Contemporary Literary Horizon.....two poems translated into Romanian for the Jan.-Feb. 2011 issue.

MARY ANN MCCARRA

FITZPATRICK

(STATELE UNITE)





PAGE-TURNER (CAN ONE TRUST THE NARRATOR?)





leather spined, she turns the

first, blank page, to see the

frontispiece, in short inky strokes,

obscured, so slightly, by paper tissue-

thin, the uppermost corner

wrinkled as if the last reader

closed the volume with an

impatient (or hasty) hand



endpapers, printed in peacock

colors, the whorls of red, blue,

green merging into a whole as

rich as plum pudding



turning the page, forgoing the

inevitable dedication (not to

her, certainly) musing over the

cryptic capitals punctuated by

oh-so-definite periods



chapter one was romance, the

treacle thick on the fingers,

licked off, delicious it was, so

sweet



no eye for foreshadowing, the

page missing from the index

vexing her, and can one,

really, ever trust the

narrator?



no. and so--she turns the

cream colored sheets, looking for

some legend she will understand,

oil black, that

she can trace over. but. no.



placed back upon the shelf at the

last and left to the whims

of the removal men



SEVEN-OH-FIVE



seven o five and OH the

minutes tick down, and dear,

this stocking is already laddered (where IS

another?) and there the

kettle blowing her top, steaming

away as if she would power the

whole house and

dammit where are my keys, so

sure I left them on the hook

by the door,

tick, tick, tick echoing back,

the click, click, click of

hasty shoes upon the boards (too

late, now, to worry about the

noise) snatching at purse-

strap then

dash-dark-down the stairwell,

ready as she'll ever be

(resolving, always, to be better:

that graceful, unhurried woman espied from afar)





ÎNTOARCE PAGINA

(NE PUTEM ÎNCREDE ÎN NARATOR?)



învelită în piele, ea întoarce

prima pagină albă să vadă

frontispiciul în tuşe scurte de cerneală

imperceptibil ascunse de hartia

ca o foiţă , colţul de sus

mototolit de parcă ultimul cititor

a închis cartea

cu o mână nerăbdătoare (sau grăbită)



ultimele două pagini, imprimate în

culorile unui păun, spirale de roşu, albastru,

verde contopindu-se într-un tot

plin ca o plăcintă de Crăciun



dând pagina, trecând peste

inevitabila dedicaţie (nu adresata ei,

desigur) cugetând la

iniţialele criptice delimitate

atât de limpede de puncte



primul capitol a fost de dragoste,

melasa în straturi groase pe degete,

linsă, ce gust delicios a avut,

aşa dulce



nepricepută la a ghici,

pagina lipsă din cuprins

o contrariază, şi ne putem oare

încrede vreodata

în narator?



nu, şi astfel întoarce

foile bej, cautând o legenda

pe care s-o înteleagă,

negru ca tăciunele, pe care

să o poată străbate. dar. nu.



aşezată la loc pe raft

ultima şi la cheremul

oamenilor de la mutări.



OF, ŞAPTE ŞI CINCI



Şapte şi cinci şi OF

minutele trec şi, vai,

ciorapul ăsta e deja agăţat (pe unde-o FI

celălalt?) iar dincolo ceainicul

dă în clocot, scoţând aburi de parcă

ar vrea să alimenteze

întreaga casa şi

fir-ar să fie, unde-mi sunt cheile, sigur

le-am lăsat în cuier

lângă uşă,

tic, tic, tic dublând ecoul

toc, toc, tocănitului

pantofilor grăbiti pe podea

(prea târziu acum să-mi fac griji

pentru zgomot) înşfăcând

geanta apoi

în grabă–pe scară-în beznă,

mai pregatită ca oricând

(hotărâtă mereu să fie mai bună:

femeia graţioasa cu pas agale

zărită în depărtare)



Traducere de Aura Mircea

MTTLC, anul II, Universitatea din Bucureşti

Mount Vernon Inquirer article, March 2011 issue.....available now!!!

An article appears in the March 2011 issue of the Mount Vernon Inquirer regarding last month's poetry reading at the Mount Vernon Public Library.

The paper is available for subscription ($34.00) yearly.

The Mount Vernon Inquirer
P.O. Box 458
Mount Vernon, NY 10551-0458

http://www.mvinquirer.com/

Mr. Joe Parisi, Editor and Publisher.

Poems appearing in Issue No. 3 of Obsolete Magazine.

Two of MaryAnn's poems "Break Room" and "Three Roads Converge" -- which first appeared on this blog -- will be published in Issue No. 3 of Obsolete Magazine.

Quarterly (Four issues per year) $12.00 (includes postage and handling).

From their blog: http://obsoletemag.blogspot.com

"Obsolete Magazine is a quarterly tabloid publication in the tradition of the International Times, OZ, The East Village Other, The Berkely Barb, The Chicago Seed, The Whole Earth Catalog, PUNK!, and other great underground rags of days past....."

Contemporary Literary Horizon, Jan.-Feb. 2011 Issue.

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/

Some poems published in the Jan.-Feb. issue of Contemporary Literary Horizon!!

Poetry Reading! Mount Vernon Public Library!!

Crazed Cup

under the sink they are,
lined up, the forgotten
carafes, skewers for a
barbeque, behind a jumble

of flowerpots, paintpots, coffee-
and-teapots, the held-onto-
just-in-case, the broken
vessel, chipped, who might

just do in a pinch, and
thankful, too, we'll be, not
having that easy habit of
discarding others, the broken,

the imperfect, the slightly
cracked,
the crazing on an old cup a
map of all those days gone by

long forgotten, along with
their random imperfections,
dwarfed by the blazing of the sun,
remembering how hot it was....

A Cat and A King

because the mind can be
convinced of anything at 3:58
a.m. she clings more tightly
than ever to sleep, anxious for

the dawn to set things to rights, the
towels folded for the laundry, the
coffee made and the
black dog sent on his way

without a bone to gnaw upon. And
peace falls upon the house
(momentarily), all the small
noises scrabbling inside the walls

a sort of unspeech to the unpeople
lingering about in all their
transitory glory, a housemaid
passing by a duchess (and to

be sure, a cat may look at
a king)

Shipping Forecast

there is no connection,
no threading tissue,
between one and another,
no bother, as the dinner
gets done, chop-a-block,
in staccato steps, a
puzzle of paint-by-numbers,
ketchup-red, steak sauce-brown,
grainy-golden mustard, a dollop
of it on the spoon about to
be dashed into the sauce for the fish
with one fine wrist-movement (ah,
if all things could be so--
definite and sure)

saving her voice for after
dinner, when the clatter of
silverware straight into
the sink has faded, the
shipping forecast predicting
only minor squalls
and so
to bed

Hitchcock's Blond Women

Hitchcock's blond women forever
frame-frozen: on a train, in a
shower, in a boat, on horseback

not always
having more fun

especially when:
hanging off national monuments,
being repeatedly stabbed, bird-beak
pecked, or
stringently psychoanalysed by
their husband (even if he is
Sean Connery)

better, so, to be
brunette!

Dervish

dervish whirls around the
pastel plain of the carpet
where lambs gambol,
eternally leaping over
that next hillock

turn, turn, turn, turn and
stop

on to pacing, pace, pace, pace,
pace, pace then
Stop

then to screaming, the arc rising
up and up, the
incredible crescendo of it

breaks with a bite upon
his hand,

stop

STOP