Half Past Eight.Poem.Video.Guadalupe Grande.

http://youtu.be/2YjIzmvaV4w

OCHO Y MEDIA

I

No lo comprendo.
No sé
          por qué hay que ir tan deprisa.
No entiendo
         por qué hay que caminar tan rápido
ni por qué es tan temprano
ni por qué la calle está tan enturbiada y húmeda.

No entiendo
qué dice este rumor en tránsito
        (este siseo infatigablemente frágil)
ni sé
         a dónde llevan tantos pasos
con la obstinada decisión de no perderse.

II

Estoy en la puerta de mi casa:
desde aquí puedo ver,
tras los cristales,
               un copo de cielo,
un harapo azul sin horizonte,
un fragmento de distancia,
un tragaluz de lejanía.

Cierro la puerta
               y no lo entiendo,
pero hago un gran esfuerzo en retener
ese jirón azul en la pupila
      y pienso en la corona de espuma del ahogado
      y en los clavos grises que me aguardan.

Sin embargo, ya sé que no hay coronas:
estamos muy lejos del mar
y yo llevo los ojos llenos de bruma y humo
como si los cubriera la sombra de una lágrima
que aún no he sabido llorar.
                Digo que lo sé, pero no estoy segura:
tan solo
cierro la puerta de mi casa
como si cerrara la puerta de mi alma
o de algún alma
que se parece demasiado a la mía.

III

Parece temprano,
parece pronto,
quisiera decir: la ciudad se despierta
o nace el día
o empieza un día más.
Pero no lo entiendo,
no consigo entenderlo:
he bajado las escaleras
y he llegado a un lugar
que dice llamarse calle;
desde luego, no veo náufragos coronados
ni distingo a los viajeros de los comerciantes
ni a los habitantes de los ciudadanos
ni a los abogados de los turistas
ni a mí de mí.
En este momento,
tan solo reconozco mis zapatos
y su exuberante y urgente necesidad
por incorporarse al ajetreo de la vía.

IV

Es pronto:
no sé a dónde,
pero hemos llegado pronto.
Por lo demás, todo sigue.
Aunque yo no entienda lo que dice la palabra prisa
aunque no sepa lo que nombra la palabra ruido,
aunque no comprenda lo que calla la palabra calla,
los zapatos silenciosos,
en su obstinada decisión de no perderse,
lo entienden todo por mí.

HALF PAST EIGHT

I

I don´t understand.
I don´t know
      why one has to go about in such a rush.
I don´t get
      why one should walk so fast
nor why it´s so early
nor why the street is so muddy and wet.

I don´t see
what this transitory whisper in transit says
      (this restlessly fragile hiss)
nor do I know
      where all these steps are heading
in the obstinate decision not to lose themselves.

II

I stand in the doorway of my home:
from here I can see
                a streak of sky behind the glass
a blue rag without horizon,
a fragment of distance,
a skylight of distance.

I close the door
                and don´t understand
but I try with great effort to keep
that blue strip in my pupil
      and I think of the foamy garland of the drowned
      and the grey nails awaiting me.

Yet I know there are no garlands
and we´re far from the sea;
I lift my eyes and they´re full of fog and smoke
as if covered by the shadow of a tear
a tear I haven´t yet wept.
                I say I know, but I´m not sure:
I just close the door of my house
as if I ´d closed the door of my soul
or someone else´s soul
too similar to mine.

III

It seems early,
apparently too soon,
I would like to say: the city awakens
or the day is born
or another day begins.
But I don´t see it,
I can´t understand:
I have gone downstairs
to a place supposed to be called street;
obviously I see no garlanded shipwrecks,
I do not distinguish travellers from merchants
nor inhabitants from citizens
nor lawyers from tourists
nor myself from myself.
At this moment
I recognize only my shoes
and their exuberant urgent need
to join the teeming throng.

