Gwendolyn Alberts travels endlessly across Eastern Europe, dropping occasional postcards off along the way. She's also co-editor of the extremely lively little magazine, Jejune:America Eats Her Young out of San Francisco.





eileen I live
in a dead
gradma's apt.
no matches for the stove left,
no forks. I congratulate
my cousin, one expecting,
the older one who made me
squeeze her tits
when I slept over
for "practice."
five minutes ago
her mom and brother died
four months apart
her father will be third
where's mine
eileen I sit
in europe and avoid
america,
please explain.
I understand the man
the dusty office
traffic heat through blinds
later he leans
in glossy jackets
dims electroliers
forgets her age
his only cissy
lighting candles

this is for all
the sirens in california
chandler mutters
holding the torch.









my cousing dying of AIDS by the ocean
someone keeps trying to sneak up behind
dead tenant's dog had pissed all through the floorboards
dying of alcohol cake mix neglect

long bike ride to the seven eleven
heatless autumns tried pouring salt
on the urine and sweeeping it dry it worked
one year younger than I am

not much left to like when I saw him
try to set fire tohis kid sister's crotch
my cousin dying of AIDS by the ocean
of ward of the State of special schools

now let's have petty arguments
ripe October tomatoes the leaves
changing color a long trin ride
meadows cliffs and trees

take care of yourself my cousin dying
view of the ocean the end of his days
father refusing to pay for the funeral
overpass underpass far as a child
could see







ASHBERY/MYLES/MANN
OHARA/TALCOTT
FARNSWORTH/HILL

I brought birthday cake to
your train and then
six bottles of beer
we taste hops
you talk about moving
to Moscow and later
it might never happen

presents and eileen's new
old ones I stroke you
to sleep and you blame me
for noon I was reading
these books but I want
one of mine in there
somewhere all pleated
observances harmony
I structure picture of

winter. Moscow. flat fish
vodka
less than is here but for sure more of
something
onions towering red purple black
and gold Volgas
plutonium limetrees
near Asia the air

wake up now! I have not
much time before
one dram of helplessness
shoots to my plexus

to stop residing
live only in trains

speak English that way
that I like







out of the autarky into the flood

the anarchist's dad was in the Administration
then Dick resigned left him a broken salesman
his wife came out my grade school teacher cried
when Nixon died just like victims of Stalin in Russia
like whales dolphins porpoises in Walt Disney fiction
the people all excited in their slick wet suits
or biplanes spiralling to earth like a new movie
of a 1920's novel by Fitzgerald or his dame
on the long unbroken highway from Los Angeles to Oakland
are the stretches of imagination keeping me up late
and people in some kind of murderous exile
my parents tried to censor from the television screen
was your home a war zone or is that just a truism
last line of defense front porch locked gate
sancticty of money the resort for vacant lots of
express letters coming in faster but
why are keyboard strokes not being counted by the crew?
manager is laissez faire or five year plan fanatic
offices of secretaries everywhere the same
picture of a kitten wide innocent eyes
a sad satin ribbon her neck and a legend
stay sweet tiny claws and teeth too well hidden
but she is as petty as those three pens
in the jar, two dry and paper clips a souvenir
vacation where they slept all the time in the bus
ate the same
food wore the same
clothes and were terrified
the market stalls the horse
shit the mountains and the prices
at least at home they knew where togo to be insulted
and the ceilings are baroque or renaissance
and the lawyer couldn't turn on a computer
and the argument is always I insist
and the truth is only calculable by pigeons in an airshaft
by fluctuating variable supply and reply
demand has nothing whatsoe'er to do
when was your demand last answered by the pope by the cops by the chorus
selling water to the thirsty full back half time part dressed old zombie
houndtooth checked jacket jewelry of battalions like
wrong way arrows that's a wrong way if I've ever seen one
and mister lemme tell you I've seen plenty in the drive down
Market where there used to be a railroad now
huts of cardboard toppled by the boys where the
click of handcuffs raises no attention where the
suits are all tailored and the water comes in wrinkles
where I long to see an airplane flying close under the bridge
a big one with turbines strafing low like a leftover dinosaur
all sorts of reasons to abandon your endeavour
the first is you don't really want to be at it
and the second is you really have no heart for the business
and the third is you haven't finished crying yet then
maybe you can set aside an egg, break it whip it fry it
feel you've done a questionable act press forward
in the noon light the scam the cheat the
ultimate manipulator
aging

part two

Carolyn Forche wants to be a good girl. She always wanted to be good.
Her best friend had sex before she did and she couldn't understand it.
I had a friend who had sex before I did on the beach at Carmel in the
sand next to a campfire and I wanted to be just like her name was Carolyn
too isn't that funny? two Carolyns in absolute dimension one is God
knows where and the other has a diamond on her hand and a blind spot
as big as the contiguous US. the stewardess asked them on the plane
to show some Hawaiian money and they paused at the gate
every passenger was greeted by a woman all naked with orchids
coming out of her artifice
wiggling her arms the leis slid round
like a whisper of blood in a hummingbird's beak
then the strings pierced the skin with barbed poison needles
from the heart of every opulent flower
nature believes in defending herself and we should follow suits
and ties down into the lavatories take them at their weakest
wringing moments no mercy full out guerilla warfare there is
nothing to be said nothing written on the wall because you know
they are all functionally illiterate slash insane
like my uncle who makes bombs or my 22 year cousin who said
What's the CIA? this hatred is personal
I'm fighting for my life against the margarine in tubs
the cracked Formica potholder myth of reponsibility
scraggly back yard memory families that take their clues
from advertising dirty white cats with crusty eyes
the logging town the stepmother screaming from the newspaper
father turning into a limestone cliff best thing to do is go out the door
backwards, go against maroon painted cinderblock walls as the sounds of
sex and neighbors' plumbing tumble to the sidewalk where the
smallest crack seems stuffed with felt a big pool table
a monstrous game of chance
stepmother screaming like she wished it were us being raped swept into a
cult
or mowed down in a parking lot ever been held
at gunpoint? maybe then you know the absolute stillness
the clarity a late grey sunset in the human conscience will you take the
role
all you can do is never over never over as the liquor courses
we hope to erase the intinerant schedule
on the way back home there were missiles on the platform
one car trees one car cars one car missiles
and the yellow paint was flaking like the glare of an
"angry swimming pool" in the south it will be swampy
like your eyes going mossy with enjoyment like your eyes
hard as jade when you're angry Dear Vincent:

