A Cosmic Hammer of Second Sunday Poetry
for the Non-Year 2020
for the Non-Year 2020
While we await a future reopening, here are poems by Alejo Rovira Goldner, Christine Jordan, Toti O’Brien, Radomir Luza, Tarumi Takagi Inouye and Patricia Murphy
Alejo Rovira Goldner Corpses at Evening Bodybuilders smelled the deadest. Remembering a passion for summer and snorkeling their eyes awoke to be stabbed with syringes. Our governor, finding a goat on his couch, opened the earth with a sword revealing a slew of greasers bent on conquest of our deathcare system. At the request of Pharaoh, the Duke of Bavaria had his sea lions robed and sat them on the Port Authority. At the request of Pharaoh, the Duke of Bavaria crowned himself Lord Protector of our Tri-State. Corpses erupted everywhere: six-day-old corpses, fourteen-day-old corpses, dilf and milf corpses liberal and conservative corpses making popping sounds because they remembered summer and still craved facelifts and corrections. Albino roaches feast on art nouveau tattoos. High-schooler and collegian corpses are the sorriest. The body’s natural air-conditioning is broken, they say a star above has it in for us. Enter Errol Iguana—minor now major prophet— pointing at Pharaoh’s men in pineapple hats: “Your beds shall be filled with stones you shall cry out for your mothers as flies rise from swamps, hunt you in their millions.” Exit Errol Iguana: He endured five days of oriental death and three of regular death. There are corpses made of sleep but you’ll find him stored in his icebox among corpses made of waiting. |
Christine Jordan Me n Jane If you were, say 65 years old or older, could you bonk out a rhythm 360 with your old Capezios for hours on end a half story high small one? Small ones, small ones aren’t they called closed thirds? We, called your ageless students, find tapping a trio, a math problem solved, our work shown. You can get us to maxi ford the creeks of our bulging waters way past our footlight years. It is a shuffling and an irish and a palonk stepping in the right direction, us tapping into our futures. For the friends and brave soles in Jane Napier’s Wed. noon tap class March 9, 2011 the life of trees is no longer a professional question for me I don’t care about what you plant in your yard I was paid to care and solve every problem from holes in your orange trees’ foliage to the wrong color of your hydrangea blooms to yes plan your whole damn landscape for free I did it every hour on the hour for five and two years Treeland occupied my heart broke my fingernails burned my neck and soaked my boots but that’s the life of trees I am officially retired now I can sit beneath the Koelreuteria bipinata ‘Elegans’ and watch it sprout and spawn its long tricked out bracts right before my very eyes I can probably pull every single erratic unwanted weed and scoop up every dry leaf fallen from the rain tree as we shuffle at ground level the dog poop never has a chance to languish long as I am on it in a flash if anything languishes droops crisps or drops it has no chance to languish I know what my new job is and I am right on it Eternal Champion I have chosen to rejoin the battle with my body the scene of conflict? A ballet studio. The spoils? Nothing more than satisfaction at attempting this art again at age forty-three. Day one finds me dressing: first layer, red half body, second layer, grey allbody suit of a security blanket with bare feet, these in the fairest yellow socks and soft pink leather, last layer, a very thin, grey bib, a smock, a friend, offhanded old garment, cinched with another old friend so used one couldn’t call it elastic. All told, I feel like one of the pigeons on the ledge right outside the courtyard window, mime of me, gripping their ledge with red shoes as I grip my steady, anchoring barre, my grey breast similar and full of flesh. One difference: How suited to their purpose my line of beauties at the window are to clasp and unclasp their toes and move like on a rope and stare at us all, dark beads and blunt beaks pressed into their heads, lost in their necks, lost in their feather torsos. They flutter fantastic when our wings brush in unison beaten along by a perfect chord. Another instrument suited to its purpose. But I am satisfied to twist and cajole tendons outward again and make my torso function for the purpose of perfection. I am satisfied, though not as accomplished as the Pigeon Corps de Ballet planted in the empty window boxes of the Coronet Theatre. |
