(This Is) Disingenuous Twaddle: 2011

Sunday 25 September 2011

time

DISINGENUOUS TWADDLE IS NOT DEAD

BUT IT IS SLEEPING

Sunday 27 March 2011

#4

dismember all important parts

leave him a bloodied mess of thick glass
shattered in sunlight ---------disorganized in fragments
of hurt

all connected atop of neck is disheveled
a bum head ---------derelict daze ---------thick matted
hairy knots of flesh

and when cleaning

make sure not to dirty your own
clean hands

leave all in pails w/amber soaked mop

wring out all traces of emotion from frame

and no lights on in the rooms where
he spent his life

#6

her coronation ---------speaks
of ariel dancing on the sun

when my in drifts ---------towards her
now as if dirt rallied by wind
the triumph is ---------oblivion w/my
right hand

her dissension
is the freefall of a ---------liquor bottle
shattering into glint ---------off sun

ariel has landed
sinking into a stare as ---------empty
as an idiot ---------who refuses to take in
the last gust of the muses harp

her memory a scattering clutter
in a vacuous free space ---------I cannot forget

Issue eleven// Frank C. Praeger

A Question

A question,
subsequently, another,
pondering
the solemnity to the passage of days,
as even now riots of tansy, knapweed, Queen Ann's lace
make time decay as much an artifact
as unsubstantiated last
sundown's furtherest gleam, or grossest crackle,
cheep or to-wit-to-woo melange
of what -
bird songs,
grace?

Where goest thou who on another day
was I but am not but now
listed as missing,
yet, rested.
Enough.
A scattering of sounds
and further on, ----ashes.

Issue eleven// Ted Jean

Rectification

---… construction on the Hawthorne Bridge
---has things backed up to the Central Ex …

You found again love long mislaid,
where last you left it, home,
bringing a ring to bind what was ever bound.

---… bleeding in the 400 block of SW Mill;
---police are looking for a Hispanic man in his …

Betrayal, it seems, once practiced, is everywhere
apprehended. But, without a hitch,
the golden yoke I greeted, glad, and fastened.

---… an alternate route is advised. On a more
---upbeat note, today marks the kick-off of …

Regret is an astringent rinse, has sharpened
your sight, my sweet, of old love in a new light.

-----
Ted Jean is a recently retired AIG executive. He writes, paints, plays lots of tennis. In the past year, his work has appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Denver Syntax, Blue Earth Review, Cirque, The Centrifugal Eye and several other publications.

Issue eleven// Felino A. Soriano

This is the first of three pieces by Felino A. Soriano for Disingenuous Twaddle.
Look out for the next two in subsequent issues.

Approbations 683
—after Archie Shepp’s 'A Prayer'

Predicated on faithful fingers’
clawing ascended skin of air’s
scaly modification.
----------------------------------------Reach
with voice of swollen child
--------------------------------------------------aching
from primitive hankering of
sedentary movement
----------------------------therefore
absent
---------from
flailing revolutions of
second hand’s
cured notion:
----------------------------time of timid occultation
hurried hands across eyes’
miniscule acronyms
respelling interpreted follies
--------------------------------------------------known by name and
bodily position
isolated by kneeling and
faith’s current alteration.

-----
Felino A. Soriano is a case manager and advocate for developmentally and physically disabled adults. He has authored 34 collections of poetry, including In Praise of Absolute Interpretation (Desperanto, 2010) and Realities of Bifocal Translations (Blue & Yellow Dog Press, 2010). He edits & publishes Counterexample Poetics, an online journal of experimental artistry, and Differentia Press, dedicated to publishing e-chapbooks of experimental poetry. In 2010, he was chosen for the Gertrude Stein "rose" prize for creativity in poetry from Wilderness House Literary Review. His website explains further.

Issue eleven// Howie Good

YELLOW

1
Everybody’s
morning

is different.
A seagull

doesn’t know
that it’s

a seagull,
only we

know that
and that its lidless

yellow eyes
are empty.

2
Only in old movies
do lovers escape

on an ice floe.
Your mind

whispers
to you

something
I can’t hear.

Later,
you’ll use

the worn
rubber nub

of a yellow
no. 2 pencil

to erase what
you’ve just

written.

-----
Howie Good is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Lovesick, and 21 print and digital poetry chapbooks. With Dale Wisely, he is the co-founder of
White Knuckle Press.

Issue eleven// Jack C. Buck

A girl named Savannah

Savannah used to have a fella who would come through her apartment door with an anxious to see you smile. They met at the university. The friends and families celebrated with the two at their summer wedding four years back. They were so excited about life, all the possibilities it had. They even bought a nice home on Elk St. to call their own. Her husband no longer greets her with the boyish smile of excitement when he steps through the door. The door slams shut at 5:21, unless he stops after work to purchase some milk - then it’s around 5:33; depending on who is working behind the cash register on that particular day. Men drive cars. Men watch television. Men drink beers instead of splitting red wine with their once adored wives. Men fuck 19-year-old Asian girls with their right hand in front of the glow of a computer screen. Men stay busy.

-----
Jack C. Buck’s three favorite things in life are baseball, summers in Michigan, and literature. Especially by a man with the last name Fitzgerald. He is currently trying to figure out where to go next in the grand play of life. After attending Central Michigan University where he studied the art of greed and the illusion of democracy of Political Science, he realised thereafter the importance of not getting in a huff and puff about what you can't control.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Issue ten// Rani M. Moesq

Wastage

Dead

Twen

ree

Splat

turd

a fly

a swat

splat

ter

dead!

step

too

far

Gone!

Left

loose

thread

caught

wind

from reaper

Cruel

cut!

