week of May 20-26, 2002
Anne F Walker and Laura E.J Moran
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Anne F Walker
afw@socrates.Berkeley.edu
Bio (auto)
Anne F Walker’s books of poetry Into the Peculiar Dark, Pregnant Poems, and Six Months Rent She edited the anthology of poetry and poetic prose bite to eat place with Andrea Adolph Currently editing the critical anthology Intersections of Place and Literature with Margo Ponce, she is also on the editorial board for Kaleidoscope: An International Journal of Poetry (Palimpsest Press) and trying to find a home for her new poetry manuscript A Canadian/American dual national, she divides her time between Berkeley and Toronto
Visit Anne on the web here, here, and here.The following work is Copyright © 2002, and owned by Anne F Walker and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.
Modesto Poems
1
do you have a mirror with two colours?see the other side of the apartment–the window and sky beyond it
the woman at the washing machine her hands
and the man who walks in the living–room across the courtyard our lives are that small and touched by grace only
in places like this
immersion this side
of raised grass ovals where flesh
connects a link fuses and everything else
slips off like clothes in an afternoon.2
Modesto YouTheres a very loud absence of sound
passing between our two homes
like a breezeway in a rainstorm
You return to the ceaseless mull the chorus the white-
wall of wash sound indistinct as
unmarked faces that move thickly through down-
town intersection edges.3
Museum of Modern Artit starts clear and concise and as we
walk the stair down names begin
to blur like faces i hold your
hand and your flesh wavers i can’t
remember you, like a lover 17 years ago
in a dry California valley, in the city of Orange
along a freeway along which we sped
in bed you remind me of him and then / i see
i don’t know you.4
1/11raindrops on the clothesline hang
like christmas lightsmy body is joined to yours under
my nails
the taste of the skin of your back.5
edgin’: arms back pulled around your legsyou have a strong desire to reach
toward some edge again but you retract from it like
tract homes like suburban hair and bad glasses like
comfort and stability you walk into and
close the door all safe behind you safe and
safe you’re gone
Laura E.J Moran
lejmoran@hotmail.coBio (auto)
Laura E J Moran is the 1992 recipient of the Jean Garrigue Award She travels throughout the country and abroad touring and headlining at numerous universities, elementary schools, festivals, competitions, womens organizations, literacy groups, coffee houses, churches, and nightclubs In addition, in 1992 Laura became Providences first Grand Slam Champion and in 1996, Seattles Grand Slam Champion She has represented both Seattle and Providence on various national teams from 1996-1998 For four years as vice-president of Projective Verse, Inc , she introduced children of all ages to the wiles of poetry and hosted the Providence 2000 National Poetry Slam Several of her pieces appear in such publications as Defined Providence, Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza 1994, and Children Remember Their Fathers Her work was performed in collaboration with Words and Letters: RI Calligraphers and Poets and with Island Moving Companys production of Out of The Box In 1999, she received the Mayors citizens citation for artistic contribution in Providence, RI She presently resides in Callicoon, NY and often reads in NYC
The following work is Copyright © 2002, and owned by Laura E.J Moran and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.
Listen, Brother
today I am a story in the foyer of this house
where no one makes a fault without finding one
Yesterdays breakfast bowls, Nanas mirror thrown,
the hole kicked in the wall–I box the blame away
I am no saint pinned between mothers prayers I leave the dry body of God tacked above herbedroom door Today, I tear vespers
from my saxophone, loud in hollyhocks,crowded parks, on the backs of trucks
with road dusted cuffs Accompany methrough the alleys to the bars where the fighters
fight and the drinkers drink where the night isa bare bulb and I can see your face as a man I am not girl today, brother, braided and hidden
in high grass as dad kicked your ass I collected
your broken grace: blue wings torn from the mothbody in my hands This morning doors opened
themselves to me, bread overflowed the breadpan, Springs first crocus green to be born
again cracked the hoarfrost Come .listento the trees Ride your gentle spirit wild
into the pines beside me, bury your old selfextinct and be glad for it I am Quixote,
Carmen unleashed upon her feet, flyingKneivel iridescent in spangles smacking
the sky I am burning the kitchen, I amburning my clothes Listen brother–I am
a story I am a song Tell Mama I m gone.Degas Dancer
lady by the bath
bent double hair
knotted nape inked
out in wrist flash
the line goes
here the hand
commands the eye
nods the body
begins on paper
lady in the tub
heron leg poised
towel balanced
her chorusline
waist to the window
open a dancer no
longer in the wingsRich Lady Stealin’ Lipstick
Two-faced and fading to the bone,
our lady of perpetual deceit,
wasting your own salt, perserving yourself
beyond preservation .come out
behind the circus screen You pretend to eat,
shave, shit, slip counterfeit into an empty purse,
believe your ethereal heels float
above ground on the clouds of cocktail kindness,
fling small talk, a thin scarf about your neck
Recall Isadora Duncan?
Her immortal scarf coiling silk
about her throat, tightening the wheel
as her convertible strikes mountain air
at sixty, unable to steer,
careening the Beverly Hills bend,
a pas de deux with the wind,
death’s demand binding to the bone
I knew a dancer onceMelissa Honeybee,twirling in second-hand pink satin heels,
thrift feathers swirling martinis in a row
below, wrapping her divine wings
about a metal pole She danced crazy
eights, shed skin in laps, pranced
dreams rouged and candied
just out of reach
But when she really danced–tight blackagainst bare pine boards, against the blank wall
of art or love or hunger –all her weight fell hard
to the body, the flesh she carried could not fly and she loved it, played in the space between the fall The girl earned her footprints, fought gravity all the way–she knew, like matador and bull,
in earths original skin –this is what we do
No lift off, without coming back to where we were Paws caught in gravitys trap, expect to crack
like the creature you are Stuck to the windshield,
pray to plastic christ but no cute tune about bluebirds
will lift you into the air to save your technicolor bones Clicking heels wont get you home– meanwhile,
bleach your face, and pluck your hair,
fart with fear for your stinking soul Keep pennies from petty theiveswhile the Honeybee seeds her patrons dreams
then pockets cash to get her to West Palm Beach
where she can dance for herself Lets look straight: A body is a body after all as real as broken slats of fence, we all need repair,
a tight screw now and then
Give me your manicured hand, I know a place–a stage lit at the dark height of dark eyes,
where you can slip candied as a honeybee into dance,
or just watch and pet that which sleeps
hackled and waiting under your bed.