Eviscerator Heaven

Issue #5, November 2008

 
A 10K Poets Publication 
Editors
Glen Still (10K Poets) Managing Editor

Glen Lantz (Deep Piercing Cut) Poetry Editor

Petra Whiteley (Insurection) Prose Editor

Antony Hitchin and Connie Stadler Advisory Editors

A.J. Kaufmann Founding Editor

Special Thanks
To Michelle Firment Reid for cover art “After the Rain,” 2008.

You can find more of Michelle’s artwork at: http://www.michellefirmentreid.com

Message from the Editors

Welcome to the fifth issue of Eviscerator Heaven. We have worked hard at putting together a
most impressive issue. This issue contains Petra Whiteley’s article on the French Symbolist
Movement. We are sure that you will find this article to be quite informative and educational as
well. As always, the fifth issue of Eviscerator Heaven contains some of the best poetry available
on the internet. This issue of EH features poets Benjamin Nardolili, Peter Schwartz, Graham
Hardie, Christopher Howell, Justin Niotta, and Abigail Beaudelle.
Poetry
Benjamin Nardolili
City upon a Dune

It straddles a road,
This village of wooden boxes
Rising like pioneer skyscrapers
Strapped to stilts like acrobats.
The land is full of sand,
But there are no sandcastles,
The children have grown up
And need new doll houses, life sized.
They live here on a whim,
Borrowed from Neptune’s bank,
A sign says it for them,
“Dare to dream the impossible dream.”
Must be why they are all asleep,
Soothed by the rising and falling waves,
Water moving bit by bit,
Bringing seashells under their wooden legs.

Benjamin Nardolilli is twenty three years old and lives in New York where he looks for work and
inspiration. He is originally from Arlington, VA. His work has appeared in Perigee, Thieves’
Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, The Houston Literary Review and Perspectives Magazine. He
maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.
Peter Schwartz
Nearly

I've seen near answers

in the somewhere windows
of warm stations

felt their pause like sliding

thresholds over unmusical
fields of marrow

took their white wavelengths

into my separate heart
and slept outside

Pillow talk

asleep, I can speak

your name as if through
a hole in the wall

I don't know it but here

on this couch, I know its
one syllable, the space

of a single breath; a
ghost-name, a slight
indentation on

my pillow.

Peter Schwartz has more styles than a Natal Midlands Dwarf Chameleon. He's been published
in Arsenic Lobster, Epicenters, Tiger's Eye, 42 Opus, Verdad and VOX. His chapbook 'ghost diet'
will be published by Altered Crow Press in late 2009. See the extent of his shenanigans at
www.sitrahahra.com.
Graham Hardie

Eva
a cup of tea
with Eva
the red haired opium
of Krakow,
her little lips
curl
when kissed
by the Egyptian
who now
is a waiter
in the west end,
but she does not speak
just
plays roulette
with her hair
almost
wanting
the lilys of love
to grow
and then she laughs
with bleating sadness
and I nod my head
to reassure her
that the love
she gives
is the love
she will receive;
the tea is cold
and the blizzard begins
dipping my toe
into the lake of desire
wanting to swim with her;
to feel the flesh
rim the edges of the water;
but then
she takes her handbag
and softly says goodbye,
walking out of the light
of Costa Coffee
and while she is gone
I stand alone by the lake
and watch
as the men drown.

A letter of love
I open a letter of love to you
Where the bells of clematis
Chime in my heart, but for the few.

I open a letter of love to you

Where the spiral of orchids
Crawls in my heart, but for the few.

I open a letter of love to you

Where the cascade of poppies
Flows in my heart, but for the few.

I open a letter of love to you

Where the haven of buttercups
Sits in my heart, but for the few.

I open a letter of love to you

Where the flotilla of tulips
Floats in my heart, but for the few.

I open a letter of love to you

Where the scent of marigolds
Perfumes my heart, but for the few.

And I open a letter of love to you

Where the pyre of roses
Burns in my heart, but for the few.
Persephone
Where is the water oak,
her bark the fire in the eyes
of the silvery shadow

Where is the water oak,

her branches the blood
of Hercules dripping upon
the shoulders of the world

Where is the water oak,

her roots the lies of men
upon the lips of Aphrodite

And where is the water oak,

her leaves the silk of Alexandria
laced
upon the shoals of Persephone

Graham Hardie is 36 and lives outside Glasgow Scotland. His poetry has been published and
accepted for publication in Markings, The New Writer, Nomad, Cutting Teeth, The Coffee
House, Weyfarers, The David Jones Journal, LiNQ (Australia) and online at Nth position.
Graham has a collection of poetry available at www.efpress.com He is also the editor of the
online journals Osprey and The Glasgow Review.
Christopher Howell
Anniversary

There's black in the tub. I'm obsessed with baths. I almost died in a bathtub so now I almost
only take baths. Newly built apartments. They're only about a year old. In the tub, the caulking
is black and running like mascara down the walls of the shower. It comes out of the faucet in
pieces like burnt food scraped from a frying pan. Floating around ruining my bath. Cursing I
scoop it out with my hands. The black caulk is ruining my daily anniversary with my death. I
give up and let the water go black. I think about chemicals. About the people in the other room
having a whispering match, both losing from time to time. It's never clean enough or quiet
enough to just lay in water and remember that I died. Remember that soft ache that grew to a
stabbing white knuckle clenched fist inside my chest. The moment when everything was
nothing and I was gone. Free.

I ended up taking a shower.

I'll call the front office and complain about it

The lights went out on Greene Street

The lights went out. It’s quiet alone standing and staring down an empty street. Your ghost
sweeps by in my mind. I slip into the silent black water on my slow drive home. No radio. Just
my thoughts keep me dissociative. Disconnected from the road or any memory of the drive.
Just the inside of my skull. The backside of my eyes. I sever. I separate into segments of pieces
and liter the highway home. Like confetti snow on windshields behind me all wipers and
cursing. Your ghost sleeps in a bed somewhere and I imagine I should make mine sleep too.
Cars headlights sweep by and for a second I’m back in the car and going too slow in the fast
lane. I catch up then back into the deep. Into the place where promises die in their sleep.
Peaceful death. My heart jumps and I lose my breath from the palpitation and think.....maybe.
An ache, angina.......please. Please be it. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to be brought
back. I just want to go back home. The street lights pulse into my car as I pass them. Makes
me wish I had epilepsy. The bed looks like someone died in it. Like the scene of a horrible
crime. Empty. Sheets and blankets and pillows scattered around the room on the floor. Just a
mattress. It was cold last night. I didn’t even bother to grab any blankets or pillows. I just laid
there flat. Cold. Ready to give in. Ready to be a dream. Escape.
Christopher Howell is 28 years old and is a North Carolina Bum. He has been writing bad poetry
since he was in High School and has since continued in that tradition. Angsty drunken drivel is
how he would describe his style. He asks you to decide for yourself. You can find more of
Christopher’s poetry at: http://www.myspace.com/sickheart2

Justin Niotta

sometime in italy

Out the window he gazed. Earlier it had been Italy but now he held no idea. Clusters of lit dots
collected in sections like the colored pieces pushed into the black face of the ‘Lite Brite’ set he’d
toyed with as a child. It had been Italy but now he just didn’t know.

The attendant divvied out a hot towel with long metal tongs & he fumbled the steaming cloth
before shrouding his face in the wet warmth. In his ear, a cart wheeled by, clipping an elbow.
But he’d sat near the window so it wasn’t his & it didn’t bug him any. Pores opened under the
heat. They’d been so clogged…so stifled with greasy sweat. Soon the therapy of the sensation
dissipated…the warmth in the cloth sapped. With eyes again open to the light of the flight cabin
he contemplated the night sky.

The moon glared in…a red moon & a good one…just over halved. It hung in the abyss, a
floating speckled fleck larger than the rest. It had been Italy, & there had been land & life…but
now he felt only death on its way…in its progression. The towel, now a cold wet thing, spread
over the empty tray before him. By his calculations the flight would take several more hours. Up
front, between the aisles, a movie played on the miniature screen. Children’s movie. He didn’t
bother with the headset. The book on his lap & the window at left would have to do. If he could
only sleep…but sleep wouldn’t come. Like the mind, the attached body knew what tomorrow
held. They’d reach sand. They’d reach Hell. Yes…tomorrow they might die.

Watered cola left the plastic cup & moved into his mouth, the weak stuff helping little. A shot of
HOT would wake it. Yes, certainly! Even a drop would loosen. But not on a dry flight. Never on
a dry flight heading for a dry land. A land without sex or booze. A land without shade or
comfort. This far away placed offered only sand & mortar & fear…with plenty of each.

Patchy-lit sights peeked in through the portal. It had been Italy…but now…

Born at the wrong time. born on the wrong coast. j. michael niotta is a southern california
native who hates the sun & never learned to surf. he pens the life you won’t find in the palm
tree infested brochures. while editor of 86 magazine he maintained the raw, edgy column: true
tales of bar madness. more recently niotta released a small press literature endeavor titled:
hard fic (featuring dan fante, miles j. bell, & s.a. griffin). a few jobs off the author’s long odd list
include—hvac, blueprint runner, doorman, baker, mechanic, warehouseman, firefighter, soldier,
border patrol lookout, plumber & telemarketer. when free time smiles he fires a single action
.45, cruises his custom ‘52 chevy & strums his 4 string gibson.

Abigail Beaudelle
Grounded

I remember a younger me
held in solitary,
captive -
some lie or other
catching me up
and dumping me,
red-faced,
into the lap
of an impassive room.

I would lay,
head ground into
the teeth of the carpet,
perpendicular to the wall,
and drop my heel repeatedly,
stiff-legged,
to the tune of
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

I must have looked

like some twerp kid
on a inflatable
All-American
rafting trip -
jamming short plastic oars
in the eye of the lake,

beating the water,

and concussing the fish.
Abigail Beaudelle, 16, has been writing poetry for two years now, and is slowly beginning to
gain recognition in the small press world. Her work has been published in the 56th issue of
Gloom Cupboard and will be included in the upcoming issues of Off Beat Pulp, Kill Poet,
Clockwise Cat, and Fissure. A member of Mensa, Abigail spends the majority of her time
fencing, playing guitar, and working on her ezine The Poetry Warrior
(www.thepoetrywarrior.com). The debut issue of The Poetry Warrior was published on October
1st, 2008.

History and Forms of Poetry

Petra Whiteley
The French Symbolist/Decadent movement of 19th century
The symbolist movement formally began in 1886 with a manifesto by the poet Jean Moréas
(1856–1910) published in the major Parisian newspaper Le Figaro, where he described
symbolism as the “enemy of teaching, of declamation, of false sensitivity, of objective
description, Symbolic poetry seeks to clothe the Idea in a perceptible form that nevertheless will
not be the ultimate goal in itself, but, which, even as it serves to express the Idea, remains
subject to it. The Idea, for its part, must not allow itself to be deprived of the sumptuous robes
of external analogies; for the essential character of symbolic art is never to reach the Idea
itself. Accordingly, in this art, the depictions of nature, the actions of human beings, all the
concrete phenomena would not manifest themselves; these are but appearances perceptible to
the senses destined to represent their esoteric affinities with primordial ideas.”

This bold statement served not only as the new direction for modern poetry, but also as a
statement of cultural legitimacy whilst also declaring the movement to be outside of the
traditional French academy. This movement towards establishing an independent literary milieu
resulted in creation of several literary magazines, which emerged in the mid-1880s: Le
Symboliste, La vogue, Le scapin, La Décadence, and Le Décadent.

These are the historical contents of how this movment came to shape itself firmly in the history
of poetry. It is one of the movements that have reverberated in poetry in following centuries
with its forms in Russia, Germany and elsewhere and it reverberates in poetry and also music of
today - icons such as Bob Dylan and Patti Smith citing them as a major influence. In fact
Dylan‘s love of Symbolist Poetry has reshaped lyricism and opened it to many more topics than
previously tackled by modern music. So what is it that defines them so strongly to remain
influential in the days when high art is on its deathbed?

Symbolists reject all notions to represent the world directly. They scorn the base, ordinary
language with its resistance to understanding and transcendence of everything beyond fact –
that language should remain the language of newspapers, not of poetry as they conclude.
Verse for these Symbolists evokes the atmosphere of strangeness, its function to express “the
mysterious sense of the aspects of existence.” Its suggestive quality owes much debt to Gérard
Nerval's doubt in the possibility of a coherent poetic voice and to Charles Baudelaire’s aesthetics
of evocations. Symbolists see the poet as the high priest, who is set apart from the mundane
political process to learn and reveal the mysterious truth of existence. This search however is
not seen as apolitical, rather it is seen as radical and democratic.

This movement concerns itself with great metaphysical questions, existential doubts, rhythms of
fragmentation and silence, transmutation and evaporation of images, verses that escape being
fixed into one interpretation. The world of the senses is intrinsically interconnected with the
language. It is the truthful expression of which the senses are the gates to step into and
beyond the existence that is also typical of this movement. Sounds, colours, scents – they all
correspond to the higher truth. This again comes to Nerval’s perception of how everything that
is alive is capable of action and is communicating and it is also palpable in Baudelaire’s
Chimeras (Vers dorés). This notion is shared together with the Romanticism, with which
Symbolism has many connections.

One of the great symbolist poets, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) had been strongly influenced
by the work of the U.S. poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), whose works he
translated. Especially in Poes “Philosophy of composition”, he found confirmation of his ideals
and thoughts on the methods and poetic process, about the discipline, which leads into
irrational acts and emotional upheavals. Here he finds that all the concepts he believes in lead
to the perfect work exempt from mistakes of coincidences. It is a journey that Baudelaire
undertook and was soon followed by Mallarmé who was influenced by Poe's allusive figures and
economy of means. Other major poets of this era and movement shared this admiration.

Baudelaire has been as influential by his studies of paintings – especially by Eugén Delarcroix,
which are superbly clear and concise that they had been used long after he had died as with his
groundbreaking collection, Flowers of Evil (Les fleur du mal). His task was not an easy one – to
extract beauty from evil, it is also his own personal and private confession. In this complex
work we have witness account of cruel fate of human being, be it deserved or not. What
Baudelaire says about it is not in any way sentimental begging for sympathy for humiliated and
hurt human heart. Baudelaire has a rare gift of dignity, which dangerous and uneasy themes
only increase. For him all the elegiacs are fools, he cries inwardly.

Two months after publishing this complex body of work, Baudelaire together with the publishers
was taken to court for offence against morality and religion. Although the count for the religious
offence was not substantiated, the offence of morality was proven in this fiasco. The book was
prohibited and fines had to be paid and it was attacked in press. It can be said that the status
of the Symbolist poets as those who stand outside of society was truly shown as such in this
event of censorship.
Poe inspired others by his status as poète maudit (damned poet) with his subjects of mystery,
the occult and insanity. This was taken on especially by Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) by taking
on the mantle for himself and creating a concept of poetry not as a controlled process of self-
expression as it was for the Romantics but he adapted poetry as a vehicle for the unravelling
and disorganisation of self – disorganisation of all the senses, which opens the way for the
exploration of those elements in human subjectivity associated with what is perceived socially
as madness. From this comes the technique, pioneered by Rimbaud as he himself pronounced it
with " I is an other. … I am the spectator at the flowering of my thought: I watch it, I listen to
it: I draw a bow across a string: a symphony stirs in the depths, or surges onto the stage".

Rimbaud published Un saison en enfer (A season in hell) in 1873 and abandoned writing before
the age of twenty. Other volumes of his work, Illuminations (1886) and Poésies complètes
(1895), were published at the instigation of others. For Rimbaud poetry was a means of a test
and when exhausted, one to be left behind.

Radical innovation in poetry are also seen in poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, who exercised
intellectual and artistic influence on his peers. On the other hand he was regarded as either
madman or extremely difficult poet by the critics - the difficulty being his astounding
reinvention of verse. It invites readers to go beyond traditional ways of reading, and instead of
such, to listen and observe relationship between words in a completely new way - how their
rhythms create connections, reflections, silences and gaps, reflections revealed and concealed
at the same time. What we can also see is the luminous musicality. In fact, we can say that
music connected with poetry is his major forte. Another aspect he tried to achieve is the perfect
bridge between ordinary and the absolute, at the same time rejecting God. He is also an author
of prose and journal pieces, raging from trivial to bizarre with the strong sense of uncanny and
the absurd. Even today they can be considered avant garde.

The strong connection to senses as the unmistakable component are maybe most prominent in
Paul Verlain’s poetry. For him, poetry preserves moments of extreme sensation and unique
impressions of one’s life, of one’s self. Number of wonderful collections of his poetry consist of
erotic poetry. So much of erotic writing can invite clichés, limited expression and generally lack
of sensual imagination, it is not Verlain’s case at all. He was (and is) widely considered as a
leader of this movement, generally embodying the spirit of it.

Verlain’s lifestyle and that of Rimbaud (including their relationship) had shocked many people of
their times also - as much as Baudelaire’s Les fleur de mal trial was to judge his work as
immoral. Each society is fast to judge what differs from the norm. As then and today it is just a
matter of hypocrisy and the envy of the suppressed - the need to police one another to hold
each mind in check, unchallenged. However, many people in Paris stood apart from the
condemnations of the controlling, censuring establishment and had helped Verlain in his later
years when his alcoholism brought him into financial desolation and bankruptcy.
It is the extraordinary beauty, the down to earth and yet so ethereal sensual, visual and musical
connection to life, it’s mystical wonderment about the essence of life and art. Its intricate
approach to language itself - as if a whisper to a lover (the beloved, the desired, the world, the
universe etc)…from the intoxication of pillow talk to raging passionate rift of lovers, its
melancholy aftermath and the making up. What it has also shown is artistic courage to pull
against the proscribed and established, the ability of free mind to express itself regardless of
existential repercussions.