Xphrasis at Salon X: Friday April 25th, 2014

Hanging the Show

Aral, by Jennifer Acampora

Aral 

I am in love with sky and the land under it

the way one mirrors

the other

the way the trees reach up and rain trembles

down tender / harsh / lush.

The way it was once with your body

my garden, squirreled away    the dearest

freshest things.

I want them all encircled   safe       

            the tiny bird

               the leaf

      frogs    honeybees

 every fourth mammal

There is so much… …

There are oceans.   Our actions are definite.

The way out of despair

 is heroism.

the heroic.  but I

despair

and my impulse to encircle —

false?               true?

The cosmos that bloom    I planted them

my hand.    

The way the branch arcs, pleads…

I loved that spiraling, that symphony

which is to say    I loved.

It was your face then, brown and before me

the way light plays the tree’s music.

Anthropophagy by Johanna DeBiase, in response to Amphibian by Randall LaGro

Randall Lagro

                                            
       Anthropophagy
       by Johanna

       I began like this: smooth, peach, two-legged. Only yesterday, it seems, it was this way, leaning over counters, walking through doors, sitting in chairs. I wore galoshes in the rain, cowered under eves. I faintly remember a kiss, pink, soft, wet, but not like this wet, not damp and murky, but moist and warm. How can I forget? I thought about that kiss every waking moment, wondering where I had lost her, how she had enchanted me.   

        The change was slow, so slow I almost didn't notice, until the scales on my back reached over my shoulders. I hid myself indoors, listening to outside noises, cars, chainsaws, barking, but as my limbs shrunk and the green skin enveloped me, the noises no longer made sense. I crawled from my bed one morning to the hallway mirror. The transformation was complete, my eyes hooded and dark, my teeth long and sharp, my tail. I was trapped inside for days until someone came looking for me. I didn't recognize her though she called my name, at least I think it was my name. I knocked her over as I ran past, her screams echoing the length of the corridor. She will assume the obvious; I was consumed.

            On the street, pedestrians jumped from my way. My feet and my nose, my skin and my tongue, all lead me to this marsh where I dove in, mouth open, and swallowed everything in my path. Now, I covet the dark, the shallow mud, and cattail reeds. I am awaiting her return. She will know where to find me, but will I still remember?

Join us at Salon X in Taos, NM

Minimal #1 by Joseph Edwards with responses by Shawna Williams and John Biscello

She opens her mouth to receive...grace.
She bites down hard to taste...grace.
She is alone.
She is hungry.

-Shawna Williams





Reading between the line
the teacher's electromagnetic pet
pulsing yellow on the blackboard--
i must make love empty sublime
i must make love empty sublime
i must....
-John Biscello 

Fiesta at the Siesta by Tera Muskrat with Response by John Biscello

Homey fingerlock love
& pop & play that blue fiddle,
that funky music, brown
& rightboy, know what ahm
sayin--No, eh?--well
what ahmn sayin is grace
ten times over, 80-proof
cuz all dem sin-yoo-reetas
& fools know that
a rose
between Carmen's teeth
is a rose
is a rose,
no?

The Event of Literature by Erin Currier

Ampibian by Randal LaGro with Rivers by Jen Acampora

                                                  
       Rivers

       I want mangrove swamps

       hot indolent humidity

       languid tangled under

       growth low and lush

       backwater bayous.

       Be thankful, the rio says

       here in the clear-bright air

       for the hard blue horizon

       and the sudden rush of rain.

       But I know this shallow singing.

       Thin and reedy, a thread

       in the prickled hills winding

       through pebbles and thorns

       transparent, clean, quick.

                                                   
       Not deep and groaning
       not full-bellied with secrets
       sorrow-soaked bones

       and warm amniotic murk
            
       I want the Susquehanna

       the Delaware, the Hudson
       the muddy Maumee
       slow with rot and flesh.

       giant carp washed along

       its banks, empty eye sockets gaping

       I want to open that watery coffin

       to delve dark in that unknown liquid.