Toti O’Brien Dancers Dancers hold their bodies like candles like altars decorated with clothes old ladies have embroidered perhaps by candlelight in the evening or in the dead of noon burned by exhaustion curtain closed against the sunbeams. Dancers hold their bodies like prayers rising up like cigarette smoke to gods sleeping, hushed by layers of clouds. They hold their heads like crowns of flowers floating on water their smiles disembodied like dentures made of milk and mother of pearl. They wear perfect mannerisms sliding down their sleeves until the tip of their fingers or else coiled around their reptilian necks. Their nails scratch the ether like nibs piercing pinholes through which strange scents are strewn. Tang of lemony sweat barbarous perfumes and a purple note of adrenaline, aromatic oils of fatigue bloody saltiness of swallowed fear. Underneath their clothes they wear skin-colored braces. Dancers wear braces tight. (first published in The Hamilton Stone Review) Diva She botched the entrance twice, the substitute lead duly paid, quite a pro, superiorly trained one who could look at a score, unscramble it cold. The entrance was abrupt, in the second measure. The entrance came as a slap in the face in the second measure, third beat. And she saw it open eyes, throat open, heart and lungs wide open. She observed, almost admired it, she embraced it her whole being prepared to mouth it gulp it then spit it out but she couldn't. She swallowed instead. * He turned towards her, the conductor one she hadn’t met before. Instead of going on he turned and he lifted an eyebrow. A split second. That gaze she’d never forget. Frozen blade, laser sizzling her on the spot. Only two bars in the famous conductor took the liberty of starting over gave the poor clumsy thing an undeserved second chance. * Now she knew where the entrance was. Two words, third and fourth beat of the second measure, easy to pronounce a prayer, a chant, what was this piece about? Someone told her, of course when hours ago she received the call concert dress always spick-and-span in the closet. Now she knew where she should sing the soprano sub, like an angel like crystal rain from above and she breathed on time and yet something choked her and she missed as one skids on black ice as one skips a step and then rolls down a flight of stairs and lands on her back. This time the conductor went on. She jumped in as if mounting a wild unsaddled nightmare. She sung through. She bowed at the applause. * As she wanders backstage, seeking the green room the score flickers behind eyelids half-close. The diagram of the second bar lines her corneas still. The words cruelly eluding her tongue were perdona nos. She removes make-up in front of the mirror thoughts unfocused, brains leaking lassitude. She muses about the two most reflective things she can think of, self-portrait and suicide. Leaning back on her chair, she imagines a stroboscopic lamp, a globe, but concave. Perhaps she is inside it. Sphere of faceted shine, sparkling beehive. She can feel the smoothness of glass its cool, soothing surface and the lethal sharpness of shards. (first published in The Voices Project) Joan of Arc And if myth is the thing you eat for breakfast stale bread soaked in milk plastic cup of faded green And if fair is the flip side of what burns under your sternum when you feel you have been wronged but how, you can’t tell In the cellar, where you have been shut in order to meditate on your sins you sip bitter swags of angst and revolt If unfair has nothing to do with justice or rights only with a knot in your throat that causes your gagging * Suddenly, as rage’s eating your chest you are climbing a ladder your wrist ringed by the sweaty grip of mute fingers Fair has nothing to do with kind like your missing mother or with blond and light-skinned Only with a noise beyond the smothering hush of your blindfold, a crowd witnessing your blame and your shame Unaware of the vain, vague rebellion making you into their laughing stock their thrill Their attraction that is just a distraction to relieve endless tedium and the vacancy of gods * Dusty wind pricks the skin of your nape the pink strip between ear and scalp freshly shaven Itchy like the brush you stroke on the back of your darling mare In the stable, that’s where you belong or else in the kitchen but the hand you can’t see holds you tighter * In a somnambulic daze you sense smoke and the heat of a distant summer (Sun scorching your freckled cheeks in an open field remote innocence) Your heart throbs while your jailer crushes your bones as if squeezing lymph out of a twig You are the kindling to your own holocaust Slowly, you become myth (first published in Gyroscope) |
