Realms of Man by Joseph Robert / Metamorphosis of Woman by Leilanie Stewart – a reversible poetry collection.
Stale-Mate
(page 6 – Metamorphosis of Woman by Leilanie Stewart)
You were playing chess with my soul
I saw you eat the pieces
As you went along
I watched the black and white squares
Slide into the abhorrent depths
Of my subconscious
*
You took my knight, but it’s okay;
I have another
I’ll have my revenge
I’ll stamp those L-shaped patterns
All over your sadistic mind
I can see that it’s going this way
So I’ll finish it off-
I didn’t checkmate your wicked heart,
That happened long ago
And anyway, it’s too cliché
*
My pawn’s at the other side now
Wait until my Queen brings forth
A whole new reign of terror
On your brutal, tyrannical ass.
—
In Pagination
(page 2 – Realms of Man by Joseph Robert)
Pile up enough lies,
And they pay you.
*
Pay the stonemason,
And he’ll chisel what have you.
*
Forget that dame,
And you’ll live yet the while.
*
Black-lipped from guzzling newsprint,
And piping hot toner.
*
Wide-margined, double-spaced,
And big-fonted fool!
*
You cheat no one of a tree,
But the forest.
[…] Metamorphosis of Woman/ Realms of Man is written by husband and wife Joseph Robert and Leilanie Stewart. The pamphlet is quirky, experimental and full of personality, and the reader is prepared for this by the chapbook’s reversible format: on one side sits Stewart’s Metamorphosis of Woman; on the other is Robert’s Realms of Man. In the middle you will find the poets’ biographies, which are charmingly vague and self-irreverent, accompanied by photographs of inanimate objects (clothes for Stewart, a screwed-up piece of paper and monochrome squares for Robert). […]