Eye Socket Journal

April Issue

Please Note: Eye Socket Journal was replaced by the brand new Lip-Service Journal as of May 1, 2013. Lip-Service Journal is the place where poets let their words and voices become one. Lip-Service Journal is audio poetry at its best. It features art and photography and goes online on the 1st. So sit back and listen to some of the finest contemporary poetry around today.

Visit the new literary blog then become a follower at:

http://lipservicejournal.tumblr.com/

Editor’s Note:

Welcome to latest issue of Eye Socket Journal! ESJ is what Concelebratory Shoehorn Review used to be in a previous life, but without the contact lens. My newest offspring likes elephant tail soup and a lion’s roar in the pop-up book. It carves white river raffles in the church bingo and a sit-com that cries real tears, or a policeman’s whistle that can speak five languages. And I don’t mean just any old street festival either. It has an uncanny ability to smell the roses even if the flowers are tulips, using rugged sideburns to paint girlish lips. This month’s issue serves up a double order of spring in the air, smothered in gravy. It is cram-packed with poets who have their pilot’s licences in the footnotes, music served with smoked salmon and free-range chickens in the book review. Trust me, when you finish this issue you’ll never doubt the power of a sleepwalker ago. Or socks with holes in the heels. Either way, wisdom teeth have never been grown in an organic version, even if you use mint-flavored mouth wash daily. So gather all the dust bunnies and get busy…

Table Of Contents

Glen Sorestad

Dianne Galbraith

Tim Pfau

Nicole Taylor

Luis Colan

Book Review

About Music - Clueso

Ruth Mark

Contributors Biographies

Glen Sorestad

Nearing The First Day Of Winter

So now we have reached the first day of Winter,

why am I already so tired of it? I’m serious.

Can it be because here we’ve been treated to ice

and snow since before the night small ghosties

and goblins stuffed their gobs from their sacks?

Or has it something to do with my undiagnosed

but well advanced Shoveller’s Back Syndrome?

I have moved greater snow volume this autumn

than an Inuit construction crew at hunting camp.

Yes, I know, I’m sounding like a crabby senior,

one of those forever-carpers everyone ignores.

But this morning when the rising sun cracked

the eggshell crust of snow, off to the southeast

in the general direction of Miami, I’ll confess

my thoughts honed in on sand, sea and sun,

not on a set of practical snow tires to navigate

the banana-peel perils of an ice-caked city.

I had no thoughts – nada — about longest night

ushering in a new season, as if it were an occasion

I would want to celebrate. It is only a reminder.

Though coming days will mete new light in minutes,

we have learned to be realistic – key to survival.

Three months down, three more months to go.

Cold Spring Morning

When we struck off through Lakewood Park

on our usual morning walk we were

bundled warmly enough to thwart

below-freezing temperatures, but still

could feel cold’s steady insistence

through what we had considered

appropriate protective garb.

It took some time for us to realize,

in the cold stillness undercut

by the urban morning moan of traffic,

that we were missing something

from the previous day’s walk –

robin song, that familiar thrushy burst

of vernal joy. But the jaunty robins

had been silenced by the resurgence

of Winter, baring its resentful teeth,

at having been shoved aside by

the boisterous arrival of Spring.

As we neared the pond we could see

a thin skin of ice stilled its surface.

Perched on a bulrush on the edge of the pond

a lone Red-winged Blackbird, also silent –

its voice temporarily lost to frost.

Kicking The Habit

My mother smoked cigarettes until she had

reached her seventies. One day she looked

in the mirror and startled herself, the cigarette

between her lips, the thin grey waft of poison

curling upwards, and what she saw was

an old woman, smoking, and it wasn’t pretty.

A bulb had flashed, a shutter clicked, and she

did not like the resulting photo. So that day she quit,

cold turkey, never smoked again in her life.

She lived into her ninety-third year, so how much

tobacco shortened her life is a moot question.

I asked her how hard it had been to cure

an addiction grown over a half-century and she

answered that when the urge to smoke seized her,

all the resolve she needed lay in that image:

old woman with a fag in her mouth.

