Thursday, August 31, 2006

Jerry Gordon (8.27.06)

IF and OF

Little Billy IF
is a little stiff
because he worries just to much
about it that were this,
or if those were them
what would he be then?
"Perhaps a Spanish soccer star
or a boy named Ben?"

But, little Bobbi OF
wonders just enough
to see that all the this and that
and them and those and thus
are changing all together
while dancing with each other,
and this make Bobbi as she is
and Billy IF her brother.


--
Hommachi

3 shades of gray build a Hommachi sky
and concrete stairways lead pathes
up the daisy
to all happy heavens,
where the honking songs of cranes bleat
with car horns and the black top back beat
of all the heels running for health from the heat
in this city summer business
eek-ahh-no-me.

The men in the suits of their suits--
the slouch sack pant legs color
of construction workers off their job site at 5:30
with a heft canvas bag of tools and what-not
poking sharp bulges along a gravity seam.
The last labor of their day,
getting their bodies home or drunk.
And the salsalsalsalary man's-a-kin with all
the TV spots for weekends sports
who seem to die a day each day
like all the resting rest of us
but with a stress that teems from their leaning lines
on the subway lines
and the bottom lines
and the receeding reason hairlines.

A truck driver
parked in the shade of the gray sky
is screaming a tonefilling tune to the black wires
in his ears and clutching at all his quirks
of jumping back and forth in and out of this cab-high chair
in the truck he's delivering nothing from
but songs and dance
and late Friday-on-the-job-fucking-off
like every good man of culture knows how.

And I, like a self-imaged Jack,
Kerowacked to watch and crook my neck
from left to right to zenith to nadir
to catch glances in my net for trapping wind,
charging my eyes with a po-faced plastic cappicino
(you know the shit I'm talkin' 'bout)
while the muse-axed jazz
plays copy right moods of ambiance
which still sound good to my romantic ear.

And I see myself cast in glass
each time I look
past the 30 foor window-wall I face
to reach the outside through.

And I see you, too.


--
Strangers

I walk the city
tonight as quiet
as the Van Gogh shade
that touches your face
with its almost violet smoke.

If this sky were in mountains
dark enough to be
your blue-black coat of night,
we would not be
spelled out in chemical sums for emotions.

We would feel
with all that romantic hegemony.

From this far, I can see
your eyes looking through
the words you were never named,
through the danger of your parents
never meeting--
never weaving your Celtic nest of hair.

This is where we know
one another
as strangers passing
on opposite sides of a building.

How much of our belongings
are in each others' pockets?

If you listen at a granite wall,
the echo in all its grey
will be my whispering song.


12.3.5
for a Chika Yoshii painting titled: Melissa



--
21 Words for Your Left Breast

Everybody says the eskimos
have 20 words for snow
as though that example
best captures the truth of
each thing's subtle complexity.

Well, I have 21 words
for just your left breast
this morning,
and each is untranslatable
and by noon expired from currency.

Four words described your left breast's shape
in the minutes before you woke
as you shifted against the mysteries in a dream.

Seven more conveyed your left breast as
qualities of weight when in my hand and mouth
and when against me and the sheet
at different angles.

Five words generalized it as stages of arrousal
with special nuances on its density against my tongue
and the nipple's degrees of eraser-like gumminess.

One was for it when I suddenly closed my eyes
and it echoed as a retinal ghost.

Three were for it as tastes.

Two were it as poetic inspirations
that, as yet, have no meaning
in the world of mental awareness.
(Thus they have been excluded from my sum of 21.)

And the last word was for your left breast as
it hung above me like a sky heavy with rain
and I completely lost track of what it even was.

So, the eskimos can keep their 20 words for snow
and can teach them to philosophy students.
I'll just try to pay attention
as the dictionary of your body writes itself in my eyes
and then vanishes before anyone can nod in understanding.


--
Barbie's Been Arrested

Well, finally, Barbie's been arrested
on charges of terrorism
and as a threat to Homeland Security.

I could see it coming years ago, like
when she let me undress her
and rub my body against her tiny nudity.

The bait of passivity.

