Poets Take Pictures: 2011 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Calendar is ready!

The full-color, completely glossy 2011 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Calendar is finished and ready for distribution. Makes a great holiday gift...featuring the poetry and photography of 20 poets: Jeffrey C. Alfier, Michelle Angelini, CaLokie, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Thom Garzone, Charles Harmon, Jeffry Jensen, Mina V. Kirby, Deborah P Kolodji, Marie Lecrivain, Vicky Luu, Radomir Vojtech Luza, Toti O'Brien, Douglas Richardson, Allison Santos, Sharon Lynne Thompson, Tim Tipton, Maja Trochimczyk, Lois Michal Unger, and Lori Wall-Holloway. The poets are invited to read and receive their complimentary copy this Saturday, December 18th between 3 and 5pm inside the backroom of the Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Public Library on 999 E. Washington Blvd. Additional copies will be available for $10 each. You may also order via http://paypal.com where you simply choose to Send Money ($12, includes $2 postage and packaging) to kingfisher1031@charter.net, then wait by the ol' mailbox for lightning-fast first class postal delivery.

20 Poets read from SGVPQ 48

Jeffrey C. Alfier
THE FLOWERS OF HER DECEMBER

So this is all the earth she knows now.
Winter could fracture stone and spill

into graves, the wind scuttling leaves,
petals and US flags into the year’s terminus.

A man breathes warmth into ungloved hands,
her name strained through a fist.

Jim Babwe
DONUT QUEEN

You told me
you felt bored and suicidal--
and not to tell anyone.

I took notes.

You told me
the fabric of life
was infinitely
crashing at your feet
like an unlimited number
of bricks
falling from a wall
too tall to climb,
too wide to walk around--
beyond sight in every direction.

I tried to make you laugh
when I asked about why
you were not wearing
a helmet--
bricks falling and all.

You said,
It's not a joke;
stop making fun of me.
And I don't like it
when you call me
Donut Queen.

I said,
Why don't you want
me to call you
Donut Queen.

You said,
Stop making fun of me.
Apologize.

For the helmet remark
or for calling you
Donut Queen?
I asked

You said
to take my pick--
either one.

I said,
I'm sorry
for calling you
Donut Queen.

You said,
You're just saying that.
You don't mean it.

I said,
Okay.
I'm sorry for making fun of you.
Why don't you want me
to call you Donut Queen?

You said,
Never mind.
You're not sorry.
Call me Donut Queen.
I don't care.

I said,
I thought you wanted
me to say I was sorry.

That's different from being sorry,
you said.
Since you're taking notes,
Write this down.
The fabric of life
turns into broken rocks
and piles them
into mountain of rubble at my feet.
The weight of these stones
is too heavy for any trash can.

You told me
not to write down
that you were
bored and suicidal.

You said,
Don't tell anyone.

Then you changed
your mind and said,
Go ahead.
Write it all down.
Tell everyone.
I don't care.

I said,
I'm worried about you
(and don't take this the wrong way),
but depending
upon how you kill yourself,
how much of a mess
are you planning to make
and where
is it going to be?

You said
I wasn't funny.

You said you
weren't kidding
and you probably
won't kill yourself.

You said
I wasn't listening.

You asked me
why I was taking notes.
What are you going to do
with them?

Then you said
it didn't matter.

You looked up at the sky
and you said,
Write this down, too.

I waited
while you were thinking.

You said
you forgot
what you were
going to say
before you walked away
and locked yourself
into the bathroom again.

You used to laugh
when I called you
Donut Queen.

CaLokie
TO MY OKIE TRIBE

No, the flood over a quarter of Pakistan following
128º scorcher wasn’t because nation harbors
a bunch of them Islam-fascist terrorists

Global warming’s here!
Shit’s beginning to hit the fans
but, folks, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

I don’t give a shit what Okie Senator Dumbhoff, Rush Lamebrain,
Glen Beck-to-Barbarianism or any cracked teapot scientists
funded generously by fossil fuel corporations say!

