A Whiter Shade of Concrete

Condensed by the night

& the rush

            like a gull that flies

                                    in the dark

            all I needed was something simple

            & pure

The requisite shadows tucked neatly

            into the ruins of the palisades

                                    in my heart

                        representing something that will remain

casually unresolved

            locked away where the seabreeze goes   

                        when it isn’t here

returning the sky to its default settings

            picking up the mist & setting it down again

                                    igniting palm trees

& laying out those lines of neon that blossom in the surf

            whatever I might have thought in the meantime

picking up the pesos

                        the implication these remnants betray

as though it was just another

day at the beach

2012 by Joanne Kyger

With the beauty and immediacy of an inexorable logic improvised on the spot, Kyger sings the questioning mind and open heart through the careful notation of the nature of nature, human and not human, seen and felt and imagined.  What Olson called “causal mythology,” and Whalen described as the “graph of a mind moving,” are woven by Kyger into an everyday “familiar recognition”―

 

 

             Remember how the heart is always located

                    by its place in the body, by the bottom of a mountain,

                            on the slopes to the sea

 

 

      Watching it go by as if owned by no one,

            the ‘watcher’ sneezes and disappears

 

 

                       momentarily

2012 is a suite of 9 exquisite poems.  Get your copy now from Blue Press.



Custom Machine

4 Wipeouts & a Funeral
Standing at the edge the
choice is yours alone so
why not take that extra
step & see what it could be
like to live
among shadows
dealt from the bottom
of a deck of dreams

Live from the Forbidden Planet
The distribution of the
divine graces plus seven
sacraments & the over-
whelming realization that
you can’t run from a gorilla

Christ dragging his cross thru yr flesh like a plow
She had that "Lets get
hammered" look in her eyes
& I said that I would meet her
half way there

Italian Poets brought to you by Simon Pettet

The brilliant poet Simon Pettet has assembled a lovely & extraordinary anthology of some contemporary Italian poets.  It is well worth your time & attention.  Check it out here.

MEMORY FOAM by Kevin Opstedal

This chapbook (which could be subtitled "Further Studies in Surf Ghetto Acoustics") features 14 poems, consisting of love songs & other distractions by this relentless poet of the California coast.  With guest appearances by Lee Marvin, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Mingus, Patti Smith, & a traditional Japanese mariachi punk band.

Published by Seven Fingers, Louisville, Colorado.

Copies are available through Blue Press.



Anointed by wet sand & a dirty blonde alibi

Between what you know & what you think
you know

                        searching for a meaning that you

make up as you go along
the wave pattern carved into every grain of
beach sand

                        & whatever it was I saw rippling in yr eyes

warm light once trucked in from the tropics

with haze attending (thin absorbant cotton)
so much the more radiant when seen from the water

            but we’re standing on the pavement

outside the Mexican mercado La Esperanza broken
bottles at the curb

                                    jagged amber

bronze       apricot      the color of gasoline
a string of sunset pearls tied around the neck of a
rainpuddle

                        Has anyone ever taken a DNA sample

from a cloud?
The evidence is that thick
held in 37 volumes plus a box that must be kept refrigerated
at a secret location
only you know & I know

All the Way

for Ainsworth
 
Tacos & tea on a Thursday morning
a shade past the derivative “Where am I?”

answered in the Mississippi dialectic

dialed-in to a high-speed curriculum
beneath a sky that reads like a cosmic cheat-sheet
 
& you can taste the ocean in the morning air here
the streets cutting thru the haze as if it were Baja or Tangiers
with a California coastal accent that has marked me
since birth or perhaps before like every car I ever drove
up & down the PCH on wine-stained mornings
looking for the shit
& finding it
 
although right now it’s as MacAdams wrote “Whither goest
poet, aging in the night” & I guess I’m breaking even
with the tides doubling up on me no matter what the
forecast says there’s a pile of scrap iron rusting in my heart
& I can’t tell if it’s the wind or the leaves talking
but I swear I heard the medicine man say have a smoke
& call me in the morning

Poet Todd McCarty Reading in Chicago February 16

The terrific poet, Todd McCarty will be on stage at the Dollhouse Reading Series in Chicago on February 16th.  Anyone in the area who gives a damn about “The Poems” needs to attend, as McCarty is the real thing.  His book FALL FOR YOU, which was published recently by Blue Press, is loaded with lyric somersaults, sly wit, & the kind of beautifully measured lines that can only be delivered straight from the Escher designed parking structure of the heart. Catch the reading, buy the book, & be stoked.

More info can be found on the Dollhouse Facebook page & their tumblr.
 
While you’re at it, take a look at McCarty’s tumblr page, Blistered Visions.

Money Pancho

Dismantle the heart

& put it back together

in some half-ass way

it still works

clanking, grinding gears

            relayed along the rusty curve of sunset

like a convoy of razor-pink flamingos

& stolen hubcaps

            anticipating yet another chorus of

            Cowgirl in the Sand

 

(The band couldn’t make it

            where’s my harmonica?)

 

Scrap-iron nasturtiums blossoming

                        above the seawall

shipped from Okinawa to Santa Cruz

& back again

            like a cigarette that died in the refrigerator

or your reflection in the shiny chrome sky

                        I can’t decide which

 

Please give me all your love

& 20 dollars

            I’m running on fumes & 4 bald tires

 

Whisper sweet nada

            & I’ll show you how long I can

                        hold my breath

           

If I recite The Day Lady Died from memory

            will it buy us a taco to share out on the pier?

 

I’ve got a bird that whistles

I’ve got a bird that sings