Featured Poet: Chuck Stebelton

Chuck Stebelton's recent chapbooks include A Maximal Object (Mitzvah Press), Flags and Banners (Bronze Skull Press), and Precious (Answer Tag Home Press). He is author of Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005) and he works as Literary Program Director at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee.

OLD TEA WRECKS

He would smile, quite unconsciously, as if in

anticipation of his coming translation which

resented muscle cars as much his coming

translations misrepresented birds. Shelley

nibbled some majoun. Percy at a kumquat.

When you have nothing more to say, just drive

gapers block and phone and drive back home

still with nothing to say. Say nothing to green

shiny flies that weave a strong gauze of smell.

To hot oxygen and gasoline on the buff marked

metal of your hood, leave both radios on loud

in your son's new 1975 Dragonmobile XR 508

with special radium transmission and three

bucket seats. Translated comforts into Beulah

land still don't say a word. Footfall to oboe

release someday. To all competition based

on names and the kindnesses of strangers.

FIVE SONGS IN FIVE MINUTES

I am a messenger stinking. In the offices
of tobacco I do not have a hold on hope.

A run on puny veins has got me all basenji.

The sidewalk is overrun with anchor teams.
The sidewalk has anchors galore in traction.

I shot on dusky pond. I scanned a magpie.

Jude's pet parrot was invited to lacerate
my cheek bone. Hardy, showing a black

bear its dear back, counts our pianist among
the headlights on the highway. Tiny prune

I no more understood the logic of this than
I understood how my pancreas worked.

That trip is like a memory cache. Standing
hygienic and chewing gum the day before

four star hotels were invented. A daily
remonstrance against the strictly hospital

clings to an adenoid every organ recital.

TROUT LILIES ARE BULBOUS PLANTS

Asiatic dayflower is a commelina.

This flower grows on wooded slopes.

The fire pink is a catchfly of rocky hillsides.

Beautiful flowers of the coral gum.

Pickerel weed grows by shallow ponds.

Sundew, a bog plant, traps insects.

Bugle has long rooting stolons.

The hepatica is also called liverwort.

Dutchman's breaches are hardy flowers.

Fringed lilies grow in Australia.

The trout lily replicates a masked replica.

This trillium is known as wake-robin.

Confederate violet of the United States.

Wood sorrel grows in deep shade.

MIDWAY PARK

Streetlights shine on
a globe that is dark.

A white winter is pearly.

Crazy hunter. Lost

smartest boys on earth

box auroras around
black tree in the bee

yard. Broken beads
and pillars, northern

light (hence the remote

beauty) and the dark
screen cracking light

spar. Long

before I left, I couldn't
get sunfish off my mind.

Test the mettle out of wood.
The white hat of wood

on the best battle
fields. Ferris wheels

perceive the sixth string.
Air on the G string.

CARDINAL FLOWER IS A LOVELY LOBELIA

An early flower of English woodlands.

The golden stars of the lesser celandine.

Lords and ladies is a woodland arum.

An iris from the cascade mountains.

Wild geranium grows in many habitats.

Yellow pond lilies adorn the lakes.

The trailing arbutus grows at the edges.

Azaleas are deciduous rhododendrons.

These beautiful orchids are fragrant.

Purple fringed orchis grows in Ohio.

Toothwort is a parasite on hazel.

Fireweed grows after woods are burnt.

The climbing nightshade is poisonous.

The jewelweed is an orange balsam.

MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE

Sparking in every pattern likens silver to episodes.
Quieter starlings outnumber the sandpaper one.

Breezes swear you put Ohio in my impromptu.
Our ceiling fan praised leaves, and praises.

Heterogeneous icons. City hymnology

Giving grease a ride, an added scent enriched.
Down anthracite. He was my lover’s maze.

Flora and fire went to Nevada to enjoy the laws.
Happiness increases as the population explodes.

If pubes be wool, wool wires bleat white.

Millions now living will never die. The calm could
be read once in a sitting and that sit was its allure.

G_D-FORSAKEN COMPUTER

That the Greeks chose not to name

tiny. Anaheim therein

involves woof. Equal pulses of breath

Frets upon the porky pine.

In my vicinity, survival intrigued

the curious. Salt in annals

Ending in stops. It is its own insult.

Take up thy Thucydides and walk.

A navy vying and an army vying.

I've held to the middle of a crooked tip.

