PIPE DREAM

Help Save Portland Poetry Slam!

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:51:24 -0400

Dear PD’ers,

For those of you who don’t know, one of our beloved community houses was robbed and the entire Portland Poetry Slam fund was lost. That’s over $7000. That money sends our poets to Nationals, as well as making it possible to hold a plethora of events here. These events are like Christmas to many, and it would be a real tragedy if we were unable to continue them.

I’d consider it a personal favor if you would explore this link and find it in your heart to donate. This community saved my life, and I am asking you to help save it.

Thank you so very much,

L.R. Dalby

Founder of PIPE DREAM

A very proud member of the PPS community.

PLEASE HELP

Mon, 28 May 2012 03:55:46 -0400

Via Eirean Bradley:

In the interest of staying open and honest with our community: Tonight during the slam, The pointy house (where Eirean, Robyn, Brian, and Bryan live) was broken into and robbed. Thankfully no one was hurt and the lovely house that we call a home was not vandalized or damaged. The big deal is that the portland poetry slam fund was stolen as well as every laptop in the house. That is over $7000 dollars.

We will be putting up a kickstarter page in the next 24 hrs. Please help us continue the work and community we have fostered. It takes more than one person to break us, we have hundreds to build us back up.

Love,
Eirean

======

Dear Pipe Dreamers,

The Portland Poetry Slam community has been my haven. I owe so much to these beautiful, talented, and giving individuals. Please show your support and love in this time of dire need. I will keep you all updated on the kickstarter page.

Again, share this message with your friends and help this community.

Thank you,

L.R. Dalby

HIATUS TIME

Sat, 12 May 2012 04:49:50 -0400

(Because L.R. Dalby sux dix.)

(And is on school crunch time.)

(And has procrastinated. A lot.)

(So you should check out PD’s archives, because, man oh my oh man, there is some talent up in there.)

(PD will be back up soon, never fear. Das finals week is rearing its ugly head, but I shall slay the beast!)

(<3)

OF COMMUNICATIVE MOTION THESE DRUMS

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:10:00 -0400

FELINO A. SORIANO

======

PAUL MOTIAN

Agone the

elongated rendition a

smallish diversion excavated

climbed as the vine interprets winged commotion

this

speed of complex blurred thread

architected smoke twirl of the motional debate:

dance within an against

stance of multilingual understanding these arms and wooden minds

erupting into tangents of structural undulations.

ART BLAKEY

Distant aptitude heard

scare of thunder’s ululation

soil-tone-covered example of burgeon

silk the woven shadow

cylinder

spiral

web of the spider’s articulating patterns

tall

spectrum of mesomorphic motility

hybrid of space and recursive demonstration

tackling of pound with bivalent fistfuls of

musical meaning.

JAMIRE WILLIAMS

Crystallization the glass’ fractals (retaining distinguished curls of spiking color)

combining

rhythm of river’s

desired flow this

occultation of dexterous competition—

of or when

the

this

certainty of effort coalesces across face of the listening’s

occupied fascination

serial collaboration with sound and devout

foundation of spatial transcending.

======

Felino A. Soriano has authored 50 collections of poetry, including Of oscillating fathoms these nonverbal chants (Argotist Ebooks, 2012) and Analyzed Depictions (white sky books, 2012). He publishes the online endeavors Counterexample Poetics and Differentia Press. His work finds foundation in philosophical studies and connection to various idioms of jazz music. He lives in California with his wife and family and is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and physical disabilities.

For further information, please visit www.felinoasoriano.info

STYLE RITUALS OF PURGATORY

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:06:35 -0400

PETER MARRA

======

(The devil dolls were singing

about Françoise Dorleac lying amongst the midnight

flowers fondling her memories

after the Renault pyre.)

She and I hid in our room

we watched as

her face described sumptuous

polychromed interiors where

she had reveled in public disgrace.

She made a statement:

“I have a surprise for you!”

(“We’re not going to leave this room at all, are we?”)

A faraway voice begs:

“Make a sacrifice: a halo or a disembodied heart.”

Symmetry will be

a desire we no longer need:

a woman’s torso bent, slightly warm.

We watch each other

while she watches us;

always a caustic comment etched in plaster,

crackling with sensibility.

(Vandals were guilty:

wanton, wide open, oversexed,

and they took photographs, while speaking of

the functions of a verb.)

Leaking fluid out of a warm window,

into a cul-de-sac

always licking puddles,

shot from behind. She smiles.

A drool.

