Truck's new driver for July

Many thanks go to Lars Palm for wheeling us through June. 


Big greetings to Elizabeth Switaj, who'll be at the wheel for July.

lars palm signing out

i have now completed my month behind the wheel. it's been great fun & i'm curious to see who will drive in july. thank you Halvard for this opportunity

Susana Gardner

FROM SONS AND LOVERS

That’s not the same as marrying her      Very

                                                           Well

                                                                 Very

                                                           Well

            And awfully nice

There was silence

HIS &

HER      affair was—

Like a fire fed on books

If there was no more volumes it would die out—

She could read him like a book

Could place her finger on the chapter and the line.

Very well

                       Well ,well

Very.

Very well then. Well well very. Very very well. Well
Well very. Well very well, indeed. Well well very well. Well very well very well very well very well well well Very very well very not the same not the same as marrying Her. No, not the same as marrying her awfully nice—SILENCE SIGH well well very very well AFFAIR indeed well well very CHANCE, very very well a fair indeed. INDEED HIS &HER like a fire fed on books, every line precise— a fired book on HIM. She placed her finger on—laced her finger on chapter and the line of him. The line. Very well then. The line: Well well very. Very very well well well well well well well well well well well well well very.

from Sons and Lovers

                  after Holly Pester

HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art. SHE was busy washing up.

While HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art. SHE was busy washing
up. Gradually, He was making it possible to earn a livelihood by art, while SHE was busy washing
up. While HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art. SHE was busy
washing up. Busy, SHE, washing up… He, gradually, was making it possible to earn a livelihood
by his art. SHE was busy washing up and HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood
by his art. Making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art, SHE was busy washing up, While

HE was gradually…By his art… making it possible to earn a livelihood as SHE was busy washing
up While HE was Possibly gradually making it… earning a livelihood by his art. SHE was busy

washing up While HE was SHE was HE was SHE was SHE was HE was SHE was SHE was HE

was SHE was SHE was HE was SHE was busy SHE was busy SHE was busy SHE was busy SHE

was busy washing up. HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art While

SHE was busy, While HE was gradually making it possible washing up to earn a livelihood by

His art. SHE was busy washing up. HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood

by his art, while SHE was busy washing up. While HE was gradually art and making it possible

to earn a livelihood by his … SHE Gradually, He, possibly, making it to earn a livelihood by...

SHE… SHE was busy washing up. HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by

SHE was busy washing up his art. Busy washing up washing up washing up his art was SHE.

HE gradual, making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art, While SHE was busy washing up…

SHE was busy washing up. SHE was washing SHE was busy washing SHE was busy washing up.

Chris Pusateri

Poem Four (Musée Picasso)

I remember crying

            in the reflection of

the mirror

           I remember

I despise hats. There were many hatted women

in paintings I liked, (I remember)

three women

           at their toilet, an interesting choice of words.

(I would, I remember, have translated it differently).

I remember a black boot, very clearly,

          then a reflection of memorable blue.

A vase of flowers, universally designed.

The clay wore pajamas fashioned from maps, its language UnEnglished,

           its continents blurry. It’s not, but my memory is,

blurry – disfocused. Small Asian child doing poses, that to her

are not poses, are not even

the memories of yoga, I suppose.

I remember the light

and how much less yellow

it was when I left the room.

Because of the blue, because of the difference in translation, I remember.

Different, yet again, because

of the distance.

My memory takes notes

as if this were a test, I ember

in memory a remembrance,

a glow

I wish had been only Picasso,

but was instead

Rosenberg, Apollinaire,

woman as cello,

           mute, Google-proof.

Three from When Jazz Was The Capital of Alaska

The device would like you to wait.

The device would like you to continue waiting.

The device now has information for you.

Sometimes you wish

for something lighter

than sad maroon

or the subatomic black

of matte glint finish,

the suicide,

the infanticide,

the affliction

This is where objects sit

and await their destinies;

they are calm, almost stately,

with a feeling of quiet insanity permeating them,

unable to perish without nature’s permission

The edges fray first

Like there’s any connection

between good posture and moral rectitude.

A certain fractal

that colors as it turns, the pinwheel, the matter, the coming together

He uses one font for expressions, another for speech

Only his eyes are smiling

You don't want

what I'm hiding,

says the mother bird

as the   fox      draws near

What we

wanted

to find

wanted

to be found

Each time you spoke,

a document was created

The present is nothing more than anagrams of history

Mark Lamoureux

SHAVASANA

The day is glass

Hubris of named hours

A mantra powerful as a plant

What if the dead could vote?