So human in her hardness
and the excessive concentration of big hair
restricted to her scalp.

She said she didn't shave,
but come on!

And so, I cheered when they led her away
in shackles and the orange jumpsuit of guilt,
as ill-fitting as all her clothes always were.

It's nice to know
one more agent of subversion
is off the streets of the suburbs.
Nice to know
that one more thing I fear
is hidden away.


--
This End of Night

I have no pet.
I only have my ignorance
so I chain it to a leash
and walk it proudly
through this end of night,
dressed up
in elaborate fashions
that never hide the fact
that it is really my ignorance.
People smile as it barks and bays
and yips and yaps
and tries to hump their shoes.
"Oh, so cute." "Look, look at it. It's
just like you," they say
as their dog squats, delicately shitting
polite memories on the sidewalk.

My ignorance sniffs itself
in such delight. It would be happy
to do it all night long, but I drag it on,
against its will. We have our loop to make
and a schedule to keep. We have to get back
to see the man made of light
and nod when our cue is flashed.

I have no pet.
I only have my ignorance.
I walk it proudly
through this end of night.


--
Portrait

From what appears to be
the pocket of your vagina,
you pull out a chair--
from nowhere--and take a seat.

All of us over here
on this side of the train
work our eyes back and forth
beneath our boldly knitted brows
as thought we've finally understood
the words that have always been
written halfway up the sky.

Our first urge is to want
to share this shining confusion.

But how can witnesses converse
in the words of the world they left?

When two small children meet
their first act is to reach
through all the sky that falls
between them.
They grab hold
with nothing in their eyes.

Lost
over here on this side of the train,
I pull out this blank
sheet of paper from my pocket
and draw this self-portrait:
a tree growing
from a howling table-saw.


--
An Old Man Bathing in the Hosoegawa


I have come around the world
to see this,
an old man bathing
in a 6 inch stream
between Osaka apartment buildings.

The dance is the same
as at Banares
as the exposed anatomies
of the bony old
enter the Ganges
in a ritual of river
and soap
and a yellow terry-towel.

He sits on the stone edge,
scrubbing the streets
off his legs,
and then he enters the stream
and works his white suds way up
across the odd rectangle of this back
with its knot-dotted spine
and the wing-severed stumps of this shoulder blades.

A skeleton working away
beneath a thin gauze of skin--
a man
washing the suit of himself.

And I can see how much
he's enjoying it,
how good clean feels.

And I don't mind staring
like a tourist to the sooty gats
who can't back away
from the awe-filled link
of where we all come from
and where we will return.

The body draws itself
to water,
and we dip our hands
as a primordial cup
to pour the baptism's trickle
and remake ourself
clean.


--
When I die
steal my bones
and give some to Ophelia,
so she can weave them
through her hands
like ashy fragile pansies.

And give my clicking
clacking black-
smoked finger joints
and knuckles
to the children 'round my house
who pick all things up
transfixed
and know their bones inside
by feel,
so nothing's fearful
in those cracking facts.
Just drop my brittle digits
in the play-pails by their doors;
mix them in
with plastic toys
and other broken pink parts.

And take my pelvis,
that butterfly-bulbous set of wings,
and perch it on a wall somewhere--
balanced
and Humpty Dumpty frightened.
Or, wedge it up
with rocks you'll find
in someone's weedy garden,
set in amidst the hum of dandelions
and yellow jackets--
all the color that hides just for surprising.

And pour the nonsense sand of me--
my dust and dried white chips--
out in your travels,
forgetting where I am all spread.

But save my femur from the scatter
and stand it in an alcove.
Prop it up
in a place only noticed with desire.
And in the top-notch tiny bowl
float a leaf
you find in passing--
as scrap made beautiful
in realizing something else.


--
As Fallen Flowers Do

Ophelia floats within
her world of fluid blues.
Watching the past grow faint upstream,
she dreams of gravity
and our only moment.

Her shoulders fall.
Her hair looks full of wind.
A bubble escapes from her lips,
rising past paper flowers folded for emotions:

Irises of papyrus for guessing.
Roses of vellum for rememberance.
A hyacinth of cigarette foil for doubt.

