Poetry from Jack Galmitz

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The Portrait Gallery

by Jack Galmitz

*

I stumbled in

to the afterhours club

and there stood Herman

*

In his locker

Joe had a pinup

of Marilyn Chambers

*

Jerome met Betty

on the rollercoaster

she was retching

*

Mr. Smith was bald

his students thought

he was always

*

Mr. Levine

had a dog

then he died

*

Dunlop knew it

he told it to Humphries

now he’s dead

These poems are conceptual although they read quite straightforwardly. My idea was to show those who were writing poetry that decimated grammar, syntax, and meaning that poetic language was no different than ordinary language and that aporia or uncertainty of meaning could be achieved in the most plainspoken English. The lack of finality of meaning simply accompanied language as a matter of course. The poems, I find, are a bit funny and hopefully are read that way.

Poetry from J.D. Nelson

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 the window of the shampoo ice
  
 the kaiser roll of the sky is the law of the lake
 to eat a burger on the open norse day
  
 your old chewy ticket is the radio rock of the talon
 eating a hungry hippo with a marble in my mouth
             
 lending a measure to the crow
 the breaking clone of the door
  
 sleep is the rule of the great apple
 the sleeping hum is the cloud of the wall
  
 that walknut of the ironed face
 the street puppet of the moth
 
  
 the song of the lower limbs and the paint of the freezing face
  
 this idea is the paint of the globe
 this is the number of the roses and that is certain 
  
 to lake a lark
 to win a letter of the working duck
  
 the sinking fish
 the lizard of the jumble
  
 care for a chair (mcdonald’s coffee)
 in the cave of the parrots
  
 that coffee was in the shape of a rose
 answering my skull when I’m in the rainbow shoes
  
 the losing brick sauce
 the navel orange is the bat of the produce
 
  
 the household of mars
  
 that apple plank is the standard of the forest
 the bat’s head was like milk in the furnace
  
 the winter seed is the diamond of the cacao
 losing a worm to look for a wheel
  
 that normal eye in the chair
 the coin and that seventh myriad
  
 my sleeping head swims
 we are in the stomach of the goat’s raspberry
  
 the shadow rabbit is the coil of the present
 winning at the battleship game

bio/graf J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. His poetry has appeared in many small press publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Cinderella City (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His first full-length collection, entitled In Ghostly Onehead, is slated for a 2021 release by mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press. His work has recently appeared in E·ratio, Otoliths, BlazeVOX, and Word For/Word. Visit www.MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado

Poetry from Mark Young

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still stands time

Is it a cheat to refer

to the second single

from the album Evaluate

the condition condition

if it gives you time to

take action to ensure

that your cows calve

in adequate body con-

dition &/or provides

early warning of

wellbore instability?

largely / a gathering / of central bankers

Imagine running a
business where allies
of the Shadows seek
revenge against
humanity. I have
a quirk about multi-
location Cloud
Attendance, especially

when the call to
arms is augmented
with global load
balancing. The
native name of
Armenia is Hayastan.

Bird photography

In many ways it seems 
like the national park that
time forgot. So, if you’re 

looking at being more 
mobile for a bash on the
unpredictable ground

there, then forgo sky-
high stilettos & put 
sandbags over the legs.

Why segregate?

Only 11% of the total a-

mount of waste in Metro

Manila is recycled. Shuai

chiao throws aren’t that

different to judo but

have come a long way

since the early alpha/beta

builds. She has never bought

a six-pack of beer in a grocery

store or developed a new

technique for measuring a

baby’s lung function after

birth. In a polycrystalline solid,

watch for fragbots coming off.

Ekphrastic satirical writing from Mark Blickley, after Belgian photographer Inge Dumoulin’s photo ‘No Head, No Pain’

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‘No Head, No Pain’ from Inge Dumoulin

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TYRONE HEMHOLTZ GALLERY

“fine arts forever”

Tyrone Hemholtz is proud to be the first arts institution to sponsor an IORGO VALVA Memorial Retrospective, NO HEAD, NO PAIN.

An intensely private, reclusive artist who refused to attend exhibitions, grant interviews and was so obsessive about not exposing his face in public that he daily wore facial masks decades before the Covid Pandemic. The board of directors at Tyrone Hemholtz offers its gratitude to the Iorgo Valva family for allowing the publication of the only known photograph of this multi-disciplined artistic genius. 

The paintings of Iorgo Valva (1953-2021) reinforces the premise that everything transitory is merely a smile. Everything we see is a proposal, a possibility, an expedient. The real truth, to begin with, remains invisible beneath the surface. The colors that captivate us are not lighting, but light. The graphic universe consists of light and shadow. The diffused clarity of slightly overcast weather is richer in phenomena than a sunny day. It is difficult to capture and represent this, because the moment is so fleeting. Mr. Valva has infiltrated our soul with the formal fuse of THOUGH I’M SCAT I STILL LOVE LITTER BOXES, using organic materials embedded into canvass.

Simple motion strikes us as banal. Valva’s work eliminates the time element. Yesterday and tomorrow are simultaneous. His FRISBEE AS CHOCOLATE CHIP and UP THE SCHOZZIN NOZZIN overcomes the time element by a retrograde motion that would penetrate consciousness, reassuring us that a renaissance might still be thinkable.

Early works indicate his demonical visions melt with the celestial. This dualism shall not be treated as such, but in its complementary oneness. This conviction is always present. The demonic is already peeking through here and there and can’t be kept down. For truth asks that all elements be presented at once, as is exemplified by the artist’s ORGASM SEEPS FROM DAMAGED BOOT and damned near didactic with the completion of his last major painting, the encaustic NEW ENGLAND NEUTERS, as well as conveyed through the lesser sculptures commemorating his recent period of Qanon fanaticism.

