KDNK Carbondale Radio Features Poets of the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival

A posse of poets—Eric Walter, accompanied on guitar by his gifted son, Jacob, Stewart Warren and I—joined Kim Nuzzo of the Aspen Poets Society on KDNK to promote the third annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival at the Thunder River Theatre. What a great time we had sharing our poems and putting out the good word!

To listen to the show, check out Poets March 29, 2013.

While I’m at it, here is a sweet review of the festival worth checking out by Art Goodtimes.

Two-Way Memory Effect

Remember
the shape of heat.
Measure presence—
the slightest
bend in lash
& quick-struck spine,
the pressure of caress,
the pupil gulping wide.

Time no longer
a period
but pleasure—
pleasure a handless
clock the cooling alloy
begs for sleep—
sleep a sweet
new shape.

2013

What London Gave Illinois

At 21, I toted my Mormonism with me to London
where I lived in a flat with gentle Mormon Brits.
They taught me blending in: speak softly, forget white socks,
smash peas with knife against the back of a left-hand fork,
stab meat palm down and calmly jab it up toward the lips.

They shared smart gospel testimonies in crisp accents,
long Häagen-Dazs walks in Leicester and Trafalgar Square.
But beyond their requests for Oreos and Jiffy Peanut Butter,
I’m not sure what I gave them. Still, the trade was fair.

To 30 Coleraine Road and a 31 year old
Northern Irish Mormon, I gave my hard cider chastity.
In exchange, he gave me black stirrup pumps
from British Home Stores for the feet of my new body.

I wore them shyly. I wore them to church—Britannia First.
Then I wore them home, clapping Decatur’s red brick streets.
I wore them in a blues bar and later slid them off like Illinois
in my childhood bedroom where I called that lisping boy
from Pana I’d always wanted and gave him the London in me.

2013

Celebrate National Poetry Month with NaPoWriMo

What better time to focus on your poetry practice? Join us in writing (um, attempting to write) a poem a day throughout the month of April! For details, writing prompts and support, visit NaPoWriMo.

Flame Language

How long do I have to talk with flame-language
about burning and being burned? How long?
~ Rumi, “The Oven’s Question”

I am trying to understand the way
Morning light absorbs your skin, that distant fire,
Turns your highlights blue. You lap me huge

With sky. At high noon the back of your neck
Speaks crackle sheen with no metaphors, strikes new
Language licking up tongues in me, quickening silence.

I can’t wipe these flames from you! Burning
My hands again and again in the same naked place,
I walk away with prism palms, sucking my fingers.

2013

Colorado Calixta

 Outside                       the world

is                                             every   shade

of lazy

white.

My blinds                    are always

drawn

but not

this Christo

night.

I           want

to wake           in my

white               bed

inside

white

walls

And                                         revel

as a seam

of red where

warm

                  blood                           calls.

 Outside                       the world

is                                             every   shade

of lazy

white.

My blinds                    are always

drawn

but not

this Christo

night.

I           want

to wake           in my

white               bed

inside

white

walls

And                                         revel

as a seam

of red where

warm

                 blood                           calls.

Outside           the world

is                                  every shade

of lazy

white.

My blinds                    are always                   drawn

but not

this Christo

night.

I           want

to wake           in my

white               bed

inside                           white

walls

And                                         revel

as a seam

of red where

warm

                   blood                           calls.

Skype’s First Double Jalus

Someday I will be sitting
And you will be sitting
Inside our respective screens

After years watching sound
Move each other’s mouths,
Two mirrors in infant mimicry,

With nothing more to say.

I will laugh when your yellow belt
Finally drops an empty knot
Where your waist used to be

And let my hair fall
A loose headless pile
On lettered keys.

for Geshe Yungdrung Gyaltsen, my English student and Dharma teacher

Small Atmospheres

Light lifts water
Off a parking lot.

Clouds on slick concrete.
Air apparent.

Left to right
Whips white speed.

Then still.
Then not.

Stratus swell.
Cirrus gust.

This chest, wet lot.
You, yellow heat.

2013

72 Degrees

Unlikely snow patch
Hunched in grasses’ slim shadows,
Slip off your white coat.

2013

Guest poet: Geshe Yungdrung Gyaltsen

Flowers prostrate sky.
Clouds pride in it all hiding.
Cried then leaves were fresh.

2013