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    Conversation with a Skeleton: Poems by Edward Fisher
    Conversation with a Skeleton: Poems by Edward Fisher
    Conversation with a Skeleton: Poems by Edward Fisher
    Ebook121 pages45 minutes

    Conversation with a Skeleton: Poems by Edward Fisher

    By Edward Fisher

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    About this ebook

    Edward Fishers first collection of poems, Conversation with a Skeleton, is a haunting, meticulously-crafted tour de force. At once passionate and lyrical, it is both a lament for, and defense of, a lost Bohemia. In it, he plumbs the depths of a mood of disquietude, defiant in the face of certain trends in American cultureits unchecked militarism, its imperial propaganda, and the corporate colonization of consciousness all of which show little sympathy for poets, and tend to marginalize, dismiss, or even steer them toward martyrdom. Here are sleepless nights, oedipal anxieties, a psychological exploration of writers block, a disturbing look at our epidemic of missing and exploited children, a melancholy meditation on black-holes, the atomic age and the extinction of species, along with homages to a pantheon of dead poets who dominate his sensibilities and style. At home in both free verse and more traditional form, Fisher does not shy away from the challenges posed to modern practitioners by meter and rhyme. These are moments of vision and witness that dare to stare unflinchingly into the existential abyssthe dilemma of ourselves in the midst of a world at the brink, in all its tragic, tortured dimensions.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrafford Publishing
    Release dateFeb 2, 2012
    ISBN9781466911833
    Conversation with a Skeleton: Poems by Edward Fisher
    Author

    Edward Fisher

    Edward Fisher taught school in Africa in the Peace Corps, and worked as a play-therapist and adventure-based counselor with special needs children. He holds a bachelors in literature and a doctorate in psychology. A Pushcart nominee, his prize-winning work has been published by several small college and university presses.

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      Book preview

      Conversation with a Skeleton - Edward Fisher

      © Copyright 2012 Edward Fisher.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

      Printed in the United States of America.

      isbn: 978-1-4669-1182-6 (sc)

      isbn: 978-1-4669-1183-3 (e)

      Trafford rev. 01/30/2012

      7-Copyright-Trafford_Logo.ai

      www.trafford.com

      North America & international

      toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

      phone: 250 383 6864 ♦ fax: 812 355 4082

      CONTENTS

      Acknowledgements

      ON THE CARE & FEEDING OF POETS

      BOHEMIAN MANIFESTO

      ODE TO A TYPEWRITER

      WRITER’S CRAMP

      THE MUSE OF BOOZE

      PLATO CONDEMNED THEM

      ON THE CARE & FEEDING OF POETS

      AMHERST

      ALL WINTER LONG IT WAS POE

      LAUGHARNE

      #4 PATCHIN PLACE

      FIXER OF VERTIGO

      MISTER GINSBERG IN THE MEN’S ROOM

      HACK HACK ALA KEROUAC

      DIGEST OF A SOUL

      THE VOICE OF AMERICA

      INTO THE KEYHOLE

      COLD WAR

      ZAPRUDER STILL-LIFE

      THE VOICE OF AMERICA

      COMING ATTRACTIONS

      GARGOYLE

      CITY GRAFFITI

      THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD

      MILITARY HERITAGE

      RUMMY’S METRIC

      MADISON AVENUE JINGLE

      THE PRESIDENT SWATS A FLY

      IN MY COMFORT ZONE

      LIFE ON A SMALL PLANET

      THE EIGHT BETRAYALS

      THE LAND OF MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN

      SOUND-BYTES

      REALMS OF MY DISQUIET

      REALMS OF MY DISQUIET

      HIEROGLYPH

      URANIUM/CRANIUM

      THE ESTRANGEMENT OF THE MOON

      THE MOON-TOOTH

      I HEARD IN THE MIDST OF NOISES

      INSOMNIA

      THESE CREATURES ARE MY DESTINY

      PORTIONS OF MY ANIMAL

      CONVERSATION WITH A SKELETON

      ORPHAN OF THE WIND

      MY GRIEVING SPHINX

      BRAINSTORM

      DECEMBER, THE DYING GOD

      VOCABULARY

      ELEGY FOR A POLAR BEAR

      SPEAK THE UNSPEAKABLE

      THE EYES OF ORION

      LIGHT FROM THE DEAD ADVENTURE

      OF THE PAST

      EINSTEIN’S BRAIN

      About the Author

      Acknowledgements

      Grateful acknowledgement is due the editors and publishers of a number of publications in which the following poems first appeared:

      Amherst Society American Poetry Annual: Into the Keyhole; Atlantic Pacific Press: In My Comfort Zone, Military Heritage, Portions of My Animal, Brainstorm; Avocet: Elegy for a Polar Bear; Blue Collar Review: Gargoyle; Caveat Lector: Bohemian Manifesto, On the Care & Feeding of Poets; Black Spring Press: Cold War; Clark Street Review: Rummy’s Metric; Concise Treasury of Alaska & New York Poets: Icarus; Fighting Chance: Sound-Bytes; HazMat Review: The Voice of America; Homestead Review & Poesia: Digest of a Soul; Hungur Magazine: The Moon-Tooth; Leading Edge: Einstein’s Brain; Licking River Review: Conversation with a Skeleton; Mobius: Hieroglyph; Nassau Review: Plato Condemned Them; Old Red Kimono & Wisconsin Review: The Muse of Booze; Poetalk: Ode to a Typewriter, Writer’s Cramp; Poetic Hours: I Heard in the Midst of Noises; Presa 15: Uranium / Cranium; Quantum Leap: Realms of My Disquiet, December* the Dying God; Sensations Magazine: Zapruder Still Life; Space & Time: The Eyes of Orion; Star*Line: The Estrangement of the Moon; The Journal: Death Kept Its Promise; The Leading Edge: These Creatures Are My Destiny; Tribeca Poetry Review: Madison Avenue Jingle, Hack Hack Ala Kerouac, The President Swats a Fly; Writers’ Journal: Light from the Dead Adventure of the Past.

      To my parents

      And death shall have no dominion…

      ~ Dylan Thomas

      (Romans 6:9)

      ON THE CARE & FEEDING OF POETS

      33639.png

      BOHEMIAN MANIFESTO

      Deep in my heart is an old familiar Bohemia

      Whose best poets died in a ditch;

      No distinction is made there between love & art,

      The rhapsody of words or a curving silhouette…

      An enchanted melancholy fills the air

      Intimate as the memory of a frosty dawn,

      A Prague moon, a cathedral full of guttered candles

      And the faded domain of an outmoded muse…

      In my inmost soul is a small café, a prison cell & a protest rally,

      A metaphysical discourse on fortune-cookies,

      Nights of invention, a rambling passage from Rimbaud

      And a manuscript

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