She will sit and warm

herself with the fire

from the pews.

(She licks quivering lips as

female bats discuss flight.)

These wounds seem right

as a door of significance.

She left them to be entered and catalogued

in the museum collection,

we strolled outside,

feeling so relaxed

and slept in the grass,

while listening to the passionate moans

that were emitted from the practitioners

that are attracted to

the current social order.

“Make a sacrifice: a halo or a tarot card.”

The snow, slight and cold,

opened her eyes:

A specific reflex. A pure form

devoid of people.

Her silver cluster became the air

as we needed and we removed

desires with a higher image

this was in their design

a trip to sin island for

a sticky, brown paste,

enjoying the morphine curves

of any woman’s body

an empty feeling

it was almost destruction

the TV ordered us

instructions stuttered reminiscing about

those prescription days.

She stopped filling that

prescription days ago

images sliding in

a shooting gallery

sulfur and smoke

so much that she has trouble breathing.

(Wheeze.)

Needles dancing

the overhead fluorescent

has a smell of skin

those prescription days

she strokes her fur

feeling the shock

something new for her fingers

a tingle

a magic number

on a gurney sliding

a treacherous dance

at the end of the white hall

the tiny people are waiting

descending horns slowing down

she touches time’s spiked collar

something new for her fingers

a yen

for a pain exercise around the corner

watching

waiting

watching

further information:

dog

barking

to stop the transmission we opted to walk

she cried because she was stammering.

======

Peter Marra lives in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Among his many influences are Arthur Rimbaud, Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, European art films, Edgar Allan Poe, Russ Meyer, and Roger Corman.
He has been published in amphibi.us, Yes,Poetry, Maintenant 4, Beatnik, Crash, Danse Macabre, Caper Literary Journal, and Clutching At Straws. He is working on his first collection of poems.

FICTION 01

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:43:51 -0400

DANIEL J. CALFO

======

It’s where all my big ideas come from, dreaming.

Their heads were slightly bowed but not so much as to hide their eyes. All the feelings of fog and rain but nothing of the weather. No setting; it’s not missing, just pale in comparison, frightened with the weight of it all. They knew that I knew. I was getting up from something. I’d been fighting something the way somebody fights something quietly, sitting, in clothes clean and pressed and they remain that way through the dirt and scraping and that eventual first breath, which happened to be, for me, this dream.

They kept knowing, growing with it, knowing I wanted them to know desperately we were friends and they knew; us, copies of each other discovering the fact. They became more me, I more them, the result a balance, symmetry, precision.

It was looking into a dozen mirrors, it’s all one person, he’s a stranger, blink, she’s the quiet girl with the glasses in the back of English class blink he’s the pastor you admired as a man, hated as a theology blink she’s mom blink the first dead person you ever saw blink she says I Love You, you say nothing and the back of your eyelids are no longer black; they called it seeing the light.

They stare back. Think about how well you have been able to go through the motions of living until this point, the audacity of the love it took for these versions of you to watch you kick around, so blind. How they waited for you to look around, living with you, so closely.

======

Daniel Calfo writes out of Portland, OR. Daniel was a member of The Sparrow Ghost Collective’s first Slam Poetry Team of 2011and competed with the team in Portland’s Northwest Regional Slam. In the coming months, Daniel will help represent Lewis and Clark College at both the ACUI Regional Slam in Portland, OR, as well as at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, this year held in Los Angles, CA.Daniel has been a featured poet in the Portland Poetry Slam’s Encyclopedia Show and in Portland’s staple poetry open-mic, Word Out! A Poetry Open Mic. Some of his work is published in print in The Sparrow Ghost Collective’s first anthology of poetry and digitally via Pipe Dream Publishing. Some of the author’s other work, including original photographs, appear at (http://danielcalfo.tumblr.com), while the majority will be available in his first collection to be printed in the coming months. For questions or comments, address notes to DanielCalfo@Lclark.edu.

THERE WAS A MAN

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 06:45:04 -0400

ZACK N. LOPICCOLO

======

With a red rusted Honda civic

and house that both had leaks

when it rained and neighbors

that would impulsively fight

loud enough to break diamonds

and bleed-out ears that made

him too scared to call the police.

There was a car-crash look

in his eyes when he attempted

to confront the festively-plump boss.

Sweat rolled down his forehead

like oily-fish-skin-nervousness;

all slicked up shiver rainbow drops.

There were two pens in his front pocket,

a red one and a blue, both Bic

and a surveillance camera above

his mouse-squeak desk whose sound

made him quiver every minute of every day

to the point he would freeze like Otter-Pops

waiting for the last thud of the clock.

======

Zack Nelson Lopiccolo is a recent graduate of California State University, Long Beach where he stole a B.A in Creative Writing and Literature. He is one head of the Cerberus that runs Bank-Heavy Press and owns a poem farm to help lessen the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. This is in hope to make poetry a high demand alternative fuel. His work can be seen in Indigo Rising Magazine, ¡Vaya!zine, Short, Fast, and Deadly, Crack the Spine and forthcoming in Contemporary American Voices. He currently resides in Long Beach, CA and works as a Drywall Hanger and Taper. He also loves canned green beans.

More of his thoughts may be perused at rejectionnotice.tumblr.com

APATHY

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 06:01:19 -0400

MICHAEL ALLEN

======

Dawn displays the obvious perfection of a world where only humanity feels incomplete.

Androids of impulse our two eyes often separate the one vision from another.

Running the opposite direction the globe is spinning pursued by ghosts of defeat.

Who clings to its mind like a starving child still clings to the body of its dead mother.

======

Michael Allen is a local Portland poet.

QUOTES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS OF STILLETOS

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:50:00 -0400

PETER MARRA

======

Living life as a guinea pig in

a 3-headed dead-pressing

touting the leather clothing,

a disease with the appearance

of a dagger most comprehensive.

Patent leather reprisals

split them in two

deeper into relaxation

deeper into silence

they stared at each of us

voyeurs hounded by a street light

as we passed by,

an exposure ignited then detonated

not sure when

automatic knives flavored the evening.

That clicking sound was repeated over and over

it made us feel guilty

tissues locked

friction — assess the material when needed —

inject the eggs without any scientific basis

we never spoke at the dinner table just yells and tears

torn from the headlines: I drink your blood I eat your skin.

We sought after such instruments of pleasure by legislation

fungus-like or a characteristic more realistic

than real: extremely rare fermented juices

the human use of a slender blade

tapering to a rapid dispersal more sexual

than the angel that it punishes.

======

Peter Marra lives in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Among his many influences are Arthur Rimbaud, Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, European art films, Edgar Allan Poe, Russ Meyer, and Roger Corman. He has over 100 poems published in print or online and is working on his first collection of poems.

ALSO,

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:28:05 -0400

I’ve included a link in the side bar to the space in the internet where I used to write about cool things for about a week and then just started reblogging funny pictures, Doctor Who, and Sherlock. It’s under “l.r. dalby reblogs and rambles”. Once in a blue moon I put deep shit on it. But usually it is dedicated to the BBC, animals wrapped in blankets so they look like burritos, and food shaped like not-food.

There is nothing wrong with me.

It’s like if my mind had a glove box where you shove all the little things that will make it embarrassing and difficult to find your vehicle registration information when an officer of the law pulls you over…that would be this.

This is an effort to give you the chance to get to know me (or at least my obsessions), and if you have personal bawgz you’d like me to check out you should put them in my ask box. I have the good fortune of being part of a wonderfully close knit community of slam poets, writers, and artists here in Portland. I’d like to extend that spirit of camaraderie to the PIPE DREAM internet community. Sharing our art is one of the finer things, and sharing stupid funny memes, jokes, and pictures of obese pugs makes it just a little bit sweeter.

PIPE DREAM will remain unsullied by said dumb crap that I love oh-so-much, don’t worry. But hey, let’s get to know each other a little better, eh?

Also, here is a joke that my girl, Becca, told me:

Q: What do you call an alligator in a vest?

A: An investigator!

In instant retrospect, clicking “create post” is probably a bad idea, because a bunch of you probably think I’m rad and artsy and shit. Whoops.

I regret nothing,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

WITH TWILIGHT ON HIS LIPS

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:23:50 -0400

CHASE PERSON

======

You used to glow. A magnificent sunny white that gathered in the corners of my eyes, bleached my bones clean of self doubt and destruction. I knew you biblically. With golden feathers sprouting from your shoulder blades you whispered me words of wisdom and truth. I saw you my prophet, lord almighty, big man in the sky, and I was proud to call you father. You washed the earth from a battle wound I wore from the playground, when I picked a fight with the marry-go-round trying to impress the girl next door. You poured light into my wound and said next time try roses, or poetry. I wiped the tear soaked dirt from my face, smiled at my mother, your wife, our goddess, and I knew heaven. It occupied this circle we made and hung like daylight in a dusty room. But like the setting sun, your glow began to fade. Dipping behind the hills, I wondered where it was going, and if it would come back. I’ve always been most scared at night. But with your glow I never knew true darkness.

