The Typewriter Girls!

Good friend and Leaving Shangri-LA correspondent Emily-HyperFaerie attended a Typewriter Girls show in Pittsburg at my behest. Here's what she had to say:

The Girls had an old-school typewriter set up at the entrance and encouraged audience members to add onto an Exquisite Corpse poem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse) which would be read at the end of the show. After much futzing with the typewriter, I added some lines from my old poems and a few lines of "red rum" for good measure, and Julianna put in one of her favorite song quotes...

The show itself was fantastically wild and stunning, with belly dancers, local poets reading bizarre snippets from their books, a gorgeous androgyne Eros-boy go-go dancing in wings and a Speedo, burlesque performers, and the TGs themselves in drag as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. When the performance itself ended, the Girls put on music and the audience had a wild dance/makeout party...

Read the full account at her blog: Poetic Cabaret is Freedom.

The Half-Twisted Twists of Trinity Place: Second Verse, Same as the First

Photo by Mr. Nightshade

You all may remember when I published the first verse of The Half-Twisted Twists, an epic rhyming poem about two vaudeville stars and their crazy scheme to gain fame and fortune. The majority of it is stranded on a laptop which is having a bit of downtime, but I thought I'd post the second verse so you awesome readers can see what happens next.

If any of you have verses three and four of Half-Twisted Twists, please send them to me! I miss them and want to work on it.

They sewed into the night with derangement and passion
and made gilded clobber like the nightmares of Fashion.
They had hats like flowers and ombre-dyed tights,
Dresses with sequins and run through with lights
Mermaid tails for a Barnumesque Siamese twin,
And men's suits that glittered like skies over Brooklyn.
"If nothing," said Rie, later on, when she's pressed,
"I'll never deny the Twists were well dressed."
They sang pieces not known in proper tradition
Practiced acts that were glorious acts of sedition
(The sedition, in part, was meant to woo
the socialist diva on floor #2)
Painting was easy, but the scenery cursed;
Next time they wouldn't steal wood from a hearse.
For one week they hammered and spangled and sung
And Friday next, jumped when the telephone rung.
"Oh my gaaaaaaaawd," drawled the agent they'd found in a bar,
"The theatre said, like, they'd make you both stars!"
"Incandescent and burning? You got it," said Cal,
"Where is this luminous downtown locale?"
"A dive of a place, the Vamping Vagabond,
Put the burly in burlesque this side of the pond.
There are strongmen in tutus and parrots that swear
Mustaches to ride from here to Montclair.
It's built like a palace, 3 stories tall
Oh, there's a curse, but don't mind it at all."
Their Agent hung up, they could hear her hair-flip;
Rie was regretting their benefactress's tip.
"A curse? There's nothing in the handbook 'bout those,
It might makes us wanton, or strip all our clothes."
"A curse," scoffed Cal,"some considered that blessed.
But life's much more fun when you keep saying yes."

Their fortune's in wit, their fate in their face
The Half-Twisted Twists of Trinity Place

The Fourth Annual Brigid Cyber Poetry Slam Part 2

Art by Fumi Nakamura, who will be illustrating Francesca's latest Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur: A Mythological Dating Guide

dreamscape

by Francesca Lia Block
in these hills there are many lights
luminarias and bonfires
christmas ornaments and candles
scattered through the deep green dark
as i clamber the steep sides
the broken steps and chipped pathways
you are always just a little ahead of me
i can hear your band playing at the next party
but when i get there you are gone
just some stray people drinking beer around the koi pond
dazzled by the shiny reflections
they never seem to see me
like a dreamer in a dream

my mouth is pomegranate
i am wearing a pale blue silk corset
thigh high fishnets
fetish shoes
that make it hard for me to walk
all under the velvet cloak
my hair spills dark around pale cheeks
i am trying to look like the woman i imagine you see
alone in your room at night
while you dream your songs

i have left the warm and fragile arms
of my college boyfriend
the one who wrote the first poem about me
the one i left for that lover anorexia
and my father's cancer
the one who married a japanese woman
they brought their baby to my reading
he must be a young man now, that child
willowy with lotus blossom eyes
and the only time i see his daddy
is reflected in the dark pool of my dreams

i have left the little bungalow in the hills
overlooking the jewel-like lights
i feel my bound nakedness under my cloak
corset bones girding my hips like your fingers
as i stumble from one party to the next
following the music
thinking somehow you can bring me back to life
wake me from this dream

but you can't
even though the trees in my garden would dance for you
even though when i tasted your mouth i became bloodthirsty
like a maenad
you're just wandering the hills of your dreams too
and though you cannot save me
still i am breathless with
the beauty of all this
it is all mine
and soon with
or without you
soon i will
awaken

***

Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!
WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading
WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2009
WHERE: Your blog
WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day
HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.

The Fourth Annual Brigid Cyber Poetry Slam

 

Photo by Eric Gay

"Once Again I Prove the Theory of Relativity"

By Sandra Cisneros

If
you come back
I'd treat you
like a lost Matisse
couch you like a Pasha
dance a Sevillana
leap and backflip like a Taiwanese diva
bang cymbals like a Chinese opera
roar like a Fellini soundtrack
and laugh like the little dog that
watches the cow jump over the moon.

