Check out this event: Maple Leaf poetry reading

Hosted By: Nancy Harris & Maple Leaf Bar
When: Sunday Jul 06, 2008
at 3:00 PM
Where: Maple Leaf Bar
8316 OAK STREET
LAFAYETTE, LA 70118
United States
Description:
Nancy Harris & Maple Leaf Bar

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2:12 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Check out this event: Blood & Ink: The Bechet House Reading Series 6

Hosted By: Toby Daspit
When: Saturday Jun 28, 2008
at 4:30 PM
Where: Bechet House Bed & Breakfast
313 N. Church St.
Carencro, LA 70520
United States
Description:
Toby Daspit

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7:02 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

a vodka imbued bar coaster -- written a long time ago for the record

red used to be my favorite color.

before gray.

before black.

before vodka.

8:07 AM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

a kinder, gentler "poet"

John Travis (great writer & publisher) asked me once, " i wonder what your poetry would look like if it wasn't about women & booze???" --

here, this is what it looks like -- for better or worse --

-----

ON TEACHING POETRY
(after Picasso's 3 Musicians)

The funny thing is
I don't see it at first either –

At initial glance it's just
angles and parabolas,
Peculiar geometries.

But then we look again.
Together.

Look, a dark brown dog in the corner
with snow cone ears, pants –

Time hiccups.

Then the bitch is under
the table, hairy,
and a lighter shade of brown.

The minstrel on the right stretches
an accordion stanza of sheet music,

While the quantum harlequin to his right
plucks a beige guitar

And the merry clarinetist
whistles along.

Can you see it now?

Sinful cacophony
words within worlds
and
nothing so frightening as ambivalence.
-----


PURSLANE

"A weed is just a weed . . . no matter how pretty the flower." (from A Love Song for Bobby Long)

I'm sitting on a "what kind of wood is this?" deck.
I can't say what color the sun is this morning.
Muddy pond water ripples toward me.
Small black hornets flit.

I can't open my eyes to the quiet.
A plump red dragonfly tries to change my mind.

The whole universe sits at my feet.

Small.
Oval.
Polished.

Secrets swollen within.

I crush it with my left foot.
-----



FROM SPIDER ROCK TO PORTLAND


i bet when you look at this postcard of
these towering, sandy fingers
reaching for infinite blue
safe amid cliffs and tunneled valleys

you see the hands of a creator
gently dipping into primordial clay
molding the
fanciest damned sculpture ever –

and i know you'll scowl
throw a glance toward the
misty Pacific coast
think of hurricanes

and remember
that i still
believe it's
only wind and rain.



TERRA FIRMA
(for my uncle, D. P. LeBlanc, 1945-2007)

"There ought to be one place that you thought about, longed for, even loved, but didn't get to see." (from Sarah Polley's film, Away From Her, based on Alice Munro's short story, "???")

the Monday before you died
you grasped my hand harder than
i thought you could

your stranger's lungs
apologized,
again,
for refusing to take root –

i know now it was not
you who was broken
though you were

indeed
disappearing to that place
even blood can't stain.

8:31 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Anatomy of a Corpse

ANATOMY OF A CORPSE

"Would I live my life over again? Make the same unforgivable mistakes? Yes, given half a chance. Yes."

--Raymond Carver

this love is being dismantled

            bar by bar

            kiss by kiss

            argument by argument

            movie by movie

            souvenir by souvenir

            toothbrush by toothbrush

            promise by promise

this love echoes our carrion songs

            from     "i can't take my eyes off of you

                          i can't take my eyes off of you . . .

                          i can't take my mind off of you

            to         "kiss me kiss me kiss me . . .

                          get it out

                          get it out

                          get it out

  get your fucking voice out of my head."

this love wobbles under the

nauseous inertia of words unspoken.

this love traces its tongue

against dragonfly skulls.

this love's spine is brittle.

this love is haunted sleep.

this love is vampire breath on a mirror.

this love was never photographed.

this love screams that you are

            supposed to be gone.

this love couldn't withstand

            your 80 proof eyes.

this love couldn't solve

the mathematics of accidental collision.

this love is not dead.

this love never lived.

