Anomalous 9

© Anomalous Press, 2013

Boston, MA; Providence, RI; Iowa City, IA; Seville, Spain

www.anomalouspress.org

Erica Mena | Founding Editor

Editors:

Shannon Walsh | Rachel Trousdale

Sara Gilmore | David Emanuel

Bendta Schroeder | Ron Spalletta

Katie Hargrave | Art Editor

Sarah Seldomridge | Designer

Rebecca Merrill | Web Editor

Matt Landry | Tech Consultant

Sarah Kosch | Publicity Editor

A. M. Diskin | Assistant Production, Audio

Cover: from Tarpaulin Muster by Erin Sweeny

This journal is free to download. However, if you wish to share it with others, please direct them to our website to download their own, free copy in the format of their choice. This book may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes, in part or in whole, without express permission. Thank you for your support.

All rights reserved by individual copyright holders. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Anomalous Press cannot grant permission for use of copyrighted works or excerpted without permission of their owner.

Erin Sweeny

(1) Tarpaulin Muster Project Description and Artist Statement
(2) (3) (14) (17) (18) (23) (28) (29) (33) (41) (49) (52)

Images from Tarpaulin Muster

Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas

(4) Amor con Amor se Paga

(7) De Agua Mansa Me Libre Dios, Que De La Brava Me Libro Yo

Kathleen Gilbert
translating the Latin of Ovid

(15) HEROINES’ LETTERS: Penelope to Ulysses

Kathleen Gilbert
a homophonic translation of George Herbert

(16) HEROINES’ LETTERS: The Altar

Kent Leatham
translating the Scots of Hugh Barclay

(19) To Alexander Montgomerie

Hugh Barclay

(20) To Alexander Montgomerie

Kent Leatham

(21) from A Poetic History: Of

Janalyn Guo

(24) The Hidden Town

(27) Boy

Erika Jo Brown

(30) Captain Snugz Rides Again

(31) Dirty Birdies

(32) The President

R. Zamora Linmark

(34) Whitney’s Greatest Love/Mix

(36) Last Dance

(39) Arse Poetica

Casey Plett

(42) Me and You

(46) Gas

Rich Murphy

(50) The Clone Rhymes Now at Home

(51) The Tremor State

Edward Gauvin
translating the French of Jean Ferry

(53) The Garbagemen’s Strike

(56) A Tear in His Eye

Jean Ferry

(55) La grève des boueurs

(60) La larme à l’oeil

Contributors

Anomalous Press

Tarpaulin Muster

Erin Sweeny

Project Statement

In exploring that which we hold and carry, the physical evidence of life is paralleled only by the mysterious substance of its unfolding, imbuing our actions with a deeper significance. Hold fast and carry tight, hold up and carry on. Exploring these themes in an investigation of personal space, I found an unexpected source in the site of a stolen, impounded, and reclaimed 1988 Chevy Silverado K2500 pickup. Utilizing the contents accumulated by its owner and objects discarded by its thieves, Tarpaulin Muster creates a portrait of both experience in time and movement through space. The collection of photographs presents the residual effects of accumulation and loss, while an accompanying video uses footage and audio to emphasize tones of renewal.

Artist Statement

Though carved from nature, the foundation of place is ultimately rooted in the markings of human time. In the creation and use of structures lasting and temporal, objects precious and mundane, the practical architecture of our lives unwittingly doubles as its richest memorial. Using lens-based media, site-specific installations and subtle interventions, my practice investigates the layered marks of our passage and adaptations employed for survival. Looking at these characteristics of movement in the public and personal sphere, I am drawn to themes of struggle and resilience, ubiquity and reinvention.

Untitled from Tarpaulin Muster, 2013

Digital C-print, 8” x 10”

Untitled from Tarpaulin Muster, 2013

Digital C-print, 8” x 10”

Amor con Amor se Paga

Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas

AMOR CON AMOR SE PAGA

or

Love with love is paid.

or

Love with love is paid.

or

Eye for an eye.

or

“No, no. I got this.”

Or

Fausti couldn’t sleep without Quena’s hand in his. He curled his body next to hers and reached out every night until she’d meet his hand, then he slept. They woke up together, and they walked together too. Fausti picked fruit and put an arrow through a partridge’s neck every so often while Quena told him stories. She said, “That was back whn Bachué was still with us,” or “That’s why hummingbirds’ necks are red,” or “So they made her watch as they sliced her lover’s ears, and then his nose and then his penis, and then they made her eat his heart,” and when Fausti would walk too far or lose himself in the track of some animals Quena would whistle a five note song so he could find his way back to her.

One day while they were walking Quena stopped suddenly. She saw the Sun setting and she caught a glimpse of the His golden hem. He was dressed entirely in gold and everything around him glimmered, refulgent and beautiful and Quena longed for it. Just one piece, she thought, one small piece in her hand to rub between her fingers while she watched Fausti climb a tree or make an arrow—that’d be enough.