I'd be your clown
I'd tell you funny stories and
paint clouds on the walls of my house
dress the bed in its best linen
And while you slept
I´d hold my breath and watch
you move like a sunflower

How beautiful you are
like the color inside an ear
like a conch shell
like a Modigliani nude

I'll cut a bit of your hair this time
so that you´ll never leave me
Ah, the softest hair
Ah. the softest

If
you came back
I'd give you parrot tulips and papayas
laugh at your stories
Or I wouldn't say a word which,
as you know, is hard for me

I know when you grew tired
off you'd go to Patagonia
Cairo Istanbul
Katmandu
Laredo

Meanwhile
I'll have savored you like an oyster
memorized you
held you under my tongue
learned you by heart
so that when you leave
I'll write poems.

***

Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!
WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading
WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2009
WHERE: Your blog
WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day
HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.

Moondrummer started this tradition--if you decide to join in, leave a comment for her. I can't wait to read what you post!

The Cretaceous Midsummer Ball, by Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire has honored me by choosing my prompt in a recent round of Iron Poet!

(You may know her better for the list of 100 Surreal Things That Have Happened to Me, but she's also a filker and poet and her novel Rosemary and Rue is coming out this fall. I'm so excited!)

From the prompt "Velociraptor's Midsummer Ball" came "The Cretaceous Midsummer Ball," which is completely hysterical and terribly poignant all at once. Thanks, Seanan!

Well the Pteranodons carried engraved invitations
To the dominant vertebrates of the Cretaceous,
The ones who belonged to the class Sauropsida,
As the continents started to slowly divide-a.

"Come quickly," it said, "for Pangaea is done,
And we're nearing the end of our time in the sun,
So theropods, sauropods, ornithischians all --
Come to the Cretaceous Midsummer Ball."

The Albertosaurus, whose range was quite small,
Was svelte for his type, only nine meters tall,
But he danced with T-Rex and proud Tarbosaurs,
These tyrannosaurids who stalked days of yore.

Read the rest here!

Photo by LesbianBurrito (<3!)

The Mystery of Meteors

Photo by Ianqui

For New York and my country...

The Mystery of Meteors

by Eleanor Lerman

I am out before dawn, marching a small dog through a meager park 
Boulevards angle away, newspapers fly around like blind white birds 
Two days in a row I have not seen the meteors
though the radio news says they are overhead 
Leonid's brimstones are barred by clouds; I cannot read 
the signs in heaven, I cannot see night rendered into fire

And yet I do believe a net of glitter is above me 
You would not think I still knew these things:
I get on the train, I buy the food, I sweep, discuss, 
consider gloves or boots, and in the summer, 
open windows, find beads to string with pearls 
You would not think that I had survived 
anything but the life you see me living now

In the darkness, the dog stops and sniffs the air 
She has been alone, she has known danger, 
and so now she watches for it always 
and I agree, with the conviction of my mistakes. 
But in the second part of my life, slowly, slowly, 
I begin to counsel bravery. Slowly, slowly, 
I begin to feel the planets turning, and I am turning 
toward the crackling shower of their sparks

These are the mysteries I could not approach when I was younger:
the boulevards, the meteors, the deep desires that split the sky
Walking down the paths of the cold park
I remember myself, the one who can wait out anything
So I caution the dog to go silently, to bear with me 
the burden of knowing what spins on and on above our heads

For this is our reward:Come Armageddon, come fire or flood, 
come love, not love, millennia of portents-- 
there is a future in which the dog and I are laughing 
Born into it, the mystery, I know we will be saved

Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore, by Elizabeth Bishop

This poem I found in the text used for my History of NYC class in my freshman year of college. I think that it sums up everything that I love about my wonderful city.


Photo by Swan-T

From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.
In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals,
please come flying,
to the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums
descending out of the mackerel sky
over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water,
please come flying.

Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The ships
are signaling cordially with multitudes of flags
rising and falling like birds all over the harbor.
Enter: two rivers, gracefully bearing
countless little pellucid jellies
in cut-glass epergnes dragging with silver chains.
The flight is safe; the weather is all arranged.
The waves are running in verses this fine morning.
Please come flying.

Come with the pointed toe of each black shoe
trailing a sapphire highlight,
with a black capeful of butterfly wings and bon-mots,
with heaven knows how many angels all riding
on the broad black brim of your hat,
please come flying.

Bearing a musical inaudible abacus,
a slight censorious frown, and blue ribbons,
please come flying.
Facts and skyscrapers glint in the tide; Manhattan
is all awash with morals this fine morning,
so please come flying.

Mounting the sky with natural heroism,
above the accidents, above the malignant movies,
the taxicabs and injustices at large,
while horns are resounding in your beautiful ears
that simultaneously listen to
a soft uninvented music, fit for the musk deer,
please come flying.

For whom the grim museums will behave
like courteous male bower-birds,
for whom the agreeable lions lie in wait
on the steps of the Public Library,
eager to rise and follow through the doors
up into the reading rooms,
please come flying.
We can sit down and weep; we can go shopping,
or play at a game of constantly being wrong
with a priceless set of vocabularies,
or we can bravely deplore, but please
please come flying.

With dynasties of negative constructions
darkening and dying around you,
with grammar that suddenly turns and shines
like flocks of sandpipers flying,
please come flying.

Come like a light in the white mackerel sky,
come like a daytime comet
with a long unnebulous train of words,
from Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,
please come flying.