7:50 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Anatomy of a Ghost

Until SouthernHum.com is back online, thought I'd post a few from my chapbook ANATOMY OF A GHOST & OTHER POEMS NOT ABOUT YOU

Here's the title poem:

ANATOMY OF A GHOST

"Blue murder on the dance floor

French kisses in the rain

Blood wedding in the water

Til I see you again

Dutch courage is the game

And the ghost of you walks"

--Richard Thompson, "The Ghost of You Walks"

1

it doesn't walk

it tiptoes

catlike

finding new hiding places

every day.

2

a chilled wind

            clouds from your

                        mouth

staccato silences.

3

nothing withstands

            the brittle

                        architecture

of your absence.

4

the words

            only sputter now

                        rarely stain the page

but tonight i feel something

            rattling

                        coursing down

                                    my spine

oh

            wait

it's not a poem

it's only your memory

haunting my last refuge.

5

Pittsburgh

November

i sit sipping iced tea

in a Pepto Bismal pink

and baby powder blue diner

                        that smells like our

                                    last breakfast together

after a dizzy Sunday morning of

            lazy famished lovemaking                     

we swell our

bloodstreams with spicy

            bloody maries and

                        undercooked bacon.

i keep that receipt

            with many others

but i think i'll throw this

one away.

6

from the edge of the bed

            still rumpled from your

                        fetal curl

i hear you whisper

            as you did only once

                        "i love you

                                    i love you

                                                i love you"

and then you evaporate

            from this house of cards

                        you never called home.

7

you used to help me

prop up the corner of this

bar

dripping over every drink

peeling beer bottle labels

             smiling when i caught

                        a glimpse of you

glimpsing me.

8

she has your hair

            and when she walked in

                        my heart did

"a" thing

            but not "the" thing

her eyes tell a different

            story

yours spoke centuries

hers haven't even soaked up today.

9

the bartender has

            the same slow  

                        swerve in her hips

you did

i can watch her

            every Monday

                        Friday

                                    and Saturday

i don't know where

            or when

            you'll appear.

10

you're there

            in the crescent moon

                        in every bruised sigh.

11

the first time you fucked me

            you brought over a bottle of     

                        Jim Beam Black

we drained it

i nestled it

                        on a shelf

i doubt you ever noticed.

12

you swivel unexpectedly

            around the corner

                        flesh this time

but less real

            than your

                        ghost's shadow.

7:43 PM - 7 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

bar coaster 1

like the black band

snug on my pulsing wrist

that because it

once touched your

tangled hair

now

untangles

8:56 PM - 6 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

poem of the day

Poetry

William Wantling

(in THE OUTLAW BIBLE OF AMERICAN POETRY)

I've got to be honest. I can
make good word music and rhyme

at the right times and fit words
together to give people pleasure

and even sometimes take their
breath away - but it always

somehow turns out kind of phoney.
Consonance and assonance and inner

rhyme won't make up for the fact
that I can't figure out how to get

down on paper the real or the true
which we call life. Like the other

day. The otherday I was walking
on the lower exercise yard here

at San Quentin and this cat called
Turk came up to a friend of mine

and said Ernie, I hear you're
shooting on my kid. And Ernie

told him So what punk? and Turk
pulled out his stuff and shanked

Ernie in the gut only Ernie had a
metal tray in his shirt. Turk's

shank bounced right off him and
Ernie pulled his stuff out and of

course Turk didn't have a tray and
caught it dead in the chest, a bad

one, and the blood that came to his
lips was a bright pink, lung blood,

and he just laid down in the grass
and said Shit. Fuck it. Sheeit.

Fuck it. And he laughed a long
time, softly, until he died. Now

what could consonance or assonance or
even rhyme do to something like that ?

9:16 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

poem of the day

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Raymond Carver

I looked into the room a moment ago,
and this is what I saw --
my chair in its place by the window,
the book turned facedown on the table.
And on the sill, the cigarette
left burning in its ashtray.
Malingerer! my uncle yelled at me
so long ago. He was right.
I've set aside time today,
same as every day,
for doing nothing at all.

1:16 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Check out this event: BLOOD & INK: Bechet House Reading Series

Hosted By: Toby Daspit
When: Saturday Dec 29, 2007
at 5:00 PM
Where: Bechet House
313 N. Church St.
Carencro, LA 70520
United States
Description:
Toby Daspit

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9:04 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment