Classical Avant-Garde

Dana Jerman (Poetry)

2008-11-17T08:24:00.004-06:00

Dirty phone rings up the wrong sound -

This mouth keeps on with talk, I keep catching ideas
and despite my fascination, these are the times your eyes
are reaching, straining, toward the door.

When we leave the table after three or so hours
the trash includes love notes
and you walk fast, up ahead of me.

I've got my luck and this date
and the check of course, but you should know -
I'm searching for my little piece of the end of the world with you.

For Brandon-

She shows up at his doorstep at some eight-thirty when she expects his body to be home, hunched over one or another guitar. Beer in hand from a six pack of white cans with blue labels. She’s had one already in the car on the way over and she walks around his house to the backdoor. All long legs in tall socks and tennis shoes and short shorts on the stoop in the dead end of summer.

She is a big smile in a hoodie when he answers the fast knock and puts the beer just inside the door so he can pick her up at the waist and kiss her on the forehead. The greeting is simple and it fills up with all the things he won't say. He thinks she is beautiful, standing against the old pinkblue dusk light coming in from the door, framing her. “Surfs up.” – she hands him a cold one and cracks open her third, sipping and shaking the condensation from her hand.

This is the first time they have seen each other in a while, maybe since last year. This time they get to share the fall and the winter. Maybe walk where the leaves have fallen, then again in the crackling frozen snow. This year there is time to take time. The greeting is simple, the sticking-around is a bit harder.

The Theologists Humor-

He makes a note to be poignant.

To tell the truth and the truth about

knowing the truth.

He has great moments at stoplights.

The way home is littered with thinking

about dreams and a lover. An objective joy.

He wants existence. Finding Deity in the profane

isn't hard. But he cant do it forever.

God won't let him.

He thinks of all the breath men use to tell jokes.

The unhad laughter like licks of electricity

connecting faster than prayer.

His smile is a secret reflected in holy water.

Made of blood and bile, sexual in nature

and forgone as God's bonedry conclusions.

scratched tattoo-

trouble tiger dreams of machete

the night is a skin and sex

sells your fur

scratch paws claw gazelle tits

and legs meat crave no street

no body to carry

teeth in the horns

orange house or a tank
or thick fire

bruised ocean all that african

dust to hold and you with

your half black weight

kittens breathing already knows

giraffe taste uncollapsed so fresh

taste brain makes it thru
to tomorrow for hot zebra

red splash on local object

camouflage

snarl play takes it. baby tooth

bitten back that one tree there

was for miles

youth, tiger, youth. old nicks

in the blade were your friends

dead landscapes

flora cut fucking down

dream hides chop chop sounds

where stillness translates yesterday

and lack of water

horizon extension final when
heart beats scratchy tattoo..

now no more troubles, tiger.

Heather Palmer

2008-09-22T20:42:00.001-05:00

9.22

He speaks to save souls funny thing Demeter understands won’t look—back to him table and coffee cold—hard listening leans in You are what your father see in you She been fishing that answer asked over cards smokes literature-smarts but this so simple Slips his words over tongue can’t hear damn diesel trucks drown No condemnation No condemnation the Lord’s righteousness that why Jesus say the Lord and I are one—Whoaf He sings Demeter risks look A lady stone-faced says I gotta go Say what’s your name? Marvel Marvel—my aunt’s name Marvel—God bless you sister that’s a beautiful name Thank you Lady leaves Demeter still hungry only half-reads reasons So much need—why not feed on him?

Heather Palmer (Poetry/Prose)

2008-09-22T06:58:00.007-05:00

Updated on Sep 22, 2008

Traveler

I.
Starch grass
below moon
don't move
I'm only visiting

II.
Unpack my suitcause
I can't come
my cupboards turn
starch to stale

III.
I didn't want
True blue
only a
visiting suitcase

Dawn

Undoing until a deep gray
tells its own story: how night thaws
to a wake of sleeping days

Laundry

Use big-hearted instead of generous
empty barrel in my panties
tight-feeling
blasting water-hose rash
therapy dries from the clothesline

Plea to her Lover

Woman molding tongue
Because even if it doesnt matter
Nothing holds this blue so well
my hand spreads for the color

Underground

Lovely cherry lollipop
twig to suppress
sunshine-skin cancer
cracked waif

The saffron one says
lying to myself makes me
Face hunger
swallow.

Size

What for so long?

Owners of body
braided bread between

Sacred in the common body
faces over

Shoes in a row
women willing to want

Soul skin been burnt
toe to head

Big Eyes

These big eyes seen
candy-wrapper gutters
crushed coke cans
freshlove sugarbread
burnt to bitter toast
wrinkled skin from
sin worn suns.

Note

I don't like developments
Hate light:
shut the sky with my eyes
drink it through slits

When we just sat
I liked that. You didn't move.
But then--hands to waist--
you kissed me.

Haiku's for Amy

Light starting to heavy
under my fingertip
your note left a papercut

Eleanor soaks
in the tub
sobs over book

Iron gates rise
people trapped
to the seventh floor

Knowing fall rain
falls heavy
feet drown the street

Rainy Haiku's

The Name spoken
on lips
defiles it

This city's
too small
my satiety

Perfect beans roast
even espresso
fails this thirst

Fantasy

Ladleblenders cork cake to sugarspoons
tea between tuna'd mandolins
whisk spatula's bananas

Yes

If the hole of apathy
emptiness of sadness
the heat of hate
is love in all it
even more--too--
Love has to be

Information

2008-08-04T17:29:00.012-05:00

"The need for expression has always been vital to the human condition, paving the way for extrodinary advances in methods of communication. Bella Vista Gallery and Classical Avant-Garde proudly presents an experience of the diverse expressions of visual art and poetry"

Bella Vista Gallery 1000N California Ave, Chicago, IL 60622

http://www.classicalavantgarde.com/

Please click on the artists' name on the right to see his/her work and submit your comments.

Mary Qian (Painting)

2008-08-04T17:27:00.022-05:00

Link to Mary's art work
www.maryqian.com

Phil Renaud (Painting/Drawing)

2008-08-04T17:27:00.013-05:00

Dana Jerman (Poetry)

2008-08-04T17:26:00.014-05:00

Coming out of her crowded eyes
something like a visiting reaction by
the dilated numbers of electric impatience
antagonizing open the vocabulary trade.

Martch-

All we had was wine.
So every night we drank.
And its flavors filled up our dreams with hot things.
We awoke to crave the texture and flavor of cool things.

1) in a red dress, in a red room

she sits and waits for sun.
it is midnight and she craves noon
in a red dress in a red room.
sanguine chair holds her curves and sex
tonight offers no lover
so she covets just one.
in a red dress in a red room
she sits and waits for sun.

2). In the eventuality of a graveyard

And the permanence of the messages others have made
Left to living souls interpretation of the bard
In the eventuality of a graveyard.
Flags, bottles, flowers, books in the rain
Only the stones hold words that do not fade
In the eventuality of a graveyard
And the permanence of the message others have made.

3). The smoke of mother's cigarette

a tiny cloud against the night
each thought incubates in the toilet
the smoke of mother's cigarette
so gradual silence it appears
and comes and goes without a fight
the smoke of mothers cigarette
a tiny cloud against the night.

Lenin Delsol (Painting/Drawing)

2008-08-04T17:26:00.013-05:00

Claudia Finn

2008-08-04T17:26:00.011-05:00

Audry Cramblit (Sculpture)

2008-08-04T17:24:00.000-05:00