Eratosphere

The Occasional Villanelle

Rick Mullin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 01:26:12 GMT

A Plague on Edison

The ecosphere in Edison is whirring
whirring whirring and the air is thick
with clueless bugs. The sky is blurring blurring

blurring and the summer trees are purring.
Clumsy thumbs on plastic wings fall sick!
The ecosphere in Edison is whirring

whirring and the racket is inuring
us to flapping pratfalls of the quick
and clueless bugs. The sky is blurring blurring

blurring. Crusty sacks of gray are stirring.
Every crack becomes a flutter kick.
The ecosphere in Edison is whirring

whirring whirring whirring, words are slurring,
lips eliding, cars colliding. Flick
the clueless bugs! The sky is blurring blurring.

Seventeen forgotten years spent curing
in the silent dirt have come to dick.
The ecosphere in Edison is whirring.
With clueless bugs the sky is blurring blurring.

Metropark,
Edison, New Jersey
June 12, 2013

Untitled as yet

Jayne Osborn — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:58:35 GMT

Try as I might, I just cannot think of a title for this so any suggestions are welcome.

Our plum tree thrives on absolute neglect,
yet dedicates itself to bearing fruit
as if to shame us. Each year we collect
the spoils like opportunist thieves. Our loot
weighs pounds and pounds, and ninety five per cent
of it is perfect, but a few plums fall
and make a bid for freedom, their descent
ending in trodden mush, against the wall.

Two of the perfect specimens were picked
for Maud, as she lay quietly in bed,
just reading. It was easy to predict
that she would leave us soon. The doctor said,
“No medication. Ninety’s a good age.”
Maud ate the plums and relished every bite;
not many things could temp her at that stage.
She didn’t eat again. Maud died that night.

She’d told our daughter all about the war,
for her school project: How she’d tan her legs
with dilute gravy browning, then she’d draw
a ‘seam’, to look like stockings. Flour and eggs,
and many other things in short supply,
were borrowed, swapped and bartered for, no doubt.
Maud sacrificed a lot. She’d always try
her best. Her children never went without.

We’ll all remember Maud’s contented face
on eating those two plums. We are afraid
to prune the plum tree now, though, just in case
the cutting’s too severe. We’ve never sprayed
it with insecticide in all these years;
the tree might not respond to too much labour
the way it always has, - such are our fears! –
We love that tree. We loved our former neighbour.

Rus Goings interview.

Rick Mullin — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:01:22 GMT

My conversation with the poet Russell Goings ran in We Are Kin earlier this month, and I should have brought it by. Folks who attend the West Chester Poetry Conference have likely met Russ. We discuss the issue of diversity at West Chester, griot song, and his epic poem The Children of Children Keep Coming. Thanks to Kin for publishing our chat.

Rattle Interview with Rhina Espaillat

Julie Kane — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:31:17 GMT

Today's Rattle online feature is a lively interview with Rhina Espaillat! After today (June 17th), the interview will be archived and the link will no longer work, so look for it there.

http://www.rattle.com/poetry/

Felix Dennis

Mary McLean — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:45:57 GMT

We've had in the past some lively discussion about Felix Dennis. Here's the link to his appearance on BBC Breakfast News today, if you're interested (and in the UK I think -- it's probably not available elsewhere):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bhwv2

Which Way The Sweat Rolls Down

Charlie Southerland — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:13:31 GMT

Revision one

re-write first part

The waitress poured a cup for me. (Eileen's)
her name. Her daddy sits across from me,
bemused. The new boys come in late, past eight,
still clean.We watched last week when they got fleeced-
the auctioneer just smiled when he said, "Sold!"
They come and sit and make themselves at home,
hello's and sheepish grins in tow. (Some time
ago I'd drove my Ford quite slow right past
their farms.) It's all too much for me to bear.
The radio is turned on up and tuned
to weather talk. When one of them speaks up
and clears his voice, "How long before we rake
the hay?" My neighbor says, "It all depends
on God's good grace." He tipped his hat aside.
I said, "I'd let the dew evaporate
and when it does, I'd grab a handful smart,
and twist to test the bounce, and if I doubt,
I'd close my eyes and smell the cure and hear
the sound it makes as it unfurls and sift
the blooms between my fingers. I would then apply
what's left: the taste test on my tongue. It's sweet,
and I would lather it around just like
a cud of Beechnut. Oh, and if it's right
and not too tight, I'd rake it up by twos
and fours if need be; drop the rake and hook
the baler on and bale three bales, spot check
the tensioner. Too tight, you lose. Too loose,
you fight, the price too high. Just right, you're in.
Just get it to the barn and stack it right."
"Well, would you tell us how to stack the hay?"
one said. "Ah, nope." Eileen's sage dad replied.
"Just DIY, Old son, {like} one by one."

(Haying 101-conversation in a country restaurant)

They try so hard to lead the farmer's life.
They buy green balers, rakes, and tractors, plows
they pay too much at auction for -the sick-
le mower, cows too old for raising calves
and rocky land too poor to make a stand
of grass for hay. Bermuda ain't an Is-
land- Kentucky 31 is not a
state- Bluestem's not a part of their beloved
bong. So, when they talk, my alfalfa grows
with irrigation, TLC, and lime.
They cut too high or low, too early, late.
They leave a lot of money in the field
because they don't have guts to crowd the fence
or take the time to drop a gear for fear
of slowing down. It's all too much to see.
And then, they ask, "How long before we rake
the hay?" I say,"It all depends on God's
good grace. I'd let the dew evaporate
and when it does, I'd grab a handful smart.
and twist to test the bounce and if I doubt,
I'd close my eyes and smell the smell and hear
the sound it makes as it unfurls and sift
the blooms until they've cracked and let them drift
between my fingers. I would then apply
what's left-the taste test on my tongue. It's sweet
and I would lather it around just like
a cud of Beechnut. Oh, and if it's right
and not too tight, I'd rake it up by two's
and four's if need be. Drop the rake and hook
the baler on and bale three bales then check
the tensioner. Too tight you lose, too loose
you fight, the price too high, just right you're in.
Just get it to the barn and stack it right.
You can learn that on your own, one by one.

High Church

John Riley — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:20:39 GMT

High Church

These last days have been my end.
My faith dragged me across the desert.
The beliefs I trusted to separate me
from the rage of the same
cracked my sleep, left me here to die like a staked goat.
No amount of water or nectar can quench my thirst.
A few weeks ago I was younger than I've been in decades.
Now I'm alone with piss and a clenching gut,
cactus and snake skins and vulture shit.
Left to die, all I have
is the old man's spite�
this toothless, camp following whore
is my final spit at God
though God cares nothing for my spit
just as he cares nothing for yours.
I lived in God's castle and only lowered the bridge
to entice the mysteries I thought
separated me from the boiling knots�
the bloated, the intelligent,
the last in the train.
I was the holy man until I learned
that it isn't our precious uniqueness
that saves us from being dry heaps in the sun.
As I watched the back of my faith disappear
into the desert's wavering heat I knew
it isn't our mortal soul, promised
to be special to each special life,
that we must release.
It's our bitter sameness that must be acknowledged
before we can accept we are dying alone.

The Answer Vice President Cheney Gave...

Greg Grummer — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 14:31:56 GMT

The Answer Vice President Cheney Gave When Asked By The Senate Subcommittee
Charged With Investigating Vengeance How He Would Go About Restoring A Country
Like Iraq

Gentlemen, and Ma'am, my answer to you would be to say
that to restore a country you must treat that country as if it were your lover,

therefore would I open my arms and welcome in my beloved,
foreign though she is, and would allow of her to store her toiletries
in the generous bags beneath my eyes.

Therefore would I have persuaded the other suitors that I will defend
her chastity with windstorms of a rank and mechanical tenor.

I would convince the beloved that I am her ogling Portnoy,
that I have accomplished tall standing above her and therefore
am the one most likely to bend down and touch her hyacinth.

Wither she go'est, there would I be with rings of super-dynamites
and necklaces that burn, asking of her always with the utmost
of quandary, “Where are your breasts?”

I would sponge out with constancy the leitmotif of her harrowment
and ponder her stiff retreat into my arms with cudgels and grafting tools.

If she should repatriate, would I not extra-intensify her wastelands?
If she should curtsey, would I not paint her submissions quickly
with such an white-camera as I could brain?

And when her infrastructure is stolen, then would I,
being her most modern and atomic hope for resource-leeching,
let loose a cheer in the movie theatre during a car-chase scene.

And if she should become dead, then would not I be sad for
at least an fort-year? And if I fed from her and she should taste
like chaos, even then will I not refuse to spit?

And even as I socialize her museum windows down into alley-pieces,
then will I release into her streets those who have made cordite smells
unto her children, as such sucking noises are pleasing to priests.

And I would pray daily for her most black and agglutinate loinage,
burgeoned as it is from under the very ground I hope one day to stride upon
to find itself part and parcel of mine own sweet underwear.

You might say that this is not equal and sane restoration, but I say,
well then, let salt be thrown into the wetted eyes of a hypnotic.

If this is not of profit and benefit to my love, then let her fall down
in ashes and sack cloth in front of me and laugh for her starvation.

pots and pans

Steve Mangan — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 08:53:13 GMT

Following on from my work as co-translator & editor of two books by Montengrin poets (Lena Ruth Stevanovitch/Mladen Lompar) I have just been commissioned to work on a third collection by Tanja Bakic.

However, it is hard to concentrate on work at the moment:

woken by thunder
fading into the sound
of pots and pans

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=164634000383290

Chimera

Holly Martins — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 08:17:56 GMT

I dream of objects that do not exist:
cigar box-sized, metallic, gold-embossed -
mechanical/electrical? - I missed
the detailed talk on how they work and lost
the leaflet which explains why they�re such fun,
but Lord, they�re fabulous, and I want one.

On waking up I can�t imagine why
my mind has made these strange things real, and fired
up an overwhelming urge to buy
without the slightest idea how they�re wired,
what they�re for and where they might be bought.

Can�t buy chimera. Vivid, overwrought,
plain daft - until that final night when some
odd dream may turn aside the fear to come.

A heart to heart talk

Julie Stoner — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 07:55:50 GMT

Several kind Sphereans have asked me for an update on my sixteen-year-old daughter Jenn's situation, and asked how they can help.

The short version:

Jenn is still waiting for a heart transplant. Our family is fine financially. You can help by registering to become a posthumous organ donor; discussing those plans with your loved ones, friends, etc.; and encouraging others to consider donating, too. Americans can register at http://donatelife.net .

The long version:

My husband and I have known since our daughter Jenn was fifteen months old that she would need a heart transplant at some point. Twenty months ago, we were informed that she had reached that point. We were then given an estimate of two years before her failing heart skews the blood pressure in her lungs badly enough that she'll need a combination heart and lung transplant, which is much less survivable.

Due to a series of administrative snafus, it took seven months to get Jenn placed on the pediatric heart transplant waiting list, and she has spent the past thirteen months waiting for a suitable donor heart to become available. So. Twenty months of that estimated two-year window have now passed. It's not looking good.

In a typical year, the University of California at Los Angeles performs between 18 and 24 pediatric heart transplants. Due to a dire shortage of organ donors in 2012, UCLA was only able to perform 4 pediatric heart transplants last year. NONE of those 4 donated organs was Jenn's blood type, B--unsurprisingly, since blood type B is found in only 10% of the population, and 10% of 4 donated organs is less than one. But even in the "more typical" year 2011, only 2 blood type B kids received donor organs--again, that being consistent with 10% of the donor pool.

In 2012, Jenn's place on the waiting list for blood type B heart transplant candidates only budged when a kid ahead of her died, waiting.

So far in 2013, one blood type B kid has received a heart transplant at UCLA.

If it takes 2.5 years for 3 blood type B heart donations to happen...and there are 2 kids ahead of Jenn now...and she's only got about four months left...well, it doesn't look good, does it?

And, even if Jenn does receive a donated organ, it's not as if she'll be out of the woods. One of the kids now ahead of Jenn is waiting for his second heart transplant--yep, he's been waiting over 13 months for a do-over, because his body is rejecting the graft. (That could be Jenn's situation someday, since transplanted hearts only tend to last between five and 12 years before graft failure or coronary artery disease.)

So! What can you do? Not much, except:

1. PLEASE REGISTER AS AN ORGAN DONOR. Do not rule yourself out by thinking, "Oh, I'm too old and out of shape, I won't bother to sign up because they wouldn't want me, anyway." Your modesty could deny up to 50 other people the gift of life. If there's ANY way to salvage your organs, trust me, you will be wanted and appreciated. Many organ donations come from cancer patients and people who die waiting for transplants of other organs...because, unhealthy though they are, those folks tend to experience brain death in the hospital, under conditions that keep unaffected organs viable for transplantation. Only 1% of deaths occur under the right circumstances for their organs to be donated. What a waste it would be, if you are someday in that special 1%, only to have your grieving next of kin say, "Sorry, no, he/she never discussed this with me, or registered as an organ donor, so I'm not comfortable authorizing this."

[Edited to say--please see my note farther down the thread if you have been excluded from blood donation. You may still be eligible to donate organs.]

2. You must, MUST, discuss your intention to donate with your loved ones. The organ donor registry is only an indication of your intent, not a legally binding contract. Your next of kin can override your intention to donate...particularly if they have confused your PHYSICAL heart (i.e., part of your decomposable body) with your METAPHORICAL heart (i.e., the seat of your emotions and/or soul, as referenced in countless religious writings and probably a lot of your own poetic scribblings). The time to clear this up with them is NOW. The following link discusses several misconceptions about organ donation, which may prevent your next of kin from honoring your wishes when you die: http://donatelife.net/understanding-...arn-the-facts/

3. Encourage your friends and family to consider organ and tissue donation themselves. Your own donation won't help Jenn, because she is only sixteen and the doctors are trying to match her with someone under age 20, but it will help someone. (Up to 50 someones, if you donate tissues as well as organs.) And your conversations about it will be contributing to a culture of sharing the gift of life with others, which will ripple out and help many others. A comic to start the conversation: http://www.xkcd.com/659/

4. Appreciate your life, and the lives of those around you. Quit complaining so much about getting old. It's a privilege that a lot of people don't get to enjoy. Quit bitching about what a rotten world it is--it's a beautiful world, full of challenges that demand our passion and intelligence, and my daughter would dearly love the opportunity to spend more time making it a better place. She probably won't get that opportunity. You probably will. Please don't squander it.

5. Prayer, good wishes, positive energy--it's all good. I personally have no doubt that love and concern are inherently holy, whether they come from believers or non-believers, and I gladly accept them in whatever forms people have to offer. However, if my saying so--in a time of extreme emotional crisis on my part, I might add--prompts you to get huffy and attack me and/or others for being wrong-headed, I respectfully suggest that doing so pretty much undermines anything you say about your own brand of love's superiority. Now is not the time. Thank you.

(That said, I note for my fellow Catholics that the canonization process for Dorothy Day is open, and could use a few miracles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day
Again, I'm not interested in a theological debate at this time. Just making an observation.)

Thanks for listening, especially since I haven't been around here much lately.

Julie Stoner

[Edited to say--I was probably a little unnecessarily cranky in Section 5 above. Sorry about that. Sphereans have actually been very good in the sensitivity department. Keep up the good work, heh.]

Catullus 101

Ann Drysdale — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:49:28 GMT

Catullus 101

Flipped (by a click) across nations and oceans
Here I am, brother, going through the motions,
Offering the expected elegy,
Speaking unheard to what cannot reply.
Since Fate deleted your reality
Unfairly taking you away from me
I will observe the time-defined convention
And sadly fadge a maudlin reinvention �
This tearful tribute that I�ve brought for you:
Once and for all, mate, g�day and �ooroo.

