My dead smell like lemons

Pinwheel
Rebecca Loudon

I was tending the garden when a bee flew
up my blouse stung my left nipple
I was claimed then
I wanted to be a better woman
reaching back with a corked finger
into fruit
I carry ice
worship fur

My body is split
& wet in spite of alcohol
with the goaty head man
nails curling down
becoming cloven
I’m not alarmed
I like the pillow
slick

I fold the clothes of my dead
into plastic bags dresses shirts
socks slippers the whole shebang
my dead smell like lemons
their teeth are marshmallow white
my sister is perfect
she has a perfect body
her hair is a gold wasp’s nest
I fold her Snow White pajamas
into a square

I see the reptile man on television
& realize it is my husband
holding a two-headed turtle to the camera
all three of them smile

Chinchillas

Chinchilla is one of the most costly and fragile of furs, and is best suited to a brunette with a good complexion.

It’s upsetting.

3 monks and a priest

I wrote Last Meals of the Saints for for every year. I’m not meaning to hog the 16th century or anything, but Crispin had a contributor drop out at the last second, plus I was inspired by Henry VIII‘s mass execution of 3 monks and a priest in that year, 1535.

Also, Travis Kurowski was my excellent HTMLG Secret Santa for X-mas, and he got me a subscription to a poetry journal I wasn’t familiar with, The Lumberyard, and I just got Issue #5 in the mail, and it’s a sumptuous, gorgeous, letter-pressed thing. This particular issue is dedicated to truckers, and it reminds me a bit of Forklift, Ohio (my favorite) sensibility-wise. A CD from Seclusion is enclosed -Three Bridges -Hostile Impetus. I haven’t listened to it yet, because honestly, the whole thing is just too pretty to take apart. With poetry by Brett Eugene Ralph, Kathleen McGookey, Dan Pinkerton, Yikilo Hiskiss, Tiffany Turner, M. Bartley Siegel, and Derek Mong individually and carefully formatted, it’s a complete treat to see and feel and read.

On fire

PEEP/SHOW is a new poetry publication that, according to its Peepifesto, intends to publish innovative poetry every 5 months and unfold “over the course of time, with a large chunk of serially-minded work by a different poet added every few weeks.”  Their debut issue, 10 Women, is impressive, including substantial work by Kate Schapira and Kimberly Lyons.

We would rather set things on fire than carve them in stone. –Lynn Behrendt and Anne Gorrick, Curators

Red excerpt
Kate Schapira

…freshly presented,
newly created …

…

not disenchanted. If you lay
the red surfaces
together they may regenerate.
They have some give if you
get to them in time,
the siren says. Concern
reddens and tightens
your brow as the siren
passes. What’s going on under
the wrinkles could be any color.

If you lay the surfaces together
you may be startled by pleasure.
May think of frostbite
to calm yourself, your circulation
may return, the siren may …

…

There are nicks in …

True for life

Fuck me for not being Lydia Davis.

Still. It’s not for everyone.

They control me

Extraordinary poem by Ana Carrete posted at her place the other day. This Ana is really something, she is a force.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

“cut an orange“, by ana carrete

Wop bam boom

Song of Solomon 2:5 Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.

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Call out

A writer, when he’s asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves. I love Kafka, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Proust, O’Casey, Rilke, Lorca, Keats, Rimbaud, Burns, E. Brontë, Jane Austen, Henry James, Blake, Coleridge. I won’t name any living writers. I don’t think it’s right. —J. D. Salinger

Perishable

I love what Ana Carrete is doing with her soon-to-expire domain– soliciting poems about expiring, to be posted until the lights go out. She has 17 excellent poems so far, by folks like Adam Coates, Rollerfink, Brittany Wallace, Thomas Patrick Levy, P. Edward Cunningham, Crispin Best; etc., and wants more, so send her something, for the sake of having your work crumble to virtual dust on a schedule. I’m going to.

Some (soon to be dead) links to selected quotes from the poems, after the jump:

– your tongue uttering a tender grave – we always finish the orange juice – any excuse pretending I’m the thing I suck from/Is welcomed – you can paint my nails you can do that if you want – i will remember this day/but not always – ¿ defile – I realize my throat is a slophole – Dot: the only virtuous element –

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