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Corporeal Manifestations
Differentia Press Santa Maria, CA
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Corporeal Manifestations Anthology of Experimental Artistry Copyright © Differentia Press and Respective Artists 2010 All Rights Reserved. Published by Differentia Press Book Design by Felino A. Soriano Cover Art, courtesy of Duane Locke Except for the sole purpose for use in reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, without the written permission from the publisher. Differentia Press Santa Maria, CA 93458 submissions@differentiapress.com
Differentia Press Poetic Collections of the │Experimental Spectrum│ differentiapress.com
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Table of Contents Duane Locke….12 John Swain….15 Constance Stadler….19 William Crawford….20 Melissa Dulaney….27 Caleb Puckett….28 Howie Good….29 Kevin Reid….30 Travis Macdonald….31 Lisa Cole….37 Samuel Hiram Duarte….39 Philip Byron Oakes….40 Luke Johnson….43 Russell Jaffe…..46 Francis Raven….53 Irene Koronas….59 Serena Tome|Michael Mc Aloran….63 Serena Tome….65 Serena Tome|PJ Bach….67 Serena Tome|Ser2….69 Biography Notes….75
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For all that supplied gifts of artistic endeavors, thank you.
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―An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.‖ George Santayana
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Duane Locke
IN A TINY TOWN ON OUTSKIRTS IN VIENNA
My eyes were turned Toward the dark lifelessness behind stars. She, the indecipherable, Breathed on the eider down. I listen for what cannot be heard, The words spoken by the thin cover Outlining her shape on the bed. Will I hear what was never said. Will I believe words I did not hear. She had painted her eyelids azure.
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IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS BY A VENUS WHOSE BROKEN OFF ARM HAD RETURNED PATCHED BY ASPHALT
The girls, their nude backs glowed, Glowed with a luminous silver Like the scales of a night-leaping fish, The girls, their nude backs glowed, The girls, who had turned their backs. Silver light with a soprano voice has uttered A farewell, the backs disappeared into black. A tiny white curly hair dog pulled By a leash barked, and his leash‘s barks Put permanently in front of me a see-through Curtain to separate my desires from life.
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IN GERMANY’S BLACK FOREST
I found myself in the light Of the oscillating light And darkness where the German winds Part the leaves on top of trees To let light in where There was darkness from trunk shadows. So being close to temporary light, I reached to put my arms Around this light, but Before my arms had touched the light, The light was gone.
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John Swain
Dawn
Dawn of oranges, sun upon sun, my Jesus. My body, my wine kept in silver ships floating down a river of waterfalls into crypt. Born unknown, born unfolding into sky into earth. Relieve me weeping. Your embrace liberates as my spent arms turn in upon themselves.
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Sycamores
Past the trodden fields sycamores choir to light around the deer disappearing, our circle emanates like fire. Reborn remade in flesh today, but owing you fortunes like the ghost of a bird. I am always afraid and I hated the blanket nailed red and heavy over the windows, one day I went outside. I remember we slipped on a raft of peeled bark white as the sky as your lily fingers trail water.
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Cairn
Shadows of crows stain the ground where the mirage of water summons us like a broken promise. You lay your hidden face on the cairn, you cover my burnt face with your hair, I lie tired lit as skies always waking, the crows call thrice for the sleeper. On the hill cedars hold the rising sun undressed in red like your sorceress, winds bellow like our breath over shells. The lake falls gold like ash cathedrals, we take our new faces in its aching as your cupped hands become a prism. Circles of stone convulse like flowers.
Pyramid
A calmer tomorrow I hope. Glass on the floor wine on the ceiling I woke upside down in the rain sideways. Thank you ghost, thank you my wife for prayer and shelter. We are pyramid.
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Blackbirds
Blackbird mask my little girl, your wings hurt my teeth tear. Stitches close where we drink where we wash in red wine like iodine. Burnt I am yours full as solitude consumed.
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Constance Stadler
Eurydice
My life was over. Aristaeus, my murderer, Was outflanked By serpent piquancy. Your song, my husband A lamentation, a threnody Breaching earth And fire To the depths of Hades And weeping Persephone. So against the Gods You took my hand And we rose above Eternal pyres. But, sweet, we are Such mortal coil In human frailty You looked at me Before the threshold‘s crest. My life was over, Orpheus. Grieve not, my Love At Destiny‘s Behest.
