Stephen of Lindow took his MFA at Umass-Amherst 2004. He has been writing and performing poetry since 1986. In 1997-98 he toured with Poetry Alive!, Inc. His poems have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Bateau & Meat For Tea. He was a poetry editor for The Naugatuck Review from 2010-11 and slam judge at Western New England College. While in L.A. in 2012 he created poetry films from his laptop, & published poems in ARTillery, Bad Robot Poetry & Penumbra. He is a SCUBA diver,
urban explorer & noisician[sic] who performed Kurt Schwitters's 'Ursonata' with Dadaist group
in Holyoke, MA. He lives in Florida.
* * *urban explorer & noisician[sic] who performed Kurt Schwitters's 'Ursonata' with Dadaist group
in Holyoke, MA. He lives in Florida.
ABBREVIATIONS OF THE WORLD
I.
An angel emerges from a baroque cloud
and alights atop a railroad obelisk.
Our environment shifts this angel
from echo to mirage, mirage to neon, neon to echo.
and alights atop a railroad obelisk.
Our environment shifts this angel
from echo to mirage, mirage to neon, neon to echo.
Trees play their violins. Yellow-jackets swarm
cornering the angel with the happy violence of their tiny bayonets,
desperate to share their memorized mazes to sugar.
II.
cornering the angel with the happy violence of their tiny bayonets,
desperate to share their memorized mazes to sugar.
II.
The wind gathers its ragged nightgown to a horizon
lined with astronomical observatories. Lightning traces
the sky in reverse like the fine etchings of sex on old coins.
A god of snails raises one horn in apology, the other in forecast.
III.
Innocence draws sympathy from us like a tool.
lined with astronomical observatories. Lightning traces
the sky in reverse like the fine etchings of sex on old coins.
A god of snails raises one horn in apology, the other in forecast.
III.
Innocence draws sympathy from us like a tool.
There's an uncia of murder in the music box.
Another abbreviation has begun.
* * *
Another abbreviation has begun.
* * *
CHAPTERS FROM AN UNWRITTEN NOVEL
Chapter 6 - Dogs Do Not Have Coincidences
Chapter 3 - Everything That Clitoris Is Gold
Chapter 12 - Silence Doesn't Listen To Me Anymore
Chapter 4 - Sleep Is A Liquid On Other Planets
Chapter 5 - Dinosaurs Do Not Believe In God (Hell Is Rampant With Dinosaurs)
Chapter 8 - Pinochle At Interrogation Falls
Chapter 20 - In The Blind Child Area
Chapter 1 - A Horse Called Alphabetical To Win
Chapter 15 - To Drink From The Planetarium's Bubbler
Chapter 7 - Dear Monet,
Chapter 9- Fertilizer For Darkness
Chapter 10- Ptolemy's Cedar Forest
Chapter 2- Giraffe Is The Verb For 'To See'
* * *
* * *
POEM TO ANOTHER ONE OF MY POEMS
As on the day you coagulated on the page, dear poem,
I have been trying to get out of your way. So?
I sit for your encounter. So to become a metaphor of myself.
Poem, you make my face hot and sparkly. You baptize
my imagination with papier-mache. My mythic membership
to your identity transplant is complete.
The poems I write are under the conquered language
of surveillance. Last night, the poem swung like a giant magnet
through my sleep like a pendulum. My heart, symphonic oblivion.
You give me the capacity for the noise of fire. Give me the breath
for another poem on fire. Me, the coincidence of your destiny.
I don’t ask you to address my experience. The poem travels
outside itself. It is not fantasy. Its invention breeds like light.
My voice is not the voice of the poem. It has taken over
like a virus. I am not where the poem takes place.
I see the silence of oncoming poems. They hesitate, circle
and question me. The unknown. The zany. The sublime.
All with sincere pointing. Here. My wavering handwriting,
collapsing as if sucked by secret whirlpools. Super-abundantly
a product of the immediate direct expression of the noiseless
object within me. I write poems with revenge over the third hand I used to have.
As on the day you coagulated on the page, dear poem,
I have been trying to get out of your way. So?
I sit for your encounter. So to become a metaphor of myself.
Poem, you make my face hot and sparkly. You baptize
my imagination with papier-mache. My mythic membership
to your identity transplant is complete.
The poems I write are under the conquered language
of surveillance. Last night, the poem swung like a giant magnet
through my sleep like a pendulum. My heart, symphonic oblivion.
You give me the capacity for the noise of fire. Give me the breath
for another poem on fire. Me, the coincidence of your destiny.
I don’t ask you to address my experience. The poem travels
outside itself. It is not fantasy. Its invention breeds like light.
My voice is not the voice of the poem. It has taken over
like a virus. I am not where the poem takes place.
I see the silence of oncoming poems. They hesitate, circle
and question me. The unknown. The zany. The sublime.
All with sincere pointing. Here. My wavering handwriting,
collapsing as if sucked by secret whirlpools. Super-abundantly
a product of the immediate direct expression of the noiseless
object within me. I write poems with revenge over the third hand I used to have.