The mighty limbs

The black nerves of the earth

Frame an isthmus of static

Blue & nostalgia the language of sundogs

Pools purple sugar

Water & the insect limbs of sweat

Discomfit a crown of daisies

A ring of poppies a corpse in the sun

Ringing. Silver slash of meteors

& pulverized diamonds

Dip of a beak, a proboscis

Into the moonstone vein

The clear eyes of fireflies

A fire in the dawn heat

A heart

The herm of a second

(LOVE IS LIKE) A HEATWAVE

after Martha Reeves & The Vandellas

Age comes on in the spring

inside                       a black egg

what happens to you

has no shape                       a slick

of magnolia tongues

a red old bruise on the flagstones

silky crush on strangers’ feet

somehow the humans keep coming

like it never gets old

the brass loop of fortune           every

available bird to the old

unreported dead tree           an orgasm

of ink on the grey

lawn            it’s always unawares

the cold of the salt sea the               wick

effect on the lake           the fires

burn on little boats in the dark

kaleidoscope          its bone tube

in the cloud rabbits          golden

for the age           not much

to complain about          because not

too much thought given          too many

laborious green flames

Diviner

The coffee is for the blackness

of the distended night, its two fucking

minds X-ing at a scissor-point.

This preening is a ritual death

repeated on the hour; the bolts

carefully plucked from the quiver

& broken across the knee.

Even Jackson Pollock staring

into his own raked face

the painting could not

destroy it. But even this

is apocryphal, a divining rod pointing not

at water but another rod

pointing up at it from under

the ground.

UTOPIA PKWY

Coltrane’s quotidian

            sun peeling

winter off everything

                      still cold

blue                but not me,

          a closed system

you might say—

                     my skin

is thick ,        but still

           the sun peers

inside & does its violence.

                      If I cannot

be human,

           why must I be

mortal?                     It’s black coffee.

              It’s legerdemain.

Consider this plain

            100,000 years thence—

wouldn’t it be easier

           to just eat things

from the grass & have nothing

           to say?

Because I honestly

           have nothing to say;

you will begin to drift

          toward

                     the margins, all lit up

by the day

           like it could not be

any different; some

           make a big deal out

of shutting up—

                                 I don’t.

SUN SHIP

Sun ship

           for a bier

Stone grey heads nod

           goodbye

Stars melt

          into a joke

                    a line of feathers

into the next universe

           It will be

                      nothing

like writing

                    A cradle

of atoms

                    A voice

A call

                   A gold circle

of the others expanding

           like a song

Patricia Carragon

subways

In this underworld,

my mood gets lost

in bullshit.

All streets and avenues

fell off the map I carried

since childhood.

The subways to my aorta

have different routes

under destruction.

I study new schedules,

but not one fits my mood.

Your perpetual eclipse

caterwauls on rails

& ingurgitated promises

travel via express.

The (E)sophagus takes them

to the rear end tunnel.

Your trust prefers the 3rd rail

& I switch for the (E) line

at 23rd & Ely.

Rubber Duckies

   

                        

                         rubber duckies, rubber duckies,

                         go down waterfalls, go down waterfalls,

                         over stoned walls, over stoned walls

                         into foam, into foam.

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim.

                         beer, beer

                         drips down waterfalls, drips down waterfalls

                         over stoned walls, over stoned walls

                         into foam, into foam.

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         happy, happy in beer,

                         happy, happy in beer.

                         lime slices, lime slices,

                         slide down waterfalls, slide down waterfalls,

                         over stoned walls, over stoned walls

                         into foam, into foam.

                         lime slices, float in beer, float in beer, float in beer,

                         lime slices, float in beer, float in beer, float in beer,

                         happy, happy, blub, blub,

                         happy, happy, blub, blub,

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         happy, happy in beer,

                         happy, happy in beer.

                         lifeguards, lifeguards

                         dive down waterfalls, dive down waterfalls,

                         over stoned walls, over stoned walls

                         into foam, into foam.

                         lifeguards slurp it up, slurp it up, slurp it up,

                         lifeguards slurp it up, slurp it up, slurp it up,

                         drown happy in beer, drown happy in beer,

                         drown happy in beer, drown happy in beer,           

                         lime slices float in beer, float in beer, float in beer,

                         lime slices, float in beer, float in beer, float in beer,

                         happy, happy, blub, blub,

                         happy, happy, blub, blub,

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         rubber duckies swim, swim, swim,

                         happy, happy in beer,

                         happy, happy in beer.

