Super Position

The Horse has two riders, one facing forward,
one back.  Insolent, they stare at each
other.  What path did the horse take?

In a similar tale, there is a cat.
Her assassin possessed with urgent ignorance,
Don't open that box! the man said.

Ships call to one another off the waterfront,
not out of loneliness, a ship in love is a wreck.
They share a kinship of distance.

This is the natural defiance of the river strider,
it falls to the atom to observe itself.
An ocean of belief is balanced by a drop of doubt.

Words are symbols, not cement.  Call me a liar.
If there's to be uncertainty, let its mother be my mouth.

Fresh Ingredients

It has been a long time since I've posted any of my poetical endeavors here, mostly due to the fact that many publishers prefer to be the first to publish a piece. Well, a while back two of my pieces were selected, and published in "Ruckus" Volume 12 Issue 2, a UW sponsored social-justice concerned group, and "Hoarse" No. 6, respectively.

Ruckus takes the form of a zine. It contains a handful of essay's, poems, and perhaps open letters, on a background of cut and paste collage. Personally, I enjoyed the style and layout of the memoirish essay, "My Old Black Band Shirt", by Joseph Sutten-Holcomb. The poem of mine that appeared in here is called "The Japanese Garden." Interestingly enough, I was asked for revisions and came up with a new version that I feel is closer to the mark than the submitted version. They didn't use this revision, so I'm gonna shop the new one around elsewhere. In other words, I'm not ready to post it here. You can find the zine around the University of Washington, and a few of the pieces within at http://oag.org/category/uwruckus/

Next up, we have Issue Six of Hoarse, titled "Undercover." This book is tight. That is to say, this book is elegant. Passages are redacted, and the works within fit well with the theme. Basically, great design work and great editing equals great success. Don't quite know where you can get a copy, but they sell previous editions here.

 I've made edits to "Super Position" as well, but they don't alter the poem in any profound way, so what the heck? Might as well toss it up on the 'ol blog. Maybe it will entice you to seek out more poetry to read. Maybe it will nauseate you. Either way, I won't know unless you leave me comments. I'll just create a new post for it now, because I've rambled on enough.