Radomir Luza America And Marlon Brando, James Dean and Montgomery Clift opened the floodgates, And Lenny Bruce drowned in them. Where Chevrolets, Buicks and Ford pick-ups find God. And God finds us weeping under interstate overpasses between swigs. In an America too cold to care and too indifferent to change. Looking for tranquility or just quiet in abandoned bathroom stalls and overused needles. Where New York City blows its nose on disaffection and disillusionment. Like an avalanche on a paralyzed climber. Where ecstasy has replaced cocaine as the mature drug. Where America dons a disguise too ugly for Halloween and too pure for Christmas. Where a truck driver like Elvis Presley changed the world. By not listening to it. Where Jesus speaks every Sunday morning. And is mute the rest of the week. Where Joshua, Vladimir, Rashamba and Mary jog around Central Park every Sunday morning together. Where Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Marvin Gaye lived, struggled and died. Where boys dare not be girls. And girls dare not be more than 125. Where peer pressure is always a step ahead of His Pressure. Where intellectuals, artists and scientists are nothing more than freaks at somebody else’s dinner table. Where liberals and conservative find only black and white. When they should be looking for gray. Where gay men and women who love each other are called dykes, faggots, queers and cunts. Where beards meet beards. Lipstick meets lipstick, hands cup breasts And fingers grip chests 24/7 And sex still has a price. Where the idea of me and you has been replaced by me. Where fame lasts fifteen minutes and blow jobs fifteen seconds. Where funding has replaced art and Dick and Jane can’t find a house under half a mil. Where yes means no and Courtney Love is another name for pain. Where Buddha and Allah and Jesus drink from the same water fountain in Crown Heights. Where love means sex and sex means nothing. Where girls reading People and Us and In Touch realize that their souls belong in the garbage and their tits in the wind. Where polar opposites are often polar opposites. Where the Sunset Strip has become a cartoon. Where a white guy won’t ever see BB King in concert and a black guy Bruce Springsteen. Where you and me and every person in their house should take the TV set and ram a dictionary through it. Then look up imagination. Where cell phones should be outlawed everywhere. Where slam poets should be taught that there is more to the art of poetry than the same three words and that annoying sing-songy delivery. Where forests and trees and meadows and plains should be preserved for my son and his daughter. And the Rocky Mountains and Grand Canyon should be, well, left alone. Where alcohol should be outlawed everywhere. Where Hollywood should get fined 50 million dollars for every degrading, badly-acted, unrehearsed, coldly written film it releases. Where therapists need ten years of study before they can practice. Where prostitution should be legal for anyone 18 or above. Where politics should be regarded as an art form not a corrupt joke. Where poets like me can live off their work not somebody else. Where the voting rights act was signed over nearly fifty years ago and there is still a black America and a white America. Where John, Medgar, Malcom, Robert and Martin were assassinated not coronated for speaking out against oppression, hatred and violence. Where a revolution gave us birth and a millionaire in Afghanistan tried to send us to death. Cleveland The Starbucks on West 6th matters tonight It slices through the poetry critic in my head like the birth of death Over there on the intersection of asphalt and pain The city stops making sense It is a brown flamingo, a flying submarine An undiscovered leper colony Girls walk down Superior Thumbprints in caffeine Non-fat milk not included Boys sashay Lake Erie Buttons bend below cuffs Water runs through levee of lips Fish lying still Finding me away from me Raping the riverbed of retreat The love we share The backs I break Cleveland free me Squeeze me Believe me The easy way is getting harder The numbness of instinct The intrusion of genius The arrogance of confidence Your warehouses and flats Buy words my sweaters take My angels fake My sister makes Your rivers snake and shake through castrated Causeways and bulletproof heartaches At the parking lot across from the steak house I park my ulcer red Pontiac rent-a-car Give Sam the attendant four dollars I give the homeless guy down the block 35 cents After buying a Plain Dealer newspaper from a bilge box across the street I admit it to myself: it is your people Cleveland Your black, your red, your white, your green Your baritone meadows and rustic rattlesnakes You close earlier than death my Midwestern Mohawk You open later than life Ohio ovary Over there by the chophouse Children lean on charred