I’m sure as hell gonna take words of smartasses like Al
Gore, Jim Hansen, Bill McKibben and thousands of climate
scientists who have had a mountain range of data peer reviewed

in scientific journals over them Mother Earth fuckers
who wanna keep things as they are so U.S.’s top
2% can continue to rake in obscene profits!

But hey, them’s slick sons of bitches!
If I didn’t have such a high I.Q. I mightta
been fooled by their bullshit too. Harty-har-har!

Man-up. Tea Party boys and girls! Time to leave
feudal world of four angels guardin’ each
corner and face our planet as it is.

If we reach the tipping point,
we’re all gonna be in deep shit and
America ain’t gonna be worth takin’ back

unless you don’t mind livin’ in world with more
deserts but no rain forests while Wall Street
and Disney World are buried in ocean

But hey, liberals sayin’ they believe
in global warming but act like it don’t
exist are as full of shit as right wing nuts!

Mama Nature is pissed off and she ain’t a gonna
take no crap about cap and trade or carbon
off sets to keep this planet from meltin’

If world leaders think they can bullshit
Big Mama like they always bullshit everybody
else, they ain’t a bullshittin’ nobody but themselves!

Of course, you gotta defecate and for most of human
history, our atmosphere held only 275ppm
or parts per million of carbon dioxide.

But then along came the Industrial
Revolution and before you knew it, them
turds had increased 70% from 1970 to 2004

They continued to grow 2ppm each year till holy shit,
by 2010 we had reached a level of 392ppm,
the highest in 650,000 years!

Now scientists tell us
we gotta get that shit down
to 350ppm or we’re all fucked!

I know. It takes a lotta shit to make the good
shit we all enjoy and for military to
defend American way of life.

Like Woody Guthrie said
to a couple of rich snobs, “The
more you eat, the more you shit!”

Sure, breakin’ our oil and coal addiction ain’t gonna be
easy but unless we don’t start leavin’ that shit in
the ground instead of’ shootin’ it to stars

all hell’s gonna break loose! Our children
and grandchildren a gonna be shit out of luck
and oh my friends and oh my foes, that’s no shit!

.....................................................................................

Don Kingfisher Campbell
(no photo available, because I was taking the photos)
VISIT

ergonomically correct
blue cushioned
waiting room chair
with black arms and legs

when I sit on it
I immediately feel
my back is upright
90 degrees of correct posture

rest my arms on the arms
I could be in interrogation
or even worse
the electric chair

put my arms down
to each side
I get the urge
to turn wheelchair wheels

wrap my arms
around the back
and I'm a hostage
in a home invasion

I rise up
leave the feelings
behind on the chair
like an old friend

Michael J. Cluff
SHOOTING

Death will dash by
my leftmost finger on my right hand
funny how it sidles in and out
as it is wont to do.

Passing me along
to another day
it will skip and prance
over a cypress
between a juniper
and besides a banyan
to come down hard
on Burke Clarke Arias
and set his heart to stop

That man wears
a watch fop
like Uncle Harlan
once did
a movie extra
during the mid to near late sixties.

His head now tomato red
as is his silk tie
draped over the stick shift
still racheting his tender
teacup rose raw shaven neck.

Dan Garcia-Black
SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP

A car alarm is crying in the distance.
Cop car siren speeds close
then fades away wailing.
the slow sound of dribbling water
refills the toilet tank.
The neighbors in apartment 2
start arguing again.
A truck rumbles heavily
down a nearby alley.
I listen to my heart beat in my ears
replaced by the sound of
helicopter blades hovering over my bed.
Somewhere blocks away
a confused cock crows.
Somebody buy him a clock.
It’s four AM for Christ's sake!
Now, it’s 6.
and the shower starts in the room
next door.
These are the musical tones
Brahms could not have imagined,
sung to me by the city ,
that keeps me awake
all night once again.
Just then the oldies station
radio alarm blasts on, Beatles singing,
“Good Day Sunshine, Good Day Sunshine!”
I close my eyes to rest just a minute
before getting up to dress for work
attentively listening to the daylong cadenza
warning me of tomorrow night’s
coming L.A. Bedlam Lullaby.

