An older poem
Category: Writing and Poetry

FOR THOSE SLOWLY DYING..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

"you can watch the ones who

didn't move fast enough

they are dying

& they are called Poets"

- d.a. levy

The winter winds are late

and unforgiving.

The birds for the most part

have flown south

in search of warmth

and survival.

A few have stayed behind

to brave the bitter winds

of death.

I smoke a cigar

with nothing else

to do but watch them.

Perched on stark black

telephone lines,

they will slowly begin to die.

The wind kicks around.

I curl up my coat's collar,

flick my cigar butt to the ground

and the birds take flight.

It's here, where

the sky swallows motion,

and loose feathers

quiet lightly in the air,

I know, despite their

cold indifference,

they are the words

of desperate poets,

born free, but

long ago forgotten,

left behind, homeless in a world

without a

care.

6:22 AM - 8 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

Listen to Jason "Juice" Hardung, me, John Dorsey, Lester Allen and Michael Grover
Category: Writing and Poetry

Jason "Juice" Hardung will be the freatured guest on the show. He is out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He has work upcoming in: Thrasher, Polarity, Heroin Love Songs, Zygote In My Coffee, Lummox Journal, Straight From The Fridge, Up The Staircase, Covert Poetics, and Underground Voices. He is also managing editor of Great Ecstatic Reporter, Fiction editor of Matter Literary Journal, and co-editor of Front Range Review.

He was kind enough to invite me, John Dorsey, Lester Allen and Micahael Grover to join him to read some poems and discuss whatever.

So tune in on Sunday, July 27th, 12:00 p.m. pst./ 3 p.m. est. (I think).

Link to the show - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/robjack-america

6:19 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

New review of "Through These Eyes"

Through These Eyes/C. Allen Rearick

The Fucker Inside/S.A. Griffin

$6- Tainted Coffee Press 1417 Southlyn Drive Kettering, OH 45409 www.zygoteinmycoffee.com reviewed by Christopher Robin (with additional commentary provided by Debbie Kirk)_

Christopher Robin of "Zen Baby" has reviewed both "Through These Eyes" and S.A. Griffin's "The Fucker Inside."  Debbie Kirk also contributed to the review of "Through These Eyes."

My section:

On the other side of this chap we have a poet who is still making his bones in the poetry world, and the work is nothing short of amazing. 'Eating Hotdogs with My Cousin' is a beautiful tribute to an old world institution, the Woolworth's lunch counter. Sensitive and poignant, it brought back my own memories of childhood and simpler times: "My body slipping slowly into sleep, satisfied with/the idea that a simple memory/of eating hot dogs/with my cousin while in Woolworth's/would be enough to fill/the aching in my/stomach." In Rearicks recollections, he brings much sadness to his poems, for things in his life, losses not always named but illustrated very clearly. He stirs more memories with his vivid verse in: 'As I Enjoy the Here and Now:' "I pondered the scent/of old, used books, pages tilled worn and sallow/by dead fingerprints/of former thought." These sentences brought to mind Brautigan who also had a way of carving out the smallest gems from memories and distilling them into very tight, imagistic lines like Rearick does here. And in this book, we also see he is influenced by Raymond Carver, another excellent storyteller. Many of these poems are filled with longing, like William Taylor, Jr's work, and Rearick, also a philosophical, drinking poet, strings sentences together that are very deep and satisfying to read: "I can feel a curiosity/written deep/in awkward cursive longing/it separates our lives/like semi-colons/locked within a fight for independence," (from 'So the Story Goes'). This poem is definitely one of the best in the book, but all of the 24 poems are worth reading more than once. Since Debbie Kirk was originally asked to write this review, I've included an additional paragraph from her:  "C. Allen has knocked it out of the park.  He makes fellow poets scratch their heads in awe…even the academics would piss on themselves to get their claws in him. But C. Allen is no scenester.  Casey makes words his bitch, only when they leave in the early morning they in fact leave HIM a tip.  He soars over me and all of us to form his own seraphim poet.  Yet, there is not a sign of pretense in his writing.  His Mohawk can't hide his blue collar.  And what better way to affect and change the system than from the INSIDE, right?  Him being a main operative in the Guerilla Poetics Project is on the beginning.  He takes words and creates anarchy and peace.  Chaos and understanding.  Then he rolls it all into a big ball and throws it at you. If you are lucky enough to catch it…you are left holding all the answers and wondering what the questions are! Viva La C. Allen.  Lead us to a poetic revolution dude.  I'd follow his words anywhere.  I am saying I believe all of us dirty, broken, struggling, starving and angry poets get behind C. Allen and march. 

     Instead of writing him and asking if you can swap chaps with him, support the small press. This is a mere $6.00 and well worth it.  Thanks to Tainted Coffee Press for noticing true talent!" Debbie Kirk www.tntkirk.com

S.A. Griffin's side:

6:14 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Through these Eyes reviewed
Category: Writing and Poetry

Please stop over at What to wear during an oragne alert to read a short review of my book, "Through these Eyes", as well as S.A. Griffin's "The Fucker Inside".

