Interview with Valzhyna Mort for Poetry International

My interview with Valzhyna Mort

for more info on Valzhyna go here: Blue Flower Arts

Mother Contemplates Divorce at Creek with Son

Mother Contemplates Divorce at Creek with Son

Red-haired boy in pith helmet: “Shard of pottery forgotten by time. Draw me mom, draw a drawing of me.” Mother perched at edge of creek looks up from her reading.

            “Lookit this rock mom,” Walking through creek, stamps his feet on a sandbar, now wading over rocks into the shimmer and splash.

            “Lookit mom, something man made, whaddya suppose it is?” Ducks under a fallen tree, roots exposed like spokes.

            “Lookit this rock,” Throws it. Heavy splash, ripples percolate. Skips a flat stone, 2 skips.

            “See, isn’t this such a good idea mom? Lookit this skipping stone, it’s practically perfect in every way.” Skips 3 times, then bends to creek, comes up.

            “Lookit this rock mom.”

Mother looks up says:

            “It’s leopard skinned.”

            “Way to be a poet mom. Hey! Got my first decent skip. Dog truffle hunts under Mother’s chair, nose sandy, snorts, digs. Splash, clack of two rocks, boy examining intently.

            “It’s really light too . . . lookit this one.” Creek eddies to the left, ferns sprout from the embankment.

            “Oh my god, lookit this mom, it’s quartz, it’s pink, are you writing this down? It’s pink. You’re such a writer.” Pause, boy ankle deep, contemplating rocks. Looks up.

“I’m glad it’s just us two here mom, cuz we get to keep all these treasures.”

I Race a Train

I Race a Train

I race a train to erase the day

tough graffiti, I tap my foot to the chuga-chuga,

count each day unsolved like the box cars,

which are full of the lumber

we used to call trees.

I race clouds in canals next to the harbor,

watch seabirds watch

frigatebirds dive into toxic tides.

I race rows and rows of lettuce,

Lettuce rises like a choir of voices: steam

above each head, sound

is drowned

by the thwack-thwack of a helicopter rotor

hiss and spray over the fields,

I cannot outrace this fog

of filth,

and try not to breathe as I enter my house.

Outside my window

a valley of wind and lettuce

in a sea of earth. 

Off in the distance

a helicopter

no bigger than a spoon is headed toward my table.

Photo Credit: Stewart Ferebee

In Salt Water

In Salt Water

The sea. He came up from the sea. His voice green, water tones, splash of froth, spray, and crash, crash. I’d swim on my back and listen, legs and arms out, listen. Tentacles tipped. A clown fish with intelligent eyes looks into my eyes. Questioning. A hatchet fish frightens me so I swim on.

            And then he’d speak. I’d often cut my feet on his words sharp like urchins, and get pinned in by the tide. My footprints a lexicon of glyphs on rocks, slap, smack, splat.

            He would leave me then and return. Where eels arrow their way across fields of vision, I’d kayak, and cast a net to catch the giant fish. But no one goes as deep as he does. But stay in the shallows, where light refracts and turns the ocean blue. The sun cannot reach his home, only elongated eels to conduct electricity. I almost caught this fish once. But capsized, swallowed salt water, coughed up foam on the shore like some wide-mouth gulper eel, sucked air, blacked out, woke up aglow, coughing, choking, coughing, until I coughed up a lantern fish, death-twinkle.

A Triangle of Palm Fronds In the Window Means it's Morning

A triangle of palm fronds in the window means it’s morning

A colony of souls

awaken

to a murder of crows fighting over coconuts.

Boats waffle blue waves.

Signs say:

Noel Coward fucked in this hotel.

And white sheets froth the bed.

Somerset Maugham

masturbated

here to the batik face of Gauguin.

You use a straw as a snorkel

to navigate the day—

A cruise ship cuts through the champagne cake

but this is the year of no cake,

only salt and

the one tooth left a ravenous dog.

Come, dogs, a triangle of palm fronds

in the window

means it is morning

“You can’t keep me from drowning if it’s what I choose”

“You can’t keep me from drowning if it’s what I choose.”

your voice is an osprey’s

plunge

to catch a fish.

The answer of nests

on telephone poles.

The blue lilt of my sigh,

on this kayak

slapped by the sea, I tilt.

At the last gulp of salt water:

my stubbornness

a hammerhead

circling

a vortex

buoys me up

into the day’s

long light.

slap my silver

self on board,

ungaffed

and gasping--

East Coast Release Party was Amazing!

 On November 7th Ping-Pong magazine once again took NYC by storm with its annual release party, this year it took place at the One and One Lounge on the Lower East Side.
Much fun was had by all!

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