The Wake » Literary

Summer Reading

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:08 +0000

Looking for some new avenues to take in your reading selection? Check out these titles at your local library or book store.

Fiction:

Scott Bradfield, The History of Luminous Motion
Paul Auster, City of Glass
Jose Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Non-Fiction

John R. Stilgoe, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places
Carlos Castaneda, The Teaching of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great
Lenny Bruce, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina Christoher Hitchens, God is not Great
James Scully, Line Break: Poetry as Social Practice

Poetry

Jules Boykoff, Once Upon a Neoliberal Rocket Badge
Juliana Spahr, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs
Éireann Lorsung, Music for Landing Planes By
Claudia Rankine, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

TWIG

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:07 +0000

I’ve been smoked like a cig. I’ve been treated like a pig. I’ve been Newtoned like a fig, oh Lord. Oh, Lordy Lord, oh Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.
Feels like I’m gonna snap like a twig.

I’ve been brought up way too high. And dragged down far too low. I guess that’s just the way things go. Oh, Lordy Lord, oh Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.
But mere man shouldn’t try to disturb this river’s flow.

I’ve been dragged on through the mire. And tainted with false desire. I’ve been wrangled and tangled just like a wire. Oh, Lordy Lord, oh Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.
But this war won’t stomp out these good soldiers’ fires.
No this rain it won’t Stamp out our American fire.

The Roof

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:06 +0000

I sit on the roof, outside my window
on the second floor of my house
smoking hookah and watching the Bunge
plunge into the sunset.

The smoke ring sits gently with the parked
letters
of the spray can’s spark,
flutter me an antidote

“A T T A K T H E G L O B E”

Why not take the globe and push it a little
down a hill, maybe give it a kiss with a few toes
and a nimble hello with the passing stones.
Maybe we could wash it with sweet liquor
and watch as the little mountains grow sicker
and soak with the languid moats surrounding.
Is this kid kicking with him the middle
of the street or is it just his feet
with him?
It’s so easy to just give it a rinse and then
be done with it. It’s so easy to just rise and say that
the sun isn’t part of it anymore.

It’s so easy to fall from here.

The shingles frail the windows unraveled
the cringe of the bugs scatter the sound
of the Boards of Canada under my window
out of the nostalgia without the mouth
the crawl and the incandescent light bulb.

This is by no Means an Anything

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:05 +0000

It’s an everything!
And for that many people don’t reside well within it
for that many people reside well in certain tides
of mildew, others soft linen, and others the whip of the
arid cries of locusts to the stalk
the locust to the stalk
the locust to the stalk is not a certain anything
it is an everything
that’s what makes the stalk rot.

What’s wrong with gutting the children for their mother’s milk?
What’s wrong with curdling the skin that doesn’t fit in
with the smoke stacks, or the mercury harbor, the uranium river,
what’s wrong with curdling the skin?

Arbusto thrusted in ‘77’s, scented oils in-laden
anointed little ones—
scurry critters, scurry with the weather
or the withered,
just some ordinary demon, with a skillful part
and a wispy grin.

Many kill
to profit
patient
excess
suffer.

What’s wrong with gutting the children for their mother’s milk?
What’s wrong with curdling the skin that doesn’t fit in
with strictly business, strictly existence, strictly the insistence
that we all are the,
We are the locust!
and all we’ll ever be
Arbusto, we are the energy.
Arbusto, indefinitely [.]

On Wars of Aggression

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:04 +0000

“War is the health of the state”
- Randolph Bourne

Remember sitting in AP Government
Remember the New York Times
Remember the cover
of the
cover of the
cover of the New York Times
splayed with ideas
on 1% doctrines
where it’s ok when one feels the slightest bit threatened

to plow homes with sweet
depleted uranium?

Unaccounted—does a child scream
when nothing is around to listen
except for the dust settling under
the once-terrace, now splayed heap
of arms and feet and vaporized concrete?

Eugene Debs went to jail
under accusation
of obstructing the World War

“The master class has
always
declared the wars;
the subject class has
always
fought the battles”

but what does that mean?
Obstructing
War
Where did it stall?
On the banks of the Somme?
Or in the recruiting office, after the truth?

