Thursday, December 24, 2009

Stigmata

nerve & the calligraphied
not quite the presence of armor
nor clay the object of a sculptor’s madness;

a sparrow’s awe is unheard,
just out of range

“emergency”

planted seeds in the tumbleweeds,
called you “father” & sung of the universe
As a manifestation of one man’s rage.



Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Antiquity Series 1






Thought



My love wears no martyred skin,

is breathlessness in a kiss, & thinness

in the fingers’ lithe

the beckoned O’ & at first thought

the consumption of you

is nearly Keats,

Dear: it kills me...



...to succumb would do nothing

But attenuate the wait



Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Cure "Last Dance"



I'm so glad you came
I'm so glad you remembered
To see how we're ending
Our last dance together
Expectant
Too punctual
But prettier than ever
I really believe that this time it's forever

But older than me now
More constant
More real
And the fur and the mouth and the innocence
Turned to hair and contentment
That hangs in abasement
A woman now standing where once
There was only a girl

I'm so glad you came
I'm so glad you remembered
The walking through walls in the heart of December
The blindness of happiness
Of falling down laughing
And I really believed that this time was forever

But Christmas falls late now
Flatter and colder
And never as bright as when we used to fall
All this in an instant
Before I can kiss you
A woman now standing where once
There was only a girl

I'm so glad you came
I'm so glad you remembered
To see how we're ending
Our last dance together
Reluctantly
Cautiously
But prettier than ever
I really believe that this time it's forever

But Christmas falls late now
Flatter and colder
And never as bright as when we used to fall
And even if we drink
I don't think we would kiss in the way that we did
When the woman
Was only a girl



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

11/22/09

Yesterday I received in the mail one contributer's copy of The&Now Awards: The Best Innovative Writing, brought out by Lake Forest College. What a book! This book is over 300 pages and jam-packed with some fine writings from poets like Kane X. Faucher, Simone Muench, Christian Bok, Adam Fieled, Gabriel Gudding, Catherine Daly and many more.

I am really impressed with the overall quality of this book, and cannot wait to read it from cover to cover.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

New Interview

with yours truly, conducted by Italian artist Claudio Parentela.

The interview can be found
here at his interview blog

VARIAtioNS in NORThern DEGradATIons

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Pinstripe Fedora

New issue of Pinstripe Fedora featuring:

Michael Farrell
Thomas Fink
Daniel Y. Harris
Christine Herzer
John Lowther
Maya Diablo Mason
Henry Rasof
E. K. Rzepka
James Sanders
Paul Siegell
Matina L. Stamatakis
Harry K. Stammer




Tuesday, September 22, 2009

[+!]




A new book is out by Kane X. Faucher, Matina L. Stamatakis, and John Moore Williams. It can be downloaded as a free PDF, or purchased as a hardcover courtesy of Calliope Nerve.

e-book

Hardcover

Friday, September 18, 2009

Stumbled Upon...



this awesome PDF book from Robert Chrysler and Amie Carson, courtesy of VUGG Books. Amazing work here! Check it out:


My Shah of Iran is Secretly a Love Song



Tuesday, September 8, 2009

On Catechism



is an acolyte cloaked by the night. All remnants
of human devoid in his skin.

A boy cries. nobody is around
to hear him.

Who are you? A possession--an ascent to great,
ignominious passion. Catechumen.

Sometimes sweat hardens like bacon fat & grit. The children suck greedily from a nun’s tits. Her milk, a holocaust stain. A venomous liquor recognized only by snakes…



You wept Jesus where she hit you last.

Personal Site



exterminate all [rational] introductions...

