J.J. Blickstein |
March 15, 2007
Decker 201-202 11-12 Reading
12n. Reception
12:30 – 1:45 Workshop |
Night Shade
for Jen
your kiss is a jar of fireflies
the sticky liquor blushing the bells
in the pores to bang their tongues of instinctual water
into semaphores of light
you recite a rhythm portrait without numbers & carve a totem pole
milking the fur of the holy dog
you feed the wrinkle in the machine
sweeten the nightshade & hypnotize mankind back into tents
which must work with the curve in the horizon & the green in the wood
you stop the act of admiration & gesticulation
before the frail warm gestures of robed butchers
& the contrite violins of generals
you make me leave my shoes with the broomstick by the door
I shit on statues & work in the fields
you smear my tattoo
& when you open your mouth to say the words
the buffalo replenishes the herd
you set fire to the stone & pollen
& the ears of the world bleed all the way to Karnak
where I become that scarab rolling shit backwards
over the lips of the sphinx, the greeks, the french,
back through time & the doorway
where the heart rose from ashes & diamonds
& shed me to your breast
useless
|
Carl Dennis |
April 26, 2007
Decker 201-202
11:00-12:00 Reading
12:00 Reception
12:30-1:45 Workshop |
Loss
Just because your cousins perjured themselves
On the stand to steal the house you inherited
And have settled in, and are filling the rooms
With furniture your aunt would have hated,
Doesn't mean they're getting away with it.
Just because their lights will now burn late
In the house you love, and the sound of their dancing
Will be heard in the street, their drums and trumpets
At birthday parties, graduations, and weddings,
Doesn't mean they're not paying the penalty,
Living lesser lives than they might have lived
Possessing lesser amounts of comeliness.
And if they're not aware of the loss,
Couldn't that show how shrunken their spirits are,
How you wouldn't want to be them as they fall asleep
At the end of a day they regard as perfect?
Of course it's hard not to wish them ill,
A pain that even their thicker souls can feel.
But that won't widen your cramped apartment.
That won't give you the spacious, airy life you admire
With windows opening out on the horizon.
Pity them if you can't forget them.
And if that's too hard for now, pity the house.
Think how it's losing out on the care
You'd have bestowed on it, on the loyalty
You'd have shown to its style and character,
Not to your fancy, a distinction too fine
For the new owners to handle.
Be like those angels said to enjoy the earth
As a summer retreat before man entered the picture,
Staggering under his sack of boundary stones.
They didn't mutter curses as they fastened their wings
And rose in widening farewell circles.
They grieved for the garden growing smaller below them,
Soon to exist only as a story
That every day grows harder to believe. |
Joshua Mehigan |
May 3, 2007
11:00am Reading
Business 224
Reception & Poetry Workshop
12:00n-2:00pm in AT-200
|
The Optimist
The film showed stars of varying magnitude,
the left side Libra, and the right side Cancer,
mapping the brain's horizons, vanishing points
respectively of reason and desire.
The doctors liked her cheerful attitude,
hope being all she had in her position.
She waited, calm. Touch burned out first, then vision.
Emotion slipped. Last would be lungs and heart.
But, noting trends, they told her taste was next.
She asked then, could they pick out her last dress?
She wasn't making light. It seemed to her
that cancer just rehearsed life's attitude
that one's desires must taper to a point,
which has position, but no magnitude.
|