How The Poem Happens

If I sit very still and just listen

to the sounds that surround me,

at first I may have little awareness

of anything but a soundscape,

or even white noise, a merging

of sounds, perhaps even a din.

But the longer I sit and listen,

the sooner individual and distinct

sounds will separate themselves

from the others and like an oboe

in an ensemble become crystal

to the point of fixing itself in my

memory of that place, that time.

Photography by Dianne Galbraith

Tim Pfau

Hawk’s Burden

Ah, there you are, circling the lake

in the mountains uphill from the alpaca farm.

Yes the lake walked to on the trail through the trees

Grandfathers planted beside the river,

Trillium covered banks, foaming and/or placid water.

And you are looking down -at the poet, of course-

in the sun dappled shadows composing this poem,

like the hordes before and his spawn to come

who are not salmon but still, that too is a poem to do,

following this turnstile dream quest

upstream and flopping in the gravel.

Sorry, but there is no time

to scare up a grouse or two

for you to knock down dead and feed

their bloody livers to your fledglings.

I’d be happy to except this blister

must be lanced and the serum spread,

tracing faint lines in the well worn dust.

Come Away

Inspiration could rise out of Venice,

green water, grey marble, or girls in red

drinking coffee in Parisian cafes,

ephemeral blinks in stark timeless eye,

too in your garden, where each flower’s tied

to your heart by soft strings which elude me

but un-needed for your clay crusted wands

to charm forth webs enlacing me also.

Now or anticipated, each in place,

but come away, come with me, come away.

Let’s watch smooth waves born south of Australia,

end three thousand miles on African shore

washed by shine of white northern moonlight,

drowned in the roar of ten billion insects

living and dying in forests behind

us, one more night under Southern Cross stars.

River monkeys will thunder across steel

roofs in our bright dawn and evening -laughing.

We shall eat dates with them, succulent sweets,

see white lions take their ease and I’ll learn to

say “Thank you” in the nine known languages,

for if you’ll come away, I’ll need them all.

Covering The Aide For Break

A man of substance dying

in a private room, charted

“Do not resuscitate”, old,

cheeks and eyes sunk so deeply

the skull seemed ready

to just leave, to go about

its pending business early,

lay quite still beneath pale sheets

mimicking his motionless

eyes under their ashen lids.

I watched an hour, while his Aide

went to dinner, timing pulse and

the gaps between each exhale

and next inhalation’s wheeze

stretching out like dead black night

waiting for a doubtful dawn.

Every 15 minutes I

gently swabbed the lips and tongue

Oxygen’s last embers dried,

but whatever comforting

he took also also slowed him more.

Much later, we washed and packed

lifeless substance abandoned

and wheeled the cadaver’s mass

to Mortician’s Holding Room.

Shift change led us to my place

where we, our pelvic bones bruised,

gasped for breath on wrinkled sheets.

This Is Not A Poem Called “Pugil”

I wrote a poem you cannot see
full of violent lust gone worse

and selfish gratification.

Being arty, I titled it

“Pugil” - root of “pugilism”-
which turns out to mean the amount

which can be grasped between thumb and
two fingers. Clench your fist and look,

an exceedingly small amount,

like the second a man dangles,

loose limbs dancing all akimbo,

a rejected marionette,
at the end of a great left hook
or the evening of sex it won

and post-coital cigarettes,

all exceedingly small amounts,

pinched between thumb and two fingers,

there in my poem you cannot see.

Nicole Taylor

A Poem with a Punchline 1

After driving and dirty jokes,

Christians told crass jokes;

After salmon, sausage, burger,

pork, conversation;

After watching two musical nuns

and five funny friendly nuns

on stage and steps;

We walked to the other

McMenamin’s in McMinnville

and talked of

Jethro Tull-like Celtic band, dancers,

Sheila’s interesting dates,

Katie’s interesting bra design -

advertised for “Mikey’s grown up now.”

A night of scotch, cider, coffee,

beer, root beer.

