Two Poems by Alan Britt

POET TALKING TO THE WIND

The poet says,

Look inside that black lilac,

inside that fist of roses

shivering above your head!

Circling crows squeal like brakes

on a UPS truck hauling boxes

addressed in melancholy handwriting

to no one in particular.

The wind invites the poet

to shift his waist

against the cool, white vinyl straps

of a white patio chair.

I know, says the poet.

Each time I'm here I dream of impossibilities

far outnumbering wrinkled avocados

mummifying wooden bins at the local market!

The wind shakes her head. She already

knows that those narrow coffins

of avocados are disorganized,

like a delicious chimera of impossibilities

 

OCTOBER EVENING

The poet loses his hearing

and his memory.

That's not fair!  Even
Beethoven had memory!

So one night the poet enters a tavern,
taps a saffron beer bottle
against the sentimental beat
of Country Western music
and notices every detail
of every pea green tattoo spread
across every pale cleavage
hunched across the dimly lit bar.

Chameleons leaking from the smoky eyes
of every patron makes him feel like a fist!

 

Alan Britt read poems at the World Trade Center/Tribute WTC Visitor Center (TributeWTC.org) in Manhattan/NYC, April 2012, at the We Are You Project (WeAreYouProject.Org) Wilmer Jennings Gallery, East Village/NYC, April 2012, and at New Jersey City University's Ten Year 9/11 Commemoration in Jersey City, NJ, September 2011. His poem, "September 11, 2001," appeared in International Gallerie: Poetry in Art/Art in Poetry Issue, v13 No.2 (India): 2011. His recent books are Alone with the Terrible Universe (2011), Greatest Hits (2010), Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing a free access digital library of 20^th & 21^st century English poetry magazines with the aim of preserving them for the future has included Britt’s work published in Fire (UK) in their project. Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, The Robin Hood Book: Poets in Support of the Robin Hood Tax, by Caparison, United Kingdom, 2012, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin, 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008. Readings & Presentations: Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry for the PCA/ACA Conference 2008 in Boston, Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ (2009 & 2012), the WPA Gallery/Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, NY (2008), Ultra Violet Studio, Chelsea/NYC (2008 & 2009), White Marsh Library, Baltimore (2011 & 2012), Enoch Pratt Free Library (Canton Branch) Baltimore (2011), Pedestal Magazine Reading at the Writers Center, Bethesda, MD (2012). Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown, Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formerly feral cats. Links: http://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/potw.html#fp1;

http://spectrumofpoeticfire.com/Reader%20Directory/Alan_Britt.htm;

http://theliteraryunderground.org/wiki/index.php?title=Alan_Britt;

http://www.therecusant.org.uk/#/morrison-on-saponia-and-britt/4556998367; and

http://aliensareus.wordpress.com/