IV

It´s soon:
I don´t know where,
but we have arrived soon.
Otherwise, everything goes on.
Even though I don´t understand what the word hurry means
even though I don´t know what the word noise names,
even though I don´t grasp what the word hush hushes,
my silent shoes
in their obstinate decision not to lose themselves
understand everything in my place.

***

(Translated from the Spanish original by Robin Ouzman Hislop & Amparo Arrospide)

***

 Guadalupe

Guadalupe Grande was born in Madrid in 1965. She has a Bachelor degree in Social Anthropology. Published poetry books: El libro de Lilit, (Renacimiento, awarded the 1995 Rafael Alberti Award, 1995), La llave de niebla (Calambur, 2003), Mapas de cera (Poesía Circulante, Málaga, 2006 and La torre degli Arabeschi, Milán, 2009),  Hotel para erizos (Calambur, 2010) and Métier de crhysalide (an anthology, translated by Drothèe Suarez y Juliette Gheerbrant, Alidades, Évian-les-Bains, 2010).

As a literary critic, she has published in cultural journals and magazines, such as El Mundo, El Independiente, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El Urogallo, Reseña and others.

In 2008 she was awarded the Valle Inclán grant for literary creation in the Academia de España in Rome.

In the publishing and cultural management areas, she has worked in institutions such as the Complutense University of Madrid Summer Courses, Casa de América and Teatro Real. Currently she manages poetical activities in the José Hierro Popular University at San Sebastian de los Reyes, Madrid.

The poems “Ocho y media” (Half past eight) and “Madrid, 1973” belong to La llave de niebla, and have been translated into English by Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arróspide.

 ***

Guadalupe Grande nació en Madrid en 1965. Es licenciada en Antropología Social.

Ha publicado los libros de poesía El libro de Lilit, (Renacimiento, Premio Rafael Alberti 1995), La llave de niebla (Calambur, 2003), Mapas de cera (Poesía Circulante, Málaga, 2006 y La torre degli Arabeschi, Milán, 2009),  Hotel para erizos (Calambur, 2010) y Métier de crhysalide (antología en traducción de Drothèe Suarez y Juliette Gheerbrant, Alidades, Évian-les-Bains, 2010).

Como crítico literario, ha colaborado en diversos diarios y revistas culturales, como El Mundo, El Independiente, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El Urogallo, Reseña, etcétera.

En el año 2008 obtuvo la Beca Valle Inclán para la creación literaria en la Academia de España en Roma.

En el ámbito de la edición y la gestión cultural ha trabajado en diversas instituciones como los Cursos de Verano de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, la Casa de América y el Teatro Real.  En la actualidad es responsable de la actividad poética de la Universidad Popular José Hierro, San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid.

Los poemas “Ocho y media” y “Madrid, 1973” pertenecen a La llave de niebla y han sido traducidos al inglés por Robin Ouzman Hislop y Amparo Arróspide.

 
 
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Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.
 
 
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Amparo Arrospide (Argentina) is a Spanish poet and translator. She has published four poetry collections, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and Presencia en el Misterio as well as poems, short stories and articles on literary and film criticism in anthologies and both national and foreign magazines. She has received numerous awards. Together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, she worked as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, an E-zine.

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The Silent Thief.Poem.Sullivan the Poet.Video/Audio.Candice James

 

The Silent Thief..’

 

 

It crept in soft ‘pon velvet feet,

a yesterday to steal;

A birdsong day all summer scents,

fair seasoned and genteel.

So small a day it scarce was missed,

one rain drop lost the brook;

Two dozen hours from all a life,

so easily mistook.

And in its stead did leave discard,

a fogged and dull lit gloom;

All hid behind familiar doors,

a strange and empty room.

 

I missed that one day not so much,

nor yet the next it stole;

A dirty day all damps and blows,

that scarce but left a hole.

Or bare the next, if truth be told,

or was it one before?

When sly it took a friend’s kind face,

from out an unlocked drawer.

And with it neatly enveloped,

all fastened with a bow;

A sheaf of happy memories,

once held and treasured so…

 

Til ‘fore I knew each other day,

or least I felt it so;

Fell silent ‘hind a rust hinged door,

through which I could not go.