Punchlines

With elbows against her van’s steering wheel

Sheila bobbed her head down

while telling crass dirty jokes,

to see a Nunsense play. She told of

three women on a bench, with a

banana, one women being

a nun. Then Andy, Katie’s adult

son, tells of a man with money who

buys a black prostitute for

only house painting design. Janine

tells us of three guys buying condoms. The

female clerk holds and check

their organs. After checking

the size of one young man

the clerk yells “Clean up on

aisle 14.”Now Janine is the

aisle 14 lady. Later at a pub, we

listen to a band play classic Irish tunes

and watch a lady dance a jig

in this early March evening,

After the dinner and play,

we joked more. Katie tells us

of an interesting new

handprint bra design idea. I pull

some great one-liners,

“Mikey’s likes it.” and

“Mikey’s grown up now.” after

the old Life cereal television commercials.

At Grand Vines, Grand Reading

Tents with double slip knots and Society

for Creative Anachronism games.

After a glass?, Katie tells me

about her July 4th weekend.

My friend Katie asks

are you ready to read?

Maybe later?

Katie tells me, and Allison who

just walked past the wine shop.

So we sample wines

and the quiche of the day

and I read more poems

with hypnotizing eyes

and intoxicating souls.

Will you read more, please?

The Muse Party

Arguments brewed

all weekend at The Muse,

not amusing to

these quieter poetry conference attendees,

through Oregon.

I awaken

at 12 AM,

at 2:30 AM to a

loud angry partier yelling

Hey Guard,

Burn in Hell.

I wondered if

my Eugene friends

might be there for

a going away party,

a moving to Maui party

for Michelle.

At 8 AM

I listened in

the hotel lobby

to derby girls,

robust tattooed and pierced ladies

from Humboldt Roller Derby.

I listened to

slim softball ladies

from the Portland Pilots

ladies carrying black bags

of textbooks and bats.

Artwork by Luis Colan

About Books

Title: Doll Studies: Forensics

Author: Carol Guess

“The paradox of proximity is in full force in Carol Guess’ brilliant Doll Studies. The miniaturization of crime scenes, the photographs of the details, and finally Guess’ investigations into these literal and psychic murders reveal the texture of suffering, and our attempts to frame the moments ‘between breathing and dying.’ In these poems, ‘the idea is not to solve the crime’ but ‘to see as at a museum’—and we do see, through Guess’ eyes, the startling beauty left behind like clues in wake of human violence. Overall, with Guess as our guide, we are given a stark tour of the end, and yet strangely filled ‘with peace because [we are] only watching.’” —Allison Benis White

Find more information at: http://www. blacklawrencepress.com/

About Music - Clueso

Clueso (born April 9, 1980 as Thomas Hübner in Erfurt) is a German singer, rapper, songwriter and producer. His name comes from Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. He started making music in 1995. In 1998 he got to know his future manager Andreas Welskop and gave up his hairdressing apprenticeship. His first vinyl Clüsolo was released on BMG Ufa the same year. In 1999 he moved to the 10vor10-Studios in Cologne with Welskop. A year later he signed a label contract at Four Music and released Text und Tonin 2001. Around that time he performed with Curfew at the MTV HipHop Open in Stuttgart and at Beats for Life in Cologne. In 2002, he moved back to Erfurt and recorded the Rowdy-Club-Tape 2002. One year later, he started producing his second album Gute Musik, which translates to “good music”. In 2005, he represented Thuringia with the song Kein Bock zu geh’n at the Bundesvision Song Contest. The same year he was the partner of Start Ab, the ‘biggest non-commercial remix contest in Europe’. In 2006 his third album Weit weg was released. In May and June 2007 he was the opening act of Herbert Gronemeyer’s 12-Tour and in the same year he was nominated by 1 live for the 1 live radio listener’s award, the 1LIVE Krone, in the category Best Live Act. In September 2007, the single Lala, a song was released. In 2008, he represented the Federal State of Thuringia in the Bundesvision Song Contest again. With his song Keinen Zentimeter, he came second. In 2008, he released his fourth album So sehr dabei and his second single Mitnehm were released. The third single from this album, Niemand an dich denkt, followed in October 2008. In December 2010 Clueso released a book “Clueso. Von und über” (Clueso. Made By and About). The fifth studio album “An und für sich” (“In and of itself”) was released in 2011. That same year he collaborated with Udo Lindenberg performing the song “Cello” on the album “MTV unplugged – Live im Hotal Atlantic”. The song was released as a single also reaching number 4 in the German charts.