MLS

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Scene One: The Unveiling of Vesuvius

one glimpses old stone
& exsanguinated pigeon guano
[fresco: a miniature Ophanim] mottled
salt-cured meat
in clay pots

we draw Sarno--of Once Was--
with perfume oil of abalone
bone remnants
tablatures in dust--
where dimness agglutinates
with ruinous sediment---
other Pompeii-ash
gleaming mistless

in the molten slit

Monday, August 24, 2009

Love, Fervently

for DAJ

o
f fingers, the symmetrical, smoothened
underside of warm hands

where silence is writ “waxen mummies”,

“spiracle-wink”

we sweeten the derma with honey, honey to seal a darkness,
that of arroyo, in bathed bronze-- two statuesque apparitions,

rich-warm with salted kiss-es, ebbed

to outlive fossilized bracken
& manganese
love, fervently--

spectral & polarized
upon a pyre borne of lust

& crystalline fires

(an enduring zenith;
memory interpreted in the ghostly shadows

of an eye--ich bin sie, sie bin ich)



in reflection, we be


Monday, August 10, 2009

New Blog



Here is a new blog which focuses on my new-found interest in fashion. Enjoy...

The Fashionistarium

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

To Divulge or Conceal Some Small Parts of the Self



a needle-eye, the bulbous oviform

of seed pod,
the pinched quill tip




incessant, small, fever orchids
stretch into swollen wool


squeezing through a body small

& ruched into
the aforementioned furrow

wrought a puckered
& crucibled sew
of muslin wraiths

closely
fitted to breasts,


smoothly lined

by wasteland organza;
the miasmic burst of sun, intensified


dried roses
& time fickled

by formless water-ink
by links of linen slunk

about the hips

to lips; the taste of determinable
coy

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Stolen Kisses by Psychic TV


Xenomorphia and Others

Check out the new e-book, Xenomorphia, from John Moore Williams and myself, published by David Wolach's amazing Wheelhouse Press. David and his editorial team did such a wonderful job with this book. John and I couldn't be more pleased!

Also, check out new e-books from Lars Palm and the ghoulishly delectable Juliet Cook.

In addition, the new Neon is out, featuring a couple black and white images from my Phos series.

This has sure been a busy summer!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

New Publication/ Forthcoming Publication

I have a poem up in the latest issue of Big Bridge. Please check it out.

Special thanks to Michael Rothenberg and Arpine Konyalian Grenier for creating such an amazing issue.

I am also very pleased to announce my photograph, Vortex, has been accepted in the next issue of After Hours: A Journal of Chicago Writers and Artists. It is such a great honor to be accepted into this magazine right alongside my Creative Writing professor from Wright College, Brenda Cardenas, who urged me back in 2004 to get into publishing my work. It is because of her, and my strong determination, that I am where I am today.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Monday, July 6, 2009

Publication News




The 10 year anniversary edition of Drunken Boat is now out and it is absolutely AMAZING

Here you will find works by Ted Warnell, David Baptiste-Chirot, Alexander Cigale, Simone Muench, James Autio, Giles Goodland, Geof Huth, Me

and many, many more. Check it out!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Once Quoted



Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. --Oscar Wilde

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant. --Salvador Dali

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends. --Friedrich Nietzsche

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. --Arthur Schopenhaur

Gnawing at this Polaroid Sun



fins of fish,
bone
scrimshaw

waxen apparitions

left
daunted
in ink-
water,

leavened bronzes
polarized

the eye’s
tromp l’oeil

flanking the roe
at high tide--

a barium froth
spurts

foam, this sea
between horizon

blurred

no home
the curtain drawn
upon

ashes, all

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Rain, Cometh



under cobalt sky--dulled by emulsified stars--we trace the windowpane, blue-swathed, & point toward God [where most we fear a stretched hand will cast the sunlight out

where the droplets
form silhouettes out of hollowed-out precipices, ogive shrouded in darkness & what disaster the sea churns, upon its torrent-belly, moons lacquered with albumen, oil * * * I am coming home to you, blue naphtha, fire song

leave your longing
light on for the sailors who’ve lost their way like so many others before the tide, a menagerie of black-grays

Happy Days



The coolest book. Ever.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Sappho as a Man


