THE DAYS, THE NIGHTS; THEY HUMBLE ME


The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky)/ 5 stars (I have no words--
000this is a gorgeous film)
Gods and Monsters/ 4 stars (very authentic; moving)

***

I'm guest editing a portfolio of poems for Passages North,
thanks to Austin Hummell, and Russell Thorburn.

Stay tuned . . .

A Held Thing (an Ashbery Erasure poem)


Then he sort of shat your meaning.

That is until clarity
Sucks the id across the hard little teenager.

I heard them
Saints more vivid than a pat on the head.

The communion is madness—you only have to
Sit in the overhead rush:

Make a dog.

Time happened to that dog . . .

for starters the colors
Are human,

like tits in the good old days.

ALMOST

"Autobiographical Milk Snake" is a runner-up for the
Mississippi Review Prize, and will appear in the next issue.

QUOTE


"The frustration is unexperienceable." A190 student, Jacob Eck.

A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest

Emily Dickinson

A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest --
I've heard the Hunter tell --
'Tis but the Ecstasy of death --
And then the Brake is still!

The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "you're hurt" exclaim!

***

Emily D. --one nutty lady . . .

RATED, from a SLIGHT DISTANCE


Sexy Beast/ 3 1/2 stars (water ballet w/rock in a pool)
Sunshine State/ 2 1/2 (endless talk)
Nashville/ 4 1/2 (country music, country music, and we are
000never the same again)
The Dark Knight/ 2 (i lost my black crayon)
Requiem for a Dream/ 4 1/2 (pearl inside a pearl inside a pearl)
Fitzcarraldo/ 5 (upside down umbrella and the opera of sweating
000steel)
Man on Wire/ 3 (he's also a mime)
Naked/ 5 (transcendent talk in the ashtray of a night)
Eastern Promises/ 2 1/2 (disjointed neck pain and a nudie scene)
My Life as a Dog/ 4 1/2 (i wish i had relatives like this)
Tarnation/ 3 (histrionic patchwork)
Obscure Object of Desire/ 5 (she changes with the wind then
000blows up)
Phantom of Liberty/ 5 (go first, then eat)
Knife in the Water/ 4 1/2 (playing pick up sticks threesome
000on water)
Encounters at the End of the World/ 4 1/2 (penguin, sturgeon,
000and a fat, frozen tear)

BLOOD TEST

by Graham Foust


One's it
or in it--but what?

What's this:

your shout-out's
a shut-in,

the useless a fire,

some unbroken fuck
your new brain.

***

Bird Bones

by Mary Biddinger

Empty me. It's autumn
and we're still here
in the pink of it.

Who said anything
about marabou, hair
rinsed in rainwater and ale.

I'm better in trees.
You won't have to search
for nipples in my shirt

once it's November.
I'll put it out there. Canada
geese wander into the yard

like they're reading
my meter. I don't mind
the company. Boys next

door shadow the thicket
for a glimpse, as a pheasant
skitters onto the clothes line

and away with my garters.
Why the red, and not tangerine?
If you lived here I'd never

get dressed. Serious trouble
when shopping, lawn mowing.
More practical in Florida.

You can bend my arms
any direction without a snap.
Follow the muscles of my back

in your Buick, like that might
bring you deep northwoods
fast as gunfire. Your wolf dog

sleeps best at my feet. You're in
these sheets, oak and willow,
match that sets a house burning.

MATTAWAN, MICHIGAN

0000000000(He cometh forth like a flower,
00000000000and is cut down, Job 14:2)

Twelve inch cutthroat emerald-
eyed

peel the master plate
off the A. B. Dick press

I’d been eating dry coffee from a soup bowl

a corona of symbolic figures
dancing around in the glow of the marijuana grow lights

father eating the mother eating the hours eating the River of Wolves

all the way past
Garbo Falls

I'm mixing up The Jungle Book
with offset printing again

Brautigan taking a crap at the Landmark Inn

red slash right through your fantasy

born of a woman . . . full of trouble

no catch and release

cutthroat emeralds with Whirling Disease

one half cup of embalming fluid

thrashing under the electric lights

then night came sailing through the burn ward like the hull of a
000turning wheel

And the metamorphosis was complete

***
line 15, also from Job

ANOTHER BOOK


The Sun

Hits the windshield



Coming out of the car

Wash. The cat (she's



up all night)

Seems to know your full name.



Your mistakes

Become water soluble



(your friends all applaud).

You're on vacation



Most of the time

Ever since you turned forty.



Leave the elemental stuff,

broken shell, broken brain . . .



Blessed oh Lord, for these our gifts,

We have to get out of this country . . .



I have made the decision

To not be the kind of person who talks



To himself out loud

Inside a building, or in nature.



Down to the tips of your toes,

the snow here erases your mouth.



I am seated in an office,

and the tide is way out.


***
the last two lines are the first and last words (very slightly paraphrased)
from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

Along the Salton Sea (Bombay Beach)

JEWELRY

I’m kind of an overseer

slipping
under the davenport

all those who have been building a universe

you almost
got away with it

silos and a one room schoolhouse

a lifeguard's tower

I found the bronze claw that sometimes hangs from her throat

small piece of geography
known as the cleavage

an animal looks in through the broken window
backlit by heat lightning

it’s not like this will change anything

the empty flagpole banging in the wind

people tell you they’re sorry

in Oregon we don’t have this particular
kind of rabies outbreak

(they do yoga)

we're talking sky-red, food around a table

Ornamental Biblical

Hill country . . .

I like a nice quiet acre
where you can relax when you punish her


THE MIDWEST COLONIES


All that Baptism and slipperiness

it helps if you are double-jointed

maybe a little bi-polar

Then the chiggers, seeds that want to be mayflies,
bounce around on the tablecloth

after all, it's another lost Wednesday

no calendars at this inland beach

a grand inauguration celebrating the primacy of thongs
and baseboard heaters

a certain chastity

(an actual time-delay for a face)

and frankness

Like before, when we were under
the bed, she said I felt like a T-square

This is how we will live forever

a pot of something Ellen calls Gum Bolt

Off over Mona Lake you've
got your Turneresque sky . . .

The President of the Midwest Colonies clears his throat

He was born somewhere in East St. Louis

("before the defection")

and lived near no water to speak of

He's going to explain why
it's a good idea to enlist

YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL

In wax paper,
a jewel of a sandwich

bits of steel,
that's what you bite down on,
a cannonball

in fact I know if I stand right here

I’ll face you
in the morning

cars from the sixties

grass spiders with their miniscule
glittering eyes

under long wet trees friends, maybe a family

Sunnymead Mutual Water Company

WE IMAGINE THE ARROWS BECAUSE WE FEAR THEM


There's so much mud in the blood

Men with their glass
Eyeballs ticking

Moment to moment

Bridges expand in the mind

Leaves burning

And the lonely daughter darns
In the smoke000in the wind

A noose
And four hooves

Float through a forest of invisible birds

The pride of the taciturn

Like an abandoned estate sale

The skittering of insects, and mice . . .

A cigarette glows on someone's front porch

And the burning leaves flow through the side gate

Like a river

The child no one even remembers

Her gown

The hem in the smoke unraveling

As each thread burns loose in the current

***
after Herzog, Aguirre, The Wrath of God

At Noah Purifoy's Art Farm . . . .

Bombay Beach

Salton Sea