On Both Sides, poem by Keyna Thomas (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)

ON BOTH SIDES
by Keyna Thomas

Is there really much difference
Between the butterfly and the moth?
I like to think I’m on both sides
Eating nectar from the flowers
Chewing on someone’s gray sweater
Retreating to a dark cocoon
But drawn in between times
To the light.
Everything pretty has an ugly side
Every wing’s flutter would tickle
should it brush upon my cheek
And the cats, all three
Couldn’t care less whether
They chase a moth or a monarch
So they’re both the same to me
Sometimes I’d like to be one
More than the other
Especially when it rains
and it weighs, oh how
It weighs on me
Until my wings are moon bright
In the light
Day
Or
Night

IMAGE: “Butterfly” (Engandered Species Series) by Andy Warhol (1983).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Keyna Thomas is a freelance writer of poetry and short stories, as well as a part-time administrative assistant at a state university, where she is working on her Bachelor’s. She has worked in New England as a reporter and staff writer for MediaNews Group. There, she learned that true stories about people are almost always as interesting as fiction. Since then she has been writing a short novel that merges the two. Keyna grew up in Central Massachusetts, where she now lives and works. She and some of her 140-character (or less) ramblings can be found at https://twitter.com/Keyna.

Suburban wilds: a self-portrait, poem by Liz Worth (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)

Suburban wilds: a self-portrait
by Liz Worth

Ocean above the cheekbones and a savage lung, the breath of devastation to match the only scar I can still see from in here.

I dream in the robes of a witch, my mouth ravaged by an April birth and temper as deep as a wolf’s
but my hair speaks only of suburban wilds gone rough.
In my hand, the spider of insomnia as swollen as an under-slept eye.

Chipped tooth from spilling out onto the street a gasping reminder of my catch-all phrase: I’m fine / I’m fine / I’m fine.

At the wrist, ribbons of time – the dead honored in gold above flattened veins.

Skirt parted to reveal myself as the kind of girl who lets strange men’s legs rest against hers on a crowded subway.

(Lift. Just a little more.)

I don’t run with anyone because I don’t need to.

My mind isn’t as vulnerable as it used to be but
if you look me in the eye
you’ll find the photograph I will become:
a socket of poetry, its tunnel
as terrible as the Moon and
burning wild.

Downcast superstition behind the earlobe, pooling in the collarbone.
Paranoia’s an oil seeping from my pores,
blackheads behind bangs and drugstore concealer.
I scratch, shortened nails, a dictation of unease.

Lips, perilous. Wanting. My gaze, high.

Higher. Looking forward. Away, to something better.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: For me, creating usually involves coffee no matter what time of day it is. Occasionally it also happens with dark chocolate or banana bread, which I believe help improve concentration, or at least boost my overall levels of happiness. I always carry a notebook around and most of my writing starts with just one word or a fragment of an idea: an image, a phrase, a strange pairing of words. I take it from there and just let the writing tell me what it wants to do.

IMAGE: “Queen Elizabeth II” by Andy Warhol (1985).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Liz Worth is a Toronto-based author. Her debut book, Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, was the first to give an in-depth account of Toronto’s early punk scene. Liz’s first poetry collection, Amphetamine Heart, was released in 2011, and her first novel, PostApoc, was released in October 2013. She has also re-written Andy Warhol’s a: A Novel as poetry. You can reach her at www.lizworth.com.

A Portrait, a Moment: A Construction of the Self, poem by Angela La Voie (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)

A PORTRAIT, A MOMENT: A CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF
by Angela La Voie

Most of the lines are curvy, even with angles of limbs, energy,
except for the nose I get from my mother’s mother.
It’s small and straight, just flares at the end.

I like to hold my spine straight,
shoulders back and down, but even then
there’s that curve at the spine’s base.

You’ll more often find me smiling than frowning.
Often I’ve worn my blonde locks in a bob,
but look better with my hair shoulder-length.

Days find me bent at my cherry desk
forming questions about the graphite strappy sandals
I wore dancing in New York, a bowl of green apples, or

the human condition. I compose questions;
my pen, my computer—they deliver poems, essays,
meanderings. I write less often at night.

You might draw me with my two dogs,
black and tan, both convinced my chief purpose
is to rub their chests, pat their bellies.

You might draw my feet pressing the sand
at the sea’s edge, or callused and blistered from hiking.
These feet, they once climbed a 14er.

So many poses from which to choose,
there’s me, standing on a step,
tilting slightly up to kiss my husband at eye level.

What I relish most about me now:
my capacity for love and the sparkly knowing look
that’s followed me in pictures since girlhood.

That might run a bit sappy; I wouldn’t risk that
when younger. But that was before I understood
life’s wealth, that the rest is just pleasure.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Often I begin a poem with a line or an image that’s been following me. I proceed from that impulse until I find what the poem is about it. Then I create a shape, find the rhythm, remove the clutter. After that, I allow some time to find what’s missing and build texture.

IMAGE: “Shoe bright, shoe light, first shoe I’ve seen tonight” by Andy Warhol (1955).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A former journalist, Angela La Voie’s stories have been published in The Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit Free Press, The Dallas Morning News, on MSNBC.com, and elsewhere. She is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction and poetry at Antioch University Los Angeles. Recent essays have appeared in Skirt! magazine and Catharsis Journal.

Warhol Portraits: Goethe, poem by George Green

WARHOL PORTRAITS: Goethe
by George Green

From Tischbein’s portrait of the noble poet
lounging beside a shattered obelisk.
the campiness of Goethe’s hat and cloak
no doubt explains why Andy did this copy.
the coloring is pure Electric Circus
and Maharishi-era Donovan.
“The savoring of unintended ironies”
is Peter Schjeldahl in his last week’s New Yorker
explaining camp to dopes out in the burbs.

SOURCE: “Warhol Portraits: Goethe” appears in George Green‘s collection Lord Byron’s Foot, available at Amazon.com. Lord Byron’s Foot is the 12th winner of the annual New Criterion Poetry Prize — recognized as one of the foremost contemporary venues for poetry that pays close attention to form.

IMAGE: “Goethe” by Andy Warhol (1982).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: George Green‘s poems have appeared in various journals and in the anthologies Poetry 180, 180 More Poems, The Best American Poetry 2005 and 2006, Bright Wings: An illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, and The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets. He teaches at Lehman College, CUNY, in the Bronx.

ABOUT THE SUBJECT: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry, prose and verse dramas, memoirs, an autobiography, literary criticism, scientific treatises, and four novels.

Portrait of Goethe (fragment above) by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1828).

Warhol Portraits: Dennis Hopper, poem by George Green

WARHOL PORTRAITS: Dennis Hopper
by George Green

His cowboy Hamlet death scenes are the best.
He flops, jerks, and blabs beseechingly,
then flops, imploringly, and dies. John Wayne,
even, is stunned by so much hamminess.
(He kills him twice: True Grit and Katie Elder.)
Now Dennis sells investments on TV
blabbing away to boomers who have bucks
enough to golf all day, enough to die
of boredom in the sun. Dennis is cool, though,
and still the hippest actor on the scene.
A poet and a painter, and, what’s more,
a recognized authority on Andy.

SOURCE: “Warhol Portraits: Dennis Hopper” appears in George Green‘s collection Lord Byron’s Foot, available at Amazon.com.  Lord Byron’s Foot is the 12th winner of the annual New Criterion Poetry Prize — recognized as one of the foremost contemporary venues for poetry that pays close attention to form.

IMAGE: “Dennis Hopper” by Andy Warhol, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 40×40″ (1971).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: George Green‘s poems have appeared in various journals and in the anthologies Poetry 180, 180 More Poems, The Best American Poetry 2005 and 2006, Bright Wings: An illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, and The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets. He teaches at Lehman College, CUNY, in the Bronx.

contemporary literature, one, poem by Charles Bukowski

contemporary literature, one (excerpt)
by Charles Bukowski

…I saw some newspapers
on the floor
I was out of writing
paper
had long ago hocked 
my typewriter
I noticed that 
each page of the
newspaper had a wide white
margin around the 
edge
I had a pencil
stub
I picked up a 
newspaper and with
the pencil stub
I began to write words 
on the edge
sitting in the doorway
freezing in the moonlight
so that I could
see 
I wrote in pencil 
on all the edges 
of all the newspapers 
in that shack…

SOURCE:“contemporary literature, one” appears in Charles Bukowski‘s collection Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981), available at Amazon.com.

IMAGE: “Pop Art Bukowski” by Terry Collett. Prints and cards available at redbubble.com.

Staying young, quote by Franz Kafka

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” FRANZ KAFKA

Artwork: “Flowers” (1964) by Andy Warhol

Watermelon quote by Richard Brautigan with art by Andy Warhol

“In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.” RICHARD BRAUTIGAN, In Watermelon Sugar (novel, 1968)

ARTWORK: “Watermelon” screenprint, 1979, by Andy Warhol, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, The Estate of Andy Warhol.

The Statue of Liberty, Silkscreen by Andy Warhol

Artwork: “Statue of Liberty” (silkscreen, 1962) by Andy Warhol

This Andy Warhol silkscreen of the Statue of Liberty sold for $43.8 million at a 2012 Christie’s sale in New York. The artwork features multiple images of the statue, each depicted with a 3-D effect. Christie’s marketed the piece in a catalogue that came with a pair of 3-D glasses — and a private collector with $43.8 million to spare won the auction. As they say, art is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Writing Advice from Franz Kafka

WRITING ADVICE FROM FRANZ KAFKA: “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.”

ARTWORK: “Butterfly” by Andy Warhol 

Note: In ancient Greek, the word for butterfly is “Psyche,” a term now equated with “soul.”

Download Kafka’s classic tale of transformation, THE METAMORPHOSIS, for free at gutenberg.org.