SNAPSHOTS 2

so little time  
            so many infinities

A PoetryEtc Project:
Week Three:
Wednesday May 14th

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

early morning
cat keenly glued
to netted window
eyeing the birds
flying flitting by

in the sunshine

as does his owner

with such relish.

patrick mcmanus

raynes park uk -7am

 

RICHARD MISRACH


Right combination of
light & composition
document & a visual metaphor.  They don’t fit . . .
pushes it in a different direction.
Visual beauty of the thing & the
horror of what you’re looking at
removed from any kind of obvious political agenda.

Metaphorical
it’s very conceptual & theoretical.
See the groups all tying into
Robert Frank or Walker Evans.
A cohesive body, the way an essay would work

complex:  it has layers & builds . . .

he actually called Cantos.

Barry Alpert / Silver Spring, Maryland / 12:38 AM

 

soon you will take that step, winter
shortening the days
from cumulus cloud
to thick long coats
hands inside pockets solving the riddle
of a lost note
in a little while, day will demand closure
lamps will distort a full brandy glass
and there will be a charmed rolling of plump thighs
into flannel, chilled feet into fluffy slippers -
frangipanis will fall and curl
and sleep will not come
while the air shivers
with rain
lightning
a howling across the lawn
like fear
and broken glass


Helen Hagemann

Perth WA, Wed 5.20pm

 

Here. On earth. In
Leeds. I like this game. The
Library is a trap of friends
And books. Of friendly
Books. Not one to stay in touch with
Passing hours. Light-instant, written
Light: a book. Of terms. I
Like this game. It's set in stone in
Time: an object. See? One
Question though: why
Wednesdays?

Rob Stanton
Leeds, UK, 12:16

DOGWALK

Euphemism: I am taking the dog for a walk.
Truth: I am taking the dog for a walk
so he may take a crap in the dirt
after a long night in his crate.
He goes into a Groucho walk just before,
pulls me along to the spot he's picked,
some sort of sympathetic magic,
a hound's sense perhaps of a genius loci
calling him to this precise spot
and to no other.

Afterwards he prances, stops to sniff
the known-but-to-dogs messages
left by other local hounds,
looks about, backs off in fear
from the big trucks roaring up the avenue,
looks at me, looks around, gets
lost in chasing a bug,
then pulls me home.

Simplicity of gratitude comes to him
effortlessly--he makes me envious,
nothing to do with my indoor plumbing
everything to do with his outside soul.

Ken Wolman, Sea Bright, NJ, USA, 6:40 AM

 

All day Wednesday
time dragged.
A headful of cliches wagged
over limbs and trunk
that sagged.
Errands and chores
ensured energies flagged.
Word-worker gagged,
his talent napping.
Snapper, fagged,
postponed snapping.
Wednesday indisposed
uninspired
expired
unexposed.

Max Richards at Cooee in Melbourne

9.15pm

all day down
smeared street
whippy sky

the brown
the black
shining feet

sexy cold alarm
slippy shaken
layers layers

still night down
hunch taxi
money heat

electric rain
love song
home inside

black the black
wishy and so
cold down


Jill Jones, Marrickville, Australia, 10.25pm

 

Glimpse


into the scrawled eyes,
hold whose blood,
some bleak sleepers tumbling kindness, coming out as of houses,

bodies near at hand—thus far made to my real-time inquiries only one response,
whereas if I could push my insides' blood through her, she'd maybe stutter,
and I'd not be hunched over in me anymore,
sounds off course, undefined thigh-killing answers,

the bundles, throats stabbed, drawn in from an unpromised whitening, fearing
tornadoes touching down in one prairie county or another far beyond

Hudson River haze between the painted bricks.

Halvard Johnson, New York City, USA, 8:46 am

 

Lovely sunny morning
Then four pints of orange in the pub
To preserve my liver
Dash back and get out mower
Cos clouding over
Cut grass as rain comes down
Over for another three weeks
I hope
Read mail

Douglas Clark, Bath, UK, 2.58 pm

 

SKIT

Bare and white
a sheet of wall
between two windows.
Along a passage,

I watch from across,
and a girl that color is there.

Pared glance.

All day the light evening.

