PBR Denver: the Poets Beyond Reason

VOX POPULOTOMATUS

noreply@blogger.com (JDiego) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:48:00 +0000

VOX POPULOTOMATUS

When I think of what this town has become
it inevitably tears me a new one.
What used to be forests of dogwood and plum—
when I think about what this town has become—
is now painted squares that spell e unibus plurum.
(Makes me wish for a taco-sized aspirin to chew on.)

When I think about what this town has become,
it inevitably tears me a new one.

JD Frey – September 9, 2009

Hikes, Hailstorms

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:25:00 +0000

Almost the end of June and we (me, my husband & son, Aaron) watched a wicked lightning storm last night from our front porch. Every piece of sky was changing from twilight shades of white to impenetrable black, minute by minute, and simultaneously ripped by jagged yellow electric needle-thin lines. We huddled together in awe and were startled by silly things like a poor, lost poodle who scurried up our stairs and trembled next to my ankles. Her white fox-like face emerged from the torrents of rain like a strange animal spirit and we scooped her up and kept her warm and dry in the house until the storm had passed. Aaron gathered up pieces of the inevitable hailstones like he was a boy again and placed them in the freezer side-by-side and there they sat like stoic, crooked marbles. I mourned the fact that the hail was probably decimating the tender columbines and pink wild roses, but I can't be so greedy. I have had a long spring season of them and when I searched for them today, they were still there, as sturdy as ever. In fact, poppies had sprung up around them. It was as if the chilly hail and heavy rain had unearthed them all from lazy sleep.

On Sunday, we hiked up in the park to Cub Lake. A swift five miles. Color everywhere and delightful showings like fat coyotes and marmots, mallards and one cornflower-blue bird perched on a post. Golden banner dominated the wildflowers until of course we reached the lake and then the long, wavy stems of the giant yellow pond lilies hypnotized us, the lake so clear and a dreamy green. The lilies floated independent from their pads, light spirits all.

Graceland

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:27:00 +0000

Last leaves linger on black fingered trees
lacing the crackled blue sky.
The waiting has begun.
Miss Thalia and her sisters,
at the beer since morning,
laze about languorously, expect
nothing.
Grampa, who helped
his own poppa plant those naked maples,
paints emptied shells for the future,
while mother fusses with her quilts again,
still. Everything so still.

Old Carl (way up there on the right, through the branches)
looks up from his fields,
listens as silence accumulates.

Only Aglaia the younger and her beau are unaware—
lost they are in a moment
of each other, entwined, they grow together.
Her mother only smiles.

There are other towns, other skies
across the mountains,
where the river Cephissus flows,
the dogs begin to howl
and crows rise on the wind.
Ceres’ harvest is done,
night approaches.
It is time
to bring the quilts inside
and dance a slow tango
making the beds.

Stoke warm fire beneath
the eternal soup, blood
red with beets, smoke-savory
herbs nearly burned in butter,
scrap-full stock
hissing silently in
fragrant welcome.

They’ll be back,
the children and the animals,
birds will sing again.
Tonight we have some
of Grampa’s old plum wine
and stories of ancient days
to keep us company.
History’s in the wind.

The dance of Euphrosyne,
off-stage, left, makes
Aphrodite smile, invites
another spring.

BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

noreply@blogger.com (JDiego) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:17:00 +0000

This room this glass this bed this wine,

this song of lives lived well and rested,

that look that passed between us when

I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust

a wave that quickly crested.

Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust

and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white

across rare steaks we had requested

and how you fanged them with delight

while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.

Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.

A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest

and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread

now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

J Diego Frey

Footsteps

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:07:00 +0000

Ms. Buddha’s coming
her silent rampage
of forgiveness and
tearful smiles contemplate
cookies and sin
not attending to
black crow that tears
space with pierced voice
meadowlark announces
just here and right now
I am the body hyperspace
unvoiced words reach for
you for your terminal
and your fingers and eyes
coffee revs my heart
to sing reach grasp hope
love songs to the impossible
world lit from
a universe on fire
cold and immense
inside a singular point
not dark but without
light as feathers

Poetry Is Like...

noreply@blogger.com (Jeni Rose) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:23:00 +0000

Anyone want to match the poet with the statement of poetics?

