs your heart, the cats meow the difference in it, not the wound, not just the sound, the mouth, but the look in eyes, the way her body hunches, slacks up or tightens, the response that occurs in her limbs due to her emotion, her nature, haven't we forgot that, not just the ability to read, to read books, to read this book, but reading people, reading nature, then moving on beyond reading and simply knowing, knowing moving moving I try to sleep, to stay away from you, type writer, masses, the few that actually read me, but the words still come, I face the whiteness of the screen and fill it with scratches of black, making the contrast of my own voice, of my own soul, ricocheting to pieces and making , making, something questionable? I sit under constellations then look at streetlights, why are the streetlights closer, what does it mean when we throw a quarter into a fountain in an indoor mall to make our wishes, not even ours, our children's "come on baby, make a wish" throw your little quarter in the chlorine pool, how can we not be missing something? Do you believe that in mind all is known, all Is already known, all past exists within the jacobs ladder of our dna, of our soul, that we can climb up and pluck answers from the clouds, that we can reach up to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and bite again, become open again, hide again, search for leaves to cover our erections and wombs why hide from creation. If you do hide then what are you creating, what have you become, what have you allowed yourself to I sit on both sides of the hemisphere, moving from both sides of the brain and I write love stories, war stories, war letters that speak love and kinsmanship and war and rules and a way of life not advised, just spoken about, should I advise, should I speak harder, push harder, do you hear any music here do you hear any melody, can you feel my body rock with this, my spine shaking like porch deco the wind uses to call home, to call me home, to announce the gates of heaven creak to announce you, not because they are unkept; that they need grease, they creak to announce you, to show you old, archaic, dust doesn't mean bad, or not worthwhile, dust means survivor, means breathed long enough to understand worth, to become worth, to be able to teach worth to others ---
Nick Roberts claims that he is the "son of samson, hair cut off at birth, searching identity in a stale map that is my life."
Nick's work has previously appeared in the e-zines Deep Cleveland and the Muse Apprentice Guild
Janan Platt
Dear Direy
We stayed up until late is early, listening to Led Zeppelin and though it was worth every second now I'm with coffee while the four kids get ready for school. Watching the news with two remotes in my lap and I just caught myself wondering where my cup was. It is in my hand next to the two remotes, an optical illusion. The MSNBC ticker rolls on the bottom of the screen. I keep missing parts of sentences. Now I'm trying to stand up but feeling nauseous. Only wanted to have some fun.
he asked me why
he asked me why i didn't eat the end at the beginning of the loaf of bread, leaving it in the plastic bag. i said, because i was waiting until the loaf was gone leaving the other end that matched and then i would make my peanut butter and molasses sandwich with both ends, a perfect finish to the loaf of sour dough. two big flat pieces with large air holes in the dough that toasts just right, a compliment to the filing. welcome to the end.
After Walking on the Bluff
Today in Redding the sun set in streaks, and yesterday, the moon shone through the cool smog because, the weatherman said, of the burning and bus exhaust blown up the valley. Rice fields, and almond or olive orchards, cows, wild geese. Cigarette fires
streaking up the hillsides, masquerading as pine turpins. Weathermen and woe men on free ways and high ways seeing across the lone properties, tule fog and pesticides, old and young belching, and stinky bars, and cigars everywhere down we look.
opening the door a swirl of yellow oak leaves entering with me
Janan Platt is a plant-lover.
Janan says: "I live in Northern California near Mt. Shasta. When wandering in a book store, I lean toward Philip Levine, traditional haiku, and gardening books. My literary Web site www.alienflower.org publishes eclectic music, poems, visual art, essays, and multimedia art."
Candy Gourlay
Irony In Gold
I used to wear a plaited chain
engraved with the word Faith.
People thought it was my name.
Lipstick Moon, or, Lessons from Pine
'Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.' -Rumi
This etching into grains of rice grows weary though time stands to attention.
I must believe that all will be forgiven by litmus paper's lipstick moon.
I think of trees, how they speak without voice.
Words, a blur of feather pillow's bursting at the seams.
How their needles reach for autumn's copper soul, like eyes following a tennis ball.
And I want simple. To be this way-- where I am perfect in such imperfection,
embraced in fond regard for simply being born an evergreen.
Candy M. Gourlay was born on a windy day in the autumn of 1973 in South Africa where she still works, writes and lives with her husband and three children. Her work has appeared in print and online in publications world-wide, including Beatnik Journal; Extraverse; Platinum Poetry; Poems Niederngasse; Reflections Journal; Slow Trains; Tapestry; Thought Fragments; Wide Thinker; and more.
She has also recently been published in the NAWW Writer's Guide (National Association of Woman Writers US), and is a finalist in the Poetry Institute of Africa Annual Awards.
Her debut work of creative non-fiction, Story of a Girl, is scheduled for publication late this year.
swallowing the next-minute pill convenient &beeeautiful
"you make me take more medication than usual."
vacancy in her eyes out pounds of know emptiness buddha banana calling peel nothings "lick my grotto." cilantro onion me eat meat breath yes conversation sf bored angelic ashtray, beauty &the junkie
"drink your coffee."
nag champa foggy apartment goofing on the visitors-pass corridor in a white gown &slurping budweiser slurp
hello, yes I am your nomuseose what are you hacking?
duh ellipsisilence eclipse the the of yore line
"i want to be adored."
ok, I'll walk thru you
reader
lameguage manipulate supper plate with molestation
demanding eloquent physics
from each other each .
purposeful accident exorcise the epileptic
one thousand paper cranes in a yellow sky
the monk covers his head from the sun
stark raving steel "real axe."
