Bio: Michael Paul Ladanyi is the author of two chapbooks, Palm Shadows, released in June 2002 by Purple Rose Publications, and Spelling Crows of Winter, just released by Pudding House Press, http://puddinghouse.com Sept. 2003. His poetry has appeared over two hundred times in the US and abroad during the last two years or so. His credits include, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, Red Booth Review, PoetryRepairShop, Concrete Wolf, Snow Monkey, The Pedestal Magazine, Kimera, Ascent, Joey and the Black Boots, The Circle, MiPo, Poems Niederngasse, etc.
In June 2004, Michael will edit and assemble a classroom issue of PoetryRepairShop, at the suggestion of John Horvath Jr., its editor. Submissions are open until May 1st, 2004.
He is the founder and editor of Adagio Verse Quarterly. http://www.geocities.com/adagioversequarterly/Adagio_Verse_Quarterly.html and a poetry reviewer with Write-away-poetry.
http://www.write-away-poetry.org/ His new online quarterly, The Bohemian Rag, http://www.geocities.com/the_bohemian_rag/The_Bohemian_Rag
will debut Jan. 2004.
No Red Sound
there are bone-men in the thick walls
of this house; worms weave through
them as ligament and muscle,
guilts of old voices feed their blood.
from cold stone that lies beneath
the carpet, maggots come to lick this pen,
a reminder that you became a two
year memory yesterday.
our few conversations are now sitting
with hands in laps behind cock-eyed
kitchen cabinets, as cans of beans,
a small bag of cornmeal, a jar
of tomatoes in a back corner where
ghosts gather, feast on their last judgment.
hobbled light from the kitchen window
stains green and white linoleum.
it is a fierce howl with no red sound.
How the Walls of Us Tremble
the small mouths of our grandfathers
were fearful eyes of blood,
their hands damp smoke above
dark water, a rage that
forces us to wound ourselves.
how the walls of us tremble,
how the walls of us tremble---
placing many gray spaces between our breath.
in a dream i was told their
works were sin. later, thunder
as loud as planets falling
from the sky crashed into me.
i saw myself and wept.
In a Field of Worms
He quickly digs in his pockets for change,
hoping to scrounge enough to pay
for a half-price afternoon museum ticket.
Finding it, he slides the handful of warm
coins and two crumpled dollar bills into the tray.
In front of a charcoal and pencil Buddha
he shuffles a pocket-book of Ginsberg's
poems and the museum's guide to that
weeks featured artwork. Long thick
lines of charcoal stare at him as
splintered face bones, drunk and
love-forced sections of dry black earth.
He imagines the artist in a field of worms,
grinding his long-cheated hands into
a water-papered sky, sticky fingers
smearing across 90 miles of snaking white,
mud, grass and dung covering his feet---
and wishes he were there.
Folded Paper and Teal Water
What is it you dream of when your
poor eyes are on thin gray trees
that sail the palms of
diapason November nights
as small but infinite deaths
descending the flat end of the word?
Have they ever choked upon skull and
bone shadows feigning regress?
I have been told that there is a dance
long and sweet, hollow with blues
and greens, folded paper
vibrations that forever weep with
smiles and laughing hazel eyes.
Do you know of it? There are dead
auburn leaves rotting on frosted
ground above the root cellar,
above dusty jars of pickles and pears
resting on musty shelves, sharing space
with small brown spiders and comic
books from the seventies.
What is it you will say to me when
we meet again? Will your words
be filled with tired blood and
dangling mistakes?
The old brass chimes still hang from the
back porch, they are voices under
teal water, their eyeing sound passing
by me as imperfect tones of you.
Fourteen
he laid in the white and green striped
lawn chair for three days, wondering
how many pills it takes to choke a horse,
if God ate vegetable soup,
if his blue and swollen hands had
always seemed detached from his
thin wrists, if the grass had always
smelled like blood on thresholds,
stared up at him with a purple-rust
smirk. he laid there for three days,
his sister wondering if he were dead,
thinking him dead, finally believing
him dead, before asking herself if
the police would question her upon
finding the body. the first few days
he screamed of ants eating his skin,
laughing spiders that smoked
non-filter cigarettes while sitting
on the bedpost. i remember my mom
saying that i could have my room
back soon, and figuring i could tape
my posters back together,
perhaps cover the hole in my wall with
a stereo speaker, standing outside
my locked door in the hall that
smelled like urine, wondering how
many times you die screaming
before you realize you are dead.