POETRY IS...

"...a partially descended testicle, embarassment, anticipation and life, all in one crouched form."

"...a big scratchy silver table and then and then jeni read and there was pizza and then JD said stuff and I got to stay up late and when I got in bed I tied the red balloon to the bed post."

"...that deja vu where I'm holding a pen but it's really a wishbone, and all I have to do is decide which verse of the world to write down, which stanza of the mind to salvage."

"...clouds of locusts licking the wind until it turns blue, the sand frozen in sea mist."

"...Lydia at four, when all things are not only possible but probable - and prime numbers have nothing and everything to do...with everything else - when stars are henry in eyes of hazel and words and phrases of cheekbones and grins and chuckles."

"...being dropped onto a charred prairie looking for love like hunger, like water, like a camel whose hump has hollowed out, and then poetry is the mirage of coming home."

Fields Marked By An Asterisk Are Required

noreply@blogger.com (Jeni Rose) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:37:00 +0000

An absolution of indifference, perched top-heavy
atop the sunken confines of a styrofoam cup.

Speak or not, breathe or not, parry the words
on the page with keen discernment, or not.

*What do you use to carry the anvil of
choice, and its furthering implications?

The flimsy whim fabric of choosing, woven.
The wind that moves breathlessly

through fall fields full of dusk and miracle
light. Sawdust leaves that collapse, cranky,

red-faced, nap blanket, dreaming in prose.

freewrite

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:36:00 +0000

the wind does not need the grass to answer

any more than it needs me
to love the accidental sound
it makes by passing an open window
or its amphibian skirmish across the mouth
of a hollow glass jar

it does not need me balancing
its dry winter beheading of trees
with its lesser signs, the second sources:
little creature bones scattered among the bayonette
still so elegant
and then while I sleep
wind disappears
abeyance so complete
I beg it back
even its vapid form better
than nothing

-Barbara S.

Garvin Mesa

noreply@blogger.com (Jenbell) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:42:00 +0000

The wind does not require the grass
to answer, but the question is always there
and gone, then back again, persistent,
ruffling blades like hair with an open palm,
posing queries of the daybreak
while the skylark tries to echo him,
asking us awake into the morning.

In the darkness of dawn in the valley
the coal train sings and everyone
listens and responds in kind:
the cicadas lost in tall forests of grass,
thrumming like starting motos;
the cows lowing in nearby fields
wet with cool dew; the odd rooster
at his post, shrill steward of the sun—
every throat as open as an unanswered
question, every sound as full
of asking as the wind.

Emily's Love

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:21:00 +0000

The wind does not require the grass,
He has loftier goals,
destinations unknown,
an ocean of air confronts
always itself, wrapped
around the world
with no expiration date
sipping up moisture along the way,
waters fields and junkyards, clouds
perception then suddenly clears
to reveal itself behind the mirror
where mountains accumulate,
stars gain energy and the life
of creation is still as the wind
never is, even on still sunlit afternoons
when birdsong stops, butterflies
close their wings, the gray stripped cat
stares uncomprehending
a mote without motion, silence rules
and this chapter’s done.
The gentlest breeze turns the page,
the grass moves, though She does not
require the wind.

some of us

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:48:00 +0000

MEANWHILE THE MONKEYS

noreply@blogger.com (JDiego) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Meanwhile the monkeys

Dropping

into our garden

like commandoes

Threaten

with memories of the time

we showed

up without pants

They pound

on the tabletops

until

banana cream pie is produced

Monkey see Mountain Dew

Screeches worse

than Niebelungen

Toaster, cat, bowls

and bottles

in a frozen

arc

of juggled

They come right at us,

teeth bared

like dobermans

Monkey say we people around

Laughing

at my minivan

Amazed by my bad

gas mileage

and this need

to carry around

more than one

good ant-collecting stick

They will

not even look

at the collection of clever bumper stickers

JD Frey -- August 12, 2008

PBR night in review: monkeys, rainstorms, yellow jackets and charles wright

noreply@blogger.com (Jeni Rose) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:37:00 +0000