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William Crawford
Minor Keys and Places
I. daguerreotypes on the inside of a purple eyelid hanging heavy – cockeyed unattended tenement shade (they call them efficiencies these days) there‘s just enough space a tiny seam a little light you can see limpid green remember the irreversible sadness of that eye you could bugger a fat unabridged dictionary for the better part of a lonely night beneath Waits‘ grapefruit moon and solitary star and never find the right word for that sadness, that eye, a word that would preserve, rather than disfigure, the moment and its rich discovery. II. if you could salvage a well-tuned, wild blue piano from these beautiful ruins then play it with your mongoloid fingers fingers that can‘t seem to do anything right but write you can paint a scene not in black and white rather a dull human gray see her shitfaced on human kindness with all the sudden sweetness and subtle burn of good blended whiskey she‘s drinking brandy at the bright end of the bar the same eye, this time without bruise, just like the other soft and wide open, sailing – 20 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
at mach speed towards the unforgiving rocks eyes of a siren that couldn‘t stop singing her salty shattered dog tongue, fit to be tied – and that inevitable crash it always makes such a beautiful sound. III. the same wind that once cried wolf, cried Mary, now screams her name this wind once pushed by her dream her dance, her body – like frayed white heat, a trap in the mirage now it‘s just a pale surrender flag torn and pathetically flapping the stupid sound of one hand clapping soon to be muted and consumed conquered by this the sky‘s incestuous gut howls at the sun for it the wind can‘t cry anymore still it remembers her name but her face cannot be placed that tiny purple eyelid all the distended dreams beneath it like birds trapped indoors flying into closed windows (they know no window) this sensation of glass shattering in chest some things are better left unsaid try to forget. try to forget.
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In the Shadow of Arrows
the birds are quick to follow you crestfallen and songless for they know how it feels to swallow stone and this promise is too easily broken a salt-wound sky a savage omen this must end with ignominy the word sorry – the sound it makes on a tangled tongue well, isn‘t it really just a single hand clapping? an implacable brat that spits upwards at the sun that hisses at snakes already snapping in the fire -silenceand when you finally meet your own eye take time to survey the hollowed out galaxy once mistaken for a lost city of gold fasten your restraints for this collision of vision and void mirror martyrs barter breath for paper gods -numb surprisepity poor Aguirre his beautiful delusions his spurious map of El Dorado his tiny raft overrun with barking monkeys
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set to sink anchored to a dream that rushes into blind depths deaf to the tragic music the operatic chorus of goodbyes brave, sad Aguirre the blue flame which once danced quickly fading in his eyes the hopeless weight of his heart which continued to beat all bloody and tribal a mad, simple rhythm of survival even in the shadow of arrows poison dipped and dead aimed.
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Sciamachy and Shell Roars
I. imagining monastic defeat what it takes to break this hermetic seal sick of sciamachy these thalidomide shadows that crutch waltz on the ceilings fault line around still bouquets of rust flowers in and out of cobwebbed corners malformed and malnourished like those deep set wolf spider eyes staring back from fuliginous mirrors they charm the skin off of a diamondback then flash fang its exposed throat II. you know it‘s ok to long for a stained glass worthy scene a left handed portrait that wobbles in its frame that can‘t be explained in pained, relative terms or 24 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
a woman that blooms and bubble snaps inside the heat mirage her foil wings half unfolded her star and barbed wire five and dime diadem could be a luminous nimbus or a less elusive lucid dream at first sight III. she offers a song she hustled from a busker a free avalanche ride a predicate challenge to the night with its peanut gallery of howler monkeys and other shifty penumbral beings if you wanted a campfire cricket choir you came to the wrong venue this motley audience eager to turn eager to boo eager to bruise this reticent ingĂŠnue a pregnant pause a new magnetic ribbon on the trunk of an old cause then she opens up her sparrow throat unfurls her feathery tongue and the voice comes soft, susurrant, it disarms threatens to retard after just a few silver-white notes but it‘s just a stage trick 25 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
and you bit the crescendo comes a clean tsunami crash turns all bones to glass shatters all the shallow seals and brittle symbols you once held sacred IV. the hermit shell was always yours to disown was always more of a house than a home for you it‘s useless now but even at this new distance if you listen close if you relinquish fealty to the familiar and fear of the unknown you can still hear the ocean‘s waves beating like your own heart on your ear drum that roar inside the shell was always just an echo of your own.
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Melissa Dulaney
Faberge Egg
Fragile miniature piece of art Outside taking years perfecting the tiniest facet layers cut into sharp relief. Inside the barrenness, this shell has been hulled out. Science demands that reason prevail yet miracles, gods, mysteries run rampant through time and space to rule your heart Tiny marvel that's slightly cracked. It is a wonder, is it not? This Faberge egg I am covered in.
