Now Let’s Say
you are out in the suburbs in your little gated rooms and you’re not even desperate. Let’s say you’re not so young you could leave whatever seemed safe for a fling, losing it all. Then the red shoes mania gets to you. Could be a love, ballet, it could even be a horse you fall wild for, decide you want your ashes scattered over her grave. In your head maybe you’re Moira Shearer, flame red hair the whitest skin, mystery skin. Maybe the red shoes are the color of what makes you lie, something you give up everything else for, let what matters collide, tear you to shreds. Are you going to...
Read MoreFeatured: Week of Jan. 14 (Inspiration, Pt. 2)
In celebration of the new year, which brings new perspectives, goals, and plans, we are taking the second of a two-part look at artistic inspiration. This week’s poems all draw from well-known musicians and writers. Arthur Winfield Knight’s poem, “Lu Watters: Blues Over Bodega” recalls a friendship with a jazz musician, with whom he shared common influences. Carol Hamilton’s “Another History of the Bean” draws inspiration from Thoreau, nature and coffee. Sean Lause’s “Whitman at the Game” imagines how the famous poet, Walt...
Read MoreCage’s Happenings
Show us in the mobile trajectories protean risibility of comic oboes the blue auras of conceptual acts overcoming at opposite lines presuming a saturnine impasse of our attic journeys from dramatics easing facility to laugh at the obliquity of ourselves. B.Z. as a teenager played jazz violin with John...
Read MoreZoom_6
photo by R.S. Carlson ( — Had Emily D had digital zoom –) Hope is the thing with feathers at flowers in soft sun – that shares swift flares of fine-lined wings till fast-series files are done – and waits till after battery change to pose for zoomed-in-large – and stays in auto-focus range till detail is assured – and moves from blocking stems and leaves for foregrounds crisp and clear – and offers glints of beak and eyes instead of murky blur – and holds in best position for lens to zoom a scene to ideal composition for at least one photo...
Read MoreWalt Whitman at the Game
Walt Whitman, containing multitudes, spreads his plump rump on the bleachers, his blooming beard caressed by diamond breezes. The umpire raises one hand in benediction. The batter swings and swings again at nothing, then cocks a grin as wide as a blind assumption. The ball soars, high, higher, seeking the looming towers of Manhattan, angles or demons, catchers and pitchers of the winds. In Walt’s eye, the ball, a polished moon, folds into a dove recalling home. Cheers wound the sky in its envy. The grass burns the blades of its desire. Walt Whitman absorbs it all in the visionary marrow of...
Read MoreAnother History of the Bean
Thoreau hoed his 24,750 bean plants from 5 A.M. till noon each day. I cannot say the furry little things are worth the effort, though they have their own charms when Chinese-restaurant green or flavored with bread crumbs and garlicky butter. My mother always warned me against my passion for the slick beans at the top of a newly-opened can, but I’m still here and Thoreau is not. He only lasted 26 months at Walden, and I’m still levering open tins, still savoring those first slick fruits. There are no rules when it comes to...
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