Charles Wright, from Scar Tissue
"Our lives, it seems, are a memory
we had once in another place.
Or are they its metaphor?
The trees, if trees they are, seem the same,
and the creeks do.
The sunlight blurts its lucidity in the same way,
And the clouds, if clouds they really are,
still follow us,
One after one, as they did in the old sky, in the old place."

A sampling of Charles Wright poetry from the Poetry Foundation.
Mark Strand and Chuck Wright reading at the Library of Congress.

TOP FIVE Monkey titles this week:
All's Quiet on the Western Monkey
For Whom the Monkey Tolls
Honey, I Shrunk the Monkey
Monkeybusters
20,000 Leagues Under the Monkey

The Dogs Ate My Biscuits

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:35:00 +0000

Just a while ago now the monkeys
ate all the porridge so we’ll have to go
to storage to find something funky
to eat. In the eternal meantime
the monkeys are all frisky,
and leaving them alone
is bound to be risky, but I suspect
it’ll all turn out fine
as long as we don’t bother to much
about the monkeys, just focus
on our own internal flunkies,
try to gain satori
before your mother finds out.
In the morning I’ll slip away
ever so quickly
before the sun does its tricks
and the monkeys come out
to play.

peanut butter orange blossom cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Jeni Rose) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Wanted to post this recipe for an unbelievably divine cookie - peanut butter orange blossom! I am in love-love-love with this blog, 101cookbooks.com, and have been looking for an excuse to imitate an orange blossom cookie I tried at the Pearl Street Farmer's Market nearly three years ago, so when this recipe popped up a few weeks ago, I dove right in. For a while, I thought that "orange blossom" was some magical spice I couldn't get my hands on, but after some digging I found that people generally just add some zest and juice to their recipe.

Here's the recipe for Heidi's Peanut Butter Cookies - to "Orange Blossom" em up, I just added the zest and half the juice of an orange in the last step (these are vegan and easily made gluten-free too, if needed). On the right, photo of the cookies enjoyed at the PBR session at Ginny's.

Ships Passing

noreply@blogger.com (Jenbell) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:46:00 +0000

We navigate along,
the way ahead seeming
longer than the one
behind. We don’t mind
the wind, the choppy
waters. We’re martyrs
of the sea’s breadth. Its depth
is no threat for us who float.
When we pass we wave,
drop anchor for the night,
bump up against
each other’s hulls till light
comes, then pull up
again, and sail away.
Our mast lights signal harbor,
keep the distance at bay.

Poets Beyond Reason Reading at the D-Note

noreply@blogger.com (Jeni Rose) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:43:00 +0000

Watch's Face

noreply@blogger.com (Jenbell) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:25:00 +0000

with thanks to Mina Loy

Whose eyes blur
face time in whirling circles.
Needle-thin minutes

spin, cingular rings
round cohesive anatomy
of disconnected seconds.

Sects of breath reject
each other’s rich witchcraft,
Watching for the errors
their era will aver—

Speak, spoken, spoken to,
broken arcs of time’s
miscellany and moments
of madness

Who regresses sits
atop the apex, amid
lucent truths and silken sex.
Again the circle arcs and peaks,
the needle’s gap lapsed—
again the stolen epoch reached.

A Hallucination While Traveling

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Moore) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:29:00 +0000

A Friday, I think, in Thailand. Somewhere along a three-day journey beginning on a tropical island and ending at my apartment in Denver (empty and overheated, a bursting peach in the dry snow), time blurs and then disappears. 3 pm Sunday will be 5 am Monday, which is like 8 am Friday equaling 6 pm Thursday, and so on.

