The cover of Utah Poems uses the original computer art (above) by Marek Lugowski, reduced to black on teal with sandstone-like and petroglyphic effects on 110-pound card stock. This 40-page chapbook contains 18 poems by Marek Lugowski and one poem co-authored with Therese Leigh.
The chapbook is printed on nicely opaque 60-pound white paper by Hammermill. It is professionally saddle-stitched and trimmed. It was lazed on a Xerox Docutech DT135. As such, it set the high standard of finishing for all our book projects.
These poems form a songline map, also creating an occasional journal from a July 1995 trek through the mountains, farm country, deserts and the canyonlands of Utah. It was a trip for singing the land into being, to put it in Australian aboriginal terms.
Speaking of singing, a really nice Tish Hinojosa lyric graces the overleaf of the title page against a 22 made up of little eggs. Both Therese and Marek admire Tish. Marek had the thrill of giving Tish this book and several others at Tish's Fitzgerald's concert in Berwyn, Illinois, a couple of years ago (this is 2000). Tish and her band play Fitzgerald's often when in Chicago (as do Brave Combo, another wonderful Texas experience). This trip meant for Marek acquiring a special token: "gracias Marek -- Tish Hinojosa", across the front of the Frontejas cd. Tish said that the books would "join our touring library." And the 22? Marek's dreaming.
come meet the world at the dead horse point
afrikaans or dutch. from germany switzerland or austria.
the license plates always blend in -- california new york
utah -- my ear cannot tell.
nearly no one is mouthing off in english.
the teens are brazilian: i can't tell from their
portuguese -- but i know the futbol club insignia.
the russian bald-pate jelly-belly men pore over the id
of the metal plate-documented soft rock in soft speech:
meeelyon...
bolshe...
kak dumayesh...
posmatriy... weentget... formayshin...
the 100% fuckable 100% edible israeli teen in dark matte
finish and a surface-to-surface how-it's-her (in 50 years)
mother in tow -- shoots me a bolt of a sideways glance.
no not in july romance. no not with mother flying her
wing. anyway i should set my eyes peeling off towards
the miles of hole in the rock -- not meditate on
the mysteries of mere inches inching apart...
today it rains.
so the colors favor the blues grays greens turquoises
laying siege to the crimson and the tan of this land
a temple to the creeds of brickhouse red.
below us: a thousand feet of long fall and certain death.
it is so certain and cheap to die here that no one is buying.
the strong of life have always come here to breathe in
the desolation and frailty of the human life and are sighing.
sighing with this life. tingling with this replenishing
life pumping life all throughout the high altitude jazz
of liquid brickhouse red... that we each are. while alive.
the first death stops a thousand feet below us on a jagged
plateau stitched in a coarse web of paths and jeep roads.
then -- the eyes steeply fall from rugged feathered cliffs
into canyons of swells or arroyos or just plain-unoccupied
anymore canyons -- all the way down to the colorado river
which snakes back and forth with a sometime green sheen --
and into the twist -- the gooseneck -- where it usually
appears its usual maudlin -- mud red -- packing in packing
out its own meal of sandstone.
they say it is called the dead horse point
because a few rejects of a mustang herd
were left behind here -- free to graze
free to range free to go find their water
all on their own
but horses are far less wise than the israeli girls
they stayed -- kept looking down -- onto the open water
in the sight of its narrow green, in the sight of
its muddy wide -- confused -- invisibly tethered
by the 3 thousand feet of air-thin hope
and died.
Copyright © 1995 Marek Lugowski
27 July 1995
Chicago, Illinois
and Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah
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Copyright © 1995 A Small Garlic Press. All rights reserved.
Created 1995/8/26. Updated last on 2008/5/2.