Gary Imperial
MY WORDS ARE

Some are the wind strewn wordlings from off a dead poet's Redwood. In the breeze of speech and speculation looking to be rooted in moist fertile mind soil. While others are embryonic embers keeping my campfire coffee warm with inspiration. They are the sound of accomplishment. The last draw of the violin bow at the end of a holiday concert with its final note at its most elevated point, separating performance from praise till it dissipates and becomes one with the holly and spice in the air. They are the sprinkles of green and red on the cut out cookies of Snowmen and Santas, the walnuts and white chocolate chunks that make up the tasty textured landscape of gift cookies. My words have been all these things and more. And now my words are yours.

Jeffry Jensen
THE RUBBER VARIETY

Crime in a Dixie cup and a safari across the shell
hole of a hankering for Heaven to take the plunge in
a nasty nodule buried in the burlap left at the desk where
dogs go to eat corn flakes and cheese chunks with
epoch banana sweetness submitting to standard
testing with a number 2 pencil leaking honey twice on
Sunday and served to catfish in a creamy sauce with
a distant doorway 8 miles longer than the average
Mother’s Day parade squeezing out miracles on its
knees inside of a third-class trickle down a pant
leg with waffles taking the side of a maelstrom on
stem rooted revelation behind a screen of taffy
love and lingering brushes with toy trains in a circular
intention of concrete orchid raspy spit too close to
my toothbrush in mid-flight from throbbing cheek to
parrot chin knockers cushioned by cat vengeance and
loneliness pirating the top drawer of the runway to
weepy sideways discontent of the rubber variety.

Lalo Kikiriki
SNAPSHOTS, 1985
for Charlie

It was the day we climbed to the back
of Runyon Canyon
and up a rusted drain pipe to the road.
Was that the day you learned
that love is pain,
loving that place, with the sweat burning into your eyes?
If you were five, then I was thirty-seven,
on that white-hot day you declared yourself
King of the Mountain.
There on the steps we took each other's pictures,
gritty and triumphant in the breeze
through the brand new park we championed,
you and I.
Look at us grinning, bare-kneed in summer shorts.
That was a day for ice cream in the car,
driving one-handed down Sunset Boulevard,
licking, licking, licking sticky fingers.
So proud and foolish, Charlie – that was the day!

Mina V. Kirby
NOT WORTH IT

Sex
without passion
is like
a chocolate brownie
without nuts
Just not worth the calories

As are
salt-free chips
poems I don’t understand
beer
crude comedy
dark chocolate candy
cheap furniture
carob flavored desserts
unwaxed dental floss
al dente anything
good looking men
who are in love with themselves
and
ice cream
without hot fudge
and whipped cream

They cost too much
effort
money
and love

Karen Audioun Klingman
BEIGE BEDROOM

a box of 64 is hidden in my nightstand
along with 7 Snickers bars and a training bra
they're below school papers from two years ago
not sure I want anyone to find my dreams
its dark
moonlight a beacon
I hear snoring sounds
from the my folks' room
at the end of the hall
I rustle under the papers
pull out the box
feel their slightly flattened heads
bodies standing at attention
in stadium fashion
I like their feel
comfort myself in their presence
peaceful at last
I munch on a Snickers bar
imagine myself wearing a real bra
a magenta dress
enchanted
under a rainbow

Radomir Vojtech Luza
ON VENUS

the mind like a tight mongoose arrived on venus quite by accident no
luggage no passport like a baby in the cavity it needed no way out no sentence
for its crime.

the pearls on its bed were made of glass. the clouds over its head were too
white to sled and the sun dressed in red would never be dead.

venus oh venus you strumpet you zoo you live too close to the mirror
without even a view. your angles of refrain bend to the right your angels of
forgiveness hardly strain for a fight. i find myself on your island because you
at last can massage my life with a blessed bite.

Karineh Mahdessian
WET

"you make water look good," i say
almost shyly, averting eyes from
soapy covered chiseled brown skin

words that richochet from
newly painted too crowded
bathroom and loop thru my skin

i dress.
dance in kitchenstudio
whose bacon-infused walls
hostage manic monday blues.

you make water look good.

whom am i fooling?

you make everything look good

from calvin klein v-neck white t-shirt to
trader joe' red wine stained glass.
ashy ankle and ached back.
mismatched socks and paint stained fingertips

you make water look good.

i must be fooling myself

you make me look good.


naked.