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Caleb Puckett
Cradle
The moon pitches low, pushing a final, vital wave across the fuzzy geometry of your shared blanket. The land accepts the wave running over and then through you before it shudders with strange hoofbeats. Now you must prepare for a season of difficult retreats and an even more difficult treaty, guarding the minutes to fashion a cover for a helpless hunter who has been exiled before enjoying his birthright. You must begin by brain-tanning the elk skin and shaping it into a sturdy cradle. Next, you must embellish the cradle with the finest ribbons, mirrors and beads as you have been taught by your knowing sisters since memory first breathed substance into tradition. Finally, you must collect the hunter‘s navel cord, fashion it into a lizard and drape it on his cradle for good fortune. Once the cradle is occupied, you come to recognize that the elk might die in its prime so that the lizard might live forever so that the hunter might survive his first winter so that he might grow to make sense of humankind‘s desire for baubles, be they ribbons, mirrors, beads, or bullets. As you head towards a ridge thinking of certain spirits, the hunter faces backwards thinking only of vague sustenance. Thus, together you negotiate the difficult lines between the actual and the emblematic while the plains grow thin and the sky becomes heavy with the smoke of gunfire. In due time, you will be wrapped in a fetal position within the shattered space of an ancient land bridge on a sliver of tundra well north of your fertile expanse. The hunter will become a warrior then and there, crying for a land he cannot clearly remember. A soldier with a red beard will silence him and take his cradle to a frontier town to trade for liquor. Once the cradle returns on a jet airplane from a goodwill exhibition in Russia, historians, anthropologists and geneticists might marvel at the justice of an existence come full circle. The earth will of course recognize their error and carve another yet another notch into the fossil-bearing strata you now inhabit.
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Howie Good
FAMOUS LONG AGO
HabituĂŠs of the walk-in clinic! Aficionados of the cockpit voice recorder! Nothingness isn‘t something you sleep off in a doorway. The buildings are full of forgotten vaudevillians and signs that say EXIT, and every dog demonstrates the doubtful efficacy of begging. Out where horse thieves leaned over the necks of stolen horses, the sun has gone behind a cloud. Light slows to a trickle. It can turn you gray.
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Kevin Reid
Black Mirror
I, oval, convex, curious pierced obsidian, of sorts hand and carved, am a watchful void of vistas sublime, an intimate screen of the seen and unseen. I, a fashioned glass, a smooth slab, that seizes artists, with unspeakable images on my magic surface, am an Aztec artefact, a semantic slate, where spirals swirl mysticism through an arcane portal, I, a scrying witch, with black seductions, venerated gloom, and demons in my depths am the pristine protagonist with perfect mirrored infinity who will swallow reflections of those who dare to face me.
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Travis Macdonald
from 3
1415926535 In view generally entertained by you who read this book made the earth [was] without form, and void, and darkness. In order to prevent the confusion of all the magnificent structure on the [upon the] face which you were chased about.
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8979323846 Same country could hardly have kept distinct had they been capable of crossing freely. The importance of good: and God divided the light from the most out-of-the-way proposition of this, the darkness he called night. Perhaps this feeling of proud certainty would leave you immediately if sterility of hybrids could not possibly be of any advantage.
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06286208998628034825
To have descended from common parents, the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects is, on my theory, of equal the stars… Of these ideas among themselves; it is not of the heaven to give light upon the earth, feel constrained to call the propositions of geometry ―true,‖ and of their hybrid offspring it is impossible. Objects in nature, and these last works of [and] the evening and the morning were the ideas. Geometry ought God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature, that high generality and fowl that may fly.
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64462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823 The sixth day: thus the heavens on the other hand, mark off the distance (S) time after time until we, by various circumstances that his work (which he had made; and he rested say, where perfect fertility) is the basis of all measurement of length, every description of the scene of an event or two most experienced observers who had rested from all his work, which God created and made. These are the generations of— of reference with which that event or object coincides. This applies compare only to scientific description…but also to everyday life if I analyse the place specification: the field before it was in the earth. Forms should be ranked as species or varieties, with the specification of place refers; ―Trafalgar Square, London‖ is: rain. By the same author, from experiments made during different years, it can thus be shown that in space, this primitive method of place specification deals only with varieties; but that the evidence from bodies, and is dependent on dust of the ground (and breathed into his nostrils) evidence derived from other. But we became a living soul. both of these limitations 34 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
planted a garden eastward in Eden and enabled to rear some hybrids, carefully guarding them from a ―Trafalgar Square.‖ Then we can determine its position relative to the tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; square, so that it reaches the cloud. The length of the pole, the tree, the standard measuring—
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4564586692 We make use of parent-species, or other allied toward the east of Assyria and garden the visits of designated points of reference, (C). We speak of season: hence hybrids will generally garden [of] Eden to dress it their own individual pollen; and I by means of optical observations of the cloud from different positions.
