Warsaw Bikini by Sandra Simonds

 

Maurice Burford • Rita Dahl • Catherine Daly •
Peter Davis • Angela Genusa • Jennifer L. Knox •
Nate Logan •Danielle Pafunda • Charlotte Seley • Heidi Lynn Staples •
Adam Strauss • Scott Sweeney • J. Michael Wahlgren

 

---

Warsaw Bikini | Rita Dahl
after "A Poem for David Schubert"

Stranger, may I have your hand or a mirror, dear, may I have a word of advice?
In case you allow me your hand, it would lead my car through
this dark city in the wilderness of the neon lights without I
having to wonder, where am I, who is behind this wheel, and where
is temporarily rented car going. If you would give me your hand, I would
be found in my mirror, torn down to pieces of paper where I wrote
some unlucky notes of my journey to underground school
of love led by poets like Sylvia Plath or Dorothy Parker. In the end
of this dark street there may be only oven waiting, but meanwhile,
drive well, and fast, do not look behind, and in any case of accident, do not
ask for advice. Advice is meant only for those who are not willing to drive
a car at all, who neglect teachings of underground school and live in a tent
on a highway, where my car soon passes by.

 

Parable That Takes Place in Little Nathaniel's Closet| Nate Logan
after " Parable That Takes Place in Little Nathaniel's Closet"

Just when I throw up,
the seven minutes in heaven
start. Of course I'm a
horrible person, everyone
at school knows this.
The class voted as such
in the yearbook: Most Likely
to Eat a Kitten and Least
Likely to Help Old Ladies
Cross Interstates. So as my
gentle stream of puke sprays
your dress, it can hardly be
called a surprise. But think
of it this way Suzy: won't this
make a good story when someday,
your kids get to heaven in
the closet of some guy who,
like me, is also called “little?”
The moral here is not to make
fun of the dicks of other people.

 

On The Run, From And In, Bikini| Adam Strauss
after "Your Own Winnebago"

Snapping fingers to the “brain
Stem’s” amazing vase,
On which,
Amazing grace,
An apple seed’s drawn,
A man, his pet merganser
Quacking happily
By his
Side—all slide, flee—
Mispronounces love.
“Song goes,” goes crazy. The vase
With which love’s watered,
One thoughts
Sweetly pottered,
Is creamy inside.
Its exterior, speckled
Like a high-grade egg,
Reflects
Her chic-chic leg
As it “steps over
The yellow lines,” lines yellow
As fresh Grey Poupon.
I don’t
Like mustard, drone—
Rhone timbre, river
To look at not drink—till I
Make sounds which, I thought,
Cannot
Be, be begot
By these bones, this frame.

 

This Storm is a State (its Beauty, Eternal)| Scott Sweeney
after "This state is a Storm, so it can no Longer be Called Beauty"

Ferns in the gutter were just be-
ginning to brown---a Death
befriended,

as round bodies bloated and gathered
for easy rolling to a greater un-
safety.

The rain
swoons itself down as
a blushing, never-was virgin.

Oh, come, minty-fresh, cherished de-
struction and
spin us toward the tornadic dark-
scape of your mangled
appropriations.

Say put it in.
Say do it inside me.

 

so goodbye bulky red train—pulse sack of meat| Danielle Pafunda
after "Bon Voyage"

Oh artificial ticktock, black funnel transit
which rides me out the door and back in the door

on the opposite side of this room
terrible terrible

choo-choo soot-soot circuit of RIGHT HERE.

This is not a no thank you situation.
This is not a pretty nook, the hook

and nail, the metal welcome.
This is the cul-de-sac of the frontier.

This is where the wig comes off,
and beneath it only skull.

This is where, everything you’ve done,
you’ve done yourself in.

Fat flesh on a rail thin rail,
roped down, the sick thunk

where you travel again and again,
the same dismal kill, it never completes.

Bon voyage, pretty bird. So long,
thirsty long throated cuckoo.

 

Schubert| Catherine Daly
after "A Poem for David Schubert"

I steal away by moonlight, in winter, because love wanders.
The wind blows the vane this way and that way; the wind beats at the window panes.
Inside my chest, my warm heart still beats, but the images are frozen.
My favorite place seems to invite only death.
Snow I walk through will melt, ice will melt into the river, and with the water meeting water, all traces of love, of me, will melt away.
It is really she who stole my love, who stole my warmth, who stole me.
Every river flows to an ocean, every favorite place leads to the place of death.
Every anonymous bright sky, calm sky, distant sky freezes me. In news, in dreams, I imagine warmth, warmth like love.
If I sing, sing in the ice, sing in the snow, sing to the springtime and the free river, I will continue to wander.

 

Prose Poem Written at the Sandra Simonds Town Hall| Peter Davis

I went to quiz the simpletons. They gave weeds to the sailors made of shattered meat. Gracious bones were stoned along the crosswalk, lightly tossed. I was half minted by the ice cubes. I answered the questions that were put to me, like a lime green Porsche. I wondered to what extant there was a phenomenal tantrum in my boredom. I was losing a great deal of numbers. According to war, there are starfish.

False prophets wander old continents whimpering for Tim. Tim was a decent fellow totally devoted to being prophet-worthy. The scam of it. Tim was something. He lacked everything but his name, Tim.

He loaned me his wet throat. He said his goat-throat needed a solution to a tremendous problem. Um, I said, annoyed. Trembling sump pump tongue? Indeed. In those doomed moments the moon of my mind was out in the night of my memory. Was the room dimmed? I removed the light switch and changed the equation. O, baby, sword fish.

Here!

The simpletons met me in a pent-up emotion. Notice that their board games are always venison compared to my regular, human meat. Fine, I say, I will season myself. They want me to gather weird, crystal nuts from the forest floor. I put the custard in the bowl before I put it in my stomach. This stupid ice cream. The head rests on the not totally cherry-saddled, thin butt.

In the mouths that fellows choose to leach onto in certain violent emergencies, specific curse words. Those curses migrate onward, "tortoise" style, slowly becoming a new Bible that people wink at. I moved forward. My arms spread out hardcore! Dumb ducks in the St. Louis punk scene.

 

When the oreganos of a Thursday morning shift their aromas into my drugstore sleep | Charlotte Seley
after "Blowing Kisses from an Underwater Cave"

perhaps a Saturday, day of dilly-dally,
pizza of the week, would better suit the scent.
mozzarella deliquesced, speckled with the stink
of the dodgeball target herb. garlic pumps its
muscle, zaps my buds, and involuntarily makes
the mouth marvel with Mmmm. the marriage
of it all is kismet.

Thursday’s got no garlic. Teabag taste
exploding leaves through the cheesecloth.
Loose and stuck to the veiny meat
Of the tongue that once loved Saturdays.

lucidly i attempt to add a little basil or cinnamon
but the alarm clock is hacking up a lung
when the oreganos of a Thursday morning
shift their aromas into my drugstore sleep,
my pattern harshes and night swallows
all i’ve lived in my drug-addled dreams.

let me converse without remembering
what it is i’m saying during
the in-between of three ambien,
three xanax, and two vicodin,
right after the tv becomes rainbow ocean
and my speech gets real slow
as i tell you the story of how
hairy the tour guide was in Quebec
back in 1999. (Please don’t ask
me how i got there.)

insipid oregano, let me fall deep
into the Monica Lewinsky
(except less buxom and
in my friend’s sexy prom dress)
clutching a humidor made of shiny
stuff like opal and pearl. scenes start
and move like decoupage, sticky
tattered and scattered.

but then the aroma of oregano...

the sleep got smoky,
my allergies kicked in, there
was no benedryl in sight
(because I took it all last night!)

but the very worst part is that
we never got to smoke those cigars
flirting in the Oval Office.

 

Blue Reykjavik | J. Michael Wahlgren
after "Green Reykjavik"


How I weld                                       fire
what’s broken,                                only
lonely                                                  lies
between you &                                 city, the
could almost make                         Hidden
you religious.

I can hardly tell                               My only poem of war
The difference.                                 I prefer tug-o-war
The mélanges, a                               coterie
Of you & I, picture                           her dancing.
All of the above.                               Besides

In this poem is                                  Courage.
Can I see it?                                        Can you see it?
Two philosophies,                           sides
(Of coins, silver                                 or silver-coated),
I want to                                             destroy
Your battlefield                               (from the dreamy

Boy who’s                                            calling)
From pretentious                             Lights
To open fields,                                   I electrically
Communicate with                           close a gate.

 

Blowing Kisses from Underwater (Warsaw Bikini Poem Remix) | Maurice Burford
after "Blowing Kisses from an Underwater Cave"

Is the underwater different in your shower? Mine has that capitalist shark feel to it.

Since we're both two water flowers puffing we must rescue our hair / take my blue flesh / and mend it against yours. Breach my attention span and pour oregano into my skull. Soft parts resisting the pull of water.

Someone
with a deep water lilt
calls us tiny wobbly space ships
lost.

Another tries to fake the sun underwater
by launching a torpedo into a nursery.

The world's longest underwater kiss is nothing we pretend to be. We steal cells from other tourist's snorkeling tubes to create a perfect starfish. We can malnourish it / finger it / sleep with it in a drugstore made of coconuts and submerged retards. We bend perfectly.

This long brown meat is a halo of mold around my rainbow Thursday. Thanks, fat ass.

 

Rabies| Angela Genusa
after "Rabies"

Parasite is wild,
worse or for doze.
Flesh murder catcalls,
worm authentic cloth
in a white chastener.

Strengthen fine pest
thou teeth theme that
crave a mirror,
cue to the fact
this low hurtful crocodile.
Natty toads shit
reptiles bull-nosed to masochism.
Jesus! Halved bat
halted in weekends
brag of chamber shriekers.

Penitent seed rot
lesser fool's venom,
tend moth.
O oven elk!
Make pig the vexation
shone to the hut.
Eh! Sweet pup
feverishly stare, not
bite napalm heartache.

 

Also Included in this Poem is a/n Green Icelandic Animal | Jennifer L. Knox
after "Green Reykjavik or Also Included in this Poem is an Animal"

I saw ice.                                         Or were it war lice?
I biked, wanted                             Spanish for Bomb!
Or Smoke! but                                Bomb is Spanish for Blondes
like Kafka’s sisters:                      Flibberdeegibits, the lot: Bomb them
all to absolute                               all to absolute hell.
What onion's unction's               too much fruitless motion
in this has-beens?                         (Seminal) hash pipe,
the holy cow smoke                    goes on and on and
so on. Suddenly                            in the wall
of the aging woman’s aging       tooth, a door.

 

Blowing Kisses from Customs | Heidi Lynn Staples
after "Blowing Kisses from an Underwater Cave"

Are you bringing with you:
a. rowed inside strewn barely, formed, fore splayed why?
b. sleep dotting lose some night dawn’s country?
c. your needs guarding a waterfall you’d rather caterwaul?
d. tsk tsk?
Yes. I declare all my bad behaviors, these include 1. axe

2. grind. 3. Memories
fright the coroners 4. Of my mind,

the ends if by the means 5. My burden
too cavalier 6. That monkey owns my back-when.

7. Those were going to be the those-were-the-days!
8. The attrition of my laughter who is as sleep,

9. like I’m what you might call broken arted 10. nothing
11. to declare-- 12. Lust say it: 13. You must change. 14. You’re life.