week of October 3-9, 2005
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francEyE
franceye@marinasplace.comm
Bio (auto)
francEyE was born Frances Elizabeth Dean in San Rafael, CA, on St Joseph’s Day, 1922, but grew up on the east coast where she began to publish in the 1930s in school newspapers and Scholastic In 1963 she returned to California, where she has been writing, reading, attending poetry workshops and open mics, and publishing here and there ever since The Sacred Beverage Press published her collected poems, Snaggletooth in Ocean Park, in 1996, and Pearl last year published her chapbook, Amber Spider.
The following work is Copyright © 2005, and owned by francEyE and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Names, Words, Love
I’m notta
Rick says
big fannotta big fan of
Basquiat We’re
in this roomof Basquiat
in MOCA Basquiat in MOCAhard to be
notta big fan,
sit in all this lightnothing but
Basquiat
here in MOCA to hearI’m notta
big fan of
MOCAso fulla
sweet precious people
all here to hearI dunno maybe
each other or
maybeBrendan, hear
Brendan I
came here to hearJamau,
Jamau Daaood and
Brendan, butall around Basquiat
hafta be real
poetshafta be real to
be heard even over
these BasquiatsI’m glad of
Basquiat,
glad ofConstantine too I’m
glad of Daaood he’s
still here & I hearthe world, I’m a
big fan of
of course anyoneanyone with
feet on the
ground butit’s true you
don’t hafta
be a bigfan to
live all your life in
Basquiat, his so shortbut long as the day is,
thank you
for Constantinefor Kamau too Thank you but
I’m still not a big fan of MOCA.Signs, Songs, Water
(to Marina)I didn’t do as I planned The storm
hadn’t stopped as I thought, or rather it had
but had started again It poured, it stopped, it poured again but lucky for me
it arrived at step 3
before I left home
so I put on your warm sweater and over it
my long purple raincoat
okay so I know it’s not purple it’s mauve
but how does that sound-“long mauve”-?
Anyway it keeps my legs dry & I wore my yellow boots,
opened the bright red umbrella Rick Lupert
returned to me
after I’d forgotten all about it and it has spent so long with Rick now
as well as a while with Amelie
that it is much kinder than it was when I let go of it
last spring in Rick’s car It opens
with grace and shuts politely, Rick-sanctified
umbrella I’m a symphony
to rain and all these clothes
are so old and know me so well now
they treat me like family
The coat knows I’ll never
sew back the missing button,
but it doesn’t care; it closes anyway Your sweater misses you but cossets me anyway, the shoes
are not the oldest but they are what I stand on
ever since back when I was still a wage slave and thought I would have time to garden The hat, the hat I forgot to say, it’s tan and warm
and sort of Peruvian And then
the red umbrella Across the street
from the bench where I wait for the bus
Express Auto Care sings its song:
Engine, Diagnostic, Transmission, Clutch, Brakes, Tuneup,
Electrical Engine, Diagnostic, Transmission, Clutch, Brakes, Tuneup,
Electrical –
the song I tried to sing all my life
but never could,
the song I never wanted to sing but had to,
all my life
no matter what And to think
now I’ve lived to see it begin to die That song
does not have long
to sing now, hydrogen or no hydrogen,
though of course,
it will always “vibrate in the memory”
the way even today if you know where to go
you can buy a good buggy whip;
you can buy Roman sandals,
you will even see tough-soled barefoot savages
walking these city streets
on their thick-soled feet now and then There is no one I think really as old as the hills
nor are even the hills as old as the seas and
as for songs, they die too, it’s said, if no one
sings them but last night
while I watched lightning flash not behind a mountain but behind
a 99-Cent Store
and heard thunder roll and roll I thought
even the hills
were young once and now
it’s goodbye to Engine
Diagnostic Transmission Clutch Brakes Tuneup
but not to
ElectricalElectrical Older than hills, and the song of the ages,
thank you Uncle Walt,
and the storms
pour, stop,
and pour again In the middle,
that’s the
eyeThanks, storm; thanks, eye; thanks
coat; thank you; thanks,
Rick Thanks,
songs.
Cian Cafferky
cian@focusadvertising.ie
Bio
Cian Cafferky is a Dublin Poet of no particular standing who likes to describe himself (in the words of Sheamus Heaney) as ‘a nine-to-fiver who has seen poetry’.
The following work is Copyright © 2005, and owned by Cian Cafferky and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Note
Renes perplexed His pierced nipple is infected again Sitting on the curb stone
Opposite The Temple Of Hair
On Rue de la Croix
He imagines sunlight
On the edge of a sharpened blade
In a bowl of disinfectant On the beautiful doctors
Crisp white coat
A drop of blood (his!)Watching him,
And as saddened perhaps,
Marcel is cutting
The butchers hair-
Sixty if hes a day,
And all of it spent
In an abattoir
Hacking through flesh Now he wants love,
Youth, a warm hand-
Only the tenderist parts
Of the human experience
Which does not include
His wife who sits in their balcony
Wishing she were gone,
Out into the wind
With its hint of snow,
To a cabin in a deep wood
Where all day the leaves
Whisper in her ear
Promising hail, storm clouds,
One last gathering
On the edge of everything
Nothing else moves But if you listen,
You can hear in the distance
The traffic go south,
The huge trains lurching
Under your feet,
A moment in the mouth
Of a small bird
Breaking the heart
Of our terrified street.
AnniversaryAt first it was nothing A small cloud
Ragged on one side,
Smooth on the other I thought of that blue cardigan
With its white patches,
The one youd been wearing
Then I went to the park
And sat on a green bench
Under the lilac trees Someone had hacked
Out somebodys name,
Michelle or Michael,
I couldn’tt tell
And it failed to matter
Now the cloud had grown,
As dark as the man in the
Shadows opposite-
Flecks of dust catching
In the folds of his collar,
The skin white where
His hands held on Whatever he saidIt went unheard
And I fell to studying
The birds tearing
At the shrubs in the
Memorial garden,
Its bronze plaque
Amongst the blue flowers
Like an eye on something
I was wondering where Id go
After the gates were closed?
Who would I meet there
And what awaited?
I longed to touch your face And the cloud joined
Other clouds,
Lost its edge and randomness,
Rained down.