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Elena Karina
Byrne
PLACE FABLE
L.A Mythology
where he appears annually, whoever outs the
year
one folklore at a time... Take
Pilgrim's Way, the Puritan route there, as far
as appeal, this
pre-eminent unholy boat & ground pilgrimage
west, west as further west where
ocean & heat meet lying down,
cat's among the pigeons.
In the pink kind of place, pleased as punch,
double goldfish out of the crystal bowl,
as unfaith as in the Italian Judy and Punch allegory giving
us Ennui, in odd shape of a dog, Death, who is certainly beaten to
death,
Disease, in the fair guise of a doctor, and, subsequently weeded &
outwitted,
the Devil himself,
a dialect in poker face. Return there,
a bag-man, member order of dervishes, call-boy
on Plough Monday, with a pick of the basket,
shine of shells & plum & oranges, feet in the sand,
so ready to eat a calf in the cow's belly,
to be beautiful.
Writer's Statement
ARS, AS IN…
Here I am inside the unlikely experience, sweet double-bind which
sets me free, and the stumbling block which I gladly climb over
every day. From this inversion of understanding, I write my history
of the future. Exciting crude alchemy, it seems to be an intuitive
walk-about, an anticipatory process of thinking, and a changing
mask.
I
am a poet because my parents were artists. I am a poet because I was
an athlete, a sprinter. The sounds propel the subjects ahead of me:
one word dominoes-forward toward every tethering cadence the body
can recreate and withstand. There’s a key epistemology of motion
here, which pulls the rabbit out of the black hat of the
unconscious. Adrenaline and breath, it is an unforgiving passion,
always leaving and returning.
Elena Karina Byrne is a teacher, editor,
Poetry Consultant and Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival
of Books, and former 12 year Regional Director of the Poetry Society
of America, and is now Literary Programs Director for The Ruskin Art
Club and MOCA. Her many recent publications include, Yale Review,
Paris Review, APR, Denver Quarterly, Ploughshares, Verse,
TriQuarterly, and Best American Poetry 2005. The Flammable
Bird is available with Zoo Press; MASQUE is forthcoming
with Tupelo Press.
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