Book Reviews

THE INTRUSIVE ACHE OF MORNING

by Patrick Porter

This is a book of poetry in the truest, most coffee-infused sense. Some tiny press in Chicago printed it, complete with a messy two-page table of contents rendered useless by the fact that none of the pages are numbered. In the back are four pages advertising other books from the press; all of them seem to revolve around Aleister Crowley. It's precisely the kind of book that gets left behind at bohemian hangouts like a Gideon Bible. Read my angst. Read my runtogether words. Read me. Read me. The cover should have a sticky note on it in neat, Alice In Wonderland handwriting: Read Me.

So I read it. Porter has put together an eclectic (quality-wise) collection of post-beat pseudo-punk poetry about twice as long as it has any right to be, with just enough glimmers of gritty-pretty imagery to make it worth the skim between cups of dark roast and cream.

"Honey I'm Home" is a welcome break from self-referential musing, and leaves an impact with its deathbed descriptions

of suburbia at dusk-- a TV blares a soap opera "saying something scripted about something scripted about / Something." And there are the requisite poems about nothing for those who like drunken puzzles, including the opener, "Revolution." I'm still trying to figure out what Porter is saying in a poem he wrote on a napkin at Cosmo Lounge (as the title claims), and why an incoherent napkin-poem is judged worthy of publication.

The Intrusive Ache of Morning is too slapdash to yield any great epiphanies, but well-crafted enough to be leafed through at the bookstore. You buy it, you digest it, you leave it on the table where it will help another soul through the solitude at St. Mark's. C+
--Chris J. Magyar

WALL OF THE SKY, WALL OF THE EYE

By Jonathan Letham

We've all done things we wish we hadn't. You may have made the innocent mistake of mixing tequila with Blatz beer or perhaps you ate cheese-injected hotdogs before taking a ride on a carnival Tilt-O-Whirl. Maybe you dated a

jerk who stole your money to fund his secret cross-dressing obsession. Maybe you've even gone so far as to break the law and spend a couple nights in jail cuddling up to a repeat offender who affectionately lets you know she's about to "tear you a new one."

Yeah, well nobody's perfect. We all mess up now and then. But there is no mistake that tastes as bitter (even compared to bile, Blatz and hotdogs) as the bad one-night stand.

Imagine you wake up alone in a stranger's apartment, the night before nothing more than a blurry memory. You make your way back to your own place, open the door, and discover a police detective waiting for you. Turns out, you haven't been gone overnight-- you've been missing for almost two weeks, the cops are looking for you, and you have no idea where you've been. Welcome to the world of "Five Fucks," a story by Jonathan Letham in his collection Wall of the Sky, Wall of the Eye.

Everyone in Letham's stories is prone to life-altering error. The nameless alcoholic narrator of "The Happy Man" has committed so many deadly sins that on the

first page of the story, he's already deceased, and living in Hell. What's worse, however, is that his family doesn't even get to enjoy the relief of his absence, because as part of his punishment he must spend half of his existence continuing to sit on the couch in front of the TV and the other half being tortured in Hell.

In "Light and the Sufferer," two brothers make the ill-informed decision to start using crack. As if the subsequent addiction wasn't bad enough, mysterious aliens begin to follow them wherever they go. Not only do the aliens take up a lot of space but they smoke up the young men's stash. Bad decisions and bad luck continue when Marra, the hero of "The Hardened Criminals" commits a petty crime and winds up in jail. It wouldn't be so horrible if the walls weren't made up of dead criminals that talk all night, threatening to cut his genitals off with their teeth.

So, everyone has made a mistake now and then. Admit it: you've screwed up too. But luckily for us, one-night stands only last one night, and if you wind up in jail, the walls won't talk to you. A-
--Cecilia Johnson