From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Wed Jan 2 09:44:06 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 12:44:06 -0500 Subject: [Realpoetik] Mark Dow Message-ID: <86a3fe410801020944u5ba22439x8192e0d766553f6d@mail.gmail.com> ** * Mondongo is Not a Soup* * * On the D train to Coney Island, a little girl whose black patent leather shoes with heart-shaped buckles on them do not reach the floor sneezes on her green helium-filled balloon. She stares at it, shakes it, then finds the corner of the coat she's wearing and wipes the balloon. Then she wipes it again, with her hand. Then she rests her chin on it. Her father reads aloud to her mother from *Your First Year in Network Marketing* : "Here's a typical scenario," and reaches up to tap away the balloon, which is now touching his head. The girl is still holding the attached strand of green ribbon. He reads, "There are three kinds of apples -- the red, the green, and the rotten." He has a New York Lottery gym bag on his lap. At La Taza de Oro on 8th Avenue near 15th Street, there is a rotary pay phone near the entrance. The action in the dial is liquid, hydraulic, leisurely, and greasy to the touch. At the far end of the counter, a big man, in charge, stands near the kitchen entrance and uses an ordinary table knife to cut -- to push, really -- bite-size pieces of under-ripe avocado onto one bed of lettuce at a time. Then he slices a white onion and puts one slice, separating its concentric rings without breaking them apart, on top of each avocado mound, and puts each plate into the refrigerator case. Across the counter, a young waiter mutters to himself, then says aloud that he ordered "dos sopas de mondongo" and where are they? The older man corrects him: "*Dos mondongo: *mondongo no es una sopa." At Mooney's Bar on Flatbush, a black man asks if I'm from "the colonies." Then he asks if I smoke marijuana and adds, "I'm not a cop. I'm a construction worker." He offers to let me feel his hands. The pear blossoms in the spring sunshine glow, seemingly bursting with fat. A closer look and the bubbles are imperfect hemispheric constellations of 8-10 small flowers each. An even closer look and the tiny pistils are purple. On 7th Avenue in Park Slope, a woman walks with a yellow umbrella open. Three women from the colonies watch her. "Maybe she knows something we don't." "Maybe she forget. Maybe where she comin' from it's rainin'." At the 23rd Street station on the 1/9 line, downtown side, a young white woman with an English accent says to the man in the token booth: "You *do* have the power to do something about it," and repeatedly calls him "arsehole." After passing through the turnstile, she sits on a bench with her face in her hands and cries. At the 28th Street station on the N/R line, downtown side, a middle-aged brown-skinned man glares at the man in the token booth and yells, making a trilling sound in his throat, "You! BAAAAAA! Fucking goat!" Two men, one pushing, one pulling, move a jet-ski chassis down the sidewalk and around the corner of Carroll and 4th Avenue, leaving a white, chalk-like, curved, double line. An eighteen-wheeler flatbed takes a turn fast, bouncing its cargo of engine blocks secured atop a bed of tires. Two girls, one holding a folded slice of pizza, approach portable toilets, one of which is padlocked, in Prospect Park. Thirteen monosyllables: "I went in there once and they trapped me in there." "I won't." *Mark Dow*'s poems and prose have appeared in *Mudlark, Nthposition, Fascicle, Boston Review, LIT, Conjunctions, Green Integer Review*(translations from Buenos Aires). He also wrote a book called *American Gulag: Inside US Immigration Prisons* (California 2004). ~ Frequent www.realpoetik.blogspot.com for poems; www.realpoetikblog.blogspot.com for news! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Sat Jan 19 11:11:21 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:11:21 -0500 Subject: [Realpoetik] Jim Bennett Message-ID: <86a3fe410801191111n44e8ac97q2d5d66c9c5d38c3d@mail.gmail.com> *Bob's insight.* Bob had an idea He figured out that The only time we had As who we thought we are was now And when you died you came back as someone else back at the start again so in a while you will have been everyone Hitler and Churchill A maid a butler A king and a tramp Everyone in the world And because you didn't remember >From one life to the next You got to learn about life All over again And you could be nasty Or not depending on who you ended up being it was a grand idea no God or spirit guiding everyone no everyone just Bob for all eternity he figured that each life that came into the world had its fixed place and when he had been someone and died he went back to be the consciousness of the next one along he went round telling everyone of his big idea it's like reincarnation he said but there is only me and I take it in turn to be everyone no one listened he may as well have been talking to himself *Jim Bennett* lives near Liverpool in the UK and is the managing editor of www.poetrykit.org. His most recent publication is a poetry collection called "The Man Who Tried To Hug Clouds" by Bluechrome Publishing 2004 (2nd edition 2005). Jim teaches Creative Writing at the University of Liverpool and tours throughout the year giving readings and performances of his work. ~ Frequent www.realpoetik.blogspot.com for poems; www.realpoetikblog.blogspot.com for news! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Sat Jan 19 11:17:02 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:17:02 -0500 Subject: [Realpoetik] Sal Salasin, Hal Sirowitz and Mike Topp read in NYC on 1/27! Message-ID: Dear RealPoetikers, An event extraordinaire! Sal Salasin, Hal Sirowitz and Mike Topp (one exec editor of RealPoetik, one former managing editor and one frequent contributor) will be reading January 27th, Sunday, 4-6 PM at *The Bowery Poetry Club* 308 Bowery, NYC 10012 || 212.614.0505 betw. Bleecker & Houston, across from CBGB's F or V to 2nd Ave / 6 to Bleecker St. If you're in NYC and don't like bullshit this is the event for you. Love from RP. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: