Various Atmospheres by Alex Caldiero

	Various Atmospheres: Poems and Drawings by Alex Caldiero Signature Books Salt Lake City © 1998 Table of Contents various atmospheres This is not the time to think about What I wouldnt do to almost stopped writing ... Bonzo and Elvis You would never know by the looks The Post Master General issued ... Some people pick their noses it is plain and simple ... If you count long enuf ... SHNO One Mom net reciting ... I miss my computer SONGPRAYER he wonders if it was worth while ... When I wanna write ... I want to be a tree Searching for food had become the other side ... Under the desk there is another room ... TO HARPO MARX, IN HEAVEN A man kneeling can be The gorilla dressed as a bellhop ALIEN SCHOOLING THE SPIRIT Every week I read my horoscope ... I ran from my death I enjoy reading the biographies of suicides No one knew exactly how ... "I don't ever want to die ..." I want to ask my mother for a sign ... If I were powerful When I first saw fingers ... FUNERARY INSTRUCTIONS Every fifth word It walks into your If I get close ... the sudden knowledge ... from you to me We could try our The past creates the feeling ... Before they mean We always speak in possessives the only man No one will know Your hair Cover


		The quiet of reverie. The smell of warm bread in a Sicilian kitchen. The dissonance of the mind in conversation with itself. The sensation of air on naked skin. The embrace of salt and sea. Heads under clouds and placed in boxes. The jaggedness of a snake’s memory shed among the rocks. These are the various atmospheres that Alex Caldiero conjures in his sometimes meditative, sometimes playful poems that celebrate both holiness and farce. “Quiet insights quietly arrived at—offered shared in simple open speech.” —Cid Corman, acclaimed poet and editor of Origin magazine, on Various Atmospheres
	Alex Caldiero was born in Sicily, raised in Brooklyn, attended Queens College, and now lives in Orem, Utah, with his wife, Setenay, and children. He is well-known for his performance works that integrate poetry with music, dance, and art—and for his appearance in the independent motion picture, Plan 10 from Outer Space. Caldiero has performed at such diverse places as the New School for Social Research, Coyote Gulch in the southern Utah wilderness, and on Brazilian t.v. Among his previous collections are Book O' Lights, Lu Latti di la Matri, From Stone to Star, and Toy Blood. Published in Italy and the United States, Caldiero has been reviewed in Attenzione, Il Progresso, the New York Times, and Village Voice. He is anthologized in Text-Sound Texts, featured in Utah: State of the Arts, and included in the Dictionary of the Avant-Guards.
	title page Various Atmospheres poems and drawings Alex Caldiero Signature Books Salt Lake City copyright page Many thanks to Scott Abbott for making this selection and for midwifing it into the world. Some of the poems in Various Atmospheres appeared previously, often in slightly different versions, in the following publications: Clown War, Screens and Tasted Parallels, Poor Roberts Almanac, and Canyon Echo. © 1998 Alex F. Caldiero All rights reserved Published by Signature Books. Signature Books is a registered trademark of Signature Books, Inc. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Information Caldiero, Alex Various atmospheres : poems / by Alex Caldiero. p. cm. ISBN 1-56085-101-5 (pbk.) I. Title. PS3553.A394935V3 1998 811'.54—dc21 97-45947 CIP