For those of us with rats in our lofts (and possibly bats in our belfries) and facing the prospect on Wednesday of going back to the day job after the holidays, here are two timely pieces by Mike Estabrook...
CHIPMUNKS
Yes we have become overrun
by chipmunks
but I like the little guys,
yesterday a baby,
big as a fist, sat there
on the lawn not scurrying away
until I was right up on him,
the thought of rabies flicked
through my mind seeing as
they are usually gone
when you get within a mile
but no, no rabies,
guess he hasn't yet become accustomed
to frightful death-dealing ways
of us humans.
Bob was telling me just yesterday
how he got a squirrel out of his house
by "plugging him in the head
with my 22."
CRAP
Remember that all that crap going on at work:
the new boss, Mr. Corporate Company Man,
who has more action lists and projects lists
and deliverables lists
than storms have rain clouds,
the new reorganization up top
So-And-So now the executive VP of blah-blah,
Mr. Snooty BigWig now the Director
of this and that . . .
Fat Cat Big Cheese now running the start-up
division in the far east . . .
the recent explosion of meetings
like mushrooms popping onto a dead pine tree,
all of it, every single bit of it, every scrap of it,
is crap, pure crap, because it really
doesn't matter at all,
not now or ever in the past or the future,
one damn little hill of beans.
•
Mike Estabrook lives in New England and says of himself "I'm the
marketing communications manager for a tiny division of a gigantic
company, and man, going into an office every day can be excruciating. I
should've stayed on Northfield Avenue instead where I belong and
learned to fix cars like my Daddy did." We published a couple of his prose poems back in October.
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Monday, December 31
Two poems by Mike Estabrook
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 31 Dec 2007 03:40 PM GMT
Sunday, December 30
New haiga by Pamela Babusci
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 30 Dec 2007 09:59 AM GMT
Friday, December 28
New haibun by Mike Montreuil
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 28 Dec 2007 05:21 PM GMT
2 AM
I can hear the furnace pushing air at its lowest speed. The four clocks on the main floor are keeping time at different rates and their beats become louder then softer, as I try in vain to relax with a late night movie. A car with a missing muffler passes down our street. I know I will not be the only one to hear it. Under a street lamp a moth circles – the endless night • Mike Montreuil lives in Ottawa (Canada) and can be found at a hockey rink cheering on his son. Monday, December 24
A Christmas Collection from IS&T
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 24 Dec 2007 11:20 AM GMT
We'd like to wish all our readers – all 3500 of you – a Happy Christmas and here are some seasonal offerings by Tish Davis, Maureen Weldon and Chris Major...
Two haiku by Tish Davis virgin snow a young boy runs ahead to warn the rabbit *** these woods again a leaf frozen in the spider web • Tish Davis lives and works in the US. Her haibun have appeared in Contemporary Haibun Online. Recently one of her haiku was recognized as a Poem of Merit in the R.H. Blyth Awards for 2007. Like Soap Bubbles by Maureen Weldon Winter: like soap bubbles in a washing-up bowl. This will not last, this cup, that plate, the garden reflecting in my eye. Or my lover – he used to hold my heart – who has a golden tongue – a gift for music. I brushed his body with my long red hair. It was Christmas then, it is Christmas now : green crates of decorations, bottles of wine, flickering candles. I see them on my kitchen window, mirrored in fairy lights and parcels of secrets. From the hall, three little boys Are singing Silent Night, to the rhythm of their money-box. Now my daughter shuts the door the sound goes round and round. In the sink the suds have sunk, In the centre: a star. To poems – one concrete – by Chris Major PROTEST POEM Every Christmas it's the same: given without much thought, the perfect choice for a festive season. Oh, there should be stickers everywhere, for they are not just for Christmas; because the novelty soon wears thin, and abandoned, pushed aside they are cruelly left, good only to blame odd farts on.......... ..........bloody sprouts. SOMEWHERE (footprints) soon her step will fill: flowers 'n' cards as guilty neighbours churn to snowy slush a blank white page of garden path. Too little then, and too late, all print that is this poem's shape. • Chris Major is a regular IS&T contributor Sunday, December 23
New haiga by Pamela Babusci
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 23 Dec 2007 12:37 PM GMT
 • This haiga was first published in Reeds: Contemporary Haiga (Vol. 2, 2004) www.reedscontemporaryhaiga.com Friday, December 21
Jim Bennett has the secret city blues
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 21 Dec 2007 11:02 AM GMT
secret city blues
when I came here I saw twelve men carve their way through the carbon night while outside the moon played on the walls a landscape fashioned after mountains a memory of caves that kept men safe hands held fingers twisted like rope two butchers fought with knives unstropped like an argument after Sunday lunch and in some backdrop lot of unseen movies wasted men drink from bottles in brown bags street corner gangs eye trash can sorters looking through you like you do them an old women recycling filth carrying bags pushing a pram full of cans and bottles secret doorways into other peoples lives open as she passes and close just as fast as she leaves her presence in a smell hanging like a memory in the air muttering as she does the unheard words from a conversation in her past the dogs in hunting packs haunt the alleyways pick over trash burrow in the organic mass of rotting food behind the restaurants ignore the screech of brakes and sirens from the road the shouts and screams and tears the brutal laughter from the bars the moaning sound of copulation the whore with her panties down and the man who falls to the ground dead drunk both pissing in the darkness as steam rises from the gutters and grills I splash between the pools of light street lights and flashing traffic lights cars taxis and buses scraping along clogging the air with tar gas painting buildings grey to black among the smiling signs and easy male and female backstreet buggary that is New York here I walk with ghosts Chandler Runyan and Ginsberg and listen to Lou Reed Dylan and ten million others as I mouth the words of the Secret City Blues • Jim Bennett is a poet, and he believes that he is still alive, living in a place that looks a bit like Merseyside. www.poetrykit.org Wednesday, December 19
The Togviraklippur by Gwilym Williams
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 19 Dec 2007 01:21 PM GMT
The Togviraklippur
Do you remember those glorious Icelandic winters when our oilskinned menfolk went out in ships patrolling the seas in search of tresspassing trawlers and Royal Navy patrol vessels dashing up from Fleetwood and Hull – out to steal the last of our codfish fingers? And do you remember how our womenfolk normal everyday housewives like Hekla and Birgit crept under cover of night to their crochet clubs ordinary fisherman's wives whose drawers were fit to bursting point with tangled shanks and hanks of knotted wool, And how they were all dressed in their crocheted puffin jumpsuits – so as not to attract attention – yes, something more than an act of iconoclastic desperation. And they had on their thick woolly socks to boot. Do you remember all that? Well, this winter, we're in for a special TV treat – a veritable Brunhilda, an icon from that heroic fishfinger war – the legendary Hrafnkell herself the mighty one who with her trawlerman husband designed the first togviraklippur based on the shape of a crocheting needle and who famously pressed her frozen lips firmly onto the front of the outdoor television camera on the quayside at Reykjavik for the live broadcast on Reykjavik TV News when she smooched the entire Icelandic nation whilst displaying the secret weapon the togviraklippur thus gaining Icelandic immortality will present the 2007 Crocheting Awards tonight live on your public TV immediately following the news and messages from our sponsors. • Gwilym Williams is a regular contributor to both the IS&T and its comments pages. His new blog can be found at http://poet-in-residence.blogspot.com Gwilym adds "The togviraklippur is the large hooklike gadget the Icelanders invented to sabotage trawler nets and send the nets and the complete catch to the bottom during the Cod Wars. You may recall that the Royal Navy was sent up to Iceland to deter the togviraklippur-ers. Rather than calming things down this move got those stiff Icelandic backs up even more." Yes dear readers, we might go to war today over oil and terrorism but back in the 1960s the British faced a far greater threat - to their supply of fish 'n' chips. Monday, December 17
Sarah Ellis is angry
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 17 Dec 2007 04:10 PM GMT
How do I loathe thee?
How do I loathe thee? Count the fucking ways. I loathe thee till I can feel my blood boil, So livid you make me, my insides coil. So long as the black night follows the day, I’ll loathe thee in every way that I can. Not one thing you can do will bring me back, I loathe thee hungrily, like a whore craves crack. I loathe thee faithfully, woman to man. I loathe thee with hatred, pure from my heart, It flows through my veins like poisonous lust. I loathe thee with passion, a painful dart With foul abhorrence – I loathe thee, I must. Am I wrong? Or was it like this to start? I shall loathe thee forever. That, you can trust. • Sarah Ellis is studying creative writing at Winchester and says "I'm originally from Croydon and I'm just your typical student, completely broke, messy, usually hungover but I work hard and aim high. I'm a veggie, I love running and I plan to travel as soon as possible." Sunday, December 16
Mushrooms - a haiga renga
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 16 Dec 2007 04:20 PM GMT
MUSHROOMS – a haiga renga by Alexis Rotella & Denis Garrison
Everywhere kanji, even in the mushroom slices. puffball on this cloudless day a cloud of life In monochrome walking through these winter woods. maple litter strangely comforting the fragrant rot After they fall sound of hickory nuts. in my cuff some of the forest has come with me Pine needles on his pillow... how I love his morning face. + See illustration in sidebar • Alexis Rotella is an award winning poet and author of more than 40 books. Her latest offerings are EAVESDROPPING (Haiku), OUCH (Senryu that Bite) and LIP PRINTS (400+ tanka) all available from Modern English Tanka Press or through Amazon.com She has edited three haiku journals including Frogpond, Brussels Sprout and Persimmon Tree and served as president of the Haiku Society of America in l984. Alexis is a acupuncturist/herbalist in Arnold, Maryland. • Denis M. Garrison is the editor of Modern English Tanka and before that edited the journal Haiku Harvest. A resident of Baltimore, Maryland, Garrison has two published books of haiku: Eight Shades of Blue and Hidden River. His poetry website is www.flyingfishes.net Friday, December 14
Daylight Effect by Joseph Balaz
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 14 Dec 2007 03:53 PM GMT
DAYLIGHT EFFECT
With each sip of coffee the wide picture window frames a transcendence of hues as the dominion of the moon yields to the clarity of light. Soft shading and contrast resembling the impulsive strokes from a painter’s brush and palette. Observing and looking back in through the open window another day begins as easy and simplistic as a thought turned in upon itself finding portholes of recognition. Eyes that were wild in the chase and the frenzy receive the reflective gaze and ponder a deep tributary left in the timeless grasp and final thrust of a fervent duality. The blackness held no secrets and the dark whispered only sighs. In remembering the seclusion of two silhouettes traversing the night another sip of coffee is taken and a returning participant settles into a comfortable recliner like a timber wolf reposing in a field of plush grass— With legs outstretched and two feet resting upright an adventurous heart quietly howls at the reminiscent image of the moon. • Joseph Balaz lives in northeast Ohio. He is the author of Domino Buzz, a cd of music-poetry www.joebalaz.com He is also coauthor, with photo-artist Mary Ellen Derwis, of JOMA-online www.jomaonline.com an online gallery of concrete poetry and photography. |
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