TURTLE ISLAND QUARTERLY 16
Winter/2019
Chapter two:
poem by Mike Lewis-Beck, poem by Sara Backer,
poem by Changming Yuan, and a poem by Gerard Sarnat
poem by Mike Lewis-Beck
LORCA AS TURTLE
A las cinco de la tarde,
at five in the afternoon
a turtle crosses the road
lumbering to the far side
to bajar al pozo, to reach the well.
A Vermonter stops her car
to ask de dónde vienes, amor,
from where do you come, love?
Me he perdido muchas veces por el mar,
I have lost myself many times by the sea.
But where do you come from, love?
Mi corazón reposa junto a la fuente fría,
my heart rests next to the cold fountain.
Alas, as Lorca, I left Lake Adam long ago
cuando la luna negra salío, when the black moon rose
y voces de muerte sonaron,
and voices of death sounded out.
I gave a cry.
What did you do then, love?
Que yo me la llevé al río,
then I took myself to the river.
Verde que te quiero verde,
green how I love the green
of the meadow I must reach over there.
Ay! qué trabajo me cuesta,
Oh! what work it’s taking
to cross this road before that bus.
Mike Lewis-Beck writes and works in Iowa City. He has pieces in Alexandria Quarterly, Apalachee Review, Big Windows Review, Cortland Review, Chariton Review, Pure Slush, Pilgrimage, Iowa Review, Rootstalk, Seminary Ridge Review, Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art, Writers’ Café and Wapsipinicon Almanac, among other venues. His short story, “Delivery in Göteborg,” received a Finalist prize from Chariton Review, 2015. His essay, “My Cherry Orchard in Iowa,” received recognition as one of the ‘Notable Essays’ in Best American Essays of 2011. His poetry book manuscript, Wry Encounters, was a Finalist for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award 2016.
poem by Sara Backer
Pencil Leaf
Leaves drawn with plastic pencils
look like wallpaper.
Wood pencils lead the lead into the woods
where leaves become leaves.
One summer, she says she wants to do nothing
but draw the veins of leaves.
She doesn’t.
She irons red maple leaves between waxed paper.
Leaf ignores pencil.
Pencil calls leaf Mother.
Sara Backer, an MFA candidate at Vermont College of Fine Arts, has published two chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press, 2018) and Bicycle Lotus (Left Fork) which won the 2015 Turtle Island Poetry Award. Her writing has been honored with eight Pushcart nominations and residency fellowships from the Norton Island and Djerassi programs. For more information and links, visit sarabacker.com
poem by Changming Yuan
Towards Dataism
1/ The End of a Beginning
Given each organism as a biochemical algorithm
Your life is a programed process proving
Your consciousness is actually far less
Valuable than a fucking Frankenstein’s AI
2/ The Beginning of an End
Through human-computer interface
My mind has become part of a robot
While the robot part of me
As data exchanges with my consciousness
Or flow between each other on their own
Where can I find my true self?
Changming Yuan published monographs on translation before leaving China. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan; credits include ten Pushcart nominations, the 2018 Naji Naaman's Literary Prize, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline and others.
poem by Gerard Sarnat
BANGLADESH
i. Oy 1.0
While
My son,
Otherwise
Known as
The Bug Boy
Conscientiously collaborates
With colleagues toying at Japan’s
fab Okinawa Institute of Science/
Technology (OIST) -- not to make
Mountains out of a cut-open anthill
But below is Bangladesh where men,
Not euscocial insects, flatten high terrain
So some Muslim Rohingya refugees fled from
Buddhist Burma can avoid drowning soon in a race
Against monsoon rains made worse by Homo sapiens.
ii. Oy 2.0
Rain
Gullies
Creeks
Ponds
Lakes
Rivers
Oceans
Overflow
Shores
Though
Buddha’s
Intention
Signaled
Compassion’s
Rainbows
Consider
-- Organize
Anti-Global
Warming
Coalitions.
iii. OyOy
While
My son,
Otherwise
Known as
The Bug Boy
Conscientiously collaborates
With colleagues toying at Japan’s
fab Okinawa Institute of Science/
Technology (OIST) -- not to make
Mountains out of a cut-open anthill
But below is Bangladesh* where men,
Not euscocial insects, flatten high terrain
So some Muslim Rohingya refugees fled from
Buddhist Burma can avoid drowning soon in a race
Against monsoon rains made worse by Homo sapiens.
Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, has been nominated for Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards, and authored four collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014) and Melting The Ice King (2016) which included work published beyond medical in academic journals such as Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins and in Gargoyle, American Journal of Poetry (Margie), Main Street Rag, MiPOesias, New Delta Review, Brooklyn Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, San Francisco Magazine, Voices Israel, Muse-Pie Press, Blue Mountain Review, Canary Eco, Military Experience and the Arts, Tishman Review, Suisun Valley Review, Fiction Southeast, Junto, Lowestoft, Heartwood, Tiferet, Flash and Cinder, Foliate Oak, Parhelion, Bonsai plus featured in New Verse News, Eretz, Avocet, LEVELER, tNY, StepAway, Bywords, Floor Plan, Good-Man-Project, Anti-Heroin-Chic, Poetry Circle, Fiction Southeast, Walt Whitman Tribute Anthology and Tipton Review. “Amber of Memory” was the single poem chosen for my 50th college reunion symposium on Bob Dylan. Mount Analogue selected Sarnat’s sequence, KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY, for pamphlet distribution on Inauguration Day 2017 as part of the Washington DC and nationwide Women’s Marches. For Huffington Post/other reviews, readings, publications, interviews; visit GerardSarnat.com. Harvard/Stanford educated, Gerry’s worked in jails, built/staffed clinics for the marginalized, been a CEO and Stanford Med professor. Married for a half century, Gerry has three kids/ four grandkids so far.