Black Eden: Nocturnes

The Performance

Harpist + Poet, Monica Schley, teams up with modern Dancer, Sheri Brown, and Clarinetist, Rosalyn DeRoos, to perform surreal vignettes for ears + eyes. Between them, there is addition use of props, video, and auxillary percussion to accent the balance of composition + improvisation.

The Book (Pudding House Press)
25 pages, 56 poems
Cover illustration: Stephen Schildbach
$10 plus $2 shipping and handling

The Nocturnes are a series of prose poems that take on a surreal shape inspired by subterranean urban scenes and the evening piano compositions of Chopin, Glinka and Faure. By definiton, nocturnes are meloncholic and describe the hours between midnight and 2 A.M.

AN EXCERPT

Nocturne #3

Airplanes overhead can't touch me down in this dry vent where everything is electric. My pulse evens out with the drones of a repetitive beat pattern. Minimalism is my cranium under a lampshade, buzzing like a fly with hypodermic needles for thumbs and fingertips. I'm safe with a scissors. The most imaginative playmates I have are sharpened boys & girls of paper strung along by hands. I can clothespin them together. When I do that, my hands touch theirs and sound like a flute in a tunnel. I meant to give this up years ago, but it sounds too beautiful.