This winter has seen the publication of eight of my poems in Arsenic Lobster and pioneertown along with the release of the new issue of Redheaded Stepchild, which I co-edited.
Check out the poems here:
Four poems by Caleb Beissert in ARSENIC LOBSTER
Four Poems by Caleb Beissert in PIONEERTOWN
Winter 2015 issue of REDHEADED STEPCHILD
On August 22, in an apartment just off of Dalry Road in Edinburgh, poets James McKay, Keith Jarrett, and Caleb Beissert gathered together for a recording session, after a long week of performances at the Fringe. Each poem was recorded in one take, aside from a few start overs due to outside noise. Rosie Fitzmaurice was the recording engineer. Listen to the session here.
Words continue to float like dreams in the invisible city of Edinburgh, where time seems forgotten. Today I’m giving readings in a medieval dungeon turned metal bar–as if this trip hasn’t been surreal enough. And a fine spot for poetry it is. Earlier: brilliant poet from London Keith Jarrett read the Spanish of my English translations. Later: returning star James McKay and I will attempt a seance of Walt Whitman, 5:30 PM in the dungeon.
Still more to come during this last week of this jam-packed fest. The PBH Free Fringe is the epicenter for poetry on the planet these few weeks and for artists “on the fringe.”
Update: gigs at The Royal Oak and La Tasca were splendid success. Nice audiences and fabulous to hear the fellow poets. My next feature spot: 12:50 PM at The Banshee Labyrinth
George T. Lewis Academic Center
A blank page
the rest is well they say history
among the dead and scholars of war among
the ringing bells and endless paper airplanes
open windows in the spring
her majesty the teacher and holly bushes outside
the window that is wavy over the radiator
painted silver to warn
and small beetles come in after the rain
biology a subject I never had
the teacher mad barking like a dog on top
of a desk
the children blinking
in disbelief
the radon under the school
my English teacher had us read
Blake Coleridge Whitman
Dylan Thomas
Ginsberg—she knew someday I’d fall
in love
—first published in Red Earth Review, 2013
Sold to Rome beckons the saltwater
Motion light bathing
Single waves wash over
The breathing
Greetings, followers! I’m off to Spain, but first to Edinburgh for the Free Fringe, starting off what promises to be a knock-out trip with a reading at Conversational Tones at The Royal Oak (1 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh). I’ll be joining poets James McKay and our gracious host Matt Macdonald for the show. Beats to Byron blade of grass Taoist linen-washer daydreams mixed with trace-amount social comment and sweet adrenaline. More, I’ll be posting updates here during the next few weeks.
The Surprise
while the still stones whisper
in my ears climbing the mountain
more brilliant falling leaf like a silent dervish
still spinning
mind of resurrection infantile dialect reasoning
EXPERIENCING
the old seafarer watches the storm wash in
a different wind drives the tides and moon
pulls and rises
drifting through pure existences
a dude trying to holler at this girl
a thousand-alligator pit swarming
made angry by red meat
four-hundred and six burning blue
windows to worlds in soft midnight exploding
one nation under frog
hyperdivisible
with eggs and a side of ketchup
—first published in The Journal of Interdimensional Poetry, 2012
Mind Warp
We are racing toward far
distances,
alight star cloud
expanding
out in the deep space
of our eyelids.
—first published in The Journal of Interdimensional Poetry, 2012
Hero of the Suburbs
Go drown on me
In a mineral pool of white tulip petals
Formed in the canal of your sternum
Raise me in a whiskey-stained revival tent
A barrel of black pepper—the pulpit
Walk me down the pews filled with ghosts
Teach me how to drown out sirens
Seduce the green wasps from my skin
And lose
No fire
Make dove with me
Skate with me on plaid and plywood
Remember me before the wood, before
Nocturnal raptors flew to my bed
Stole my wings and pecked my fontanel
Leaving only a seed of flight
Now, a lonesome silver maple
Ceded to a prison of soil
Faded maroon
Petrified leaves
Pinned to a floor of fingertips
Have steps with me
Take my ocelot follicles
Weave a lion’s mane
Use a pen to check my square
Let me know I’m there
Work in a garden of feet
Buy yourself glass toenails
You first
Told me
There’s no crystal stair
—Mike Cook, 2012
Little is known about Mike Cook, except that he is here. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and from time to time, shows up to read at the Vanuatu Kava Bar Open Mic and other poetry readings. His poems often are filled with dark humor, sex, skateboarding, suburban drug dealers wearing fitted hats, and plungers—yet there is a tenderness in Cook’s words and a perception of the proximity of death and other-worldliness that permeates his work.
