Edward McFadden

 

 

McFadden says “I am currently in the MFA Creative Writing program at the University of Montana. In addition to writing poetry I am also a translator of Yosa Buson, the Edo period Japanese haiku artist (my translations have appeared in the Kyoto Journal) and a playwright (my play Endings was performed at the Berkeley Rep as part of the San Francisco Monday Night Playground series.) Most recently I was awarded the Nettie Weber prize from the University of Montana in order to attend the Port Townsend Writer's Conference this summer; and I won an honorable mention in the Nebraska Shakespeare Sonnet Writing contest.”

SOMEWHERE NEAR RED LODGE

Blue hula figurine
    fallen over tent flap
 
keeps vigil for datura blossoms
    eats dirt, not some half dream.

The neck cranes far less
    than double glint skyward

bitterroot blown over
    braids shoulder bones yellow

dog burnt with autumn
    barks ferncool from willow wag.


Poised over the dusk ledge
    prairee smoke drifts new-brewed

tires passing this slender traveller
    balloon stomach floating up

girdling chicken thoughts
    swallow heart sob

as the sun verges harmless
    inside lavender whorl.


Those who know me say
    the wide blue sea needs a summer dress.

Those who don't:
    she detoured three minutes ago.








PETRI DISH

Moonmilk
electric lighting
and thermic disturbances
yield the most parsimonious trees.
(The formaldehyde trailer
dragged from the river
a 4-Sale sign slung over door knob
drips steadily,
its insides a Paleolithic painted cave.)

Air sample Airstream
USA curbside
telluric, methylalic (nose bleeds)
invisible gas (baked in ovens)
brooms hanging from cobwebs
an alligator biting itself on the bathmat
purple fescue tumbled from a decanter
amkeshitf vase
all rushed to the lab.

On the blue metal desk
saturated excyclopedias
missing leotard through mole
fox brightly on the spine.
(Pick up with Orloff. Author.
Law for the Elephant. Phi Alpha Theta.
End with Zywicki, v.p. Anixter Brothers, Inc.,
makers of molding and pressure-treated wood.)

On the Astrosoft seat
a dry powder inhaler
embossed "Only in America" MADE IN CHINA
waits for National Defense
the Pasteur Inst.
Instant Power subs
Saatchi & Saatchi
the overseas press
anyone, to take it away.

Unfinished business:
empty envelope (Ch. of Christ)
crucifix fallen upside down
newspaper lining a cardboard box
headlines Male Reproduction Stimulator Wins Eli Lilly Award
a black spotted oak crate
Wolf Wine & Spirits
filled with foreclosure notice
Fox News mag
Happy Children of the Bayou
canceled fire insurance policy
and video cassette Prick up Your Ears.



ABANDONED LABORATORY

Bundled in a comforter
    the aluminum clip-on lights

take on aspects of winter
    like needles dragged by breath

over invisible feet. Behind
    the tubs of cyanide

a persimmon lays rotting
    a perfect time to eat.

Lone meditator
    lapdog of The Arnolfini Portrait

stares out the window, a dark pool
    of mulberry carp

don't exist, don't swim
    don't infect one another

with bacterial strains. After 2 days
    at -4°

a fetal mouse palate grins
    and grins and grins and grins.







LYING IN BED WITH A DISH OF BEANS

A hot sun shines through radish-thin

drapes. Drowsy from the placental

medication, rubbing my bare thighs,

queasy with the smell of the dirty mirror

with its splash of garlic oil, a faked orgasm

I count sleep. The eyebrows on the wall wink,

inclined to store up protein for quilts,

cocoons polluting. How clever they are

with their sour armpits, their truffle

skin, their sawdust tongues.


I look for a match but the wrong person appears,

removes his hat, asks me to supply an opening line.

A very public advertisement ensues.

Lime juice and chocolate.

I bite a flap of skin

on my knuckle. The ugly face

retreats into a barking tube.


(I like to wake to beans frozen

in their bowl, cherry colored,

their secret relations, damp

foreheads open at both ends.)