Brendan Constantine maybon@usinter.net Bio (auto) Brendan Constantine was born in 1967 and raised in Los Angeles The second child of two working actors, his parents named him for Irish playwright Brendan Behan He has become a fixture of Southern California’s poetry communities and one of its most respected poets He was a nominees for Poet Laureate of the state (2002), served for seven years as co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets series, moderated the renowned Wednesday Workshop at Beyond Baroque, & traveled extensively, presenting his poetry to audiences throughout the United States & Europe His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, The Los Angeles Review, The Cortland Review, RUNES, and LA Times Bestseller The Underground Guide to Los Angeles Mr Constantine is also the creator of Industrial Poetry, a workshop for adults and teens struggling with writer’s block, and is currently poet in residence at the Windward School in West Los Angeles and the Idyllwild Arts Summer Youth Writing Program in Idyllwild, California He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Hollywood at Bela Lugosi’s last address His collection Letters To Guns is now available and new work can be found in the Spring edition of the journal Ninth Letter Visit Brendan Constantine on the web here: www.brendanconstantine.com | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Brendan Constantine and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
One Million Years BC The oceans were hot and spat toothy fish into the air like olive pits Mountains drooled fluorescent paint, valleys filled with loose change and lost sunglasses In the jungles great lizards walked on two feet, carried flasks of warm lava, and lied and lied and lied The trees had crude tattoos, and dropped suitcases full of money on the ground Cats with knives for teeth stalked themselves under skies crowded with sharp birds calling “Oh, baby!” At night nothing walked, the moon hissed at the ocean, and the stars held each other at gunpoint. Letter IV .To an 1830 Henry Yellowboy 45 .from a standard issue army boot – .Sharpsberg, Maryland, 1862
Dear Sir, I embrace with pleasure this opportunity to write to you, fitly as I can, of the last day’s events Would that I could add the observations of my twin, alas he is no longer with me, but somewhere on the bloody brow of South Mountain I know a prayer for him is leaving you even as you read this I have been brought to the Antietam Ironworks as yesterday our pickets advanced this far to find the enemy run off I do not expect to be among those in pursuit on account of my diminished state Neither do I wish to give in to hope but if I understand what I have witnessed of others similarly afflicted, I will soon be worn to hospital or returned home I should note that as I write, it is evening and the camp is besieged by a noise as I have never before heard There is a manner of frog abundant in these parts given to plighting its troth well unto dawn Some of the men complain of poor sleep and palsied concentration Indeed, I must struggle to steady my pen as it tends to vibrate with their withering songs My heart, though halved, hungers for news of you, but I cannot say with certainty where I will be in the time it takes for your response to find me It seems the essence of war has become the burning of maps Perhaps it is best that you send word home Perhaps it will draw me there.
When We Lived With The Bomb
We had a room in Queens with a couch that opened into a second bed I baby-sat odd nights, your father worked from home, proof-reading phonebooks, some days leaving only for cigarettes One night I found the two of them playing cards Look who I met in line at the Larry’s Liquor And get this, it knows my hometown Later it said the same thing to me and I was from somewhere else Did you ever go to the light house? it asked Ever take a boat on Misery Bay and wonder at the dead of 1812? We knew it wouldn’t pay its way, clean house, or make its bed Maybe we needed the noise to hide our silences Maybe we needed a louder silence Anyway, we kept itbought extra food, extra tickets If we went to the movies it sat between us, on the train it stood and swung, if we fought it took no side but stayed in the room I recall thinking we should hide it from the landlord, then watching with your father when the landlord met it on the stairs, the way it nodded confidently Do you know the old Belgrade station? Do you remember the woman who sold fortunes there? She told mine, too Eventually we got better jobs, moved to the village We said it could stay on the couch, but it begged off, made excuses about pride It knew you were coming, that you would cry, and how long. The Need to Leave
a dog is barking a woman is sleeping a man is old the world of this world is what it is doing everything else is night a candle is finding a road a long coat is wearing a boy is worn one shoe is untied two buttons are missing five coins are a bowl of soup but a village is ferocious the hours of this hour will not intervene a cow is eating a barn is sulking a window is burning out someone is coming an open door is an open door a mouse is gone a knife, a bag of clothes, a photograph of a horse the need of this need travels with us
Letter II .To a ‘hand gonne’ (first known handgun), .from a double handed broad sword- .London 1450-1490 ?
