Before Grey Filtered Light
SAUL LANDAU
I have begun to
Slip into that night
Good dark dying light
I call upon euphemisms
To disguise the senses
Dismiss the morning ache
I carry them to
Breakfast and to court
Racketball where shadows judge
The game not wooing
Of the ladies when
Shrinkage defines the day
Prolonged Summer heat an
Excuse for sleepless hours
Fears of fragile bladders
Victims of lazy prostates
A whiskey soaked poet
Pleaded for rage rage
Watching love memory blood
Against fading falling twilight
I call up visions
Snow on glacial streets
Winds curling under my
Trousers climbing my spine
Thrills chills challenges mutate
To dread sloth shrugs
Of shoulders to tackle
Sexy stimulants glorious ordeals
The known dead outnumber
The living that newspaper
Page beckons with morning tea
Habitual coffee long faded
With greasy dishes batting
Balls eye feasts before
cataracts filtered light sapped
fury lowered beams – Night
Saul Landau, an Institute for Policy Studies fellow, produced Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up (Cinema Libre Studio). CounterPunch published his Bush and Botox World.
A Module Poem: Directory of Directions
by CHANGMING YUAN
North: after the storm
all dust hung up
in the crowded air
with his human face
frozen into a dot of dust
and a rising speckle of dust
melted into his face
to avoid this cold climate
of his antarctic dream
he relocated his naked soul
at the dawn of summer
South: like a raindrop
on a small lotus leaf
unable to find the spot
to settle itself down
in an early autumn shower
my little canoe drifts around
near the horizon
beyond the bare bay
Center: deep from the thick forest
a bird’s call echoes
from ring to ring
within each tree
hardly perceivable
before it suddenly
dies off into the closet
of a noisy human mind
West: not unlike a giddy goat
wandering among the ruins
of a long lost civilization
you keep searching
in the central park
a way out of the tall weeds
as nature makes new york
into a mummy blue
East: in her beehive-like room
so small that a yawning stretch
would readily awaken
the whole apartment building
she draws a picture on the wall
of a tremendous tree
that keeps growing
until it shoots up
from the cemented roof
A Parallel Poem: The Second Departing
by CHANGMING YUAN
(for William Butler Yeats)
Going, going away in an ever retreating bay
The ebb starts below a quickened sun setting
People swarm here, watching, picking, fighting
Over the fishes, shrimps, crabs, shells, weeds
All left stranded, struggling for waters on the beach
They do not care if darkness stalks right behind
Their shadows, rolling like a tide upon their souls
They care only about the benefits they can gather
The sea produce they can trade with one another
Surely some ignorance is still in proper place
Surely the second departing is taking place
The Second Departing! The very idea stirs in the minds
A huge flock of crows beating their darkening wings
Flapping into the narrow sky of the prolonged history
It’s these crows, these very unidentifiable black birds
That are driving the light beyond the horizon, inner or outer
(Where they have found God as a redundant re-creation
Where they believe they are the right gods for themselves)
Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman and 3-time Pushcart nominee who published several monographs before emigrating out of China, currently teaches in Vancouver and has poetry appearing in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine, RHINO and nearly 380 others worldwide.
Editorial Note: (Please Read Closely Before Submitting)
To submit to Poets’ Basement, send an e-mail to CounterPunch’s poetry editor, Marc Beaudin at counterpunchpoetry@gmail.com with your name, the titles being submitted, and your website url or e-mail address (if you’d like this to appear with your work). Also indicate whether or not your poems have been previously published and where. For translations, include poem in original language and documentation of granted reprint/translation rights. Attach up to 5 poems and a short bio, written in 3rd person, as a single Word Document (.doc or .rtf attachments only; no .docx). Expect a response within one month (occasionally longer during periods of heavy submissions).
Poems accepted for online publication will be considered for possible inclusion of an upcoming print anthology.
For more details, tips and suggestions, visit CrowVoiceJournal.blogspot.com and check the links on the top right. Thanks!