May 1st, 2007

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:03 +0000

What scares them most is
That NOTHING HAPPENS!
They are ready
For DISTURBANCES.
They have machine guns
And soldiers,
But this SMILING SILENCE
Is uncanny.
- Anise

I want to talk against this police state
a little bit
while the onslaught by the L.A.P.D.
on immigrant rights protestors
are still swollen
and red from the welts
of the rubber bullets flying in crowds of women
and children
and the elderly
and reporters
in an act of aggression
towards those redressing their grievances

it was not always this way.

In 1919, a General Strike Committee
set the city of Seattle on a stand-still
urging laborers to go out and protest
their grievances
for a better a wage, and a comfortable
way of life.

I want to speak of the peace that came with their strike
I want to speak of the crime rates falling
I want to speak of the peace
of Seattle, shut down.
I want to speak of the peace
while the L.A.P.D. tramples
families off of their feet.

MN to DC Walk

Archived Story — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:00:02 +0000

Minn. — If you’re from the Midwest and it doesn’t matter where, say shh. Say shh. If you can drink tap water and breath the air, say shh. Say shh …Roam if you must, but come home when you’ve seen enough. Holla Minnesnowtans. That salutation took a while; please forgive me. Oh, and you probably wanna go on a month-long walk with me to D.C. With this whole war going on, it’s surely a month that will go down in history. Why not write the history – live the history. If you wanna come, meet me at Northrop Mall on June 4th. After a handshake from a few friends of mine and yours’, we’ll walk down Uni to the Capitol to meet yet more friends, and then we’ll head south to Red Wing for the evening, ya know, yada, yada yada. A Madtown stop is certainly in order, as well as a visit to that toddling town of Chicago. A stop in Lima, perhaps? Ohio, not Peru, ya friggin’ idiot. And what venture from the land where we walk on water would be complete without the breathtaking Gateway to the Piedmont: the Cumberland Gap. Pull up your bootstraps, Johnny Appleseed, we’re on an expedition. No cutting down cherry trees, though. If we get there early – before the Fourth of Ju-lye – I guess we’ll hang out across the Potomac on Alexandria or Arlington – or even Pentagon City, gasp – for a bit. Maybe sleep in Arlington National Cemetery. Or dig up George Washington’s skeleton a short jaunt south at Mount Vernon. Who knows what may, but we’ll probably shut down the Interstates heading into our fare Capital, considering how popular this idea has/will have become come this here Ju-lye, as Sinatra might have said. We will carry on, as a herd of buffalo soldiers here in the heartland of America heading to the densely packed, scary East; land of the crooked politician and fast-paced, fascist greed. Just a bunch of bitches and a big fucking Dick – several. This is sadly, not a joke. Yes. I am crazy. But it’s the Summer of 07 goddamnit and it’s time to believe in something. And it’s long past time to bring the troops home, before Vietnam II kills ANY MORE and makes those henchmen any richer.

Many Will Forget It

Archived Story — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:00:06 +0000

The last time I rode a bicycle before today, I remember,
this was a summer ago, as I remember it,
a summer ago as I remember, I rode a bicycle through photographs
in the Northrop Mall, as I remember it,
riding through photographs on Northrop Mall
posing motion for brochure catalogues, as I remember it,
while I ride, as I remember the contrasts
of the overcast today to the picaresque under the Boynton Clock Tower
to the skin grafts beside the Stone Arch
and the mad dash to the Alumni Center
for fake graduation gowns
for that final cap to the ad; this photograph,
today, as I remember it,
as I remember the helicopter skim above,
as I remember it, stalled on Hennepin over
What do we want? “Peace!”
When do we want it?
“Now!” as I remember it,

the snap of the drum beat,
it was now,
that not my voice was taken, not then, not my voice, not our voice
that was taken, as I remember it
on my bicycle, as I remember the exit
from Loring Park, as I remember it,
we left Loring Park through a split curtain of trees,
as I remember it, passing a pedestrian, as I remember it,
behind my friend, as I remember that
even she, the pedestrian, picked up her camera then,
as he passed and, as I remember
just passing, the aperture snap,
as I remember it, just the miniscule snap
of her aperture, as I remember it,
just a brief
snap.

Food-Based Musings

Archived Story — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:00:05 +0000

Concerning String Cheese
Sweat has made my hair coarse and wiry. The ink-stained 100% cotton t-shirt feels like a burlap sack on my exhausted body. I just returned from a day working at an industrial screen printing factory. Between stacking empty bottles inside boxes and resisting the thought that, through a horrible series of events, this could end up being my life, my entire being is tired. I need to take a shower, but I don’t have the energy. Instead I shamble over to the couch and shift my weight so that I fall into what I hope will be a comfortable position.
I consider the string cheese log, which I hope will provide the necessary energy to move to the bathroom. As it lies on my chest, I think about peeling it into its namesake shape before deciding that’s too much effort. I bite the end off. It tastes different, worse, like the filaments are actually bonded together by essence of nasty. Only pulling the fibers apart can destroy these bonds.
This teaches me a valuable lesson. Apart we shall fall, but together we will stand because we taste gross.

The Salad Conspiracy
There is no workable definition for what a salad is. No unifying ingredient or principle provides a boundary between salads and non-salads. Nothing could conceivably pass in potato salad, garden salad, jell-o salad and fruit salad. Only a lack of specific arrangement unites those salads, but not all foods considered salad share that trait. My parents are adamant that a plate of alternating tomatoes and cheese arranged in a circle counts as a salad.
Because of a lack of any criterion that needs to be met for a food item to qualify as a salad, every edible substance is a salad. Hamburgers are a bun and ground beef patty salad; cereal is a salad specially suited for the demands of breakfast. When asked “soup or salad?” the question really is “salad or salad with an excessive amount of dressing?”

Want Salt With That Orange?
It is halftime at a youth soccer match. Winonan tradition dictates that players are furnished with oranges at halftime. I devour them. The orange quarter is positioned in my mouth so that I cleave the flesh from peel in one bite then smile revealing the rind covering my teeth, a citrus mouth guard.
The orange juice coats my hand. Children like me are the reason for the invention of the trough bib. Being their normal state, the sticky condition of my hands doesn’t faze me.
The time to rally ourselves to victory with a hands-in-the-center cheer arrives. One of my teammates tells me “Don’t touch me your hands are icky!”
I will never eat halftime oranges again.

Disappearing a Culture - With Only a Sppon
Nostalgic for the middle school days when I would read all the writing on juice boxes for the amusement of my easily amused tablemates, I turn the tapered skunk-trapping tube around. It is vanilla yogurt. I cannot stand the fruit flavored yogurts because of the wads of frozen matter suspended in them. Yoplait claims that they are fruit—lies.
Near the bottom I find a proclamation that the yogurt is a living and active culture. Thinking about the organism in my mouth I chew it unnecessarily. As my teeth crush it, I think of the yogurt begging for mercy. Request denied, on the grounds of deliciousness.
The amorphous nature of yogurt helps it survive my jaws. But it won’t survive the vat of acid that is my stomach.

Flowers in Jerusalem

Archived Story — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:00:19 +0000

Take my hand and
Walk under the archways
That lead to the shadiest part
Of the east-cityscape.
Where the dryness
Is not so bad as before
When you met up with me
Near your broken door.
Since you have slept
On the floor in the sand
That covers us all, I thought
I would help you stand.
So, now once more
I introduce you here
Where the sun does not
Sink in or sit so near.

As I brush past
This elegant hall
I ask that you take it in
And absorb it all.
There are a few
People waiting for you
To see what is coming
And to see if its true.
But, I digress, take
Your time, linger now
Before the time must come
When acrid sun bows.
Sit here before the
Fountain-well where
Some have seen wonders
And others just stare.

Withdraw before a
Passing guard, holding
Watch and feigning charge
Over a city molding.
Calmly hold your
Vagrant guise before
The passing guard sees
Something more.
Sunlight bounces
Off a carried metal
I see you blinded, cry
“where is this petal?”

And there before
Your awestruck eyes
Is the last link to life
We here prize.
Off the subtle
Slanted bough
Lies the last leaf
Of a broken vow.
So now you
See the city heart
And now, I think,
You should start.
Moving hardly
To make no show
Hold vigils secret to let
No one know.

