Pen Scrape
1
Framed Beethoven
Fan’s shadow
Boulevard
on tap
Upside down glass
Wet stolen coaster
Green
stucco
William Faulkner
Above
classic door
Red exit stencil
Afternoon hibernation clouds
2
Clay model
Smoke cleared
Where
are you?
Glass half empty
Today’s election wasted
Burnt
island
Elegant Mozart
Pushing
academic papers
“I work weekends”
earthen statue fallen
3
Flicker’s portrait
Overheard conversation
Do
not touch
Violent shattered window
Poster gallery’s door
Tired
pumpkin
Day after
Gluttony
on chalkboard
Erasure never complete
Harder to burn
4
Cinnamon sleep
Hot chocolate
Evocation
of fall
Cheap fast food
Blooming morning radiant
That
easy
I wish
Ticket
rises sight
Of management’s arms
As soon as
5
Wool shirt
Taken off
Train
ticket used
For book mark
In poetry’s fallen
Conductor
rage
Questions arise
Beer
on tracks
Booth broken beneath
Complicated tax exemptions
6
Pierced napkins
Sewn pants
Roles
we play
Who plates dinner?
Sunday laundry folded
Necessary
position
Lays under
Porous
play’s ending
Who lays dead?
Who’s firm jacket?
7
Politics’ journals
Smooth glossy
Red
clay pouring
Through Hawaiian salt
Fiery luau pig
Charred
pan
Microwave invention
Can’t
brown meat
History in food
Social fallen out
8
Interesting experiment
Tea poured
Steeped
too long
Words get bitter
In the mind
Writer’s
invention
Skin’s pore
Evaporates
into matches
Ready for poem
Blistered in desert
Get a Loan!
Borrowed
outlines of term papers
(can I be sued for plagiarism?
am I going to go to a federal penitentiary?)
and extended arms drawing
(or singing art rock poseur songs at RISD.)
dried slices of blood oranges
(FREE samples from union bashing Whole Foods.)
against the sun! Competing!
(What, like burning up and dying?)
Imagine! I feel a lot better knowing there are assholes
(I feel a whole like smarter knowing
people are, what do you call it, self-emulating themselves
in order to beat the sun.)
dumb in the distant horizon
(the drugged out Gonzo Thompson Chico horizon
where I learned mystical truths about individual
blades of grass.)
and drinking hard lemonade on the mirage of a beach
(at least there were lawn chairs,
in this folded reflection,
even if they were rusted out
and couldn’t take me to any
expensive academic apartments.)
Consumer Wobble
Shaking
through your latest
Technology travail –
Peeling an orange
Within
distance of the nearest
Cheap Thai dinner
or Wi-fi connection.
Slipping
mirrors
From under
Enviable clowns.
Choice Gaze
Staring,
there is a staring back:
a list of things we’re doing
in the meantime
(as
in, perhaps
platforms
for decision)
Pass
by,
looking up dirty words
like they’re nothing now
(Games of
the present
folding
into pasts)
The
desolate wedding cake
on the supple dessert buffet.
Theatrical
Debut
Another
play: resend.
(Sample
Line from Act 1, Scene 2:
Mr.
Eaves: So I’m supposed to be afraid of you? Alright.)
Spaces
between moments
comprised of falling
over yourself
out hot window:
blades and carpet samples.
My
directorial debut ran into
the
usual
indulgence vs. diligence
conflicts
but by the second week of rehearsals
data mining was replaced by business intelligence.
That
is, the drama was rationalized
(not
to be confused
with
the more radical
the
rationalization was dramatized.)
I
envisioned the play to be about how
purses are radical:
they
say
a woman can spend money.
However,
I fell into the trap of:
One vacation could be all expenses paid
if only you taught yoga to naked misers.
Francis
Raven
© Francis Raven 2006
Francis
Raven is editorial assistant at the Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism. Francis' book of poems, Taste: Gastronomic Poems,
was just published by Blazevox. Inverted Curvatures, a novel,
will be published this fall by Spuyten Duyvil. Poems have been
published in Mudlark, Conundrum, Chain, Big Bridge, Le Petite
Zine, Caffeine Destiny, and Can We Have Our Ball Back? among others.
Essays and articles have been published in Jacket, Clamor, The
Emergency Almanac, The Morning News, The Brooklyn Rail, Media
and Culture, In These Times, The Fulcrum Annual, Rain Taxi, Sauce,
and Pavement Saw.
This
material is copyright © Retort Magazine/Individual Artists/Authors
2005 - no reproduction of this material is permitted without express
written permission from Retort Magazine and/or the Author/Artist.
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