Five Poems From Michael Graber

Instructions for Making Love to a Goddess

Prepare for months before entering her
chamber: fast, do body work, drink pure
fruit juices. This is an altar, so be humble
or be humiliated by her shriveling pranks.
She knows what takes you to your knees.
Wait until she unties her hair before you
unbutton her blouse. Did you remember
to consecrate the encounter with a gift?
Listen with your hands. Scan her body for
parts too long untouched. Stay in the space
between total surrender and discipline.
Don’t be scared to ask her what feels good.
When she laughs, you will stagger, drunk.
The music her body makes sounds like
the world’s oldest hatreds and freshest
healings, waking the dead from trance.
As for speed, interpret your instructions
from the river. Be as intimate as food
in fire. With the ache of birthing, repeat
her name aloud as a mantra. If you’ve
gotten this far, your life has changed
shape and you awake in a country
where judges, sheiks and rabbis, even
dollars have no authority. The poem
you write must stand on its own. Yet,
you cannot sit for long after light breaks
your being. Here, you master patience.
Like a boat tethered to a pier, you are
tied to this dance the length
of her infinite satisfaction.


Longing

I.          When you see the wet hair and swimming-
toned torso the way of water no longer
makes sense. One glance and sailors
moan for shipwreck. Most desire drowning,
yet I would live to discover a new land
on my native shore.
                                     When the fever beads
dried I could not explain how a mermaid
blew the grace of breath into me, how she
lulled me to sleep with her underwater laugh.
I blinked. She lay in my bed. Her shapely,
human legs wrapped around my body
like a wave. She laughed the same laugh,
explained “I survived the molting by licking
dried saltwater off your beard.” I was shaved
clean.

II.                                This legend. This acorn. This story—
a seed in a hard shell. One nibble on the neck
and the shell cracks open. A kiss and a single
green sprout announces its birth. Another
nibble and rings grow inside the oak.

III.           I wake up walking an old growth forest trail.
I pause to get grounded. I know this place,
its idioms and shapes know me. If this is the land
of love, may I learn its language and taste
homecoming in its tongue? If this is the land
of the living, I could die almost satisfied.


Leave Your Longing Open

My children, here is a secret
that cannot sit still. Your father
is a collection of ecstatic particles
held with great gobs of glue, called

love. One foot dances in another
stream of conversation that travels
faster than light. I have been alone
so long in the televised world,

breaking acorn shells so oak roots
can sabotage the satellites’ signals
and leaves can grow through the
slight crack of your smart phone

to remind you how to listen. Slow
down and leave your longing open.


Shadows on the Cave Wall

When they took off the blindfold I saw
all I would embrace years from then. Fear
engenders fantasy, and stories get told for
lesser purposes of help or healing, so I noticed
only the darker ones twirling. A door that really
wasn’t there was locked with lead. The dark robes
danced and their masks looked like my neighbors—
lawyers, merger-and-acquisition matchmakers, ex
in-laws, smirks of those seduced and those who seduced,
falling faces caught in compromises that cost almost as much as
peak performance, future mistakes I could not learn from
before kissing you. Shaking at the mouth of the cave, all
the lies I ever told paraded in the shadow the fire casts. My life
followed this snake of sound where the flute chased the strings
around the meandering drum beats. Dark from five days rain,
I did not know what I might back into, but it was better
than stammering at a threshold I was not ready
to cross. I backed into a brook and drowned.
Reborn by mouth-to-mouth breath,
so little separates us from living.


Let’s Go Say Hi to the River

Our footprints may take the wind
a few days to mend. The mud slows
down our pace because life takes off
faster here and you must trudge to soak
it in. O lover, spread our blanket. Let me
fall before I slide down the bank. If you
listen, you can hear the waterlogged souls
who drowned nearby and the warbled,
falsetto howls of the teenager hanging
from the old train bridge by one arm.
Behind us two people married, but not
to each another, grope in frenzy as if
speed enhances bliss. Here, by the oak
with a face in its bark, you and I move
with the understanding the river has
with the land that cradles it; its soil
enriched by the same flowing waters.
Life abounds where the Mississippi bends.
The sun turns our flesh pink, another lesson
where a little heals but too much might
be dangerous. We kiss and the river responds.
Its current pours through us. In the rush
the earth asks us to exchange vows.
We accept. The river melds our names,
our blood, our tribes. To pay creation’s
priest for the ceremony, we offer our lives.
Deal, echoes the woods, now abandon your plans,
risk everything to sing the song you just heard.


Michael Graber is the author of The Last Real Medicine Show. Since September 11th, 2001 he has chosen to write only love poetry. Graber runs the Southern Growth Studio, lives in Oxford, MS, and plays mandolin with the Memphis band, the Bluff City Backsliders.

Carol Gunther

2 June 1954 - 4 July 2009

New Poetry From Andrew Baron

Zone, Happy Anniversary

Not of marriage, because what’s that?
There’s a new space         (this one, ours)
born of new age.     So happy

here,

together.

The managers would have us earn it,
nurse us on their image then
chain us to a corner of their freedom.

Fuck them.     The only
image is a pulse
keeps this in motion,
beats our distances
into days around no vein.          May

this stay
a city with no center

and happy spread the plague up to the gates.



Andrew Baron's poems have appeared previously in Zone. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Mario Benedetti

14 September 1920 - 17 May 2009

Idea Vilariño

18 August 1920 - 28 April 2009

Craig Arnold

16 November 1967 - 27 April 2009

Three Poems From George Moore

Survivor Gene

The islands we create are enemies

we reach
breech perhaps

our mitochondrial rate
mutations of mutations

in what we hate
then love

then hate again

sub-Saharan beauty rests
in its place

the tip of the extreme
inflection, reflection

but language morphs
or mutates

depending
even as a gene survives

we live in polymorphisms
so does speech

breeched by the child developing
fewer ways of seeing

what islands mean by separation


Running

Not always the same
universe, the same spacetime
continuum, some

warp in the way bodies
regenerate, or refuse to,
and ankles knees

bones of the brain
constantly fight
the seasons, for they are not

the same, not the same
spring in the step uphill
at heaven, nor in

the long distance miles
along trails that seem
rockier, more

personal, and weather
harsher than
forever.

Not the same but sweeter
maybe, legs like
Kau Cim sticks

tossed out
on landscapes,
bones picking up speed,

grown strong by simply
being out, thrust & parry
in air & earth,

singing against the end,
runner’s mantra,
next hill,

the next curve,
life strung out
a tensile thread

between coming and going,
and into the next
whatever

it can be,
long as it
moves this fast.


Tattoo for God

I got the boy on the right arm
out of the army, about the time I met

my wife, who wanted to know if
this was permanent, or just a passing

faith fancy, something she did not
herself believe in, either way,

and I said it was a drunken night
in Bangkok when the moon was full,

an eye on the Asian continent
and I felt like the Buddha in love

with all the cosmos. She said
get it removed. It’s my turn.

It took the skin right off, one
god less, one goddess more.

George Moore's poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, North American Review, Orion, Colorado Review, Nimrod, Meridian, Chelsea, Southern Poetry Review, Southwest Review, Chariton Review, and have been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. Moore was a finalist for the 2007 Richard Snyder Memorial Prize, from Ashland Poetry Press, and earlier for The National Poetry Series, The Brittingham Poetry Award, and the Anhinga Poetry Prize. His recent collections are Headhunting (Edwin Mellen, 2002), poems exploring the ritual practices of love and possession, and an e-Books, All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time (Pulpbits, 2007).

The poems appearing in Zone are part of a collaborative installation with award-winning Scandinavian textile artist, Hrafnhildur Sigurðardóttir, scheduled to appear at an exhibition in Iceland later this year. The installation will be cite specific to Nes galleries, in Skagaströnd, on the northern coast. A previous collaborative work, with French-Canadian visual artist Mireille Perron, appeared in Can Serrat, Spain in 2007. Titled Complicatio/Explicatio (Folding and Unfolding): A Collaborative Artist Project on The Materiality of Textual Experimentation, the installation featured Moore's poetry and Perron's conceptualizations of the "book." Several shape poems from the Can Serrat installation have been published in Bathhouse.

JG Ballard

15 November 1930 - 19 April 2009

An Interview With Horton Foote

Horton Foote, who passed away today, was perhaps the most under-appreciated playwright of the American stage. Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta, Foote was best known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird. His screenplay for Tender Mercies won the Best Original Screenplay award the following year. While Foote was the author of nearly 50 plays, several of them adapted for film, his truest work was the nine-play Orphans' Home Cycle, which chronicled rural Texas in the early part of the 20th century.

Longtime contributor Andrew Haley interviewed Horton Foote in 1995.

AH: It has been said that there are three plays in every play – the play that is written, the play that is interpreted, and the play that is performed. You work personally with all three of these areas of your plays. Where does the writer stand in the production of his script?

HORTON FOOTE: It depends on the writer. Some writers are not very interested in the process. Having been an actor and director, I find it extremely interesting and am there as much as possible.

AH: With the increased convenience to find entertainment in the living room, via cable, satellite dishes, the internet; and an anti-aesthetical Congress in power, the outlook of the future of theatre is hazy. Do you foresee the decline of the state of American theatre in the next century?

HORTON FOOTE: I think all obstacles you mention are just new challenges. In theatre it seems there are always things impossible to overcome. Somehow, we stick to it and get the work done and I trust and hope this will always be so.

AH: You write your first drafts by hand. Hemingway wrote by hand as well, with the exception of his dialogue, which he wrote by typewriter. Are there identifiable characteristics in dialogue written by hand, by typewriter, and by computer?

HORTON FOOTE: I write by hand because it makes me feel that much closer to my work. I feel that a typewriter is impersonal and the computer horrifies me!

AH: Poets, short story writers, and novelists all have dozens of magazines and publishing houses to print their work. For playwrights, the venues are not as clear. As a major figure in the present world of theatre and film, what is your advice to young playwrights on how to climb the ladder of stage writing success?

HORTON FOOTE: This has to be the most difficult question to answer. It has never been easy for a playwright to get established. I wish I could answer this with some measure of sense. All I can say is if one has to write plays one will and somehow persevere.

Horton Foote

14 March 1916 - 4 March 2009

New Poems From Peter Golub

In the Library

my love
everything is circumstance
for instance the onerous hippy in the corner
just dropped his cigarettes
the waitress picked them up
causing the men eating chili at the table next to mine
to turn their heads
in unison
like hounds following a scent or sound

they are talking
about how they don't feel global warming
one guys says,
"well, it seems like a whole lot
of people have been convinced."
another nods putting a cracker in his mouth,
"yeah well, America is pretty resilient"

I turn with them
and see the waitress's ass
and remember yours
naked and white
in the dim light of the library
where the long mirror stands over the fireplace
I could see myself in it
there were two of me
one watching you
the other watching me
it is this description
of my desire watching me
and you the object of my desire
wading in a pool of yellow light
that is the occasion for this poem

on my walk home
the winter trees tumescent and black with fog
a memory of you walks with me
turning the houses, trees, and weather
into our acolytes

this morning
I stood before a classroom of young men and women
some of them bored
some wide eyed some sitting methodical as at a play
and I often feel like I am a one man act
performing some ancient picture
written before the Aristotelian dichotomy
…but yes some of them methodical, some bored
txting on their phones
and all of them with the same anticipation
whether bored or wide eyed
they are expecting something
looking into the future with pictures in their eyes

in this class
acting before them
their eyes full of pictures
I imagined my reflection
in the library
and you standing naked
reading in the light


Salt Lake City Fragments

for Andy


you are behind once again
the truth is cheap smarty pants
and people are stupid
and the markets crash
against the levees
while you and I pray
we pray for what we've nearly forgotten
with these stale words
we make new cries
like children in the fields
playing at being sheep
we eat hay
and sculpt mud pies
we scream and yank each other's genitals
in sweaty nylon tents
with writing on the walls
flapping in the tremendous wind
you yell to me
from across the dark
across the hudson
across the jordan river
in salt lake
the salty sea
that never freezes over
and giant birds roost in the desert
the promontories
hanging over head
you scream to me
from across the world
inside your tiny emails
and sad jokes
you scream
that it's like camping in space
that the children are made of microwave parts
that they run around with buttons for eyes
video game equipment for ears
heads like broken BMW's from the flood
o lordy lordy lordy


House Keys

In the book we are always writing
I stand naked in the shower
Watching a red spider crawl up the slippery light blue tile
As you stand in your small shower
Thinking of Elvis and hockey

Outside the pigeons huddle in the roofs of old houses
Snow blows into the basement
Of a drunk heart sailing on a row boat
The music we write for the novel is simple but complex
Ridiculous as an autistic dirge with pretensions of sublime proportions

In the final scene which we write and rewrite
Sometimes I am standing on the shores of a warm tropical island
And you hand me a shell with a dead crab
Sometimes you are pale in these pastiches at other times
A roaring red with blood squirting out your eyes

It is all quite stupid and extraordinary
Drawing small plastic swords like straws
Throwing fishcakes out of the fourth floor window
Drunk and happy we begin anew heading into the next absurd sorrow
Wailing nearly mad


Writing the Poem about Love

After writing the poem about love
Where I use words like “boat” “snow” and “wailing”
I hear Andrew practicing French in the adjacent room
And Anna watching the television in another adjacent room
A house is made of adjacent rooms
The way a poem is made of adjacent words
Each word is full of its own events
Trying to enjoy itself without waking the neighbors

After writing the poem about love
I send it to Anastasia
Which is how I learn it is a poem about love
I rarely know what I am writing about
And lately have had a hard time thinking
Of appropriate titles
My cousin suggests getting rid of the title
I take away the title and the ending
After writing the poem about love
And taking away the title and the ending
I let it sit inside the computer screen
It looks naked and a little scared
The way a family looks at the doctor in charge of a sick relative
The doctor remembers his own family
The dog waiting under the table and his two daughters playing
Inside a grove of tall poplars

After writing the poem about love
I consider the argument that all poems are love poems
And a series of other clichés come to mind
Poems are prayers, poems are the dead
The title must stand like a French man inside a Portuguese play
A heart is the size of the ocean
The mountain speaks in snow

…


Peter Golub is guest editor at Jacket.

John Updike

18 March 1932 - 27 January 2009

New Poetry From Andrew Dotson

Scumboy

Too many times I’ve lied

Lied to you, to myself

On your futon sprawled like an open sparrow

That moment you saw me at the back of the bus

Hunched into line

Expecting nothing

You remarked about my gold watch

And I winced.

You were far apart

Yet so near

To me at the terminal

Where we debussed

Rambling in aimless effort

Entering a cool bistro amid a sweltering wave

You couldn’t afford to foot my terms

So we left to find a better plane.

It was there that things began

At that mahogany table

In the Hotel Congress

Wared through the ages

Serving countless customers

Through flappers, to corporates

To vagrants – you

Offering me a chance to get better acquainted

Sucking marijuana smoke through a tube.

The ultimate resolution

I didn’t go with you that first day

Up to your greasy flat filled with cans

To loll some and let the seriousness fade.

I kept firm, played hard to get

So hard when you called me I went to relent

The next time you spotted me

Sitting in the courtyard

I agreed.

It lasted, then ended

All else my departure

I wanted so much for it

But what?

You to seize me

You to please?

But that was too much to ask for.

Too many times I’ve lied

Lied to you, to myself

Reclined on my spine

In wait for the unexpected to come at last

My comic book geek, my scumboy

That trance…

Andrew Dotson is a 19 year-old poet, songwriter and student currently residing in Arizona. His poetry has appeared previously in Zone.