Pause

Past the moment
When you called God
I swear I heard trumpets
As a ‘signal nod.’
Crippled though
You were when last
The temples fell and burned
It all has passed.
No arm of man
No heart of sin
Could break that love
That soul within.

And waited all
For life and return
From viewing anew;
Time, it turns.

Place Your Bets

Archived Story — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:00:17 +0000

I was once subject to a dream
Recurring, yet always new
In a dark abandoned room, once bright
It appeared in a subjective view

Outside there stood a woman
Indistinguishable inside her hood
The face of a mirror, reflecting not me
But only the earth on which she stood

Sometimes at night, I chase her
Hoping her presence she’d construe
But, with my objects, I built each door
To lead into another room

She never returns to my dreams
For now she is the stars and moon
And every night, although it hurts
With my objects, I build another room

A Dream of Raining Orphans

Archived Story — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:00:15 +0000

I was once subject to a dream
Recurring, yet always new
In a dark abandoned room, once bright
It appeared in a subjective view

Outside there stood a woman
Indistinguishable inside her hood
The face of a mirror, reflecting not me
But only the earth on which she stood

Sometimes at night, I chase her
Hoping her presence she’d construe
But, with my objects, I built each door
To lead into another room

She never returns to my dreams
For now she is the stars and moon
And every night, although it hurts
With my objects, I build another room

Untitled Prose

Archived Story — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:00:13 +0000

Once outside I light a smoke, “Marlboro No. 27”, and its tobacco is that which my brain might actually crave, wisp clouds pull depth from the blue and some water cascades down stairs leading to God—. No, only leading to Northrup but at least I’m looking and now I feel alive again, much less dead than this morning when upon waking I cursed the day. Next class is too close, too easy to find, too little time to waste walking and wishing I wasn’t going to class. Winter was a waste of time, for anyone looking for warmth, too few hours I spent sober, looking for warmth, and I find it here now in spring, far from it in fact, a tease of seasons and I’m already late for that class which was too close yet I found a longer way there, a longer way with time for more wishing, and another cigarette that I didn’t crave but had anyway. With more thoughts about winter and less about class I wish I had less to care about and someone to share that with, but all I have is the class I’ll walk to, and walk in late again. Stop and look around. I knew someone here, but not now, not this semester, it wasn’t spring then, or winter. It just was and I knew this class would be the same today as it was yesterday, but I still wish I wouldn’t have been here yesterday, but here today instead, but on time for once. But neither wish comes true and I sit in the back of the room and talk with a classmate and open the paper. Not reading, looking at lines of type on slimy paper that smear on my fingers, and the pictures in the paper that isn’t really all that important. I leave that classroom as I came in, sweaty and smelling of not spring but winter, where hot bodies warm hotter classrooms to the point of disgust. I walk home, in spring but not in rain, and not even in spring as I realize this can’t be true and isn’t. I’m thinking about too much and doing too little to make these thoughts stop, but it doesn’t bother me all the time, like now, but it bothers me in sleep. Or more it bothers me not in sleep, but in a struggle to sleep. A struggle last night I endured again, fighting fucked up dreams and uncomfortably I watched every hour pass. Until the day broke and I cursed its arrival again. Another Tuesday. Incredibly

Nocturnal Stomping Act

Archived Story — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 06:00:07 +0000

We walk down streets
that bear mounds of ash

and wonder why we can’t see our feet,
or the black hole at the center of the town of ash.

It’s not as though we are strangers
to the mound of ash

spread in its ways, though at times I wonder why so
many distance themselves from these mounds of ash.

These days are nothing but the same feet walking between beams
coasting by houses and buildings standing stripped of their walls—to ash,

with no question or qualm,
and a precipitant [Bird] between the floorboards and the ivy.

It’s Vacation Time, Baby! Vacation! Vacation. It’s Vacation Time, Baby…

Archived Story — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 06:00:00 +0000

At last on their way to sunny, cocktail decorated, ‘Some Spanish Island’ bliss, Ruby, Alice, and Veronica had only been on the plane for one hour (out of a twelve hour flight) when Alice got ‘airsick’ and threw up so much that the vomit-bag filled, and she had to ask for another one. Immediately following the ‘unsavory incident,’ the flight attendant had said with tight politeness, Alice had an irritatingly long stint in the bathroom.

Ruby and Veronica were pissed, needless to say. Although Alice insisted that it was just the turbulence making her sick, Veronica knew it was the small rainbow of pills she’d taken before they’d got on the flight, and then again after the fight had taken off. Fear of flights my ass, she thought with disdain, purposefully ignoring her vodka and sprite (the second one) sitting on the little fold down tray next to her little bag of pretzels. There was probably a hydrocodone in Alice’s mix too, because, Veronica remembered, benzodiazepines had never really upset Alice’s stomach, like they did hers. Thankfully Alice had soon retreated into a coma-like sleep, with Ruby dozing like a tired kitten between them. Ruby had an annoyingly remarkable ability to sleep on planes, no matter the circumstances. As soon as the girl sat down and fasted her seat belt she was out like a candle that caught a breeze, while beside her Veronica was ordering drinks and Alice was digging through her ‘medley’ pill bottle.

Veronica sighed and rubbed her eyes and wished for a cigarette. It was obviously very fucking necessary from them to always announce, “This is a non-smoking flight, so please refrain from smoking until you have left the aircraft.” As if there were ‘smoking flights’. Veronica declined to care that she was tip-tapping her fingers on the armrest. Then she paused. Are there smoking flights? Rich people planes, or something… Veronica chewed on her lower lip and wished fervently that (a) soon she would fall asleep for several blissful hours, (b) soon the waitress would bring her another drink or two, after which she would pass out, or (c) soon the plane would crash and she would be able to enjoy a crisp cigarette amongst the smoldering wreckage.

Interpretive Dance

Archived Story — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 06:00:08 +0000

A. General Gonzales: The fact that the Constitution—
again, there’s no express grant of Habeas
in the Constitution—
there’s a prohibition against taking it away.
But um, there’s—
it’s never been the case.
I’m not aware of a Supreme—

The Arlen Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute.
The Constitution says
you can[no]t take it away
except in the case
of invasion or
rebellion.
Does[no]t that mean
you have the right
of Habeas Corpus?

A. General Gonzales: I meant by that comment that
the Constitution does[no]t say
every individual in the United States
or every citizen is hereby granted
or assured
the right of Habeas—

It does[no]t say that.

It simply says
that the right
of Habeas Corpus
shall not be suspended.

Constitution: Article 1, Section 9:
The Privilege of the Writ
of Habeas Corpus
shall not be suspended,
unless when in Cases
of Rebellion or Invasion
the public Safety may require it.

The Arlen Specter: You may be treading
on your interdiction
and violating
common sense,
Mr. Attorney General.

Trapped

Archived Story — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 06:00:07 +0000

Students
Trapped
In dormitorial dreamworld
Chanting in pseudo-utopian bliss
Rolling stone mantra
Praying for chains to rot.

Workers
Trapped
In industrial nightmare
Sweating factorial frustration
Alienated confusion
Struggling for chains to break.

People
Trapped
In commoditic consumption
Purchasing profusely
Self-product
Hoping to someday buy chains.

Literary Events Calendar

Archived Story — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:00:12 +0000

Who: Leslie Adrienne Miller
What: The author discusses ‘The Resurrection Trade.’
When: Wednesday, March 28th, 7 pm.
Where: The Loft Literary Center (1011 Washington Ave S), FREE

Who: Anatoly Liberman
What: Time and Language
When: Thursday, March 29th, 4 pm.
Where: Nolte Center Lounge (U of M), FREE

Who: Michael Friedman; Anselm Hollo
What: Writers read from recent works.
When: Thursday, March 29th, 7:30 pm.
Where: Rogue Buddha Art Gallery (357 13th Ave NE, Mpls.), FREE

Who: Christopher Moore
What: The author discusses ‘You Suck.’
When: Friday, March 30th, 7 pm.
Where: Coffman Bookstore (U of M), FREE

