Spring and other works by Vincent Farnsworth

 

Before drifting away from his involvement in poetry in the earliest years of this century, Vincent Farnsworth was involved in poetry milieus in the San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans and Prague, featured in international festivals in Prague and Bratislava, managing a journal JEJUNE: a.e.i.y., author of Immortal Whistleblower (Lavender Ink, New Orleans) and published in many little magazines and online poetry sites. A graduate in Creative Arts from San Jose State University, Farnsworth studied under the late Naomi Clark as well as Lucille Clifton and was influenced by Tom Clark and Peter Dale Scott. He will be featured in the Micro-Festival Poetry Series in Prague, Czech Republic in April 2009, marking a return to his work in the concept of "deep poetics", trying to fuse the contemporarily relevant and political with perennial truths. Farnsworth also performs as "Reverend Feedback" in the music group Blaq Mummy and solo as Pazvuky in Prague, Czech Republic, where he lives and works as a teacher. He has been active in anti-war and human rights activities in Central and Eastern Europe.

links:

BLAQ MUMMY
PAZVUKY
JEJUNE: america eats its young

 

Spring

sun essence hangs in sheets
shredding through my mental dumpling slicer
into makeshift bandages on mortality

tourniquet me baby see the red soak
headlong we go
many a man in no-man's land
many a widow on widow's peak
with loose lips, rose hips
and acres of corn harvested by thought
and miles of limes subsumed by minds
and square kilometers of round watermelons
devastated by a child's question

sunlight the tablecloth on blackhole table
saying a message for the differently-abled
a communication between strawberry and mold
from the front lines of the revolving door
of a cycle that must sigh and kill

sprung forward like jack out of idiot box 1 2 3
war is a crime so I only bleed for peace

 

in the morning stretch

in the morning stretch glimpse a message:
i would save a life

work flowed words crunched in mouths
led to oh a new lambrusco
treading prague sidewalk like a barrier reef
strangling bottle dragging it home

where after laps i sense in the other room
flies drowning in the forgotten glass

i go rescue with my finger
lay them carefully on cloth
soft like the wine
there
at least they can dry out

 

osmosis cosmosis
                                                              with Dave Brinks

 

                   the thin blue sun
comes through an open window
            and my heart with its tail
                                in your mouth
becomes the bird you see
   juggling green slices of light
                              in the trees

                       the sun goes down
the birds create lights of
                            constellation
            from their sleep of
             suspended
animation
      coma: I bleed into your map

             an evening gown slips
down into a distraction
                     little babies
                            dragged about in red wagons
                shedding all the hair
                              of their life
                                             into the crazy field
                             hedgerows of emotion
                                                          light cracking open
                                broken glass on the tongue

                            this fever is your fever
                               with all its stars asleep at 60mph
                                                         rubbing up
                                       against my fuzzy cigarette

                   if the heavens held still
                      as the red dot cigarette
for one evening we could
understand what's wrong
                              with our constant vibration staring
                                                   finally give the birds
                                                        their glorious victory

                             and us ours with soft purple
minds coiled behind silver eyes
              the afternoon walking lovely
                                              through our quiet heads
                  on the streets of new orleans
          where pigeons live rolled up
                                           like pajamas