You may not like it, you don’t HAVE to like it and you are certainly not required to read it. However, there are magazines dedicated to it, contests that support it. It is recognized across this country and the world as a form of poetry. That decision was not up to any one of us, nor even a…
Exquisite Corpse 5/16/13: HEAT
Exquisite Corpse 5/16/13
1.
Turn the radiator to gallows level
I left the steam by the sink
you ate the half tomato from last night
and it lay, still, in the garbage, in the
hallway where you like to put it before
taking it out in the morning to the bums.
Hands over feet like the biologically
should be, mind the spiderwebs
and thank-God dew at dawn.
I sipped each blade
like a freshman taking shots
for the bottom bunk.
I kept my trunk for the winter
it’s coming
like I came once.
2.
I can see the steam rising
off the street – is it an illusion
or am I again searching for lemonade?
to place my dentures in.
Have you ever seen the rain
because I’m turning to conspiracy theory
and sweating, drooling from these
pores all over. Then you hand
me a popsicle and I chew it instead.
It won’t make me as good a shiv as
a candy cane; or icicle,
or a summertime arrowhead
draped around the neck,
dripping down the back
into an endless vine.
3.
That man stood there in the alley
looking at his gun and staring
back was his dog confused and spayed.
And the old, old cat stopped
grooming herself – hair clotted,
litter scattered, window cracked
beer bottles leaking heat.
I spelled it onto an empty wall
like this: N-A-K-E-D.
I am the most buttery avocado
your lips will touch like we are
relaxing in Dominicana & swimming
my life has wasted me
taken the cavity gun and dumped
tons of UV rays like sensitive blue jays.
4.
the condensation straight from the TV
is the water cooler talk
the past five minutes
the weather channel broadcasted a record
like the oven was left on
bringing down the house.
I just lingered on the porch
because I am finally fine with the flies
when the flies do not judge
though I have slaughtered generations
upon eras of stone age pranksters
who nailed the windows shut
and hoped for the best in a situation
where I had to nail the windows shut
to pull it off on my own.
5.
This chair is the newest slip & slide
in the graffiti-ed backyard.
I saw it advertised on OK Cupid
so I took off my top & won a beer
from that guy with a big beard
& saggy jeans that saved me
from my second to last halo jump
when Rick said I was once your father
I shook his hand said, see you again
though I knew it was not true and I
was spoiling him with unexpected good
nature in an otherwise scolding universe.
The sun will die; the mid-Atlantic
will sigh; traipse and
die with a smile.
— CL Bledsoe talks about Ink Press Productions and calls Amanda and Tracy “peachy keen folks.” Read the full write-up, including reviews of 5 drawings of the maryland sky and Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today, at his blog, Murder Your Darlings, here.
Banango Street Issue 4 is now live. It features poetry and prose by Melissa Broder, Lisa Marie Basile, Brian Oliu, Rebecca Bornstein, F Daniel Rzicznek, James Tadd Adcox, Caroline Crew, Theadora Siranian, Joshua Amses, Leora Fridman, J.D. Sommer, Sarah Jean Alexander, Juliet Childers, David Tomaloff, Matthew Drew Williams, Alexander J. Allison, and Kat Dixon, with art by Andrew J. Weatherhead.
We are also excited to open submissions for Issue 5 in an expanded 5 categories: poetry, prose, translations, collaborations, and artwork. Submissions are open until Friday, July 19th.
Finally, we announced yesterday that we are seeking a guest prose editor for Issue 5.
(via sundoglit)
books books books
Thank you so much to everyone that has supported us! We are officially out of Tracy Dimond’s Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today. There are only a couple copies of Joseph Young’s 5 drawings of the maryland sky, better hurry. Stay tuned for information about Amanda McCormick’s chapbook nightmares and Laura van den Berg’s broadside with excerpts from her novel, A Brief History of Havana.
When you are revising or looking at that draft, you know where the real wood is behind the fiberboard. You know when you hit something that feels real and true and that needs to be said, and then you go back and try to make everything feel like that, which is hard.
[…]
At some point when you start to write seriously and start to get published, you realize that the goal is to do as good a job as you can, not merely to get your work into print. Starting out, we all think as soon as a story is published in a magazine, it’s done—especially if it’s in a fancy magazine. If they took it, you know it’s good, because they’re so fancy! But you realize no editor is going to be as hard on your work as you have to be. They don’t have the time. They don’t want to put up with you that much.
— Wells Tower (via mttbll)
(Source: fictionwritersreview.com, via mttbll)