“Fausti,” she said, “Fausti, how much I want some of the Sun’s gold. How much, I can’t even say.” And Fausti took a deep breath, because he knew that to scrape even a flake he would have become one of the most formidable hunters in the land. So he tightened the straps around his shoulders, kissed her a long time and set off to the east.

When he left, Quena found she couldn’t sleep without his hand in hers and slowly she began to die. She stoppet sletting anta purlcryummies. Sh, b sofailgent apaistlg ani pill wi smain try ni his. He wawr makeicedhat uldn�oget di�� Ad, this. He uldn�ogetd bp wo her.

Who. Fausld smyshe soas ba. Sna fouut empt whoecaars, aut empt wbmereld and evnd td bmptie h—nanded dim. Helklicithos, ayellonged fde sti arbegahg agh in twood’l wi pow mu relack in goer galkifromhen hi� nos, ayelloiced hnb shem. p bwatchin thowe a, ayellongs, ayellon e hil of sst old smysloiced hck to grd hars, and t so got quier im. curlon e> ng adryummelf in tsunhem. sobbmeakeicedhcriongssmav heiOne d e hil to thhoulHisrlce couldn�ba weigentymd dio">“Faushed Fausay.�To thhoulHisrlc smlicithock td hly as amaid, “Faustlisighand mesti,�ng aed Fauslisighegolo">When wo mae> i aroimpfromheo grd hing aknowalkiww that d. So he began tigugh.

He dug her up like the elder god had told him. He pulled her out, head and arms limp and bent softly back. He brushed the dirt from her eyes and hair and between her fingers, and then he began cutting. He took her leg and carved out skin and flesh, tendons and ligaments. He stuck his knife into her knee cap and then her hip socket. He pulled back and pushed forward and back and forward again until the bone was loose and he could rip out her femur.

“Like this, Fausti,” the god had said. “Carved thin and hollowed out, and make holes down the spine, here, and here, and here, and here, and your fingers go here, and here, and here. And your lips. Your lips go here.” And when Fausti pressed the carved bone against his lips, covered the holes like the elder god had instructed and blew into it, he heard Quena’s voice again.

De Agua Mansa Me Libre Dios, Que De La Brava Me Libro Yo

Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas

DE AGUA MANSA ME LIBRE DIOS, QUE DE LA BRAVA ME LIBRO YO

or

Of water meek myself liberate god, that of the angry one myself liberate I.

or

or

God keep me from still waters.

or

“They run deep.”

or

The cacique loved his wife very much; he even told her so, often, in fact—at least in the beginning. How he’d seen her in a crowd of her kin and wanted her immediately—from marrow to skin, wanted her, wholly and whole. He’d run a finger from her neck to her navel, slowly zigzagging between clavicles, breasts and ribs, and he’d tell her about that day as if she hadn’t been there. As if she didn’t know there had been red-terracotta snakes painted on her skin, cascading down the sides of her face, arching their backs against her cheek bones and braiding themselves into long geometric columns down her arms and legs. As if she didn’t know the contour of her own face and breasts and hips, he’d run his finger down on her skin as if he were explaining directions on a map, “From here to here, and here to there, turn at hip bone, pause at scar, straight down and in.” And he’d tell her again and again, how when he’d seen her eyes and heard her laugh she’d made the snakes come to life. How, though no one else had seen it—not even her—he had. He’d seen her and seen them sliding down her thighs, around her ankles and between her toes, across the dirt and right into the cacique’s bones. “I saw you looking at me and I felt them crawling up, and that was that,” and he’d land his hand on her hip and push her against a wall, against the ground, against the sharp edge of a rock. He’d press his hand and then his body, like the snakes were clamoring inside him to come back to her, leap from him back into her, a terracotta tangle, snakes and flesh.

And it wasn’t bad. She put her hand over his and leaned back when he pushed. She untangled his hair and gently removed the gold breast plate, bracelets and rings when he fell asleep drunk and crying on her lap, she blushed when he toasted her at his banquets, and she attended every banq. Oo oaf a now toto teref a now toto teref a now toto r. Until no oday if ra run his finger doon he a num,mns doow tva weyhow weribs atedirt a—iceanaandlentsuddenentswd taid.0;

