Sunday, December 28, 2008

Small Press Poetry @ UAG



SMALL PRESS POETRY @ UAG
First Friday, January 2nd

247 Lark Street
6-9pm

The Upstate Artists Guild (UAG) Gallery, as part of their January “New Beginnings” show, will be hosting a Publisher’s Open House for many of the poetry small presses producing books in Albany, NY.

Across poetics, aesthetics, and institutional status, contributing presses will include: Flim Forum Press, Fence Books, A.P.D. Press, Anchorite Press, and Albany Poets.

This will be an opportunity for interested gallery-goers to engage with some of the independent, underground, and/or experimental writing and publishing happening here in Albany today.

The show opens on First Friday, January 2nd, and will last throughout the month. Free to the public. For more information, call (518) 426-3501, or email: klane@flimforum.com.


Saturday, December 27, 2008

a ship thing economy



a ship is a thing

that will take you away
blue blue blue
blue collar blue class blue sky

are you aware of
the absence of color
wheat and factory and smoke
click click click
the place where we live

pig iron
booms and busts
passage of time
country mouse and city slicker

stripped down truth
here is beauty





poem by Jennifer Karmin

see A Sing Economy

Monday, December 22, 2008

Neon



Neon (Ne)
10


New York City, Saigon
                                 consuming, air drawn, homeless light

       cher frère, draw back the signs—
                                                        December's briars iced, distilled
                        trees, merchandise-less field—

    Neon traces, ghosts (erasure's laugh),
                 gesture                               reddish-orange tracts—


                        the bone lottery blink drones on





Neon by Deborah Poe

see A Sing Economy

Sunday, December 21, 2008

I have come to strengthen the currency radically cut



Against fate I put courage; against custom, ambition; against nature, man.






Even the homeless have toadies: pigeons squawk for their breadcrumbs.






Knowing a man’s true worth is like knowing his probity.






Take those who loudly proclaim themselves the honest poor. Show them your wallet, and hear them quietly lie that they don’t pain for it. It is far easier to find a rich honest man than a poor honest man; envy leads men to deception.






There are no gods, only men.






The wage earner is more curious about what he sees on TV than what he sees with his own eyes.






If you’re going to steal, steal big. Little thieves are punished ruthlessly.






Do not give money to panhandlers -- they’ll think it their salary.






Had to steal a peek the name tag to know whether it was a man or woman.






If you do business with a dog, why are you surprised if he pisses on you?






The arts: the better you are, the worse for you.




excerpted from a set by Eric Gelsinger

see Oh One Arrow and Buy Later

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Secret Caves








• (0, 0)
Prostrate Dollars

bend and
rise
(in rhythmic prayer)






• (0, 0)
The Latrine Floor

poorest
of the piss-
poor

















• (0, 0)
Desert Loopholes

mining lapis lazuli








• (0, 0)
Scandals

sinuous conspiracies
slosh beneath
the sand








from Secret Caves by Matthew Klane

see Oh One Arrow

Friday, December 19, 2008

Food Poem #56



A VEGETABLE   or fruit may be expen-
sive or not depending somewhat on the
item, season, and supply and whether
it is fresh, canned, frozen, or dehy-
drated.

                              The vitamin A
value in the fat of the whole milk is lacking
in these more economical nonfat prod-
ucts unless the manufacturer adds it.
     Reconstituted nonfat dry milk and
fluid skim milk have only a little more
than half the calories of whole milk—
an advantage to weight-watchers but
a disadvantage to persons needing
more food energy.

     You could save 2 cents each time you
use a cup of evaporated milk (recon-
stituted) in place of a cup of whole
milk, or 4 cents if you use a cup of
nonfat dry milk (reconstituted) instead
of a cup of whole milk.

    $3.26 if you use all nonfat dry milk
instead of whole milk bought at the
store.

     $1.64 if you mix one-half nonfat dry
milk (reconstituted) with one-half
whole milk bought in half gallons at
the store.

$0.63 if you buy skim milk instead of
whole milk in half gallons at the store.

                    In some places, one can save
even more by buying the gallon rather
than the half-gallon container.
$0.63 by getting your milk in half
gallons at the store, not through home
delivery.

                                 By
making a few changes in the way you
buy and use milk, you could make the
following savings each week in the
Washington, D.C., area in January
1965:
     Let us say yours is a family of four—
two adults and two teenagers—and
you use 21 quarts of milk a week, the
minimum suggested in the guide.




OTHER SAVINGS can be made on pur-
chases of milk.

     Eggs, dry beans, and peanut butter,
often used as alternates for meat, usu-
ally are good buys in nutrients.

Amounts of these meats usually served
may cost less than servings of average
size of other meats but do not give as
much in food value.
                           Exceptions
are frankfurters, sausages, bacon, and
some meats with breaded coatings.
     Regardless of cost, you can get about
the same food value from equal-size
servings of cooked lean from different
types and cuts of meats.

     Specials, such as those given for
chicken, pork roast, and sirloin steak,
may bring expensive cuts within my
budget limits or make inexpensive
items even better buys.
     An average serving of cooked lean
meat at this store would have cost as
little as 14 cents and as much as 69
cents if I chose from these selected
items.




Food Poem #56 by Harold Abramowitz

see A Sing Economy

Monday, December 15, 2008

How We Saved the City



+ dishes by hand - no dishpan, inefficient + organic lettuce and carrots + she smiles at me - down the disposal - outside my neighborhood (- I make my paper copies - their chemicals) + health-food dish soap - in the brick zombies of my friends' old home (- driving to get them - don't know who picked them - for the chain store - trucked them) - lights on in the kitchen - on North Main Street - at Eagle Square - (the honor system + lingering) - in plaza geometry - good edible particles - uncertain goya and eggplant + dishwasher we don't use - driving distances - filling with swampy runoff - mosquito larva - bleaching it =



from Weird Math 1 by Kate Schapira

in A Sing Economy