Snake: Second Wind
Snake: Second Wind continues the apocalyptic narrative introduced in its prequel, Snake, where all organic forms are destroyed by the planet Earth in a retributive act of self defense. From these destroyed forms the genderless eternal voice of snake is born. In Second Wind the poems—with choral asides—explore the possibility that life is only an agreed upon illusion, only real within a certain narrow bandwidth in the sense fog is created by a confluence of heat and moisture for an undetermined time until it disappears back to it's constituents. The poems in Second Wind describe and channel the invisible realities infinitely curled around the visible ones—where fictions—invented stories—dreams, the aspirations and histories—the living and the presumed dead—are all present and real forever.
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Snake: Second Wind
Snake: Second Wind continues the apocalyptic narrative introduced in its prequel, Snake, where all organic forms are destroyed by the planet Earth in a retributive act of self defense. From these destroyed forms the genderless eternal voice of snake is born. In Second Wind the poems—with choral asides—explore the possibility that life is only an agreed upon illusion, only real within a certain narrow bandwidth in the sense fog is created by a confluence of heat and moisture for an undetermined time until it disappears back to it's constituents. The poems in Second Wind describe and channel the invisible realities infinitely curled around the visible ones—where fictions—invented stories—dreams, the aspirations and histories—the living and the presumed dead—are all present and real forever.
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Snake: Second Wind

Snake: Second Wind

by Gary Lemons
Snake: Second Wind
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Snake: Second Wind

Snake: Second Wind

by Gary Lemons

Overview

Snake: Second Wind continues the apocalyptic narrative introduced in its prequel, Snake, where all organic forms are destroyed by the planet Earth in a retributive act of self defense. From these destroyed forms the genderless eternal voice of snake is born. In Second Wind the poems—with choral asides—explore the possibility that life is only an agreed upon illusion, only real within a certain narrow bandwidth in the sense fog is created by a confluence of heat and moisture for an undetermined time until it disappears back to it's constituents. The poems in Second Wind describe and channel the invisible realities infinitely curled around the visible ones—where fictions—invented stories—dreams, the aspirations and histories—the living and the presumed dead—are all present and real forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781597095914
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Publication date: 04/19/2016
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Gary Lemons studied for two years with Donald Justice, Norman Dubie and Marvin Bell in the Undergraduate Poetry Workshop at Iowa City from 1971–1973. He has published three books of poetry—the last of which—Snake (Red Hen Press 2012) is the first book of the Snake Quartet. For decades he fished Alaska, built grain elevators, worked high steel and re-forested the clear cuts of the Pacific Northwest. Currently he and his wife, the artist Nöle Giulini, teach yoga from their studio, Tenderpaws.

Table of Contents

Chorus

Elixir 19

World War 20

Snake Finds a Voice 23

Guest 25

Poverty 27

House of Words 29

Limbo 31

Remembering 32

Blavatsky's Lament 34

Impurities 35

Chorus

Romance in Exile 39

Bookkeeper's Waltz 40

Evolution of Science 41

Arithmetic 42

Returning 44

Rilke's Metal Jacket 46

Sweat Shops 48

Death of Thomas Mann 50

Divorce 52

Morning Chores 53

Chorus

Wait for Morning 57

Fragmentary 58

Album Cover 59

Queen of Plenty 61

Death by Friendship 62

Fictional Igloo 63

Black Hole 65

Isis 67

Holy 68

Evening Sutra 69

Democracy 70

Chorus

Making Sense 73

Because 74

Tacitus on Suetonius 75

Emission Control 77

Curtain Call 79

Welcome Mat 81

The Universe As It Is 83

Career Choices 84

Blueprint 85

Manual of Arms 86

Fair Play 87

Apple Picking Season 88

Brunhilde 89

Hard Country 90

Begging Bowl 91

Chorus

Beauty Mark 95

Generations 97

Grandfather Snake 98

Course Correction 99

Beach Craft 101

Home Care 103

Power Chords 105

Zen Lipstick 106

Obstinate Horse 107

Chorus

Biographical Note 112

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Gary Lemons in this heroic passage through an intense personal mythology is working what Carl Jung might have labeled a real time archetype, meme of the tribe in an attempt to explore the darker humus of text. It is a fabulous and brilliant extension of something like Theodore Roethke meets Philip K. Dick. Gary wants to extend our sense of the lyric sacred aria and yet it is all a picture book that one could lovingly bring to the children’s hour. This is a wonderful book.”

—Norman Dubie

“To read Snake: Second Wind is to ride the very tip of the artist’s wet brush—the voice is that fluid, the energy of creation that close. We are moving and we are moved by these lines that can become anything, high, low, mythic, sacred or profane. And when the brush lifts we find Gary Lemons has painted a faithful and devastating likeness of humankind, as destroyer, survivor, consumer, debaucher, mother, liar, and storyteller.”

—Kathleen Flenniken

“Through the deranged, visionary, abject voice of Snake, Gary Lemons would have us keep facing the suffering in which we remain complicit. Emptying and filling with power, these eerie poems are spoken by a flickering, remnant throat, mythic and lost, wildly charged with what does not have to be.”

—Joanna Klink

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