Author‘s Note: π (pi or 3.141593) is a transcendental number, which suggests, among other things, that no finite sequence of algebraic operations on integers (powers, roots, sums, etc.) can be equal to its value. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats. It divides in endless variation. The preceding text is composed solely of language borrowed directly and in strict numerical sequence from The Book of Genesis, The Origin of Species (Chapter 8 - Hybridism) and Einstein‘s Special Theory of Relativity. Each selection is comprised of individual lines whose word count corresponds directly with a relative decimal point of pi to its first thousand places. The line count of each selection (including stanza breaks or 0‘s) is always divisible by ten. When drawing from each individual source, the author has taken great care to preserve the original language while never exceeding 3 consecutive lines from any given text and, even then, only in cases where the process of natural selection demands. Each passage has been subsequently repunctuated to facilitate readability.
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Lisa Cole
Ferris Wheel
Wheel in stomach// clear metal turning turning turning turning// a windmill// The armadillo has a mind of its own. // Foot soldiers, the bloody boots// an imprint of a hand, no feet.//Holding the gospel of John//Goliath is chain smoking//running out into traffic, arms flailing. He needs a companion//television does nothing for him, not books// not museums.// Dashed off. //He has only the ravens, words, the wind, hums.
Letters
that you didn‘t love me //knocked flat//love greater than fear//no walls//tear down and conquer. Do it do it do it//Not enough love//Thinking //Quell love//quell it quell it quell it//drawing the eye//clover eyes pig eyes, frog eyes zombie eyes//Brick house dreams//digging with a shorthanded hoe//remember when we talked of wedding dresses and white cake? //my mother cradling my face//Don‘t quit soldier//Don‘t quit don‘t quit don‘t quit.//biding time//driving driving driving. And she is a white zombie//no voice box//no chords//ships need anchors//
Part III in a Series of Losses
Love the fallow// Love the weeds// the under-roots.//She‘s done the math// One thousand two hundred and twenty days// in this splintered box// eighty four bare//Listening to translucent skies and celestial psalms.// Death is not a death is not a death. Slivers of--
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What I Carry
I am telling the truth: I have crossed him out and I have walked on the Rubicon. I have sympathy for Medusa: I too loved Poseidon, but only for his mastery of water. After everything, I still remember the weighted nights, the shape of his hand.
Fade to Black
It is easier when he is dead. White like a lemon cake and cream; dry like the sidewalk in summer. But instead, I have been dreaming, mostly momentary scenes, a movie on grainy film. I‘m putting out fires with bottles of milk. Then a snake writhes out of the ashes, hissing. Then, some phrase like "La Mort" or "Requiem" appears on the screen and then everything fades to black. My dreams have an art house edge, I know, but that‘s what happens when your heart is a rusted fence.
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Samuel Hiram Duarte
Lamentations
her graceful conceptions coalesced into fabled esoteric light across a magnificent imaginative sea magnified through diminutive dews she continued ricocheting fabled embraces faltered through advancements unknown reconstructing pretenses run amok through countless wars deemed righteous over our fellow men Some prefer her that way Some prefer those bewilderments she bestows over placid expectations of how things ought to, but will never be
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Philip Byron Oakes
Left of Euclid The presumed symmetry of alibis in the confessional, wearing a hunchback to analysis by experts in the poppy field. A preclusive geometry of prosthetic angels. Contradictory synonyms smudging the lipstick of contrarians in full agreement, as to the disconnect being the binding element of the communicable by innuendo, in the hysteria the fall of paradise engenders. The gaping holes in the ostensibly continuous, from which the world‘s great flanking manuevers are launched in a fanfare of guilt, and a rigid etiquette of compliance to the physics of confetti in falling helplessly under the spell.
Guardian Angels The fruit flavored puritans of bleak street taming a timid glimmer in the graying iris of a boldly old man, paraphrasing epiphanies with oohs and aahs. The other stuff, without which the great majority live in unconceded acquiescence, to the bluing of the moon over the recalcitrance of others, to account for where the principles of snow go for the summer. How the thoroughly illuminated has darkened with the age of the lawnchair pilots, stymying those impulses to run like a gazelle at the smell of cat fur, across polite lines drawn auditioning for a reason to be. A demon. A squirrel in the family tree, barking like a dog that knows its alphabet but little else. The brooms brandished as scepters in the autumnal confusion of ever tightening circles, anchored to favorite fears precluding any campfires melting the thickness of the night away.
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The Buzz The gurgling of gadflies in the ointment translating the algebra of arrogance for the meek. The artificial life support given the contiguity of twins, staring into identical crystal balls, opening floodgates once sealed by lips blowing carmine kisses to the crowd. The continental shelf life declaring the hordes alive and well. The giraffes up to their old tree trimming tricks and the donkeys content to make asses of themselves before the high court of public opinion, dragging the likeminded to the middle ground of aging in the womb of reason from premises tested by gales on the burly North Sea, sudsing the already immaculate to the razor‘s edge of night.
