Featured Poet: Daniela Olszewska

CITIZEN JANE(-X) RUNS THE PARTY POLITIC

The devil’s Zamboni driver is impatient for Jane’s mouth to freeze Over again.  Now there’s a slogan to make us all out of breath!

Near mid-day, Jane took a photo opportunity with her crossing guards. Also, the thumbscrew repair gals.  Oh, as the crow dies…We’re pretty

Sure all primaries go like this, at least, you know, temporarily.   Some confetti Lung!  Our prayer modes are Jane’s for the taking.  No, don’t throw away those

Towels just yet.  But, maybe, bend that black licorice into backwards horseshoe?   

CITIZEN JANE(-X) RUNS THE PARTY POLITIC

What we were trying to do was put on a roadside show in a brown paper bag. In retrospect.  Sorry about the hoopskirts.  Jane, too, found the goodfolk

Too wide-eyed to weather.  but we can’t bring back the noise.  Miniature Guillotines are party favors.   Yes, go ahead and promote everyone to the rank

Of  Spellchecker.  Oh, she’d laugh if she saw what we used to write out  her last-minute resume.  No, nothing is especially seasonal this year.  Mark our words,

Whatever’s behind Door No. 3, it’s going to be a real game-changer.

  

CITIZEN JANE(X) RUNS THE PARTY POLITIC

Jane dropped that secular knowledge.   To hoof up and down an entire city block. This is a venial threat.  We’re used to west siding it.  Rumor has it there’s a lake

Somewhere abouts these parts.  She tries to be gracious in the lukewarm embrace of the mob.  If it helps, sheriffs hardly ever red light anymore.  Read the sign.

For twenty subscriptions, we’ll watch your vehicle all night.  Or, maybe give up the number of your guy down at the station.   Dammned straight, that’s what it was.

Have Jane tell them that this seems like a great town for starting up a family. 

from CITIZEN JANE(-X)

trinketing with the catch-ups  

it picks scabs, locxxx

to borrow that for forever

shaking under plaidskirt

pixies in the vasculars

consulting new tumbleweeds

the opposite of a black hole

rehabbed by the grace of

she fixates on going to bed without

obscenely, satellite shoots

an old animal w/a head at each end

itself over and over again

Daniela Olszewska was born in Wrocław, Poland, grew up in the area known as Chicagoland, and now lives in the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Roll Tide!). She is the author of four chapbooks, including The Partial Autobiography of Jane Doe (dancing girl press) and The Twelve Wives of Citizen Jane (Spooky Girlfriend Press). Daniela is the current Poetry Editor of Black Warrior Review. This summer, she will teach poetry to guests of the state via the Alabama Prison Arts & Education Project.

Copyright © 2010 Daniela Olszewska

 

 

Featured Poet: Davis Schneiderman

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 

Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.


So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.


But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!


The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!


A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise. 

Davis Schneiderman is a multimedia artist and writer whose works include the current or forthcoming novels Drain (Triquarterly/Northwestern), Blank: a novel (Jaded Ibis), Multifesto: A Henri d¹Mescan Reader (Spuyten Duyvil), DIS (BlazeVox) and Abecedarium (Chiasmus, w/Carlos Hernandez); the co-edited collections Retaking the Universe: Williams S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (Pluto) and The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism¹s Parlor Game (Nebraska, 2009); and the audiocollage Memorials to Future Catastrophes (Jaded Ibis). His creative work has been accepted by numerous publications including Fiction International, The Chicago Tribune, The Iowa Review, and Exquisite Corpse. He is Director of Lake Forest College Press/&NOW Books, where he edits the series The &NOW AWARDS: The Best Innovative Writing; he also directs the NEH-funded Virtual Burnham Initiative. 

This is from his Un-Death of the Author series.

Copyright © 2010 Davis Schneiderman

 

Featured Poet: Jessica Ponto

The night you are raped

You looked at me

Copyright © 2010 Jessica Ponto

Featured Poet: William Allegrezza

Twenty 4


the morning storm breaks
language open like
wars and wind, and we,
pulsing with clear substances,
throw arms around each other
waving our hearts before
the quick fires that rage against
the numberless waves throwing
spray before us. still, i sing
the silence, loving the orchestral
echo in the room crowed
with cool hands moving
among the dead leaves, the doors,
filled with clouds and parting.





Twenty 8


the stray gulls are silent,
but working at their circles,
they approach the cool
shadow of your body
inverted to white and deep
in the barren streets lining
the sand. our naked sickness
releases the smoke echoes
at last. rain and leaves.
and like the butterfly
frightened in sleep,
i taste solitude through
the creaking stone and
go barefoot to the altar’s ear.





Twenty 10


no one sees us in the sunset
or the mountaintops or the rain
or the twilight or the torch;
yet, when we turn our faces,
pure always and fresh like
nothingness, we breathe through
what surrounds us and listen
to coins burning and questions
being asked, and i, at least,
laugh, knowing it’s that or
silence as the earth pulls hard
on our shared voice telling us
the cape is dropped and
night is coming to a close.





Twenty 12


the birds are gone with
song, and still we stand like
masts in the wind, turning
without direction, though
certain of the pieces that
hold us centered and quiet
while around us nothing
echoes, no voices tell of
love’s voyages stretching
out eternally tall in story.
i have told you about the
sadness of wings with no
hearts and slept in your arms
when i should people day.





William Allegrezza's poems have been published internationally. His collections of poetry include Ladders in July, The Vicious Bunny Translations, Covering Over, In the Weaver's Valley, Fragile Replacements, and Collective Instant. Allegrezza is the editor of Moria and Cracked Slab Books.

© 2010 William Allegrezza

Featured Poet: Jacob Saenz

Bookmark Found in The Works of Walt Whitman

As usual my brother & I are glass-eyed & smiles,

talking about our desire to stop smoking pot

when I decide to pull the book off its shelf.

Before I hand it over I brush some dust

off Whitman’s hat & beard like ash,

finger through pages & find a bookmark

care of the American Cancer Society.

“How appropriate,” I say when I give it to him.

He sees the picture of girl’s face

with cheeks round as apples, eyes dark as tar

looking for a cure for cancer.

The caption under her face reads

Best Tip: Don’t Start.

He laughs, accidentally loses his hit, flips

the bookmark over & reads the fact

that smoking kills more people every year

than car crashes, AIDS, & bloody murders combined.

“If that ain’t a wake up call, I don’t know what is,”

he says as he tightly packs another bowl,

takes a deep puff & exhales

like an ancient dragon’s last breath.

within the lair

the wire the buzz of the joy-

stick in hand winds the heart

to heroic to strike first & hard

with fist or paw

nail or claw into the scaly

sleeping beast on its bed

of gold that glint off our swords

& blind us briefly

unlike those bones piled

high in corners clutching

rubies like hearts our champions

hunt the heads that hide

within the lair the dark behind

sharp teeth of greed & the grip

of a shard of power a share of

a legacy hard to let go of

[the train rumbles]

the train rumbles

as if on a road eroded

w/potholes & sewer tops

not paved even & smooth

the swerve of curves & bumps

lumps our bodies together

packed from front to back

over tracks cracked & rusted

the rush to get home trusted

to rails too old to hold the weight

of our bodies as we wait to move

beyond this standstill & will

the pols to find the funds

to keep fares fair enough

for families just trying

to make it home

Memorial Day at Coney Island

The beach is littered w/towels

& toys, girls & boys screaming

in the water & the lifeguard

whistling at those too far out.

The Marines pull up in a Hummer

(red like blood that’s shed)

& in fatigues & boots they set up

a booth to test & challenge the youth

to pull-ups: a build up of the corps

in front of a crowd chanting

numbers as one shirtless teen

struggles to reach twenty.

On the pier we sit near rows

of fishing rods that lean on rails

& the men who wait for a jerk

to work the reel & pull in a good

catch: a fish that flops on the wood

wet & white & silver in sunlight,

a fish that sells on the sly

wrapped in a black plastic bag.

The crabs caught get their legs

torn off by bare brown hands

that crack open their casing easy

as eggs so the meat shines through

the muddy shell & the steel cage

they’re placed in as we watch

& taste the two dollar beer

we bought out of a backpack,

a savings of a few bucks

from the cups sold on the walk

& just as cold to chill the sun

beating & burning our backs.

Jacob Saenz is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago where he served as an editor for the Columbia Poetry Review. His work has appeared in RHINO, Inkstains, Buffalo Carp, Paramanu Pentaquark and Poetry. He has been nominated for an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. He works at a library.

© Copyright 2010 Jacob Saenz