Editor's Note: These poems have previously appeared in Circulation Flowers and Flags and Banners.

© 2008 Chuck Stebelton

Featured Poet: Adam Fieled

Adam Fieled presents five poems from What Is and What Should Never Be, his newest manuscript. He is reading at Kate the Great's Book Emporium (5550 N. Broadway, Chicago) on Thursday, January 3. The reading also includes Larry Sawyer, Lina ramona Vitkauskas, Melissa Severin, and the editor of this blog-journal.

The Rain Song

It is constrained by water-wheels

It is beneath a tide of shorelines

It is in this way I reach out to you

I give you a seal made of pillows

I give you a pledge made of sheets

I want to be buried beneath you

as you move mountains off of

all in us exhausted by rain fall

all in us exhausted

all in us

I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

Can I see through miasmic

swamp of “I,” until I am all

alone with you, wrapped in

green clouds, tapping leafy

veins, rooted deep in an air

that is nowhere, & is endless?

Your deep cuteness makes all

things possible, probabilities

aside, & I want you, heavily.

In the Light

I was sunken in steamed

clarities, psalm-pasted, &

I rose from water-coffin

distances, skin wrinkled,

hair damp, sleet-grey sky,

naked bodies open arms,

I found God a towel, I

knew creation a bitches

brew, & saw for miles

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

I take the weight of white out,

spherical wrinkle-coated burdens,

lay them down (whitely) in a big

blast in a cul-de-sac hieroglyph’d

shelter that stretches like melted

glass coated/slick, enact a vague

sun rising/disappearing on a vast

horizon, yes all this just to see you

open your mouth, daisy-glazed to

be used this way (I mean when it

happens you bow to it), then leave,

& I’m ready to leave you now

Split

I split apart from you

I say you are not me, or

you are an old version

of me as a blues song,

but just as the universe

does not fit into 12 bars

or three chords or a pick

plucking a minor third,

my mind’s purview, big

enough to bust a dam,

takes you and rolls you

(roll, baby, roll) into no

ball but a baseball and

hurls you at a slugger

who bats you in an arc

over a Green Monster—

that’s how we’re split

© Adam Fieled 2007

Featured Poet: Michael Anania

Michael Anania's most recent books are IN NATURAL LIGHT and HEAT LINES,both from Moyer-Bell. He is Professor Emeritus at UIC and a member of
the Faculty in Writing at Northwestern. He lives in Austin, Texas and
on Lake Michigan.

Acting Up

“I have been having great doubts about the
current emphasis on Space.”
                     Fumiki Takamatsu (1973)


I.

the point is
no space, just
mere location


the line, ex-
tension without
breadth; neither


exists, of course,
as you and I
exist, or I


exist proposing
you, a mere
location, the point,


coordinates
you pass without
incident, locus


of all those
anticipated
conjunctions,


as in or for
example, wavelet,
bouy, drift-


net or crystal
lattice, its
coarse, courses


by landfall,
soundings in
feet and fathoms


sudden as ever,
the seaway
dissipating;
II.


so your foot
strikes pebbles
or crunches white


sand, the salt marsh,
itself an ordinary
occasion, sea flowers


treeline, granite
outcropping,
another horizon


tilted in its own slow
time; “take it back,”
she says, “take


it all back,” as
though the speech
balloon could be


sucked back into
your mouth like
bubble gum, thought’s


fair weather cumulus
cloud vanishing with-
out consequence, so


much happens; this this
is one day, this the next,
moment to moment,


the neurons flashing
like neon, words or mere
breath, sigh and sigh


again, just for effect
(there is no audience),
Bravo! Brava! instances


of operatic virtuosity
amid such predictable,
occasions, sickness,


betrayal and death
rumors chorusing
around us once again;



III.

location, locus of
all points, though
when you spin a thread


around your finger,
the weight at the end
speeds and spirals


inward; self, then,
the point, pointing
outward and centering,


plié, as though what-
ever moved toward
you curved inward,


however slightly, as
your attention
moves toward it, space


in all its contingencies
bending its own shape
to your slightest touch.