-----
Rani M. Moesq has taught English language in a number of countries. She has lectured on aspects of English Literature, has written the book, lyrics and music for two musical comedies and had poetry, short stories, essays and books for children published in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. A member of the New Zealand Society of Authors, she is a full-time writer and is at present working on a novel set in pre and post-war Singapore.

Issue ten// Phylinda Moore

Just Before

a tornado
the air turns green, pink, or sometimes yellow
like a bruise

animals still, birds quiet
listen
in heavy waiting air
watch
steel grey clouds wall across the sky

the animal in you is wary
look
the hook snares the ground

if it comes
sound runs a freightliner over paper
you throw
to the ground– your only,
tenuous hope
and pray
God spare you
this destruction

-----
Phylinda Moore lives in Philadelphia. Journals where her work has
been published include: Bogg, The Rambler, RiverSedge, and Sierra Nevada College Review.

Issue ten// Donal Mahoney

Sitting Shiva in a Hotel Lobby

For a year this image has haunted me.

Over and over I hear on the gramophone

Cohen put in my ear

“Feature this:

On a crowded elevator

a strange woman in a baseball cap

unbuttons your fly.”

That image is on the ceiling every night

as I sit shiva in the lobby

of this small hotel,

a hookah, like a tired cobra,

coiled at my feet,

a shamrock in my buttonhole

dead from the last parade.

Night after night,

I think about this strange woman

as each hour I watch

the doors of the elevator

part and give birth.

I observe each new guest carefully,

hoping the woman in the baseball cap

will tire of the rain and ride up

in the elevator and register.

I want her to sit in the lobby

and talk with us.

We who are guests here forever

have eons to hear

what she has to say.

We have paid our rent in advance.

We can afford to sit here and see.

-----
Donal Mahoney has worked as an editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. A Pushcart nominee, he has had poems published in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Public Republic (Bulgaria) and Revival (Ireland).

Issue ten// Garrett Ashley

Nell

He says, "Plans are only ruined as they are made."

I say, "We have a week to worry, long enough to rest."

They say, "But it may rain, or something. The wind

Will pick up and catch us having fun."

I say, "So we will reschedule."

They say, "We shouldn't make plans at all."

He says, "Plans are only ruined as they are made."

She says, "The tents are packed and the wind will blow

Them away.

I say, "Let the wind blow, that is the way of nature."

They say, "We'll have blankets, and a fire if it's too cold."

I say, "And darkness to protect us from the animal and the stranger."

My mother comes into the room, tears on her cheeks, she says,

"Nell is dead; there was a gas leak, now they're all gone."

I say, no I think—we think—maybe it's better

That we never make any plans at all.

Reflection

Blue is the ugliest color, mercury

Blue with a hint of delight

And a fusion of circumstances

I have not controlled.

The color of an eye—not a pair, one

Open pupil wide, seeing

Through the angry lines, but

Never hearing, it turns white,

And loses sight, deserving, probably.

I hope that eye never loses

The memory of the things it has seen.

-----
Garrett Ashley lives in MS and studies English at The University of Southern Mississippi. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in more than a dozen publications including Brain Harvest, The Bloody Bridge Review, The Smoking Poet, and M Brane SF. Currently he enjoys juggling cats.

Issue ten// Brandon Copeland

On this banal plain

what is that saying?

oh.

darkest before dawn?

and i will keep

holding out my tongue

because each ending

is a different flavor of darkness

no abyss or bliss

just shades of existence,

in the twilight

and the morning repeating

-----
Brandon Copeland, 29, is a social justice activist and writer
originally from Kentucky. His website, Nascence, can be visited here.

Issue ten //Derrick A. Paulson

Scribbled Extinct

This morning at the corner coffee shop I overheard the tail

end of a heated conversation in a booth adjacent to mine

between a triceratops and an astronomer. I had assumed

they were discussing their choices in beverages when I first

sat down, had even snickered to myself at the ironic thought

that this armored dinosaur could be drinking a turtle mocha. I

had also quickly stifled a laugh into the crossword section of

my newspaper at the association between “stargazer”

and “Starbucks” (as well as at the coincidence that the

former was the answer to four across). “It doesn’t matter how

cold it is,” the astronomer said, exasperated. “What’s

important is the size of the thing.” “I, for one, am opposed”

snorted the triceratops, “whole textbooks will have to be

overhauled, forthcoming ones recalled, all because of a

minor classification discrepancy.” “Minor?” repeated the

astronomer, “there’re tons of things that would’ve had to be

considered planetary in our galaxy alone, including some

asteroids, if Pluto had stayed a planet.” “Don’t mention

asteroids,” shivered the triceratops. Then, to regain his

composure, he said coolly: “I thought the term ‘dwarf’ was

dysphemistic in contemporary times?” I sipped my cold

coffee, scribbled “extinct” into fifteen across. “It’s completely

fine to call Pluto a dwarf planet,” said the astronomer, “it’s

not going to get offended and start protesting the IAU

committee’s decision—leave it to the misinformed mass to

do that.” His remark was as pointed as his companion’s

horn’s. “Do you imply that I am missing something?” the

triceratops asked as he rubbed the thinning bone of his frill,

unable to check the agitation in his voice. “Your tenure

doesn’t ensure your competence,” replied the astronomer.

Even I could sense there was something akin to an elephant

in the room. I tried to focus on my crossword, to ignore the

silence that followed. The clue for fifteen down: “Cretaceous

ceratopsid” seemed so familiar, yet, for the life of me I

couldn’t place it. When I looked up again the astronomer

was turning a melting ice cube from his emptied glass over

and over in his hand, and the triceratops was gone.

-----
Derrick A. Paulson (26) is a M.F.A. candidate in creative writing at Minnesota State University Moorhead. His previous works of poetry and prose have been included in Lovechild, Red Weather, and the Gander Press Review.

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