Esther Press

BRUCE COVEY




Dawn





This morning is so thick, the sand

suspends, evenly distributed

through the air



As I walk through, single grains

bump against my eyes



I hate to do it, carve this vector

through, spoil their

fine democracy



Somewhere inside my head

a little thought begins & moves

from anticipation to intimacy

to memory & regret



I triangulate from two

to one. Why just this one?



Also, in case you’ve forgotten,

at the opposite edges

of refracted light, this checkerboard,

this display of insignificance,

you & I, begin & end.

DONNA KUHN




artificial fish




emotionally moved by artificial fish
emotionally moving afield, affection
fond field away from home astray

or tender feeling disease afire, on fire
tender and aflame in loving flames
glowing federation, industrial nerves

aflutter in affidavit flutter
in collision of relationship
or tangle, run

close relationship get into trouble with
im afraid i must but not under oath
answering yes, flowers and hairy

fleshy leaves, an official language to fasten
to add to the end of a full bouffant hairstyle
to blow inspiration and form meaning

near or great towards the stern of a ship
or the rear of plenty in spite of, after all
i've etc without much inconvenience

said, he's still going, it affords pleasure
an imitation for a forest to turn land
into a forest the time when, next

later, nearer the rear, the placenta
and frighten noisy brawl membranes
expelled after childbirths afterburner

forehead, to insult openly for burning
an open insult, a life after death
afghanistan aftermath shawl

LAURA CARTER



1

from The History of Pacifism





America your face is mine.





At the edge: soil. The sun resists crop.

We wave effluvia, dense flags, influence, hoping the trap in our bodies' hair is not metal.

We turn, stroke at each other, because several / all mirrors are opposite us, pricked by the trap, having fallen in the consumer bucket, a coat of buckets, needle jackets, guns in our chammy pockets, hitched to our insides.

Coats of blood / coat of blood.

Dandelions in the clots. On the children, snowflakes. Irrigation.

Again, a stranger's words. {Birds, words, prayers.}

An isometric problem: how do we find the axe-grinding line?

From whom does the unexpected day receive its treatment?

Look out--your yawning means you are wrongly monitored.

A buzzing: lowness in the cattle cream.

But inside of all these, we turn out.

Inside of all, these, we, turn out.

We hear the coat: coming, moaning, because it can alter itself, because we might alter it.

CHRISTINE HUME





Fingering Mystery





I get scared if
I rifle drawers

and find locks
in old letters or

a strand threaded
in a sweater its sentence

stings open
whispery informations

tells me I am polluted
my ideas need hands

to apprehend
if I find a hive

or mass a rat charm
it lapses my

nerve-language
I get nests

in my bald mouth
if I find a picture

of hair it hurricanes
my mind waves

lets me think
when one stray

separates it vibrates
unruly real organs

all corresponding
to starved martyrs

until I am its end
with hands unmade

and lying down
with their terrible tasks

in dead seduction
of self-selection

JOHN BEER




Sonnet to Morpheus




I can’t say how I ended up in Bangkok.
What time is it? Our depression assumes
its latest form: a taste for blood.
You have to believe in a better world
hidden within the glitzy architecture,
not quite outside of time, but radiant,
unmediated, yoga-like, pristine.
The ghost of a pallid hunter met my gaze.
My dollar rejected by the vending machine.

“Don’t tell me you’re a believer now.” Not quite.
I’m abandoning the neutral clothing, though.
Can’t say for sure what year it is. The airport’s
thick with signs: dervishes, T1
connection posts clustered like mass graves,
a black fleck steady in my swamp-green eye.

LAURA SIMS



BANK THIRTY-ONE







Trees over here









Over there









In one empty classroom





The girl is turning





The town inside out





*





The worst is









Belonging

GRAHAM FOUST



MASTURBATORY



What it is is order.
What it is not is law.

Just below my throat, the laughing
capital of me, sits a succulent
light, rests a set

of acceptable breezes. What
it is not is fantasy. Or so says the autopsy.

What it is is arousal’s
residue, the hands
as someone’s ghost.

REB LIVINGSTON



What We Say




You are destined for misery, my husband said to me,
you're a rigid, unyielding woman
with the taste of demons lurking on your stiff tongue.

You eat this can of corn, I said to my son,
or you’ll be this can of corn.
You need to follow directions.

My son swallowed the kernels, I told my therapist,
and chewed the label and aluminum.
He’s almost perfect.

You should write humor, mother said to me,
you should write for children.
You should clip your nails and stop scratching elbows.

It’s not right, I said to God,
being the one cursed with sanity.
I am wretched and consumed by song.

STEVE TIMM


Zentropa




You think you cannot go on. You think it was all designed for you. You think vodka is the wrong god. You think slope and divot and rut are the only world. You think the hours are not of any clock you have known. You think the graves you dug wait for what might have and the two dogs and the cat will sing something instead.

Your proposition is not oblique you think. Stamens and capstans. Unbordered voting blocs perspiring from satiation. Vagabonds in utero printing out the diapason of the frontal republic. One ghast of sweet obloquy ears be for. Sentinality played out to an end it could posit.