chandeliers Press tomatoes born while they ruled the universe in naked pinstripes Cleveland you are my father Guarding borders with a sunflower (“America” and “Cleveland” appeared in New York Nadir published by Author House, 2014) Poetry It makes my soul drum to the beat of the highway, robots with tears, take a vacation, but you can't get away with it, it's simple, it's always inside you, grab a bag, put it over your head, you cannot miss the sounds moving, rats under trees, the words come out, you don't ever think they will, but they do, soldiers in the dark, the typewriter, a tomato can with grease, doesn't help, but one with you, dying, the fingers blur the fingers blur for they do not know what to do, they turn the general to the specific, the mind, an apple with no crust, wonders where it all comes from, it wasn't made for this intensity, Pass a statue, sit on a bench, touch the person in front of you, you can't lose it, it's always with you, Yes, buttresses on a couch, you must have the faith to say it, to write it, to sing it, To somehow get it out, to look my mother in the mouth and tell her her life means nothing, touch your father on the cheek and tell him you would die for him, look, look around you, we all have gifts, we all can do it, envelopes lamps, Japanese over newspapers, you don’t get it little one because it doesn’t come from you, it comes from something truer, you are the instrument, a mule with headlights. (“Poetry” appeared in The Harahan Journal, Dinstuhl Publishing, 1991) |
Tarumi Takagi Inouye Abunai You Just Might Get It On the front steps of my childhood home, brain on fire from grief, I sat wishing for the world to halt, Earth to freeze on its axis, galaxy and universe to stop expanding. That was a decade ago. Dad had just died… Now by governor's order, until further notice, we shelter in place except when absolutely necessary. Now, with generations of trauma and hardships hardwired in me, this order feels natural. I was raised with the admonition Mottainai! - chastised for long phone calls, using too many sheets of toilet paper. I watched Dad save one dollar bills in narrow drawers of an old tansu. In his childhood home, plastic containers and bags were efficiently hoarded, door knobs were surrounded with rubber bands. We didn't discuss what was taken before “camp.” My uncles filled empty tin lozenge boxes with quarters. We ignored their collective barbed wire nightmare. Grandma's garden was full with sweet scented blossoms, fruits, succulents, vegetables. Now the cast iron skillet I inherited and ignored for years is seasoned daily, batches of dough are named to bake bread, every crumb savored… Now I soak beans like Aunty Taeko taught me, cook them all day. The aroma takes me back to her small apartment, kitchen barely big enough for us both. Now I use every scrap like Grandma Harue, sleep under a blanket knit by my husband's Great-grandma Aiko. Their stories woven together a century ago. They arrived by ship in the US only to be "quarantined." Grandpa Takagi went back to the dock for days to see if the quarantine had been lifted, till he learned the secret, no novel virus, just conventional extortion. The rotten dock master let them disembark after taking his cash. This is not the Land of Lincoln my grandfather expected. Now we rely on governors, keep our distance to slow the Novel Coronavirus, flatten the curve. Now former necessities are no longer absolute, this is an altered world. Natural order will be restored too soon. |
Patricia Murphy Doors When one door closes another one opens. It's sad to see the passing of Representative John Lewis as his casket arrives at the United States Capitol. We loved seeing him walk on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. He stood with Martin Luther King in 1963 at the March on Washington at King’s "I Have A Dream" speech. Lewis was a force to be reckoned with. He made good changes as a congressman and stood for the people. He was responsible for the voting rights act. He was a warrior, preacher and profit. He longed for unity among humanity. Lewis was the last generation of the Civil Rights Movement. Representative Lewis casket arrives in the Rotunda. John Lewis said: "To find a way to get in the way." "Never give up, never give in, never become hostile." May he rest in peace. |
© 2020.
A Cosmic Hammer of Second Sunday Poetry for the Non-Year 2020
© 2020. Poets: Alejo Rovira Goldner, Christine Jordan, Toti O’Brien, Radomir Luza, Tarumi Takagi Inouye and Patricia Murphy.
Second Sunday Poetry Series
© 2020. Poets: Alejo Rovira Goldner, Christine Jordan, Toti O’Brien, Radomir Luza, Tarumi Takagi Inouye and Patricia Murphy.
Second Sunday Poetry Series