The Newborn Face of the Poem

At the end of August I went with three of my oldest friends to the wonderful sculpture garden at Art OMI in Ghent, New York. So many intriguing and mysterious works of art grace the fields and woods. A huge sheet of riddled metal suspended among the trees captivated us for quite a spell. The reflections were a funhouse mirror paradise. Later, the resulting self-portrait above gave me a little surprise. Examined more closely, I can see my mind being siphoned by one of the powerful black holes. When I looked even more carefully, I noted a strange little newborn face emerging from my pointed head, near the rim of the bullethole abyss. Must be the face of a poem just being born. Yikes -- it's slippery, somebody catch it before it vanishes into the darkness.

Saturday night I joined editor/poet/musician John Amen and The Pedestal Magazine to read at KGB Bar in NYC. Thanks, John, for the invitation to read. What a delight to be in a room crowded with people who respect and believe in the power of the poem. How rewarding to look up while sharing a prose poem and see every face actually paying serious attention. One of the pieces I read was "They Seek an Inky Elixir," which first appeared in Cerise Press. It was just recorded and is now available online at Whale Sound, a terrific new audio anthology of poetry. If you would like to hear this prose poem read by another voice, the haunted and elegant voice of Nic Sebastian, click here to listen:

They Seek an Inky Elixir

For additional references to the piece, scroll down to the July 1st post, reached by clicking "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page. The words to the prose poem are there, with links to Cerise Press.

The photo was taken 8/28/10 at Art OMI in Ghent, New York. Click on image to enlarge.

They Seek an Inky Elixir

Okay, I know this is an unfocused photo, but it's got its own fuzzy-dreamy energy, and I like it. It throws you off for a split second, until you realize the moth is clinging to the kitchen window, not floating. It's a bit unsettling the way the moth stares inside, directly into your eyes. Watching you. Odd, how you have the inclination to stare back. To be absolutely still and silent. I found this picture while searching through my photos for a match to a prose poem of mine, "They Seek an Inky Elixir." The prose poem was just published in the summer issue of Cerise Press, a fascinating literary magazine, along with "My Flickering Body," a lyric poem.

Here's the beginning of "They Seek an Inky Elixir":

THEY SEEK AN INKY ELIXIR

Poems cling to the trees in the dark, glowing like white bandages. They have traveled unimaginable distances, arriving in flocks from all directions. Windblown, tattered, they are exhausted from flying. They are half-dead from endlessly circling human heads, searching for an entrance to those moist and dreaming brains. All but a few have failed to do so.

The sound of the poems settling is a many-voiced hiss. Here, in the thickest part of the woods, they cover every trunk and branch. Their thirst is terrible. Sticky and breathless, they seek an inky elixir drawn by roots from the underworld. They crave that earthy flavor, the taste of clay and rust. Their unfurled tongues bore into the sapwood.

In an earlier life, they gathered in the crowns of trees and chewed. Now, in their fullness, graced with wings, they desire only that which flows. The words they seek have nothing to do with sunlight and chartreuse leaves. They wriggle deeper between the shingles of bark. All night long they siphon what they need from the trees. They greedily swallow cold shadows ....

--continued in Cerise Press--
--CBK

To finish reading this piece, click on the title (in bold, above) to be transported to Cerise Press. You will also find "My Flickering Body" there. Here is the first section:

MY FLICKERING BODY

Unwrap the silt-blanketed stone
at the bottom of your heart.

Reveal yourself.

Dredge the pond.

Find your other body.

Bring her back to the surface,
where the bobbing copper sun
will balance again
like a penny on her lips.

The water is covered with weightless coins:
copper, gold, silver, bronze –
blinding.

She keeps her eyes pinched tight.

Shake her awake.

For a moment,
there is no one inside the body.
The body is mere reminder,
receptacle for the lost stone,
the stone that skipped across the mirror
in defiance of gravity,
then finally obeyed.

*
--continued on Cerise Press--
--CBK

Again, to read the rest of the poem, just click on the title in bold above. Thanks to the fine editors of Cerise Press for including my poetry. I'm honored. Do visit the summer issue online to savor an impressive assortment of writing and art.

The photo was taken from my kitchen, a couple of years ago. Click on the photo to enlarge the image.