Toti O’Brien
ULYSSES’ SONG

The peach
color of
the dune
melts in
golden dust

peering
through the
fluffy clouds.

It echoes
the tone of your
flesh
the feel of your
touch

in larger
expanding
waves.

As more
soothing draughts
of serenity
reach my
edge

spilled
out
of your fingers,

I guess that
this
corner of
sand in soft
twilight

is
another
island.

I must be
escaped from a
wretch
swimming
out

of an
unexpected
catastrophe…

Had the ship
not sank
how would I have
known that Ithaca
was close by?

Hiding in a soap
bubble, a rain
drop.

But is this
Ithaca? Am I
sure?
No more that I
knew

about
disaster
to come.

Life’s always
around
the corner
all that I see is
a slice.

It’s a rest, a pause
a breath between
lines…

Jeff Wayne-Patrick Russell
MY TRUE FRIENDS
ARE
WATCHING US
AND
THEM UP-SKY STARES

them, back, -again
always, Los Angeles
rain -tends to slow
helio, -demi- gods

slight in vary
pooh
an, echoic of blowing away
into- -selected - mind

laser techs
think they
know
it all

those remarks implanted
ostentation, in their
pompestuity
the Control Freaks'

bust, bust, bust - - or die
or
bust, to find
or
follow

they, - think they choose
name, - and give orders'

true friends(s) - got+ my
back!!

Katie Ryvolt
GARBAGE WITHIN

My mother says, "Don't touch that it's dirty!"
As she washes the guilt from her face,
"Honey, be a doll and take out the garbage."
As she stuffs 120lbs of rotting lies into a yellow Sunday dress,
and goes off to church.

The garbage is sitting in the corner of the room in a plastic container,
with a lid to conceal its secrets,
waiting,
mocking,
the creator of it.

People throw away all kinds of truth,
to try and hide who they really are,
Betrayal - a failing report card,
Politeness - the dinner invite to that strange neighbors party,
A fake smile - the answer to the question "Honey, does this make me look fat?"
And Secretes - Inner thoughts,... true inner thoughts,
or maybe...
it's only last nights dinner?

Rosalee Thompson
LIFE SIX FEET ABOVE GROUND

A happy woman
A pink chiffon dress blowing on a clothesline
waiting for the celebration

The star in the baby's left hand
A star at the bottom of the ocean
The sun in her closet
The sun atop the Christmas tree

What is luck
the life line long and arched?
I do not live in a warzone
Buddha's fingers have touched me a thousand ways
The sun is my kite

Christopher Luke Trevilla
DESTROYING THE TEMPLE

Sweetest sin
is the only thing
that binds us
to that Promethean rock
the passive
destruction
of our human nature's
appetite
by the deus ex machina of Fate's
cold hand
the need to grasp all
before the End
the symphony of destruction
at the wake of Humanity's
last stand
The fire bearer
long extinct,
the destroyer of worlds
grown complacent
to turn inward
and
to within explore
with theorems,
postulates,
and
empirical satirical case files
only to find a tabula rasa
man's long lost
empty shell

Destroying the temple
is the last rebellion of man
so keen so willing so apt
to be free
from self and will
from conscience and consequence
to absolve
our petty and mortal
pecados
we erase the illusion of morality
with a defiant and bold
imagining
a life free from the chains
we did not bind
for a noose
we fasten ourselves
only to hang
rhythmically and endlessly
in the silence
of the void
the sound of music
and the world's ending
save yourself
if you can.

Lori Wall-Holloway
NAMESAKE

The sun barely peeks out from a grey sky
in the late afternoon to shine on a
grassy hill where pink and red rose petals
grace a bronze plaque marked with two big, yellow
sunflowers. Colorful carnations that
are inside a metal cup of water
beneath the ground are offered as morsels
for the deer who jump a fence to visit
the gravesite late at night. Little do they
know, they bring honor to the one who once
fed them in his backyard in the city.