No care to how I threw my locks,

or latched each window tight;

Another precious jewel was stole,

with each new morning light.

As if I held all of my life,

within these helpless hands;

Which day on day, try as I might,

slipped through like time’s cruel sands.

 

And so; I roam these labyrinths,

each crueller than the last;

In search some brightly open door,

to window on my past.

Dark corridors within my mind,

all tortured twist and bend;

And wooden troops dressed arms apart,

these doors, on guard, extend.

On, on, to twist each hard seized knob,

test each reluctant key;

To beg a bright familiar room,

that still remembers me.

 

With arms outspread to take me in,

all fold in its embrace;

Oh! Let me hold between my hands,

one full remembered face.

To know the hearth that embers there,

and bathe within its glow;

Beg gaze upon my grandchild’s face,

and breathe “I love you so..”

Or would that every kindly soul,

that smiled with love on me;

Might not, all gaoled, ‘hind dead-locked doors,

forever strangers be…

 

When in that demon’s maze I found,

all in his khaki suit;

My dearest love made young again,

my daring young recruit.

Rose young from under Flanders’ field,

and home the dreadful war;

Come steadfast ‘cross these work worn years,

to free my mind’s locked door.

So know you when I sightless stare,

my senses, thoughtless, flown;

Though lost your vale of tears my love,

that I am not alone…

 

‘Sullivan the Poet’ 
 
“Verse – Perverse & Obverse..”

***
2 Poets Laureate — New Westminster Poet Laureate Candice James and Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate Fred Wah at Royal City Literary Arts Society Setp 22, 2013 membership drive
Candice James
***

Poet Laureate, New Westminster, BC

President, Royal City Literary Arts

Honorary Professor International Arts Acadamy, Greece

Board Advisor, Interantional Muse, India

Board Advisor, Federation of British Columbia Writers

Candice James is Poet Laureate of New Westminster, B.C. and President of Royal City Literary Arts Society. She is a poet, musician, songwriter and author of six poetry books A Split In The Water (Fiddlehead 1979);Inner Heart―A Journey; (2010), Bridges and Clouds (2011); Midnight Embers–A Book of Sonnets (2012); Shorelines-A Book of Villanelles (2013); and Ekphrasticism (2014).   Websites: http://saddlestone.shawwebspace.ca   and  www.candicjames.com

***

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Madrid 1973.Poem.Video.Guadalupe Grande.

http://youtu.be/fv52Adoh_GE

***

 

¿Y si fuera otra la ciudad,

apenas vaho sobre el cristal”,

 apenas un puñado de azogue sobre el vidrio?

 

 

Pero entender es extranjero;

tienes que dar un paso a tu costado,

abandonar el familiar aliento:

ese que teje con su alma de humo

el calendario absorto de los días;

el que hilvana en la sombra del horizonte

la pupila del tiempo;

el que sostiene,

con alfileres de arena entre los dedos,

los muros de la infancia,

las calles que ya no son, las horas

que ya se fueron,

los escombrados descampados que ahora son penumbra en el mostrador

 

Sin embargo, tú sigues viendo

el horizonte con su sombra

allí donde hoy hay un garaje.

 Entre llaves y llantas,

 entre motores y carrocerías

 entre este mono azul y el suelo gris

 aún huyen por las piedras los lagartos,

 aún deja el caracol su rastro en la escombrera.

 

 Florecen los almendros,

 los trigales se elevan:

 regresas con un olor a cardo y cicatriz,

 vaho de miel,

 apenas                         fragmentos de un azogue

 ardidos en la hoguera.

 

 

La puerta del garaje se ha quedado abierta:

te asomas absorta a tu costado,

te quedas ahí, quieta, “respirando el verano”,

recordando,

respirando, recordando

la canícula secreta,

 

olvidando, mirando, quieta:

resbala una libélula

entre manos grasientas,

cae una tuerca,

cantan

¿quién canta?

llaves, llantas, ruedas

y unos niños que saltan

al estupor de piedra en piedra.

