Grace Cavelieri
Although She Wore A Red Chiffon Dress
Where it came from, nobody knows, but Anna was invited as the After
Lunch Speaker at the National Press Club. (Rushkin called it Pressure Club,
as he was very witty.) She was no longer odd woman out, someone
who was just stuck on this earth on a billboard.
She thought up things to say, and Rush said he’d take
the raw edges off. She was meditating every day and
understood pop culture, that it took importance away
from everything, so she’d discuss this, have a full-on breakfast first,
make a little joke about being a geek on call, something like that,
“Do not panic... begin again....”
The day made no claims on her. Rowdy listened to her practice,
(he was much more than a purse dog, no matter what they said.)
She picked from her daily ANGEL CARDS, one called:
“Take One’s Self Back”. That was a loser.
So willed, she considered her best interests, her best topics,
and would make the talk personal but universal.
She loved Coretta Scott King, would mention that,
and she would take a stand for or against
hip hop (calling it hop hip, to get a laugh.)
She was not prepared for a catechism of questions,
so she’d just say, let us take another view.
If there were celebrity journalists there, don’t look at them! Yet--yet--yet--
all the words in the yellow pages could not have prepared her for the fact,
when she stood up, lunch was already over, and people started chatting,
and her microphone was turned off, while she ran from table to table to
get someone--anyone’s attention. At the end the host said
how fortunate they were that she could make it as
she was a household name. And that’s what the media is for.
Dead Eyes
Sitting in the psych ward, waiting to be called,
the girl next to Anna said she’d
had three children by three husbands. What
a good idea, Anna was jealous. Girl called
them mistakes.
Another lady is shoplifting threads from
parts of the couch.
The little people are the crazy ones in this world,
Anna knew.
Now, HER TURN.
She wanted the doctor to hold her
in the warmth of his wings
but he was wearing
a starched white coat. He spoke of her ideal self,
then her real self, (a disturbing exhibition.)
He said more than she planned to hear about
1) people intolerant of infinity 2) life as a foreign
holiday 3) Rachmaninoff....(Anna always wanted
to play the piano but she hated music.)
Anna felt a woman of size starting in her head.
He said, 1) solitude could be more
than being alone.2) she never felt the coolness
of taking her blouse off on a hot day and enjoying the....
3) he was but a steward and she was a ship.
Anna wondered if she could bear all she had yet left to feel.
He said she had to do better
She didn’t know better than what . He spoke of hobbies.
Her cocaine hobby? No! He said that’s not a craft,
He asked: why did she take her worth from unworthy people?
She knew an insult when she heard one.
The large woman inside Anna hauled off and slapped his face
There. He wanted genuine.
Grace Cavalieri is the author of several books, and 21 produced plays. She’s produced “The Poet and the Poem” from the Library of Congress on public radio, now in its 31st year. Among honors, Grace holds playwriting awards, the Allen Ginsberg Award for Poetry, A Paterson Prize for Poetry, the Pen- Syndicated Fiction Award, the Bordighera Poetry Award, the Folger’s inaugural “Columbia Award.” and CPB’s Silver Medal. Her book What I Would do For Love (Poems in the Voice of Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797) is the basis for her new play, “Hyena in Petticoats.” She is the Book Review Editor for The Montserrat Review, and a poetry columnist for MiPOradio. Her forthcoming book of poems is ANNA NICOLE: A FICTION (2008, Menendez Publications) http://www.gracecavalieri.com/
Kim Roberts
I AM LOOKING AT MY FACE IN THE WINDOWOutside, the sky is Prussian blue,
the color preceding black, and houses
turn their shy backs.
of lost thoughts, as regular
as a second hand. The night superimposes
its awkward postures, but my face
Not the yellow squares of light
that say I’m home. Not the red
taillights of commuters streaming
from ear to ear.
I am borrowing another set of eyes,
beams across my forehead.
someone is in pain, someone is in love.
How I envy them!
dreams that buildings can pass through her,
schools and office towers and warehouses
pass right through her face like ghosts,
their lights reflected for an instant.
SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE
You always said our local swarm
of young men kept our corner pinned down,
kept this one bewildered sidewalk
from peeling back like a plastic lid
and flying into space.
They’ve dispersed now, their lordly
attitudes, loud conversation, hands
in pockets, and open trade with cars
whose stereos unnerved our windows.
Now those corners look so orderly.
Turns out you were wrong:
the sidewalk’s fine without them.
Only so full of absence.
BINGE
To Anacreon, in Heaven
At the bar I spend myself,
every pore, to the dregs, in forgetting,
wasting my life the way I used to
with the bottles lined up before the mirror
like a cityscape, the architecture of gin
and whiskey, highrises in miniature ascending.
From behind my raised stool a man comes looming
to order his draft like Godzilla over Rumtown towering
and I, over Vodkaville and all the endangered
urban neighborhoods, am lifting
my crackling American glass.
KIM ROBERTS is the author of two books of poems, The Kimnama (Vrzhu Press, 2007), and The Wishbone Galaxy (WWPH, 1994). She is editor of two online literary journals, the highly acclaimed Beltway Poetry Quarterly, which she founded in January 2000, and The Delaware Poetry Review, whose first issue appeared this past summer. Her web site: http://www.kimroberts.org.
Ryan Walker
untitled
Igloos aren’t materialistic,
painted into a bucket, soft
as the space between things,
it smiled like a pill,
a sinus in paradise, a horn
stuffed with cake ads,
dime lasso, giant hunch,
a forehead, a spoiler.
Only the copse evolved
some tool-using hares, we laughed
at the simple bitches, wished
you’d name a star, or a font,
shot from a ghoul’s incisor gap,
when I found the lower jaw,
one of those silly hoses
that wags as it spouts
untitled
what can I do to you
influenced by swords
dorito graphics
cute as a common
frame of reference
you’re not going to change
improvement is for sissies
sharks lay eggs
you think it’s water wings
it’s always nice when children serve
like familiar phrases, almost idioms
their doughy frames too small,
the proletariat have lasers
early corporate wraiths
gave us forms of classic rock,
creating seemingly immutable conditions
for a lot of people’s truth feelings,
things in common and basic understanding of life.
untitled
no time here, just climbing
contentless enthusiasms
sucked the lids
tighter to their openings
sealed by a viscous dreck
domesticated animals have a kind of destiny
compared with ghost meat
cob webs form an iconic part of the close-in life
particles so small they don’t affect us
beethoven sucks
I’m one years old
I’ve got mustard older than me
while I thought
the substrate closed
I hugged the healthy looking graphics
heavy stalling for fresh pop
this place will be fully imagined
like a swan
hose guides
the belated gist