Ex Officio Their long distance apology, for what they said to your shitty little god. Obscure principles of audial acquiescence disarticulated in the static, as a contingency of the mother fog. A paper aeroplane landing in your hair. The bunions were gathering recruits in the cornfields of deaf ears turned to gold. The sky no help at all and the red carpet doing all it can, to stay grounded in what it came to celebrate. A slow greening in the way of elder moments, saddled to escort the most disparate points of reference in blending a virgin cocktail of tomorrows. A cellophane preamble to echo chambers of commentary on how tall the grass has grown.
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Zilch Obliterative, with an escape clause, allowing only for life as we barely knew it, in a bubble long ago blown from smithereens. A marginal starlet flickering in the rectory. And then there‘s morning lying to the choir. An inebriant in a raincoat getting a little sun from the store. The moon mooing in a caption to the sky. A glow, hampering search efforts, in the fog it takes to get home.
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Luke Johnson
Third Eye
1. Inside the eye of god, monkeys rattle rusted bird cages, women gird themselves in clip on night gowns, shooting imbecile giants and motorized birds. Pink zebra dance in straw colored too-too, curtsying their way through sleep, while pin-up girls burst through membrane walls, spinning the landscapes of boyhood. 2. Skeletons of twelve mighty men, blubber through holy recitals; daybreak of black ghost whistle, epigrammatic spiritual muses. Mad alarmist implore absolutes, riddling through scriptural tides, inside the eye of god, a Lego world of psychogenic clouds.
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Fragmented Skies
The storm splintered frameworks of trees, cloaked in tangerine light – glowed! glowed! glowed! becoming live miraculous prisms. Swallow coiled themselves feverishly, their song becoming the melody of moments, passing through clouds; the heart of earth turning to shadows cloaked! cloaked! cloaked! flower bulbs, rioting mice the phallic balloons of naked ladies, gossiping squirrel, squabbling bee, insidious crow. Death-the marching advance of lightening Fra gments the bruised skyline, the family meal, whispering spring winds becoming! live violins, tambourine, cello, and drum ming beats! beats! beats! hands pressing hard against glass. children swimming in wonder, awhile, late evening, laughter inverted to whisper, breath became the dance of anxious 44 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
souls, bundled inside a brick house.
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Russell Jaffe
Jews in space
Afternoons on earth are cobbled together from thick spectacles and dried crumbs and coconut shavings, desks that smell like black squares on chess boards and celebratory wine stains, its always after some epic event These fortunate orbiters make up memory, even the unnatural wormhole travelling skin of grandma‘s neck and the humiliating names grandpa called my drawings of aliens; that rabbi‘s dark cloak, there‘s no air there‘s memory evaporating like white stars do appear in my honey nut cheerios and sink fast—let‘s build ourselves away from this I look often to stars in lights during temple, I confess both grandpa and the rabbi are dead and don‘t ever stop I say as a jewish boy now man to jewish men whose flecked skin looked burning and whose veins bulged blue pulsing nebulas into this vacuous, oxygen-free memory we can only speculate the distances of; in dreams we chosen are riding rockets of stolen artwork Torah cabinets and tallis clothes 46 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
into the pastoral nethers to escape our mortal troubles
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The Blizzard
Celebrate this day with wet clothes and a different kind of feet that slide on school tiles and catch the shine of fluorescent lights the blizzard continues into it‘s third month and no one dares stop it, they just try to work around it and the termites are waiting for Spring when we wish the blizzard would take them out; Assign; do this that they say and this condition will go away nature comes back, it often does… The students asked me again about poems I said blah blah blah the only triplicate worth calling and the process continues into the harsh blizzard. They invented the word harsh to describe pines whipping and entire forests truncated in white swaths When I don‘t care I worry and the winter knows this the landscape knows just when to buckle and wood suddenly one day doesn‘t fit in the door frame. Don‘t look back: termite eggs 48 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
but often I am given to this and prone
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Letter from the birthright trip I wouldn’t take
Years later I never go to temple. Years earlier, I remember fidgeting and looking out at dying summer plants around the strange tans that rose from the ground to make the synagogue. Grandma winks at me often. Jews wander, she always says, and I want to tell her to use those eye drops because her dry eyes wink like sand. Forty years in the desert, my grandma reminds me when I leave hunks of brisket meat on my plate. Eyes are watching, wine mystically disappears. And this silverware is new. God is a luxury—for me, the spelling. Permitted to pace out my sentences, I end up speaking to my grandma after dinner in the off-beige living room. It‘s always hot as hell in there. This is where I am going when I‘m alive. Permitted to ask, this is what I ask you: Did you fault me for not taking my birthright trip? My friends did and came back with hangovers, with storylines of nightclubs and clay walls, with messages poked into cracks and tallits draped inches away from the ground—mustn‘t touch. Also, bags of Israeli Bazooka Joe. Why didn‘t I go? I didn‘t want to die, simple as that. That‘s what you do, right? You die. You are the mortar in the wall. You are sweating into white dress shirts and long black pants on a summer that kills the most dogmatic plants. I‘ve seen movies about chunks of muscle in sand and pools of blood on doors like Passover. I‘ve only actually seen wine. I was too young for grandma to share the blood with me. Sorry. I ask if the dash where the o had been is too long. On sweaty nights I oh lord our god played in my belly button‘s contours. And did you mind when I felt uncomfortable watching holocaust movies with my grandma? She looked so fogged out—do you know that the dashes between the words I write are like those long Israeli stones my grandma says we must preserve. And I always make fortuitous mistakes: I say O; Not oh, no not board, not wood, but the oldest stone you‘ve got, O. My god, my god gadzOOks (those are eyes) a bazooka shooting holy, holy and god? Also, do you know what else I like? That same weapon that blows people into thick red chunks is the same as my favorite gum. Those fortuitous fears are ones my grandma can‘t imagine, and O for one more night my body is safe. My sides, my long toes.