And then you did it. In the middle of the night you kicked those pearly gates open, dragged her out by her hair and tossed her from our circle. Black and bruised I watched my mother crawl down those stairs as you sarcastically thanked her for the blood-red stains she left on the carpet. Hustling me inside, you locked the doors, stood behind me and rested your hands on my shoulders, replacing the spot where she used to do the same. Staring out the window I watched our goddess, my goddess, pull herself into the blanket of a streetlight. It looked so cold out there.

My world crumbled. You told me that those who go against your word are committing sin, but who were you to decide? I watched you clip your wings that night, I saw you grow a soul. You took that soul, tore it in two and placed it at the bottoms of your shoes. With every step you took in that house, I watched it fade from glowing white to dirty and human. It’s something I wasn’t prepared to see. But what 6 year old is?

Two years passed, and every night I cried myself to sleep only to be met by nightmares of what could have possibly happened to my mother. I never asked you what did. The fear of knowing the answer locked itself in my jawbone and tied itself in knots.

It was that tension that showed me that I do in fact have a voice, that I do in fact have my own words.

They weren’t always in line with yours. You must have smelled something, because the first time I voiced objection, slammed the car door, and started to walk around feeling MY own two feet carry me for the first time, you pressed the petal to the floor. Metal hit me, as fast as that accelerating car and I kissed the pavement three feet ahead, watched my individuality bleed out onto the street. I lay there, feeling the gravel sink into my body, waiting for light to be poured into this battle wound. You just drove away. Without you to purify and disinfect, it grew over callused and hard. It’s still there.

Since then you’ve branded me so many times. Fists, knives and words. It took me too long to learn to hit back, but when I finally did, when I pushed you off of me and down those same stairs you threw my mother down, I saw how far from a god you really were. Ruby life dripped from your face, and gods don’t bleed.

I spent the next 6 years reopening these wounds with razors, trying to coax them to heal smooth. I never did succeed. You taught me that the best way to solve a problem was to cut it at its root. I realized that I was only slicing petals, draining the fluids, sweet aroma therapy. The root of this problem was that I, like most living beings, am uncomfortable with my own scars. The only kind of person that doesn’t read and reread the stories etched into their bodies is the dead kind person. I opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed fistfuls of white pills and washed them down with a bottle of whiskey. Looking up at the bathroom ceiling, body stretched out on the tile, I prayed that I’d find heaven again.

My world grew silent, and the walls around me melted like butter on skillet. It began to bubble and spin, joined by the feeling of ascension and flashing red lights; an orchestra of color and movement.

A week later, I awoke to a bearded man dressed in whitest of robes. With a warming voice that had to be divine, he welcomed me into providence. Peace washed over me as I knew I had escaped. My jawbone untied itself as I knew I had found heaven. I shortly discovered that this bearded man was not Jesus, but a doctor named Carl, and that by Providence he met the hospital, not the protective care of God.

Later I realized it didn’t matter. Helped into a wheelchair I was rolled out of the ICU, down a labyrinth of white halls and into a room with a single man. He was hunched over in a chair, the saddest looking human I’ve ever seen. His hands hung loose, like someone who held on as tight as they could and lost it all.

At the sound of my rusted wheels turning he slowly lifted his head, and I saw a face I almost didn’t recognize. My father sat before me a broken man, apology soul deep in his eyes. This is the look of a man who almost lost it all. I saw two words form at the tip of his tongue, but they never left his lips. “I’m sorry.” I’ve never seen so much emotion escape this man as three tears fell from his cheeks and down to the tile.

1. The world isn’t so black and white.

2. Heaven exists wherever you create it.

3. There is no shame in admitting mistakes.

It was so easy to blame you for these scars when I saw you less than human. Forgive me father, I see now that you are nothing less. This journey that we call humanity is not divine for any of us and I can’t expect your decisions to have been flawless. It was easy to accept my mother’s abandonment when I could paint you demonic. Forgive me father, for I am human too.

I just ask of you one thing:

Hug me, hold me and tell me that I’m loved. I want to hear your heartbeat and know that mine is beating in sync. I know two points don’t make a circle, but this line that links us doesn’t need to be so long. I’m tired of living in this twilight, this in between of light and dark. We’ve both been through hell, but I want to rebuild this heaven with you.

