Andrew Demcak is currently working on his second Master's Degree at U. C. Berkeley. When he is not hard at work driving the Bookmobile for Oakland Public Library, he can be found attending "GuyWriters" poetry readings at Anthony's house in San Francisco, or eating Tibetan momos with his partner, designer Peter Oliver. Viva Wallace Stevens! See his new work here

Click image to visit, What the Thunder Said website, regularly maintained website dedicated to the life and work of T S Eliot; to read Eliot's poem, 'Little Gidding' on the Four Quartets website click here; for the University of Missouri's Eliot website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

KAYA OAKES - Underdose

Click title to visit Oakes' official website; or to read Oakes' poem 'Olympia' on the Pittsburgh University website, click here

1. Me and My Katamari for Sony's PSP- I am the little green Prince and I can't stop rolling my "soul-ball"

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2. Gouda pottery, especially "Plazuid" or "Regina"

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3. Spicy scallop hand roll with extra English cucumber

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4. One name: Goldfrapp

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5. Lush's Bliss shampoo bar, oh the ecstasy!

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6. juxtaposition

Leave a message for Joseph on the SITE
FORUM

SELECTED POETRY

by
Andrew Demcak

ALL OF THESE POEMS ARE CUT-UPS OF NEW YORKER OR SYLVIA PLATH'S POEMS. I USE A VARIATION OF THE WILLIAM .S BURROUGHS AND BRION GYSON TECHNIQUE SUPLIMENTED BY THE FRENCH "OULIPO" METHOD

SHEEP IN FOG

for Heath and Jake

the denim sky
cotton upon cotton
with a necessary smearing of blood

the dolorous hooves
like a heaviness
of heart
your shotgun resting on top of
mine
all morning
nothing has been left out

you are a clenched fist by my sure flank
you melt beneath my holding
o slow horse
half-cocked
crossing a rock-strewn psyche

the flowing field of my body
the line
that you cross
with your white disappointment
hearing the peal of rusty bells
voices
of others who regard us
with the caught
stillness of fish
trapped in spring puddles

who threaten us thoroughly
like fathers

© Andrew Demcak

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LOVE IN THE TIME OF WAR

(for Wei-ch'in Lin)

that assembly line grinding in my face
reactions of skin
and the Cultural
Revolution
six years of exhaustive
industry: grenades
and the glimpse of wild
duck wings

blind fingerprints
shaping the wax
of our desire
his pale existence
in an automotive contingent
he
laughed in the grass
at the Peach Blossom
Memorial
touching the gold laments
of flowers

holding me
we lingered
with a renaissance on our hands
sliding
ourselves into the cool wound of the sky
luminous as bullets
hair polished
solid with sweat
our bare metal humming

afterwards letting the world
bend to us
in a forbidden crescent of prayer

© Andrew Damcak

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IN A DRY SEASON

The damp contact of skin, unfathomed.
A stalwart figure - every pleasure I

had wished for in manhood. Our latent
confluence, nevertheless. The cove

at the perfect middle of his torso,
ochre as waxwork. Polished stones of

nipples. He drained into my body
the memory of cupped water. His

sex annihilating my sovereignty,
as that afternoon ebbed behind me.

The small dock of my pelvis, the folding
oars of his arms, our insularity.

© Andrew Damcak

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LAST LOVE

(For Hector)

So everything came into place. He tore
the gauze suit to the core of my boyhood -

sliding in while my eyelids turned plum.
His bitter mouth - the insistent red veil

of the Gaza sun - my thighs like twin doors
held open. I had chosen the closest

man - cut my bandages like a runner
testing his legs - I unfolded myself

a loose-petalled Narcissus. Anxious
for his erection – condomless – straining -

unaware that his body politic
was followed by the viral campaign.

© Andrew Damcak

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TWILIGHT

Just dead - you, a gallery assistant.
Still, I oblige your hard lips, forlorned,

post-mortem. Would you allow it, if I
offered redemption, my great calling?

I could climb down your body, a black bear
on a sycamore, panting, indifferent

to this wilderness. The sun won't abide
darkness nesting here, your paleness turning

like a leaf center. Here's the golden bough
of your forearm, smelling of sour milk,

your arctic palm like the face of Jesus,
implausibly free of pain or passing.

© Andrew Damcak

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