i lean back into a misting fan
and upgrade to leather

into my own thoughts

into root

the arrival of the pilgrims
the war of independence
then ghostly apparitions from another realm
arrive

or at least
it seems to go in that order
somehow

this huge cut on my hand
finally starts to scab over

i’m gapping plugs
in the sun
as the dog kills another frog
outside

the clothes dry
under overcast clouds
as i walk over to my neighbors
place
ask him
maybe
can she give me a ride
up
over
that way

to the liquor store

it ain’t that far

Review by Travis Catsull

Cramped Uptown is the first book from Amy Temple Harper and it’s a thing of beauty and imagination. A very strange imagination mind you, but it’s a welcome change from the norm. This collection is broken into poetry, fiction and a short non-fiction piece at the end about her getting fired from her job as a cook at a strip club for pulling a knife on a patron. It’s a great way to end this quick adventure through the tell all day dreams Amy conjures. The clever insight to Amy’s thoughts and desires are proof that she’s having a wonderful time writing and that makes Cramped Uptown a very fun read and sometimes funny. In the poem “Spice” Amy creates elegant analogies to different types of spices, but abruptly ends the piece with a slice of life:

My two year old son was
picking his nose and eating it.
I said, “don’t do that.”

He said, “why not? It’s good.”

But more often we find this book fantastical and sliced deep into several layers of Amy’s own world. In the poem below it’s easy to imagine Amy sitting at home writing this poem waiting for a guest that may or may not ever come. Regardless, the ending is loud and poetic:

The Cat Burglar

I wait in the dark
half-fearing, half-longing
to see you.

Your picture’s in the
paper. Said you had
a scar over your right eye
and you’ve managed to
rob forty-five houses.

Well, I too have a scar, but
I can’t tell you where it is.

My front door and my back door
are unlocked and left wide open
waiting for a cool breeze
or an attack.

I left my watch on the table,
hoping maybe you’ll take i t,
when really what I hope you’ll
take is time.

My light is on, the window
is open, can you see me?
I write feverishly hoping
to document a crime in
my own life.

If just to prove I was there.

The book itself is also beautifully done and is credited to Spork Press. Although when I visited Spork’s cryptic website there’s no mention of this book or where they are located so I can’t tell you where to buy this one. Overall, this is a very mature and well done first release. It teems with life and creativity and that’s always a great place to start. I look forward to more releases from Amy Temple Harper and hope the small press world takes notice and picks up on this super imaginative writer.

my solar-powered
boom-box
keeps the chainsaw
juggler going
all day
and he
hardly says a thing,
just keeps juggling
and then
I throw a mattress
into the air
and he saws that in two,
no problem
and everyone claps
and puts some tips
in the chainsaw case
and he takes a break
so I take a nap
and my solar-powered
boom-box drifts off
late in the afternoon
and finally I just go
home and watch
Raising Arizona
on the sofa
with my girlfriend

6/99

Let’s stroll the sleepy streets
of Playa del Carmen
where the sand spills
from blanket shops

Let’s sleep in the queer hotels
of Bangkok
where the beer is full
of formaldehyde
and butterfly girls
wink at white boys

Let’s drive
a stripped down VW
to Belize
and work great gardens
in the half jungles
of San Ignacio

Let’s shave our heads
and chant Sanskrit mantras
with the monks of Bavaria
as they fan Prabhupada
with peacock feathers

Let’s sit on the dock
behind a Bellingham fish factory
talking with bearded hobos
who have only bread
for lunch

Let’s coast down the highway
along the Columbia River
in a van that hasn’t enough fuel
to make it otherwise

Let’s hide our food
from gypsies
as they scavenge through
the rotting castles
of Czech Republic

Let’s stop in Vegas
and drink all nite
on a handful of nickels
only to sleep in the lot
of a gift store

Let’s paddle a canoe
through the canals of Delft
waving to kids
on the steps
to faded houseboats

Let’s search out smoke clubs
in Vancouver
become members
and talk hockey
with strangers
who mock us

Let’s bet our t-shirts
against camel hide sandals
at boxing matches
in the Marrakech square

Let’s gaze
at the 100 ft. Christmas tree
built on grog
each year in the plaza
of North Dortmund

Let’s catch mangos
from howler monkeys
moving miles and miles
along the beach
of Costa Rica
without touching
the ground

Let’s smoke on the deck
of the slow, white ferry
crossing back and forth
from England to France

Let’s wander through
empty Osaka airports
while the sun sets
on the runway
and trash water

Let’s watch it rain
from Glasgow hostels
where bees are sleeping
in the thick marmalade
of morning

Let’s play whiffle-ball
Let’s drive to the sea
Let’s trigger horses
Let’s break into winter homes
Let’s hitch to Dallas
Let’s sleep in a field
Let’s throw punches
Let’s do anything
except go back home

-From the upcoming book, “In the Year of the Girl”

One of the things I do at work is filter through our “paid search” leads. This means we pay Google to send daily updates on people searching for things related to our business. Google sends us this info and includes the name, email, IP address, person’s business and the last 3 things the person searched for. Many times it has nothing to do with our actual business, but reading through what people search for I’ve found people don’t really understand what it means to “Google” something. You’d be very surprised. Some people in fact, think Google is some sort of wishing well or a place to confess their troubles and I’ll share a few actual examples of the non super sick or illegal searches I’ve found here:

“my wife a young girl kelly clarksten is doing it and then bam i walk in the room”

“i want to be an outrageous old woman who never gets called an old lady. i want to get leaner and meaner sharp edged and earth colored till i fade way from pure joy.”

“pics of my girlfriend amber doing a barnyard dog”

Or people will pose questions that Google should obviously have the answers to:

“where is there free hamburgers and chevy s10s”

“how do i know if my butt is bi”

“how to get cockroaches out the apartmint without using money”

“how can pisces man talk scorpio woman into doing a orgy with him tonite hurry”

Or people will have super specific things they’d like Google to find:

“gay black men with giant soft dicks like a rotten banana partying in hotlanta”

“3 lesbians with neon purple strap ons fucking on a revolutionary map of massechussetts”

And some, some have simply given up and Google is their last resort:

“my daughter keeps skipping school and i dont know where she is”

“my life sucks suck s suscj suss”

“i lost my fucking keys again”

“dear god, help me i can’t afford food”

How did we get to a place in time when a blinking cursor and a glowing white screen would be a place we felt comfortable, yet vulnerable enough to wish, confess and admit our deepest secrets?

Better yet, did we know those confessions would be so easily accessed?

Dear Google,

Save us.

Hurry.

Where the red birds bitch in the trees
and the gardens grow septic tanks and cornbread.

Where the only pagean in town has bad breath
and the local whiskey company repairs boots.

Where the fences are made of cactus and hair spray
and the wanted signs pose whores holding tail gates.

Where the bathrooms have screen doors, cbs
and there’s piss on the floor.

Where livestock is charged on the gas tab
and whippin’s are irrigated and served with snow come pie.

Where the wild donkeys are broke by preachers
and the best rodeo is in the Mayor’s backyard.

Where the buildings are made of chains and catfish
bones. The basements are full of retarded things.

Yup, take me to Texas, take me home.

From the book, Open Spirit, published in 2000.

oh
my world of passwords

what will you do to help me
pay the water bill?

earlier today i got an email
from my local autoparts store
and felt
somehow
they had crossed the line

after i walk two miles into the woods
i sit down

i pretend i am there
with old Nine Pipe

he tells me a joke about two blackbirds

i throw the ball through the park air
listening to the water from some pipe
while jumping up the bone wind
and i stretch canvass
and i stretch my arms
to measure out how
much i love you

winter slowly
finds its way to texas
i know
because the steel beak of the blackbirds
chuckle back into their meals and funny jokes

i think its important you know
that no one ever finds out
what it is you pray for

my eyes got a hundred cop cars
just driving ’round in em

in my shoe
i hide a golden chickpea
that i assume could pay my way
across a rainforest
to where the letters to jesus are kept
just there
in several bunkers

sent over
with my passwords
and your passwords
the passwords we no longer use

kept there

waiting for us to come and get them
waiting for us to die

so they too
can move on

a moment or two

The moon in
the lot
	shoves a shadow
	off it’s leg

	(sleep leg)

I find me
a table before
pouring some water.

pouring it down
in me.

Then 

a 	man	sneezes

	twice

	(bblleessss hhiimm)

a 	lime green
	purse

on 	that girl’s

	shoulder

leaning
on a brick

	wall

while

a 	man 	reads

the 	paper

(front to back)

my 	tongue

is so
raw.

I know 		the kinetic

pool table

& the empty 	cigarette

	package

	laying 

onthetable

a girl
	comes	up

starts  	talk-ing	 	to me

as i find 	

a cream colored

	lighter

under a 		thin	

	blue
sash.

the phone was ringing when the power went out
and water rose and ran pantoumly
only to kneel for its own cold muse

the maintenance of morning
and the vast edges of my breath
as i buried another fish
in a row of sunflowers
as she looked like a lemon

“oh my darling
oh my darling
oh my darling clementine
you are lost and gone forever”

sorry clementine l. halfpenny

you were a good fish

you are now in heaven
where the bloodworms
and tropical waters
soothe your golden gills

these thick set things
and the fragility withdrawing
must be like some wild goose
standing on a laminated atlas
as the fashionable quays toward
airport buckle in the guts of afternoon
where the supple hoops of st. francis
have no words for what is done

no dominate theory

we make noises to fill our paper tiaras
postpone them to scrapyards
and the load bearing walls
are full of shasta cans
and firebrick flake

we wait for feathers to fall
thru a needle’s eye
in hopes our vision
fleshes a perfect text
to build a belt of english ivy
on which to swing across
the 1st

you can see them from far away
with the muttering drains
near the nights i can’t sleep
near some sluggish approach
‘top the grass of tomorrow
but the tough potpourri
the table wafers
and the household creatures
fill our dreams with unstressed syllables
so none of us spread scurvy at the office

shooting from the hip at a broken can
is itself the song of the ungovernable bone

so i’ve accepted my shake of cedar coins
to be worth their weight in light

i do not expect it to get easier

but i do expect my expectations to meet

to meet

to meet and kiss

Laying in my jail cell
with nothing
but my slippers
on the ground,
I see a shadow
creep under the bunk
as a bullet of moon light
breaks through a chip
in the window paint

And I can see

(some)

of the full moon rising
over the razor wire
as a guard fingers
the sports page
and I am laying here
with a grin full of sleeping pills,
my belly limp with saltpeter

The western novel
stashed under my pillow
is riding towards Mexico
without me
and I notice the moon
has stretched over my slippers
and onto the bottom bunk
where a man is snoring
towards freedom
and when he opens his mouth
the dreams of the compound
fill his cavities.

And I am laying here
slowly turning 28,
staring off
as a guard shuffles through the dark
counting our bodies and our breath.

So I pretend to be dead
as the finger of moon
crawls up my ankle
and onto my chest,
nearing my throat
as a grown man chortles
in a black/black corner
and I am laying here
thinking of contraband:

a pair of earplugs
a pizza
a cigarette
a bottle

a huge tuba

to blow the windows from the room
and let moon in this place