Carol Rubenstein, a Poem

POSSESSION

                                    Carol Rubenstein                                                                    

Auctioneer, let the bidding begin!  All this is up for grabs—get some—

as the sweet stuff dizzies and falls gorgeously away.                                                                                                                                                

Bone fragments, splintered bits?  We toothpick them, twice incised,

for dislodging choice morsels and for twirling gums to panting health.

Knuckled knobs of bone ends?  Crack, suck out the sumptuous

marrow lode, next whistle it dry to summon up the double-headed dogs.

This stretch of skin?  Melting lids and lips?  Buyer, what’s to beware?

Crackle-roast it:  Rake.  A savor to the nostrils

rises, a rendering of fat as famished flames leap to lick and catch

each offering.  Sing the high-pitched song of the spitted turning swan.

The Three Ravens ask, with-a-down: “Where shall we our breakfast take?”

Then beak their punctual eyeball prizes.  And refrain goes down-a-down.

Flung, the marbled brains clack broken into shards of silence:  Such  

taken by law as assent.  To any queries as to reasons, answer you none.  

The jewels of vital organs spill lustrous through fingers—slip, soon

festooning the nude bowl of belly.  But wait, there’s an offal lot more—”offal,”

get it?  Ya gotta love it—all let drip within the feathered pubes!  This portrait,

“warts and all”, is matchless, of provenance unthinkable.  See the agent’s

deaf-and-dumb signals to snap up these bargains!  Prick, pop, shrivel, shred,

pouch to ash, sucked under the grate:  Just forget these assets?  Not on your life!

Note the going rate, all items tagged, look you take not one bite less.  Sold

for a song!  Lifetime guarantee.  Nothing known that cannot be possessed!

And repossessed—sold again, a whinny, a cackle!  Buyer, peering closer, reels

at issuing reek.  Now see in the beholder eye such beauty hollowing, pitted.

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Carol Rubenstein is a graduate of Bennington College and Johns Hopkins University, and has been a choreographer and a dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York, and a member of the Saint Marks Poetry Series. She has received numerous grants and fellowships including the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Columbia University and the Saltonstall Foundation. Rubenstein has also had many residencies such as the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Millay, and Ragdale, in the USA, and Karoli in France and Bellagio in Italy. Her poetry has been widely published in journals and anthologies. Books of her poetry have been published by Ohio University Press, Graham Bash, Singapore, Tynron Press, Scotland and Unbound press. The poet currently lives in Ithaca, NY. 

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Tish Pearlman: "Afterlife"

"In prose both direct and lyrical, Pearlman writes of what is fragile, what can be lost: a mother's hope, childish innocence. Lives. Her poems embrace the personal and the public,  from her own near-death experience to the national tragedies of AIDS and school shootings. She reminds us of what is precious,  what must be cherished. Her poems celebrate 'the lonely, proclaiming heart' and the possibility of joy and love amid the ruins. This newest collection is a treasure."

---- Jeanne Mackin,
Her most recent novel is "The Beautiful American"

From "Afterlife"

Mystery Arrives

No use trying to begin
At some starting point
The universe is on a
Flight pattern
Stars don’t even know
They are in retreat,
Or donning fine fire, burning
Toward oblivion
Nothing began, nothing ended
Arrival was instantaneous. You know this.
You kept your eye everywhere:
Inside where moist organs mouth
Consciousness
And when staring at  life
As it unfolds
We reach out for time, more time
As it evaporates
As we touch its arriving star dust
With empty hands

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Tish Pearlman is a poet, writer, broadcast journalist and community and political activist originally from Manhattan Beach, California. She is creator and host of the award-winning public radio interview show "Out of Bounds," which is produced in Ithaca, New York. In 2008, the program was awarded "Outstanding Public Affairs Program Series" by the New York State Broadcasters Association. She is the 2013-2014 Poet Laureate of Tompkins County, NY.

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"Afterlife"
a 72 page hand-sewn paper book with spine - $16.00.

To read another poem, the introduction, view the cover of the book or to order:
http://foothillspublishing.com/2014/id80.htm

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(NYS Residents please add $.80 Sales Tax per book) 

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