From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Wed Apr 2 12:12:48 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:12:48 -0400 Subject: [Realpoetik] Brenda Iijima Message-ID: <86a3fe410804021212k3a1bec26xd533104704e7d250@mail.gmail.com> RAW PARTICULATE LANGUAGE WAGES Where were you when we needed you subconscious field richness Bubbly oily rich homology such gesticulating orchestrations Wash us thick with substance Because it can be done par excellence lasting opus Little contrast great emphasis There's sex to be had in the language shimmering large alluvial plains That is why the study of soil covering prelinguistic sites is so interesting Since the beginning of life on earth material corroborates Glaciers are energized moving rivers of ice oozing moraine deposits like mind Dirt and rocks at the edges Time might be said to oscillate elsewhere prairies interspersed with woodlands You can brace yourself against a cave wall for structure Prehistoric men go out hunting Women struggle with the roots It is a great feat that we bred the aurochs The height of the withers of a large domesticated cow is roughly 1.5 meters Convert that to stomach fat couch tuber yam In Jaktorów, Poland the last known live arouchs, a female died in 1627 Swedes stole her head in a battle waged with the Poles Studying the dissected brain of the fetal pig we inspire a notion of ourselves We can imagine creatures with mandibles like ours but evolutionarily birds It's been nice knowing you eating everything that breathes I miss you, tribes of the Würm glaciation roaming is a favorite past time of mine Civilization pales in comparison with night *Brenda **Iijima*'s chapbook, *Subsistence Equipment *is just out from Faux Press. *Animate, Inanimate Aims* was recently released by Litmus Press. Forthcoming publications include *Rabbit Lesson* (Fewer & Further) and *If Not Metamorphic* (Ahsahta Press). She teaches at Cooper Union and runs Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs (http://yoyolabs.com/) in Brooklyn. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Thu Apr 17 19:15:36 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:15:36 -0400 Subject: [Realpoetik] James Cook Message-ID: <86a3fe410804171915u55ebacc6y1bca7479aa880ee1@mail.gmail.com> *Night Shift At The Machine Shop* Out in the dark past the grime-caked windows I feel pain begin to stir in the wombs of animals while here under a smear of ugly lights the lathe scrapes out its archaic rhythm constantly until the raw mesh of my nerves starts to hum. Its an old song of brass shavings and sweaty faces and there is something necessary to it if we're ever to understand why the dreams of our fathers grew terrible and left their hands scarred like maps to cities that are always just a few miles off... *Memory Of September Light* September light was falling through itself like smoke and you were wearing the dress your aunt gave you, the one the color of the Icelandic word for "moon" You kept asking me if I knew what it was but I didn't. We imagined it would be the sound of a piano tuned to falling rain or snow dissolving in the air before it reaches the ground, and then you asked if I remembered the seedy seaside hotel with its cracked flowerpots its tinny music piped in from the other world where sailors took turns dancing with the same beautiful whore how, one time, at dusk we saw thousands of monarch butterflies dying on the stones beside the water, wings flickering like flowers about to burst into flame and, terrified, returned to our bed without saying a word while the sailors played cards all night in one of the empty rooms *James Cook* is the author of a chapbook, *Kingfishers Catch Fire *(Foothills, 2003) and is a machinist. His work has appeared in *The Cortland Review*. He lives in Upstate NY and is currently working on his first full length collection, *Moments At Point Light*. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Wed Apr 30 12:43:48 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:43:48 -0400 Subject: [Realpoetik] Miller Oberman Message-ID: <86a3fe410804301243k2cffdb03ifa3d47348923290d@mail.gmail.com> Seaworthy His body's the marsh of north Jersey, brackish water, cattails. The turnpike all exhausted gravel up to New York. Yellow stalks stick up from the muck. I can't walk across him; I'd sink. He's a wild persimmon, picked from the briers. Sour, bitter, wrinkled. He's heart pine, gold- soft. He's still awake at four in the morning, and sick. He's a shtetl in Russia. It's 1904, the pogrom fires stink and smoke. He's an old newsboy cap. Silk lining orange and frayed. He's woolen. Scratchy but warm, even when wet. He's in his body on the beach, Coney Island, the salt sings fritters and beer. He watches the boys strut in uniform, link their arms in the pink arms of strange girls. He is so still feels shells turning to sand, and the giant creak of the coasters climbing their tracks. They click up, up and up; then let go. To Keep the House Quiet Father closes the door when he teaches little sister music. Myron has a stub of charcoal. He draws her playing great-uncle's violin. Draws it how it is, the violin too big, her hair pulled back with twine. The horsehair bow, brought over on the boat, smells of Russian cart-horse. Myron doesn't know how to draw smell, or the way his stomach yellows during the long silences. Eighth Nerve Something is wrong with Myron's ears. It always sounds like it's raining. Or the sound, sometimes, of galloping horses. *Better not to mention this.* He tries hitting his head against his bed- post. No change but a small bruise, safe under his hair. Far off, the front door bangs. Father, home from work, beats his boots against the mud-room sink. *And that is really happening,* Myron thinks. Daybreak Myron is gone. Become flat as the others. Grayfaced, he eats his rations, and after, sings sailor songs with the men. All day he drops depth charges on submarines with no curdle in his guts, the inside of his stomach clean and rosy as a gentile's. But this is a nightmare. Myron wakes. Still Myron, fresh as a wet cut. His bed sways sickly. Waking comes hard as the lace crust of ice on the sea, brittle and stinging. *Brittle and stinging, *thinks Myron. He can hear his sister in her room practicing Beethoven's seventh, the movement in A minor. Their favorite key. The four beats, heavy as walking, as waking. Myron does it. Lifts his salt-caked chest, breathes, and marches down the bright cold hall, to the sound. Miller Oberman was the 2005 recipient of Poetry Magazine's Ruth Lilly Fellowship and has recently had poems in *Bloom Magazine*, the *Minnesota Review*, and *Lilith*. Miller lives in Brooklyn with Zero Oberman. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: