From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Sun Jul 6 10:42:32 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 13:42:32 -0400 Subject: [Realpoetik] . Sarah Heller . Message-ID: <86a3fe410807061042g28209f44vba47b7c960d18eb1@mail.gmail.com> *Everyone's Ex-Girlfriend** * Everyone's ex-girlfriend keeps showing up. She surfaces when I've only just relaxed, when I let things be soft. I recognize her because I've been her so well. *You have nothing to worry about*, he says. *Why would I want someone* *who tried so hard to hurt me*? And then the distracted look. She used to scream at everyone, was the first to walk out. Everyone's ex-girlfriend had sex with their good friends *during a phase*. Everyone's ex-girlfriend is always meeting everyone late at night. Busy girl. He says *Maybe I'll stop by after* and then calls from home. I say *Did you have a good time* and he says *We've really grown apart.* But I can picture the tall bar stools. *You look great,* they might say to each other, shiny eyes. *You always were* *like that. Some things never change*. It's snowing! The snow is in their hair. When he says* It was wild to see someone* *after so long*, I hear *Our skin was so cold*. Everyone says *I don't know who I am right now. I feel like I haven't felt anything in a long time. * *Alright*, he says to her, *You're giving me a hard-on*. *Really,* she murmurs. She is so mean. Her drink splashes around in her glass. *Touch it*, he says. *My Life on a Conveyor Belt** * Mostly, my lover lies there, his soft penis against his thigh. He is sleeping. I watch him go by. Then – the commandments. And my body parts, breasts falling to the side snagging on the rubber, hair flowing from a small white plate covered with tildes. The clear plastic bowl on top. The hostess seats people all around me. Desire shimmers by like the pavement in sunshine. My family is not on the belt, they are in me. The belt motors: a beautiful soap dish, a small machine. Some soup, or at least a soupy substance. Piles of sugar. Plus one man. My heart pounds. Is it the sugar? Fear like an animal crouching at the night opening of a tent. Dark at first, and then the eyes adjust. *Sarah Heller *received her BA from Bard College and her MFA in poetry from NYU. She currently works as the Executive Director of the Authors League Fund and teaches at Rutgers University. She has work published or forthcoming in *Painted Bride Quarterly, Pembroke Magazine, NextBook The Temple/El Templo, Thin Air, *and *Hayloft*, and she is on the board of directors of Nightboat Books. She has received fellowships or awards from the MacDowell Colony, the Drisha Institute, Virginia Council for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and the Soul Mountain Retreat. She was the recipient of the Nadya Aisenberg Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony for 2005-2006. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From realpoetik at scn9.scn.org Sun Jul 27 11:44:05 2008 From: realpoetik at scn9.scn.org (RealPoetik Magazine) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:44:05 -0400 Subject: [Realpoetik] Adam Fieled Message-ID: <86a3fe410807271144j64566af9n9a7013ad6aa37e11@mail.gmail.com> *Ticket to Ride* Past is where I live now, when eternally the earth moves like ginger within her without her, & she picked up/left town & she was wearing a jumper & golden earrings & a blouse over a blouse & a pom-pom hat for cold weather & I remember being together & her head, its imprint, lingers like a fossil shell, & I am ancient. *I've Just Seen a Face* I can't forget it: pressed up against the window of the Pine St Starbucks, it seemed to open up a world, self-sufficient, in which I fall through ten hoops, each a finger, & then am free to loosen what binds me to come. *Help!* When I was younger I thought I knew about what is was to be free. Free was green smoke. Free was sheets stirred. Now I find myself here: alone in a blue vacuum, putting together pieces of a puzzle for eternity. I need my puzzle to be read, I need to be sold, molded, solid, created, put in perspective, full. I need all these things, I appreciate every piece. I know that I just need you like an opened door. *I Need You* I didn't mean to say that two hands applied to a nail a back a toe curled in hurling its wrath is such a big turn-on, just that I have to say it as I don't know what to do with myself except put myself in your path, ask for a pow- wow or an armistice, anything for those hands *Adam Fieled* is a poet based in Philadelphia. He has released two books and three chaps: books are "Opera Bufa" (Otoliths, 2007), "Beams" (Blazevox, 2007), chaps, "Posit" (Dusie Press, 2007), "Funtime" (Funtime Press, 2007), and "Revolver" (Scantily Clad Press, 2008). Two additional books and a chapbook are forthcoming: "Help!", a chap from Greying Ghost in August, "When You Bit..", a book from Otoliths late summer '08, and "Chimes", a book from Blazevox in 2009. Fieled edits the blog-journal PFS Post, has guest edited Ocho, and has contributed to Jacket, Dusie, Tears in the Fence, Upstairs at Duroc's, Ectoplasmic Necropolis, Mipoesias, and many other journals. -- RealPoetik realpoetik.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: