I Can't Breathe

Better, take breath away

at the sight of multitudes,

birds winging above skyscrapers

in blue sky, winter sun so

bright, eyes tear; at the sound

of voices in cold winter cities

demanding that Justice re-fasten

Her blindfold that too often

slips around Her neck like a noose.

Lois Bassen

25,000 march in New York to protest police violence

http://lsbassen.com/ Fiction Editor for http://www. prickof thespindle.com/ and 2011 Flannery O’Connor Award Finalist. In 2014, a novel & ss collection: http://typhoon-media.com/summer-of-the-long-knives/ and http://www.texturepress.org/livesofcrime.html.

http://lsbassen.com/ Poetry reviews for http://therumpus.net/ & others.

****IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT****

Hamish and I are delighted to be able to tell you that the future of Poetry24 is safe. We have recently heard from Martin Hodges, one of the founders and original editors of the journal, that he is willing to resume as editor. We really could not be more pleased and we know that our readers and contributors will be similarly delighted. 

You Are My Sunshine

Munch, shut your Man-in-the-Moon mouth,
listen to Ray Charles Cheshire Cat grin
that only and ever sunshine. "People are jazzed,"
said Omar A. Hurricane, laser scientist
leading a fusion project. The French pursue
the energy paradigm shift via
the Russian acronym tokamak,
which is not a Wampanoag word
like Pawtucket, where the American
industrial Revolution began at Slater's
(not Sutter's, that's the Gold Rush) Mill.
Pawtucket means where sweet water
falls into salt tides obeying Ocean
and Moon. O my, the sky will fall
into our open mouths, will fill hungry bellies
for future millennia to sorrow over past
famines and our deafness and plagues.
Smile, Munch. Other side of that bridge
will be sunshine can't be taken away.

Advance in Fusion experiments.

Ray Charles- You Are My Sunshine

©L.S. Bassen.
Fiction Editor for http://www. prickof thespindle.com/. 3 books coming out in 2014 from publishers in Hong Kong, Canada, & Tennessee. Finalist for 2011 Flannery O’Connor Award; APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; book reviewer; 2 poems read at http://2river.org/2R View/15_3/poems/bassen.html.

Higgs Moment

Not a thought nor an ought in my mind.
This is the moment Satan cannot find.
Blake’s prophetic admonition;
Faust’s wish for the moment to last.
Reading is telescope, microscope, looking glass.
I can see pointlessness waver and gain mass.
Words bind me to this space and past.
The future will erase us all,
replacing with unknown scrawl,
fill the vacuum Nature so detests
that we are forbidden,
though driven to our rests –
this moment, the glimpse of that prophecy,
welcoming embrace of that destiny.

Higgs Honoured 

© L.S. Bassen

Lois won the 2009 APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; 2011; She is a Book Reviewer for  brooklyner.org, the rumpus.net, and press1, and has been a finalist for Flannery O’Connor Award. 

Excavation at Clitor

Clytie2
This easy one is Apollo’s sunflower,
the most recent in the story’s retelling                
by men. By then, her longing is rejected,
and all she can do is worship the sun.
Cleite1
Remember the woman who lay with Poseidon
to mother ten kings who on Callliste later
passed judgments after catching the bulls?
Kleite-2
Farther back, you find Kleite,
a Corinthian princess
whom Artemis made strong.
Kleite-1
Earlier, Kleite is Queen of Amazons,
personification of the clitoris,
just as Priapus is penis.
‘Kleitoris’ means goddess-like.
The city of Clitor was sacred
to Artemis at the headwaters --
headwaters! --
of the Styx, that river between.
Here, her priestesses found ecstasy
which suggests that the sacred center
was instead of the navel the clitoris.

© L.S. Bassen

Upstairs, Downstairs

L.S. Bassen won the 2009 APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; 2011; She is a Book Reviewer for brooklyner.org, the rumpus.net, and press1, and has been a finalist for Flannery O’Connor Award. 

Higgs Moment

Not a thought nor an ought in my mind.
This is the moment Satan cannot find.
Blake’s prophetic admonition;
Faust’s wish for the moment to last.
Reading is telescope, microscope, looking glass.
I can see pointlessness waver and gain mass.
Words bind me to this space and past.
The future will erase us all,
replacing with unknown scrawl,
fill the vacuum Nature so detests
that we are forbidden,
though driven to our rests –
this moment, the glimpse of that prophecy,
welcoming embrace of that destiny.

© L S Bassen

New Data on Elusive Particle Shrouded in Secrecy

L.S. Bassen won the 2009 APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; 2011; She is a Book Reviewer for brooklyner.org, the rumpus.net, and press1, and has been a finalist for Flannery O’Connor Award.

What suits a nudist

What suits a nudist?

Warm air and obscure sun.

Absence of thorns, mosquitos,

prurient minds.

Unpredatory companions.

Volleyball.

Best: privacy,

when surface to surface

seams self to Time.

Wear it well.

© L S Bassen

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip Searches for Any Arrest
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L.S. Bassen won the 2009 APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; 2011; She is a Book Reviewer for brooklyner.org, the rumpus.net, and press1, and has been a finalist for Flannery O’Connor Award.

Cut the Cant

Whether bully or runt
or women cowed,
Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites;
you’re called out now;
Momma’s gonna throw
you from the train.
She wears a necklace
of shining cowrie shells;
In the Beginning,
She was the Word;
tides bowed before Her.
Bullies, runts, women cowed,
cut the cant on cunt. Now.

© L.S. Bassen

Grand, Old and Anti-Woman

‘An Unspeakable Word Is the Word That Has to Be Spoken’
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L.S. Bassen won the 2009 APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; 2011; She is a Book Reviewer for brooklyner.org, the rumpus.net, and press1, and has been a finalist for Flannery O’Connor Award.

State-Rape

State-rape finally aroused me,
reminded me of Hitler’s surprise
when no one would buy the Jews of Hungary
he offered for sale to pay for armies.
North Carolina, Oklahoma, now Virginia
(and seven others) misread The Handmaid’s Tale.
Dystopia is not a model.
Remember Medea’s anger?
Going postal is a postage stamp.

©  L.S. Bassen

Governor of Virginia Shifts Position on Abortion Bill
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L.S. Bassen won the 2009 APP Drama Prize & a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship; 2011; She is a Book Reviewer for  brooklyner.org, the rumpus.net, and press1, and has been a finalist for Flannery O’Connor Award.