Bynow ttim and scouldtlyjo sked tcaciba, he hela�sr plery banqn en didwasn�se mucauin ge th, ahoundlikeeatdicm" ti eyge guilt. No effortaput inre �tair syinovwed percrymane td taidder n girldorntd thaomadooo wand bynowrn trd orntdd hwr wal—r ok. Fivwetim e,and tcaciba, he hwif smadwe—e,ds, he�ne roraigtossnglst omadoy, lia fresh de ovcarcaf�od over hshouldd hek anardieanll hne egs, anoce,as, he�complepllbscod eushat hiody in gel�d="jnss amadweto tparoicularentbeaujusulhwif sge aa�blelmadoy, bate hcr, nebeforeie feagiatoaldaoce,aef aovwedcau, he�tak whst lsebnd ge nard cryha poucauge gel�d="jns, ae add hneck,an="j in cafe. Hn caat ts awe

That’s where the story begins. Seeing, not seeing, and forgetting having ever seen at all. That’s where it begins and ends. Because after being seen so intensely for so long the cacique’s wife couldn’t go without it and she had to meet her lover often. She had to run her finger down his chest, tell him about the night they’d met and bite the tip of his fingers to watch him drown a scream in his throat for fear of being discovered.  It’s not the same for men and women, the burden is different and the cacique cannot allow certain things to be whispered or rumored. He must take note and precautions, he must invite his wife to one more banquet and make himself perfectly clear, there is no other way around it. He must be clear publicly about present and future things, so that everyone understands that she must be made to understand, that even though it may be hard for her to see right then she must come to see that he has no choice but to serve her her lover’s penis on a plate before bringing out what’s left of the warrior tied to a pole—a grunting dripping mess of blind flesh spitting chunks of a ripped out tongue before a priest finishes the deed by ripping out his heart and setting it next to his penis on the plate, the true culprits side by side on a plate of gold before the cacica of Guatavita. And she must be made to eat them, to set things right and put them away, where no one can see.

The cacique’s wife could neither turn from the sight nor keep her stomach from turning. She fell to the ground shaking and weeping and vomiting while the braver part of the court congratulated the cacique and pretended away their repulsion, though it took everything in them to do so. The sight and smell were so overpowering most didn’t notice the cacique’s wife running and pushing her way out of the crowd. By the time they noticed she was holding her sleeping daughter tightly and running through the fog like she’d practice the route in her mind a million times. This is how most things begin; an inconsolable woman holds her child and runs into a lake.

The water was cold and the little girl woke up, but the fog was thick and her mother was crying so she didn’t say a word. She remained limp but wide eyed in her mother’s arms staring back at her father while he yelled for the cacica to come back to shore, to leave his daughter, to come back, to not take the child at least, please, please. But the cacique’s wife did not turn back. Not when her husband begged, not when the cacique commanded, not even when he sent his holiest priests and mohánes in after her.

She was gone, they told him, no way around it. The holiest mohán even swam all the way to the bottom and came back. Dripping in his white robes he told the cacique, “She sits in a throne in the midst of live wreaths of blue and green snakes. She won’t come back now, not now.” But the cacique couldn’t bear it, he kept begging and pleading and screaming to bring back, at least, his little hummingbird child, who drummed her fingers on his cheeks like beating wings to wake him up. So the mohán stood up again and shaking his head went back into the water.

With nothing left to do the cacique sat perfectly still by the lake, not crying, not sleeping, not blinking at all. He stared at the water, at his breath condensing in the air, and the little flat stones his wife had overturned on her final sprint. He sat, crossed legged and stared, paralyzed by a sudden hyper awareness of himself. The dimensions of his feet, the length of his hair, the beating of his heart, “oh heart, the heart,” he heard himself say before he could really form the words in his mind. Then it was the weight of his head, the width of his fingers and the coiling of his intestines; the noises of a thing alive, ticking, pumping, rushing, blinking, growing, stirring, and curdling. He saw himself seeing himself, heard himself hearing, a heartbeat beating in concentric echoes, a man noticing himself noticing his noticing and he felt with distinct acuteness the half-digested banquet meat climbing up his esophagus, splashing against his teeth and foaming out the sides of his mouth. Still paralyzed he vomited on his own lap and let the rest drip down his chin. He sat and waited, hearing and seeing and seeing himself hearing and seeing everything around him until he was sick and dizzy and twice as paralyzed as before, then the mohán emerged with a shivering child in his arms.

“A little dragon,” the mohán began to say and the cacique tried to lift himself from the ground. “See, you have to close your eyes,” he started again, “when you swim to the water realm,” and again the cacique tried to move but nothing budged. His eyes darted back and forth, like children trying to tip a boat, but nothing, nothing. “You have to; we all know that but how could she?” The mohán seem too distracted to notice the cacique’s struggle and simply brought him the child so he could see the empty sockets where something had nibbled away her eyes. “Little dragons do it, I’ve felt them before.”  Now the cacique heard nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing but his daughter’s face. “They’ve little mouths and rows of frail teeth, and can’t get a good bite of anything harder than an eyeball,” the hyperawareness, having completely devoured and choked on itself, left little behind. “That’s why you have to, always. But she wouldn’t have known that.” Only the world through a pinprick hole and on the other side a little girl, pink water pooling inside empty sockets, and the realization of all that had come before this moment to make it this specific moment and no other. Then the cacique was finally able to move. He held the little girl’s hand—little bones, wet skin, soft tips—he brushed her hair back, dipped his finger into the gold-dust pouch and drawing snakes on her face told the mohán to take her back to her mother and take care to close his eyes on the way down.