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And when I read the comics in Israeli I always liked his friend who pulled his shirt over his mouth and never said anything. In that there was no risk. In the halls of suburban temples I learned to know this.
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Today is the day everything speaks to me
Greenish blue ink flag tattoos and area rugs— I‘m staying in again, please think of me as a prone hearth grumble like grass in tin can rain. I listen to the empty hum where walls collide in corners, silently and infinitely. You don‘t have the courage to shut that damn thing off. Between pauses the phone tells me bring, bring, bring, bring. You don‘t have the courage to call yourself displaced.
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Francis Raven
Machine 10
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Machine 58 54 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
Machine 115
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Machine 169
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Machine 220
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Machine 236
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Irene Koronas
arrangement of atoms
my thighs so much larger than before. drawing lines through grecian figure on unglazed porcelain the luster on broken surface dull like soil it has a salty taste a slippery feeling between the legs a giant frog we bonk over the head cook over fire fizzy sparks the frog tastes good try not to wet the wall there is no wall only mountain chalkboards blackboards and the weight of thread
17 even in ancient tiny caves the unforgettable inscription far before any one returns with heaps of theory heaps of pebbles heaps of messages on billboards television screens computer cliff notes murmur measuring clicks without memories background brilliant red brilliant minds brake tree branches an unnatural phenomena especially within circles modern civilization people decked out wearing scanty white flames through thicket a small grove pine absorbs inside instead of outside beams lean on rock wall up and down exercise always influences robed men sometimes women creep out of one opening from the shrubbery boys approach the little foundry but what is found when people outline hands on rock immovable running books show us hugging vision perfectly but some budding archaeologist asleep in a cave harbors ancestors ascent from mother (besides) the trail they wait for someone elses bones
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20 (lines) + 10 lackey bluegills daytime color beach combs buttered crabmeat factious booklet lightface access anticipate lightface aftermath lightface collateral crag airplane plasma parthenon cherokee coalition crew brainstorm tourist backhand calendar wiggle edge convulsive picasso burley glare foil poignant bilingual recipient concession stand comatose luminaries anti-colony exultant conduce circumvention (cereal box expectation) inclusive chrome sardine negligees casual kangaroo coral bartender secondhand tricks nighttime middleman spoon astonishments
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one grain one breath grain rain ran gain grin in air an na ni ng nr ra grain rain cracks open air his pectoral position his grin topples na ning narra cereal box liberation silo shelter iiiissssaa gonna tie up all those sacks na ning narra
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word for love is work is out out being out developed this switch blade itch witch leaves off an s wit sit it hit surprising how often mine eyes have seen electric water swatches of pink alabaster love so often switches listing elbows counting rice
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Serena Tome (Poet) Michael Mc Aloran (Painter)
Gun
Re:configured Imagination (for Richard)
A weed: choked out r o u b l e63 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
makers
black male
Boom gone to soon all over the room u r lives
S
H
Buttons
Un-noticed
necessities s t r i n g
instruments
swaddle
wreathes:
archetypical
e x p r e s sions of decency 64 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
A
T
T
E
R
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Physiognomy of la Rose -for Pierre de Ronsard
the lady leans into him
her breasts full moons re vo ing lv around his eyes oh…
acoustic sounds of the lark fore/play steam fills her ear Quand vous serez bien vielle… Huh?
Direz, chantant me vers, En vous emervellant… Hmm..
Her teeth g r i p her b o t t o m lip (count 4/4) shh..
Ronsard me… Standing. her eyes lids clap as she walks away
Note: Italic French quotes come directly from Ronsard‘s Sonnet for Helene.
