Mark Salerno & Tom Fisher

Sunday, April 17, 2005
7:30 pm

New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny Street
$5 suggested donation.

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Mark Salerno was born in New York City in 1956. He is the author of Hate (96 Tears, 1995), Method (Figures, 2002), and So One Could Have (Red Hen, 2004). From 1993 to 1999, he edited Arshile: A Magazine of the Arts. His poems have appeared in many journals, including Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse, and Zzyzzyva. He lives in Los Angeles.

Tom Fisher's writing has appeared in LVNG, Delmar, The Culture Society, and Chicago Review. He teaches in the University Studies Program at Portland State University. He has lived in Portland some five years now.

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Coda

Sky high into the mile high or sky up
she said nice little town you got here
sheriff with eyes on the stranger logic
wanted the big hit the big grab and skip
over the border it's a helluva country
to be modern in cottonwoods and damp cuffs
a building falls down but the sky stays put
pinned to its place with apologies to
those who mourn for chicken in a chicken
restaurant I missed you at lights out
O list of words you seem real to me
wading a little in this warm bath of light
the sheriff remains isolated but sticks
and thing fall from the flawless sky.

Mark Salerno

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"wolf-children"

only a bare life

on bare land to
begin an aping

to become like ourselves
to know this own difference

to take place without a face
and parrot, mutus, the howl
or growl that words scratch under

"this is us"
unable to be unclaimed.

to insist itself as not itself
as the roots of self are not in
mouth or mind

but are nowhere or
are only
along the longest body
of animal.

Tom Fisher