Who: Shelia Bland; Pat Samples; Sandy Beach; Danielle Daniel; Heidi Arneson
What: Reading and story telling
When: Friday, March 30th, 7 pm.
Where: Amazon Bookstore (4755 Chicago Ave S, Mpls.), FREE

Who: Mentor Reading: Jim Moore
What: The poet reads from recent works with Heather Goodman; Nena Johansen.
When: Friday, March 30th, 7 pm.
Where: The Loft Literary Center, FREE

Who: Kim Harrison
What: The author discusses her writing.
When: Saturday, March 31st, 7 pm.
Where: The Loft Literary Center, FREE

Who: Jonathan Lethem
What: The author discusses ‘You Don’t Love Me Yet.’
When: Monday, April 2nd, 7 pm.
Where: Coffman Bookstore (U of M), FREE

In The Belly We Are Wronged

Archived Story — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:00:11 +0000

I have melancholy tropical storms welling inside my liver.
There is a tidal wave of agony about to pour from my kidneys.
There is a blizzard of regret swirling behind my retinas.
There is a tornado of terrible wrecking my esophagus.
There is corrupt acid rain in my muscles.
The threat of loss is sleeting in my spleen.
Poverty precipitates up and down my spine.
There isn’t place enough to put all the pain in the world.
Within each organ we store our own, who is big enough to store it all?

Etching

Archived Story — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:00:10 +0000

I wish sometimes, just sometimes but still,
that I could erase it all.
Take this scrap piece of paper with
this drawing of a world upon it and crumple it in a ball.
Then start fresh with a new piece of land and a new drawing tool.
Where all our children will be numerous and beautiful,
the faults of the old world never appearing in them.
We will love all of them with all we have
and they will love us and each other.
There won’t be piercing loss
and the threat of loss won’t rear its ugly head.
Deaths will consist of joyous dances with
flowered robes and beautiful smells.
We will not mourn their passing but we will laugh
with them and remember with them to the very end.
Each hand of the dying will hold the hand of a loved one.
And we will warm their passing with our smiles
and the light reflecting off the few tears glistening in our eyes.
We’ll have the wisdom to realize that
God would not create us all so different
if he intended for us all to be the same.
Everything will be gentler because
beneath it all will be a strong foundation of unconditional love.
Friendships will have no expiration date.
There will be wanting.
There will be no greed.
We will all hope, all endure, and all save
each other together.

Event Calendar

Archived Story — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:00:10 +0000

Who: Jazzy Literary Soiree
What: Jazz and readings with authors Sheila O’Connor; Patti Frazee; Maureen Millea Smith; Pamela Carter Joern.
When: Wednesday, March 21st, 7:30 pm.
Where: First Universalist Church (3400 Dupont Ave S, Mpls.), FREE

Who: Deborah Keenan
What: Poetry.
When: Thursday, March 22nd, 7:30 pm.
Where: Weisman Art Museum (U of M), FREE

Who: Vincent Wyckoff
What: The mailman discusses ‘Beware of the Cat and Other Encounters of a Letter Carrier.’
When: Thursday, March 22nd, 7:30 pm.
Where: Lyndale United Church of Christ (810 W 31st St, Mpls.), FREE

Who: Kamau Brathwaite
What: The Carribean poet discusses ‘The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy’
When: Friday, March 23rd, 7 pm
Where: The Loft Literary Center

Who: The Wake
What: Open-myke (yeah, that’s right; take that standard English)
When: Friday, March 23rd, 7 pm.
Where: Starlight café in Dinkytown

Who: Northography Poetry Reading
What: Readers! Featuring: Bryan Thoa Worra; LouAnn Muhm; Dylan Garcia Wahl; Cassandra Labairon; Diana Lundell; Britt Fleming.
When: Saturday, March 24th, 7 pm.
Where: Cahoots Coffee Bar (1562 Selby Ave, St. Paul), FREE

Who: Joe Boyd
What: The author reads from his autobiography, ‘White Bicycles’.
When: Monday, March 26th, 7:30 pm.
Where: Cedar Cultural Center (416 Cedar Ave S, Mpls.), $10

Who: Eavan Boland: My Journey
What: The Irish poet discusses her writing.
When: Tuesday, March 27th, 7:30 pm.
Where: Sundin Music Hall (1531 Hewitt Ave, St. Paul), FREE

