poetry - $10.00
BURST FIVEY
& Jack Collom
was born in Chicago in 1931 and grew up in nearby Western Springs, where he spent much of his boyhood walking in the woods and bird watching. After graduating from Forestry School at Colorado A&M College, Jack joined the US Air Force and wrote his first poems in Tripoli, Libya. He lived in Germany a Zeitlang, then returned stateside and worked in factories for twenty years. Jack has worked extensively with schoolchildren for over three decades and is currently adjunct professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He has authored over twenty-five books and chapbooks and has twice been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, in part for his experimental nature writings. ISBN-10 098517052-2 ISBN-13 9780985170523
9
51000
780985 170523
monkeypuzzlepress.com
The Eg g
Droppers
Jack Collom
BURST FIVEY
& The Eg g
Droppers
Jack Collom Monkey Puzzle Press Harrison, Arkansas
Copyright Š 2013 Jack Collom All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief excerpts. Printed in the United States of America.
Artwork Jack Collom Design Jordan Antonucci Author Photo John Sarsgard
ISBN-10: 0-9851705-2-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-9851705-2-3
Monkey Puzzle Press 424 N. Spring St. Harrison, Arkansas 72601 monkeypuzzlepress.com
This is 4 Topher
Author’s Note Two disparate works are united here. "Burst Fivey” was written in Summer, 2004. It was one (the best) of a series of works made in 2004 and 2005 according to a line-a-day practice: I’d write a dozen or so first lines and put them away. Next morning I’d add a line to each, and so forth. The day’s gap between each pair of lines resulted in the process being a collaboration with myself — that much distance, that much closeness. I’d add lines each morning until the 14-line poems were done. In the case of "Burst Fivey,” the rules were that each poem was to be a rough, or variegated, sonnet with the added fillip that it be an acrostic as well. I picked out 14-letter spine phrases. The rhythms are more sprung, the Hopkins vein, than strict iambic pentameter; an approximate Shakespearian rhyme scheme does take place. The "spirit of composition” was spontaneous (albeit very slow) semi-surrealism. The "Egg-Droppers” were drawn many years before, in Germany. I’d gone back to Munich to get married, a civilian now, in 1957, and stayed for a couple years, working on local construction crews, then driving a laundry truck. My wife, Traudl, lived in one-room on Gabelsbergerstrasse, and, while she was doing the household tasks, I’d often draw pictures. The Egg-Droppers was my best-inspired series from that period. May the two (playful) works breed in some kind of time. Jack Collom 2013
BURST FIVEY & The Egg-Droppers
ONCE UPON A TIME I Orange of azure hills, a moment more — Never mind, the shape escapes its tone Composed of lingering waves — Conquistador Established in an instant, like a stone.
Und so weiter. Then I wandered, with a girl, Perhaps preparing, as I drifted on down Ovarian landscapes, vair and purple pearls some Nicodemus gave me (with a frown), And soon I spied a cryogenic crest That underlay whatever soil’d arrived. Yes, too, It overlay its kin but incandesced Mnemonically. If mind were never wived Eternal cool might carry away the days Into a combination ticketed Haze.
1
Jack Collom
INDUBITABLE AIR
Ignition eastward. Nothing moves. A leaf Negates its own entropy by burning "there” Down to "this is it”; trope and belief Undertaking triple braiding: trick and hair, But atmosphere’s more than a coating of parodies; It is a thing, and/or the gas sublime. To define base protoplasm of "Paradise” As divine(d), we must, lit, plumb and mother slime. Beguine describes the marginal layers. Within Lie nitrogen lairs, stray lunar flares, okapis Even, browsing; still, brute essence wins Attar of roses, abstinence, perfect copies. Into the norm we slide. Light becomes Retro; air’s an adverb; trees? all thumbs.
2
Jack Collom
POLITICS EQUALS
"Pour moi?” she smiled as if a knife were being Oiled around her headland of upper jaw. Like two hungry debaters, her eyes, unseeing, Insisted focus is a rope of law. This rope, or its insistence, seemed like an anImal dance: didn’t exist without Connecting spheres of shadowplay in the can She’d provided, wrapped-up railroad tracks of doubt. "Exactly,” snapped a muffled voice — from where?: "Quo vadis” flipped upon its dot. Unboiled Unicorns penetrated amphibrachic air Allowing humps of dough to break down. Soiled Larders tempted the heffalumps. "Enough!” She cried, and sniffled, "I need to sell this stuff.”
6
other books from
Monkey Puzzle Press "In Culture of Flow, Tim Z. Hernandez seeks to know / show what 'Nature' really means, and the 'Proof is in the detritus.' This book is rich in detritus, rich in variable space, rich in flow, like language, like the globe. Hernandez digs for the ideas, digs up the words, and immediately digs the opposite, and lets them dance. His sound and rhythm (rhythm of sound, rhythm of unsound) surpleases." - Jack Collom Paperback: 100 pages / Poetry ISBN-10: 0-9851705-5-7 ISBN-13: 978-0-9851705-5-4
With the pulse of New York City and the depth of choking oil drills in Texas, A Slow Curve digs at, and quivers with, the sentence and its potentiality. Traveling cross-country and into the naked words of close and honest relationships, Barbara Henning's language opens our eyes to what we always see but never perceive. Accompanied with the physical and gorgeous artwork of Laurie Price, this collection is one like no other. Chapbook: 48 pages / Poetry ISBN-10: 0-9851705-6-5 ISBN-13: 978-09851705-6-1
poetry - $10.00
BURST FIVEY
& Jack Collom was born in Chicago in 1931 and grew
up in nearby Western Springs, where he spent much of his boyhood walking in the woods and birdwatching. After graduating from Forestry School at Colorado A&M College, Jack joined the US Air Force and wrote his first poems in Tripoli, Libya. He lived in Germany a Zeitlang, then returned stateside and worked in factories for twenty years. Jack has worked extensively with schoolchildren for over four decades and is currently adjunct professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He has authored over twenty-five books and chapbooks and has twice been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, in part for his experimental nature writings, and in 2012 he won a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Poetry Award. ISBN-10 098517052-2 ISBN-13 9780985170523
9
51000
780985 170523
monkeypuzzlepress.com
The Eg g
Droppers
Jack Collom