Poets Wear Prada: "Ant Farm" by Brant Lyon

Submission Policy

Submissions to THE BUG BOOK are now closed. However, we will continue to post a sampling of poems accepted for the anthology as we continue to work our way through the flood of last minute submissions.

Poetry (any form or style) and Micro or Flash Fictions wanted for an anthology on SMOKE. Not just the black clouds rising from the five-alarm fire next door, or the billowing plumes of smoke warning us of a forest fire, or the emissions from factory smoke stacks, apartment house incinerators, and crematoriums, smoke rings rise from cigarettes, smoke pours out of headshops, pipe shops & cigar stores--see that purple haze rising over the fields of poppies and marijuana we just planted--we've used it to communicate via smoke signals and skywriting, to cover our tracks and disappear with and without mirrors, combat the enemy on and off the battlefield, kill bugs, flavor food, cure illness, declare peace treaties, and fragrance our homes. Got the idea? Release it onto the page.

Guidelines: Submit up to three poems/micro fictions or two flash fictions at a time with a fascinating bio of 35 words or less, not just limited to publication credits, copy/pasted in the body of an e-mail (no attachments, please) to roxy533 at yahoo dot com & violetwrites at nyc dot rr dot com. We will also entertain up to six one-liners or 2 short stand up routines at time. Previously published work is OK as long as authors have retained the copyright, which will be returned to them after publication. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged. If your work is accepted elsewhere, and you still have obtained rights to republish, just let us know where and we'll be happy to acknowledge the other publication.

If you do not receive a response from us within a month of your submission considered it rejected and feel free to submit again. Due to the volume of submissions we cannot respond to each and every individual submission. Selection for the on-line edition are made on a ongoing basis as we receive your submissions. However, final selections for the print edition will made after the October 31st deadline. (In otherwords not everything that made the cut for the online edition will appear in print.) Please do not query. When in doubt, send the submission to roxy533 at yahoo dot com & violetwrites at nyc dot rr dot com.

Visit the online edition of SMOKE at:
http://thesmokingbook.blogspot.com/.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

"Ant Farm" by Brant Lyon

ANT FARM

1.

A cross-sectional microcosm pressed between
two sheets of glass is merely representational, heuristic.
A civilization hidden underground, displayed, displaced
to an obvious one of alien pencils, pens, composition books.
A gooseneck lamp beams down on this specimen self-contained
amidst the disarray of Kevin’s desk.

2.

If they toil for his amusement, martyr their whole subterranean
culture for some flip science project, they’ll never
know it (mindless creatures!).
Never know their captor’s ransom.
Kevin doesn’t give a damn about ants.
He channel surfs or whiles the time mesmerized by Nintendo,
falls in step with the rank and file
marching down the hall toward the lunchroom.
For two weeks the army has been excavating.
A collective mind has emerged from a few ounces of dirt
and Uncle Milton’s Start-up Kit (live ants included).

3.

With painstaking fortitude and dedication they have hauled
each grain of sand up to the surface and piled it near the silo
in a tiny plastic farmyard scene.
The networks of tunnels they’ve dug
is as delicate as any anastomosis,
more labyrinthine than Derinkuyu and Kaymakli—entire cities
carved out of rock beneath the Cappadocian plain.

4.

He went kicking and screaming on family vacation that summer
to backward Turkey, would rather have chilled staying home
to watch videos and rollerblade.
He’ll be a college kid before he knows what in the world
an anastomosis is, and older still before he know what it means
to push a boulder by himself uphill.

By Brant Lyon

Brant Lyon has practiced, practiced, practiced, and played piano at Carnegie Hall, dispensed advice from behind the wheel as a New York City cab driver, then listened to people's problems for over twenty years as a clinical social worker, eaten a guinea pig beside the ruins of Machhu Picchu, climbed the Himalayas to watch a sunrise, taught himself Arabic and opened an internet cafe with his partner in the shadow of the great pyramids of Giza.

But none of these adventures have been more challenging than writing a decent poem and reading it for people like you! He writes them, anyway, and frequently writes music to accompany them, too.

He founded and has been hosting the peripatetic and sporadic 'jazzoetry' reading series, "Hydrogen Jukebox". His publications include work in Rattle, BigCityLit, Lullwater Review, The Long Islander, and numerous other journals, and a chapbook, Your Infidel Eyes from Poets Wear Prada Press (2006). He has performed at Bowery Poetry Club, Theatre for the New City, A.I.R. Gallery, Galapagos Art Space, KGB Bar, and many other places over the past ten years.

Most recently, his poetry and art work appear in an anthology entitled, A Cautionary Tale (Uphook Press 2008), and a CD of his poems and those of friends accompanied by music composed and performed by him, Beauty Keeps Laying Its Sharp Knife Against Me (Logochrysalis Productions 2008). Both are due for release any day now. Watch for them!