Reiter's Block

New Poems from "Conway": "City Limits" and "Streets"

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This entry was posted on 2/21/2008 4:07 PM and is filed under Great Poems Online, Politics and Culture, Prison Letters.


My prison pen pal "Conway" returns with new poems that move deeper into surreal territory. I like how he's moved away from his reliance on Gothic-horror imagery to more subtle and original metaphors. I sent him poems by John MiltonCarl Phillips and Ariana Reines this month, so look for even stranger poems in the weeks ahead.

We're currently seeking a publisher for a chapbook of his work. If you have a lead, please comment below. Meanwhile, some selections:

City Limits

Exploring her every nook & cranny:
This neon-lit City of Angels
carefully, I pried open
a glass eyed time-piece
sand slithering arteries of Grit
became avenues of dead stars
mixed among flotsam and jetsam once again

A globe-lit recalcitrant flame
Lamp-light of our dark-voided space
sucked into a whirlpool
siphoned through
a pocket-knife sliced Garden hose
Fuel, for a stolen car's joyride
So lonely for comfort; Yet so alive...


********

Streets

Delay this intrepid LIFE (left behind)
hand-washed away, by years of silent cheers
watch as sunsets-strip away the pain
while your splendor is too keen to withdraw
abstain or restrain, streets of my youth...

The streets I grew-up on, may flee
But, they will never leave me
I know those black veins, pumping red
trees pulsing green
congested traffic trailing lights through the foothills...

They freely flow, like: A mother's breast
request of issue hushed
producing life, as the sore cries out for more
Time, to ingest floppy kisses, of silt & smog
Tastes that clog this breast with memory...

"too brilliant" in the scheme of things; So I thought!
Yet, looking back now, it seems I'd caught
a hint or glimpse, of troubles to astonish
as shocking as this may sound
I chose to stick around; I could have Run...

 
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Comments

    • 4/2/2011 2:14 PM Patricia Henry wrote:
      Knowing my brother as I do,he has changed so much since he went to prison.We don't realize what we would lose when we choose the wrong way in life.
      Reply to this
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