POET-IN-RESIDENCE, 1.2: Eleni Sikelianos

From the Flatmancrooked Winter 09/10 Poet-In-Residence, Eleni Sikelianos, comes selected poems, chosen by the poet from her body of work. These posts will appear every Sunday for the next ten weeks, after which a new Poet-In-Residence will be introduced and his or her work featured. This number 2 of 10. The poems featured in previous weeks can be found here: Week 1

Little Pasha

(from Poetics of the Exclamation Point)

Oh climates found inside go(l)d already!

Birds by a slip-up!

Angels by default!

Wings by heaven!

O my most monstrous species!

O Happy, happy jeans!

Sierra of my Amok, Ambrosia of my world!

At the base of the stars at the top

of the tower, whatever, America, I stick with you!

Through your cool geophagy, your clandestine

trysts with moons! I stick with you, hyperbolic, hot,

tied up, dead-dumb-blind! Through your bouncing

mouth-bombs, your snapping eye-blankets

My most abstract nation of shacks! I

stick with you, shackle to sham, fisting to finger-

fuck, NAFTA to POUF! Luxurious

pasha, you’re my illustrious little speck in the cosmos!

Poetics of the Exclamation Point, “An Event Book,” published by Matt Corry’s Rodent Press for a July 12, 1995 reading at the Fox Theater, with Robin Blaser, Lee Ann Brown, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg, and me. I read this poem on the radio with Allen G. and Anne W. before the reading, and Allen leaned over and said, “That’s a pretty good poem!”