time put your name here and blush
for your fingers for your warm warm palms
for your thighs like a sluice like an otter like a snake headed cat
sharp icy curve pulling back to strike again
you are tactics you are cause for concern
little darlin honey baby sweet jesus mother mercy holy shit
I hold still as you engrave the image
Berlin train station Reichstag grey in the dawn then
silver like a cloud he had smoothed the pitted walls
for the souls of new people and the flag
was an ultimate absurdity later
in the bar it was one pop song too many
and I cannot scribe after all this time
how easily to fall for the deluded
they are earnest and they really seem to want to win
the trash in our apartment wedding night unwrapping
tv by the beach and doing laundry one song too many I start crying
fro the crime of delusion for the sick state of headphones
feedback of trust funds fuzzy amplifiers
tattoos jackets every would-be star has a girlfriend nodding somewhere
every girlstar has a girlfriend nodding too please provide me
I'm in need of a long blank space between my legs I'm in
desperate need of a discreet private investigator
my past is spotless it's my colleague I'm concerned for
he cherishes delusions of himself as a con man
when anyone can see he's just a puppy

and

all at once the lines of connection sever
that surgery dry ice to freeze a cancer
I never want to see them again used to hate
to watch them eat now we're separate by
a fibre optic cable it's fine
I get so tired, I would never stop if you didn't say so
a weight on the margin of your world I'm not at all sorry
I bring you my liver you smile and say Gwen, honey,
put your liver back. I have all these organs to
take care of, it's hard!! Distract me!! smells of pain make me
feel like a mother or a brat
dispensing wisdom why I let these people
in my house I never say
tranquillity is fragile and the world is full of waves
balls bouncing over fences, love for those who injure you
sadness of desire, death of a flower
glaze of a statue, echoes in a gallery
flicker of a film still of streets sweep of airplanes
moan and groan of the icebergs down south
all blue like skim milk the sharp clear air and the unknown
territory scientific camps on the floes a little closer
to the nipple of the world
the nerves the veining rounding hills
it must be simple there I know it must be smooth I like this too
and scaly talons, and tiny threaded feathers, and blades of lumpy
grass and purple palm trees
vectors cubes and sponges
free bad food cafeteria trays
subfrequent life

newly blown soul of a woman
after curves after texts after pairs of underwear after dishes
and the palms on my neck on my waist after costumes all the
flamboyant strokes my chromosomes
invite me to dance and I accept
but that's just me

in conclusive: not enough to be satisfied
full moral easily convinced
to identify with angels through the ages not enough
to write incantations peace is a death mask
time to arc weld
to not speak the language
tohoard and to transport hunt gather speculate
smash the invader stake out territory push back dismantle take advantage
violate
the unspoken dare them to speak it, shit on their lawns
and sell it to them watch the apparatchiks quietly dismember
their desks

night the Wall came down: party in a soldier's borrowed apartment
in Prague, two Russian guys brought by mistake to a women-only dinner
by a ditzy American tourist. butch German hosteses were not amused.
one guy surprised them doing all the dishes. 20 drunk people and late
in the evening a record called "Black Galaxy" with songs from the sixties.
the tourist put her legs behind her head and walked around on her hipbones,
left with the one who didn't do the dishes for a hotel. plain to see. we
slept a half an hour
woke to an autumn day shortwave said the Wall had fallen
just that evening the American walking her pelvis the Russians both gawking
and the Germans all laughing it seemed to make
absolute sense

Vincent I used to think I wanted people to hush
at my words but now after seeing what reverence does
I think I will just scream laugh cry and throw fits
forget cadenced fascism bluntness is only real
when your instinct for confession your glimpses of insanity
come to the edge I am asking
why you don't throw these words out the window and follow
your next impulse I don't think
if the world did that
that things could be worse than they are I am crawling
on fingertips towards a daylight saviour
towards a truly unrepeatable expression on fingertips
balancing my tongue the pursuit the pursuit
flight and exile harmony the animal in me
the plants all over me the virus all around me the iceberg
floating in my hot dark blood
familiar unusual feeling of the gunman
the edge of the decision the longing to die

try to transvest me mall up our childhood
sell his agony plan my death
this is war baby
nonstop war
American crap
on a Russian roulette






soapbox poem

these four bananas
growing together
all fruit should have
a handle I call
for the handling
of all fruit
I call for the
reassemblage
of empathy
I am not speaking
for anyone I am
calling for some
attention paid
to the matter of life
in the manner you see
fit I stand here
a lady of crud
crabby when pebbles
wobble my platform
Bukowski has nothing
on me for arrogance
here is my beauty secret:
triumphant deception means
flawless complexion
and I call for death
to the smoothly skinned
pulling one over
on pulling one over
medieval lure
of the masquearde
there is no drug
like a firm conviction
and I
am testing
the dosage

are you a cog? a ratchet?
grind with anger
for all you risk in a rigged
game

raise on high
your expectations
oh limitless
beautiful
paper flags





Gwendolyn Albert


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