Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Fourteen Summer 2007 |
| Issue Fourteen, Summer 2007 | |
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Walking a Broom of Moths Pass a Furnace An August Lobster The duende...where is the duende? Through the empty arch comes a wind, a mental wind blowing relentlessly over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents; a wind that smells of baby’s spittle, crushed grass, and jellyfish veil, announcing the constant baptism of newly created things. —Federico Garcia Lorca, In Search of the Duende …a wind that knocks over candles so that flowers catch fire, a wind, or like a sunset in the desert casting sphinx shadows on the sand, a sunset, or like a shivering in the spine of the earth. —Francesca Lia Block, Dangerous Angels I am suffering from writer's block. It is true. I just started a poem titled, The Walls Won't Thin and then delightfully turned to my little one and said, "Little bug-us—luv-us." And no one can resist his charm!—Kicking and giggling like a little blonde surfer boy. There must be a wave out there that we can ride together! Surely there is a wind in which the Duende lives—the black whip of a tornado—a wave in the hurricane. It is seeking me—I can feel it; I can see it. I can taste it! Seth Minkin’s Lobster Pot is just boiling with inspiration and crustaceans. It reminds me that life should be one great-big party to the very end. But it is not a party free of suffering—what life is?—the red drip on the edge of the copper, the lemons already dropped and dangling in the grass—the life within the party-pot melting from the heat. Moving Deeper into the Carpet Dip your cup into lobster pot! Rob Cook’s poem, Bachelor Pad, is not the poem one expects. It is not a poem about the life of the party but is about a life teetering on the edge of loneliness; I am so far from anyone that I keep moving deeper into the carpet. This is a poem riddled with the imagery of devastation. Get the true scoop on Real Clowns, a poem by Mitchell Metz. You can find them located between circus & tent, and catty-corner to helium. It leaves me feeling like I have just eaten too much dark chocolate. Peter Schwartz’s perplexing free verse, in defense we carry potions, delicately celebrates the beauty of the short line—blind -as sugar. A short narrative poem with profound human interest, The Meaning of Things by Claudia M. Reder, speaks to our heart’s anxiety. There are times in life where we feel hopeless and helpless. What happens when the ones we love grow old and their minds begin to deteriorate? In her poem, Reder encounters the moment when a room of objects stood for ideas. An Extra Set of Hands to Set the Rose Bushes Straight We can all use a friend—an extra set of hands to set the rose bushes straight. Gardening by Michelle Morgan is a poem about planting the seeds of friendship and then growing apart. One way a poet turns ordinary events into art is to compose several events together, ultimately forming one unique poem. Weaving everyday travel with intimate moments—he holds her hand and shows her which rocks to lift—Traci Brimhall’s poem En Route is a fetching collection of driving verse. In The Hired Hand’s Alphabet of Loss, Jay Surdukowski elegantly crafts a new vision for the ancient abecedarian form. His dainty lines—under the loyal sumacs, vines stroking the sleepy windows—allows me to delightfully amble through the poem. There is a blade growing in my belly/ a matter for rounding and the half dark/ circles of moon/ Nicole-Nzinga Darden’s poem The Song of My Genocide is a dramatic and beautiful example of true poetic voice. |
Bedazzled Pleather Coats for the Ant Gangs Fidelity: It is walking a broom of moths past a furnace, an interior silence plump with awareness… Fidelity is yet another startling poem filled with dark and haunting imagery by Ted Lardner. Julie Strand’s mystifying poem, Neon yellow, paints bedazzled pleather coats for the ant gangs! It is a poem that has sparked creativity back into my own blocked mind. 2057 by K.R. Copeland is a poem that cuts straight to the point; the land and sky are as dry as shinbone wind chimes. Amber Decker’s striking poem, Dissecting the Female, powerfully exposes the duality of the femme. The housewife and the mistress In a Polaroid garden of flesh Pinned down in photographs errant butterflies And for dessert, Jonathan Coppola’s poem, The Atomic Bomb Has Just Been Lost - The Atomic Bomb Has Just Been Found, takes me into a deeper realm of discovery—a place where eating a simple piece of caramel turns into wings around a boy’s tongue. So here it is again that I invite you to dip your cup into the lobster pot!—Crack open the morsels of duende, surf the wave of inspiration and to toast another issue of the Arsenic Lobster. --- Susan Yount Editor, Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal |
