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Alicia Ostriker
Kenneth Ryan
Gary Corseri
Timothy Liu
Claudia Grinnell
Craig Chisholm
Diane Wakoski
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Agent's Guide
Living in troubled times has brought us an unending supply of sun
You don't know when the stream shrivels to a drop. We learn to always
Make special allowances—and bow down (to at least your knees).
I'm properly socialized, if nothing else. I don't chew with my mouth open
And I don't try to talk when I chew. The first victory is over anything
That melts. This was all prophesied, years ago, it was in all the papers.
We lost the signa
The more precise word
Stolen
Has been stealing
We're not sure
There are conflicting
Signals now
The engine hums
That's a good sign
We love this car just like the salesman said we would. These
People are goods. Any common fishkopf with laundry
On his mind can tell you: load it to overfilling, down means down,
And bless the absence of K. We still bring rocks, small ones
Now, nervously jingling them in coat pockets
In the now five minutes from now the ringmaster will appear
Briefly, hewantstospeakbriefly. Something about a reprimand,
Dereliction of duty, consorting with the enemy. Accidentally
And on purpose, none of the players are dressed, they forgot their instruments.
Maybe we'll hum. Barking seems to soothe the children who moan over small
Letters, missing knives and miscellaneous un-calibrated instruments.
Captain Midnight
This isn't for sensitive ears yet attached to breathing,
Blinking heads. This is best for virginal ears created in labs,
Attached to mice—we let mice do the heavy lifting.
They have an affinity for it and a lack of union
Strength. This sort of arrangement is perfect. Considering
The universal ban on Eden. No to Eden, no to Eve, no to apples
Apple sauce (any apple by-product), apple-producing countries (I'm sure
There are some), and finally, consequentially, the shape round,
The colors red and green which are clearly dominant apple colors.
The ban is not complete but it's a start. We'll go after
Apple cheeks and find new versions—not everything can
Wait till the last second. A 600 page manuscript about an apple
And form free beauty doesn't spring from the dust. Just don't use real people.
Perhaps a gray
Piece of beveled glass. Gray is such a complex color, a democratic color,
Perfect emergence from snow to a sky empty of everything but gray
Available in any color you want as long as it's gray. Something
Worked into a gray that didn't work in any other color: ideas and impulse. Silver
Even contemplates a desert from precious metals, earning the trip
To gray. democratic colors emerge from snow banks piled shoulder high
And growing, still available in any color. Silver
Contemplates deserts of unrealized potential and nobody is at fault.
Such foolishness My Gallant Hero dressed in gray. I shall hound him
For the rest of his living years and years beyond. All this
Might simply be a clash of civilization, if you are given to hyperbole,
Which I trust you are, else you wouldn't still be with me. Tell me,
My friend: how do we get out of this place of soft women
And sweaty nights and cotton burning for harvest?
Claudia Grinnell was born and raised in Germany. She now makes her
home in Louisiana, where she teaches at the University of Louisiana at
Monroe. Her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Exquisite
Corpse, Cream City Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, New Orleans Review,
Review Americana, Triplopia, Logos, Minnesota Review, Diner, Urban
Spaghetti, Fine Madness, Greensboro Review, and others. Her first
full-length book of poetry, Conditions Horizontal, was published by
Missing Consonant Press in the fall of 2001. Ms. Grinnell was the
recipient of the 2000 Southern Women Writers Emerging Poets Award. In
2003, she was a finalist in the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize Competition. In 2005, she received the Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship
in poetry. Visit her website at http://www.ulm.edu/~grinnell/cc.htm.
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