Live at the Bitter End
By Ed Pavlic
()
About this ebook
Read more from Ed Pavlic
Another Kind of Madness: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho Can Afford to Improvise?: James Baldwin and Black Music, the Lyric and the Listeners Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Visiting Hours at the Color Line: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCall It in the Air Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLive at the Bitter End Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLet It Be Broke Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Live at the Bitter End
Related ebooks
Telepathologies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let It Be Broke Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMultiply/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rain Scald: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Professor's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Women's Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greensboro Reader Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSong of My Softening Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNazaré Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World That the Shooter Left Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpty Clip Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Useful Junk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Certain Body Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flyover Country: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBringing the Shovel Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We the Jury: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn Becoming an American Writer: Essays and Nonfiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mighty Stream: Poems in celebration of Martin Luther King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJump the Clock: New & Selected Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book For My Brother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Monument: Poems New and Selected Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear Kamala: Women Write to the New Vice President Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCeive Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBegin with a Failed Body: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFountainville Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnsun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApsara in New York: poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Armored Hearts: Selected & New Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAthens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun and Her Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Live at the Bitter End
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Live at the Bitter End - Ed Pavlic
I.
This is a minor chord, man.
How do you know it’s a minor chord?
That’s what it is, a minor chord with the third out.
—Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane
In jail everything is obvious…
—Reinaldo Arenas
RESULTS OF THE POLYGRAPH: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WHAT IF & WHEN
if this was a wet blouse
there’d be the shadow of fingers
if a leaf poured from a can
of paint there’d be veins
stiffened by the cold if this
was summer wind there’d be laughter
from across the lake if an
abandoned well it’d smell of broken
stone & you’d look down
in the dark for the loose end
of frayed rope if this was
a rusty nail there’d be a little
boy licking red dust
from his fingers if I was 13
again it’d be a simple matter
of off & on drag the pen
& pain runs down the block
if he was 20 again he’d have cut
himself & gone in after it
fist into brick if the angle was
right it’d move thru the flesh
like a song climbs all swole & yellow
up past the elbow if this
was a novel there’d be a scream
& a chance of meeting again
somewhere unthinkable if it were mine
one of us would miss the other
in an empty street there’d
be the panic of living
again the act like I knew
far more than I did if
these were letters to you
they’d be in the well
if breached inside
there’d be ash on the hips
& rattlesnake tea
when Paul Wittgenstein
returned from the war
the family refused to pay Ravel
for what he wrote to the phantom
right hand often we find
simply from impact reasonable
persons infer decisions
on the part of others
if she’d told me she needed
two things to count on
there’d have been
these at least : if it hadn’t been
for the broken guitar string
her hair’d have blown
left to right across her face
into my mouth & no one would ask
me what I said if
I spoke any louder than this here
PRETRIAL CONFERENCE IN CHAMBERS: FOGARTY THE D.A. & A. TREMBLE RICHTER THE INADMISSABLE PRIVATE EYE
he promised us a price & well-peeled
face ivory man & nothing else
no dynamite buried in a troubadour
quicklime on plaster & a Rialto
in the mouth lined with hum-gum &
saltpeter play the tape : "c’est toi qui sait c’est
toi qui sait" stop we have photos by day
he acts like horses grow reins in the womb by
night clear polish on banjo picks
& smokes the thick black eyes of stallions
no jury would dare too worried
about crepe stolen for safety-skulls
& rain etched spindles of salt
turns out he all about
borewind in the brain thoughts scat
silent chants of EZ pass & "free parking
forever" experts stayed behind we
clocked the pulse of footprints fossilized
in broken glass we gave chase but didn’t know
whether to taste the toll or pay off the tongue
frozen at half mast to the pole by the time
squads arrived deep enough in the
borough we have photos character
& caterpillar predation your