Spruce Canyon Studies


i.

in or around
 this afternoon’s
     quiet, Block or Bartok


proposes a sudden
 urgency, as though
     things were more likely


or more fully lit now,
 their edges sharpened
     in the trembling air


ii.

the image of self
 is coinage, merely,
     an arbitrary marker


whose value changes,
 though its denomination
     remains the same, so seems


permanent and reliable:
can you stay a while or leave
    some token warming in my hand


iii.

it is terribly brief, isn’t it,
  the duration of sound in air,
       and yet there is always sound,


the steady hum of things,
  wind, wave, traffic, the sixty
       cycle murmur of light bulbs


and transforms, armatures
  spinning their own tunes,
       coils and magnets vibrating

iv.

these words are occasions,
  disturbances in air, cats’ paws
       rippling across rippled water; still


it’s the tune that proposes
 the sentence, its melody,
      implicit, though incomplete,


always;  you sing along,
word by word, within another’s song
    drawn by the satisfying arc of melody


v.

it was Bartok, I think,
 “ measures drawn past endurance,”
       Leinsdorf, his hands reaching out


beyond their reach toward flight;
 the bird feeder in the live oak swaying
      with the push of departing birds,


leaves as sharp as laurels, branches
 scaled with green moss, light, as well,
     and shadow and cloud-rush and sky
  







This and That


In January, a slight rain in the air, more mist than rain, really, though
  enough to accumulate, in time, into droplets that run down the windshield,
  the wind out of the northwest, steady and chilling; elsewhere and at another
  time in his life, this would have been snow, spinning on, rather than falling
  through, the air;
the announcer on the radio, which had been playing nothing worth mentioning or
  even noting, announces Julie London’s “Hot Toddy”; or does he announce it or
  merely say, “Julie London’ and play the song, the coolly scatted version—
  one one-two-three, one one one-two-three, one two three, though she says
  do do-do-do, do do do-do-do do do do, except midway through the song
  when she, quite poignantly, changes to oo oo-oo-oo, oo oo oo-oo-oo, ow
  ow ow;
those among you concerned with narrative, as so many seem to be these days,
  will notice that the shift from do do’s to oo’s and ow’s is manifestly
  narrative, as all changes, even in music, inevitably tend to be, and
  referential— oo and ow as parts of pleasure and pain or pleasure edging toward
  pain or pain superseding pleasure, as a droplet exceeds mist, though it proceeds
  from it, offering a sense of direction to what had otherwise seemed a mere
  condition of the air;
questions of attraction, he supposed, were generated out the peculiar puzzle
  of desire; how is it one thing, out of so many, takes on such importance, as
  though life without it would seem less than life, or perhaps, in the moment,
  at least, less complete;
it would be simpler, he thought, to suppose that desire, itself, is a condition,
  rather, that is, than an occurrence, since it manifests itself so broadly and at
  such diverse times;  if it is mere absence, and absence is the continuous
  companion of presence, then to perceive presence would be to perceive absence
  and, therefore, desire, as something more significant than mere appetite, or
  perhaps not;
whatever is missing, as a general fact of presence and absence, would not account
  for desire’s specificity,  a desire not for anything or any one member of a
  category of things but for one thing, one person, receptive, in a similar
  state of unaccountable need;
does it matter, he wonders, that Julie London played a nurse in a 1970s television
  program about paramedics, called “Emergency,” that she took down vital signs
  over a short wave radio and said things like saline, D5W, and lydocaine, that
  she wore white, as nurses still did in the days before pastel, flowered scrubs,
  that she seemed, even there, in costume, larger than life, that her husband,
  Bobby Troup played a doctor on the show, which was produced by her ex-husband,
  Jack Webb;
it is easy to image her on the set, then, microphone in hand, haloed with desire,
  Webb’s pushed, we suppose, into the past, Troup’s more recent if not as
  persistent, Webb reaching across time to dress Julie in stiffened white cotton
  and polyester, saying pulse and blood pressure, or oo oo and ow ow in the
  thick, low, desire-laden voice she was famous for.


© Copyright 2007 Michael Anania

Featured Poet: Jennifer Karmin

Photo credit: street performance of Walking Poem, downtown Chicago, 10/25/06, photo by Daniel Mejia

Jennifer Karmin is a poet, artist, and educator who has experimented with language throughout the U.S. and Japan. She curates the Red Rover Series with fiction writer Amina Cain and is a founding member of the public art group Anti Gravity Surprise. Her multidisciplinary projects have been presented at a number of festivals, artist-run spaces, community centers, and on city streets. Jennifer teaches creative writing to immigrants at Truman College and works as a Poet-in-Residence for the Chicago Public Schools. During 2008, she will be a guest writer in Kenya with the Summer Literary Seminars and in California with the Djerassi Program. Recent publications include WOMB, MoonLit, Bird Dog, Milk Magazine, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century, and Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces.

