recent posts

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Featuring Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal



IMPORTANT POET
 
 
For Jorge Guillén
        
        
They claim you are world renown,
A part of an important generation
Of poets from the old country,
Who had to flee to the States
Like those that came here several
Centuries earlier than you.

Yet there is not one sample of
Your words in the best poems
Website and other websites that
Hail you as an important poet
Of a generation ninety years ago.

Why write so much about a poet
And not include one poem, a
Few verses, or one line? I feel
Cheated of the experience.  You
Cannot get anything for free.

Perhaps it is my duty to go on
A journey, an expedition of sorts,
To find the works of an important
Poet from the old country whose
Words could find influence for me.         
         
        


 
FOCUS
 

I try to focus
In a world filled with
Lies and booby traps.

There is the snake of
Sweet temptation
Offering the fruit

That is forbidden.
It dangles its gift
That is far from free,

The benefits unknown
And the rewards are
A swift descent to hell

On earth and beyond
To the deep below
Of fire and brimstone.



BACK TO WORK
 
Quietly, I weep
watching the fire die
down.  A harmless
morning comes to me.
Midnight a lifetime
away.  I eat eggs
and toast for breakfast.
The city calls
as I turn the
corner.  I feel blue 
and small like pebbles.

Bio:
Luis works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA. He was born in Mexico and has been published in online and print journals for the past two decades. His first book of poetry Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His other chapbooks and poetry books have been published by Kendra Steiner Editions, Polish Beat Press, Propaganda Press/ Alternating Current Press, Poet's Democracy and Dead Beat Press.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Featuring Stu Hatton

Photograph by Monica Barratt


poem


no signal, no receiver

*

perhaps only a god

*

for those still in play, a need
to know where your dead are buried

*

‘showing no fear’
(a displacement)

*

lay a stream here





skimming


& often something
over-attracts,
proves downfall


(‘mostly you have
to stick your mind
somewhere’)


but it’s not
too late to sleep yourself
to fame in some commode




deep/wide trouble/mouth


you obsess over ever
kissing their glitter forever
a forcefield making
a liar of selves you heft up
corkscrew path thru
gauzy rain too spent to be sui
generis why not thread straight
to veiled garden that neck of
the web’s a set text to settle
problems of sex ‘once & for all’ &
lie deeply unhappy clasping miniature
sun-gong that chimes ‘you’ll
get there’ i.e. turn to bone still
world-hungry the ravens magnet
the viper-road since life’s an
unfair music already past
& you’re not the sort to chance
your fetish or kiss your own neck
to get the gig teaching in the
cloud’s ever-shifting borders
seems the dark-knived pinstriped
logic looms preeminent ’til unpaid
interns overtake the complex oh
so far-fetched & ringroaded
in the land of the finished
you cannot do good work



Bio:


Stu Hatton is a freelance editor & writer. He also works in mental health research at the University of Melbourne. His poems have appeared in The Age, Best Australian Poems 2012, Cordite Poetry Review, Overland and elsewhere. He has published two poetry collections: How to be Hungry (2010) and Glitching (2014). 

Some links:

http://outerblog.tumblr.com (blog)
http://twitter.com/StuHatton (Twitter)
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/stuhatton (Lulu author page)
http://payhip.com/stuhatton  (Payhip author page) 

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Poems for All - Richard Hansen


Click on the above photo for a closer look.



I was not aware of this long standing stamp-sized poetry project until the poet Henry Denander sent me four of his amazing Poems for All work today photographed two photos above.
The creator of the project, the book shop owner, Richard Hansen is a convincing & dedicated publisher of independent work. Listen carefully to what Hansen has to say here: http://sacfreepress.com/pfa/submit/

Update 16 February 2016

Find a picture of Wolf Carstens' contribution 'five poems, no smile' here to the project:



Thursday, April 16, 2015

Featuring John Sweet




this nightingale despair


all these days of bitter sunlight,
gets tired of saying i love you while
standing in the doorways of empty rooms

gets tired of the way the windows break and
the bones of ghosts piled up
in the corners

waits for winter like
his father taught him to and
the hills and then the river and then
the bridges that promise
nothing

the promises that lead nowhere

all country is enemy
country in the end




weep and retreat

find god face down in a pool of
holy blood deep behind enemy lines and
it’s good for a
small laugh if nothing else

gotta keep redrawing those maps to
make sure the poor & the
unwanted stay in their place

gotta keep reminding the children that
not all of them will survive

that no one will care

it’s been a long fucking time
since anyone’s death really mattered




the future as a broken mirror in an empty room

and you and i in brilliant
november sunlight,
all effortless grace and fragile hope,
all half-forgotten dreams

a city on fire or a
handful of ashes

someone’s lover found dead in a
stolen car at the river’s edge

i have measured my life in miles
and i have wound up nowhere

i have been the wrong person
for years on end

let the joke fill your heart
like a mouthful of blood

let the gun be aimed and the
trigger pulled with infinite kindness

we are nothing if not
merciful




the contrary

and when you died the first time
no one noticed and so
five years later you did it again

was sleeping when i heard the news,
fucked up and shot through with pure white light and
the children were crying for food

the question was obvious

wanted to apologize for the answer but
my tongue had been cut out

my book of maps had been stolen

93,000,000 miles from the sun and
moving in the wrong direction and when you
died the second time it felt like a weight
had been lifted from my shoulders

felt like my wings
had been nailed to the floor

woke up from a dream of jumping into darkness
only to find i was finally as blind as
everyone else

couldn’t stop laughing at the idea
that you were actually gone




these dreaming monsters

faded blue november sky with
contrails and silence up on burnt hill road and
what if god is nothing more than the
ability to tell the truth and what if truth
is nothing more than the road to beauty?

will you offer your churches to the homeless or
give your wealth to the starving or
will you continue to preach
the gospel of ignorance and hatred?

will you stop raping the children?

there is no end to the ways we can
disguise our lies as luminous truths



John Sweet can be found here: http://bleedinghorse.blogspot.com/


Read my recent review of Sweet’s award winning book The Century of Dreaming Monsters here: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/book-review-interview-john-sweet.html

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Featuring J.J. Campbell


J.J. Campbell (1976 - soon) lives and writes in a small town in Ohio. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Dead Snakes, Horror Sleaze Trash, Your One Phone Call, Chiron Review and ZYX. His most recent collection of work, Sofisticated White Trash, is available from Interior Noise Press and wherever you happen to buy books these days. You can find J.J. most days bitching about things he only cares about on his highly entertaining blog, evil delights. (http://evildelights.blogspot.com)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
an impossible challenge

i don't know if it
was your stunning
eyes, the high
cheekbones or
your beautiful 
black skin

but i could tell
you're obviously
a woman that
doesn't take
shit from
anyone

and i'm the kind
of guy that enjoys
an impossible
challenge

but judging from
the size of the rock
on your finger and
the amount of drool
running down your
child's face

i've learned over
the years that some
challenges are better
left for some other
unlucky soul
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
something that looked like a hand

a woman walking
her dog found a
body in a ditch
yesterday frozen
to the ground

the authorities
think it could
have been there
for more than
a week

the woman only
recognized it was
a body when the
dog started to chew
on something that
looked like a hand

welcome to death
out here in the sticks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
making the world a better place

end of the world
snowfall before
winter even begins

and then it's all
going to melt by
the weekend

these are the
moments where
i hope the floods
wipe out all the
cities on earth

and i know it's
not healthy to be
so bitter

but i'm not exactly
one of these fuckers
pretending he wants
to live forever

i've been wishing
for my death before
most of you were
even born

i can hear one of
you young hopeful
fuckers mumbling
about all the time
i could have spent
making the world
a better place

imagine how much
violence comes from
not being able to mind
your own fucking
business
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the pain of not being good enough

adrift in exile

write out the
pain

may this be
the final note

the final
revealing
of my ugly
soul

no one
understands
the pain of
not being
good enough

my ego is not
strong enough
to demand that
others do so

slighted
and
silenced
forever

put a gun in
your mouth
and understand

if god loved
you

it never would
have come to
this
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
who's laughing now?

i once had a
dream that my
aborted child
came back to
kill me one
day

that always 
made me
laugh

as i always
figured she
never was
pregnant

it was just
a ploy to try
to win my
love

of course,
she's now
married
with a child
living happily
somewhere

and i'm all
alone

contemplating
the shotgun
leaning against
the wall over
in the corner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J.J. Campbell
51 Urban Ln.
Brookville, Ohio 45309-9277
USA