======

Chase Person is a poet, model, and general slice of the best humanity has to offer. He regularly delights crowds at local Portland poetry events with his dazzling wit and smile.

FLOATING BODIES KYLE HEMMINGS ====== Starting off PIPE DREAM...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 06:56:00 -0400

FLOATING BODIES

KYLE HEMMINGS

======

Starting off PIPE DREAM after its hiatus is some rad art from Mr. Hemmings! Aren’t you all so lucky?

Kyle Hemmings is the author of three chapbooks of poems: Avenue C (Scars Publications), Fuzzy Logic (Punkin Press), and Amsterdam & Other Broken Love Songs (Flutter Press). He has been pubbed at Gold Wake Press, Thunderclap Press, Blue Fifth Review, Step Away, and The Other Room. He blogs at http://upatberggasse19.blogspot.com/

I have started a new blog called Animal Burritos, based off PIPE...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 03:33:42 -0400

I have started a new blog called Animal Burritos, based off PIPE DREAM’s April Fool’s Joke. This is a real thing.

animalburritos:

This is Oliver the Pupperrito.

Submitted by Amy Everhart.

DEAR PIPE DREAMERS,

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:18:00 -0400

Dear Writers and Artists,

I am shutting down PIPE DREAM and converting it into a blog about “Purritos”. That’s when you wrap a cat up like a burrito and take a picture of it.

Please send in submissions of your favorite purrito moments!

*Note: Requesting a purrito of the Calico variety. Rare and exotic cats are a plus! Can you fit a jaguar in a sleeping bag? Do it and submit it!

Sorry if you are bummed out about the whole writing and art thing being flushed down the drain, but let’s face it…that shit is lame.

Love,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

Purrito Dream Magazine

STORIES V!

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:33:10 -0400

STORIES V!:

Dear avid readers,

A personal favorite of mine, Scott McClanahan’s “Stories V!” is available for FREE via Amazon Kindle until Monday to celebrate the book’s one year anniversary.

This is a wonderful gift, believe me. It is a work of literature that pains you to put it down and stop reading because it is so beautiful, stark, honest, and human. A sumptuous collection of modern American short stories at their finest.

Happy Birthday!

Love,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

ATTENTION WRITERS AND ARTISTS,

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:13:12 -0400

I have been receiving a plethora of lovely submissions from all of you and I am so grateful for your time. I wanted to add a little reminder that submissions should be sent to this link: http://pipedream.submishmash.com/submit.

If submissions are simply emailed to me, there is the possibility of them being accidentally overlooked.

Thank you,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

Hey, remember that time...

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:42:00 -0400

I said PD was accepting submissions? Well, it’s true. I have gotten a handful of lovely pieces and need more for the Spring author/artist roster. Please send your works over so people can drool all over them.

^^^Depiction of someone appreciating your work.

Xoxo,

L.R. Dalby

Writers and Artistes,

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:47:28 -0500

PIPE DREAM is accepting submissions for the Springtime, lovelies! Send your brain babies to the PD Nursery!

Simply click on the “submissions” link to the left!

XXX,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

Dear PD'ers

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:28:00 -0500

PIPE DREAM is going to take a brief hiatus so that I can convalesce and regain my strength that has been sapped by pneumonia. My next days will be filled with sleep, sleep, soup, and more sleep.

I’ll be back in a flurry of edited pieces and daily posts soon.

See you in a few days!

Love,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

FROZEN CRESCENDO

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 04:13:00 -0500

KEVIN RIDGEWAY

======

The fire of summer is

put out by the shimmering

quilt of color blanketing

the autumn world,

and the mania of autumn

is frozen in time

by the cold bitch of

winter’s frost

this mind slows

into a jazzy downturn of

horn solos and sadistic

drum clatters rumble

across the blacktops of

a cold space of dreams

that linger from the

uncertain rants

of the mind—

holidays come and go,

pumpkins turn to mulch,

another birthday is celebrated

with rain hitting the roof

with yet more music—

reaching a crescendo come

December’s dissolution

and the early months’ rise,

an internal scream that

takes the unrecorded

frantic rhythms of the

previous year

to a dramatic close

celebrated in lawn tableaus

and other dances

born out of different holy texts

that dot continents in a

glorious globe lantern of the spirit

that have suddenly burned

to black.

======

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California. He lives and works in a tiny bungalow surrounded by posters of dead rock stars. His chapbook of poetry, Burn Through Today, is now available from Flutter Press.