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 mortalitytourniquet 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 questionsunlight 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 killsprung 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 lifework flowed words crunched in mouths
led to oh a new lambrusco
treading prague sidewalk like a barrier reef
strangling bottle dragging it homewhere after laps i sense in the other room
flies drowning in the forgotten glassi 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 treesthe sun goes down
the birds create lights of
constellation
from their sleep of
suspended
animation
coma: I bleed into your mapan 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 tonguethis fever is your fever
with all its stars asleep at 60mph
rubbing up
against my fuzzy cigaretteif 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 victoryand 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