16 poets read from SGVPQ 61

PETROUCHKA ALEXIEVA

Me and the Rain 

The town is sleepy, the town’s quiet

Even the rain is silent,

I’m walking unshod and completely alone,

With raincoat and friendly umbrella.

I’m feeling like hummingbird feather.

I’m late at this hour. The light poles are dreamy.

They’re blinking to me from above.

“Go to sleep” they say, “We will light your way”

“I will…,” I reflect, “…but first, let me play.

Don’t you see? - The rain is my friend! ”

As a child I used to collect tiny drops

And to talk to them in my hands.

I looked at the mirror, exactly the one

That the rain created for me in the mud.

I was little and happy every time He was back.

Now, you know, I’m a busy adult...

In my fancy luxurious house

I have several mirrors inside,

With flowers and leaves very skillfully carved

Huge and heavy with a little bit dust.

I check very often my proper appeal,

My hair, my shoes, and make-up.

Every morning I look for an elegant deal.

But… there’re no drops to which I can talk.

Oh, look! The rain came back!

With my friendly umbrella and happy raincoat

I can play with my wonderful friend,

Collect tiny drops, have my soaking walk

And look at myself in His magical mirror AGAIN.

VIBIANA APARICIO-CHAMBERLIN

 Necklace of Pearls

colander

vessel with brain tissue

don’t burst

Mind, heart, be calm. Lost in mindless wondering, I try to keep my necklace of pearls from breaking. Thus scattering my ideas, my intentions to slice green onions, to crochet, to paint, to paste, to write true poems, to write dream stories, to build altars of plastic glow in the dark Virgin Marys, angels, saints, skulls, and shiny pearl buttons.

illusive moon

don’t leave me

in darkness

MARIA A. ARANA

Hidden Crush

You take my order

My body radiates

an emerald

diving into the waterfall

down a ravishing creek

You bring me water, smile

My eyelashes fan

albino peacock feathers

beating unnoticeable

into the dark woods

You forget about me

the minute the check arrives

My heart evaporates

ashes dissolved in a silhouette

of mass in the empty

parking lot 

CALOKIE

Where Blackbirds Meet

Thursdays at Santa Anita still free day for seniors

Only day I go now

Shut out since two weeks ago when I won $35 from 

$2 place bet which gave me winning day on one bet

Blackbirds no longer hang around northeast corner

of pavilion where we smoked cigars 

and you fed feathered homies corn chip bits 

after we made our bets

They don’t race on Wednesdays any more

Maybe why I haven’t seen Angel lately

Hope so

He’d be about 85 if he’s still around

I see Cigar Bob from time to time

He’s retired now

Joe just had a surgery but still in his low-eighties 

driving to Santa Anita and that Indian Casino

Talk about perseverance

David moved to Georgia with his Dixie blonde 

I hope he’s near a place

he can buy his daily pan dulce

and enjoy good tamales 

like we ate at cafe near the Mercado

You never know

the way the original people of this continent

are spreading throughout the land 

taken from their ancestors  

Last time I saw David he flew back here for 2012 Breeders cup

Guess what! I ran into Trifecta Bob

Never forget the $600 wager he won 

during David’s birthday bash at Santa Anita’s infield 

Remember Daryl Hannah—

the mermaid movie star who sat in tallest tree 

on South Central farm before pulled from it and arrested 

by those protecting and serving the 1%—

It was sick the way those Mother Earth fuckers bulldozed 

the orchards and crops of over 350 farming families,

wasn’t it?

Anyway she was also arrested in Washington D.C.

protesting the building of carbon time bomb--

the Tar Sands Keystone Pipeline

Some things don’t change, do they?

Republicans 

still against minimum wages

affordable healthcare for all and want to 

privatize social security, medicare, public education, everything 

except our privacy 

Of course, Democrats aren’t so hot on 

last two things themselves,

are they?

You know Saginaw

who we saw at all those pow wows

also acts in movies

I read about him in Native Peoples

He gave the opening prayer during last pow wow I attended 

at the state park near China town

Longest prayer I ever heard outside a Baptist church

Anyway when they invited everybody to join the round dance

I tossed to drumbeat upon sacred ground last 

of your allotted ashes one week after the first was spread

where blackbirds meet 

DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL

Cosmic

When I look at the ceiling

I see thousands of plaster

points casting small shadows

Like the surface of the moon

observed by glancing upward

from this earthly brown sofa

When I open the front door

I gaze upon dozens of white

clouds travelling across blue sky

Like pedestrians on a sidewalk

trying to cross a wide street

whose boundaries are out of sight

When I go back inside I stare

at my hand and behold skin

and spots and lines and hairs

Like the exterior of a planet

I have known for half a century

shifting slowly again to granule

When I swing out the same portal

at night my eyes ascend once more

into a darkness without many stars

And realize the lights we've invented

pale next to the faint specks made

distant by design and simply ask why

STEPHEN COLLEY

Of Me I Sing

I sing the self pejorafied,

salute the soul self-glorified,

self-satisfied, assured, self-feted,

vain, complacent, proud, conceited,

willful, stubborn, contumacious,

unabashed, blunt, disputatious

to a fault, self-righteous, blinded,

moralistic, narrow-minded,

crass, self-centered, -seeking, -serving,

prizing pelf with greed unswerving,

craving hedonic unmeasure,

self-indulgence, sensual pleasure.

Smug, opinionated prig,

I love the life of a selfish pig!

BEVERLY M. COLLINS

Petal Gossip

Pollen-is All the rage

as buds awaken and

wings flutter.

There have been shocking

reports of a band of snails

sneaking like pirates and

unruly Dandelions screaming

that they are yellow too,

openly at the sun.

Our sources tell us;

red is the new red,

pink has paled in comparison

and some leaves have curled

green with envy.

This is Lana-Lady-Bug here

reporting live from the edge

of the flower-bed.

Stay tuned for more of

“Life Among Roses.”

EMILY FERNANDEZ

Resuscitate

Let each breath be

a mouth to mouth

with the Divine.

Take this moment:

her lips on yours,

a golden thread

pulled through your lungs.

The heels of her

hands on chest pressed

to thrust into

motion your love.

You must take it

and release it

like gossamer

floating in air.

CARL HARMON

Muddy Waters

The poets, they muddy the waters,

to make them appear deep.   -- Nietszche

Who will make these muddy waters clear?

Leave them alone and they will clean themselves.

Is this river a mile wide and an inch deep

Or an inch wide and a mile deep?

It’s so hard to tell these days--

The politicians and the journalists

Muddy the waters to make them appear deep

Even when they are all so shallow

And the pledge of transparency is a lie.

And so the mud is slung

As the bombs are falling

From either side across the river and the great divide

And the waters become muddier than ever,

Stagnant, in a corruption of decay

That can support neither life  nor love.

Everyone loses sight of where the

River begins and where it ends.

No one can see the sun and the moon

Reflected in the murky, choppy water.

Leave these waters alone and

They will exhaust themselves,

Become still, become clear,

Be renewed by the eternal, gentle rains.

Wiser ones look up

And follow the bright star

Shining in clear, unending sky. 

BRIONY JAMES

Gravesend

I blew you in a graveyard

And the earth was a damp kneeler

In a cathedral of summer night

The dead were silent

No comment on such communion

But the whisper of a summer night

I learned to tongue

Teen dreams and slivered moonlight

Burned my eyes that summer night

I learned to fly

Sailing over the front porch with your fist

On another summer night

It seems to fit

That love remembered on a grave

Damp and twitchy on a summer night

Dead love amid the dead

And jeans mud stained and wet and sore

An aching jaw on both those summer nights

OMAR MORENO

Zeus and Athena

I can only imagine Athena as a poem

one so bright and strong that she

can only be perceived as such.

The way she opened that cavern of

Zeus’ violent mind and forced

herself out into the world,

jealous as it may have been when

she appeared.  Words of a spear like

sharpness, and Zeus whose relief

was obvious at her outing.  Daughter

of his mind, nothing short of pride

seen in his eyes, and the jealousy

seen in others, aroused by her

presence, her wisdom an unlikely

gift for gods to possess.

The birth: a grand ingestion of love

from a human woman and a protective

inhaling, and finally an exertion

of such an invading inspiration, the

alchemy of a different kind of birth.

A clutching of sanity during the

push, a tranquil Zeus results as she

exits the aperture of his forehead.

A violence in the name of words, and a

sounding of peace for an end of births.

KATHERINE NORLAND

A Hint of Disapproval

She started walking quicker, but it was too difficult to swallow;

That man, what does he want?  She ran so there’s no way that he could follow.

He’s keeping up her pace, a hint of disapproval on her face.            

At least that’s what he thought the look was, until she pulled out the mace.          

She yelled, “Now step away, you wretched man; you will not mess with me!

I’m trained in Lua self-defense! You watch; I’ll drive you to your knees!”

She sprayed him in the face, did several moves and had him by throat;

She shook her head and said, “Can’t trust a man in an Armani coat?”        

Before she left she gave the swiftest kick to where the sun don’t shine;

She said, “There, that should teach you, filthy man, to stop committing crime!”

She then exhaled at ease, appeased and pleased by how she seized the sleaze;       

When he could speak, held out his hand and said, “Miss, you forgot your keys.”

TOTI O'BRIEN

Last Dinner

Wine more

than religion

taught me true

compassion

the certainty

that they all were

or would be my

brothers.

Wine was

lightness

uplifting from

daily cares

immediate

release of

all burdens

communion.

Well I didn’t

have to get

drunk or

besides myself

I only flew 

slightly

above my

usual ground.

I was fluent

in my speech

smooth in all

of my moves

I was peaceful

weak non

belligerent

and sincere.

Empathetic ‘n

ready to forget

to forgive

knowing that

nothing matters

or is really

worth pain

nothing lasts.

So I spoke of

eternity while

I though of

impermanence

I mentioned

unconditional

love I

claimed not

to belong to

this world ‘n

I didn’t truly.

While I shared

quite unselfishly

my daily loaf

‘n I stared at

my face

mirrored by

the scarlet disk

at the bottom

of my cup. It

looked murky

and far. My

face looked

like blood.

THELMA T. REYNA

It’s Midnight

and I’ve tiptoed to windows black, to gaze beyond

treetops at the milk-moon, ensconced among

fluff and shards, where we’ll all be someday: so

high, so high, so chilled, alone, almighty, small,

remembered and forgotten.

wee hours kill and soothe, detritus of the day just

dead, darkness portending what lies ahead, comfort

rationed in swaths of silence. 

wee hours tug me to this glass, to hallways

lined with faces ancient and somber in

vigil, faces lost to decades of dust, awakened

at midnight with me and the moon so high and

round and unattached.  

BRIAN THORPE

End of the Hunt

How many times did I feel it's chafe or chill? In

In how many metroploli, on how many highways, in how many dank caverns

did a gaunt and haunting nemisis appear in shadow and whisper a hollow

reminder: You are alone.

How many times was I one of Hopper's

eyeless urban "nighthawks" adrift in a stark domain,

frozen in alienation, unspeaking and unspoken to?

How often was I the face pressed against the rain-drenched bus window,

waving a final time to friends I couldn't take with me, or the tenant in the

sparsely furnished room pained by the sound of the throng below

but afraid to venture out for fear I would not belong.

How frequently in youthful, sojourns did I know the gnaw of desolation

as I sat on tavern stools imagining the juke box minstrels to be

my intimates, the indifferent bartender to be my father confessor or the pale

borealis of neon just outside to be some celestial beckoning sent just for me?

Such was alone. I fled from it frantically from one skyscrapered moonscape

to another, pursued, compelled, and hounded until at last, exhausted by flight,

I turned to confront it.........and found it had transformed.

It was no longer the visage of menace but, to my amazement, the comforting friend,

companion and mentor I welcome at last and know by the name of

solitude.