“In my dream, I am your customer.”
—Laurie Anderson, Words in Reverse
In a pagan posture,
in a Cadillac,
my body synched,
manipulated and ruptured
as a locksmith unpinned.
Soothe me,
listen for instruction,
there’s a sultan beneath my breath,
and here my arms: severed by the clock.
The gravel of hypnosis
in my pockets, a beakless swallow,
the grommet of clean pain:
“Handcuff me,” Gandhi said,
“still the strobe and create the motive.”
Lina ramona Vitkauskas has authored three poetry books and chapbooks: The Range of Your Amazing Nothing (Ravenna Press), Failed Star Spawns Planet/Star (dancing girl press), and Shooting Dead Films with Poets (Fractal Edge Press). She is the 2009 recipient of The Poetry Center of Chicago’s 15th Annual Juried Reading award, judged by Brenda Hillman, and was nominated by Another Chicago Magazine for an Illinois Arts Council Award (in both poetry and fiction categories). She was a semi-finalist in the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic contest sponsored by Chicago’s Guild Complex (2009); placed as a semi-finalist in the Cleveland State University Open Poetry Series (2002); and received an honorable mention from STORY Magazine for its Carson McCullers competition (1999). She has been featured on Chicago Public Radio and her work has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies including: The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2007), The Prague Literary Review, Van Gogh's Ear (Paris), The Chicago Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Aufgabe, Drunken Boat, and many others.