Correr sin caerse entre los escombros.

Correr deprisa, muy deprisa,

saltar, correr, cantar,

correr

antes de que todo desaparezca,

antes de que se acabe el verano,

antes de que ya solo quede

este garaje,

este vaho, este cristal,

este hombre rodeado de llaves,

aceites, llantas, tuercas,

piezas del velatorio de tu infancia.

 

Qué tarde se ha hecho:

aunque hemos sorteado los escombros,

cruzado los almendros, atravesado el trigal,

aunque estamos sudorosos y sin aliento,

la ciudad ha llegado antes,

ha llegado más lejos,

más deprisa, más dónde:

apenas un hilo sobre el cristal,

un puñado de azogue sobre el vidrio.

 

Es otra la ciudad

y entender es extranjero.

 

 ***

 Madrid, 1973

 

 

And if the city was otherwise,

just haze on crystal”.

just a handful of quicksilver on the glass?

 

But understanding is alien;

you need to step beside your side,

abandon the familiar breath:

the one that with its soul of smoke

knits the absorbed calendar days;

the one that threads the horizon´s shadow

through the pupil of time;

the one that holds

with pin heads of sand between its fingers

the walls of childhood,

the streets that are no more, the hours

already gone,

the dumping tips that are now twilight on the countertop.

 

Yet still you continue to see

the horizon with its shadow

where today a garage stands.

Between spanners and tyres,

between motors and bodyworks,

between a blue boiler suit and a grey floor

where lizards still dart amongst the stones,

where a snail still leaves its trail on the dump.

Almond trees flourish,

wheat fields rise up:

you return with a smell of thistle and scratches,

honey dew,

just fragments of quicksilver

burnt at the bonfire.

 

The garage door has remained open:

absorbed you peer into your side,

you remain there, still, “breathing the summer”,

remembering,

breathing, remembering

the secret midsummer heat

 

Forgetting, looking, still:

a dragonfly glides

between greasy hands,

a screw drops,

they sing,

who sings?

spanners, tyres, wheels

and children hop scotching

amazement from stone to stone.

 

Run without stumbling over the rubble.

Run fast, very fast,

skip, run, sing,

run

before everything vanishes,

before summer is over,

before only

this garage

this haze, this glass

remain,

this man surrounded by spanners,

oils, tyres, screws,

pieces of your childhood´s wake.

 

 How late it´s grown:

even though we´ve avoided the dump,

crossed by the almond trees, passed through the wheat field,

even though we are sweaty and breathless,

the city has arrived before,

has arrived more far,

more quick, more where:

just a thread on the crystal,

a handful of quicksilver on the glass.

 

The city is otherwise

and understanding is alien.

***

Original Translation Amparo Arrospide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

***

 Guadalupe

Guadalupe Grande was born in Madrid in 1965. She has a Bachelor degree in Social Anthropology. Published poetry books: El libro de Lilit, (Renacimiento, awarded the 1995 Rafael Alberti Award, 1995), La llave de niebla (Calambur, 2003), Mapas de cera (Poesía Circulante, Málaga, 2006 and La torre degli Arabeschi, Milán, 2009),  Hotel para erizos (Calambur, 2010) and Métier de crhysalide (an anthology, translated by Drothèe Suarez y Juliette Gheerbrant, Alidades, Évian-les-Bains, 2010).

As a literary critic, she has published in cultural journals and magazines, such as El Mundo, El Independiente, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El Urogallo, Reseña and others.

In 2008 she was awarded the Valle Inclán grant for literary creation in the Academia de España in Rome.

In the publishing and cultural management areas, she has worked in institutions such as the Complutense University of Madrid Summer Courses, Casa de América and Teatro Real. Currently she manages poetical activities in the José Hierro Popular University at San Sebastian de los Reyes, Madrid.

The poems “Ocho y media” (Half past eight) and “Madrid, 1973” belong to La llave de niebla, and have been translated into English by Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arróspide.

 ***

Guadalupe Grande nació en Madrid en 1965. Es licenciada en Antropología Social.

Ha publicado los libros de poesía El libro de Lilit, (Renacimiento, Premio Rafael Alberti 1995), La llave de niebla (Calambur, 2003), Mapas de cera (Poesía Circulante, Málaga, 2006 y La torre degli Arabeschi, Milán, 2009),  Hotel para erizos (Calambur, 2010) y Métier de crhysalide (antología en traducción de Drothèe Suarez y Juliette Gheerbrant, Alidades, Évian-les-Bains, 2010).

Como crítico literario, ha colaborado en diversos diarios y revistas culturales, como El Mundo, El Independiente, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, El Urogallo, Reseña, etcétera.

En el año 2008 obtuvo la Beca Valle Inclán para la creación literaria en la Academia de España en Roma.

En el ámbito de la edición y la gestión cultural ha trabajado en diversas instituciones como los Cursos de Verano de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, la Casa de América y el Teatro Real.  En la actualidad es responsable de la actividad poética de la Universidad Popular José Hierro, San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid.

Los poemas “Ocho y media” y “Madrid, 1973” pertenecen a La llave de niebla y han sido traducidos al inglés por Robin Ouzman Hislop y Amparo Arróspide.

 

 
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Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.
 
 
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Amparo Arrospide (Argentina) is a Spanish poet and translator. She has published four poetry collections, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and Presencia en el Misterio as well as poems, short stories and articles on literary and film criticism in anthologies and both national and foreign magazines. She has received numerous awards. Together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, she worked as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, an E-zine.

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The Insomniac’s Prayer. Poem. Video. Sara L. Russell.2000

 

The ripening berries
Summer’s last blaze
when her breath is of jasmine
and phlox is her sigh
Let me dream then,
of summer
and float through the haze
peaceful breath
bed of poppies
ceiling of blue sky


Let me float
like a feather
in the arms
of the breeze
Let me drift
like a leaf
on a tide, upstream
with the murmur of water
the soft hum of bees
in a garden 
in peace
in sleep 
in a dream


Send me love’s angels
to watch at my bed
golden of voice
and silver of wing;
two at the far corners
two at my head
with my dreams
all of heaven
when softly
they sing


Send me a light 
that can never grow dim
love, like a candle
to lighten my heart
empty my mind
of each worry and whim
and the ghosts 
of nights demons
that tear me apart


Till I float
like a feather
in the arms
of the breeze
and drift 
like a leaf
on a tide, upstream
love make me wise
through life’s cruelties
sleep dry my eyes
make me still
let me dream.

***

AKA @pinkyandrexa Poet, Artist, Cartoonist, Goth, Time Traveller. Friend of cats everywhere. Former Editor of Poetry Life & Times. Founder of http://thevideopoets.ning.com/ … See also http://creativethinkersintl.ning.com/profile/SaraLouiseRussell plus over a million poetry links online.

***

Sara Louise Russell , whose internet name is “PinkyAndrexa”, is a UK poet who has earned a well-deserved reputation as a highly respected twenty-first century poetry publisher and poet. She was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Poetry Life & Times, one of the world’s premier poetry E-zines, which ran monthly from 1998-2006 under her tutelage. She has always been in on the scene with graphic design, animation, 3D art, web design, sign writing, photography, film and poetry recital videos. Sara is founder and current editor of Paper Li.  Poetry Lifetimes and the online  Ning network The Video Poets. Her poetry has been published in Artvilla, AuthorsDen, Hello Poetry, The New Pleiades Anthology of Poetry (Describe Adonis Press, Ottawa, © 2005), Sonnetto Poesia, Word Machinist and more, as well as in several e-books by Kedco Studios Inc. (USA). Her skills as a sonneteer are particularly remarkable.