Serene wipers, still road. Sweat glove jimmy in several jabs. Why they stand at the water’s edge in cloud coal dark when no filmer lights the up bubbles. “Up” the cruelest undundancy. Rails is a verb.

MICHAEL BURKARD



the lorca part




i did not know donald justice very well -
we didn't hit it off right in iowa city - no one's
fault - just one of those things - his was the only
poetry by the people i knew and liked when i went
there - but we didn't hit it off - i guess too he was so
smart i felt as i easily and often did dumb - i remember
one awkward not even conversation about music where
he mentioned a slew of american composers - i grew
up on presley - he noted that too - no name dropping -
no attempt to impress me - he was just himself - he
was a great teacher in a forms class i took from him that
first fall - i still remember almost verbatim some of what
we did with lorca and eliot and yeats and particularly
stevens - what i really recall about 'the lorca part' is that
i had fudged my way into the course by getting anna to
help me translate some of lorca - she did it for me - for
my face - and i still almost missed - translating something
from somewhere was a prereq - anyway one night at a party
justice was playing chess - he loved chess - he was good
at it too - if that's appropriate to say about chess - he was
leaning against a refrigerator when it wasn't his move and
he talked at the party while he also studied the board -
he was playing with a guy whose name i should remember
but can't - don't have a face to go with the guy's dark hair -
later - maybe three or four years - i wrote down in the green
small journal tess gave me a dream i had of justice with a
capital J in the dream playing chess with Summer with
summer's capital S - i dreamt him again with mark strand
in it in a new yorker published poem gambling scheme
coded giveaway about numbers in the poem - will have t0
look up that elaborate one more closely - suffice to say:
to dream is to die - to dream is also to dye - to make new -
to color differently - the way paint of course colors something
differently if a different color is applied - the color before
has in a sense died as it is 'dyed' by the new paint - not unlike
my dreams indicate a relationship far more interesting than
the one i thought was taking place - the lorca part might be
a hinge for this as it involved my being falso - representing me
as i was wont to do as someone i was not -

SHEILA E. MURPHY




Piercetone on the Ribcage of a Metalflake Guitar



Study parch- as if each crinkle of the wording meant beyond its lapse. Resin spars with flecks of inferential melody. If only a motet would ride the space bar; starch, give way to reason at a moment's jest. Gemmed lug nuts shift miles-per-gallon readings one might learn to nimble past. As if projected history were a cappella fortress close at hand. Thereby to subdivide land parcels to allow one to have nested and be certified as newly minted if not useful. Thatched material infusing nature into nettled haste of citified endearments.

Maturation as shrill entry on the flyleaf of encumbered funds

NORMA COLE





Dear Robert,

Hi, just wanted to check in
with you, see what’s happening. I
was reading your “ACHILLES’ SONG,”
the first poem in GROUNDWORK:
Before the War in which Thetis
promises Achilles not a boat
but the mirage of a boat. There is
always a “before the war,” isn’t
there. Some war. Another war.

Miss you,

Norma

P.S. and back of that war
“the deeper unsatisfied war”

72


I began Esther Press to review current books of poetry. I was interested in making my own biases part of the reviews, to foreground those in particular. I felt this was a part of reviewing that was never exactly emphasized, as if the reviewer had been prodded by a God to speak for him or her, or the judgements therein spun around a "we" voice, which seemed like a fairly poor puppet show.

When I grew tired of doing the reviews, or felt conflicted in my different hats as a poet and reviewer, or additional things, I let it go. For one month. In that time, I wondered how I could change the direction of Esther Press.

It was my decision to more fully expose my self, my personal thoughts, my life, my background, as much as I could, in a series of notes, non-sequiturs, aphorisms, which were forms of writing I have enjoyed in others. I wanted to comment further on the underlife of one reviewer, myself, to reveal more of who I was, or who I think I am, thought I was, etc., to see how that impacted on what I had to say about poets and poetry.

I feel like this part of the writing is over with. I feel I have written enough in this way.

I think the only logical course of action is to now turn this place over to the poetry of others. A kind of backdoor approach, I guess. From reviewing poetry, to reviewing the reviewer, to poetry itself, without words from me. Just the work. The work of others.

I cannot say at this point what form/s this will take. I'm sure it will change as I go along. But, to get this started, I would like to ask anyone reading this to think of sending a poem to me at my email address: wagnerjjj@yahoo.com

Thank you for reading,
James Wagner

71


For L., who insists that I write something positive now and then: The sun is shining brightly!, me dear!

(but it's hot as hell)



70


I've always appreciated candor more than etiquette. With etiquette, apart from the bizarre social expectations and class conditioning, there always felt like this fake stance taking place, as if decorum, or not rocking the boat, was more highly valued than what was said. To link this to systems theory, all manners of etiquette and shushing customs become part of the drama, in keeping the system moving along, however dysfunctionally, which sometimes includes outright lying, exaggerating claims in order to shun, general (genteel?) mockery, or basic ignoring. To me, etiquette is not usually kindness, but a bunch of anxious bluster and suave movements meant to distract from what gets said. Candor is closer to kindness, to me.