UNDETERRED

by Susan Lewis

By numbers, atrophy,

Time's slow leak.

This idea stirring

Like another birth,

Easy to ignore.

The puzzle of plain speaking,

Pain speaking:

What an animal needs,

Mother and mate,

Maid to order (in the midst of chaos).

Another energy sapped.

The tree of life fingering

The space between

Desire and acceptance.

The standard dose of accommodation,

The standard model of infliction.

Unexplained gratitude

In the event of interruption.

An amplitude of fear.

Fur stroked, stricken.

Pitiful cruelty lashing out

In remorse.

_____________________________

Susan Lewis is editing a gallery of textual poetry for AlteredScale.com 3. Her poetry will also appear in another gallery, edited by Mary Kasimor.


Susan Lewis is the author of  How to be Another (Cervena Barva Press, forthcoming 2013), Commemorative Edition (White Knuckle Press, forthcoming 2013), At Times Your Lines (Argotist e-Books, 2012), Some Assembly Required (Dancing Girl Press, 2011), Commodity Fetishism, winner of the 2009 Cervena Barva Press Poetry Award, and Animal Husbandry (Finishing Line Press, 2008).  Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published in a great number of journals, including Atlanta Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Boog City, Cimarron Review, Eclipse, Fact/Simile, Monday Night, The New Orleans Review, Phoebe, Raritan, Seneca Review, Verse (online), and Verse Daily.  She is Editor of MadHat Press and Managing Editor of MadHat Annual and MadHat Lit. Her website is www.susanlewis.net.

Pyrrhic Victory Celebration

               by Vernon Frazer

the gestural charisma

of a vested intonation seeker 

events past choosing 

dilemma-measured template data

replacement winners

complexion warriors hang

a color-wheeling effigy montage

to mirror its best acclamation 

what festering continued

while battle surgeons failed to heal

a sneaking invitation divested 

_____________________

Vernon Frazer is a regular contributor to this blog. He appears in AlteredScale.com 1 & AlteredScale.com 2. He will also appear in the next issue, coming out in the spring.

delightful expenditure

by Jefferson Hansen

(Click to enlarge and isolate.)

Empire Visions by Dan Ryan

On the edge of change from

the every day

the place to which I’ve been

forever rushin

on my own on the Empire Builder

headin lickitysplit toward

the fabled myth

of

the American west

mad gray afternoons await me

raw, dank, bone marrow wind

Woke at dawn

somewhere east of Rugby

North Dakota covered in snow

imaginin ourselves to be

45 minutes behind schedule

complicitly caught in the illusional

drag of time

when in fact occupying

the great here

and

ever present now

2:45 PM  west of Glasgow

still behind schedule I’m sure

Montana actin like North Dakota

large isolated farms separated by

large isolated space

ring neck pheasant crossing a frozen stream

walkin on water like Zen Master Jesus

passin through another podunk town

name unknown to me

mountains of rusting and rusted

cars, trucks, farm machinery

loitering without permit or purpose

in snow-covered yards and fields

decomposing heaps of rotting metal

disappearing molecule by molecule like

the ’85 Toyota pickup

in the tidewater at Tokeland

all machinery predisposed to

the transitory existence

we bein no different

consisting of even less durable material

4:00 PM  sun goin down on yon horizon

not completely

not yet but movin in that direction

cattle likewise movin toward home in nose-to-ass lines

of varying membership

intuitive intuition

group mindlessness

driven by darkness and hunger

6:22 PM  passin through yet another nameless village

not important enough to bother stopping at

expectin now to arrive in Havre later than expected

by two hours and twenty one minutes

the smokers are desperate and will get their fix

in dark coldness

we’ve lost the light but not the snow

feelin sleepy but nappin not a good idea tho

I’ve had a long day and train ridin on my ass

is hard work

if I were a smoker or a toker I coulda

taken some breaks but

I’m not so I didn’t it not bein worth

stepping off for merely the breath of fresh air

and exercize

into frozen clouds of exhaustive toxity

10:52 PM  pullin out of Minot…why not?

the train bein fuled up

the smokers bein satisfied for now

can’t get to there without leavin here

be it time or place

and now upon happenstance bein

the very time and place for

some sleep action

I agree with myself that it’s time for

my sleepytime wine

under a full moon the train

like a multi-segmented caterpillar

creeps westward

where I’ll re-live in some ways what once was

the me of then havin no relationship to

the me of now

___________________________________

Dan Ryan is a regular contributor to this blog. He will appear in AlteredScale.com issue 3, out in March.

