Pondering The Cosmos

Someone brought books to work today to be given away. Please don’t think poorly of us for not being phased by David Balducci. Don’t think of us as a snob for ignoring Clive Cussler. And don’t call us obnoxiously high brow for disregarding Brad Thor. Hell, we love Carl Hiassen, and he ain’t winning a Nobel anytime soon. We have a cyberbox of literary giveaways for you this morning. Emily Dickinson’s father may have missed his daughter’s talents. Try these thoughts on Borges and the cosmos for free. John Brandon’s Citrus County raises hearts high, only to knock them down lower. Is the sonnet dead? And how long does it take you to write a novel? Help yourself.  – Andrew Geer

Today, Ethel Rohan brings Matthew Salesses to the Dark Sky stage.

Thank you, Matt, for your generous and insightful responses. I especially appreciated your frank thoughts on the internet and on online and print publication. I look forward to reading The Self-Beating Drum and watching Lost in Translation.

I note you were born in Korea. In O’Kim’s bar, Seoul, there’s video of me doing an Irish jig on the stage, in their surveillance camera archives. But that’s another story for another time. For now, the spotlight’s on Matthew Salesses. Enjoy.

– Ethel Rohan

Writing wise, where are you now? Where are you going?

I have two small books in development. The first is about an island on which people get epidemics like laziness, memory loss, magic, charisma. The wonderful people at PANK are doing that one, along with little books by Nicolle Elizabeth and yourself (hooray!). The second is about a POW after the Korean War. At the end of the war, a few Americans stayed in North Korea. This guy was one of them. Later he went back to America, got a few months furlough, married and had a honeymoon, and finally was arrested as a traitor. The novella is coming out from Flatmancrooked, who are doing some really exciting things.

I’m also working on a story about an adopted boy who goes to Korea and meets his birth mother without knowing who she is, and on a co-writing experiment with Nicolle Elizabeth.

Then there’s a novel that I’m hoping to finish final-ish revisions of soon. That’s the big project.

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None of the 135 poems comprising Ben Mazer’s January 2008 (Dark Sky Books, 2010), written shortly after the death of the poet Landis Everson, have been previously published in periodicals, due to the sudden nature of the book’s publication. Here are eight poems from the collection. May they induce you to acquire this epic, tour de force 149 pp. volume of poetry.

Embarrassing the Gods

My urination violation
helped to pay for my vacation.
Oh do not ask what is it
when you make your mental visit,
quoth the raven, while my mental
escapades are accidental
only when I do not think it.
So I’m making you this trinket
in case you want to contemplate
our coinciding at this date.
I could not express it better
than by talking through your sweater
like an Indian chieftain or
a gentle army of wild boar.
All that I can do is wing it,
hoping back to me you’ll sing it,
sometimes embarrassing the gods,
exposing all the inner thoughts
that make me want to
categorize them all in lots,
I think I can do.
When it is pouring in the noon
maybe it won’t be too soon
to softly name
and itemize the groves of June.
Like a fire then will fame
enjoy its promise without shame.
Occidents of welter rudge
may discontinue to misjudge
the preening prom queen
and turn her quizzi-
cal extremptions to a quasi-
mathematically obscene
half exposition
on the strength of my position
and orgasms of myopic
caring for my biopic.

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A friend of ours recently returned from Mexico City and presented us with the figurine you see above.

That’s right. Your eyes do not deceive you. It’s a pig fucking another pig.

We didn’t know what to say, of course, except, “Thanks,” and “Wow! Look at the detailed, intricate artistry,” and “It must have taken forever to carve.”

Our friend laughed.

“What?”

“It’s a pig fucking a pig,” he said, before turning the color of bacon.

He’s going to Egypt next year, wants to visit the pyramids.

We’ll leave a space on our shelf open for the humping dromedaries figurine.

Our gifts to you follow. Have a great weekend.

– Robert Paul Moreira

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