National Poetry Month: Ben Gulyas tonight at Word of Mouth, Athens

Tonight at The Globe in Athens, GA, Ben Gulyas from Cleveland, OH will be the featured reader at the monthly Word of Mouth gathering of poets, word-mongers and other creative folk. Likely to join in tonight from the banks of the far Ohio is Ralph La Charity, a Cincinnati lexiluminary by himself worth an evening's listen and a previously featured reader. Here's a Gulyas sampler, recently posted on the Word of Mouth website. The whirligig begins around 8:00 p.m. upstairs at The Globe, so arrive early for a good seat and have a cocktail or two ...

"poem"

Ben Gulyas

Because there is no photo

of that cloud mountain in britches over the corn,

the blood sun...

where bones come to nothing

and the rain sweeps

high into itself

over Mickey's Army Navy, Main & South,

Grove Road to Parkman,

Udall and Brosius...

bare to the night sounds

brave and dumb in the face of the colossus,

the goats, the cows, the bullheads in brown water,

the blood sun glowin under the blue

20 grand of centuries deep

and high as the heart beats...

and some eyes see it all,

where there is no photo,

over the corn,

chest to the green dark,

ears to the road

and breath to let it all build

where the cloud mountain

is forever inhaling...

no photo

just a breath --


"Neruda and Lorca poem"
Ben Gulyas

their blood warm with wound,
staining promise with promise of more blood to come,
not of violence, but of language,
blood of blooms, blood of moon, blood of breath
willing forth, chiseling sound
like a stone carving of fire ...

it was a stone carving of Lorca ...
a stone carving of a rose ...
Neruda pouring wine ... stone stone stone ...

their bodies faded,
a phantom glow, half dreamed,
a night bloom
grown out of dirt and salt,
a night bloom
burning, burning, burning