After spending an extensive number of years attempting to save the world from itself while living in Olympia, Washington, I follwed my sweetie to Minnie's Apple Crisp in July, 2012.  Determined to approach life from a more obtuse angle, I am now a thoroughly committed Zen slacker, practicing guilt-free attachment to hanging out in coffee shops, reading all the wrong books, writing poetry, and enjoying other sensual pleasures with my partner. Dan Ryan will appear in AlteredScale.com 3, out in March. 

spelunking gets ya there

by Jefferson Hansen

spelunking gets ya there

                                           no

                                             where

through metaphor

of ceiling &

walls gone

natural

               though

            no place

                     really

                 to

                   go

form of some sort

elastic

what we find ourselves in

always

                        the edge

                          the end of

                 metaphor

                         rock hard

more like balloons

pushing & pulling

in &

outside

interpen-

            etrating

                            but plastic

                    suffocates &

form we slip

move

wall up the side

thinking it all

merely our thing

until something goes

awry or

someone calls

attention

                 this poem stopped

            being

                     what

                   it used

                        to

                          be

Tom Cassidy — Untitled

(Click to enlarge and focus.)

_______________________________

Tom Cassidy's written and drawn works have appeared in hundreds of smallpress and mainstream publications, and in galleries and museums around the world. His works are archived in dozens of art institutions, often under his own name. With John Bennett and Scott Helmes, he co-edited Vispoeology (2007), an international anthology of visual literature for the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, where he also co-curatedNone of the Above in 2009. In 1976, Tom co-founded the Portland performance poetry troupe The Impossibilists, who were reunited in April, 2008 for a series of shows by the Oregon Heritage Commission. He is currently a board member, performer, and curator for Cheap Theatre and Patrick’s Cabaret.

Eleanor Bennett — John 19

(Click to sharpen, enlarge, and isolate.)

_____________________

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 16 year old internationally award winning photographer and artist who has won first places with National Geographic,The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography, Papworth Trust, Mencap, The Woodland trust and Postal Heritage. Her photography has  been published in the Telegraph , The Guardian, BBC News Website and on the cover of books and magazines in the United states and Canada. Her art is globally exhibited , having shown work in London, Paris, Indonesia, Los Angeles,Florida, Washington, Scotland,Wales, Ireland,Canada,Spain,Germany, Japan, Australia and The Environmental Photographer of the year Exhibition (2011) amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010.

Eleanor Leonne Bennett will appear in AlteredScale.com issue 3, out in March.

Chris Bates' Red 5—NEW HOPE (jazz cd)

by Jefferson Hansen

The Twin Cities' jazz scene is dynamic, to say the least. One of the unsung heroes for years has been bassist Chris Bates. This, his first album as a leader, is on fire. Most exciting, to me, is the polyrhythms that pulse and thrum and bounce through most, but not all tunes. Bates and his brother, JT, lay down complex New Orleans-style grooves that make me want to dance, but the music is so complex I don't want to lose anything in the process. What a pleasant quandary! After a listing of the personnel and link to where you can buy the album, are three poems I wrote in response to my three favorite songs.