.

Untitled from Tarpaulin Muster, 2013

Digital C-print, 8” x 10”

HEROINES’ LETTERS: Penelope to Ulysses

Kathleen Gilbert translating the Latin of Ovid

This your Penelope sends to you, slow Ulysses ;

Don’t write back : come yourself !

Troy is certainly defeated by now, hated by the Greek girls ;

Priam and all of Troy were hardly worth it.

I wish that, when his fleet was asked for in Sparta

Raging waters would have overwhelmed the adulterer !

I don’t deserve to lie on a frigid bed,

Nor to complain that the days go by so slowly ;

Nor should I be seeking answers  in the space of nightfall

My hands weary from widow’s weaving.

When was I not afraid  of grave risks?

The thing is, love is full of frightening terror.

I imagined  you in violent Trojan  battles ;

HEROINES’ LETTERS: The Altar

Kathleen Gilbert: a homophonic translation of George Herbert

A   spoken  halter,   cord,  thighs   serving s wsbed,

A fs wsly ;

K muchyou impling.

A zoneng.

A ened ">A ">A morojanor.

A ">A ">Anotned ">d ">A ">Agutor.

A muchy ;

Bs wrd, orerv;e0;nedartsy ;

Oft      far      apart

Meat    the      same

A phase        a game;

Drat     my    dance  to  all may   cease

We  moan   to  raise  freedom     feast

Holy   thighs   messed   sacked   rice   divine

Hand     hanked   the   halter    hoopy    wineg

Untitled from Tarpaulin Muster, 2013

Digital C-print, 8” x 10”

Untitled from Tarpaulin Muster, 2013

Digital C-print, 8” x 10”

To Alexander Montgomerie

Kent Leatham translating the Scots of Hugh Barclay

My best beloved brother of the craft,

God, if you only knew the state I’m in!

Though you’re stone-deaf, I know you are not daft,

But kind enough to any of your kin.

Oh, if you could see me in this winter wind

With tattered leggings, jumping on a spade,

Draggled in dirt, wet through to the skin,

I know you’d join me in weeping up a flood.

But most of all, my misery’s been fed

To hear how you on your side of the moor

Frolic with wine and blithely go to bed,

Forgetting me, poor plowman, I am sure.

So, silly me, oppressed with dreams of beers,

Envy you your leisure pulling Bacchus’ ears.

To Alexander Montgomerie

Hugh Barclay

My best belovit brother of the craft,

God if ye knew the stait that I am in!

Thocht ye be deif, I know ye ar not daft

Bot kind aneugh to any of your kin.

If ye bot saw me in this winter win

With old bogogers hotching on a sped,

Draiglist in dirt, whylis wat evin to the skin

I trow thair suld be tears or we twa shed.

Bot maist of all, that hes my bailis bred

To heir how ye on that syde of the mure

Birlis at the wyne, and blythlie gois to bed,

Forgetting me, pure pleuman, I am sure.

So, sillie I, opprest with barmie juggis,

Invyis your state that’s pouing Bacchus luggis.

from A Poetic History: Of

Kent Leatham

Of our national consciousness, we have no aptitude

Of sugar. God rewards.

Of Wichita in the distance

Of this cloth doll which

Of Champlain.

Of mercury. It’s zero. Ice soon.

Of memory and changing form

Of whom I remember nothing more

Of day, the drying wrinkled shirts of the casing

Of a shimmering green-gold dragon.

Of all storms, striking your Irish Cliffs of Moher

Of his mother, how she died in the fall

Of artillery. I never thought it would sing

Of greenery, as the last pale crumbs

Of mangosteens, for which we’d both fallen

Of heaped-up bedding, stroked slantwise by fingers

Of afternoon sun. McIntosh, he said again,

Of Poynton, so slowly the plot seemed to unfold

Of rice cakes and an apple in a garden

Of light and wind

Of an exhausted star told me nothing.

Of mountains. Here, the floors

Of crickets that are fed fish

Of a baby’s rattle, moves in

Of the children, at night

Of men full of beer who now

Of grownup children’s rooms and hallways where

Of tortured grammars writhing on their stakes,

Of statues in their hands, while numberless

Of the spillway. Trees surfacing

Of my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking

Of an afternoon, they were left—her doorway with its

Of exile: of school, of being sent to bed, of being