They float around her breasts
as fallen flowers do; obscuring
what is too beautiful.
They will never get to burn
and leave their lines of smoke in our eyes.
For that, we must imagine
beyond what is and isn't
possible.

for a Chika Yoshi painting at Panarama 9.10.05


--
*** More of Jerry's poetry can be found at: http://moontriangle.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Amanda Hare (27.8.06)

Exist

Twisted, crumpled, broken
Lying beneath ceilings
Running beneath floorboards
Running, hiding, darting
Ceiling above
Ceiling below
Waiting upon hangman's verdict
Stamping piston crashing
Avoid being trampled
Scramble away
Scurry! Scurry!
Poison spraycan waiting
Poison gases waiting
Looking, watching, always ready
Quickly dying-
-Living!
Morsels being scav'nged
Morsels eaten
Stamping pistons finding toughened outer layer
Crushing, smashing, smearing
Living, dying
Inside cockroach domains.

->Amanda used 2 syllables for this poem as her entry to the August Challenge.

Thank you for another literal Literary success! (27.8.06)

Hello Word Folks!

Reading Words would like to thank everyone who came out to the event this past Sunday, August 27th at Vade Mecvm to read and listen. The event was another smashing success and we look forward to seeing you all at
the next Reading Words, Sunday September 24th.

A special thanks goes to Chika Yoshii who kindly displayed her beautiful paintings.

We would also like to thank the following people for reading at the August event: Hamish Withers, Amanda Hare, Patrick Widdess, Jerry Gordon, Michael Salovaara, Kent English, Gerry McGoldrick (for playing the shamisen!) and Kevin Keane.

We would also like to thank all of the listeners for hearing our proverbial tree fall in the forest
and Vade Mecvm for allowing us to use their beautiful space and partake of their delicious menu.

Check out the blog at http://readingwordskansai.blogspot.com/ to enjoy the words you heard again.

Keep an eye out for next month's challenge--to be delivered soon!

O Literacy!

~Reading Words
Jerry Gordon and Amanda Hare

The Challenge - August 27th, 2006

This Month's Challenge is:
Syllabic Segregation

The rule is: Write something using only words with the same number of syllables. You read that correctly, every word must contain the same amount of syllables. One syllable words. Two syllable words. Three syllable words. Etc. You get the idea!

Write a sonnet, a haiku, a tongue twister
Write a short or long story, a cliffhanger, a mystery
Write a jumbled gumbo soundscape of gibberish
Write for the PURE unhinged FUN of nonsense

Show us what the English language in your brain sometimes sounds like.

Other Readers: Bryony Dyer (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Jonathan Crewe (30.7.06)

Other Readers: John McAteel

Other Readers: AJ (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Nate Smith (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Branko (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Jesse Sanchez (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Michael Salovaara (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Hamish Withers (30.7.06)

Other Readers: Robin Grunkle (30.7.06)

Patrick Widdess (30.7.06)




