Fall 2008, Volume 5

Poetry by Clint Frakes

News that Stays News

Executioner finches bob their heads in the wild rhubarb
& another great Italian poet collapses.

January's rain-glossed stones devour the waning sun
in the high savannah fallows &

bloody yolks melt under the pinyon—
(the quail hen knows which eggs make good offspring).

Today was stillborn in El Nino's mist,
morning glory & clematis shriveled to chicken wire—

Stellar's Jay rattles his tail, flinging wet sparks from
its juniper perch. This is a day for headlines & myths:

"50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz"
"5 billion set aside for new prisons"

A good day to read Ovid: the subduing of
Titans & fall of Thebes are always news.

A falcon carves up a cottontail
with curt slashes of his velvet head.


BIO:  Clint Frakes currently lives in Sedona, AZ. He has recently received the James Vaughan Award for Poetry and the Peggy Ferris Memorial Award for Poetry. He is a graduate of the Naropa and Northern Arizona University writing programs and received his doctorate with emphasis in Creative Writing from the University of Hawaii in 2006. He is currently working on his second full book of poetry, entitled Citizen Poems. His recent work can be found in Bamboo Ridge, Hawaii Pacific Review and Tinfish. He is the former Chief Editor of Hawaii Review and Big Rain.