Adage Loop Worn from Overplay, Has Started to Skip

Archived Story — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:00:09 +0000

a time and a place
a time and a place
a penny saved
a penny earned
a penny earned
if at first you don’t succeed
try try again
try try again
try try again
mind your p’s and q’s
mind your manners
pleases and thank yous
the early bird
catches the worm
catches the worm
the early bird
you’re never fully dressed
without a smile
a smile
smile
smile
silence is golden
and actions speak louder than words
actions speak louder than words
actions speak louder than words
sincerely yours

They Will Not Go Naked into the Night

Archived Story — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:00:08 +0000

The body is not a prison
it is a temple;
not a cage from which the soul escapes,
but a holy place built
for sanctification, redemption

on that Day
bone and ash will rise
from graveyards and cisterns,
swirl upward like smoke
re-creation of fingers, palm, wrist
glowing gloriously in light
toe by toe, a foot, a leg
dancing as they rise
a people resurrected

lips sealed from life’s last kiss
open to holy, holy, holy
for they did not feel
the sting of death.

The Quiver in My Seat

Archived Story — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 06:00:11 +0000

Shook evenly, the burst of petrol

nostrils of children racing

eyes on the back of the back of the back

of the pick-me-up dirt clouds

one shiver one shoulder

I see the grave digging grace of the ambulance chase

On these wounded hills—spider-like

skeletons mashed together from the butt

of rubber heels and dirty paws

of that bobcat wandering.

Sing praise to beaten one

limping around the dirt

an orgasmic coma shot

as machine lies still on back

wheels lulling a spin

spin,

spin.

A Ballet of Metal Destruction

Archived Story — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 06:00:10 +0000

Engines blaring loud

A spectacle of power

Where are my nachos?

Cat. Bird. Tree.

Archived Story — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:00:08 +0000

Paws riddle the bark
claws scratch on the back of this leaf
these are not marks meant for you,
tree.
Birds, wings skid along the sky
fly,
cease molting,
longevity.

Cat’s eye felt the rush of the tree
its teeth the leaves
its whiskers the wind
bird the fur flushed back again
evergreen screens hide the screams

of the teeth behind the window pane
eyes waiting for the glass to melt.

—red feather, or maybe the blues.

Cat. Bird. Tree.

Shame

Archived Story — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:00:07 +0000

The beggar
is starving
but always
clothed.

Raising Morning

Archived Story — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:00:06 +0000

I sweep the stars, encircling the sky
In trailing fingertips that move the sun
That paper made along with ink and I
While time I slowed to confiscate his run.
Inside this land the winter has prevailed;
My palms press frost into the morning’s rise
And choke the yellow sun until she’s paled,
Dressing the riverbanks in crimson guise.
But still the graying beard of time can tell
That all the painted pages I have made
Are bound and bonded purely to the well
Of ink in your eyes and the love you’ve laid.
So know that summer’s bliss lies in your smile;
To change this world, just stay with me awhile.

Boat Ride on Lake Vertigo

Archived Story — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:00:11 +0000

Chasing sun on water we glide
on husks of metal across
earth or sky not knowing
which end is up.

Wind slides between shirt
and skin causing
bodies to search for heat,
thigh against thigh.

His profile cuts
horizon, searching
infinite blue as

I watch ripples recede from oar,
wooden, smooth, and slender.

I grab his hand as we slip
through water like glass

I Saw the Tree

Archived Story — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:00:10 +0000

I saw the tree and it was knotted and twisted
Its face was hidden from me.
It was twisted,
her body was twisted.
Right around the middle she was twisted.
And she was there.
Rooted and hunched and twisted.
She was rooted and hunched and twisted.
She was winding in her waiting,
growing more twisted,
waiting and growing,
twisted and waiting to release, to let go, to unwind those knots,
to spring to open to fling her hair,
shriveling contortions of brown and green
She waits to spread her branches,
to scream a song of release, to walk uprooted.
Feet entangled in dirt she tilts and toils
to lift her head that’s buried beneath,
buried with eyes closed.
Rooted within her waiting she is holding
knots and twists at a stand still.