the INLAID EAR

Your most basic process that you may still control when all other choices get taken from you, pulled off like skin or voice, is picking up the morsel, putting it in your mouth. Chew, chew, chew and swallow. You are hungry. Outside of that fact, your actions are yours. Maybe. Without that freedom, what are you? A can with two snout holes gasping for some human prayer of peace within hell. We trust our wills to be sacred, but check YouTube. Art by print maker, activist Doug Minkler. See more of his work .

Now hear how musicians transcend maya (or the illusions of self we each have). Orchestras synthesize trembling mana, and honey rises from the nascent hive. Harmony is the honey of many. To fuse in unison so as to live— then to lose oneself—that’s life’s best honey. Your strings ooze into the communal line of woven sweet. Then the whole great world hones its taste on this one music. It’s zany how the swarm of cells inside a bee’s bones, and the million details that make a home— plus all your memories dumped from boxes— don’t make a mess. A clear lyric has come— chaos looping and closing in a link, that fits into a geometric comb in the sweet, cellular, symphonic womb. Wow. Dianne Romaine HEY, RHYME FANS: Check out my experimental rhyme scheme based on " Word Golf ."

More Millionaire at http://www.maakies.com/ How can I save the pieces when more pieces keep falling off? Times like these, I’m a sea- eaten clipper in a squall. Hatten down the batches! Please, sea, see me to safe landfall. Ropes and rivets rattle, drop off to dissolve on the calm floor. Why shouldn’t this whole ship of self descend into peace? Then all my pieces could sleep where they rest, in one black bed where slow, deep monsters would keep me together, finally rid of this wearing need to sail… Yet when the ocean goes dead, I don’t look down, but ahead.

Happy Birthday to Me! And here's one of my funniest poems, illustrated by the very funny Reza. Get some chuckles today at his site Poorly Drawn Lines . And read below. In case the poetry thing doesn’t work out for me, you’ll be relieved to know I have skills. I build bookshelves, dressers, closets, cabinets, and other furniture from prefab pieces. I am a craftsman of only the finest particle boards and composites. I have tools, the complete set: a hammer, and not one but two screwdrivers. I’ve also amassed some screws and several Allen wrenches (now safely kept behind the dryer. If I need them, I’ll get a magnet and string.) I can read Swedish charts more or less, and I can construct a brand new night stand in fewer than four goddamn-fuck-its. If I start at sunrise, by midafternoon I’ll have one new shelf and a few new BandAids. Engineered furnishing. It’s a train: fast, smooth and streamlined. And I’m the engineer—choo-choo!

Even after watching him smack face first into countless trees over endless days, the ape named Ape had still not fully guessed the depths of his friend George’s naiveté— not until George’s “Doggie,” Shep traversed the ancestral passage to the graveyard of elephants. George continued calling for Shep at dusk and setting out huge plates of chow insisting he would be hungry when he came home. George’s mate Ursula and Ape both tried to explain what dying was, but George would open a breadfruit and shout, “Here, Shep!” Ape was awed at the Living Saint of Primal Innocence; and he left to live with his ape tribe. He was afraid of seeing George laid on his own deathbed. Meanwhile, George still lives, calling his dog, Shep.

Roz Chast! I just have to say before the feature poem begins: I am backflippingly thrilled to have Roz Chast's art in my book. Besides having loved her panels for years, she's also in a book that provided early inspiration for my current project: What The Songs Look Like , illustrated lyrics of Talking Heads. See more of Roz Chast's wonderful, funny, subtle art at her website . And now... No one moves Public chess set in the Galleria with 4-foot kings and queens: I’ve never seen anybody play. You’d have to be a chess player to suggest putting one in. Maybe some assistant set it via the mall manager. I know that a queen can be moved by a pawn—but nobody plays, far as I’ve seen, as I eat frozen yogurt, listening to podcasts at three. Watching a match would seem hilarious in San Francisco’s stylishly stifled downtown daylight. I imagine someone putting lipstick on the kings or stacking the castles in a pyramid pattern after hours, after the stodgy sun h...

