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Snapshots
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Passport To Sunrise the desire for sleep is lost long nights fill with intent in the vision above my bed i write infinite poems i write a visa to mysterious islands a passport to sunrise in the cock's crow my ink flows in a strange sea of unknown language Deborah Russell, June 2, 04 (morning) Baltimore, Maryland *** Discovering Winter I have winter stuffed in my pockets a tissue, paperclip, a silver seal, nothing of the artic kind. It’s partly from a clever flip of juice I had at lunch. I am hilarious when it comes to junk, the little scraps of detail one collects when writing poems in stuffy gas-fired rooms. Sneezes stunningly simple to my coughing boom. Two hairs have fallen from my headache. I flick them off like dust. My eyes and nose are melting into ugg-boots on my toes. I know I’m not unique. Helen Hagemann, Marangaroo. 2 June *** Modigliani Pontormo, Parmigianino, Modigliani with their elongated figures Mannerists -- long sharp noses, mouths, oh mouths, where is that bare slot, that tilt of the head Renaissance? No. Early twentieth He, tubercular, dead at thirty-five, in 1920. His nudes that shut down his Paris show now luring the crowds. Harriet Zinnes, NYC *** a week of grief and broken things but then the moon filled out round & this bright birdsong morning Sharon Brogan *** a forlorn denial now one week gone the storm of news & conversation grief brings and reminds us that all broken promises promised things would get better but who said that & then who can believe the same old stories even the moon goes through the motions now filled with the usual cunning out go stars round that full light & a line of flight makes this night complicit that bright day rises to birdsong as if the morning were really new Douglas Barbour Edmonton 16:25 Wednesday June 2 2004 (with thanks to Sharon Brogan) *** she was waiting in the cellar for sunlight for the mouth to open as soon as we called to her the first answer became clear she knew very well where the remnants were she had hidden them for safekeeping it was only a short journey riding on the bear's back Liz Kirby Waterfoot England Wed June 2nd 2004 *** A NEW VOLUPTUARY Once I was fearful of the growing season -- in a dark place, we don't want to see the way green things reach and grope. Such hopefulness coiled in every cell, such energetic, muscular striving. We don't want to hear the fey twitters of feathered bombs that drop from the sky to bounce on lawns with legs like springs, or hear the ticking of sprinklers, a signal of heat waves to come, and we certainly don't want the scent of jasmine, stronger by night, and a hell of a tease besides, nor the caress of a wind that at once flatters and beguiles. And the taste of salted skin pressed to skin firmly as lips meet lips? Bunkum. Balderdash! Now, now I'm not so sure. Such provocations can't always go unnoticed, be ignored. Why not reach for June's strawberries that shiver redly in the skins they're in, or thrust feet into sand, or step outside ourselves the way light breaks through stained glass and falls in colored shadow on the walkway that promises gardens beyond? Jenniffer L. Lesh 2 June 2004 Bakersfield, Calif. USA *** The city strode flashy with newly pawned zircon in the sun, cars glittered with chrome and rain through the narrow streets. Frailty of bike gripped the wet tarmac with a whisper of urgency and misdirection. (/Walking up the stairs, my hips too wide for the gate, A shadow's heart, the warmth of a glowing chestnut blossom. / (I rang my father. The sun continued shining. Leaves jutted down to reach me. I deposited the money and escaped. Roger Day *** OLD GIRLFRIENDS Old girlfriends sit aslant from you in the subway, behind the Times, visible only the angle of their jaw. Their hair draws light from the sun, empties the sky to perfect darkness, cat vision. Old girlfriends pass afar on midtown streets at noon, pursued by the phantoms they have bequeathed you. Old girlfriends sing the Miserere, brass and strings pound in the stomach like moonbursts of lust. -- Kenneth Wolman *** What was I gonna say? Oh yeah, that how can I pray to Art? how can I feel that way when all around me things are crud. Mobile phones full of African blood and maybe guns in my diamond stud and hurt children becoming adults who hurt, surviving in cultures driven by hurt, by "no pain no gain", ruled by gain and going insane and everyone says it's getting worse. Everyone wants to engage reverse, but there is no reverse. Yet some things are better. Maybe we'll get there so I have to try, have to work. Behind the numbing list of hurts hide joy, and love, and original thoughts worth telling, and blessings worth giving and dreams worth receiving and songs worth saving. So I'll draw a chart and aim a dart and with every start of every part of my staring, gulping, blubbering heart I'll pray to Art. Janet Jackson *** the holiday schedule enlarges time run after your thought to the kitchen under the fridge - yes here it is without onions, only milk - coffee is ready back to the screen it screeches away mail or sail why scatter my brain away? I wanted to write for the gipsy whose love was transformed into someone's show or for the dream collected while waiting for the sun to appear while watering the plants he showed up again exotic clouds of big emerald green leaves are the growth of a rainy late spring early summer they appease my friends' dead sisters in me the totemic statue is slowly restructured Cocteau's sketches seem lost in the past with Lorca singing deep down to the ground Anny Ballardini, 5.33 pm Italy *** THE LAST ECLOGUE blockquote> (i. m. Miklós Radnóti, poet shot by the Nazis, November 1944) In the wrong country he remembers home. Under the wrong soil home is with him, safe in his pocket on that forced march. The death-stained voice of the notebook, its pages tight closed, guards his words with the juice of his dying. Its mouth is choked with damp earth and blood. It will speak again, its lips tenderly opened, telling us who he was and is, interpreting. Not voiceless, not silenced, he springs up, singing. Joanna Boulter *** There is death in the house Cruel cruel cat At midnight I sat and watched My tubby little mouse Scampering round too fast to catch He had been too cute to enter the boxtrap to preserve his life An hour or two later Lying in bed I heard him run up the stairs And wander around my bedroom Then I heard Cat on the stair And knew Mouse was doomed Quick move of Cat then silence In the morning light a head a body In tissue to the rubbish sack And a present for me by Cat's dinnerplate A pair of skinny legs Cruel cruel cat My tubby little mouse gone Now Cat is off to sleep in the sun And I am alone with a memory Douglas Clark, Bath, UK, 10.05am *** Wednesday and half the day forgotten editing amateur 'hardboiled crime' fiction I break to chat with the Woolworths girls striking a redline through their make-up ('But we get staff discount!') back to Track Changes looking over my shoulder Andrew Burke Mt Hawthorn, WA, Australia *** Winter the cat sneezes three times for good luck trees deliver their greens fresh to the eye the orbweaver spider no longer builds her nightly web she's gone wherever the sun goes when we're not looking Alison Croggon, Williamstown, Australia 4.07pm *** ALPHABETICALLY when at last the editors of the local anthology after endless discussion midnight sessions raised passions decided to put the poems democratically alphabetically by title just by title all hell broke out as to which alphabet actually to use. pmcmanus 7.04 raynesparkuk *** TESTAMENT: COCTEAU [photos en marge de film par Lucien Clergue] Not until viewing a show of still photographs at the Mexican Cultural Institute snapped by the eminent Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa while shooting footage for Luis Bunuel (among others) had I paid any attention to the art of movie stills. Recently, I was startled to register that Lucien Clergue, whom I had heard lecture about his photography, was credited by Jean Cocteau for the stills he had taken behind the scenes of the 1960 film, The Testament of Orpheus. Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, MD US / 6-2-04 (12:49 AM) Winter the cat sneezes three times for good luck trees deliver their greens fresh to the eye the orbweaver spider no longer builds her nightly web she's gone wherever the sun goes when we're not looking wherever the moon goes she's gone tacking a sail to all the dark corners shimmering its never no, its ever yes stirs up wind in a northern continent rain falls reminds us that we are at the border of seasons, of not quite there not quite here the spider spins an orb of green branches, green wind, stirs up a southern continent a green plum falls and bites lips into sweetness summer Snapshot extension: Alison Croggon, Rebecca Seiferle, Deborah Russell Poetryetc is a listserv relating to poetry and poetics which provides a forum for poets to debate their critical and creative work. The list has over the years run a number of projects for its members, of which Snapshots has been the most enduring. Every Wednesday, Poetryetc members were invited to post short poems on any subject or in any form they chose. The idea was to make a poetic collage of instamatic “snaps” of that day that reflected the international membership of the list. The project has generated an astounding number of poems. The first two runs, of six weeks each, and the first ten weeks of the third run, are archived at Wild Honey Press www.wildhoneypress.com under Poetryetc Project. The rest - amounting in all to a run of a year - are archived here. Poetryetc, like its affiliate Salt Publishing (http://www.saltpublishing.com), was founded by Australian poet John Kinsella. Salt is managed by Christopher Hamilton-Emery (cemery@saltpublishing.com), while Poetryetc is owned by Alison Croggon (ajcroggon@bigpond.com). Poetryetc is now archived at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/poetryetc.html. and anyone interested can join from that url. To contact the listowner: Alison Croggon These pages are designed, maintained, and hosted by Rebecca Seiferle, the Editor of The Drunken Boat. To email. 
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