{"id":26229,"date":"2014-08-03T07:30:56","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T13:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=26229"},"modified":"2023-11-19T11:22:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T17:22:09","slug":"sunday-blog-read-star-coulbrooke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-star-coulbrooke\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Star Coulbrooke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/strong>READ LOCAL First\u00a0<\/b>is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each first Sunday of the month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir.<\/p>\n

Today, 15 Bytes features Cache Valley-based Star Coulbrooke<\/strong> who provides here four as yet unpublished poems.<\/p>\n

Sunday Blog Read<\/strong> continues to collect a distinguished group of established and emerging Utah writers for your review and enjoyment. So curl up with your favorite cup of joe and enjoy the work of Star Coulbrooke!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TOPS OF THEIR HEADS<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fathers see their babies first,<\/p>\n

tops of their soft little heads<\/p>\n

crowned at the birth canal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mothers push their babies out<\/p>\n

with vigor, fighting hard labor\u2019s<\/p>\n

exhaustion, trusting others\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our babies go through life this way,<\/p>\n

pushed out head first into the world,<\/p>\n

into the hands and arms of strangers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes they grow up addled,<\/p>\n

never getting over that shove<\/p>\n

into mid-air, as if they were dropped<\/p>\n

on their heads, and maybe they were.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CHILDREN<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The children you never had<\/p>\n

hide between blinks,<\/p>\n

motes in your eyelashes.<\/p>\n

Not insignificant, they irritate,<\/p>\n

force the hand to rub and pick.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would have been better,<\/p>\n

they say, than those<\/p>\n

peaches with split stones,<\/p>\n

apples worm-holed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You pick up the galvanized<\/p>\n

bucket half-full<\/p>\n

of middle-aged offspring,<\/p>\n

handle bent, side kicked-in,<\/p>\n

and twirl, arms flung out,<\/p>\n

spine rared back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trust gravity.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HARLEY RIDER GETS A NEW HOBBY<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He\u2019s carving Santa heads, big ones<\/p>\n

with tall hats, beards ending just below<\/p>\n

the neck, eyes hidden under hat brims.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He turns out two a day, proud to show<\/p>\n

the way he textures hair,<\/p>\n

wood chips falling at his feet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Paints them orange, red, green.<\/p>\n

Adds a linseed finish;<\/p>\n

lines them up on the work bench.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Open the door and go in.<\/p>\n

They stand in rows like bikes at a bar,<\/p>\n

heads with hats and beards, no bodies.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cactus Club Dancer, Afternoon Shift<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Coyote Carol had nipples too big<\/p>\n

for the pasties, brown aureoles<\/p>\n

bordering bright silver centers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC\u2019s G-string had been known to slip,<\/p>\n

furred V tucked thick with bills,<\/p>\n

lap dances forbidden when plain-clothes<\/p>\n

cops came in for their weekly bust.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They left empty-handed,<\/p>\n

pants pockets bulging.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carol was buxom, a tall dark beauty<\/p>\n

with just the right shimmy.<\/p>\n

Even the women stuffed money<\/p>\n

under her glittering belt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC\u2019s tits were so firm and upright<\/p>\n

they could hold a cowboy hat<\/p>\n

while she danced, jiggling<\/p>\n

out front like a side-saddled filly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And could she ever skin that dance pole<\/p>\n

all the way up and down.<\/p>\n

Eye-witness account: When Coyote Carol <\/i><\/p>\n

got done dancing, it looked like the pole<\/i><\/p>\n

had a new coat of varnish.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hard to believe where she is these days,<\/p>\n

Relief Society president in the Seventeenth<\/p>\n

Ward, Latter Day Saint with a past.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Copyright, Star Coulbrooke, 2014<\/p>\n

Used with permission.<\/p>\n

Star Coulbrooke is responsible for Helicon West, a bi-monthly open readings\/featured readers series in Logan, Utah. Her poems appear in journals such as Poetry International, Redactions: Poetry and Poetics,<\/i> and Sugar House Review<\/i>. Her poetry chapbook, Walking the Bear,<\/i> published by Outlaw Artists Press, is a tribute to the Bear River. Star directs the Utah State University Writing Center and lives in Smithfield with her artist partner and their two heeler-mix mutts.<\/p>\n

Past featured writers in <\/em>15 Bytes\u2019 Sunday Blog Read: Katharine Coles<\/a>, Michael McLane<\/a>, Darrell Spencer<\/a>, Larry Menlove<\/a>, Christopher Bigelow<\/a>, Shanan Ballam<\/a>, Steve Proskauer<\/a>, April Wilder<\/a>, Calvin Haul<\/a>, Lance Larsen<\/a>, Joel Long<\/a>, Lynn Kilpatrick, Phyllis Barber<\/a>, David Hawkins<\/a>, Nancy Takacs<\/a>, Mike Dorrell<\/a> and Susan Elizabeth Howe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

READ LOCAL First\u00a0is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each first Sunday of the month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":26230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2513],"tags":[2043,2045,2042,2044],"class_list":["post-26229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-local-first","tag-helicon-west","tag-outlaw-artists-press","tag-star-coulbrooke","tag-walking-the-bear"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Star.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 09:25:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26229"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71954,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26229\/revisions\/71954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}