Warmonging

WARMONGERING

When all the marching
And all the tuneless beats
Are silenced
And the din of death
Evokes the rhetoric
Eulogizing aggression,
Will you still
Beat the breast of self?

When all the wailings
Of the abandoned
Are heard above
Whistling warheads
And the soldiers
Limp before you
Will you still
Restrain the voices
Of democracy?

When the spoils
Turn against us
And the threat
Of failure realizes
Will you know then
That voices will not be silenced?

When the terror
Who is your demon
Becomes the terror
We plead to avoid
Who will do the marching?

Lou Bradley

Posted over on The Pedestal Magazine

Lament

deviant artwork


Lament

The earth inconstant, ever turning
has no patience when it comes
to the once of might have been.
More poised then evident is that time
that never was. A whisp of something
that was not, a seed or scent or flower
dropped upon the altar of remembrance.
Loving you, not knowing what to say,
silence was my way and the moment
overtaken fell to feed the dreaming
of the down under lost. More poised
then evident is the once of then
hungering for the taste of not.


Scott Malby

Posted over on Andar21

Stella Luise

Painting by David Makin


Stella Luise

Before
divorcing me
for a used
car salesman
who makes
dirty movies
on the side,
I wrote
this poem
about you.

I call it,
inside
Stella's
brain.

Ho hum,
blah da
Duh hmm,
Duh bla da.
Rummmph!

p.s.,
I know
its one
you'll
understand.


Scott Malby

Posted over on Andar21

The River

Sculpture by Leonardo de Vinci


The River

Forged from the wilder
part of ourselves apart
we are that river through
which we move, shaped
by a movement too fragile
for fragile hands to touch
taking us one person
at a time to the ultimate
point in time

where currents end.


Scott Malby

Posted over on Andar21

An Interview With an Awful Poet

Interview With An Awful Poet


The following interview was conducted by Paolo Honorificas with the noted American poet Pew U. over a period of two weeks in New York and Los Angeles as well as various points in-between. Pew was hitch-hiking to California in an attempt to find warmer weather. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. The latest of which is his recent election to the Lost Bay Poet’s Hall of Fame.


Paolo: You have been called one of the worst poet’s writing in English today. How do you react to that kind of criticism?.

Pew: I’m humbled naturally. It hasn’t changed me though. I believe it is the poet’s task to persevere. Praise has a danger of interfering with one’s work. You know, no matter what praise or criticism you receive you are still the same person inside. Those who think differently are the unfortunate ones. I don’t believe in inflated egos.

Paolo: You are a collector of note?

Pew: I’m kind of caught off guard here. You do your research well.

Paolo: I try. You are known for having one of the most extensive collections of rejection slips in the U.S., Canada and England.

Pew: Yes. I have over 200 from the New Yorker alone. I’ve branched off lately into the “ezine” field of collecting. The Strand, Jacket, Cortland Review, Pif, Fluid Ink Press, as well as numerous magazines such as the Atlantic who have an “ezine” presence are examples. Some of my most amusing moments come from receiving snide criticisms from little university presses. It’s cute, they are so serious in referring to themselves in the third person like “Queens” or something. The Smithsonian is in dialog with me about the collection.

Paolo. What does the term “awful” mean to you?

Pew: Lets break it down. You have “ah” and “full”. I would define it etymologically as something that is “awe-full”. More then the eye can tolerate.

Paolo: What discourages you about writing?

Pew: Getting published. I sent a terrible poem off to the London Literary Review in the hopes of receiving one of their great rejection notices. You know…this was a bad poem…one of my worst…I was so proud of it. I was positive they wouldn’t want to touch it let alone read it. The eye strain it caused the editor must have been immense.…over 1000 lines of excruciatingly hackneyed crap. I was hurt and shocked to discover it had been accepted. Of course they edited it extensively. I would advise poets just starting out to learn from my example and keep their poems very short. Less chance of other people fooling around with them.

Paolo: What would you say have been some of your formative influences?

Pew: My ninth grade teacher. She had green hair and a mustache. Then there was this hell’s angel biker I met on Fisherman’s Wharf. He didn’t say much but his guttural grunts had a rhythm I was later able to exploit to their full potential.

Paolo: Are you speaking about your poem “Tripe”?

Pew: Yes. And others as well. I believe in repeating oneself as much as possible.

Paolo: I’m sure readers would be interested in knowing how you came to write “Tripe”.

Pew: I doubt they would. I was bored. I said to myself: “Tripe! Tripe! Tripe!” Everything else seemed to flow from that. It was an epiphany. A special moment in time. Inspiration is a chancy thing. You can’t count on it.

Paolo: What would you say is the poet’s role in society.

Pew: Depends on what you mean by “poet’, “role” and “society”. A poet’s role in society is a special one. It is to be ignored, despised, discounted and to starve to death. Solitude is my society. I don’t like poets. They are deceptive people. Manic depressive most of them. Have you ever met a poet you were willing to introduce to your wife or girlfriend?

Paolo: Male or female?

Pew: Both as well as those in-between. They’re always writing something down. They have ink for brains most of them.

Paolo: What for you is the difference between a good and bad poem?

Pew: Interesting question. Never thought about it much. Perhaps that’s why my work is so lousy. If a poem looks like too much work to read I won’t fool with it. If it attempts to be fresh or new I probably won’t like it. Actually I read a lot of the masters of the English language and then try to do the opposite. Seems to work for me. Most importantly, if there is nothing I can lift from the poem, then I know my time was wasted.

Paolo: I’m interested in your career as an editor.

Pew: It was my own poetry that led me to publishing the work of others. Fortunately, I was so bereft of any creative talent, I had to find another avenue for literary exploration. Plus I had all that experience from reading my own bad notices. That helped open doors. A good editor is one who can…at the drop of a manuscript so to speak…whip off a good rejection notice. You know 99% of an editor’s job is in the rejection field.

Paolo: You were very successful in that area.

Pew: I started a few trends, yes. Just look at Mudlark. It’s never in or out of print. The Pound-Olson continuum you know.

Paolo: Are you speaking about the poet Charles Olson?

Pew: No, Jimmy Olson. The Pound-Olson continuum represents Ezra Pound in one of his less lucid moments combined with the comic book genre. The pictures you receive are impressionary snap-shots of a momentary brain hemorrhage oozing across linguistic barriers. Of course Ashbery, O’Hara and Koch have the same ability to surprise like rutabagas in a landscape. If they shaved their heads they would be rutabagas. The problem is with the landscape. Where does it fit in?

Paolo: You taught at university?

Pew: The dean of instruction thought I did. The money was good. I would take a tape recording of various poetry readings of mine and play them in class. Before playing the recording I would admonish the post- graduate students that they could learn more from bad poetry then good poetry.

Paolo: What did they say to that?

Pew: Don’t know. Never stayed around long enough to find out. Neither did they. They simply recorded my recording.

Paolo: I find that hard to believe. You read that somewhere.

Pew: No, you did. What does it matter. Do you expect truth from poets or poetry? The shaman phase is over. Today the only place poets point to is ultimate self-annihilation . I’ve got to go. A car just pulled up.

Scott Malby

Posted over on Zygote In My Coffee
*Editor's note: Interview with an Awful Poet first appeared in DREAM PEOPLE.

Out of the Cracker Jack Box

Out of the cracker jack box


2.
The music teacher

I suppose is where
it all comes from.
Years of bad practice
and one day- music.
It's as close as that.
No tension. Open
but no business.

3.
Dance

My choreographer
is a dream
reaching for salt
and finding the sea

4.
Activism

Politics and capitalism.
A bride stripped bare
by her bachelors, even.
You steal their clothes
when you wear them.

5.
A breath

One breath.
All there is.
That's how
things started.
No system.
No argument.
A breath
into a breath,
kissing.

6.
Falling

Everything consumes
everything. A lie
consuming the monumental
in small bites
and being consumed.
Falls, over a cliff.


Scott Malby 2006

Posted over on Switchback

Life in a Lovely Cemetery

Life In a Lovely Cemetery;
a postmodern tale


One hundred and forty nine
light years away;
in the constellation
of Cygnus, in a far away galaxy
a long time ago,
there was a very dangerous
and depressing planet.

*

Cygnus was the third
planet from its sun.
Its inhabitants called the planet
Laevus Levus. It's crust was thin.
It's glaciers were evaporating.
The environment was deteriorating
so bad, there was electricity
for only 4 hours a day.
With no atmosphere
to speak of, everyone went around
with a bad case of sun burn.
What was saddest of all
were the creatures who lived at the top
of the food chain. These creatures
were known as Craps because
they had crap for brains.

*

Poison ivy grew out of their sidewalks
and in their streets.
They had genetically
altered wheat and the genes
mutated into everything else.
If that weren't bad enough,
the Craps were turning their world
into a nuclear waste dump.
Except for the smug little Craps,
all other life forms
were becoming extinct.

*

On this world was a country
unluckier than most.
It was called Ribidus
whose citizens
made a living selling trinkets
and kitchen utensils
made out of depleted uranium.

*

It was a very pious country.
Two major religious groups
comprised a majority of its population.
Sixty per cent were Jokers.
Thirty per cent were Squids.

For hundreds of years
their primary religious activity
consisted in killing and eating
each other for lunch.

*

Adding to the unlucky history
of this country, a new group
with political pretensions
called the Tricksters
had taken to proselytizing
in the streets. The Tricksters believed
in hosting soup kitchens
where they entertained crowds
by blowing everyone up.

*

The country was rich in gas
derived from guano
but most Craps had squat.
Corruption was pandemic
as well as the most popular
social entertainment,
adoringly played
whenever two Craps or more met.

*

The country was ungovernable.
One Crap clan faction after another
took political control and proceeded
to enrich themselves
at the expense of all other Craps in general.

*

Does this sound farfetched?
Sound like Haiti or an African nation?
There are oodles of countries like this
on the planet Earth. Anyway, the military
intervened. A colonel staged a coup.
He ordered fake new elections
but everyone knew
the Tricksters would riot
because they didn't play fair
and had nothing to lose.

*

Things weren't looking good
when to everyone's surprise
from an ocean away,
the Belt Way Hooligans
decided to invade.

*

Who the Belt Way Hooligans were
and what they wanted
is still a matter of debate.
Some said it was guano they were after,
others maintained
it was to make the world safer
for the average Crap
or maybe, they just wanted to build
another nuclear waste dump.

*

The Jokers and the Squids both screamed:
*The Tricksters were inconsequential
till you Hooligans barged in!*
But the Belt Way Hooligans knew better.

*

Better to deal with Tricksters
in a far away, poor country
that didn't have to be poor,
than on the Beltway
where Hooligans drank Champaign
and publicly prayed but held orgies
when no one was looking.

*

These facts are clear.
The Hooligans mobilized
and sent away to slaughter
a gaggle of young Craps.
They spent their national treasure
to support an invasion
that didn't have to take place
and ultimately couldn't be won.
What did it accomplish?

Sure, for a time it made
some Hooligans richer.
But remember, the Hooligans
were just as much Craps
as were the Jokers, Squids
and Tricksters.


Scott Malby 2007

Posted over on Quill and Ink Tales