Colette Inez | Witness to a Meadow in Virginia

Witness to a Meadow in Virginia

Cows kneel in fields
fireflies have abandoned.
Soon another year of flickering,
a comet's shower of flowers in the grass.

I was born in another country,
Leopold, the cruel king.
I embroidered butterflies
on handkerchiefs

sold by the African missions.
A child, I said papillon,
and fluttered my wrists,
imagining shiny coins in boxes

shipped to the Congo
where children dreamed
severed hands of their ancestors
took wing on the path.

Today I bow to the swallowtails,
spangled fritillaries and sulphurs
as if they were royalty.

by Colette Inez

Colette Inez has authored 9 poetry collections, most recently Spinoza Doesn’t Come Here Anymore (Melville House Books). She is widely anthologized and received fellowships from both the Guggenheim and the Rockefeller Foundations, twice from the NEA and won 2 Pushcart Prizes. Previously a visiting professor at Cornell, Ohio, Bucknell and Colgate Universities, she is currently on the faculty of Columbia University. She has appeared on public radio and TV. Her memoir The Secret of M. Dulong was published in 2005 by The University of Wisconsin Press.

© 2008 Colette Inez

Steve Dalachinsky | With Shelter Gone

with shelter gone

fruitflies
seem to be coming out of
my body
out of my very skin
ripening banana
squeezed orange

damned fruitflies

leaving my chest thru my nipples
into every room i enter
around the kitchen sink

i give them purpose
create a purpose
they acquire purpose

alphabet without knowledge
of itself
numbers without sequence
mind too scattered to
give meaning
to

7th & K
where i grew up
larva to adult
among jews among italians among
jews
among letters
#s
on my road thru the decades
past ave.X onto Stillwell
the hot cyclonic streets
theatre of spills thrills
drugs
bugs  &  boils

a movie
wherein
you are what you are  watching
& always moving

"....you're my coney island baby
     you mean so much to me
     you're my pretty little lady..."

brooding on the boardwalk
a sideshow
after years of indecisive behavior
hot dogs  &  fries

......these damned fruitflies
      gnawing at my 6pointed innards
      my jewish chakras
                   
over-ripened beads of light
seeping thru the skin
from deep down in the soul
winding towards the shorefront of my
earth
      past the volna cafe
           the tatiana cafe
         & the moscow cafe

winding thru the winter of my birth
the every summer of my life
& back
winding back
winding back
thru the blood & the piss & the shit

winding back winding
back winding back
& winding up once again
& again & again
(damned fruitflies)
in my kishkas
out my chakras
to my eyes

damned kishkas
damned fruitflies
sweet eyes


by Steve Dalachinsky

Steve Dalachinsky is a New York downtown poet active in the free jazz scene. His most recent book is The Final Nite & Other Poems: Complete Notes From A Charles Gayle Notebook 1987-2006 (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2006), a compendium of poetry written while watching saxophonist Charles Gayle perform throughout New York City in that time period. Other publications include Trial and Error in Paris (Loudmouth Collective Press) and Quicksand (Isis Press). His spoken word albums include Incomplete Directions, I thought it was the end of the world then the end of the world happened again with Federico Ughi, and Phenomena of Interference with Matthew Shipp. He often appears at the Knitting Factory, a unique live music club in Tribeca. He currently lives in Manhattan with his wife, painter and poet Yuko Otomo.


© 2008 Steve Dalachinsky