HONORABLE MENTION: Five Empty Fingers
With no hand, the glove has no grasp, no muscle, no heat. It will never throw snowballs, never turn doorknobs, never point. “Any direction is better than none,” say the shoes mockingly as they pass. Of course. On the second step of some monument in some city, five empty fingers wait patiently.
HONORABLE MENTION: SLUMBER PARTY, 1952
We’re on Nancy’s porch, the six of us, wild with summertime, drunk on heat and humidity and feeling invincible for we’re all driving now. We’ve recently been seen flying down that curvy road to the frozen custard stand after which we were ratted on by the cute guy who works for my daddy, so I’m…
HONORABLE MENTION: Impulse
It was a sweet frisky fancy when my son my sort-of son a man now stopped me and said Carry me Carry me piggy-back and he made the leap legs tight to my hips arms crossed over my chest Carry me he said his son intent watching his turn next I felt the man the…
HONORABLE MENTION: Self
Do what I want to myself, hurt myself, lie to myself Be by myself, don’t like myself, ain’t been myself Takin’ care of my wealth, not takin’ care of myself Wish I was someone else, always say to myself Know what’s good for myself, some drink, kill myself Don’t trust myself, sabotage myself, don’t need…
HONORABLE MENTION: To Madeleine, To Judy (Poem after Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”)
To Madeleine Madeleine, where are you? or were you there at all? I never felt you, I never touched you And now I doubt I ever could All that time you were above me While I crawled in the mud I tried to reach you, but I fell back I never felt you, I never…
THIRD PLACE: Magician Man That Works at Kroger in J-Town
The magician at Kroger was different. He lived in the apartments across the street with the cheap stained glass windows and a door rotting off the screws. He knew how to bag up groceries, meats on the bottom and breads on the top. He knew how to be kind and friendly and greet each customer…
SECOND PLACE: Woman Walks through Mall in Flames
Witnesses told police they saw her enter the store, that she held a dozen red roses across her arms. Like she was carrying a baby. A blonde working at the florist after school and on weekends, watched her count out $32.98, in change and torn, crumpled ones, pulled from her jeans pockets. While…
FIRST PLACE: Alive, Alight
These summer nights make me cry. Play me like a violin, you balmy breeze Show me that Ferris wheel inside my chest So long rusted over, and just now beginning to whirl, Alight. Everything inside me glitters, tonight Like those streetlights far below me, and I try so hard To believe that all…
THIRD PLACE: How Ice is Cold
My innards are in serious pain. Currently submerged in a rickety bathing trough fill of razor-trimmed ice chips; my mood is growing dim. Being pursued for so long by such an irate fellow through a Mississippi swamp on a Mississippi night and being caught in the back by Mississippi buckshot thoroughly succeeded in dampening my…
SECOND PLACE: How to Kill a Baba Yaga
Someone was moving about in my living room. Throwing back the heavy comforter, I reached for the Louisville Slugger under my bed. Tossing sleep-disheveled hair from my eyes, I tiptoed down the hall. She was monstrous, both in size and in face. Waddling among my furniture, she knocked over two armchairs, four knickknacks, and the…
FIRST PLACE: The Man Who Disappeared
It didn’t happen all at once. At first he appeared shorter, but everyone thought he was slouching. Then he grew shorter still, but it was football season and folks were distracted. His little piggy toes went next, then his floating rib. Then, mysteriously, his coccyx vanished. His testicles were the next to go. Just kidding.…
SECOND PLACE: Brown Haired Man in Petaluma
Do you remember sitting in the rental car at the outskirts of Petaluma, just down the road from Lombardi’s where earlier we’d eaten our fill of smoked beef on thick bakery buns, grilled asparagus? We’d parked in the empty lot of the lumber company because you said you needed to talk about something. That cloudy…
FIRST PLACE: Letter From Wilfred (1943-Died of AIDS in 1998)
A rural Job Corps Center April 1967 Dear Female Marine Wilson, you Beautiful Doll, I love you forever and I want your alienated body. As you can surmise, it’s a spastic day — we’re having a regular gale — a cosmic tour-de-force — I feel like I’m in Greenland, but I’m surrounded by…
THIRD PLACE: Honky Babel
Molly turns up with a dildo in one hand and a bottle of King Louis in the other. Formally dressed, she squirms. A plastic tiara slips rebelliously from her crown. She’s been to a wedding, been pumpkin smashing. Her gait is her fingerprint. A bleak math asserts itself from vagina to instep. She jokes about…
SECOND PLACE: Pocket Knives and Hanging Flowers
My father and I bought those hanging flowers at Asef’s Produce downtown. I liked them because they swung around and because they were deep purple, opening like trumpet cannons. Asef came round the corner and sprayed them with a hose, and the flowers flopped back and forth like springs. We bought a couple pots, and…
FIRST PLACE: Lonnie, Lonnie, Bib Bib Bib Bib
Our hushpuppies were drying in Dink’s fry cage when the hobo whipped in. The hobo — a dependable hobo and, as you’re aware, serviceable — stooped and addressed the three of us: Lonnie, Bib and I in our regular booth by the register, the police baton and badge on the table edge, clear of the…
Speak now
I arrived at the prison just after midnight on May 9, 2007. As a reporter in Nashville at the time, I was one of seven media representatives in Tennessee selected to witness the execution of an inmate by lethal injection. We checked our personal belongings — including notebooks and pens — at the security station.…
Peaked interest
Inspiration was all around Mountains, the duo of Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp. On their third album, Choral, they recorded an Arizona thunderstorm for the song “Telescope.” Relentless rainfall arrives midway through the piece, coating the song’s battery of synthesizers and organs in a tone not unlike TV static. On “Map Table,” more randomness: the…
Dear God I Hate Myself
Xiu Xiu used to be a challenging, uncomfortable listening experience. Scattered moments of mutilated beauty made the awkward rape-incest-weeping-electronic ride all worth it. We caught the last real glimmer of that on The Air Force, only to see Jamie Stewart expand into a full band writing (gasp) rock songs on Women As Lovers. He has…
A Prayer for Owin’ Money
On the infrequent occasions when I visit a Catholic church, I always feel a little uncertain about my motives as I dip my fingers into the holy water and make the sign of the cross. The same internal dialogue replays itself in my head about whether doing so makes me a fraud or somehow complicit…
Dream Get Together
Citay is one of those bands that pops up on the scene so rarely, music geeks often forget they even exist; a band that can take an overused trend in music and somehow breathe new life into it. With their third album, Citay has made the record that the Arcade Fire is still trying to…
WEB EXCLUSIVE: ‘Broken Embraces’ marks another great for Pedro Almodovar
Broken Embraces Starring Penelope Cruz, Lluis Homar, Blanca Portillo, Jose Luis Gomez and Ruben Ochandiano. Directed by Pedro Almodovar. Rated R; 2:08. LEO Report Card: A- Spaniard Pedro Almodovar is probably both the most respected and most taken-for-granted director not working in English. He received a foreign language Academy Award a decade ago for “All…
Alms for the poor?
