Elliot, Cole & Gordon at Unnameable

Lunar Chandelier Press put together a reading at Unnameable Books in early November. I brought my camcorder intent on recording the whole thing, which I did, and as you can see below. I’m afraid I was a little late in getting set up when Joe Elliot began to read, but the poet carries the day. I did not edit any of the readings to let the be here now quality continue throughout. After the Vimeos, poems by the poets are included plus a link to check out their books. A lot of fun was had by all at Unnameable Books. Gentle reader, take your seat, and enjoy.

JOE ELLIOT

The Western and Southern Open

The Gerber baby certainly looks surprised,
no longer on a little jar, but there, on the screen,
affixed to a green fence, its peach fuzz head
now twice the size of the professional tennis player

serving in front of it, and now, because
you are surprised too and are bothering to read
the words beneath its face, because the startling image
is doing is job and you are obeying it,

it’s no longer connected to pea green or lentil
yellow or even beet purple nourishment and mush,
but to life insurance and financial services. And
why can’t you use any image of anything

to sell anything else? And if you can, you
surely should, or so the Bedtime Story tells you. So
hush now, and close your eyes, wee one. Be
a good little baby and obey

Joe Elliot helped run a weekly reading series at Biblios Bookstore and then at the Zinc Bar in New York City for many years. He is the author of the poetry collections Idea for a B-Movie (Free Scholar Press, 2016), Homework (Lunar Chandelier, 2010) and Opposable Thumb (subpress, 2006). You can check him out here:

https://brooklynpoets.org/poet/joe-elliot/

Joe Elliot

SEAN COLE

Monthiversary.

Somewhere dear, sheer summer freaks on without us. Such a time
machine I’ve climbed into, banyan syrup seeping from my
bat mask. Somewhere, pure eagles share their lunches
with each other. Massachusetts shares its lunch with New Hampshire
in summer. Brotherhood is easy above 70 degrees. When your bike
careens into September, you enter bother-hood. That’s no good.
A blood cloud bursts with ice inside it. Right now I’m staring down
an ice goat. Not an animal but an actual iceman made of goat. It’s
right there where Lowell and Summer streets converge.
I could sing to you about this but I’d rather sing about porch
bells gathering their pennies together. Somewhere, pointy horse
music steals into the reeds, O friend of August, you don’t know what
it means to watch such music goad itself along for no reason.
What is the opposite of an ice queen? I’d call you it, sitting
in my ice truck. I’d call you “angel” if I hadn’t already. I know!
I’ll call you Snowy Urola – a moth the length of an oak leaf. It floats
from green to green: mum. Why say anything this engineless
morning? I’ll sing. I’ll share my five-months-ago lunch with you,
beautiful habit. I’ll lean in and brush the salt off of your green lunch.
I’ll rub these sandwiches together to make music we can climb into
like a July balloon. Oh man what savage music I could conjure
with this summer mood I’ve imagined.