On this day, a little person runs to
his father across the grave of his name-
sake, oblivious to the greatness who
lies beneath. The child will have to rely
on family stories of those who knew
his great-grandfather to understand the
importance of the timing of his own
birth to those who love him. Through relatives,
he will discover how special his life
is, which will bring hope from his Creator
to those who are beyond his toddler years.

Charles Harmon
STRANGER IN THE NIGHT

The old man in the coffee shop
Was crying into his coffee, very quietly,
To himself, a transistor radio on the table
Tuned in, turned down low,
But I could hear the music,
Sinatra singing “Strangers in the Night,”
And I remembered the first time
I had heard that song, I was eleven, in the car,
Coming home from a trip to the mountains
Late in the evening but it stuck with me
Even if I never became a big Fan of Frankie—
That was for my Mom and Dad’s generation.
I thought he was just some kind of Vegas lush,
Hobnobbing with Mafiosi, threatening to
Break kneecaps. I hadn’t realized his complexity,
That constellation of talent, the passion and the heart.
A lot of ego, yes, but he helped blacks break into
Showbiz, when they had to eat and sleep
At separate hotels from where they performed.
And with all his money, his divorces, his power,
Sinatra made a lot of people happy, and now they were sad.
The old man was a stranger in the night, but I looked him
In the eye and said, “Nice music.” And he nodded and looked at me
And said, “He’s dead.” And I said, “I’m sorry.” And as I left
I left a big tip for the waitress as Sinatra would have done
And I noticed that the old man had a “Semper Fi” tattoo on his
Forearm, those of the greatest generation had really earned
That designation, it seemed they had suffered enough, and why
Had my generation mocked them, put them down and their music
For wanting to come back from the war and just have a life in the 50’s?
When I got into the car and turned on my radio
The first thing that I heard was that Sinatra had died,
I thought he had died years ago, but then I understood.
And I remembered when I was teaching in South Central
And Marvin Gaye had been shot and all the
Black lady teachers were crying in the hallways, in the lunchroom,
And I couldn’t really imagine what’s going on
But I knew I had felt like that when John Lennon was killed
And I cried when the pope was shot even though I’m not Catholic
And I would never feel that way again until my father died.
And aren’t we all really just strangers in the night,
But sometimes a voice on the radio
Seems to make everything all right
And help us understand.

34 poets being published in SGVPQ #48

JEFFREY C. ALFIER
JIM BABWE
JACK G. BOWMAN
CYNTHIA BRYANT
CALOKIE
DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL
MICHAEL CLUFF
BARBARA COGSWELL
PHILIP DOZAL
PAULI DUTTON
DAN GARCIA-BLACK
THOM GARZONE
CHARLES HARMON
GARY IMPERIAL
JEFFRY JENSEN
SCOTT C. KAESTNER
LALO KIKIRIKI
MINA V. KIRBY
KAREN AUDIOUN KLINGMAN
DEBORAH P KOLODJI
ELLARAINE LOCKIE
RADOMIR VOJTECH LUZA
KARINEH MAHDESSIAN
TOTI O'BRIEN
RONA GARCIA PANGILINAN
JESSICA JOY REVELES
JEFF WAYNE-PATRICK RUSSELL
KATIE RYVOLT
WANDA VANHOY SMITH
ROSALEE THOMPSON
CHRISTOPHER LUKE TREVILLA
MAJA TROCHIMCZYK
JANINE TRUDELL
LORI WALL-HOLLOWAY

Each poet being published is invited to attend the publication party and reading on Saturday, December 11th between 3pm and 5pm inside the backroom of the Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Public Library on 999 E. Washington Blvd. where they will receive a complimentary copy (a $5 value).

If you cannot attend, you may order single copies for $7 (includes $2 for shipping) or subscribe to the quarterly for $20 a year (postage paid) and get a free 2011 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Calendar. This offer is available through PayPal only. When on PayPal, please select Send Money and make payment to kingfisher1031@charter.net

Congratulations poets!
Don the Editor