Do RÓS

My heart beats for you.
Whether bodhrán or door slam.
It's all-about-sound.

Actually,

what I'd like to do, love, now
the two of us have met
is go away somewhere,
stare, listen to your breathing,
accept the unlikeliness.

Instead,
I tidy myself away,
regroup, go home,
write a short poem.

SoundEye Festival of the Arts of the Word presents:

Sat July 5th 9pm

couscous@meades

Scheduled Open Mike hosted by Mairead Byrne:

Mairéad Byrne; Anamaria Crowe Serrano; Jimmy Cummins; Daniel Ereditario; Gabriel Ezutah; Susana Gardner; Fergal Gaynor; Kenneth Goldsmith; Randolph Healy; Trevor Joyce; Judy Kravis; Frances Kruk; Jow Lindsay; Nour Mobarak; Micheal O Ruairc; Sophie Robinson; Cathy Wagner

Free

Meade's Wine Bar (upstairs)
126 Oliver Plunkett Street
Cork

soundeye

Please forward

if at first you don't succeed try again

if at second you don't succeed try again
if at third you don't succeed try again
if at fourth you don't succeed try again
if at fifth you don't succeed try again
if at sixth you don't succeed try again
if at seventh you don't succeed try again
there is no end to the fun in life

Mark Milloff & Mairéad Byrne present:

Tues 6/24
couscous@tazza
MUSIC 8.30-10pm
Blues with Jim Chapin & Henry Gould; Mark Milloff
POETRY 10-11pm
Mairéad Byrne; Stuart Blazer; Peter Covino; Justin Katko (screen@tazza), Clea Liquard; PJ Rountree
MUSIC 11pm-midnight
METROPOLIS
tazza
Free

awake
to see
unwelcome date
george carlin
d. 6/22/08

Sometimes a look

Sometimes a look can sculpt a person. So that you see them & know them & seem to touch them all at once. You're doing nothing but looking, that much is sure. They don't even notice. Most times we don't have time to look like that. We check or scan, not really looking at all. But sometimes, on a deck, on a Saturday at noon, we look & we see & it is unforgettable. We take away something to which we can return.

poetry

i will bury my rough heart in you

& you will cover me

like nutritious soil covers

the zinnia seed

soul

otis doesn't know
the hand he's extending
is grasped
by mine

poetry

i know

i can bring

every heavy thing

here

WORDS CHUNKS OVER PARKING LOT

Laurie Anderson is speaking in the parking lot. She is on a podium, wearing a velvet hat. Her face shines between the hat & a black refrigerator-shaped robe. Other small faces shine towards hers—faces of women & men, like lenses, terraced on the podium. In the parking lot, thousands of people are listening. Their eyes, ears, brains, even the palms of their hands, are open. Ten years ago, says Laurie Anderson. And now: one in every hundred Americans is in prison. Her voice laps towards us from her faraway face. The parking lot becomes greyer, realer. It is like that moment when you come out of the water & you realize you are cold. In the air above us, protruding from the radiant sky & latched, like Trotsky's ice-pick, into our breathing-space, the gigantic word: WAR. And tumbled beside it: PRIVATIZATION. And of course PRISON SYSTEM. Above the warm crowns of our heads an impending furniture which calls for walls, & a roof.

Mark Milloff & Mairéad Byrne present:

Wed 5/28
sizzle@thehi-hat
OPEN: Arvid Tomayko-Peters & Friends (7-8pm)
SIZZLE: Mairéad Byrne, Stuart Blazer, Randy Bretzin, Marlon O. Carey, Chris Monti, Jonathan Bonner (poetry/music 8-10pm)
CLOSE: Mark Milloff w/ Sit Down Baby (10-11.30pm)
the hi-hat
Free


Tues 5/27
couscous@tazza
MUSIC 8.30-10pm
Henry Gould & Jim Chapin; Mark Milloff
POETRY 10-11pm
Mairéad Byrne; Cara Blaine; Jay Biethan; Randy Bretzin (big screen); Bill Carpenter & Ira Schaeffer; Murphy Chang; Christopher Johnson
MUSIC 11pm-midnight
METROPOLIS
tazza
Free

GOOD JOKE

Then I took a day off.

Then I'll take a day off.

Then I'll probably take a day off.

Then if there's time I'll take a day off.

Then with a bit of luck I'll take a day off.

Then it would be fantastic if I could take a day off.

Then I'm going to try to take a day off.

Then I'll take half a day off.

What I was thinking of

actually was a cup of

coffee before work

how great is

that

poetry

writing
that formulates
a concentrated
imaginative
awareness of
experience
in language
chosen &
arranged
to create
a specific
emotional response
through meaning,
sound &
rhythm

hands & knees

in my blog all day
weeding

Mark Milloff & Mairead Byrne present
Tues 4/29

risdcouscous@tazza
MUSIC 9-10pm
Paul Rishell & Annie Raines!
POETRY 10-11pm
Rick Benjamin! Mike Gizzi! Zoe Latta & Silvie Deutsch! Jessica Laser! Kat Lawlis-Stephanie Baur-Si Huang-Carolyn Spinney! Kathryn Tedesco! Keith Waldrop! Wendy Walters!
MUSIC 11pm-midnight
METROPOLIS!