Janken

It had always been a sport the nation had excelled at and now they had brought it home. The finals of the international janken championship were being held in Japan and janken fever had swept the country. It was not only school kids who played energetically at every opportunity. Salarymen could also be seen competing with one another enthusiastically, commuters played electronically on their phones and elderly citizens whiled away the afternoons playing in parks and cafes.
Nobody decided anything without a round or two of janken. Companies employed graduates based more on their janken scores than their acadamic acheivements or interview performances, juries would deliberate for hours then reach a verdict after a single round. Even the prime minister was said to have reshuffled his cabinet after a four hour janken session.
Many variations of the sport evolved. Players who were tired of the three standard formations created new ones. There was the machete which required long finger nails, the land mine which was quickly banned in most circles and the atom bomb - a gauranteed winner but it required supple joints which took months of training to attain. A more dangerous variation was extreme janken in which players would hurl a brick, sheet of plywood or chainsaw at their opponents.
Over the last ten days it had been an exciting tournament. Nigeria had unexpectedly defeated Germany and Korea to reach the quarter finals, two Dutch competitors had been disqualified after failing drug tests, and debates continued as to whether a curved hand played by the Argentenian side was a rock as the referee had called it or paper as the English fans furiously maintained. For the last two decades the game had been dominated by the Chinese but now the Japanese team seemed unstoppable. Captained by veteran player Ryou Hashimoto it also included martial arts expert Takeshi Honda and the first female competitor in the finals Mei Inoue. They had played each match flawlessly and stormed through the tournament until as everyone had anticipated it was Japan versus China in the final.
The match was held at Tokyo Stadium. It was a sunny day and by three o'clock the stadium was packed and the heat was blistering. In the centre was a large stage with a big hand at either side. One was in scissors formation and the other was paper. As the start time grew near rock music blared out of the PA, banners waved and a giant fist rose up from the centre of the stage in a cloud of smoke. The crowd went wild as the fist opened and the referee stepped out followed by the two teams. The players all shook hands then stood in line while the two national anthems were played. Then it was time for the final showdown.
Ryou was first to face the Chinese captain Rock (his English stage name.) They took their positions either side of a screen which came up to their chests. Gazing intently they raised and lowered their arms as three lights went out. The stadium resounded with a deafening chant of 'saisho wa gu janken hoi!' The two hands fell in unison and a giant screen showed Ryou's hand in its famous scissors formation. Rock's hand was not a rock, it was paper. The spectators rose to their feet with an almighty roar as Takeshi and Paper took to the stage. Takeshi played rock but Paper pulled a double bluff and his flat palm sent the Chinese supporters into a frenzy. The whole stadium grew tense as Mei and Scissor prepared to do battle. The lights went out, the crowd chanted and a moment after the hands fell for the final time the screen displayed two clenched fists. The crowd murmured as the footage was played back in slow motion. As a replay was called a pained expression fell across Mei's face and she clutched her right arm. The Japanese supporters fell uneasy as a physio rushed towards her. Everyone trembled with anitcipation. The whole Earth seemed to tremble. The Earth was trembling. 'Jishin' said a voice nervously. 'Jishin' came another and another until the ground shook so violently that there was no room for words as some people started running and others remained still or curled up on the ground. The stage was suddenly empty; the competitors all whisked off to safety. As announcements on the PA urged everyone to remain calm the sky blackened and seemed to close in. The heat became stifling and people started to pass out. Others tried to run but the air was like treacle slowing their movements and crushing their bones .... .
'My black hole beats your planet' laughed Zeus.
'Yes' said Mars. 'I should have cut it with my comet. Come on then. Best of three.'

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Kevin Keane (30.7.06)




Monsoon

bird crap splashed on windshields
you hope the rain will wash it
off but the heat after
the downpour makes you wilt
more than the gladiolas,
which glare at you defiantly:
“go back to your own garden─
the house─intruder”
another day of apathy
and itching, malaise sinking
into a sea of sweat
beneath the valley of
fatigue, until the twilight
brings the feeble promise
of cooler nights or cocktails



April Dream

the sun pales before
a burst of yellow freesias
in the shade of cedars
at the park
the iridescent faces
of children jumping rope
blooming --
clouds of blossoms float
on cherry trees
petals rain down
in the hands of the wind
to kiss the newborn earth



Forecast

eerie brilliance of stars --
the blinking of the universe
throwing out the tongues of
tomorrow in black nets
flowing down to earth.
a million mouths murmur
prophecies of the morning.
at dawn only a shivering wind
and a shudder of leaves
remain before the promise
of night

Jerry Gordon (30.7.06)




Mom's got a new thing
in her lung.
On the phone, she says,
"It's probably lymphoma."
But given her history of surprises,
it could be anything.

So we laugh
across the satellites
that it might be flowers sprouting:
"Marigolds? Daffodils?
Or, maybe a blood red
hybiscus?"

"Nope, it's a rose," she says,
"I can smell it in the chemo."

We hang up and I recall her promise
that her garden would out last her.


--
Mom's Dead

There was a woman
at the end of the mind
in the bronze decor
with assorted bullets
in her teeth.

Silver
Lead
Gold and Steel
forged in Death's little
smelter.