bananas keep us all alive

i have a dog
i have a cow
i don’t eat meat
i have no food in my apartment

is not catholic
i am not catholic
am raised jewish
in a suburb where
almost everyone was catholic
but me

mom was catholic
was put in a convent
when her mom died
she was four
was afraid
did not like nuns
they did not believe
what she said about her father

catholic is christ
is a man
first a man
many people could believe/know
the same thing about god
answer creation
rules of society
why it’s raining

you are hiking
in bryce canyon
no water
no people
no roads
a rattle snake
red dry hot stony
take off your shirt
and wet it in
the little bit of water
left in this stream

kill bison
kill indians
build roads
build railroads
we can move on we can move on
we do not need to know
we do not need to think

yellowstone is roads
is 30 people taking pictures
of a lone moose
that has stumbled towards
the road
we drive through the park
not a forest

i spent $326 on monday
to fix my car
i bought a couch
for $20
i am slightly dyslexic
i hate math but
i think algebra is ok

knowledge of self
of others
to know how i work
to feel like i am doing something
to get by
to travel
to buy groceries
to buy a new pair of socks

you don’t know
i have been lucky






crabs parchment a favor
or gertrude and i go to the beach

crabby crabs
the sea the ocean
found paper

you and me
we got crabs for a favor
i’m the favor
for you and me
to write right (?)

pack me a favor with crabs
crab me a parchment with a favor
your favor has crabs
on my parchment

to favor (she)
to crab (he)
to parchment
you and i and a crab

i favor the crab i favor me

your parchment
(non-gendered pronouns)
to favor
your crab
to write on parchment
to keep in the sand
with the crab

for a favor
for me
buried away

© Copyright 2007 Jennifer Karmin


Editor's Note: Poems were previously published in the chapbook Myth of Me (ragamuffin press), a project funded by the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Program through the Samuel P. Capen Chair (Robert Creeley) and the Melodia E. Jones Chair (Raymond Federman).

Featured Poet: Lea Graham

Psyche & Eros, After Closing

& beyond Keno flash
& bounce, urine whiff from the johns & shit-
talk. Beyond the vacant barstools, neon
Michelob drained of color, Orbison
silenced, then the boys upstairs in booze,
chess, the blue light of late-night screens; 290
from windows, its soft humming possibility;
above Millbury Street, the Square itself
quiet, still Tony’s lit & cop cars before
lamplight—Worcester-- this city of work itself
idle, in deep sleep or at some edge

:Comes to her
where dark is tension
of bitter & sweet,
a spell wrought from out,
hooded lids, bitten
lip, feels his way, edge
then curve, as fingered
groove, then string. Or her
journey to hell &
back. By heavenly
origin. What they
don’t say. But –O
when he pulls her
hair. Some arch. And then.

From “9 Days & 1 Night at the Vernon”

2.

I write a poem about eating eggs with you.
One month passes and you tell me
you hate eggs--

even scrambled.

A woman comes in who loves the word gorgeous.
She says, "gorgeous blonds,"and "We three
are gorgeous,"

& "This is a gorgeous day."

She has lost a son, a house, land in County Cork.
She pisses herself standing up.
I forgive

your dislike of eggs,

recall your arms, fingers poised, before “Sweet Thing”
& the Ship Room’s golden lights, your
perfect pitch:

gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous

3.

There is a man who plays
Rachmaninov on the untuned
piano. Otherwise, he howls
at noon.

Allie & I scale
fences & pick out crack whores
from the rooftop. Brianna, in
a mu-mu, throws down a 40
ounce.

We drink. Watch
cars lattitude night and the lights
of this square blink on & off
& on at the turn of
a head

4.

Hibiscus inked, blooms
her lats & she lifts
a dress to the room
as a Catholic
boy, filthy with yearning,
pulls her to him, some
great lover-- & this

barroom a terrace over

the Adriatic, below
pine trees mark paths for old men
& bicycles, purposive
on their way into a future—

& the ships at horizon’s lip bound for Cyprus

5.

The two large ladies at the bar
ask Pete what he's packing. He
tells them to estimate his height
by his shoe size & count his Jewish
heritage. They ask him what he
would do if he were with them--
as old as his mother--fucking
his brains out?

He says: I'd call
my girlfriend, tell her I'm sorry.