Thank you.

Casey aka Decaf

7:13 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I’m reading at visible voice books in cleveland (tremont)
Category: Writing and Poetry

Allisun Hovater presents an evening of poetry with C. Allen Rearick.

Here's what we know about him:

-C. Allen Rearick has a new book out with S.A. Griffin (co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry) called Through These Eyes.
-C. Allen Rearick lives in Cleveland.
-C. Allen Rearick is a core member of the guerilla poetics project www.guerillapoetics.org.
-C. Allen Rearick is poor, ugly and happy.
-C. Allen Rearick stole that line from an old Avail t-shirt.
-C. Allen Rearick is simple.

Come down and find out more about C. Allen Rearick on Thursday, May 29th.

Open mic to follow.

B.Y.O.B.

Miss Allisun

Visible Voice Books

2:04 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Brian Fugett (editor of zygote in my coffee) is interviewed
Category: Writing and Poetry

check out mr. fugett's interview over at the mighty "what to wear during an orange alert" blog spot.  you won't be disapointed.  also, check 'im out on myspace in my top 8. 

THE INTERVIEW

3:34 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

sean kilpatrick interviews me
Category: Writing and Poetry

Mr. Kilpatrick interviews me.  He is a pushcart nominated poet/writer.  He is crab grass and paper cuts.  Read his work here, here and here. 

Interview:  Anorexic Chlorine Sex Toy Museum.

7:24 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

AVAILABLE NOW!!!
Category: Writing and Poetry

Head over to zygote in my coffee and order it now!  Features S.A. Griffin and myself.  Only $6.00.  (includes shipping)

3:03 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Day Eleven (poem)
Category: Writing and Poetry

DAY ELEVEN..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The job has been lost.

The house could be next.

The uselessness sets in

and the doctor has me on Paxil

for depression and social

anxiety disorder.  For once

I feel sane, surreal – numb,

and nothing matters.

Still, all I want is to have

another drink.  If just

to feel again the pain

of being alive.  I come in

from off your balcony,

from smoking, reading,

listening to music, anything

to try and still the craving.

You are asleep in bed,

I stand, watch as your

left eye twitches open

then close like a gate

to nowhere swaying in

the wind.  My eyes twitch too,

dizzy, lightheaded.  It's

three years ago, in my bedroom.

I'm standing there with a loaded gun.

Drunk on whiskey and pills.

I have it shoved in your face,

which trembles like a river

over jagged rocks.  Something

about another man.

This is not living.

The drinks, the pills, the lies,

the lines and the abuse, always

the abuse towards each other.

And I'm scared.  For me, for you.

You who had relapsed just two

days out of detox, laying in

the E.R with an IV in your arm,

after swallowing pills and gin,

perhaps subconsciously trying

to end your life because you said,

as you sat swaying and crying,

"God hates me."  I'm trying

to calm you, to find the right words,

knowing it isn't God's fault, but

that of our own choices.  We

invented our own wars, became

enemies of love, and escaped

nothing.

7:45 AM - 11 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

poem
Category: Writing and Poetry

SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN A MCDONALD'S PARKING LOT..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Sunday afternoon,

my father and I sit inside

his blue S-10 pick-up truck

idled in the middle

of a Mcdonald's parking lot.

They sky, overcast and rainy,

reminds me of his hair,

black with wispy strands of grey.

We swallow slippery bites

of double cheeseburgers,

chew french fries, and suck

down medium cokes.

We wait for the rain to stop

to fix my girlfriend's car,

broken down in the parking lot

adjacent to us.  Apparently

the alternator had run its course,

a thing my hands know

nothing about.  This makes

me feel ashamed, and I wonder

why each finger, when pressed

into a fist, is wholly unable

to hold and feel my father's love

for all things mechanical.

I turn instead my attention on

the birds outside, flitting

and hurrying in their normal,

busy manner.  They pluck

the wet blacktop for morsels

of food fallen from our lips.

My father, whose voice

could out rush the wind,

down pours words and sentences

faster than he can ratchet

the food down his throat.

As usual, I sit here and say nothing,

just listen to him talk.

My silence a small rock pelted

by a heavy sand storm,

my mind too focused on

the birds as I think about how

much I hate them for their ability

to fly away from my father's

mouth and my dumb, uneasy silence.

I just wanted to go home,

but the echo of his voice

continued to ramble, dawdling

down with the rain drops,

the pauses in his breath beating

harder and harder against

the wet concrete, where, eddying

in a puddle, my reflection had

turned into a mosaic of confusion.

Something of a counterfeit Picasso

painted by rain and tar,

as the birds' heads teased,

bobbing as if laughing, their wings

lifting into flight to places

where I'd rather

be.

5:39 PM - 7 Comments - 20 Kudos - Add Comment