PSH: Poets of the Week

Week of Apr 28 - May 4

Gwynne Garfinkle and Jennifer Bloomfield

BECOME A POET OF THE WEEK

by e-mailing a few of your shorter pieces or one long piece to me ALONG WITH a brief bio. It's fun, it's easy, it's free. Impress your friends. Impress your mother.

Send to: POTW@PoetrySuperHighway.com

Gwynne Garfinkle
gwynnega@aol.com

Bio(auto)

I'm a Los Angeles poet, essayist, fiction writer and rock critic; my work have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including NEXT..., Flipside, Loca, Fruitbasket Upset, Caffeine, onTarget, Bridges, Entertainment Today, Verve, Mixed Voices (Milkweed Editions), and Eating Our Hearts Out (Crossing Press).

To Sir with Trouble

When I get the urge to write a love letter
I should really put on a straitjacket till the desire passes.

I put the car key in the front door lock
& my house drove off without me.

He should've been flattered to get my letter
but it babbled poetry at the top of its lungs in the middle

of the night, waking him & his wife who'd just had a fight.
They took a microscope to the pages and

laughed together at the pesky microbes of my love,
had sex, then fought some more

& cried themselves to sleep, my letter
keeping vigil on the nightstand.

If I really must write a love letter
I should stick it on my hard drive

with a password so obscure I instantly
forget it, like "my marriage vows" or "absolute fidelity."

"At least she was a novelist." They can
put that on my gravestone.

I put my house key in the ignition
& my car became my home.

Sailor Moon

In the Japanese version of my life
before it got cut censored & dubbed into English
(w/the serious bits turned into jokes & vice versa)
lechers looked up girls' skirts
& I got to go to bed w/you after a reasonable
(not criminal) amount of longing
my first disastrous marriage
only lasted one season
at the end of which everybody died
& was resurrected

In the Japanese version of my life
before it got cut censored & dubbed into English
you took off your mask more frequently
& I saw that look
unmistakable in any language
& sung about by Lesley Gore & Dusty Springfield
you were not split off from yourself
you knew my secret identity
we were superheroes in our spare time
you were as brave as I was

cannibal phone call

she's starving for details
tell me everything fill me up
let me suck your life
does it taste of bananas & mangos
or the iron filing savor of patience
are you getting a whiff of juicy
rare steak or watery cabbage soup

cook your own dinner & serve it to your family
my kitchen is small, spicy & unglamorous
but if he started fucking me on the
kitchen table you would still be hungry
so maybe you better forage for food
don't scavenge in my house
there's nothing left over but
crumbs & poems

Sonnet

When he sings I get deranged, if he
is lust in action. And till action
thy gifts, thy tables, are within my brain.
Ask me to do anything, I believe I would.

What wretched errors hath my heart committed.
Unfortunately, he never does. "I played your
savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust
favorite song. I played it just for you."

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
if he had his way I suppose he'd fuck everybody.
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme
I drove away composing obscene acrostics.

On purpose laid to make the taker mad
His body is his kingdom of music.

a summer explosion

renewed enthusiasm for daylight
it is essential
that all controlling
conditions reach
their lethal value
wet by accident
or wet at excavation
investigating the
reciprocity principle
its strengths
& inappropriate applications
are discussed

2/25/97

I drink too much coffee
eat a chocolate chip cookie

makes my mouth stale
puts me on edge

I plug my ears w/loud CDs
exude words & more words

I love words but they're not
what I want today

fuck words
no, the problem is

you can't

love's jetlag

3:30 AM
I wake
remembering savoring

at midnight
for the first time w/you
I didn't think about you kissing me
or me kissing back
it was what we became together
kissing

awake in the dark pondering
(your words your arms around me
having been transported suddenly
to another zone

Jennifer Bloomfield
JennyFB@aol.com

Bio(auto)

Jennifer Bloomfield is a playwright and solo performer. Her one woman play, Blood, White and Blue, will premier at the Grasshopper Palace in San Francisco this July 1 & 2. Her first solo play, The Woman of My Dreams, has been performed in Kentucky, Ohio and Vermont. Jennifer has performed her poem-monologues all over the country and they have been published in many small journals. "Damn Mess" is an excerpt from Blood, White and Blue.

Damn Mess:

A Damn Mess
Revolution (II)

It's not a man/woman thing

It's not a black/white/yellow/red/brown thing

It's a Freedom thing

It's always been a Freedome thing

I--
Don't believe in Rules

Never could follow one

Made a slew of them though

And a damn mess

trying.

But Anarchy ain't Freedom

Anarchy's a damn mess

A step on the road to Revolution

Yes, I believe in Revolution

Revolution after Revolution after Revolution

Because when the Revolution has ended

we've come full circle

The Revolution reaches home

And we've moved on

The revolution becomes the convention

Revolution after Revolution after Revolution

Yearning for the way it was
Struggling to maintain the way it is
Pushing for what could be

Oh I believe in Revolution

Revolution upon Revolution upon Revolution

Don't like violence
I'll start a revolution against violence

and resort to it

I'll yell and scream
I'll condone murder

for a revolution

when a woman with no escape uses a gun to create one
When a man takes his master's life for his own
when a people pushes the imperialist who has pushed them to the margins
when our values makes us suck our own life blood
When we yearn to eat cake and drink wine and dance,
and instead subsist on white bread and contaminated water, safety and opium.

Revolution is a damn mess

Revolution spurred by Revelation
spurred by Yearning
spurred by Stagnation
spurred by Stiflement
spurred by Oppression

Move from misogyny

to the laudation of the victim

to a culture of helpless victims toward which one can only feeel misogynist
superiority

>From white protestant domination
to valuing people only for the color of their skin and claim to their culture

Revolutions
like the path of Lady Luna about us
and us about Father-Son.

I want a revolution for the rich!

Cause revolution is a damn whore.

Revolution after Revolution after Revolution.

I want a revolution for a richer and richer life.

For the richness of life.

defined by money

until there's a revolution that overthrows that divine monarch

because revolution uses convention as it's tool
and it's goal

circiling like Lady Luna circles us
and we cirle our Sol

I want a revolution of the soul!

Yeah, I want skin to slough, mucus and tears running from faces, shit
unleashed and urine running down legs onto the street, blood flowing out in
spurts and gushes, filling the rivers, pouring out to the salt water oceans
of pain and loss and hope,

my body shaking as I am forced to see the Truth

Revolution is a damn mess.

One good leader could clean it all up

Make the town run like clockwork
Simplify the tax code
Balance the budget
Enforce the laws

One good leader could.

Purify the air and the water
and the streets
Solve the problem of old growth and the endangered
End the problem of the homeless and the poor and the illegitimate child
Increase funding for art and education

One good leader could.
Make a revolution.

one strong woman
or one strong man

could

black or white
or yellow or red
or brown

could

gay or straight

could

religious or atheist
facist or communist
or leftist or humanist or nationalist

could

get rid of all the mess and stalemate discussion,
conflicting, constricting codes and nonsensical institutions

One good leader could.

ensure everyone's fed and educated
able to contribute to a better society
housed and raising kids in a nice safe place

One good leader could

Clean up the place
And make the trains run on time.

Yeah, I believe in Revolution.

Revolution upon Revolution upon Revolution.