My friends visit, and I feast, storing up memories, storing up memories for when they’re gone and I stand by the cupboard with my hands, with my hands talking over each other like they do when thoughts rupture so fast over my head. If forever were mine, I would be still as a painting and reach the exquisite end of wonder. Wonder why. Now my hands are recalling their American faces. I suppose we’re the same around the world—but being understood at last! Mother, I’ll return. Mother, I’ll return, but first I’m knitting this unforgettable, missing garment from the way my friends are no longer here. My hands knitting in the Sri Lankan sun, knitting what’s gone, knitting what’s not yet gone. *** This poem was published with the illustration by Ann Sheng in Wisdom Crieth Withou t, issue 10.

I had an Armageddon dream. The terrible explosion nearby sent its heat-maddened shrapnel scudding from a cloud like a decorative bottle. City center transformed into a great candle. Then the mind’s innate drive toward its own survival shifted the dream’s setting into a new panel. In this segment, I was recording the prior end-of-days scenario into my journal. This dreamself explored the symbology of fire in futures untouched by the Ragnarok fractal. In the later dream, I told you of the terror we felt standing in the hot hail of the world’s fall, now passed into the safe angst of a dream’s prior dream; but your face fell, and fell away, the final bell of the morning’s first alarm. I want to call life a blessing, shadows and all. But today, you’ll please treat me to your soft voice and a tender smile. Truth is, I'm not sure about this poem, but I so love the drawing by Heather Wilcoxon .

Art by the amazing Hearther Wilcoxon Who wept at the romance     for Ginsberg and so for Solomon The moon yacketayakking, all over the street, danced on boxcars. Boxcars racketing over the rooftops. Storefront Moloch, whose ear is smoking, wandered around and around seeking jazz or sex or soup, trying to giggle, but wound up with a sob—animal soup intelligent and shaking. The archangel of the soul will never return your soul, faded out in vast sordid movies. Holy Istanbul vanished into nowhere Zen. Midnight streetlight smalltown rain ended fainting on the wall.

Thank you thank you to  Soyinka Rahim for bringing her mother's art to the book. My grandmother called this “Snare-a-husband.” She never wrote out the recipe but made me memorize it before she died. I’m humming the song of ingredients, stirring around your name, my bowl, my bird. Yet your freedom’s what I love most, my heart, and I’m far too giddy to bake a trap even if I wanted to. When we part tonight with our bellies full, night will wrap its separate dreams around us. My David, will you dream of me? Earthy smells rise up layering the edible atmosphere held steaming beneath the coal-crusted tarp of stars. If you will be mine, then we’re here for that purpose. Eat, my friend. Fill your plate. Two birds told me about the weight you bear. Swallow that bite then share, please, share your thoughts.

Shall I compare thee to a Winter’s day? Thou art more still and far more temperate. Rough winds do shake the manor’s windowpanes, and Winter’s lease hath all too short a date. But thy eternal Winter shall not fade so long as in the virgin’s blood you bathe nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, when in eternal crimson-thirst thy ghost administers its soul-suck to thy prey. And yet in aerial din cold Death may boast his servant to the Netherworlds beguiles. Innocent, I laid near thee, Twilit Host, but, O, thy soul within a nadir lie. By dawn we both drank deep the salt of Fate. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can cry, so long we shun the light, we canst not die. by Mark Hammermeister - here's the full-color version!  

Tócame             After Karl Frost Anticipation butters my skin like a hot skillet jumping garlic. You’re going to touch me and take me in. How slowness makes our thoughts come so quick! When our bodies meet—what will happen? We cook a harmonious conflict: If chilies strike, honey blocks. Who wins? Never mind. Measuring’s an ape trick. Instead, let’s will the soup to simmer. I’ve pushed the meat back and seen the bone. Your shades were parted, and your windows stood clear. Then, through my reflected face, I saw your greenest wishes glinting as my shadows passed inside your space. Your truth is true, my dear heretic: We’re ready to slough the carapace and let our whole bodies take the feast. by Gitty Duncan

Hold that time “Meet me in St. Louis, Louis…” If my seven-year-old daughter were a U.S. year, she would be 1947. Summer. While the movie’s a slog to me, she is transported on Garland’s Technicolor eyes to a time cradled tenderly in the arms of a later time that used film as a salve and an opiate. Maybe she won’t find out how glum Judy became. The plot’s struggles, in retrospect, are quick to dim. When we watch the “Making of…” reel, it opens with clips of bombers. Instead we steer on Google to The Fair and Liza Minnelli.

