I'm glad to have these cards to post as opposed to writing up long blurbs as I'm up to my ears in projects these days.
I'm doing ModPo (Al Filreis' wonderful MOOC on Modern and Contemporary American Poetry) again, and it's a little like the song, almost lovelier the second time around. I'm not all anxious about the essays and evaluations and such, just giving them all my best shot and sending them off to the ethers. I'm enjoying the forums more this year, concentrating on a few rather than being overwhelmed by how many there are (and there are many). And while it's covering the same material as last year, there is still so much to be learned.
I'm busy with book making projects that have to be done by December. And I'm working on something for The Light Ekphrastic's next collection of collaborations again.
So, on to the postcards. This first one's pretty self-explanatory:
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“Apart from that, you were built
like
a walrus.”
Ian
Williams
Her huge
her lover
her mega-man
her nemesis
her monster
her betrayer
her bastard
her prick
her first-seen-on-a-ladder
her messed-with-her-sister
her love-you-forever
her death-do-us part
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“and I was by the orchard’s edge, the quince
orchard,
reading
an ode, perhaps by a captive prince”
Ghassan Zaqtan
This, too, a black ballpoint.
This,
sturdy cardstock,
meant for
mailing without
having to
pack along
a
companion,
Did he
know, when filming
that boy in
the shower
or those
endless, soul-sucking
kisses,
that his own 15 minutes
would never, ever end?
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“Katherine and I avoid
the
live exhibits these days, even
the
pretty petting zoo.”
Jennifer
Maiden
Oh, the darkness of it all —
black cat, black dog,
black monkey on
the black-eyed woman’s shoulder,
blackbird, dead of night,
black as a storm cloud
come to drop rain
into the black lake
but when it clears — and it will —
the way we rejoice
in the light!
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“Here is the intense
amnesia
of the just now
at
last no longer longing”
Alan
Shapiro
That moment
when what goes up —
balloon, smoke, wallpaper —
stays up
belies everything we’re told
about gravity
by songs and stern professors
though spinning wheels
do go round
that is the nature
of spin
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“No poetry. Plain. No
fresh,
special recipe
to
bless.”
Brenda
Shaughnessy
No storks mid-flight
no black flamingos bobbing
no water-bearing women
no fallow fields to sow
no opening of eyes, of hearts
no running out of time
no beckoning lacuna
no thwarted empty page
no thought
no life
no poetry
no
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“Or as truth is disguised in fiction
or
as the truths of philosophy may be
disguised
or veiled in poetry.”
David
W. McFadden
Tell me again your story,
tell me how you howled
when I appeared,
red cape to your bullishness,
never enough in your basket—
yes, I know I was the one
who carried treasures
not intended for you,
I was your target, your desire,
and you? you were
always skulking about,
going on about your basket,
not getting that I really
didn’t care.
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“and
my mind climbs down
to
the half-remembered
country
I have left”
James
Pollock
In this particular version
of the age old story
a man rides into town
his turban bigger than his mount,
he’s on a mission
got a ticket to ride
he won’t stop until he gets there
wherever ‘there’ is.
Could be a birth story,
and he’s on the ride
of his life.
Could be an odyssey,
he’s not telling.
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