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam adloquerer cinerem,
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi.
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Carried through many nations and over many seas,
I arrive, brother, for these wretched funeral rites
so that I might present you with the last tribute of death
and speak in vain to silent ash,
since Fortune has carried away from me you in the flesh
Alas, poor brother, unfairly taken away from me
now in the meantime, nevertheless, these things which in the ancient custom of ancestors
are handed over as a sad tribute to the rites
receive, dripping much with brotherly weeping
And forever, brother, hail and farewell.

Trimeter Sonnet

Tim Murphy — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 08:39:46 GMT

Mower�s Song

The boy who mows my yard
thinks that he once was I.
He pushes pretty hard
under the prairie sky.
He has no belching motor
or right-hand discharge chute,
no madly whirring rotor,
and he�s no longer cute.

Just a front-mounted reel
geared to a rubber wheel,
and that is how the grass
made on the Lord�s Third Day
will fall as fragrant hay
until I too shall pass.

--And yes, I know who wrote my title. Thanks, Andrew!

Writing Tips from Michael Donaghy

Lance Levens — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:38:42 GMT

Here's something from Poetry Archives, a fine website for poets and whose only drawback--and it is a major drawback--is the absence of John Whitworth, Ann Drysdale, and other English Spherians:

Writing Tips from Michael Donaghy

� Copy the masters, use the structure of a poem you love, see how it works by making one yourself.
� Beginning poets should try writing in metre, in iambic pentameter, the quintessential English line.
� Poetry is about sound.
� Use rhetorical devices. His favourite in class was chiasmus, the reversal, as in: �Who only by moving can balance,/Only by balancing move.�
� Good things come in threes.
� �This line seems to bring everything together� that�s the exact centre of the poem� hmm��
� Rhyme is a device that can make an idea seem true. By marrying the sounds you seem to marry the sense as well.
� If you are going to use rhyme, though, you must do it well: �otherwise it�s like I came into the room stilt-walking and then fell on my face in front of you!� Buy a rhyming dictionary and use it.
� Evidence of craft increases our trust in the poet. Why trust someone who didn�t make any effort?
� �The windmills of your mind.� Never prescriptive, Michael would jump on this � of an � construction. Ezra Pound (�the PT Barnum of modern poetry�) had objected before him and he held it fast.
� Once you�ve written it, it belongs to the reader. You have to butt out. It�s their poem now.

Starfisn

John Shokna — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:15:56 GMT

revision 1
Starfish

Ten thousand starfish washed up on the shore
amazing bathers there. Like Greats of old,
a boy of ten, assigned himself the chore
of throwing each one back." Your plan is bold,"
a passing preacher said," but should you try
this task that has no end? You cannot cast
them all back in. It's likely most will die."
adding, " its in God's hands." as one sailed past.
The boy picked up another star, and said,
"To him, I'll bet it matters a great deal."
On hearing this, I pondered on 'the dead'
as beached and sprawled on rocks, twisted surreal,
each trussed in seaweed's snarl and yellowed foam,
and praying for a hand to toss them home.

original

Starfish

Ten thousand starfish washed up on the shore
to baffle and amaze the bathers there.
A boy of ten assigned himself the chore
of throwing each back to its ocean lair.
A preacher passing by spoke up, "why try
this task which has no end? You cannot cast
them all back in. It's likely most will die."
adding, "It matters not", as one sailed past.
The boy picked up another star, and said,
"To him, I'll bet it matters a great deal."
On hearing this, I thought about the dead
of history, all beached and sprawled surreal,
each trussed in seaweed's snarl and yellowed foam,
and praying for a hand to toss them home.

*Very sorry about the title. I wear 3x magnifiers and its a common challenge to proofread correctly.
Does anyone know hoe to fix this?
** I didn't know I stole this from Loren Eiseley. I respect him endlessly. The part of this that's mine is the last 4 lines. Should I withdraw this?