Featured Poet: Michael Antonucci

Michael Antonucci’s creative and scholarly work can (or will soon) be found in publications including Arkansas Review, African-American Review, Callaloo, Cortland Review, Byline, Cold Mountain Review, Near South, and VIA. ) A selection from his longer poem “BAKER BOWL” was included in The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (CRACKED SLAB, 2007). He is part of the Jimmy Wynn Ensemble, a Chicago collaborative writing experiment and currently working on a series of poems called “Halogen Martyrs.” His favorite element is Hassium.

“The H-Poems”

“My mother played the piano beautifully.

She really wanted me to become a concert pianist.”

--Edward Teller, Ph.D.

“Father of the Hydrogen Bomb”

Niagara

"Niagara” from the Iroquois word,

Onguiaahra: “the strait."

(before film

tourists sketch the Falls

in charcoal,

crayon

pencil,

ink

daredevils

( barrel hoops

feather pillows

lost lives

trying to conquer

Niagara

Edward Teller, Ph.D.

(ii)

(Given:

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

makes it

impossible

to know

completely,

accurately

the present

If, for instance,

in 1914 Sarajevo,

a certain vehicle

carrying

a Crown Prince

were delayed,

there may not have been a world war.

We, however,

had precise

understanding of

the hydrogen

atom

Niagara

(winters)

visitors flocked to

the Falls

in winter

walked

beneath it

on the

ice bridge

locals built

shanties

sold

tourists liquor & curiosities

below;

the Falls

ice bridge

broke

(February 4, 1912

three (tourist) lives lost.

Testing

iii

Ten miles from zero-point

I was sure it had misfired.

( the sand, our heavy welding glasses

I thought: “too late”

tipping my glasses,

I removed a curtain,

and light

bright

as sunlight entered

I was impressed.

I saw its brilliant flash.

Oppenheimer Bhagavad-Gita

"I am become death the destroyer of worlds."

H 1 Hydrogen

a great no glop bubble

fizz up (fizz-sick

monster head layer cake

home some (no)where:

Niagara, Sarov

(Dunkirk, Crete, Bopal

a land

burnt

over

bathed

with

acid fire foam

cooper’s hoops pop rivets

a pocket watch

shadow

the city

etched

(crushing

ink, chalk

paper and slate

©copyright 2007 Michael Antonucci