The words “Women in Transition” — written in black marker across the glass door — have faded and are barely legible. Inside, the office is cluttered with used furniture, archaic computer monitors and worn cubicles. The building rumbles, and noticeably aging pipes poke through holes in the ceiling. Located in the basement of a senior…
Gavage Vol. 1: Queen of Hearts
Paul K’s originals are sturdy and effective, but Gavage Vol. 1: Queen of Hearts really springs to life on “Afternoon Tea” and “Running for Our Lives,” covers of songs by two very distinctly British artists (the Kinks and Marianne Faithfull, respectively) that provide an intriguing counterpoint to the group’s relaxed Americana. Strangely, Queen of Hearts…
Bar Belle turns in perfect attendance in 2009!
PRESS RELEASE To: Local media, national media, international media, the mayor, the president (of the United States), Oprah, LEO higher-ups who are in charge of raises, LEO Inbox Bar-Belle-hater writers, the cast of “Jersey Shore,” Louisville bar owners, my mom, reality show producers, publishing houses, Republicans and Betty White. Contact: Sara Havens A&E Editor/Bar Belle…
B-Sides: Music & Other Ephemera
Once upon a time, “Joe sent me,” or words to that effect, were necessary to gain entrance to a jazz-age speakeasy. In the spirit of that era, West Market Street Stompers’ bandleader Doug Finke and Sterling Entertainment present the Third Annual Bootleggers Ball Saturday at a new venue, Wildwood Country Club. Finke’s wife, Shelley, said…
Locavore Lore: Local fermentation — Get on board with bacteria
What magical marriage is born from cold midwinter nights and New Year’s intentions still fresh in our hearts? The adventures of culinary alchemy, of course. Now is the perfect time to explore the wild and wonderful potential of growing and creating in your own kitchen, both for reasons of supporting personal health and getting to…
Classical Music: Sorry, Verdi, your ‘Requiem’ is OK, after all
Prior to the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem,” prominent conductor and critic Hans von Bülow obtained an advance copy of the musical score. Bülow looked the thing over and tossed it aside, dismissing “Requiem” as “Verdi’s latest opera, though in ecclesiastical robes.” According to Chicago Symphony historian Phillip Huscher, the caustic critic then…
Trimming the fat
The 2010 regular session of the Kentucky General Assembly has convened for only four weeks and already House Bill 176 looks lonely. That’s because H.B. 176, which aims to steer federal money toward low-performing (and non-chartered) public schools, remains the only bill signed into law so far this year. This isn’t to say Frankfort and…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: ZOMBIELAND 2009; $17.95-$39.95, R Completely over-the-top comic take on walking-dead lore with Jesse Eisenberg learning to survive a world of flesh-munching rotters under the tutelage of ace Romero-ite Woody Harrelson. Into their carefully un-orchestrated killing spree comes Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, certainly enough to keep any pair of guys off…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your club, comedian, musical act or karaoke listed, please send e-mail to mherron@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is NOON THURSDAY the week before publication. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. Wed. Jan. 27 BBC…
Theater: Savage Rose’s ‘Much Ado’ draws out the laughs
Much Ado About Nothing A production by the Savage Rose Classical Theatre Company. Continues through Feb. 6 at Walden Theatre, 1123 Payne St. For tickets and information, go to www.savagerosetheatre.com or call 599-3011. With its prickly wit and precise, surgical dissection of romantic love, “Much Ado About Nothing” is arguably the finest of Shakespeare’s comedies…
The Sea
Rae was once a punk-band frontwoman, but she learned to stretch her musical horizons with the help of the saxophonist who became her husband. The singer gradually found her own sound: solidly in old-school R&B and jazz-pop, but with wings that flutter all over. But during preparations for the follow-up, hubby overdosed on a controlled…
Find Our Way
There’s something in the voices of early rock ’n’ rollers like Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly that conjures up the word “honey.” And whatever it is, D.A. King has it, too. On Find Our Way, the singer-songwriter croons in a way that would’ve made your poodle skirt-wearing grandma swoon 56 years ago. But this isn’t…