Visit his website at: http://www.clueso.de/en/

Ruth Mark

Ballymena at the Oval

Do you know how anticipated those outings
on Saturday afternoons were;
my one day to have you all to myself?
The evenings of stealing in to watch
you lathe the wood to perfection
sawdust flying, dusting your brylcreamed hair
were not really an audience, your mind
somewhere else, among the ancient grain
knots worried smooth, ready for their varnish.
Or the nights debating what life meant
heated words, each of us vying for the answer.
No. The drive up to the Big Smoke
a flask of milky tea, sandwiches wrapped in cling film
nestled in a bag between my feet
were the only time I saw the real you.
And later, feet cold, fingers numb from the
wind blowing off the Lagan, shouting ourselves hoarse
as men kicked a ball, shins, laying into each other
while bottles flew, you anxious for our safety
were the best moments, us against the world.
Now, when I watch football
I’m transported more often than not
to those afternoons of mayhem
in the Oval, and must smile;
it didn’t matter that I was a girl. I was
your daughter, valued for being me.

-first published in PoetryRepairShop

Photographing Him Dead

Was it your way of understanding, when
You took that photo of him waxy in his box? Or
Was it your way of saying Don’t go. Don’t leave
Me. We have unfinished business? Hold
On to the image. It was never
Destroyed, ripped into a million
Tiny squares and binned. It’s burned
In your amygdala. You don’t
Need colour gloss, exact
Replication, photographic
Evidence to document your loss.

-poem firs published in The Sentinel Poetry Quarterly

Unconditional Love

You put champ on the table
a glistening mound of white potato
golden-topped, sprouting green.
Or, you had a pot of jam on the go
the aroma filling the house
with a sticky sweetness, your apron
splashed bloody, a basin of shiny
black jewels ready for the next batch
on the scrubbed Formica worktop.
Food prepared with love
eaten with relish – we never went hungry
were clothed thanks to your expertise
with the needle, warm, snug –
you’d joke you’d knit us a man
when we were hormone-raging teenagers.
Everything was comforting, a close-knit family unit
us against the world. Difficult to
cope when she flew the nest
and found people out there were not
like us. Ironically they don’t really
begin to talk, until she fell from the invisibly
erected, pedestal, the eldest daughter’s
path gone awry, hitting dead-ends
cages every-which-way she turned
salvation at the end of a phone line
but most of all, the soul-deep knowledge
that you were there, always there
your unconditional love a gift
she finally embraced.

Easter Eggs

He was nostalgic last night
for a long-ago time when
two wee girls would go picking
whins to colour the eggs
bright yellow, innocence
personified, their bond strong as iron.

The smell of those whins
boiling in water producing
fluorescent yellow, bleeding
filling the saucepan
turning the ovals to small suns,
pungent perfume fills my nostrils
the memory so strong it
catches in my throat.

We’d bash those eggs
against a stone wall at
the foot of Slemish. Could never get
the shells to crack by rolling
them over the rocky grass
yellow flecks with white underbellies
days long gone yet vivid still.

-both poems previously published in DeadDrunkDublin

Contributors Biographies

Glen Sorestad

Bio: he is a well known and much published poet who has authored more than 20 volumes of poetry. His latest poetry book, A Thief of Impeccable Taste, was published in a bilingual, English/Spanish edition by Sand Crab Books. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and this past year received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. He lives in the Saskatoon in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Visit him at: sorstd@sasket.net

Dianne Galbraith

Bio: she is a former dancer with the Scottish Ballet & Queensland Ballet who decided to try her luck at using a camera a couple of years ago after her two boys purchased a Canon 5D Mark 2 for their own creative pursuits. She says when the camera wasn’t being used she would “borrow” it and start snapping away, and that’s how she became hooked. She has since bought their camera and a macro lens to boot and is beginning to really appreciate the creative outlet photography allows. She lives in Adelaide, Australia. Find more examples of her photography at: http://www.fotoblur.com/people/dkg

