Two By Dina Marie Varsalone

We at Shattered Wig Empire in The Ether hope you had a great Thanksgivikkah yesterday, even if it ended weeping to Jim Reeves' "The Blizzard" next to the fireplace with grandpa telling you to get your act together. We ourselves are far from home doing a special report in Alabama.

Here are two beautiful, sparse poems by Dina Varsalone to soothe you as you ponder family, time, mortality and the straining at your waistline.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ideas Of Order

Each false
thing ends.


How did we
come to think


ill humor
should mask


as youth?
We lay


sticky with sleep,
the sense against


calamity. The room
is a quiet, shrinking


motive for metaphor.
The stillness


is the stillness
of the mind.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Fixer of Midnight

Winter dark,
I dropped


into his sea
of a body


for a touch
of salt.


Fogs descended.
Leaning back


I crossed
a hand


over my eyes;
flinging aside


theoretical things,
I could not count on


the stars
or anything else.


I’m growing old
back into odd places.


From the air,
of the body.


And then the window
blotting out reason.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Dina Varsalone grew up in New Hampshire and now lives in Baltimore Md where she runs writing workshops at the Mill Centre in Hampden. Her work has appeared in print in her self-published zines Ablerug and Take Me, I'm Yours! as well as Reed Magazine, The Watermark, and Embrocation Cycling Journal. She's currently at work on a book of poems and a humor book based on her blog, How to Waste Your Youth (for fun and profit!). Read more of her work at Dinamarietv.com.

The Whiskey Rebellion Publication Party At Normal's Books and Records

Normal's Books and Records is hosting a book release party for out-of-towners' Jerome Crooks and Jason Baldinger's The Whiskey Rebellion, just out on Six Gallery Press. It's shaping up to be a great little show that will also feature music by local group The Daily Lion and solo guitarist MacGregor Burns.

The show takes place Saturday, September 17th at Normal's Books and Records, 425 E. 31st St. It starts at 8pm and there is a suggested donation at the door of between $3 to $5 that will go towards the poets and musicians.


Jerome Crooks began writing poetry 20 years ago this September. "i've been a mess and i feel fine" (Speed and Briscoe) was released in 2001. "The Whiskey Rebellion" (Six Gallery Press) with Jason Baldinger, was released this year to be followed by "The Moment I Feared" (Low Ghost Press). Jerome has served as the active head of the Speed and Briscoe writer's collective since its inception in 1998. His work has appeared in the City Paper, Natural Language, The New Yinzer, and Open Thread's regional review. His journalism has appeared in Magazino and Islas. He is the son of Mary Anne and Jerry Crooks, brother to Theresa, brother in law to John Leonard, and proud uncle of young Aeden.

Kristofer Collins is publisher and editor-in-chief of Low Ghost Press.
He is the book reviewer for Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the manager of
Caliban Bookshop and owner of Desolation Row Records & CDs. His latest
collection of poems, Last Call was published by Speed & Briscoe in
2010.

Jason Baldinger has been writing for over twenty years, he just recently got around to performing it publicly. He's been published in The New Yinzer and has a split book of poetry with Jerome Crooks available now from Six Gallery Press. You can catch his bands House of Assassins and the Skirt Tasters at irregular intervals around Pittsburgh.

On The Whiskey Rebellion: Outlaws & revolutionaries, crooked cops & patsies, ghost towns and superheroes come out to play in this collection inspired by the Whiskey Rebellion, Wordsworth & Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Lord Byron's Don Juan.