barbara maloutas



direction 1


a flower comes felled        after (me)
a bridge passes broken over (us)
a baker looks solitary on as obsession
is reborn blind              out(side)
a fake pine     branches fold trimmed and     (all)
old men shimmer against themselves
take care stumble pebble     wandering transient as almost
an eagle grows in mid-air       a(way) from the canopy
time seems short for sure    (there’s a beach)
(I) hear barren inside
when an apple
is ashamed in candy pink
light is early and water
goes soft       



direction 2

others fly by this thin dry wall
years asleep wonder at sand         while birds
dread singing         still yours
her neck slips cold in the shade
(and) sundown passes torch-lit    on
a bicycle as rush reels the light (shimmer) shiver
at last runs streaked with rain         out of range
somebody dies briefly sometime    (tomorrow)
afterthought mistakes     point glorious    
(sorry for this) still rain turns away rain-wet malevolence
and darkness leads back        towards (belongs)
to walls (of) clear neon now
the sky goes and seeps small bonfires
(I’m) afraid a sports car dips         the red shimmy




direction 6

have mercy    the humming of
children shows up     go smile (until)
it stops    this the sound
of fear nothing
so unworthy of your live the life of
a monk on the outskirts and all
be like that     and still surviving
summer sinks         left to say
accept (of course) speaking only fair
mercy        I keep many colors but
just how heroic my heroes are to be
step on a crack     to wake up
this easy satisfaction
and all that decreasing        expanse









direction 8

a border grants twisting thanks to a river
plains end in    I’m told    the skies (and)
odd     returning with all the lettering
a raven kind-of looks rarely in here     in (this)
space awaits our ordered waiting
this side departs doing a brisk return
place gets a high volume of what-to-do-now
and walls hear ranging within each other
come back     for longing
at the end passing over    I am still there
a noise on a buzz towards the edge
giants stretching until now near naked
a small vowel picks up the sounds of birds in wind
my kite flies    get up again to (kick)     a heart







tableaux vivant
A representation of the action at some stage in a play, created by the actors suddenly holding their positions or ‘freezing’, esp. at a moment critical to the plot, or at the end of a scene or act; also, as a stage direction.









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barbara maloutas is the author of In a Combination of Practices (New Issues, 2004) and Practices (New Michigan Press/Diagram, 2003). Her work has appeared in journals including Aufgabe, FreeVerse, Segue, Tarpaulin Sky, Good Foot, The New Review of Literature, Bird Dog and BeAware. Her work is anthologized in Intersections: Innovative Poets of Southern California (Green Integer, 2005) and online in the 5th Anniversary Issue of Segue (Miami University-Middletown, 2006). She teaches book structures, book arts and typography at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.


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