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Snapshots
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The Moon in June From the Geelong Road we see a vast moon in a sexy scarf monitoring the Altona oil refinery and its tall flame. From the Westgate Bridge we see the moon above Station Pier presiding over the safe loading of the night ferry to Tasmania. From the Bolte Bridge the gilded moon, elusive good-luck medallion, is skirting the casino towers at Crown. From Alexandra Parade we see the moon over housing commission blocks supervising the encounters of addicted persons and their dealers near the North Richmond community health centre. From the Eastern Freeway the moon is beaming on the sprawling suburban fortresses of supporters of law and order. At Harp Junction the moon is benign over Dunnings the old wood merchants, and stands reflectingly over the shiny new police station currently under investigation for entrenched corruption, and over the quiet East Kew home? of the police informer who with his wife recently died under their executioner's revolver. And then we're home. Light the fire, bless Mr Dining's red-gum delivery, drop the blinds, shut out the moon. 7.20 am Wednesday June 9, 2004 Max Richards North Balwyn, Melbourne *** 'You'll Come To Love Your Shadow' Snapshot Now let us see: a snapshot needs focus - perhaps even depth of perception. A snapshot may have an innocent informal air, a casual perspective on things momentary. A snapshot is not slingshot or snipper's bullet, although in the hands of a PI it can be lethal. Mostly, a snapshot is non-aggressive, by definition. No tripod or double entendre: just aim and shoot, amateur and free, casual comment on a causal interest. Then, let it lie. Time will play its own tricks ... shadows grow long beyond the frame, stories spread like Salvation Jane. Steady now. Smile. Say 'cheese'. Damn - my shadow's in the frame again. Andrew Burke, Perth WA *** PROOFS she eagerly awaited the proofs of her next novel a mammoth science fantasy 'Shifting Sands Of Time' and when it finally arrived she opened the brown paper parcel fine artwork glossy cover on it glowed shone out 'Shitting Sons Of Thine' she glumly realised that there would be probably quite a lot of editing to do. pmcmanus 8-43 raynes park uk *** something like that blue cloud, thunder rolling through our valley, hail in the flower beds, or this lukewarm tea in the Chinese mug on the brass table -- something like this sun or this gnat on the page, scents of solomon seal and cigarette smoke entwining in the garden, wind rustling the birches -- something like the neighbor's dog barking at the noisy pickup and rap music from a radio, somewhere -- black pavement gleaming after rain, something like that -- this solitary life Sharon Brogan *** Here back and again that shadow in the frame down on the portrayed cave whispering behind your back clearly seen in front or sliding sideways or preceding somewhere materialized thoughts projections of many my head slammed against the marble a fountain inside falling hyper sensitized hyper viper hi the tide of outgoing students rafting for better notes in your brain cells hi to the hands of a colleague: _How much better I am_ she says hi to the devastating force of neighboring uncivilized drains _money_ call out most this June in the heat of hell * with a thanks to A. Burke for his shadow in the frame which was decontextualized and brought somewhere else. Anny Ballardini, Bozen, Italy *** such a small dark mess / age of discovery repeats dotting the bright page in a slow arc across that reflective glow the eyes can't apprehend alone a sign then &now a sign that so small a defect drains some light from the seen the sense of all proportion gone Douglas Barbour Edmonton 19:30 Wednesday June 9 2004 *** MORNING HAS BROKEN all previous records for rosy effulgence, casts rays across a broad spectrum, warming cockles and muscles alike. Picture brave boys in soviet realist poses, caught on the yellow spokes of the sun. It's warm too where he has gone, into eccentric orbit around another, self-swallowing, star. Dominic Fox, Leicester, UK *** OF GABRIEL OROZCO [via Juan Carlos Martin]OF GABRIEL OROZCO First time I came to work, great joy to learn how to accept beautiful accidents / surprising roll camera instance exploration. Look at this film. Again offended, and took that piece as a sign of arrogance. Residual: the remains of an action, old &worn with what looks new. Z Convince, but example compels. Of beginnings appeals to me. OF GABRIEL OROZCO Fragments of things they have found. Goes down, and it turns, and again it holds, already recording. Benefits some and takes away from others. Represent Mexico but not that's been promoted. I think I am part of experience like that--The Penske Picker. One can change the world with an apparently small gesture; result is going to be interesting. Of choosing--it ceases to be trash. Zoom in. I like to date them. Create a style: because then you are trying to do style, on the roof of a building in Rotterdam. This work was instigated by the experience of attending a poetry reading by the Hirshhorn Museum curator Phyllis Rosenzweig in which she read her poem-in-progress on Gabriel Orozco. That in turn led me to attend the film on Orozco by Juan Carlos Martin when it was screened at the National Gallery of Art months ago, without any connection to the forthcoming show at the Hirshhorn. Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, MD US / 6-9-04 (9:51 AM) *** THE ROSE GARDEN (after R. W. Reagan, 1911-2004, in memory of the Rose Garden Martyrs) The Legend on an Icon "In the early morning hours of November 16, 1989, government troops forced their way into the Jesuit residence of the Central American University in San Salvador and brutally murdered six priests and two women. 75,000 others had already been killed in El Salvador's civil war and while each death was equally tragic, these eight murders immediately took on special symbolic importance. Shot in the head with M16s at close range, their brains had been blown out of their skulls. It was as if the army had wanted to wipe out the intellectual life of their country, trampling on all that the university and western civilization represented." Gesthemane There is a rose garden at Universidad Jose Simeon Caņas, San Salvador's Jesuit university. It is a place to rest the eyes, collect the spirit, perhaps--no, surely in this place--a space for prayer. Perhaps, after all these years, it is so again. Who Knelt in This Garden? Six priests, scholars, trained as the Jesuits have always done, to think critically, even when the result is danger, theological, or to ones life. Name Them Segundo Montes Two women, one (Celina) only 15, daughter of Elba the housekeeper. People can leer: "Housekeeper, yeah right." What matter? Does a hollow-point bullet care about chastity? It has its own chastening effect. When you are shot through the back of the head, when your brains are splattered among the roses, it is the ultimate absolution and the ultimate sin. Who Was Not There Jon Sobrino, priest and Jesuit, also on the Army's short list, but on that night away from the University: become Ishmael, escaped alone to tell thee, a bony pointing finger haunted to a fury by the murder of his friends, his community, finding perhaps the seed of forgiveness. Who Will Answer? The Army of El Salvador said it was the Communists. They probably said this when Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot at the altar in a hospital chapel while saying Mass: "The Communists got him, they're godless, but we are true Catholics." By now this joke is so tired that only the large portion of the American population that has a "Duh" balloon over its head is stupid enough to believe it. By the night of the slaughter Reagan is gone from office. But he built this nightmare country, he held power while the 75,000 Salvadorians preceded the eight. They ended up Disappeared in the city dump of El Playon, Salvador's Golgatha scented with Eau de Buchenwald. Reagan cannot escape: from his hands the money poured into Salvador to supply an army that did not buy its M16s from the back pages of Soldier of Fortune. Name It In a field of roses, six men, two women, shot in the back of the head at close range. The term is Sophiacide, the murder of Wisdom. Wisdom is telling the truth of what one sees. Wisdom is naming, wisdom is not letting these names be lost. Wisdom is pointing the bony finger at the smiling drawling orator cowboy hero (yee-ha) and seeing justice: that for these eight who lost their brains in an instant in the University's rose garden, who lost their brains to protect the reign of capitalism, pietism, shit in the streets, daughters whoring to feed their families, his own brain was forfeit, he owed 10 years losing it. Maybe at the end he could sense the quid pro quo exacted on him as he exacted it upon many. Maybe he heard the voice of his inner creature, maybe he saw at last that the thorns that sprang forth that night in the Caņas rose garden stuck in his heart, tore out his mind, but live in our memories. Ken Wolman *** Watching the live feed of those filing past the flag-draped casket of former President Reagan I can't help seeing-- superimposed on each of those paying respects-- reasons I regret he ever took office: * those who died of TB in Chaguitillo; * the homeless begging in cheese lines; * bleated about family values, ignoring his own children; * busting unions; * declared war on the poor; * brought starvation back to America, so every millionaire could rack up another million; * condoned the maniac mullah... "Iran-Contra"; * Antonin Scalia; and on and on, each one filing past, paying our last "respects". -- Gerald Schwartz 9 June 2004, 11:30 am west Irondequoit, New York, United States *** I am not a river. I am not time. I am a body in time that is, in time that is not. The river flows. The blood in my body flows. I am not a river. The blood in my body flows. There is time. There is no time. The blood in my body flows. Time demurs. It waits. The blood in my body flows Harriet Zinnes Sunday, June 13, 2004 12:00 midnight. 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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