ars poetica

At Hard Labor

I suppose I am grateful
that writing a poem

is not like mining sulfur
from the banks of a volcano

or welding a crossbeam
miles above the street.

Nor is it like
erecting a dreamhouse.

Most days, it is more
like splicing a phone line,

or hanging a door
on a linen closet.

Afterall, we live
in a world of toiling,

sweeping the dust
from the steps,

only to find them
wanting once more.

Wiping the gray mud
from our boots, then

walking out into the
field again at morning.

I have never
invited these poems, yet

they keep on arriving
one by one, shaking

the rain
from their shoulders

as they emerge from
the dark beyond my door.

I suppose I am grateful
that they did not

rob my house
or steal my children

from their
very beds.

Writing a poem
is not like

rising at first light
to cook for an army,

but more like
waking at ten on Sunday

to prepare an omelet
for someone you really love,

or teaching a small child
to lace up a shoe.

It is the dancers I pity,
who must aspire

to leap and spin, and
the painters who must

live with the burn of
turpentine in their veins.

What of the man
near the park, who stands

on the best days and the worst
turning chestnuts over tiny coals.

Or the waitress
who must always

be concerned with
what I want to drink.

Writing a poem is not
like any of that, I think.

But enough, the rain
is ferocious tonight,

So much that I fear
the hills will be washed away,

And if I am not mistaken,
there may be someone

at
my door.

—Daniel Thomas Moran (2002)

Poems

The hack of putting pen to paper
in order to park a record of existence
is a screwball comedy.
It’s a nuisance and charms me.
A happy red blister on the thumb of my face.
I mean it’s an instance,
like saying “I was here.” Or more at
“I am here.” No probably less at that.

The crack of writing is always an act.
“I write less words than I hues to.”
Always the yellow road is less cold
with a bullet in my ink.
My poems are pretty good
when I have a nice transmission.
I drive through the crack like a distance,
scribbling little bruises into the median.
Tiny little ears of ink settle upon each tissue of flimflam
until there’s a whole book of em.

I hack in order to park
on an instant. Sometimes even parallel,
which is great fun
and can often result in a haxident.

—Del Ray Cross
____
published in his book Lub Luffly (2006, Pressed Wafer)

Firing Squad Or Peanut Butter

They’re just words, after all,
ink pressed into pulp,
or air spat from split lips.
So why concern yourself
with cunt or radish, their difference­
consonants, vowels.
Tricycle or grenade, does it matter
which word a child plays with?
Rape, lump, castrate, flay,
lynch, malignant, gouge, extinct­
harmless as slugs
or as nuclear fission.

—Cathy Carlisi
____
Previously published by West Branch

Why Poetry

Consider how
in a picture of a breast
taken by smashing the tissue
onto cold, marked glass
and shooting it through
(take a small breath and hold)
with penetrating poison light-
may be found something significant.

—Mary Buchinger Bodwell

Joining the Din

in restaurants, as in life
you walk in and it's all
happening already
-the stories each
at some point
turning on a word
several now reaching
that final place of ah hah
others just extending
the first toe of complication

shown to your seat
sometimes, like tonight
you have the table near the kitchen
so it's pots banging too
and foreign curses
next to the usual
clink of wine glasses
rising and falling among
the sibilants and stops
from tables and tables
of curled tongues

and one has to think
what is it I can add
what shape of word to start
here in this place, with this person
to meet the tenor so varied
strike that note of seriousness, of whim
in this noise of words
to which we each bring
our past store of stories
our old rambling questions
where now how to begin.

—Mary Buchinger Bodwell
____
originally appeared in Buffalo Carp

The Poem from the Poem: Ars Poetica II

Mountains into further mountains, where you will turn your attention soon.
In the antique words or the words for antiques.
And mountains instead of real mountains.
Stay with me here.
Into the careful edge.
And the sleeping roses.
Words into the crossing of the mountains.
Into pictures in the distance.
To lose your sobriety.
Our broken and useless bodies.
Mountains as the name for that place.
The River of Poems, or True Black.
Into an alphabet of closures.
Who could help but love the mountains.
Mountains into working these mountains.
Mountains into an affair with the wife of a former aide, into get this party started, these words
          from the words when you get home into pockets of these words.
When you get to the other side, into your head like a stream on those mountains.
Three more animals.
Infinity more animals.
And what I had to say, into every page, the alphabet of mirrors.
On that bridge surrounded by pigeons.
The yellow angel fish hiding behind the yellow rock.
The speaking bridge against the words.
Was it called the name or singing the name?
And the mountains into a conversation where I’m still waiting.
Who decided on a series of questions over the speaking words, these mountains into some kind
          of future where I think I’ve lost my way.
Poems we’ve named These Little People.
Poems to help you sleep.

—John Gallaher