At a bus depot in Central Thailand we give green ticket stubs, retrieve green ticket stubs, give them again for good, and are then asked for them repeatedly. We are stickered with a neon orange square that must be worn visibly on the shirtfront, stickered next with a fuschia square - fuschia for Bangkok on Fridays, I guess. An eight year-old boy wheels around the driveway on a Batman bike, trying to impress my brother and the other weary, ripe, sun-worn and beach-weathered tourists from Australia, England, Germany, Holland, France, Canada, America. He rides by with no hands, teeth flashing, his eyelids flipped inside out.

Four hours ago it was afternoon, and the bus depot in Krabi was sweltering, overcrowded, and filthy. Colleen couldn't understand the refuse cluttering the edges of everything - water bottles, candy wrappers, plastic cups and napkins, toilet paper, ticket stubs, square stickers in acid dream shades, junk, garbage, waste. "Depots are always like this," I told her. "Any place where people come and then go, where people don't stay, looks like this." A thin, bony, blondish girl in oversized sunglasses leaned forward from her plastic chair and vomited what looked like kinked yellow noodles at her feet. Thirty minutes after she and her hungover friends were ferried away in the back of a truck, a Thai man sat in the same chair, clipping his fingernails, crescents of which flicked from his clippers into the pile of noodles.

There are dogs. Dogs with fleas, with scars, with gigantic testicles, "showing their lipstick" as one of the girls from Brighton put it, dogs with teats swinging below them, long, impossibly stretched dog tits, dogs trotting, stretching, sleeping, rolling, running, nosing, whining, and scratching, scratching, scratching. You can tell the tourists from the travelers because the tourists sit and scratch the dogs between the ears or pet their matted fur. The travelers sneer, disgusted, and slap mosquitoes with mirthless economy.

On the bus again, I am woken from sleep, probably by the churning of my own mind. After night falls, the squirrels in the works become horses running thunder, and the mental turbines crank out the poisonous product of relentless self-obsession, the agony of a skewed self-awareness, fractals upon fractals of a faulty self, an untidy, unattractive, unsavory, and unsaved self. Over the course of two weeks I have worried that wound like a frayed seam, biting thread after thread as the hem unravels. I worry it still; it requires all my attention, until suddenly my sister stretches her leg forward across the seat of the chair next to me - a seat with the back broken and therefore removed - and rests her foot so that it lightly touches my thigh. The transference is quick; in an instant I am prepared to hitch all of the hate aimed at a fat girl onto the smooth, warm, amphibious curve of a pedicured foot. A pellet of reason within me pipes up against all odds and asks her, nicely, squeaking with niceties, to please move her foot a little to the right so it will not rest on me. Magically, she obliges - and survives.

Later, in the dark, I hear that same sister sniff, and I know without turning that she is rigid against the window in the dark, silently sobbing. An hour later we wait for our bus connection at a terminal, and I ask my mom if Ryan cries for her not-so-nice-after-all ex-boyfriend, though I know well that she could have been crying for the great loss of youth, of innocence, for poverty, for beauty and sorrow and their tiny tangerine dance, for the pink polyester curtains swagged from row to row along the length of the pastel party bus. My mother replies that Ryan was crying for our father, who had died one year before.

That makes me think of our last night on the island, of how we stood in a circle, of how the air was nudged by the gentle lapping of the Andaman Sea. It makes me think of the orchids, the ashes, the ocean, the flame, the pathetic attempt at ceremony, the terrible trial of keeping my mouth shut so as not to hurt others' feelings. It makes me think of how my sister, terrified it would be mistaken for drugs and confiscated, insisted on transporting a tiny portion of my father's ashes halfway around the world in a Burt's Beeswax lip balm tin the size of a quarter. I recall how the ashes ground against each other between the two pieces of metal, sticking them fast so that the tin would not open when it was finally time. I ground my teeth in time with the ash, daring myself to laugh or scream, waiting for the inevitable explosion, some raw impropriety. My mother passed an orchid to each of us, and I observed with clinical surprise that I did not crush it when I took it from her.