Tim Pfau

Bio: his poems have appeared in Canopic Jar, Gold Man Review, On Lesotho, Concelebratory Shoehorn Review and The Toucan Review, as well as newspapers, shows, contests and anthologies. He says he tries to put life’s lightness and dark into his stories and thinks Sylvia Plath was right, often poets are novelists too lazy to do the work. His poem “Angels of the Drunk” has been nominated for a 2014 Pushcart Prize. He lives in Salem, Oregon with his wife, where he serves on the Board of the Oregon Poetry Association. You can contact him at: tjpfau@msn.com

Nicole Taylor

Bio: she is an artist, a hiker, a poetry note taker, a sketcher, a volunteer and a dancer, formerly in DanceAbility. Her work has appeared in BareBack Journal - an online Canadian journal, Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac, Camel Saloon, Cirque Journal, Denali Journal of Four and Twenty Journal, Full of Crow, Gloom Cupboard, Haggard and Halloo, Just Another Art Movement Journal (New Zealand), and elsewhere. Her blogs include: http://apoetessanthology.blogspot.com and www.oregonpoeticvoices.org/poets/312, a collection of Oregon poets with ritten and audio poetry available online through Lewis & Clark College in Portland, She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Luis Colan

Bio: he was born in Lima, Peru in 1980. He credits discovering his passion for painting after experiencing the religious festival, El Señor de los Milagros (Lord of Miracles), as a small child. From then on he has taken inspiration from the beauty he sees in every day life to create his work. At age ten he and his family moved to Connecticut, where he continued his education from middle school through college. He attended the Hartford Art School, at the University of Hartford, where he was influenced by artists and professors Stephen Pat Brown, Fred Wessel, and Jeremiah Patterson. It is from these mentors he learned new techniques and color theory that pushed his work further. After graduating in 2004 Luis moved to New York City, where he currently lives and works. Visit his website at: Luis Colan

Ruth Mark

Bio: she is a poet who studied Psychology at Queen’s University of Belfast, attracted there in the first place by the tree-lined beauty of Lennoxvale, with its stately Victorian buildings. She complete a PhD (graduated in 1993) investigating how the brain processes fear. Spells of working in Edinburgh and St. Andrews, Scotland followed. She rediscovered her love of poetry when she moved to Cannes in the South of France. Over the past decade she has written poetry while working as a neuropsychologist because she says poetry makes her feel alive. The freelance writer, poet and editor has a poetry book Daily the Sky Shifts which can be purchased online at: www.ruthmark.nl - see under Books.

Disclaimer/Closing Notes:

Eye Socket Journal is a monthly blog dedicated to the promotion of poetry. It has been created solely as a literary blog and is not a commercial venue. I claim no creative responsibility for any of the poetry that appears in the issue. Each poet holds the exclusive copyrights to their poetry. I hope you have enjoyed this issue of Eye Socket Journal. New issues are published on the 1st day of every month. Make ESJ your regular place to view the best in contemporary poetry by clicking the RSS in the sidebar to become a regular follower. Cover art: “Eyes” by Printshop.

While you’re online, visit my other Tumblr blogs:

My daily blogs:

Daily Picture-Poetry: Daily Picture-Poetry

Soul Music 101: Soul Music101

My canine blog: A Dog Wagging

Black Culture blog: Blackmania 101

Pictures of Europe: Euro-Bilders

Interior decor: Interior Decor 101

My eclectic blog: Muse Sightings

The art of posters: Poster Art 101

Vintage B&W photography: B&W Photography 101

Fine arts blog: ART-vatar

Vintage postcards: Vintage Postcards 101

All things related to water: The Water Museum

All things related to trees: A Tree Scrapbook

American landmarks: Historic America 101

Hollywood Celebrities: A Hollywood Men’s Room

Full Music Concerts & Albums: Full Music 101

My monthly blogs:

Black Celebrities ezine: Black Celebrities 101

Monthly literary ezine: Eye Socket Journal

Fine-art photography ezine: Lenswerk Magazine

Motown Music ezine: Mister Motown