A-LIST AUTHORS: AMATO and ABEL

To repeat from an earlier post, I am not using this blog to promote Chax Press books, but I feel like I at least have to make announcements (and if you consider that promotion, . . . well, OK.


The two newest Chax Press books, David Abel's Black Valentine, and Joe Amato's Under Virga, are now (finally, some might say) up & available through the Chax Press web site.


Here are two small snippets. First, from Joe Amato's Under Virga, the end of the first poem, "Alpha."

Whence memory operates
under the gravity of small moons, always
under the table

(i.e., self-regulated compensation
for the examined life)

under the weather

(i.e. dues paid
and no medical benefits to speak of)

under virga

(i.e., if you look it up you'll find
that it never hits the ground)
(i.e., the grounded).

Recall: how can you be so
singular, she sd to him, so
ringed.


(Cont'd)

And this one from David Abel's Black Valentine, from the title poem.

I'd like to describe the register's shine
so the ring of its drawer
brings dollars to your eyes,


deflects the inquiry
disguised as sexual duress a loose
uncertainty between businessmen


leads them — ineluctably, as the raw thong
drawn through the tender skin binds —
to scour the bright sign of ecstasy


or tear it out by the root