Collaborations #2 and #20
Collaboration #2
he arrived at that place where the foghorns don’t blow
where the rocks are deeper than the sea
you can hear the sirens’ delusory call
as real as real as the horizon's lure
but what is real in these shipwrecked days?
only the words that trickle through us
as the captain steers in blind navigation
towards the port where the sentence ends
punctuated by ballast to batten the hatches
and let the sea crawl slowly away
like rats onboard with stowaway faces
making their own siren calls
as the vessel veers north on its unsteady course
toward a horizon suddenly far too real
Collaboration #20
the film begins with a house and some blood on the doorstep
and the sound of a distant train disappearing across the moors
destination: unknown at this time
the only listener with his collar turned up against the damp night
he notices that the train contains only mannequins
or is sure that it does even though it is too far away to see
the director is using a wide-angle camera
and the extras are still hiding and still haven't put on their furry heads
that will serve as disguises for mayhem or murder
as they pretend that they also are mannequins
standing stock-still inside the freeze-frame
in a pool of blood they barely recognize
though it might have come from the second stair
where a troubled breathing continues
Bob Heman's words have been anthologized recently in Contemporary Tangential Surrealist Poetry: an anthology (SurVision Books), A Shape Produced by a Curve (great weather for MEDIA), Contemporary Surrealist and Magic Realist Poetry: An International Anthology (Lamar University Literary Press), and Alcatraz (Life Before Man). Bob recommends the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Cindy Hochman is the president of “100 Proof” Copyediting Services and the editor-in-chief of the online poetry journal First Literary Review-East. She is on the book review staff of Pedestal Magazine and has written myriad reviews for many other publications. Her latest chapbooks are Habeas Corpus (Glass Lyre Press) and The Number 5 Is Always Suspect, in collaboration with poet/collagist Bob Heman (Presa Press). Cindy recommends the Democratic National Committee.
