Gwendolyn Albert
Poet Gwendolyn Albert is editrix of JEJUNE: America Eats Its Young which is probably available in a bookstore within 500 miles of you. Her work has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, House Organ and the online magazines Sour Grapes, Grist, RealPoetik and Room Temperature, as well as in two chapbooks through Norton Coker Press (San Francisco), dogs (1991) and green, green (1992). She and Vincent Farnsworth recently completed a national reading tour in promotion of issue 7 of JEJUNE.
Since its invention in 1993, JEJUNE: america eats its young has conducted its experimental explosions within the huge, sound-absorbing caverns of recent literary history through such notable writers as Lucia Berlin, Eileen Myles, Jules Mann, Jonathan Lethem, Jack Hirschman and Nanos Valaoritis in addition to the work of other upcoming talents. Published in the heart of Europe, the twice-yearly magazine with eye-catching (ouch!) cover art by Mark Neville also runs profane interviews with the likes of Lydia Lunch and Robert Bly, works in translation, fine art, and a section of media revulsion in the form of collage.
Issue number 7 includes a cassette compilation of music by Ukrainian composer Jaroslav Kulikov as well as an in-depth interview with Sergei Myasoyedov, an integral figure in underground music and culture in Eastern Europe since the late 1980's.
reasons to cry November 1 1997
through your unwitting or unwilling behavior you still
can be party to sadism in both its lesser and more extreme
forms. the sadists don't ask permission, they just act
the persecuted do not even feel free enough to act
and when they finally do they become sadists
the whining complaints of a spoiled twenty year old
consumer carry far in the halls of profit
officiousness is a particularly common form of interaction
the thought of a change in my circumstances feels like
a threat to my very survival
the voice of the judge echoes in my head and seems to
come from the mouths of others but it is really an old
tape recording I should erase
the products of isolation and genius do not counteract
a life lived in pain or without love
a life full of love can seem like a life of self-
centeredness or selfishness, how can you tell
the luxury of attending to one's own needs when so many
are needy, the fruitlessness of self-abnegation
the fear of failure, the enormous frustration of needing
others, the emptiness of the money transaction, the joy
of cooperation on a higher level, all too rare
the expectation that sympathy is for sale
the expectation that sympathy is not free
the thousand separate tendrils leading from the heart
to the rest of the world yanked this way and that by
every passing car accident garbage can on fire report
of injustice or man petting his dog, small children
pointing at things mutely
the glory of the world, snakes coiled in a jar of liquor
does the son bear responsibility for the father, the time
when tales of the past strike a dead ear in the young,
the young coming myopic and cloudy-eyed into the world,
easily wounded, and taking the blows of group identity
is the outcome of evil heroism and vice versa
trying to force my will on the world, to create something
that wasn't there before, to keep a record, and all the
while the centrifugal force of doubt, and when it reverses
direction like a spinning toy, the illusory fictive and
gorgeous patterns
TECHNOLOGY PROVIDES HUMAN SUSTENANCE AND COMFORT
preamble:
I address myself
a moment
to the case
of the Red Cross.
In 1943 and
once again in '45
they sent home
positive
reports
on Nazi camps.
For a camp,
it's ok --
18th century grounds,
streets with
names and
children
singing
letters in
from Auschwitz
saying
the same
1)
I was required
to wear a badge
with a photo
at that computer
job in California.
As a member
of the public
I was transported
to a corner
of the freeway
and industrial
park.
The cubicle
was similar --
dimensions,
layout, angle
of the light --
to other jobs.
Between parking
lot and walkway
an ornamental
fountain.
2)
One day
a visiting
higher-up
gave a speech
on how she
bought her
Lexus.
Then relief
workers
gave us
free beer.
A Lexus
costs on
average
fifty
thousand
dollars.
I was making
$6.50 an hour.
It cost me $3
to get there
and $3 to get
back. I was
told it would
be
cheaper
if I drove a car
which hypothesis
failed to convince
me I should
be there
at all
the fountain
was lacking
in birds
3)
Meanwhile
in Sri Lanka
visiting
voyeurs
broadcast
mating calls
to flush
the exotic thrush
thus disrupting
its reproductive
cycle
the president
of Sri Lanka,
on visiting
them for
the first time,
called for an
industrial
park
Where is your home?
most often
asked in prison.
4)
I remember
several women
from that
computer job.
One had a daughter
and one had good sex
and one was
frightened of
her father-in-law
with whom she
had to live because
her husband didn't
want to rent.
When alone
she would lock
herself in
the bedroom.
I told her
to move,
then I quit.
5)
Imagine
you are working
for the Red Cross.
Instead of
tortured suffering
there is opera.
The sensation
of relief
is enormous
you write
a positive
report
6)
yes for an oil derrick
it's ok
it's the cleanest oil
derrick I've ever
seen and for a
strip mine, that's
not bad either
and hell
Coca Cola
poured down a
storm drain
is toxic so
what do you
want?
7)
This poem is based on
actual conversation
events places
documented fact.
Its composition
is freely determined
solely by the author
with the aim of
existing
newly created
where it did not
exist before
to the benefit
of variety
in the universe
in which you
the reader
are a similar
creation
existing
albeit under
less than
ideal
conditions:
Sustenance
and comfort
shouldn't cost
you your
sustenance
and comfort.
Thank you
for reading
this poem.
economic power
Producer distributor good or service
loan shark war profiteer all toil
to survive in a world of blooming lilacs
pigeons dandelions icebergs
the Sauvignon grape and globes of glass
silverfish earwigs seismic rifts
silkworms, little white daisies turning
pink, the sweep of cirrus clouds
the Doppler effect, the fennel seed
basil, mustard and olives
tenderness towards the very young
the very sick the slow the old
or for no reason. Algae, tobacco
bacteria viruses poppy seeds
plums, the softness of flour
cornstarch, baking powder
honey, wax the space between
the candle and the flame.
Vitreous waves of the sea.
Adrenaline, sunshine, tears
from laughing, hair that
curls and lips and breasts
strong hands the tickle the itch
the pleasant way the tree
grows up from the ground
to the sky. All that lives and dies
reasserts itself down here with us
a castle moat overgrown with green
on a world patrolled by satellite.
Gwendolyn Albert
1997