vietnam

yuriy tarnawsky

in Vietnam
color
starts
in the elbows,
red jungles
shake
black squares
next to the teeth,
green circles
jump off bone joints
and chase
the color of holes
fleeing
to the horizon
of fingers,
and fingers
shine
like mother of pearl,
skyscrapers
bend down among them
to shake out
glass shards
and staircases
from inside their knees
which crave
for tickling….

Let’s go
to Vietnam,
my love,
we’ll fill
the mouth of your hair
with my mouth,
we’ll find white and pink
flowers
between the surfaces
of our wrists,
we’ll throw
the wilted
wreaths
of our faces
onto the water
that flows
into South
China
Sea.
I assure you,
there’s a connection
between the intersections
of women’s laps
and street numbers
in London
and the wrinkles
on the faces
of these yellow
people.


from ye-ye poems

Claire’s Game

by Raphael Moser

The miner’s strike
Performed by a reenactment society
The artist stages the scene
The producer conducts a selective interview
With cutaways
Real life miners playing the part of miners
And cops
The BBC and the director
Fashioning a version to revive the working class
The live spectacle
Complete with 80’s favorite dance tunes
The blur of the good and bad cops
And sobriety with cheesy whimsy
Flayed the edges
Smoking bubbles

vinyl

yuriy tarnawsky

London Bridge
sees it already
and cries
rusty
tears,
and rose-colored
girls
find deep sighs
under their dark
hips
and extend them
to its emaciated
face
with its profile
of the thinnest of rectangles,
and they press
to their sunken hands
the beginnings
of its green
beard
that shows
signs
of torture.
It leaves behind
angles
of its viscous
triangles
on the dark sides
of letters
and molecules
but you can see already
the shadow
of its fingers
looking like smiles
in the corners
of mouths
that can’t
free themselves
from under beds
and babies,
and it puts on
impermeable
vestments,
and turns
to the four corners
of the world,
and makes the signs
of circles
and rectangles,
and leaves behind
fireproof
crosses
on the rumpled,
abandoned
retinas,
and it gives away
buckles
full of flowers
to holes
in tattered clothing
so that they’d pass them on
to the bones
that live on the outskirts
of teeth
and rain,
and gums
raise themselves
to the level
of pink asphalt,
and saliva
calls onto fingers
to dig out
hips
from under neon
and to cover them
with phosphorus
and men’s hands,
and last names
loosen their manes
of long woman’s hair
and red letters,
and legs and borders
spread wide,
to let it get to
the splinters
in stubborn hands
and in broken
countries.

It’s still sick,
it still hasn’t recovered
from factories
and paper,
with a name
behind which set
customs
and the sun,
made up of letters
so thin
it can be destroyed
even
by tears….

Let’s pray
that the Lord
won’t call it back
to his side.


from ye-ye songs

neutral

Susan Scutti


i am a pulse responsive to
generations unborn

my vision narrowed to unquestioned facts:
this room, this night, this man

how innocent the mob
how quiescent the spaces between leptons

empty like time
the sturm und drang of fortunes

speechless, the many buildings spire toward heaven
babel is here upon your screen

De K’s Landscape

by Raphael Moser

The place where sound worked its way
Admonishing as
The old soul manufacturing mourning in the firelight
Architectural paradise
Green reflections of crisp
Structures

hunger

yuriy tarnawsky


A hungry color
was looking
for its own mouth
to open it
in the direction
of his bride
between skyscrapers
and souls
made from stone.
On the edge
of a park
painted black,
where retired paint
comes to die,
he asked a policeman
who’d already been reached
by the overripe
root
of an abyss:
“Where
did she go
with the red suitcases
in her joints?”

“There came a taxi
the color of despair,
the moon
was hiding
behind clocks,
and they vanished
behind the left side
of her head.”

from ye-ye poems

sonnet g’s is better

India wore
cop sunglasses and i
had my new ones puchased
in HK flea and i didn’t run
into sabrina nor the sun nor any of the new flowers of
unknowns from work and there was
nothing for me to think but as she walked along and about
jane alexander’s WORK so mordant in
it’s humor and a little girl took her
stride beside the flanks and ranks of the rain
of those who marched jackal
faced and imperturbable like the night
in its cheese

India wore
cop sunglasses and i
had my new ones puchased
in HK flea and i didn’t run
into sabrina or any of the new
unknowns from work and there was
nothing for me to think but about
jane alexander’s WORK so mordant in
it’s humor and a little girl took
stride beside the flanks and ranks
of those who marched jackal
faced and imperturbable
in their conformity
their continuity