Jeroen Nieuwland

A try at raising raven

She grips the death of the bird lying bent out of shape, on a patch of grassy root; she has the bird by the wing; it has her by the fingertips; the wing folds back out as if one half lazarus; she calls it crow but does not know its proper name. An air, full with vacuum, from taut brightness of all sun. The feeling like her deep-inside shrill goddamn Descartes-man. The cloudless sky, tired, languid; the open sky, the openness around of field, and space for endless traveling sound that comes in flits & streaks of crisp, broken, horizontal sheets. She hangs herself. She climbs a partway tree; rests the broken raven onto a gnarling branch; two wings out for balance; expedited take-off. She hangs her front half back half over of the branch; angles from drapery to stiff upper body, knees tucked slightly inward, rudders; stretches flaps & wings her arms. For learn to fly, for learn the bird, for fly within the sky,

A try at cracking raven skull

Whether, if, might; whether it might. She is trying for a certain noise. The bones of the thing were already cracked; to the dust of the bones of the thing. She is testing, for one, a certain sound and, too, a grind of dust; a strip & slide of what does happen. It means, she cracks the skull against a root, she smacks the skull against a cement pavement. she does not do it for discomfort; this comfort; she rattles wracks & rats the skull; runs rats right thru, flit fast than said; the crow it twitches tenses; all she only did at first, is only look at. She cracks bones, shuffles dust, breaks her big bird test stuff. She cracks more bones, she shuffles dust, she mucks up big her bird test stuff; patches, smudges of big bird, flatter into a muck of shuffled dust; desists, interlaced with quiet panic, she tries to calm the goddamn open sky, it only widens vertigo, as if the sky at same time, zooms in, & steps mega back. She wishes at this juncture, near this root & concrete patch, a murder of crows, like feathers of a bird, was spread, in such an epileptic style, so she could try, in many times, the many ways a crow’s skull cracks, the dust grinds bones, the sun gets caught in beads, or twitch, or flitted feathers. Fatigued with bore, she gets; lands belly first, nose, forehead, flat on a patch of grassy root. Spreads arms flattens arms, outwards, flat into the dirt. Stretches legs, pushes toenails, into topsoil. Forgets her mind of mess of mucky feathers; becomes instead all twitcher, feeble flap, turtle flipping on its back; vacillations out of whack,

Petra Palm - images of Mulhouse

as it's a week ago today since we flew north

Petra's socialphotographer blog

Pansy Maurer-Alvarez

PERCEPTION

Heads flung back, their voices float

looking back on it, I’m lying

that I should see      (what bird/tree?)

much less something you sounded

urgent barely above a whisper, so I cast you

faintly seen from afar into doubt, you became

open space that lovely view shimmering across

Its only a leap

horseman in a sunbeam

but it feels so true, I’m charmed and wavy

associated with emerald, sapphires, fire

and opals like an agitated lover, an outsider

taut and incandescent, sucking words out of speeches

There’s confusion in the sequence of events

in this part of the country

it slips (or does it swell?) slippery in a swell swoon

having it done for you is not to you, unclaimed      home bound

An embrace has stunned me, rehearsal laughter

rooms in the infinitive, where the plot is poured on

I become rough and take on polyps – a poetic line

tomorrow and finally    we

I walked into the red room in a frenzy

your confessions, too, were weary and lapsed

hitting the floor hard

otherwise this stone       this curved breast

or paintbrush or strand of hair

descends layers of mating calls, the sutures aching

A word like chaperone stripped bare      extends

an intimate droplet

lusterless and amiss, the beauty of it

MOODY STUNNING LOOKS

In a strange sounding language I measured

heroism smudged with hypochondria

as you sensed your opportunity making its way

through my lunar cycle       I want to meet you!

Oh, “I want to meet you” is merely a piece of sexual pleasure

Beguiling paramours alight and slip       neck & head, wrists & throat

impede an angular collapse in heaps      Oh bracing heart!

An eyelash is an enchantment, an inner space

the shape of      slit      cantos       cunt      cusp      uncut jewels

the road through      wrenches free from flux

and ease, erases and shrivels

up your demeanor, your fascinating

large-format fumble

Elsewhere

the industrial landscape of Iceland

is encrusted with full-throated flyovers, oil refineries

wedding trumpets and tiny lights that swab

a promise      what looks like a

tinge

UNMISTAKABLY

Imperceptible and without realizing, we splayed kiss marks

on all the rooms, thus reinventing appealing spaces.

Without a backward glance, without you noticing

I turned around to admire these melodramatic noises.

What stars (unraveling)      What misgivings (feathery)

clustered in veiled circumference, this nomadic sequence!

Outskirts of a hastened ride spell a textural thicket:

shell, bone, feather, bare chest, hair pigment

flared out reflections, lizards and chalk, cranes

native of Flanders, a bellyful wielding, caught in.

Part of this is panting, tepid and predetermined

like a nasal voice or the shape of a palm of a hand

and part is clenched in accordion folds

opening over the linear lowlands of agitated sea fowl.

But what downy bracelet of crotch, pelvic burrows slide!

What meticulous soft impressions happened that night!

Sarah Lariviere

dear reader,
in publishing these pages from Sarah's lovely chabook i make the one exception to my rule for this month on not republishing things
             enjoy,
              your guest editor