Leslie Shinn, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 9:40am

 

sounds more than light
slowly gathering

the news never new
tells tolls death
singular & promised
'mass destruction'
known & not found

or the minds of the young
to be offered less

a grey light
suffuses the kitchen
the screen in the room below

the mind stumbles
into morning
as usual

Douglas Barbour, Edmonton Alberta 08:08 am

 

You're taking that step, summer
eliminating the nights and
with the refreshing spring-breeze
a huge honey-bee slips in
through the open window. Most
likely it's the queen, the
shocking size of it, buzzing
heavily, listing precariously
like an overweight helicopter,
struggling to remain airborn,
to get out or find a good place
to build the nest. It fuels
my killer instinct and I ponder
for a moment how best to
do away with it. As it flies
into the next room I lose it and
recall Hamsun's guilt at hurting
a fly. Remembering also that bees
keep the wasps away, those devil's
advocates, and that it's been
scientifically proved they're like
angels in defying gravity, I look
for it until I hear it buzzing
softly inside the bookcase, behind
the M section of the novels in English,
happily building the nest, snugly set
between Sara Maitland's Ancestral
Truths and The Essential Mailer.
Oh, you stupid stupid queen, no one
but no one will serve you in there. Out

you go! Out! Before you starve to death.

Árni Ibsen, Hafnarfjördur, Iceland

 

Sparrow and Spider: Aubade Instamatic SnipSnoot

Synchronic fetonsecs

Sparrow loves Spider

You are the best of me.  Aristophanes was right (not that bloody Plato
man) -- desire in pursuit of the whole seeks another human being to complete
itself.

Thou and I were split by Zeus' sundering thread and having refound each
other, now approach wholeness once more.

Hey!  THAT'S going to be my snapshot!!!  A segue on Aristophanes and Plato.

Robin Hamilton, Loughborough, UK, 9.25 am

 

Paradox, conviction
and the way the states lie.

When the bridge was built
there were no patriots,
and when the cars came
loaded with debris,
there were no ashcans.
"How the stones have fallen,"
was the only comment.

But when the bridge collapsed,
without the walkers,
"The bridge is gone,"
was the only comment.

Without conviction,

even the walkers lie.

Harriet Zinnes, NY City,
USA, 2.30pm

 

functional flourescence
       dull ripple provocateur
and on to soft
   birdsong cigarette

Jon Clay. Hackney Community College, 7.45 pm

 

My software reads your heartbeat, captures
every QRS complex, fixes
each one in a red and green cage, analyses
timing and amplitude patterns, deduces
stress level, respiration rate, possibly
even your horoscope. At least, it will

on a good day, and when I get the programming right.

Peter Howard, Swavesey UK, 17:50

 

Braxton-Hicks contractions - mistakeable
for early labour: and "intuition", she says.

This at 5.15pm, and nothing yet.

Dominic Fox, Leicester, UK, 10.45pm

It's unknown mountains
and a prairie I have never seen.
Through green leaves fattened
on water
         behind the front door
a familiar blue
                under a slug nest
stone I haven't turned
distance unimaginable

in this wet Spring

snow lies on the mountains.

Liz Macclesfield UK 11pm

Erin Red Deer Canada 5pm

Two women. A woman behind a desk, leaning forward. A woman in front of the
desk in a sort of crouch, leaning forward: she is cluttered by crutches,
which she clutches against their fall, across the desk, overspilling some paperclips.

They are looking at each other, these two human beings; and the woman
*behind the desk is also looking at her cup. The cup is steamy. They are
almost culturally male in their malevolence.

What one really wants, I mean What is really needed here is sound. Not
necessarily the sounds of the whole encounter, although that would be
informative; but then it would be more like an old movie in reverse, or like
a children's book with single frontispiece illustration. So many words.
There must be some talking if the picture is to make sense, although the
fact of words does not achieve that on its own.

Yet this picture tells us many things. The position and stance of the woman

in front of the desk is, presumably, less of a gesture than being the best
that she can do given her apparent infirmity.

Between their faces, there is much gesture. These are not pleasant facial
expressions. These faces leer and hate, superficially; while, beneath the
superficies, one senses a phase of calm. They propose the peace of mind
imposed by armed militia. It is the calm that certainty proposes.

They put forward human relations without the burden of Charity.

It is Hope and Faith running into each other where no right of way has been
defined in a space lacking senses of community.

It is an unintentional catastrophic failure where a disgust at the nature of
the human body's nature recurses, enabling that body to dominate its environments.

In such circumstance, what is human in the human sinks within the larger
mechanism of itself to rise when it may do harm.

This much I infer from their faces.

A sound recording would provide some context.

Lawrence Upton, UK

 

Here, says the little wife, this old t-shirt was always too big for me.
Great, says the lanky husband, it'll do for gym.
It is pale blue, printed with one red word

                

and way down near the hem a signature: Tipping,

and an image of Australia like a thumbprint.

Hey, this is a classic. How did you come by this?

No idea.

Is it one of a series?

Who knows?

- Max Richards at Cooee, Melbourne

noon