Poem Eating

CALL TO POETS
Original poetry with strong imagery; poems of cultural flux and interactions; personal translation of favorite works from the world's verse---these can be submitted to
Alan Young at alyguy@hotmail.com. As can commentary on poem eating. So folks, send it on in.

Alan Young is a Big Island caterer and literary enthusiast. He describes himself as "an art loving, food gobbling caterer with catholic literary delusions that I'm willing to inflict on an unsuspecting public."

read past poems:
DEAD TIMES FRANZ WRIGHT DAVID BUDBILL LOLA HASKINS VACANA POETRY THREE ARAB POETS ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE

RAY FREED TIA BALLANTINE BARRY ROHRBACH ALEKSANDAR RISTOVIC MARK KULANSKY

Dear eaters, was browsing through a library copy of "The Complete Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams 1906 - 1938" and became becalmed by Mr. Williams words. Here's some of it. Eat and chew it up, and borrow this book from your local library.

THE HUNTER

In the flashes and black shadows
of July
the days, locked in each other's arms,
seem still
so that squirrels and colored birds
go about at ease over
the branches and through the air.

Where will a shoulder split or
a forehead open and victory be?

Nowhere.
Both sides grow older.

And you may be sure
not one leaf will lift itself
from the ground
and become fast to a twig again.

HEMMED IN MALES

The saloon is gone up the creek
with the black sand round its
mouth, it went floating like

a backhouse on the mississippi in
flood time but it went up
the creek into Limbo from whence

only empty bottles ever return
and that's where George is
He's gone upstream to ask 'em

to let him in at the hole
in the wall where the W.C.T.U.
sits knitting elastic stockings

for varicose veins. Poor George
he's got a job now as janitor
in Lincoln School but the saloon

is gone forever with pictures
of Sullivan and Kilrain on
the walls and Pop Anson holding

a bat. Poor George, they've cut
out his pituitary gland and his
vas deferens is in the spitoon--

You can laugh at him without his
organs but tht's the way with
a river when it wants to

drown you, it suck you in and
you feel the old saloon sinking
under you and you say good-by

just as George did, good-by poetry
the black sand's got me, the old
days are over, there's no place

any more for me to go now
except home--

THE DEFECTIVE RECORD

Cut the bank for the fill,
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
int the old swale

killing whatever was
there before--including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.

Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house

on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to . .

AT THE BAR:
FROM "PATERSON"

Hi, open up a dozen.

Wha'cha tryin' ta do--
charge ya baterries?

Make it two.
Easy girl!

You'll blow a fuse if
ya keep that up.

GRAPH FOR ACTION:
FROM "PATERSON"

Don't say, "humbly",
"Respectfully", yes
but not "humbly".

And the Committee
both farted
and that settled it.

BREAKFAST:
FROM "PATERSON"

Twenty sparrows
on

a scattered
turd:

Share and share
alike.

Original poetry with strong imagery; poems of cultural flux and interactions; personal translation of favorite works from the world's verse---these can be submitted at alyguy@hotmail.com. As can commentary on poem eating.