a fast life

I attended one of the best poetry readings I've ever been to last night at St. Mark's Church. It was a tribute to Tim Dlugos. I wonder if other writers have felt this way when every once in a while you discover a writer whose odd brain you feel a certain kinship with. I included some previously unpublished poems of his in the last issue of Clementine. From time to time poets have told me to read his work, but much of it was elusive. That's why it's so exciting to have his poetry compiled in an extraordinary book, A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos, beautifully published by Nightboat Books and meticuously and lovingly edited by one of my favorite poets David Trinidad.

the late show

The Late Show
(circa 1970)

Natalie Wood, in the middle
of reciting a Wordsworth poem,
bursts into tears and runs out
of the classroom. Carroll Baker
gasps in an oxygen tent, her
platinum Harlow hair damp
and flat. Kim Stanley throws
a champagne glass at her mother’s
taxi, screaming “There is no god!
There is no god!” In a chiffon
cocktail dress and ankle-straps,
Joan Crawford staggers down
the beach, convinced her lover,
Jeff Chandler, is out to murder
her. Lana Turner learns that
she and her daughter, Sandra
Dee, are in love with the same
man. Jilted and demented, Suzy
Parker crouches in an alleyway
in a soiled trench coat, sifting
through Louis Jourdan’s trash.
To avoid forging the signature
of her twin sister, whom she’s killed,
Bette Davis grabs the red-hot end
of a fire iron with her writing hand.
Doris Day, in a black lace peignoir,
sobs into the telephone: “Who are
you? Why are you doing this to me?”
Julie Harris hears Hill House
beckoning, beckoning. Geraldine
Page begs Paul Newman for a fix.
Simone Signoret wipes her finger-
prints off the glass as James Caan
collapses, dead at her feet. Lee
Remick pours herself another
drink. Trembling, Ingrid Berg-
man watches the gaslights dim.
Shirley MacLaine breaks down,
admits her attraction to Audrey
Hepburn. Barbara Stanwyck tries
to keep Capucine. Elizabeth Taylor
scrawls, with lipstick, “No Sale”
across a mirror. Deborah Kerr
smolders. Shelley Winters shrieks.
Kim Novak screams and backs out
of the bell tower, into thin air.


-David Trinidad

oh my darling

My friend Rebecca Myers and I co-edit an online journal named Clementine.

Our third issue went live yesterday and we are excited about it. With every issue, it's a pleasure to compile great poetry and photography by up and coming and established artists. One of my favorite poets, David Trinidad, is in the latest issue with two beautiful poems on death. It also features Chris Roberts, Lisa Newhouse, MRB Chelko, Sharanya Manivannan, Rachel Marie Patterson, Kaethe Schwehn, and Andy Stallings.

The gorgeous photography included is by Rick Herron (who took the picture here) and David Wright.

Compiling all of the unique perspectives has been fun and it's exciting to see Clementine blossom. It's also fun to work with Rebecca who is a very talented poet.

Our mission with Clementine are to give a space to poems that tackle or adopt ideas about the persona. Here's one of my favorite poems that Becca wrote from her chapbook Greener. The poem is in the voice of Maria von Trapp.

Maria Von Trapp, on the 25th Anniversary

Re-release of The Sound of Music on Video

They sugared and screened my life, made me

Julie Andrews, finder of comfort in brown

copper kettles, climber of mountains, settler

in unfamiliar territory. I went from hills to curtained

kids, yodeling all the way. Oh there's the whirling

dervish now, the how-do-you-find-a-

word-that-means-the-how-do-you-solve-a-

problem-like-Maria. Say it loud and it's almost

like praying. Maria. Sweet singer, second

mother, former nun turned able-bodied Edelweisser.

Christopher Plummer tired to make surrender

film worthwhile, but how, chin scar

like an either/or? Pick your poison,

your puppeteer. Will it be God or Captain,

abbey bells or seven children screaming?

Favorite things do nothing for fear. I hear

my well-kept songs wanting out, personal

refrains not fit for any festival chorus but voiced

Leisel-like at night, gazebo hidden. I sneak away

for secret ballads, strum chords crisp as abandoned hills,

wonder if when I wandered long,

afternoons by the high stream, through audience-

less and still a nun, I sang better.

I rewind the final scene, watch again and again

as my Julie Andrews legs trudge towards an unseen

inn in Vermont. A family fleeing war,

hands so full of Gretel, who can carry

a guitar?

-Alicia Rebecca Myers

I do hope you enjoy our latest issue!