Poems by Brannen, Kasimor, Folz in Honor of Chapbook Launch Feb. 1

TheAlteredScalePress Triple Chapbook Launch

Fri., Feb. 1

The Bookhouse in Dinkytown

429 14th St. SE, Minneapolis, MN.

USA

Jonathan Brannen-(2 titles) 

                              —SWAY

                             —TURNING POINT
Mary Kasimor—DUPLEX
Terrence Folz—DEAD PARROTS

Jonathan Brannen has published about two dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, prose, and visual poetry over a long career. He is best known for deaccessioned landscapes (Chax). He is also a perceptive country music songwriter, with an excellent cd "time stained streets."

Mary Kasimor has published three full-length poetry collections, including & cruel red (Otoliths). This is her second chapbook, the first being the electronic cruel red (ensemble jourine).

Terry Folz is seeing himself in book form for the first time. He has supported and participated in the Twin Cities' open mic scene for years. 

Purchase books here: TheAlteredScalePress

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House Warming

by Jonathan Brannen

         They had faded into the traces of a modest life but today the police are at the door and no one is smiling. There is a certain strength here, there is the clatter of wooden hearts, there is no convincing form of advertisement. An overt sky descends upon the window as if what's ordinary always makes the impression of ordinariness. There's a resemblance between light and years to someone who's only passing through. In the background, leaning against the blind wall, sleeping guitars and somnambulant musicians are performing some function, perhaps a memory which can't be shaken. What's natural to say in other surroundings, may be unnatural  if said in isolation. And even if this is only conditional, it does say something about the past.

in egg land

                 by Mary Kasimor

fish rust belches out the pacific wearing

a sole of foot  that grew from

bed monsters’ weird

scarce rotating water a soul scape

washes & nibbles & sorry never

not from the view

from thinking large is larger & life

is a hole in the fence

a view & a hole in

the heart between fingers a marble rolled

down a sidewalk be fearless & wary

of chalked philosophies

plato’s tongue unwinds

he spat into the wind

it didn’t talk back 

escape in symbols

the drummer donates the heart

to body bursting

enlightenment a dim light heart

in hallways at night blood

& darkness blue in light

non-oxygen from

hard times flaming in decision

& gun fluorescent a totemic

tree blazing lawn lingering

inside curtains gigantic tale of

small hands & feet tongue stuck

to a tree growing into the bark

another baby missing

bird got away 

Untitled

by Terry Folz

I.   Dead letter carry-on.

     Pigment parcel mandate.

     Genuflect.

     And spit conniving

     picture-paint spatters.

     Beefhearts feed cast members.
     And no one goes home alone.
     Pray for the parrots
     in the rectory.
     Telegram edicts paper the windows.

II.    Lapdogs.
       I am isolated in box fear.


III.  Joggers on the treadmill.
       Manuscript for radial pain.
       I fold dilapidated picture postcards
       inside the pages of a temperate rain magazine.
       Calling cards optional and extraneous.


IV. I kick my way through
       broken puzzle cardboard.
       Sitting white and cold.
                                                        2012