Lately

in APR

Patrick Rosal 

Delenda Undone

from Vol. 38 No. 5 

 



And so we’ve all been told to shutup (Don’t talk, they say,



too fast, too loud, or for too long. Don’t take too much time



trying to tell the truth). But this is my work,



to break out —in the presence of strangers— into laughter,



(...)



On the outskirts of every empire, there are man-made



lakes large enough to receive with ease



one hundred villages’ worth of bones tossed into them.



This is a fact: there are more than seven million Ilocanos



in the Philippines, maybe a million in diaspora. All of us,



at one time or another, have been told to shutup, don’t talk



too loud, too slow, or for too long, in Saudi



Arabia, in Madrid, in Tokyo, in Milan, on Bowery



near the foot of 1st  Street. We’ve been told this. Some of us



have been famous liars, Ferdinand for example 



(...)





Quraysh Ali Lansana 



blur

from Vol. 38 No. 3 



sulking two lane highway



hereford and steer wave



sad, watery eyes, mouth



mouthfuls of bad manners.



 



this mid-sized sportscar



momentary thrill, quick



escape from mulch, ominous



future. a crimson valley



 



just beyond the fading idea



of intersection, karen silkwood’s pale



imprint—lifeless silos, limping



tallgrass. a town named crescent



(...)





David Rivard 



Otherwise Elsewhere



from Vol. 37 No. 6



Somewhere over there the lawyer with a yellowish leaf in his hair;



somewhere out  of sight a swallow soaring away from our dog-nose weather;



elsewhere the stable-hand for an equestrian team; elsewhere



the bodhisattva stretching by the river or the sleepwalking knife-thrower,



the dubious bridegroom or the cosmetic dentist or the smiling steamfitter;



otherwise the town TB doctor, a whoreson of the adamantine



as he comes by law, a doctor come to a cold apartment



for an old man’s cough; otherwise the contented singer of karaoke,



or the anti-semite & his pyramid scheme; otherwise, in a soaking tub, a tenured



gnostic or a tan Micawber; otherwise Joey Gallo in Umberto’s clam bar;



or in Berlin, at the Atelier Jacobi, Lotte Jacobi; elsewhere



the Secretary of Defense, & the wolfhound sent down to retire



him, a conductor of souls; elsewhere the young girl who’ll swim the length



of a warm pond (because her guardian naps), or a policeman eating



beer-battered shrimp; somewhere else what used to be called an industrialist;



and a nun about to go over the wall; & a judge sowing an apple seed;



elsewise, at an auction dock, a bayman unloading the white & gray



bushel-baskets of littlenecks & cherrystones, or the Irish wholesaler



with his herring & whitebait, glistening grey & pink eels on chipped ice,



the sawdust under his feet wet with blood; elsewhere a clerk



at a lighting outlet; otherwise someone steered by brighter devices;



someone trimming his sideburns; a settler; a currency trader; a choral director;



elsewise the rooster who stunned Ophelia, a rooster with patten-leather



boots, shoes like clement black candles; otherwise Ophelia; or the Moroccan boy



and his breakfast of hardboiled eggs, aboard the bus from Tetuan to Fez



a Berber who wiped his mouth on his sleeve; or a dumbfounded skeptic



or a vixen or a lotus-eater or a grandmother or an unbaptized doorman—



all those other lives & destinations that might have been mine, but weren’t—



because there are two kinds of distance between us—towards, & away.








             
             
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Редактирано от Vanilllaa на 18.09.09 19:44.