In the end the tin was opened and did not explode, and Colleen just reached in and pinched my father between finger and thumb, sprinkling him into her flower. We stared at the actions of the youngest among us, too scared to admit that we didn't have a better idea. I wanted to mention the bones; I wanted to make a joke and describe out loud the rough coarseness, the frank chunkiness of the "ash," but in the end I said nothing. My father was sprinkled into my orchid too, and I walked to the water, muttering apologies under my breath.

"I'm sorry we're doing this; I know how much you would have hated it."

When I put my flower in the water, the first thing it did was turn upside down.

I walked back up the beach to my bungalow and went to bed. The mattress was covered with a fine layer of sand, and my back was sunburnt from persistent snorkeling. I dreamt that night that my legs were coated in sticky beach sand, and I was shaving them, blood pouring out from beneath the blades.

Tonight will be spent on a bus, a twelve-hour ride that launches the long journey home. The only activity good for quieting thunder is writing it down, writing it down just as it happened, just as it seemed like it happened. And if I write enough, sometimes the horses will become squirrels again, sometimes the fractals will become single silhouettes, and sometimes sleep will come and stay.

Grandma Bird

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:12:00 +0000

Found art.
This old robin spent
Most of two summers
In the small back yard
Feathers salt
And pepper gray
Mottled pale orange
Not much spring
To her hops, her chirp
Crackly, must have died
Hidden beneath garden foliage
Old plants faded
And there she was
Papier-mâché likeness of bird
Buried now in situ
Waiting next year’s tomatoes.
Another robin’s back there
Measuring the room.

Sequitur

noreply@blogger.com (Raja) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:10:00 +0000

He wakes with wars
(Acrid metal in his nostrils, back of his throat)
Outside his door
(At the place he dreams of, prairie winds seep in)
Within his heart
(Wounded, just begun to heal)
All the Asias risen
(Africa in tears)
Heathens chant
(We are the infidels)
Young women sigh
(Like the animal inside)
In his ear, ask for
(We assume so much of each other)
Everything, undeclared
(And the request makes it inevitable)
All resources requisite
(Soil beneath your feet, the air)
No one believes
(Mesquite woodsmoke circles sacred spaces)
The reason he invades
(Enter now from all directions)
Is neither passion
(Far off a coyote calls)
Nor rich dark oils, but
(Our planet burning)
To prove himself alive

Spark

noreply@blogger.com (Jeni Rose) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:05:00 +0000

Walk against the wind, thin
spit though it double-turns onto your chin.
Kick the snow to a tiny tornado
and knock your knees against the trembling.

Belly-flop into the half-formed thing
though these December days weigh still and gray
and the televangelists are still proselytizing.
Bubble to the top of the rising dough.

Light a match to the classifieds
until the want ads burn staccato.
Pennies a word for paper and ink
(a profound reticence to think)
as dreams of the mine and yours combine:
light the pop-crack fire, kindling.

In the in-between dawn under right and wrong,
catch the insect by the God-smacked wing.
Start the spark in this muscle-bound heart.
Fill the space between your teeth with everything.

Inside the Raft

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Moore) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:00:00 +0000

I ran outside.
Your brother was lying dead in the street
And you stood on the sidewalk
Screaming
Your hands covering your mouth.
I softened my focus
In order to determine the greatest need:
Three passers-by crowded over the body
Unwilling or unable to know its lifelessness
And you stood on the sidewalk
Fuzzy with perpetual motion
Screaming.
I grabbed you.

I grabbed you and I held on tight
Attempting to fuse your spirit back to its base
Keep you from killing yourself or
Tearing your hair from its roots.
Your hands over your mouth
Your hands in your hair.
The rocking, the stutter, the sobbing, the
Screaming.
You were fourteen, and your six year-old brother
Was dead in the street
Dragged by the truck
Library books in the road.
I held you.

“It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault,”
You chanted.
“Oh god, I want to die. Please let me die.”
You tore your hair,
And I held you.
“I know that you don’t understand,”
I said, softly,
“But it’s not your fault.”
And I held you.
“God is great.
You must pray.”
And I held you.
I held you, and your head fell back,
Mud meeting heavens, and you cried
Dios mio ayúdame, ayúdame
Ay, Dios mio, ayuda….