She caught so many
from so many angles
we thought she might never miss,
she might just smile again
with that glitter of circus talent
flashing the spotlight's reflection.

But, there is always one slug
left in the gun
to make all the previous
preparatory.


Bang


And the crowd's faces follow
the imagined trajectory
of what no eye can see
from the distant puff of smoke
at the dim end of the bronze decor
to the woman over there
smiling metallic
but dead.


--
Your Funeral on the Platform

A wild old woman chants some violent magic
at the edge of the platform in Osaka,
her urban hermit hand ticking off invisible boxes
as she shouts into her folded paper--
some racing form or schedule of times
or other tiny-columned text.

I imagine she is conducting a funeral
for you and other ghosts that ride the Loop Line.
She's plucking the pains and hatreds from your flesh
like so many bee-stings in a soul,
extracting the poisons you're to leave here
with us. The stuff we'll grind our teeth to nubs on.
The stuff we'll mix with your ashes
to mold you as our mud-man and prance around
like you are worthy of such dumb reverence.

But you are no longer you.

And, so, in Tennoji, this visitation
by a white-striped moth flapping and flopping
its way to the heel of my left shoe, makes me
love you all anew. To meet you
in these million frazzled edges worth protecting.
I lift my heel off the floor and give you
the chance to climb beneath, giving me the chance
to grind your fragile thorax back to ash
and dusty wings. If I so choose.

I don't.

And all of us here on the train smile
as you flash and crash off towards the light bulb
but lose your way
back out onto the platform.

6.21.06


--
We meet again,
this time on opposite sides of a drum skin,
communicating through the vellum
in the languages of dance and rhythm;
you talk in the ancient tongue
of man moving and becoming bird--
the tradition of transforming
feathers and flight from a business suit--
and I speak in beats,
touching the tensions of flesh
just enough to call you out
of limbo.

7.16.06


--
Dad’s Dance

I start the drum and you appear
standing to my left, dressed
in a grey plaid suit--like all those years
at Sears I have memorized--
black horn-rimmed glasses
and your noble Cherokee nose.
You stand, just listening to the drum
like you have never listened to anything:
with your flesh alive in the blood-loved pulse of rhythm.

And then, slowly, you raise your arms,
stretched out with elbows up.
Your back bends and across your sleeves
a subtle color flashes, a tint of blue
that every set of wings requires.
A scrap of sky so slight it could
put a concrete wall in flight.

And, before a thought can weave a logic,
you dream and your coat of strings
begins its slow transform to feathers.

I keep the beat and build belief with speed
and you ride my release into each finger's tap
and thumping thumb, trusting
mistakes to come from the desert
like the clouds that build behind my eyes
arise of rain-wrought condensation.

You tilt and turn, each pitch and angle
pointed with each touch to skin. Your suit and self
melt inside this choreography of flight.
The 10,000 blue feathers hang,
draping as the lightest gravity.

Turn. Turn bird, man. Turn within your
chalky blues and patterned stripes of black.

I play on, my hands becoming a stronger song.
You dance, becoming bird enough to make me worry
I must somehow sustain you;
worry what I'll fail when I must stop.

Because it's almost time for me to leave.
And, in this glance I take to think that
there's still so far to go, I slow at a mistake.

Looking back to my left, I find you've left.

Needing no time, you've entered the western clouds.
No longer in the feathered blue suit used for dancing.
No longer turning to cues shared with the drum.
You've become a speck on the sky,
moving amidst the outlines of light that ride the clouds.

Now,
each quieting touch merely marks your distances
into the setting sun.

7.15.06


--
Just Dust

To hate, I place my heart up to the mirror
and press it against its depthless double--
flattening one and flattering the other.
The pain is self-inflicted.
The only trace,
some bloody echo of the instant
and all the reasons requiring such violence.

You, I imagine, feel nothing
more than the weight of a forgetful year
as you let ash become a landscape.

I hoped to start a seed
from some 40 years of mud.

But now it is up to me to trust
yet again. So, walking
by a flooded rice field,
I sink my hands into its rich, black thickness,
layered of seasons and frog crap
and 10,000 insect corpses.
Squeezing, the earth sucks,
as though things hidden underground
are gasping for breath.
I can feel my fathers
slipping through my fingers,
unwilling to release me
from a grasping more than gravity.

