Always Room at the Heartbreak Hotel

Your word would be all 
You say it is and then some 
If you gave me all the room in the world

And then some. 

Lost and Found: Dated Poetic Relic

Lo and Behold! 

I found what they were looking for 
When it became the death of me, 
Then put it back for them to find 
Before they knew the difference. 

Huuklyeand Cinquor's Take on Revisionist Poetics

All you visionaries hell-bent on taking 
Off after a vision, take this— 

A poem can take you anywhere 
You want but it won’t take you there 

If you put it down right from the start. 



Moderator’s comments: After some seven or eight months of silence on his part, I was beginning to think that Huuk was revising the soundness of his decision to send me his “poetry” at intermittent intervals, but it looks like I was a bit hasty with my assumption. So, after a long wait, let us revel once more in observing him at his short, didactic best (or worse, depending on how bad your myopia is) by focusing in on the poem’s intention to wit, what exactly is he trying to teach us here? That a poem cannot be “visionary” if it is written straightaway the first time without any revision whatsoever? Or is he assuming the role of the reader and admonishing us to give the poem the benefit of the doubt and not to dis it from the start? Maybe he’s trying to hook both poet and reader with his version of how to cast off all poetic illusions. Whatever the case, I certainly don’t want to prejudice any poets and/or readers out there by being picayune about his “effort” but I have to admit I’m having trouble following where he’s going with this, but then again, I’m not called “The Squint-eyed Kid” for nothing.

X Marks the Spot, Treasure Hunter

Say you found a map hidden 
Under the innersole 
Of a hiker’s boot way out 
There in the middle 
Of the wide, open spaces 
And you can’t see hide 
Nor hair of the hunter, 
While only a stone’s throw 
Away from the boot the map leads you 
To the jawbone of a dodo 
And the blunderbuss of an ass— 

What’re you waiting for, dude? 
Dig in, you’ve hit pay dirt. 

Laura Jensen's After I Have Voted

After I Have Voted, Laura Jensen, The Gemini Press, Seattle, 1972. Not only is this chapbook Laura Jensen’s first poetry collection, it was also Gemini Press/Madrona Magazine’s first venture into book publishing—quite an auspicious beginning, considering that Laura’s work quickly became nationally recognized—among other things— for its “domestic, stark imagery with complex metaphorical gesture, bridging interior and exterior spheres as [her poetry] traces the shifting, halting, at times unfamiliar landscapes of memory and home.” (Poetry Foundation) Gemini Press later changed its name to Querencia Books and subsequently published titles by Beth Bentley, Robyn Tarbet, Eve Triem, Frank Samperi, J. K. Osborne, John Levy, and yours truly. 

 The title poem: 

AFTER I HAVE VOTED 

I move the curtain back, 
and something has gone wrong. 
I am in a smoky place, 

an Algerian café. 
They turn the spotlight toward me; 
the band begins to play. 

The audience stares back at me. 
They polish off their glasses. 
They ask the waiter, “Who is she?” 

He holds his pen 
against his heart. 
He speaks behind his hand. 

There are tea bags swinging 
from their mouths. 
Their teeth are made of brass. 

The jello sighs into the candlelight. 
My eyes turn into stars. 
Ah—the colored spangles on my clothes, 

the violet flashlights and guitars! 


Also, check out this link to a piece on Laura that appeared on the Poetry Foundation’s site. And one last word—if you happen to come across this thin little gem (24 pp, 18 poems) forgotten on a shelf in some dusty corner of a used bookstore and the price is right, buy it. 

BTW, here’s AbeBooks’ listing for the book--roughly $14 a poem; given the current economic crunch in Hellas, it's too bad I have only one copy left!

Arachnida

in cobwebbed corner
curled up old widow 

in mourning. 

Tell Laura I Love Her

When I was a freshman, I remember 
I’d write a poem every other day or two 
To a girl two years my senior; 

She’d write one back too, 
But to this day I don’t remember 
What happened to them, 

But I can tell you one thing— 
I didn’t write anything 
The day she went away.