Last Bender

Mayakovsky led me naturally back to Whitman. I remember well being astonished by Whitman in high school. Here was a man in the mid 19th century who saw it all, saw everything. But over the years he became an encrusted classic. Every now and then I would pick up Whitman and sometimes he’d strike lightning, [...]

CHAPTER FOUR
Monozone was a quiet place at seven in the morning. I sat in my cubicle thinking, Stronghole is not a bad man. Anyone’d want to work with him. He had a good reputation. And that was amazing in an outfit like this. We sometimes pissed side by side or shared an elevator. Two years [...]

 Outtakes
 
 
 
 
 
the rain
it’s bouncing
off the glass
starting to run
to gutters
 
 
 
garbage hesitates
then budges
before sliding
on asphalt
into twigs
and twilight
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the clash of laughter
I don’t understand
why Bubba knows the date
and I don’t
 
 
 
at 23 past the hour
running late
on May 19th, 1993
 

Wi The Haill Voice
 
25 poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky
translated into Scots with a glossary
by Edwin Morgan
Carcanet Press 1972
 
After writing about O’Hara I became intrigued by poets who influenced him and started to read a little Mayakovsky. This reading grew into another post, which I’m still working on. Part of the problem with writing about Mayakovsky is [...]

CHAPTER THREE
 
            I slept most the day as best I could. For supper I fried up ham and cheese on rye in margarine till the crust was brown and crunchy, and drank an orange pop. Then I met my best friend Linda and her husband Mac at The Glory Hole. Linda and I were war [...]

Digging in a Pot
I imagine you bald
digging in a pot
with a spoon
Sunlight
between fingers
cells fight
to fatten the cloth
Remains pile up
books in folds
of sheets and gowns
Too small to wear
the wasted sack
I long ago first tasted
Evening like a peel
of bitter orange
the river’s pewter eddy
sluggish
in the uptown decade
When we
went hand to hand
mouth to mouth
First told
to the quiet strain of [...]

The Laughing God
Last night Maja and I watched McCain and Obama speak at the Columbia University forum on public service. We responded as predicted, scorning McCain’s platitudes and marveling at Obama’s intelligence. One telling difference between the two (as if any sane person needed any evidence of their differences) was in their responses to questions [...]

CHAPTER TWO
            I drove through the security gates of Monozone’s underground garage and into the orange gelatin concrete of Bartholin Plaza. A squat, liver colored sun struggled against the herringbone bay. Garbage trucks trundled down the block.
            The road still bore traces of a double yellow line but no one paid it any mind. Every [...]

Spinning in Bed
 
I forgot
and ran beneath the branches
blowing fog like a cow
 
styrofoam flowers
and strobe light christmas houses
damp paper pumpkins
 
forgot I forgot
and puzzled over fulcrums
of flying and falling
 
can’t remember the why
the names got lost
in the how
 
forgot flying and falling
are not the same things
backwards and forwards
 
saw as I faced the sun
Peter far below
spin and spin [...]

 
           
THE LAST BENDER
 
By Buzz Callaway
 
 
 
Even damnation is poisoned with rainbow.
Leonard Cohen, The Old Revolution
 
 
CHAPTER ONE
Blood. Never have I seen so much blood. It was on the ceiling in big raggedy ovals and splashed on the walls. It formed a vinyl slick across the floor and dribbled off the fixtures of sinks and cabinets and [...]