“i think we all have madness in us,
it's just that i've realized mine and found a way to let it out.”
john glover
MODERNPOSTMANISMPOEM1
Hunched and needy
Like a baby seagull
I stalk the street
For sustenance
Stepping gingerly
Over
The once
Used
Herbal
Tea bags
And broken needles
That spill from brightening bins
In the dwindling dawns of August
Once I dreamt
Of better days within this
Earthen purgatory
When I was brown and pretty
It was no job
To breathe more freely
But now I stalk the streets
Beneath the laughing mooning ball above
In between the raining drops
By the graffi too shuttered shops
Into the maw
The muscled chops
Of
The Royal Mail
62-63 North Road
Brighton
BN1 1AA
The lifers inside
So lifeless with pride
Good Morningly grunt their acknowledge
Let out to their wives at eventide
They are always back here stirring their porridge
Will be two hours yet as a coffee-god’s pet
Before I can summon a smile
I keep my weather-beaten head down
In the back of a Transit
On old copies of goals extra or extra goals
Or made up goals with moving posts
As the red valkyries descend
From the upstairs garage
Into the yard yawning with boredom
Like the back doors cold open wide
Waiting is time
And labour intensive
And work is last on the mind
A beardy they branded Jumanji walks by
And there’s Wazzer sungover again
And Grizzly Badams with his drizzly voice
And desiccated Ruth with a fag at her chin
And are they as desperate or do they prepare
And are they aware and of course do they care
About this all pervasive attitude
The constant twatting platitudes
For that’s all I hear
Somedays
Shaven headed voices
Spitting casual brutalities
From their fascicle
There in an element that never forgives
Closed ranks of a herd
But this pack is bird like
Right wing they are
For a working union
A bundle of sour nazis
Who defend their misguide
With persiflage turning
To vicious whispers
And insult camouflaged by
Supposed camaraderie
Banter they call it
The fuckers
Seriously
Otherdays not
For people can be giving
And love their children
Not unusually
And provision gives dimensions
But even Postman Pat had three
Although that is hard to define
On a flatscreen tv
Don’t you think?
- anthony murphy
(1 poem added 02.08.10)
Quilts, Flags, and other Wrappings
I started the quilt
when the only reminder
of civility I had was a stuffed doll
whose button eyes fell off.
Sewed while bathing
under the moon’s eclipse
and watched you throw my porcelain spoons,
a collection of gifts, against the wall.
I stopped stitching
when you drove that bulldozer
in sight of all those present
at Jose's welfare funeral just because
he was my friend.
Stared at the tangled patches
as they threw me into a paddy wagon
and took me to jail for protesting
that unwinnable war.
I climbed into his bed even as he lay
covered with Kaposi’s sarcoma
to calm both our fears.
Studied you when a signature
to keep your only brother
from becoming homeless
made you think and shudder
at the funeral expense if he died
while the blotch of endearment
was still on that piece
of white insignificance.
It was then I added the names.
- sergio a. ortiz
(3 poems added 02.07.10)
editor's note: "I'm still struggling for words to explain why I like this. It speaks to me on a visceral level (fancy drivel for, "I feel it in my gut"). Purpose and interruption and opposition throughout . . . That's as far as we can get. Just read it!" - mh
THE SHRINK OF TRAUMA CITY
We come from darkness, and like the lost sparks
of creation, once contained in holy shells
called kelipot that shattered during
shevirat ha-kelim, “the
breaking of the
vessels,”
we are scattered across the
antediluvian
city.
We search for meaning.
We collect and gather
the sacred sparks
of divine
light.
We search for redemption.
In the midst of urban
violence and
atavistic
evil,
we pray to our mysterious G-d,
Hashem. Sometimes He is
silent. We lose faith.
Still, we need
help.
Lost in the wilderness of
New York City, we
search for and
find a secular
healer.
We go to a shrink.
I am a healer. I am a shrink.
You come from darkness and travel from the
ghetto to my underground, primordial
office, a dimly lit circular room
with an analytic couch, a
leather recliner and
one leather
armchair
facing it and a circle of eight leather
armchairs. Periodically, the
round room is bathed
in soothing white,
yellow, or
gold
light. In this surreal sanctuary,
you peel off the false
layers of your
psyches
and tell your New York
stories of trauma.
You were physically, sexually, and/or
emotionally abused. Beaten,
battered, molested, and
violated by phallic
intrusions into
your minds,
bodies,
and souls, you were stripped of hope
and severed from G-d. Your
souls were butchered and
you became ghost
ships floating
in a sea of
darkness.
Now, you are shattered vessels, almost
soulless, drifting in the pitch-black
Void. And you sail into my
subterranean universe,
perhaps by chance
or destiny,
or both,
seeking salvation, saturated and impregnated
with brain-cells flooded with suffering
flowing incessantly assaulting
bombarding imploding
exploding
obliterating your sacred centers
and you are dying;
all of you are
dying.
And so you come from the South Bronx
and Harlem; Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Brownsville, and Bushwick;
East Flatbush and East
New York; Red
Hook and
Sunset
Park.
You come from darkness and travel
from the ghetto. But darkness
is everywhere and you
come from
Bensonhurst, Borough Park, and
Crown Heights; Midwood,
Mill Basin, and Park
Slope; Sea Gate,
Sheepshead
Bay and
Williamsburg.
You come from Coney Island after
dancing on the cold empty
beach or in the barren
streets of winter or
after jogging
on the
Boardwalk during
a snowstorm.
The stark
reality
strips you naked.
You come from any neighborhood
in Brooklyn and from all the
five boroughs, upstate
New York and
Long Island.
You come to me. You confess.
You shed your masks and
reveal the dark,
murky
secrets of your obsessive-
compulsive lives, the
self-defeating
patterns;
the endless chains of self-destruction,
brutal concatenations followed
by insatiable cravings for
magical change,
sudden metamorphoses,
instant vibrant life
or a swift
demise.
But after the mindless cycles of
civil war, you discover
something else-
inside the broken mirrors
hanging on your
walls or in
your fractured souls,
lie dumb beasts
longing for
and
addicted to pain.
And so you come to me and tell
Your New York stories
of trauma.
I am a healer. I am a shrink,
the shrink of Trauma City.
You come to me from the darkness
and carry the city’s noxious
air with you. And
when you
exhale,
I inhale the ferocious miasma from
above. One by one, you expel
the rage and hatred and
multiple New York
traumas
in psychoanalytic exorcisms,
shooting the emotional
toxins into the
broken
vessel of my soul. I heal
you, but the poisons
of Trauma City
shatter my
spirit.
After you leave, I pray to Hashem,
my G-d, and ask Him:
Who shall heal the healer?
Who will shrink my
head and make
me whole?
Where do I go?
Alone, in the vast silence, beneath
the soothing lights of the
round room, I speak
softly and tell
my
New York stories of trauma.
I whisper into the Void
until my soul-vessel
explodes, and I
vanish in
the eternal night of creation,
during shevirat ha-kelim,
“the breaking of the
vessels.”
And I am one with Hashem.
- mel waldman
(3 poems added 02.06.10)
editor's note: "This one gives us some personal insight into Dr. Mel and what he does and how he survives what he does. All this and incredible poetry that teaches us something every time. We are so lucky to have his voice here in the Swirl." - mh
a Poem for J.D. Salinger
everyone read "Catcher in the Rye"
and if i were you
i'd be angry too
it's required high school reading
but people only feel that angst
that disgust
that bitterness with humanity
for 5 minutes
then something shiny comes along and distracts them
and they forget about what made them angry in the first place
i understand you
and that might seem
like some passive shit you hear
or read
in every letter
you receive
but i get it
it's all a cycle
everyone bleeds
they mop up the blood
and sweat
with bread provided by
their parents
and then you're left
empty
alone
with nothing
but the words on the page
to keep the madness at bay
i get it
you
are
the
martyr
- alexander rocha
(added 02.05.10)
editor's note: "Here's a 'shiny' poem to distract the martyrs. Damn these poets who don't mince words, but still help us to 'keep the madness at bay.' This is a good one - read it twice, at least." - mh
That Boy
Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.
I don’t have a friend whom I can call my buddy. Cannot remember the names of those books which were my obsession once. Now nothing is dearest. Actually dear is such an empty word. Like a soundless night standing in silence. Arranged in stacks and rows dusty pale a little dull maybe. This heavy wooden table of my father is with me for a long time now. It was still with me after my sister lost one of her eyes from the prick of one of its corners. In these days of fix and deceit maybe this was the only silent pleasure the only dearest whom you cannot disgrace by repainting it.
You know nothing of love
You know nothing of love
- subhankar das
(added 02.04.10)
editor's note: "Dusty books, a silent night, a heavy table - all to tell me that I know nothing of love either. There is nothing empty about these words. I am thinking I have a table or two that I should not paint. Thanks, Subhankar!" - mh
BURDENED
Folding inward to myself,
squeezing some emotion free,
something deep escaping,
exposing that
that I cannot contain,
loose in this chaotic world,
it flies away moaning,
declaring
there is more
to us
than a stick stirring a hole,
we have wings
unseen,
burdened with such a great guilt,
perhaps
if we fold inward to ourselves,
we'll fill the sky.
- stephen jarrell williams
(2 poems added 02.03.10)
editor's note: "Here is an anthem for the downtrodden, a promise of triumph from within." - mh
sunday
nothing connects
walk a weak street / no longer optioned
how we want out
this smooth wastage what belongs to us
caught in so much daylight
(plainclothesman's funnel)
skin warmed by the eye
ignored by the hand
limp handshaking all that bridges us
(or else sunday cough)
analog clock semaphores
(calc the time left)
maybe a side reality that sleep deletes
will be recovered, regeared for travel
pool of glass
under blue light
& were you on an illicit?
your pupils played bent little notes
all the pixels spilled...
last night city
a dirty epic
held words
(the poem i needed)
now that city is missing
- stu hatton
(1 poem added 02.02.10)
editor's note: "A hangover Sunday spectacle full of blurred memories and ghosts, ending with the nagging hint of a lost poem." - mh
|