By Ben Walker -for L Bring our wedding cake topper onto The Antique Road Show. The expert will turn it on a felt-topped folding table with restrained enthusiasm about its monogram, filigree, pedigree and, at last, its je ne sais quoi. Though we’re amateurs, the verdict’s dramatic: Best In Show. Yes, look at us now: in bed watching TV on a Tuesday, adrift in tea, blankets and the broad seas of regular passing among office, practice and kindergarten days. Far from the wedding where we wept our joy, we land weary with few words some nights, some nights a slight furrow in the brow. The patina deepens on the worthy thing we have here in the flats and troughs equally as in the barnburners and breakers. By now we know we’ll look, and it will appear on the altar where we tend to it, sprouted and burnished, ever the bright prize we seized together before the gray. Under its still, resounding presence, think of all we’ve b...

The Half Of It  illustrated by Joe Kowalczyk “It’s human as a human eyeball,” she says, “to fumble our deep knowledge that the empty sky is teeming full beyond our view, and the oceans—huge and crowded—go all the way down. From the earliest age, we’ve drawn trees as trunk, branches and leaves—never mind the alleged subterranean activities, the unseen details we gloss over—it’s natural. But we don’t remind ourselves we forget. One practice,” she says, “is to wake up with the intention of extending ourselves into what we don’t perceive, letting our actions cross that blind edge into those other realms. How will we then modify what we do daily?”

by John Yoyogi Fortes Post-apocalypse for dummies Food and water. Guard these with guns, and if you can, keep them loaded. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups stockpiled by two boys, ten years old— open your mouth and walk right up. Some kids might not shoot if beseeched by an old man with six orphans. Make your fort far above the ground. You’ll need a swing set to get in. Postcard blockhouses in the sun wait nervously while mobs of men rock and topple the clock tower. Sip water and watch. The children are quiet with their vantage view. People are living on the bridge. The honeybees became too few. There’s nothing Superman can do.

Musical Pins Which silly songs should I sing to my offspring? Which among the endless favorites do I frame in fleeting windows of cultural training, training, bo-baining—banana, fana fame? The Ministry of Silly Walks. Ning Nang Nong. Everything on YouTube is, in ways, the same. Which silly songs will my offspring sing to me? Will they loop It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time behind some failed candidate’s concession speech? I dig it’s a catchy spoof, though I’m aging with the standards in my organ’s memory. To share is share enough! We have in common maps, spots, sing-alongs, phrenological peaks. The specific GIFs, luckily there, carry our closeness closer in true and skewed rhymes—so Sing the Beer Barrel Polka, that peppy air, or make something up over Scarborough Fair. Bill Griffith!

Baba, an American woman When my grandmother was dying I asked her—I don’t remember the question, the exact wording— something like, what truths have you learned? Very old people sat watching game shows. Baba was pretty far gone already, prone to private spirals of thought. We sat in chairs at a round table. Two sedate nurses counted pills. A bell rang from the TV: a contestant rewarded for a good answer. She said, “America, a light among nations…” Then she warbled, “Israel.” “Israel?” She turned her head toward the picture window filled with a seasonless color.

Warts and all   At the marketplace, my eggs sell themselves. My basil’s gone by nine, and my rhubarb pies fetch a creamy price, so my walk back’s weightless. It’s just me and my empty cart. You see? It doesn’t matter that my face scares bats. By day, my visage stays downward on dirt, scales and coins, but my nose lifts up ambling back with a jingle as the stars glint like tavern lamplights off raised ale cups. If I can jingle, who could say I’m cursed? I was foul and fourteen when my pop-pop pulled me bodily out to the garden, bent my stubborn knees beside the turnips, gave me a trowel, looked in me and said: “Start. Warts and all. Start.” My body sprouted warm. That day I became apprentice to dirt. It never kills me that their comments hurt.

              Soham is Sanskrit for “I am That,” i.e., I am existence. Some people one can’t satisfy however one marshals one’s force. The liar fells you with a lie. The idler borrows hamburgers. You tilt your hat forward to try ‘til trying becomes your life’s course, and victories define your qi, and conflict forms your universe— and to struggle , then, is to be. One day my self asked, “What am I?” One eye to see the one great sea. One pipe to smoke the traveling sky. One swing to turn an enemy, one mouthful of spinach close by. My self bowed to the Sea Hag—hers the crone’s wisdom, the typhoon’s eye. We mean at last to still the storm, atone the fight. My soul sings aye. To blow myself down—this I am— seeking the Sea Queen’s single peace. Breathing the wet air— ham soham — we’ve woven from the warp a calm. I'm so jazzed to have a piece by Tony Speirs in the boo...

Yes, I plainly see what’s sacrilegious (having recently hiked Mt. Diablo) about suggesting paradise is this: shooting craps at Joker’s Wild Casino, my old posse and I against the house. It’s not the industrial-strength deco, nor the band exhuming Grandmaster Flash. It’s being with the boys and letting go of everything except one little wish: for two cubes to land on two perfect twos. Paradise comes in simple attention with all distraction transformed by vermouth. Supplicate from the pass line—a vision of sweet deliverance—holy pay out. Rattle them bones, and come out, Little Joe! You can be anywhere without a doubt and reach heaven in a triumphal shout.

Where does that hallway lead? The architecture of my dreams: hallways in red velvet, broad as betting parlors, spaces that signal transition—always— and sometimes I come to a subtle door that opens into a dark earthen maze. It’s familiar but not particular. I begin squeezing down the labyrinth until it’s wide as I am. Yellow earth. Unease rises. I crouch. Ahead: the depth. I know the secret—I’ve known all my days! I backtrack from the anonymous earth, shut the basement door, return to the hall. Hors d’oeuvres. The opera. No way to assert what was, where I went. Must wake to recall the dark, the door, the secret I forget. Through that grave, I wonder if there’s a caul a curtain drawn like nothing before all. ***   Jerad's website is certainly worth a visit!

My kid emerges crying from her room. Figure it’s another grumpy rising. Muster pre-coffee patience for drama. Wonder what’s the plot. Favorite socks missing? Honey spread too thin? No, she’s deep in gloom— Her tooth—fuck me! Her front tooth was waiting all night long for a distracted fairy. No cash, not even a note this morning! The resident spirits negligently fell asleep before their task was performed. She sobs into the shirt she pulls on. We, meanwhile, hurriedly collect three singles in a red envelope, calligraphy sign, hot potato it to the fishbowl. Lauren cries, “Look! By the fish—there’s something.” She comes, wipes her eyes, collects her windfall. “So weird,” she sniffs. “They ignored my pillow.” By Lauren Ari

One summer three kids drowned under Jotunheim Falls. They warned, “Don’t horse around. The stream might look small, but the force can shove you down.” In the spray, we always watched where the water hit. Sean, most coltish of all, would swim up and tease it. He made us be grown-ups. One steaming day, Sean went higher than our jump spot— then higher—holy shit! He fetched the Bunyan top— then leapt. The wide world stalled. Our earthbound hearts stopped. Stopped. He was lost. Mist. Then—                       pop! By Rachell Sumpter

When we joked as kids about improbable fates we chose meteor strikes. This was before the Web. Our sense of distance suited analog date stamps. We clicked our tongues each day for the hostages kept four hundred. Americans had someone to hate. This morning, maybe the jogger’s curvy rear end shook the workaday rhythm of the crossing guard, and timing failed. I jumped on the brake. Momentum spun my briefcase to the floor—but another car arrowed through, interlocking like a gear’s tooth straight into the gap between clockwork tick and murder. And today in Iran, Nigeria, Boston, and yesterday in Somalia, Syria… Meteors really did fall on Russia. Newtown… What was I saying? Let me check the Internet. It’s dizzying to fall wide open and listen and human to forget that we’re falling humans. By Allan Peterson

I dance to keep my body limber so I can be opened like a treasure box. My body moves its musts through staccato shakes and strikes, shedding my stiff stuff, old rocks of muscle to meet the practice gung ho— then all this jammed, blocked up sadness unlocks to waterfall on any loving shore. The manmade lake refuses the dam’s locks— surprised fish flop on a wetslick dancefloor. It’s all because my two friends let me know: I’m home here. Their hands make front and back doors blowing catharsis through me—sluicing storm— unpent torrent of the self-made monster roaring through canyons, erasing all forms, weeping to reconstruct from the wreckage— because my child forces me to transform, because this dancing life’s lost every norm. Ah, Carol Aust ! Extra thoughts: first, I so love that Carol makes her living making art.   Mudita: joy at another's joy. Thinking of Carol and her family, poet/photographer Ed Aust , and their amazingly talented and creative kid...