deep cleveland - featured poets & artists

featured poets & artists

louie crew

louie crew has edited special issues of college english and margins. he has written three poetry volumes: sunspots (lotus press, detroit, 1976); midnight lessons (samisdat, 1987); lutibelle's pew (dragon disks, 1990); and queers! for christ's sake! (dragon disks, 2003). on the web.

On Self-Publication

Linguibators can't unite.

Lord, Last Spring!

That's when I stopped liking my body,

Wished I hadn't put all that time

Making it so male, so butch;

That's when, baby,

I first started peeping out,

Before my debut

                 _Read him honey!_

That's when I first wanted to be fucked!

                _Yes, Lord; chill us brother!_

Now I am a woman trapped

In a cage of male muscle,

                _Wreck us, sister!_

A gorgeous quean strapped in boy bulges.

My Junky

You have waxed in my mind

a red fire engine with a clever chrome smile.

Trumpets sprout silver lilies

in the Purcell spring I can hear again.

Many spend their few moments of communion

in smoke and drying beer, but for us

tin birds sing, flowers burst,

and egg yokes sunflower clowns' eyes.

Your magic makes our times real.

You are Shelley with the exultingbark of a Bull Conner dog set free.

This mad joy is important because it is ours,

         a gift, a surprise.

You have shown me how with my fat fingers

to draw the moon to me, or to splash it away,

how to spray the sun's light through ooze of trees.

And we are freer because we love one another.

God Made Navels

God made navels,

          or mamas did,

                connecting us

                then disconnecting us

                collecting lint or

                roping into old age

God made mamas

          and their navels too.

God made absolutely everything.