& I bleed paradise
this moment

with thought of your tongue
& mine, what grace

enraptured



feeling signifies something

in the longing birth & conclusion of body in dew

& it puzzles me

how both can transcend perfection



prothesized in a Sunday without clothes, immaculated

by wanting & have of___


for
I’ve probed
the irrealism of your animality

the sea to settle

into the potential placement of my bones

in a wave of___


or, possibility extracts from the marrow
all & nothing

nothing &__for which
I’ve worked a lifetime
to perfect as “abyss"


you kissed me, created matter

the sweet instant of


this

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Five Bodies of Work



Dreams of Corrosion





1/4 Pure




Paper Doll




[in] Corporeality




Coyness of Pearl

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Friday, June 12, 2009

The Unveiling of Xerolage #43--Grapyrus




Here it is: http://xexoxial.org/is/xerolage43/by/matina-l-stamatakis

With special thanks to mIEKAL aND,
Kane X. Faucher, Maria Damon
and John Moore Williams.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Visions of Finality

paint ravens into horizon, come out of view--then into--
do not reflect on endings that have passed, but beginnings that never
were

**

they reveled in their elements, or fought against themselves wholly
chiseled into immaculate
carvings

quite Fresco

with the threat of historical destruction, wear
of too many years

gracing the same wall

**

time has come to return to remembrances
with a new wisdom of the setting sun

or the reversal of tides; mend broken glass
& fractured herring bone

[do not tell me the differences between flesh
& pumice


we have rubbed up against
each other too much; revealed

humanistic flaw, only]



**

your teeth initiated the first speech
the one I saved for my mind when

dire was the need for rhetoric


a crowd gathered
to watch explosions of thought

the danger of
& hope for carnage

**

--there is nothing left, but nothing is something
worth mentioning



Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Victims of the Dance


[lyrics by Tuxedomoon]


Feel like Cassandra

Dancing

The last dance of the bones

Dancing

In spite of sudden death

As is at last

She knew in a breath

We'll all be dancing

On our own

With no past

With no regrets

But Cassandra had problems

She denied a god love

and he ruined her gift of prophecy

She could see it all

But no one believed her

No one believed her when she said

We are all victims of the dance

We are all victims of the dance

and seeing the future

seeing the future

Foreseeing the future's

Not for us

It's unimaginable


We are all victims of the dance

We are all victims of the dance

We can't see the stoplights

Can't see the stoplights

With no fore or hindsight

We just go blind

DA da da da da da

We are all victims of the dance

We are all victims of the dance

We met at a dance

Was it my dream or yours?

Who knows

It was so long ago

It hit me friday evening stained with purple mirth

The longer you stay away the crazier i get

Crowded at faceless parties so gutted and sunk

Winking at the warm bodies

Taking deception for granted

Trying to dance

Just an immortal ghost

and us?

What about us

Drink

Let's have another drink on the host

Cause we are all victims of the dance

Who fall and recover

Fall and recover

and fail to discover

First things first

With an unquenchable thirst

We drink

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

L'inconnue de la Seine


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Inconnue_de_la_Seine)


driftwood & moss ballet slow-sifted in paper skin

spider-veined the faith of grasping silhouettes

from the strain of naked nape

a violin emerges

a moment bathed in martyrdom

stomach bloated with gibbous moon waxed

in surging calm-- vertical dance before

flecked grey

soft obelisk glyphs in knotted hair--

the foreboding crest of an awakened monsoon

then recession--solitude--the dull blue pebble

form

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Publication News



My artwork in the new issue of Siren.

Forthcoming:

Drunken Boat (art)
Pinstripe Fedora (poetry)
Big Bridge (poetry)
Neon Magazine (art)
Indefinite Space (poetry)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Six Months After Departure



Methodology (of Discourse) No. 2


I: Response to Naught:

in nocturnal rallentando of minds unfurled; entangled a vesper
bell; shell enshrouded by dark & longing, rankle diaphragm;
miscreant

& raw


::a moon is scanned through the eye of the loon,
crux of night‘s mute ray-- not so didactic nor outright

twisted & -un



II: Response to Thought:

cogito ergo sum:

("I" think) enigmatic what mist unraveled before it;
proof of undone, overrun its course
the rippled effect & rigorous pull of lever,

threads unselvedged; a quiver: the conveyor
belt’s magnum opus

conducting
the semidetached
& -un--the mind

thus churning the mental grind;
a discordant "I", unfettered



(special thanks to D for inspiration & encouragement!)

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Theme Songs

The greatness of Fabio Frizzi...



Riz Ortolani...



Jorg Buttgereit's Nekromantik...

Monday, May 4, 2009

Concupiscence

removed from reality, pictures incused light’s halogen body lapped,
tongue-slapped , thrashed slits of flesh; a departed realm
raw & daunted

what lithe animal the night’s body---lackadaisied


between thighs, silkened glass--in eternality,
what sweet charnel of succulence glistened
& was thus expelled through labrum?
rivered & left
tremble?

what was once unabashed virgin skin--shaft
beckoned to rip & wet the slits with paraffin


plight for the night projected on stomach’s
bold geography

the hum of breathy crescendos

heaved through hidden
pink


Sunday, May 3, 2009

Psychological Violence in the Workplace

I do not really know how to convey what I feel at this moment in regards to my job because there is a mixture of intense, chaotic emotions. I do know I am fortunate enough to be employed, while many people all over the world are struggling with unemployment--to still have a job, I should be extremely thankful. However, it saddens me to no end that I work for a company which sucks me dry, makes me feel vulnerable, helpless, and depressed.

February last year, I thought I had landed a good job. I had just separated from my husband at the time, and was in need of a job to support myself. In no time, I had a job. At first, I was eager to learn and I thought my co-workers were very supportive. It was a good working environment, or so I naively thought.
In a couple months time, I was offered a management position, which I took against my own will. When I say I took it against my own will, it is because I was pressured into taking the position. If I didn’t take the position, my hours would have been cut drastically. The reason why I didn’t want this lead position is because I felt, at the time, I needed more training. Since I had only been with the company a short period of time, the position I was about to jump into was one of the most important jobs in the company, and I just didn’t know if I was ready to take on the major responsibility after seeing the manager before me crumble under the pressure.
In the end, I gave into my boss’ pressure and took the promotion. So there I was, working my ass off, supervising a team, basically learning as I went along since nobody had taken the time to properly train me. I did all of this work under my direct supervisor, who had--and still has--mood swing issues and a fierce temper.
After a couple months, I felt more comfortable in this position, even though my boss started on me about every little thing, yet failed to see what my team had accomplished. Before I took on the position, the department was in disarray. Things were not set properly and everything was messy and out of order. We managed to fix everything in just a couple months time through hard work and a strict deadline.
Then one day in late January I was called into the office. My boss explained to me that two positions had been cut. As a result, I was pushed out of my job. My boss said to me, and I quote, “well, I guess the good side of this is you can now find a job you want to do”. I was floored. This was coming from someone who so wanted me to take the position, who even threatened I’d risk having my hours cut if I didn’t take this promotion, and now he’s telling me I am terminated? Just like that.
I was given the option of severance pay, but then learned I would not be eligible for this sum of money because I was just shy of one year of employment. The boss had me thinking I was entitled to this pay, but I read the literature on the severance pay, and it said I was not entitled to the pay if I had been employed with the company for less than a year. Again, I was floored, but quickly picked myself up and asked him what my options were. He told me there was a commissioned sales position available, so I took it.
Meanwhile, I had been struggling to make my child support and car payments. Since I had such a drastic pay cut, it was tough, and still is tough to get through the months.