To hys worchepful master be thys delyvered in hayst Black lamb, black bleat, thunder of the bullocks foete! You are borne makeless ynd makeless you growe Cease you never now you are comme Cease you ever, No I am callyd Great Swerd, Great Swerd I Flourysh I smyte I stryke downryght with a dragonys tayle Double rownde ynd double rownde then I stroke home Gaynward the sunne climeth ynd longe nightes coureges dark, I sett my poynte sofftley before you on the grownde I stoppe the morne you are comme White horse, wyde chase, melodye of the moony fayse! I singe smalle werds fore you comme slowe But stoppe you never now you are comme ynd I, Great Swerd, Great Swerd am go. Short Cut
.You go down here for a little way until you come to a sign, something red and quick Then you turn and go straight for a spell .When you get to the ducks keep going You’ll see a bunch of houses with people standing out in front Some of them will have sad faces .or will be crying Don’t stop It’s nothing you did Just head for the cemetery Five or six graves in there’s a statue of Clio, the muse of history .Look where she’s pointing.
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Christopher Barnes hfulton32@btinternet.com Bio (auto) In 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award In July 2000 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology ‘Titles Are Bitches’ Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle’s famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh On Saturday 16th Aughst 2003 I read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St I also have a BBC webpage www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/gay.2004/05/section_28.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/videonation/stories/gay_history.shtml (if first site does not work click on SECTION 28 on second site Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty’s Newcastle This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle’s Centre for Life I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children’s literature building In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People’s Theatre why not take a look at their website http://ptag.org.uk/whats_on/gulbenkian/gulbenkian.htm The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem “The Holiday I Never Had”, I can be heard reading it on www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=18456 REVIEWS: I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called ‘A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot’ for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem .see www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Christopher Barnes and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author. The Disappearing Trick And Miss Rilke From The Typing Pool Transports of delight, the turn of sand between her toes, cosy connections, rippling sea, blistering sun paring the strain from stiff shoulders. * Be wide awake when Howard Hughes is baffling over stop-press scrawl A ruse he decides is an overmanning of punctuation A trembling emission of heat crackling from a comma through Las Vegas. .“Houston(,) Texas” the guillotine for that interruption, despite the level best of the Sun’s recorder to deliver it, the copy desk’s appeal for tender mercies, the proofreader’s blot-free style. * Secured, a tour to Miami beach, swirls to cool her thighs in ever-flowing foam, swimming out to drifting light a black-as-ink head, a lost comma on the waves. From the Howard Hughes poems By Christopher Barnes, UK The Draft In the singleton subbasement they spool ‘The Mysteries Of The Organism’ on super 8 In a proximate cube a TV flaunts ‘Get Smart’ but the hippest happening is in the language lab .Ches quibbling Saigon, the congressional panel, tailskid prangs… and Muhammed Ali was bang-on when he speechified ‘I ain’t got nothing against them Viet Congs’. The inrush of the Fuzz is seditious Go head on cut and run full tilt in the fin end of a purple haze Chevy down Main St Through shades Astroturf rimshots wobble by the Mom and Pop store and we peak a red and black flag for ex-slaves into a shimmering bristle of ladybugs.
The Game-Animator
This is a binary code garble I fizzle out, and dream… a baldric’s slung, set agoing Knocked down by an asteroid Xavier’s a balaclava of flies, a lightning-graph flares past his temples. The Ground-Breaker
A mole on the circumference of middle earth, you’re turned turtle with steaming breath like the ignition of tarmac, you’re a nuzzler of crumbly substance, a sifter of dubious compounds, toppler of black beetly bits and the slow worm’s guillotine. Seepage, fadeouts, fustiness and rot for you are a pick-me-up, an inky glimmer in the eyes. But you’re a psych up for extinction The wife you go home to at the come-off of a day’s spade turning will gag on asthma in a fall of spun out months. Concede the benevolence in the depths of a hole. And that cam-shot of you both at one of your gravesides, a moss-green wreath seething on her lap.
The Hard Bitten Orchestra In sync jaws swing; woodworm in the baton. |
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