              Chris Bates—el. & ac. b
              JT Bates—d
              Chris Thomson—ts & ss
              Zack Lozier—tr. & fl.
              Brandon Wozniak—as & ts

               New Hope on Amazon

               Interview with Chris Bates





Dark Matters

elongating bodily into dragging hearts
of gravity
where the pull goes everywhere away
and to the center
somehow
simultaneously
     
ridiculous answers swirl their insufficient
way about the tearing
and trying of
sinew and muscle
and flesh
as the body rips asunder into space
riddled only with cavities


The Jape

smack dap in the middle
we go separate together
and you slide across the dance
floor in your skirt
then suddenly transform
all zig-zaggy
so that arms become
legs legs arms
and your head an ass
you dance jagged and
angular
a cubist mess up
in real time
as I find myself pulled
into the air
and wearing a kilt
swirling as a dervish
the kilt going above
and high exposing me
to you and all
and your ass become
head laughs at my
misfortune

(a bass goes walking

I find myself
back to you wearing pants
and you in your skirt
and we swing holding
tight because right now
we have been reminded
we are all we have


Maliapolis

off-beat answer
could come
      here
  there
        (watch
   out
any
            where

& wait the watch
the unison
click &
clack
the tapping out a
jam
& posture

will we lift
     launch
  land
       bumped awry & gone up
   downwards
boom the bam
     and stammer up
the over

because lift is
lever & lost
is never & pissed
the pocket of
out
in

the side is next to

wallow in waxing
       alt
  er
         na
   tives

_____________________________

Chris and I are working on a gallery to celebrate this album that will appear in AlteredScale.com issue 3, out in March. It should come together just great.

in the end of the end is

by Jefferson Hansen

in the end of the end is

hardly a new beginning

because neural pathways

get solidfied as surely

as cement in the pushing

and pulling of Circadian time

in the end of the end is

waiting for something else

to happen & waiting is a new

thing in itself for someone

used to simply working hard

to get what needs doing done

in the end of the end is

a twiddling and twittering

a radical delay where time puddles

and pools in front behind

beside forming moats

about you and there seems little point

in the end of the end is

hushes and murmers about how

there is only one direction things

can possibly go that whatever doesn’t

kill you makes you stronger that

life never gives you more than

in the end of the end is

a frustration a silence a clicking

dull and relentless at the back

of any room you happen to move

to—inconsistent but relentless telling

you this is it but not it

in the end of the end is

          simple

                      limbo.

Tom Cassidy & John M. Bennett—2 from "Itchy"

________________________

Tom Cassidy's written and drawn works have appeared in hundreds of smallpress and mainstream publications, and in galleries and museums around the world. His works are archived in dozens of art institutions, often under his own name. With John Bennett and Scott Helmes, he co-edited Vispoeology (2007), an international anthology of visual literature for the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, where he also co-curatedNone of the Above in 2009. In 1976, Tom co-founded the Portland performance poetry troupe The Impossibilists, who were reunited in April, 2008 for a series of shows by the Oregon Heritage Commission. He is currently a board member, performer, and curator for Cheap Theatre and Patrick’s Cabaret.


John M. Bennett has published over 400 books and chapbooks of poetry and other materials. Among the most recent are rOlling COMBers (Potes & Poets Press), MAILER LEAVES HAM (Pantograph Press), LOOSE WATCH (Invisible Press), CHAC PROSTIBULARIO (with Ivan Arguelles; Pavement Saw Press), HISTORIETAS ALFABETICAS (Luna Bisonte Prods), among many more.

John M. Bennett appears in AlteredScale.com 2 and will appear in AlteredScale.com 3.

Todd Clouser — One of Top 100 Musicians "On the Verge"

(Click to enlarge, focus, and isolate.)

________________________

Todd Clouser is a regular contributor to this blog and will appear in AlteredScale.com issue 3, out in March.

Todd Clouser Webpage

Eleanor Bennett — John 18

(Click to sharpen, enlarge, and isolate.)

_____________________

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 16 year old internationally award winning photographer and artist who has won first places with National Geographic,The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography, Papworth Trust, Mencap, The Woodland trust and Postal Heritage. Her photography has  been published in the Telegraph , The Guardian, BBC News Website and on the cover of books and magazines in the United states and Canada. Her art is globally exhibited , having shown work in London, Paris, Indonesia, Los Angeles,Florida, Washington, Scotland,Wales, Ireland,Canada,Spain,Germany, Japan, Australia and The Environmental Photographer of the year Exhibition (2011) amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010.

Eleanor Leonne Bennett will appear in AlteredScale.com issue 3, out in March.