Monday, May 23, 2005

SALT's final issue / Part 2 [Tara Rebele, Jill Jones, David Hamilton]

[edited by John Kinsella]

Tara Rebele

Five poems

IN ANY RESPECT; AT ALL.

something happened
in the courtyard
once
but that was then
when
there was concrete

and now
the courtyard is a corridor
or bedroom
and the rabble
rallies

“Digestion is transformative!”

so too
the woman in her stairwell
she calls the threshold
while sweeping away
the mice
almost human in their chatter
and gingham aprons

“Get off my landing!”

{on       in
the thick
a thought and once}

lately everything
occurs
in the parlor

how nice for the
realist
the comforts
of home
and a pipe

[assumed]

the snoop

and the mice know
a thing or two
about
accounting
yet care little
for sensibility
when

the door opens
well

shit


WELCOME TO THE PINHOLE GALLERY

Oops
another passed
on
and another
and       so

hard to keep
up up and

she has
a way with them
things

all roots and
yonder
even before

all growed up
a fine bloom
in the flush

a rush
a red cheeked
(>) straight but not
full or rowed

rowdy girl in the mirror
looking for a suitable
exterior
and finding fractures

left and right
are directions
do you follow

two parts
one part
mix thoroughly
a part

in the middle
makes all
the difference

when tidiness
is the desired
outcome

come out of that
interval
and sit a spell

and does
or did
and the fruit was ripe

how cliché
but what else could she call it
all plump
and suppurated
and ready to fuck

oh wait
that was yesterday
or two weeks from
now
oops


WITH THE TENDENCY TO CAUSE ROTATION

(and fall)
so spins

on her
head axis tail thumb
whirling and giddy
and

Alas!

x is the x in the x but not in the x of
one really ought
yep

“this teacup does not own me”
she squabbles
bathing in it
and scrubbing good

tea is nice
soothing
hot

days call for hot
answers
and if she gets out she gets into
and together
impoverished little
bather that she isn't

it funny
that the dog is a paw
and not the other way around
or a cat
or pig, really

why not a teacup

why not

motion makes for a
blurry shot
who's to know
if it is or
wants
or wasn't

who's to know


THE EFFECT THUS PRODUCED

spanning limit-
less void
than   offense

idol blindly

visible yet
not
and turgescent

of lilac
on a hot
tin
summer

veins
and short
cropped

janus
is all the rage
reversible and

kith        less
(sense{ }being)
once thought

or
maybe just
did and

all / none / some
of the

above the hot tin
lilacs
summer                actual or acted


limit less
and only
two

is there an alibi for       ?


THE BOUNDS OF DECORUM

But if    when
ate        eat
earth

(a transgression)

would     will
the mirror
camera

(reflect        capture)

image imagine
enlargement

{belly

< = >    }

cow is to corn as . . .

and if traced
upon white wall
would                recognize shape
an ill fitted shoe
or know
and
what

what ya gonna do
when pre-symbolic
comes a knockin

you down
skin on milk
and these breasts
are victims of

topography

the sight of blood makes    :

A)         sick
B)         remember
C)         dangerous
D)         optimistic
%)         all of the above
^)         none of the above

oh F,

already castrated
threats to the nose
mean
nothing                now

and a few
orifices
seem to have been
misplaced
in the museum


All this going
down

lately

the fallen

              fall

survive



laugh      ?



          d
          e
          g
          r
          a
          d
materialize
          t
          i
          o
          n



and       haven't swallowed
a birth
for
years

so ambivalent are the
(some)

body    (every) bodies

and the shit
just isn't even
funny              any
moor

(ed) in the
margins

***

Jill Jones

Three poems

FIELDS OF ENGAGEMENT
'This is not sport, it's war' --Alan Bond, 1983

on thresholds of grass
in the short tender time
beyond splays and ranks of bodies

honour stands at ease
hands across its vitals
--en garde--

encounters of skin and stones
kicked up by leg theories
a sharply rising ball

tackle, off break, volley
the language knows its bruises
playing the concept not the ball

seats are hard
and angels are sticky
squinting from on high

all you need is rain
all you want is hidden
but play confused by lights


LIBERTY CHANGES
`'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.
--Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy

Now in the fringe of Change
burdened, varnished

Courage destined for bullies
leaves torn of shine

Under fountains of Definition
stranger than seas and fuzzy Elsewheres

Keeping belly up, whitened
washed by Danger

Seals, ports, indent, cargo alien
would we fear

Who have hugged Danger in wars
prayed like sinking ships

Mine are the Terrors now
that children feel unsaid

The stream is never still
it is, more or less, fresh

Wavelike in variance, in Presence
not the Nation, or the dream

Forbidding, deep seeded
source of same

To go on as if
part of the sky is missing

Stars blunt as the moon
the force of Reason

As though we'd got past Heaven
what to do now

Discover suicides and choosing
sterile as a secret past

Much stronger than anyone
colour red a wild High

So it's still written after
all envelopes have been pushed

Attempted centre but uncalmed
more violent than anyone said

Caught in the flagrance of Fraud
that slippy grin, Hypocrisy

Not unlike decent figures
painted against horizons

The guards of our lives
warring and telling us

Waiting for the living storm
morning's quick Doctrines

With a slight cough of apology
the State flecks time

More than can ever be said
that friends die in the days

Lost as angels gathering up
something cold and flashy

The rose, the shadow secret
knocked up in bushes

Depending on what is to do
or be thrown away

Black and silver bodies
their clicking machinery of Record

To catch the Meaning of Things
but things lie back

Trees swing, leaves rattle
electric road thumps hop

Edging near the smell of music
Wild Thing Fantastique

Lost ignorance in daily blizzards
blind in glassy fastness

Sticky, magnetic as Wealth
hope of men and women

The boutique caress
a sexy and scary vampire

Suspicion, again we fail
release being Virtue unknown

Pressure of the Goal
imprisoned as a nation and nothing else

To avoid the crazy stacks
and furious car parks

So the lonely piss christs
take up the bench

Because we fail
and the leaves burn in summer

Destiny's Child sings
a screen on a pivot

Percussion on faulty playback
chiming spoon in a cup

Moon hides above night cloud
violates the whispering--wakes

Landlocked screams
at night in bed

The work we undo
lustily, like a love Victory

Frightened and strong, two by two
the key, the Enemy

Alien prints--a blood taste
the Thing has fled

Locked ourselves into labouring long
to be brave, to flail

A wrap for the story tomorrow
like the breeze

Great slabs of concrete thunder
crumble slumbering city

Dust of surface and planet
risen in the breeze

Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar
.

Covers the living and the dead
can be disturbed

A notion believed by millions
forces resolve--but to be free

Among courtesies, the incoming tide
the rub of Love's salty wounds

Bloom a glowing dress
though bent in a sweeping storm

Beautiful, the velvet gate
without burning faces

How much more leftovers
sequin the casinos of Indecision

Put on the Marvellous, electric fabric
shine in the long night

Kisses are no longer mute
if they do not let us slumber

Despite hulks the questions pour
until no-one can stop you dancing

To assert at least one dawn
without great pleasures of Anxiety

Beyond the fractures and beside
tremors, diggings, histories

The flight, the change, readiness
instead of a wall


DISCREDIT

As war is told a suspect laments
what certain people exterminate
a bloody search--fleeing
irrational treatment
exceeded in grief
the sorrowful wheel
which war works
excessive, uninhibited
the beginning--as anybody explains
of rue-filled work.

Thanks directly the inhuman
discrediting time's bad reputation
troublesome army songs
talks of world-wide electrification
a business war
in each quarter exceeds
this type of feeling.

Ticket the pleasure in force of arms
jam their system effect
methods which positively remove
where it is bloody
(I am like this though more on edge
level inside the child
if I listen)
early with a sense of necessity
together
do the uninhibited map
transition which is cruel
discredit as it is used.

***

David Hamilton

Three poems

THROUGHOUT THE VILLAGE BY NIGHT, HUMMINGBIRDS

take wing, wings of the most lightly vertebrate:
after the car passes, the painter, from shadows, pounces
on a back fence or a window box--stencils, sprays,
then an arts grant, a catalog, and map for a walking tour.
I found the evidence in the Strand and soon gave
the book away, saving the idea for later, in Iowa City.


LIKE ONE RED PICTOGRAM AMID CALLIGRAPHY

like one heart unfrozen, quickening your own,
like the apt word on your lips when you thought
to say exactly what you exactly thought:
the high cardinal singing, you note it now,
on his tree, no leaf, snow loads the ground;
like one coal in the grate and from somewhere
breath enough to blow it into spring.


YESTERDAY THE GOLDFINCHES RETURNED

to the thistle feeder. They'd ignored it all winter
but now, as the first smudge of gold shows in their coats
they light in the birch and test thistle gone stale.
Ramón lolls underneath on melting crusts of snow.
I'm behind an upstairs window, wavering on one
leg, doing "tree," trying to forget looking on.

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