IORGO VALVA was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1953. His first contact with the art world came at an early age. In 1954, at the height of the bohemian “BEAT” tradition, Mrs. Chloe Valva was changing the future painter’s diapers in the Women’s Room at Crotona Park when Allen Ginsberg and Jackson Pollock, both in drag, each asked the artist’s mother for a dime and admired the streak-stained diaper Iorgo had created.

After a period of twenty-two years during which time Iorgo did not create art because of his paralyzing fear that ferrets would seek him out and defecate on his paint brushes, Mr. Valva went into a frenzied period of work that lasted until his death at age sixty-eight, when he was bitten by a rabid woodchuck while collecting organic materials for an anti-environmental collage.

Not only was Mr. Valva a prolific painter and sculptor, he also published many articles and essays of art history and criticism, as well as an acclaimed autobiography,
I’m Not Paranoid Because My Fears Are Real, and a novella, Stories I Stole From My Father.

This novella led to a thirty-year court battle with his sister, Katya, when she discovered that the book was pirated from the uncopyrighted Estonian fiction of their father. The case was still in litigation at the time of the artist’s death and was said to be a major reason for renewed interest in Iorgo among art critics, who cited the novella title as the ultimate statement in truth, thus earning Mr. Valva a new and deeper examination of his oeuvre.

Inge Dumoulin is a Belgian photographer and Iorgo Valva family friend who is perhaps even more mysterious than the artist himself. Very little is known about her. Was she Iorgo’s mistress?

Mark Blickley is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and PEN American Center. His latest book is the text-based art collaboration with fine arts photographer Amy Bassin, Dream Streams.

Poetry from John Culp

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I Might Suppose That 
        ------------------------------------




          I might suppose that
Healing will not pass
    the faithless desire
        immediately
            without a transform
                 to encourage faith


A path mends the already known
    to Belief in the moment


                Wishing  -


the formless rides the moments
    Creations pulled to creations
         Lets grounding
             catch up with
                  just


         Being Yourself


               Wishing  -


When Cravings to see
    Say never Be


         A detour
              to offer


          Being Yourself


           
   the Simply
                Knowing


Lets the Wish Release
    Wishing falls to Bow
         Respectfully


          Being Yourself


found worthier
    than the first taste


      I might suppose that
Liking draws the unknown
    for the worthiness
        is Both
            forceless & infinite


Belongs
         Accepts
                  Wishing  -


Time is the Lens
    to see now better
        Releasing to comfort
            adrift to the future
              Letting
                 Be


    And here We are

Poetry from Alan Catlin

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                        213-

“Love’s boat has smashed against the daily

grind.” Mayakovksy. Not the TV show.

The suicide note. Not Fantasy Island.

Russian Roulette. Did you used to watch

those TV shows. Do you watch them now.

Why. Explain. The Deer Hunter. Christopher

Walken with a pistol in a gambling den.

Not a Clue card. A scene. From the movie.

Back in the VA. Stateside. A  hospital tray

table full of cash winnings.  You can only

win at Russian Roulette a finite number of

times. As final as the game of Life.

                        214-

Stillicide. A continual dripping of water.

A hard rain’s a gonna fall. In the still of

the night. A bend in the river. Guerillas or

gorillas.  Word crimes. Mine. Yours. Ours.

Misread the phrase: Legal Suicide this way.

Should be: Legal studio this way.  Not a

Stillicide. Water. Torture. Chinese. Like

checkers. With a Cap. Nixon’s dog. State

secrets found in a pumpkin patch. Not water

rights. Highly classified stuff. Water rights

were what Chinatown was all about.

Whittaker Chambers. Or Alger Hiss. Both.

                        217-

You only live twice. No live and let

die. Nancy Sinatra. Not Linda McCartney.

Not Stella either. Her boots were made

for walking. Naked in Playboy.  Or was

that Joan Collins. Not for the Interview.

Not for Andy Warhol either. He didn’t

like girls. That way. Though he lived

with his mom. Until she died. Don’t say

Norman Bates. Andy lived twice. Being

shot and dead on the table. And revived.

Then a routine procedure and he died.

Go figure.

                        218-

Contribute. To the Gregory Corso Memorial

Bocce Tournament. All major. Accepted.

It’s too late. To fall in love with Sharon Tate.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Happy endings.

To tragic stories. That defined a generation.

Not the Vampire Killers. Though she was in it.

R rating in some iterations.  Brief nudity. Violence.

Stupidity. As disappointing as a broken toy

in a Cracker Jacks box.

                        219-

Twitch and Shout. The affliction.

The memoir. The movie. God didn’t

give epileptics a fair shake. In the

cemetery where Al Jolson is buried.

Who’s your surrogate mama. A terry

cloth monkey instead of a flesh & blood

mother. Science or cruelty to animals.

There’s a lot at stake. Just ask Joan d’ Arc.

Apostles of the covenant. Apocrypha

or Dogma. A three dog night.

Poetry from Chimezie Ihekuna

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Chimezie Ihekuna (Mr. Ben) Young Black man in a collared shirt and jeans resting his head on his hand. He's standing outside a building under an overhang.
Chimezie Ihekuna

I stand tall

To avoid a fall

On Life’s Mall

I exercise my all


Taking a look at my feet

I am tempted give in to my de-feat

But I have to rise to my feet

Which is a great feat 

As I take a walk

To work my talk

Being steady over time

reflects in my Success Clock

The very reason I rock!


Standing Tall :  a Must