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The Mohican.Poem.Norman Ball

normball

NORMAN BALL (BA Political Science/Econ, Washington & Lee University; MBA, George Washington University) is a well-travelled Scots-American businessman, author and poet whose essays have appeared in Counterpunch, The Western Muslim and elsewhere. His new book “Between River and Rock: How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments” is available here. Two essay collections, “How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable?” and “The Frantic Force” are spoken of here and here. His recent collection of poetry “Serpentrope” is published from White Violet Press. He can be reached at returntoone@hotmail.com.

***

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Beyond Me and You.Video.Poem.Robin Marchesi

 

Beyond You and Me

Beyond You and Me
 
 
Me
 
Robin Marchesi, born in 1951, began writing in his teens, much to the consternation of his mother,

the sister of Eric Hobsbawm, the historian.

In 1992 Cosmic Books published his first book entitled  “A B C Quest”.

In 1996 March Hare Press published “Kyoto Garden” and in 1999 “My Heart is As…”

ClockTowerBooks published his Poetic Novella, “A Small Journal of Heroin Addiction”, digitally, in 2000.

Charta Books published his latest work entitled “Poet of the Building Site”, about his time working with Barry Flanagan the Sculptor of Hares, in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

He is presently working on an upcoming novel entitled “A Story Made of Stone.”
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 http://www.amazon.com/A-Small-Journal-Heroin-Addiction/product-reviews/0743300521

http://www.illywords.com/2011/09/down-the-rabbit-hole-a-glimpse-into-the-wonderland-of-barry-flanagan/


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Near and Far.The Teratogen Sonnet Series. Poem. Video. Norman Ball

 

“The death camps were not built in the Gobi Desert. And when barbarism challenged, the humanities, the arts, philosophic thought proved not only largely impotent but often collaborative with despotism and massacre,”

–George Steiner, from ‘A New Literacy’, The Kenyon Review, 24:1, Winter 2007, 10-24

 

Teratogen 1: Sex on the Brain

 

“Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,

yea, thy shame shall be seen…”—Isaiah 47:3

 

This mission is a sin. What kind of spaz-

tic draws vigor from pornographic veins

or penis-headed parodies of ass?

 

But you’re no baby, Baby. Holy weans

alive, I could not diaper your fine mess.

You soil all metaphor. I’ll author blame:

My labs, my country tis of thee. My shame

is writ uncovered on your face. No less

you’d scare Sears’ portrait guy.

 

And yet I’m drawn

to parse the prick that promenades your head.

They told us, Horus, Set, the Golden Dawn:

 

a Third Eye—neither naked, neither dead

of shameless form would, near the end, arrive

commending those whose fear brought it alive.

 

Teratogen 2: Cabbage Patch Moll

 

“Hence world picture, when understood

essentially, does not mean a picture of the

world but the world conceived and grasped

as picture.” –Martin Heidegger

 

You vandalize distress at no small cost

through nylon skein and cabbage patch

disguise. This manhunt though is long since lost.

All have been found. First paparazzi snatched

 

unguarded moments. Then we watched gray puffs

televise precision. Your face

is pixelated aftermath that stuffs

everything in the close-up. Common place

 

covers all bases. Where’s the intimate

to hide? The convict is a partial judge

on all subjects of visual merit. Split

my screen and your forehead suggests a smudge-

print. We share the mounting headcount’s ripe bruise.

For I no longer feel eyewitness news.

 

Teratogen 3: Thumbelina, Dance

 

“…advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” –from Project for a New American Century (PNAC) Manifesto, 2000

 

We vet foot bills. Are pissed-on borders worth

a mongrel birth? doG gone us Pentagon.

Hotdog Girl rolls so we might rule the earth?

 

Our barking men of outrage are all gone.

Lassie’s come home to her unleashing hour.

Stream? I cannot stream out into the streets.

Fluoride neutered all my upright power.

I’ll litter no more dog-days in these sheets.

 

Poor pup, you play dead well. No, we’ll not lift

you up. One burp and you could well explode

across complicit shoulders. To the swift

life opens up. As for an honest road

with cars to chase, let’s first define your legs.