Standing, the mud starts
to dry on my hands like gloves of earth.
Inside, I feel my pulse
throbbing at my finger tips and palms,
more evident as everything gets a bit constricting.

But, before all the rain evaporates,
I pull out my heart--no different
than a yellow mustard seed-- and plant it
in the garden of my hands.
Between my thumbs, I whisper:
“I vow to abandon you
to the moments.”

7.21.06

--

(For the 92 word challenge)


Burning every word,
the candle is my only companion.
Its tear of light
a stab
through the tiny window of my eye
into night’s long revenge.

In sleep, I watch
the hands of mosquitos
building the humidity
bit by weary bit.

In the house I live
I tell them I’m almost finished with pain
and the night shines
a little more.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

The Art - Patrick Widdess




The Art - Chizuru Masumura



The Challenge - July 2006

In May, Reading Words put out a Challenge to the attendees to write something starting with only A,B, or C. Many people accepted so we again threw down the gauntlet and below was July's Challenge.

Quote:

Well, this month, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to write using only the 92 words from this:

The house has long since stilled with sleep but I remain, hunkered in my pool of light. The humidity and buzzing drone of mosquitos and fans are my only live companions. And the night. The night whose candle shines through the window, burning up with every word. Just a little bit more, I tell myself, I'm almost finished. My weary eyes tear up and stab pain in revenge when I force them to focus on the tiny revolving hands of my watch. 2: 30a.m. Just a little bit more, I'm almost finished.

The rules are: Use only the words from the text and only the number of times they appear--thus you get only one "drone." You don't have to use all the words. And, you can add three words of your own choosing. You can write poetry or a short short story or surprise us with an abstractoid explosion. Or, whatever.

Show us how many ways there are to reword 92 words.

Amanda Hare (30.7.06)




FOR WANT OF A STORM

- Amanda Hare

Weary candles burn in tiny windows. Night hunkers a little bit more in the humidity and remains still. The house remains still. I remain still and watch, only revolving a hand to fan a buzzing mosquito. My only live, droning companions in the night almost finish stabbing through the dirt. I burn up with pain, hunkered in it, weary in remaining still every night since my lovely sleeping companion has remained in the dirt.
My revenge is almost finished. Just revenge, I tell myself. Every fan will still and every eye focus to watch my lovely companion shining in a pool of light. Every hand and fan will buzz words. My eyes tear, focusing on the candles shining through the windows of the still house. My revenge is almost finished.
Stabbing, stabbing stabbing through the dirt. A tiny pool of dirt. Just a little bit more dirt remains. Just a little remains. Just remains. Tears hunker in my eyes, just a tiny word. Remains. Remains I am focused on. The remains of a live companion whose tiny hands focus up through the dirt. My lovely companion remains wearily in the dirt, not long since stilled with sleep. I will watch my companion finish with sleep. Words will shine through my companion, burning up my weariness. I will watch my companion’s tiny hands focusing on the house, focus on the candles.
The night will stab a candle through my companion. My eyes will tear and focus, burnt when the light has forced my companion to words. Live. Live, I tell myself.
I hunker and watch. My revenge is almost finished. My lovely companion, long since stilled with sleep, live. I focus down through the dirt. Almost finished my lovely companion. Almost.


Words added: will, dirt, lovely

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Ralph Famularo (30.7.06)



THE 12 CHALLENGES

- Ralph Famularo

1. Kidnap as many millenium babies as possible.

2. Celebrate Flag-Burning Day.

3. Give birth while chewing gum.

4. Read the TV news in a clown costume.

5. Hang "Road Closed" signs on "Open Campus" days.

6. Organize a group of Anarchists.

7. Teach a parrot Esperanto.

8. Forgive Hitler & Himmler from a synagogue podium.

9. Hand-out cigars at a funeral.

10. Eat a chocolate crucifix.

11. Replace the men & women silhouettes on restroom
doors
with question marks.

12. Take a librarian to a "Battle Royal" pro-wrestling
match.