For your Kindle: Diet Coke With Lime, poems by Emily Lloyd

Is there poetry in the e-world?  Surprisingly, yes.

Exploring http://www.feedbooks.com/, where many authors go to self-publish to the e-world, I found Diet Coke With Lime by Emily Lloyd.  I had previously found a lot of very very bad self-published poems, and very badly formatted e-publications, out there in e-world, and am delighted to find here a successful poetry chapbook, highly recommended, well worth the read.   There are some minor formatting problems, but given the competition this is still a strong standout:  http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/12343   If you do not tread the Kindle road, you may download it as a pdf. 

Lloyd's title poem gives a feel for where her poems are going, with glances to playful language, literary inuendo, an understated point of view, a mix of cynicism and bright hope:

Diet Coke with Lime: "Guess What it Tastes Like"

I guess it tastes like the uncut hair of graves
I guess it tastes like getting your test back
and learning you don't have AIDS
I guess it tastes like the mome raths as they outgrabe

I guess it tastes like blackberry, blackberry, blackberry
I guess it tastes like riding back and forth
all night on the ferry
I guess it tastes like Diet Coke with Cherry

I guess it tastes like world enough and time

I love the opening line on this poem, the "uncut hair" opening up the notion of death into a tangible vibrant thing in so many ways, then the line rhyming with the ominous, humorous Jabberwocky language. Perfect.

The poems are tough, and reaching--

Lamb Curry

This is what I want from prayer: to be left
streaming spices

runneled with sweat, force
glittering in my bowels

the need to chew fennel
after, the need to drink water

as no one’s face appears
in the inscrutable nan

One of my favorites, the form and references glancing at a classical past and the content reversing it all, looking through the back side of the mirror:

Drag Wisdom

In time, everyone gets a teenth of of June,
to step out of that same old shaggy stress.
Let one who has never waxed cast the first moon.

Stay calm on top; when underneath, obsess.
Let one who has never tempted cast the first snake.
In time, all lines as well as points are moot.

Let one who is without layers cast the first cake.

Butte thrives, whether it's told it's "Butt" or "Beaut."
God's dead? There will be others. Mourn for Garbo.
Let one who has never made a scene cast the first play.

Stay calm; they might have just called you a hobo.
Let one who has never dragged on cast the first day.
Let one who has never faked it cast the first rhinestone.

The Emperor of Ice-Cream wears heels and cologne.

I've got a feeling Wallace Stevens would like that.