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Serena Tome (Poet) PJ Bach (Painter)
The Color Red
The Color Red
Heat waves wrestle to get out of the way as a Latin groove manifests with trembling legs and hard stop turns, as the people dance with their ancestors. Sweat beads hydrate the antiquated floorboards while Tequila flows like black gold over crystal rocks. The lead singer strums his guitar passionately as if asking: 67 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
Quieréis bailar comigo. Softly between breaths, subliminally, I respond: Por favor, tenéis compasión. The music a consuming fireball, whips me around the small space like the tongue when pronouncing the word corazón. I‘m blinded by the smoky atmosphere where all I can see are red sequins sparkling in circles, hypnotizing me to stay for one more set.
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Serena Tome (Poet) PJ Bach (Painter)
Flaming Sheets Flaming Sheets (for Miles Davis)
1. Charcoal feet press deep into freshly plowed Southern dirt in a patchwork field prepared for the manifestations of funk onyx hands tilt the golden trumpet North towards the sun, flaming sheets lick the ground as he bee bops leaving footprints on Rock, Heavy Metal, Blues, and Rap A generation Stands behind him glaring through 69 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
across color lines
a white mist clothed in artistic candor, ready to explore the variables of interpretation of the groove movement Selah— 2. (the remix) 1-2-3-4 bubble do
do be boom be
boom bubble do
do
boom
BOOM
dum dum
be
bop
BOP
dum bops
bop
BOOM
Wait a one minute. Let’s try this again. 1-2-3-4
diddly
diddly
diddly
diddly diddly boom
boom
boom
BOOM FREEZE
Frozen with their arms in the air, the sign of surrender, music takes on a distinct flavor, a conglomerate of tones seasoned with geographic transmissions and fueled by burning fire from the people who embody it. Jazz is the international language of revolution. This is where you howl.
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Serena Tome (Poet) Ser2 (Painter)
777
-after wall graffiti located on Five Spot Restaurant (Atlanta, GA)
FEAR
Clothed in armored Imagination Circumcised heart Sedates scorched Memories
rages
Stretch marks crawl Across crescent womb Waiting— The color of Jazz 71 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
Display allegories, Symbols prognostications Revealing entry into The genesis of Serenity Why do you fear illusions?
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Biography Notes
Duane Locke, in this month of July 2010, is not certain of where he lives. He has been living in rural Lakeland for three years by an osprey's nest on a cell phone tower, but the osprey has moved. So Duane Locke has decided to move. At moment, he thinks he will move back to Tampa, but where is now indeterminate. He is busily packing. He has had 6,580 poems published. He is also a photographer of the Sacred, (dragonflies, spiders, sand hill cranes, etc) and does Sur-Photos.
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His work has appeared in Counterexample Poetics, Rust and Moth, Calliope Nerve, Shoots and Vines, The Plebian Rag, and others.
Constance Stadler has published over 300 poems and three chapbooks in her ‗first manifestation‘ as a poet twenty years ago, and has released two chaps Tinted Steam (Shadow Archer Press) Sublunary Curse (Erbacce) and an eBook, Paper Cuts (Calliope Nerve). A new book Responsorials (with Rich Follett) was released in fall 2009 (Neopoeisis Press).
William Crawford has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. His work has appeared in several publications including, Sugar Mule, Counterexample Poetics, Calliope Nerve, Unlikely 2.0, Gloom Cupboard, decomP, Leaf Garden Press, Troubadour 21, Luciole Press, and Up the Staircase. His first major collection of poetry, Fire in the Marrow, will be published by Neopoiesis Press in the Summer of 2010. William lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is an animal rights activist.
Melissa Dulaney is a 34 year old, slightly eccentric young woman living in the Southwestern Desert. By day she is a Corporate Marketeer and by night a mother, friend, and artist. She enjoys spending time with her son and her two dogs. Her inspiration for writing poetry came from her dearly loved, and deceased younger brother. He continues to be her silent muse.
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Caleb Puckett lives in Kansas. He has pieces in Counterexample Poetics, Otoliths and Wheelhouse. His prose collection, Tales from the Hinterland, is available from Otoliths and Feral Press recently published two of his poems, "Runoff" and "Combatants", as illustrated chapbooks.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 18 print and digital poetry chapbooks and the full-length collection of poetry, Lovesick (2009). His second full-length collection, Heart With a Dirty Windshield, will be published by BeWrite Books.
Kevin Reid lives and works as a librarian in Angus, Scotland. He has a first class MA Hons. in English Literature. He has lived in a various polemic communities in the North East of Scotland. He also lived naked in a tipi community in the Spanish mountains. When not buying or reading books he writes, paints and enjoys the creative magnificence of digital technology. His work has appeared in The Plebian Rag, Eviscerator Heaven, The Recusant, Eleutheria, Heavy Bear, Carcinogenic Poetry, heroin love songs, and forthcoming at Calliope Nerve and Gutter Eloquence. At present he is seeking to publish his first chapbook.