Right now you are a thumb. How motion begs.

 

Teratogen 4: Waterboy

 

“No, you people are drinkin’ the wrong water.”

–from The Water Boy, the movie (1998)

 

 Suffer this baby floating on the earth

amphibious. Grace alone can mend

fluidic pustules. Please make haste. No berth

so wide of God, nor time-belabored End-

 

time should deflate ascent. Prospects look grim

for god-speed. Though we tire of boils and sore

feet.

 

Oh procrastinating seraphim,

whitewash no more. These mutants wash ashore.

Our amniotic seas now euthanize.

 

Please hear, oh Lord, water-boy’s gurgled cries.

His isotopic lungs cannot advance

beyond collapse. How does he stand a chance

of reaching Heaven, waterlogged on Earth?

The New Disorder liquefies at birth.

 

Teratogen 5: Burpee Girl

 

“Satan said: ‘I am not the one to prostrate

myself to a human being, whom You created

from sounding clay of altered black smooth

mud.” –Quran 15:30-35

 

Christian soldier, you battle your mortgage

with Abd al-Chuckee puppet-strings away,

sculpted like a Mujaheedin porridge

from amber waves of O, so gamma ray.

 

Our acronym-cadavers cyphered this.

The Pentagon got wind of ill-wind skies.

Re-baseline victory. All vectors miss

these eyesores too contained to leak out cries.

 

Children, don’t play! The cradle robs the grave

before the grave has time to rob your wild

unripened stares. Uranium defiled

His altered mud. God’s breath we, breathless, waive.

 

Dead verse tomatoes horror. Who’ll baptize

the Burpee Girl with ovulating eyes?

 

Teratogen 6: Improvised Existential Denouement (IED)

 

Up close you could be anybody’s child-

care scandal. Hamburger Hill limps beside

your fresh pink meat. While no one looked, life filed

your backstroke down to blisters. They will hide

your books in study hall. Who will arrest

 

this mutant form now terrorizing cells?

Without a clear and sewn-up threat the West

cannot hold the line. Deformity spells

 

doom. No tight-knit group of key advisors

props up your bloated puppet-string regime.

Sit up. Exude malevolence. Your sores

must find themselves else war will lose its steam

 

pressed irony. Don’t make us make Big Macs.

Cater our events. Weather our attacks.

 

Teratogen 7: Baby Skeletor (Brought to You by ‘Masters of the Universe’)

 

“Skeletor’s face accidentally got splashed with acid and he sacrificed his face to

survive.” –from ‘Masters of the Universe’, a Mattel media franchise

 

Before ill-winds impinged on faultless weather,

I had a barrow glazed with rain for you.

I’d wheel you to the bus-stop, but why lever

a father’s guilt atop your unhinged glue?

 

I’m loath to hold you up for God to see,

nor shower you with blue comforts. Why not flee

my too-short arms, your wails so out of key?

You scream small monster none the least at me.

 

I’ll prop you up at school if you insist.

But stand-up kids are cruel. They will resist

the womb’s last weapon, shrunken in their midst.

The universe won’t stoop. You are the grist

for chemistry swept under bazaar rug,

a Hazmat spill, the morning-after drug.
 
This series first appeared in The New Formalist, then Cinemension. Teratogen sonnets 5 and 7 will appear in ‘The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Anthology of sonnets of the early third millennium Friesen Press, Victoria, B.C., Canada, 2013.
 
normgarage2
 
NORMAN BALL (BA Political Science/Econ, Washington & Lee University; MBA, George Washington University) is a well-travelled Scots-American businessman, author and poet whose essays have appeared in Counterpunch, The Western Muslim and elsewhere. His new book “Between River and Rock: How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments” is available here. Two essay collections, “How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable?” and “The Frantic Force” are spoken of here and here. His recent collection of poetry “Serpentrope” is published from White Violet Press. He can be reached at returntoone@hotmail.com.
 
 
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