if i was to do it i wouldn't talk about it
the uncomfortable silence precedes the collapse
a fading dream the blood of sweet sleep
pillow &shroud
a thumb above the horizon
emptying last night from bluejean-a.m. pockets. crashing onto desk at attention. how i thought of killing you as you lay in bed, inside a red sleeping bag. how is not a question, but the means of rationalizing action. eyeballs barely protected by eyelids. the body grows dank in organic clothes. shower attire is retired, and the brain is inside the body, trapped, hiding, brooding, alien-escape thoughts, slowly solidifying on their own schedule. an audience, even when the seats are empty. off, way off broadway, and splashing into the bowery -- just like granny said -- or selling upstate apples on lexington avenue to penny newspaper boys. there's always a bridge somewhere. in the air, suspended chords of golden-gateway tunes. the camera waits, never sleeping, shutter closed, but peephole permanent, peeping, for fun mostly, unless payment is past due for sadness. back to the cornice, and fire escape perpendicular purpose: securing the filigree beanstalk to avenue heroes and giants of nobody really knows anybody, because, the brain is still inside the body. fog clouds by. mercedes benz elegance. imagination. a naked cup. it was left as a reminder of you. each time i was around it, i kept you alive by not knocking it over, or washing it. that would have erased the you that was here then, and now was still, until, the heavy, city-apartment air sucked you into the space i walk through: four walls of what¹s inside nothing. your lips are chapped, worn, patches of abuse. a cracked crystal. taking out the waterford from a hidden invisible shelf. sharing the sickness. a marble rolls to and fro down a wooden childhood ramp, falling into a hole, and down another ramp, switching back, against skull corners. chickens inside, laying eggs underneath your scrambled hair -- a corpse -- the eggs eventually get cold. the supper fork reappears, in another pantry drawer, in another house, in another sentence. turkey dog lips, barking at eyeballs. they talked about him for barroom years. he never existed. between the innings of minor league television conversation. i drink about you. the dirtiest ball would be stuffed in your palm, under center field leather fingers. a belt that was never worn, but wouldn't get lost, was wrapped around you whole, tight, stuck in sculpture. finally placed under mattress. hall of fame memories later, i remember you without language.
pier 32 am a
sitting on bluejean ass in yuppie/white trash parking lot , rock concert
putting suntan lotion on 70s vinyl
a cough is a cuss word coming out backwards
mechanistic fog barging the next crusade, thumbscrew
a witch on the bay bridge
and a styrofoam cup making a naturally unnatural sound
scraping against blacktop
fate
sugar is organic because you can't leave the carbon and hydrogen alone in the same room, they¹ll bond like eyes to the page.
] pass me a mineral, goddamnit! [
uniformitarianism + catastrophism = deconstruction of pangaea
these slow but sure processes and their chaotic conclusion spewed continents, countries, races and racism; species were separated, as one continent surrounded by a super ocean lost its united and strong one-love province; for what?! for greek and latin prefixes; there has always been a pluto, just meta your meaning and morphos and relax in the great thermo soup we're all in, before the next igne of vehement vulcan.
] you're just pyroclasting words [ i don't have a dime to look for something granitic shiny.
when all this is over global farting the oceans will rise 200 feet and you¹ll have to hitch your wooden boat up to the 18th floor of the transamerica building.
] well, @ least the fishing will be good [ for sea life or humans?
praying for pahoehoe; mankind needs a good period to clean things up.
halemaumau.
going home
punch out work step off MUNI yeah, talking the motherfucker down, man wanna blast, meet your face and sing
gotta walk backward tonight on the drag toward the shitty City center since 6th street cleanup, things have police beat
no longer rolling at powell street turnaround
still on the ave wanna make home and blanket her
plastic sandwich bag outta sidewalk's crack
wat da fuck ya doing? give me da shit!
stop pinchin' and sell me fat
"this is your mother, why haven't you called me?"
A Reading by a Drunk Priest
the desert father bummed a purple camel in the neon exodus bombs and candy bars: mountains explode middle east mystics
the student knew not to bring up politics to the monk "flowers and keys," she said, leaving a lesbian shadow and marrying a man
filet-of-salmon hands: cold wet pink stink lizard-eyed los angeles towing alaskan icebergs
where shall we build our city? follow the aqueducts of rome to empire
[insert some latin]
market street is one hundred and fifty feet wide embarcadero built on sunken ships landfill and metal history
each story has water in it and prefers a different element while "being peace," the angels walk over red coal fire pit
maine has a feeling to it: something about the northern lights she asked me to bury the fish in the family garden
the mosquitoes gave us hell while running to the quarry swimming naked to the other side she made it clear where she was sleeping
[back to the lectern at st. thomas more on eighty-ninth street, the street father hates to walk down, grandpa is reading liturgy, and grandma is telling me to sit up in the pew, and it is said that my uncle was an alter boy who did Mass with plastic vampire teeth.]
apelles painted alexander's mistress, and fell in love with her alexander kept the painting, and gave apelles his mistress
love and desire nourish their images images live alone by love and desire
time for a punctum: what pricks you bleeder reader?
here is the studium: photograph of a boy with a gun and bad teeth
for every portrait she changes her makeup and costume the banal beholder froths at her art and buys a postcard to keep
like marrying a bride named sue
pass me another beer!
[ad infinitum]
CRACK
every 5 minutes i write a suicide note
every 10 minutes i write a love song
white wine sizzles inside the pyrex pipe
and a market street vibrator w/ 2 AA batteries
sings electric
Jonathan Hayes (jsh619@earthlink.net) is the author of Echoes from the Sarcophagus (3300 Press, 1997) and St. Paul Hotel (Ex Nihilo Press, 2000). Recently published by Remark, The Silt Reader and Zaum; he edits the literary / art magazine Over the Transom.