Later
Seconds. Minutes. A million years
Later a librarian asked you about
Your mother.
“At home,” you stammered.
I took out my phone and took you by the shoulders.
“I need you to tell me your phone number.”
Suddenly you stopped moving
Condensing your energy into
Ten points of focus.
“3. Oh. 3…”
“Does she speak English?”
You nodded.
I stepped away.

Right before your mother answered
I thought of my own mother.
I saw her drop the phone
Scream, go limp, evaporate
Incinerate, disintegrate, combust
Liquefy, and disappear.
The who and where must come first,
I knew,
Before the what and why.
She answered.
“You don’t know me.
My name is Andrea.
I am on the corner of Mississippi and Tejón.
I am with your daughter and she is fine,
But there has been an accident –”
The line went dead.

So quickly the afternoon was ruined.
So rapidly the crowd gathered
So shattered was the light,
The November side-light
The near-dusk, disappearing-trick,
Glinting, glancing, entrancing light
The light your brother ran into
The last light
The only light that mattered
As it shattered
As first the truck
And then the trailer
Jolted, bumped, took hold,
Would not let go
Thirty feet
A stripe of rubber
Ending in the gutter
Where now the paramedics bent
Over the body of your brother.

I felt myself spinning
With the rotating lights
Hearing cries yet seeing beauty
In the way the four men lifted your mother
Dragging her to the grass
As though she’d been deboned.
Beauty in a woman, her hand
Flat on the top of your head, praying
Praying to God, entreating the sky
Dios es poderoso
Dios es fuerte
Dios en su sabiduria
Proteja esta niña
Protéjala, proteja
In your mercy
In your wisdom….
And then they took him.

No one would say
What at least one librarian already knew.
She had tried.
She had pressed his chest,
Blown air into his tiny mouth.
She was back inside the library,
A woman told me,
In the bathroom
Throwing up.

You were finally sitting
On the sidewalk
And I knelt at your feet
Both of my hands on your body.
I could feel you heaving
And I had nothing left to say.
I was near and also far,
Witnessing the tilt from denial to pain.
I could not turn off the beauty
No matter how shattered the light.
Your soft hair
Your long road
Your mother’s grief
And the driver
To your mother
How he held her
How he cried
How he looked her in the eye
And apologized
And the rocking
Like a raft
And all of us were in it.
Together,
Broken and weathered,
Alive.

Little Apple

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:11:00 +0000

I.
A woman who looks in the mirror

sees behind her
shapes
much like herself:

blue heron in tree pose,
heliotrope Chinese Houses
in the garden.

II.
A woman who bathes
in water like glass,
feels it shatter inside her.

In her mouth,
cross as a gull’s beak,
sea stars shorn from salt marsh.

III.
A woman who breaks a branch
of a manzanita,
desires its color,
the red so like a
garnet fastened to the sun.

IV.
A woman who watches everything
knows of regeneration:
the grace of the manzanita,
the grace of the sea star,
each her quiet enterprise.

-Barbara Sorensen

Wanted: Patron

noreply@blogger.com (Jenbell) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:49:00 +0000

I cannot bear this modern poet’s life.
For God’s sake, inspiration only lasts
as long as discretionary funds are rife.
It seems the bank doth future fame forecast.

Did Shakespeare have a day job? I think not!
His muse was kind as long as bills were paid
by his Dark Lady. It seems success is bought
and sold, and art in gold and silver weighed.

Be you ecclesiastical or noble,
my work is sure to please your worthy tastes
with themes immortal, relevant and global,
and as you like it: Cyprian or chaste.

And so, aristocrats and CEOs,
Please cast the glow of greenish glory hither!
Until you do, I fear I may compose
such mediocre verse as this, then wither

much like the ripest grape upon the vine.
Alas, let poverty not pull me to decline.