Travis Macdonald works in Advertising. In his spare time he co-edits a small independent literary press. His poetry and prose has appeared in The American Drivel Review, Bombay Gin, Columbia Poetry Review, ditch, House Press Source: Material, InStereo, Jacket, Misunderstandings, Otoliths, Requited, Wheelhouse and elsewhere. A collection of experimental translations is available online from E-ratio. His first full length book, The O Mission Repo is available from Fact-Simile Editions.
Lisa Cole is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Creative Writing MFA program. She has previous publication in journals such as Nimble, Slow Trains, Persona, The Albion Review, and has work forthcoming in Sawbuck.
Samuel Hiram Duarte was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico in 1974. Along with his parents and brothers, he migrated to the United States in 1980, settling in California‘s rich agricultural valley of San Joaquin and receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Fresno State University. His poetry has been featured in Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets, a yearly journal for the arts, and has participated in various poetry-reading venues. His work includes a short story compilation; The Spirit of El Chorumo, and a book of poetry; Seven Standard Roads. Currently, 76 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s
he is a Family Advocate in Guadalupe, CA and is working on his first novel; Ofelia and the Journey of the Monarch Butterflies. He lives in Santa Maria California alongside his wife Jessica and son, Kael.
Philip Byron Oakes is a poet living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Otoliths, Switchback, Cricket Online Review, Sawbuck, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, E ratio, Moria and others. He is the author of Cactus Land (77 Rogue Letters), a volume of poetry. Visit him HERE. Luke Johnson is an American poet born in Cayucos, CA. He is a graduate from Cal-Poly with a degree in African-American studies and is the author of ‗Tubas in the Belly of Our Souls,‘ his first book of poetry which evokes delicate and urgent images of apocalyptic yet optimistic times, where the mundane becomes the extraordinary, and our human experiences are magnified in heartfelt bursts of revelation. Johnson is currently working on his second publication. He lives with his wife, Ciara, and their lovely felines, Lily and Louie in Pismo Beach, California.
Russell Jaffe teaches English at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, IA and holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College in Chicago. His poems have appeared in Shampoo, MiPOesias, The Portland Review, Spooky Boyfriend, Writer’s Bloc, and others. Additionally, he writes a hot sauce review blog called Good Hurts.
Francis Raven is a graduate student in philosophy at Temple University. His books include Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), 5-Haifun: Of Being Divisible (Blue Lion Books, 2008), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007), Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox 2005) and the novel, Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005). Francis lives in Washington DC; you can check out more of his work at his website.
Irene Koronas is the poetry editor for the Wilderness House Literary Review. She is the author two full length poetry books, ―self portrait drawn from many,‖ Ibbestson Street Press, 2007, and ―Pentacomo Cyprus‖ Cervena Barva Press, 2009. Her chapbooks, ―Zero Boundaries‖ Cervena Barva Press, ―flat house― Ordinary Press― and nine more chapbooks. Irene‘s work has been widely published in numerous literary journals: Lummox, Free Verse, Posey, Arcanam Café, Spearhead, Index poetry, Unblog, Haiku Hut, Lynx and Clarion 13. anthologies: Bagels with the Bards 1 and 11, WHLReview Anthology, 2006-09. Articles written about Irene have appeared in The Boston Globe, What’s Up With Your Words, Sedaca, The Alewife, Spare Change, The Somerville News, and the Cambridge Chronicle.
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Serena Tome writes from the edge of Atlanta, GA. She is the poetry editor for Leaf Garden Press. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in, Ann Arbor Review, BlazeVox, Word Riot, Calliope Nerve, Word for Word, Moon Milk Review, and many other publications. You can find out more about Serena at The New Renaissance.
Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). His most recent poetic works have appeared/ are forthcoming at Carcinogenic Poetry, Why Vandalism?, 1000th Monkey, Fashion For Collapse, Danse Macabre, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Gloom Cupboard, and Pratishedhak, Graffiti Kolkotta, (India). His art-work has appeared at Calliope Nerve, Bergamot, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Arterialize, and has been used as book covers for several projects at Calliope Nerve Media. He is the author of five short collections of poetry: 'In The Black Cadaver Light', (Poetry Monthly Press), 'The Rapacious Night', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'The Gathered Bones', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'The Redundant Pulse', (Back Pack Press), and 'The Death-Streaked Air', (Virgogray Press-forthcoming)...Other pursuits include cigarettes and alcohol...
PJ Bach‘s website is www.pjsroom.com/
Ser2 is an artist creating in Atlanta, GA.
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