Tazza
Free

what passes for thinking

catching balloons
floating by

in the celestial penal colony

background air stitched to the brim
w/ the rancid thump-thump
of the kind of sewing-machine
that sews lips shut

privileged prisoners
make words out of pale suns
butterscotched prisms
immaterial coils
like transparent pizza dough

I run through Providence
w/ a much younger man
clambering into each other
down tumbled streets

past the hexagonal theater
designed before perspective

Are you from Providence?
I huff onto him, swarming
& he slips w/ a smile

we run on, Dionysian
through Apollonian streets
Apollonian down Dionysian

his skin a broad street
I skateboard upon

axled w/ smiles
mine like a condom
I slip over his

deliberate
desire

amazon has recommendations for you

finally in tune
w/ the larger culture

OKAY,

so which do you care most about—
the bitternesses of the past or say—
your jeans?

I dunno.
I feel pretty strong about
my jeans.

fun

driving
music
clothes
hot tub
food
wine
sleep

elaboration of fun

jumping in the car on Sunday afternoon
Sonic Youth!
Levi's! Levi's! Levi's!
with incense & candles
yum
yum-yum
yummy!

not fun

rooting in my bag for stuff
calling around video stores looking for Slam or Slam Nation & getting weirded out
    spelling titles to guys who say "Flam as in Frank" not knowing if it's my accent or
    maybe a race or poetry thing & why the hell do none of the libraries or rental
    stores have it anyway
Sunday parking at the mall
driving past the single parking spot on Sunday at the mall
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

LOVE

I loved my husband with a deep, implacable love, I'm sure, & daily life was just one eighth of the iceberg, with my anchoring love being the dark & solid seven eighths. But what if it were the reverse? What if daily life were the substantial seven eighths, & my love an inverted shark's fin, the great bloated body flipped, rotting in the sun? What if instead of a mighty oak, with a bole of root coursing beneath the houses, my love was a wreath of branches, latticing the sky, its roots a flimsy mesh dusted by topsoil, what then? What if the spreading branches—the daily life—were all there was—but that is contra naturam, in my metaphor system at least, where things have roots & shoots, however the balance lies.

things

for 3 weeks
we were w/o our things;

then the things came
& we were comforted.

half-truth

I used to be normal
but I'm oddening up.

circumference

Christian says without poetry
he wouldn't have seen
so much of the world.

Without poetry
I wouldn't see
so much of this town.

Once upon a time

Last night I woke & drank the clock. I was thirsty & it was on my bedside table. What a mouthful. I kid you not. You haven't had a lump in your throat till you've swallowed a bulbous alarm clock. Then of course I couldn't get to sleep with the ticking. Mighty strange sort of sparkling water, I grant you that.

poetry

my robust & fragile art,
robust enough
to carry
me / fragile
enough to need
carrying.

A MAN EATING AN APPLE

A man eating an apple on Hope Street is still eating an apple on Hope Street a crisp red apple on Hope Street & 5th being eaten by a man still in a sky blue shirt a white-haired man with a white moustache & a smile eating an apple on Hope Street a friendly man with a white moustache & a sky blue shirt eating a crisp red apple on Hope Street & 5th & still.

ON BEING A RECLUSE

When you are a recluse things don't just happen. X doesn't know Y who works with Z who knows a great deal on such-and-such. There is no summer house needing a tenant for a cheap week. Or friend of a friend who instals that hot tub you & A can just afford. There is no A & no X, Y, or Z either. Everything stays the same & even that takes monumental energy. You move so quietly through your house you don't even disturb the dust. A lot of people don't know you. You read in a book about a woman carrying biryani to a low table in a room. You want her to think of you. You wish you knew languages. You wish you could do things well. Like Ron Graham solving math problems "in the middle of a back somersault with a triple twist on my trampoline." You write poems but don't publish them because that's better than not writing them at all.

CLEANING

The cleaning you do before you do the cleaning is the cleaning. You do it because people are coming. Visitors are terrifying, not so much in the flesh as the thought of them—that very long stretch before they arrive when you know they are coming. You might have invited them. Like an iceberg, the main part of the visit is over before they arrive. Sometimes you clean because someone is coming to fix something. If it's a plumber, you lie on your back on the floor & clean whatever is visible from that angle. Not your usual perspective. You most certainly clean if someone is coming to clean. Cleaning for someone who's coming to work is easier than cleaning for someone who's coming to stay, generally. Someone who will stay in a room overnight, for example. Or who might want to stand in the kitchen talking to you when you cook. Or might be in rooms when you're not there. The rush is in the rush. You rush to the rush. At what point does the real rush begin?

in ducts, between leaves of books, in nooks

don't hide your poems—
no-one will look
I tell my students
in whom I hide
my secrets