Read Now Before It Goes Away

Oystering circa 1915

Ripe Literary Journal, which published a poem of mine in its second issue, is going to be shutting down. Such is the ephemeral nature of our reviews. Catch a glimpse of it before it is taken away.
 

4 POEMS by Ben Nardolilli

Nauseated Drive has published 4 POEMS by me. I say POEMS because that's how they chose to title the section about my works. I guess one by itself is still a poem but taken together they are POEMS. So head on over and read them.

Happy Mother's Day

Now that I've got that out of the way, here's two poems for you all to read in the Trouvaille Review. The first is called A Pause After. The second is called Tendency Backstory. A little backstory to this backstory, I originally submitted this poems with the last line missing by mistake. It was accepted nevertheless. So I added the line, and it was accepted. I guess that means, in theory, I had three poems chosen by the review.

What's the Deal with Poetry

Some music to get you into the mood

Hello, and happy Saturday to those still observing the weekend. I just published a poem in The Daily Drunk involving a dream I had a while back. Somehow the show Seinfeld got involved, maybe I was watching reruns of it at the time.

Hammering Away at the Charleston Anvil

Good news everybody, I published a poem in the summer issue of the Charleston Anvil. That's Charleston as in the West Virginia kind. Chew on that.

A Poem in RAW That's Thoroughly Cooked

RAW Journal of the Arts has published a poem of mine in its first issue. It's about Brooklyn before I ever really knew Brooklyn, also when I was still obsessed with Ted Berrigan.

The Route of the Next Women's March on DC

Hopefully, we won't have to have another march like the one yesterday ever again. Nevertheless I think we need to be prepared for next time. While there was a planned route, it quickly broke down. It was for the best of reasons though, namely that so many people showed up! Inspiring as that may be, I doubt we'll have the freedom to organize ourselves and spread out peacefully under the noses of the authorities in the future.

Now I have no intention of mansplaining here, this is just an idea for the route of the next possible march to take. I think we should start at L'Enfant Plaza and from there head north. Just as a baby was born there once, so shall the next march be born there as well:

This will take the march through the Mall and next to all the important museums. Tourists won't be able to avoid us. After politicians, I think they're the next most important group to reach out to. Then at H Street we will branch off into two groups. Going any farther north will be trouble because there won't be enough space and amenities to support the protest:

One group will head east and curl around Union Station and end near the Capitol grounds to make our case heard to the legislative and judicial branches:

However, that will still leave the executive branch to reach out to, and reach out we will! How? By walking over to 17th Street, then going down past the White House to occupy the space between it and the Washington Monument:

So the next Women's March on DC will look something like this:

Wikipedia's diagram is insufficiently pink

Affirmation in Cleaver, another Appearance at Trial

A poem of mine, "Affirmation" is in Cleaver Mag. According to them I am a "Cleaver Emerging Artist." I hope you agree. There are several other emerging artists in this issue as well: Elizabeth Burkhalter, Kelly R. Samuels, Olivia Parkes, Jack Wills, Sam Brighton, and Michael Fischer.

As for my work, this isn't Affirmation in the spiritual sense, though perhaps the title does play off of it. In this particular work, I'm dealing with Affirmation in a legal sense because this poem is from my legal-based cycle, "Appearance at Trial." If any of you want to read the whole thing I can email it to you!

Some of the things discussed in this poem are: conscious pain and suffering, New York, paperclips, mercantilism, trusts, Discovery Zone, the Beach Boys, cents, Dinosaurs, corpses, and Billy Shears.

Dreaming of New York in New York Dreaming

New York Dreaming has published my poem Atlantic Avenue. Read and enjoy.

The Fireworks Go Out

Read the poem at Randomly Accessed Poetics that commenter bzniditch writes the following about:

"A Commodity culture’s language forcibly commensurate with Ben Nardolilli’s poem in layered pattern of a brandished verse finely cast with a poet’s castaway feel for intonation and wrought in an international need for language."

When Sartre Talked to Crabs

"Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?"  

"After the politicians, I went to the poets, the writers of tragedies and dithyrambs and the others, intending in their case to catch myself being more ignorant then [sic] they. So I took up those poems with which they seemed to have taken most trouble and asked them what they meant... I am ashamed to tell you the truth, gentlemen, but I must. Almost all the bystanders might have explained the poems better than their authors could. I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say... At the same time I saw that, because of their poetry, they thought themselves very wise men in other respects, which they were not. So there again I withdrew, thinking that I had the same advantage over them as I had over the politicians."

I think this section from Plato's Apology (spoken by Socrates) pretty much explains how I feel about this poem of mine in the Fox Chase Review.

Eviscerator Heaven!

Check out their fifth issue here. You will have to download it, but I think it will be worthwhile. My poem "City on a Dune" is on the front page. Thank you. Thank you. But good to see it has found a home. I wrote it so many years ago when Coates and I were at the Outer Banks and trying to imitate the Wright Brothers by being first in flight to somewhere. Anyway, enjoy!

Heroin Love Songs

But not love songs to Heroin. I have two new poems up at the above mentioned web site. The first one "Hot Summer Night," was about a dream I had a year ago. I sent somebody some money, and then regretted it. Anyways, check 'em out if y'interested.

Also happy birthday to my sister Anne. She is turning 16 today, in Australia. She was arrested for poaching on the lord's manor, in the lord's manner, and was sent there rather than endure oakum picking in the poorhouse for a fortnight of years! Hopefully she won't end up with Ned Kelly and his gang, or any other swagman.

Let's look at all the things that have changed since July 29,1992 so we can all feel older together.

1992: Clinton Elected President

1994: Mandela becomes president of South Africa

1995: Rwanda Genocide

1995: Rabin assassinated

1997: Dolly Cloned

1998: Suharto steps down in Indonesia

1999: Coup in Pakistan

2000: International Space Station up (also start of Willenium)

2001; 9/11 Attacks

2002: Euro adopted

2003: Start of Iraq war

2004: Bush re-elected

2005: Pope John Paul II dies

2006: Danish cartoons controversy

2007: Bhutto assassinated

2008: Obama wins Democratic nomination (something Anne is interested in)

Unfortunately, my dream came true

Last night I had a strange dream

I dreamed that I was in some coastal town. There was a beach, but it was seperated from the main part where everyone lived by a high cliff. If was a colder place, possibly in the Pacific Northwest or New England. There were no palm trees or coconuts. Instead there were evergreens. I went to the beach and it was fine. There must have been a spring or a current nearby because then I was able to play in the water.

I went back up to the main street as the beach started to fill up with people. The shops were all very nice, almost too nice in that way that re-created towns look. Suddenly a warning siren rang and I looked out towards the ocean and saw to my horror, the water rolling up in a massive wave.

It was huge, colossal. The sun shone on it and it looked like a skyskaper made of glass that as hurling itself towards my little town. I could hear the people on the beach screaming, trying to run to the high ground. I was there and so I had a real running start. What was interesting was that I actually felt real horror when I saw the wave, I was there. Also I was able to run away from it. Usually in such dreams one is stuck and cannot move. However I could and I ran and ran.

Luckily for me I ran far enough inland so that the wave did not reach me. It hit the shore and smashed aainst the cliff, then part of splashed to the tip of the town, none of it got me wet. I woke up after that. I think that maybe the dream was inspired by a picture I saw in the most recent Guiness World Records,in which the largest recorded tsunami had its size demonstrated by taking the empire state building and showing the picture of a wave done in traditional Japanese fashion next to it. In other words, this wave was huge.

Unfortuately this morning, I found out that a tsunami had hit the Solomon Islands, real beaches were hit and real people were killed.