Fast-forward to March, 2009. I started commission after extensive computer and floor training. It was going well until one day I rolled my eyes at my supervisor (the manic one), and she flipped out at me and called me “insubordinate” because I refused to put away her garbage. She did not ask me to throw a piece of paper away for her, but demanded I throw it away. I gave her a look of anger and grudgingly threw it away. Then she yelled at me for it. If you know me, it takes quite a bit to get me mad, but the way my supervisor acted toward me, like I was one of her slaves, it really set me off.
Last week, while looking at my pay stub, I found out I had not been paid for commission all along. Again, I was livid. Here I was scrounging for every bit of money I could, trying to not get into debt, and it could have all been prevented if I had received what was rightfully owed to me.
On top of it all, some of the products I’ve been selling are so horribly defective. I brought this up to my supervisor, but she didn’t care one bit. The only thing she cares about is how much I can sell. Well, the problem is, we can definitely sell a lot, but can we keep it sold? No. Customers are dissatisfied with the products, they are bringing them back for refunds. As a result, we are losing a huge profit. Does the boss care? No. He claims it’s us, the salespeople, that are lazy and incompetent. It is our fault, and our fault only.
Every day the tension mounts. The work environment becomes more hostile and based solely on numbers. My supervisor walks around every day in a horrible mood, which means we wind up getting yelled at for no reason. We all get treated like criminals, and the managers act like we should be indebted to them for still having our jobs.
The managers don’t even want to do anything now. If we ask for their assistance, they grudgingly do it, but then tell us to not call them again--to handle the problem on our own. They’re all lazy and incompetent, yet treat us as if we’re the ones who are lazy and incompetent.
Every day we get harassed. If our numbers aren’t up to their liking, they verbally attack us.
One day my boss even threatened us. He said if we do not do this certain thing called “taking the lead”, we would all be fired. So, we all made a pact to not do what he said, that way nobody would be fired.
When I was in management, we had weekly meetings on current issues and events. I remember on one occasion we were discussing the attendance policy, and we spent the whole meeting creating scenarios on how an employee would “manipulate” the system in regards to either calling out sick or leaving early/late. In the end, the point system was enforced to the T. One condition of the point system says that if you call out sick, you automatically get points against you. If you call out, and are out for a couple days with a doctor’s excuse, you STILL get points against you. If you get a certain number of points, you’re automatically put on a PPI, which is a warning. If you get another PPI, you’re fired.
What got to me during this meeting was how mean the managers were being. They had this us-against-them attitude, which really irked me. These people do not see good in any of us, yet we are all good and work hard.
It’s management that is not good. Example: last week one of the managers was arrested and taken out of the store. I found out later he had stolen $40,000 over the year he had been employed with this company. We take a pen from the supply closet and we would be penalized for it (which is why they have now locked the room due to our excessive “stealing” of office supplies). And yet, this guy stole $40,000 and it takes them a year to catch him!
Moving along, because this sounds like such a horrible rant, I went online and found a definition and description of “psychological violence” in the workplace. Here is an excerpt:

Psychological violence in the workplace is the persistent, unwelcome behavior, mostly using unwarranted or invalid criticism, nit-picking, faultfinding, exclusion, isolation, being singled out and treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated, excessive monitoring and much more

http://www.angelfire.com/ne/biby/hostile-work-enviroment-psychological-violence-workplace.html)

I, and my fellow co-workers, have been through all of this. Something needs to be done--quickly. Our free will has been stifled horribly. There needs to be some reactionary statement--something big. Calling the complaint department will simply not do. This game of instilling fear has got to stop.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

'Round Midnight



I've a penchant for Julie London--the queen of sweet sultriness.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Exciting News on the Publication Front



My image "Ghost Window" is now the cover of Volume 11, Edition 4 of Stirring!!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

GAR



arrived in the mail yesterday--such a wonderful collection of vispo. Thanks, Ross!



Friday, April 24, 2009

Life After...21(?)



[still continues to use the Markov generator
to ward off angry spirits]

Tram Combs (the most underrated poet of the "beat" era)




ars poetica about ultimates

when you first rub up against God’s own skin
He turns out to be rougher than christ’s men most expect,

like a wood-rat, -rasp or ravenous

connoisseur with tender grapes a rough trade!

yet this seduction and adoration

of him we must get done, dangerous

though it go; poetry’s ways’re

strewn with the early-de railed, ridden, filed who

heard its sirens; and rose to go

singing, but couldn’t make it, hammered

and strove but with beats unsuccessful

to get on to come on with
the real jazz
and sea for one’s

self, to reach follow , fellow ,
father
ship with Him!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Black Robert Journal Interview

In Romanian!


(click on image to enlarge)

Translated by Carmen Racovitza



English version here: Black Robert Journal