My poem Shrine to Satan is among the six nominated by Shit Creek Review for a coveted Pushcart Prize! I’m honored to be named along with Mike Alexander, Rose Kelleher, and Dave McClure, and I will Google® Pushcart Prize very soon!
Thank you, Shit Creek Review!
With any luck you have an art house theater giving this film a big screen somewhere near you.
I spent yesterday in NYC with my daughter who came home a little early for Thanksgiving in order to worship me as I turned 50 on Saturday. She said she registered for a freshman seminar on countercultures next semester. I told her we could take a Clash course on the subject at the old Waverly in The Village.
Phony Beatlemania, she learned, has bitten the dust.
Modern Metrics, a rising press for metrical poetry in New York, has just published two chapbooks by very fine poets. These are:
Barcelona
From Prospero at Breakfast by Alan Wickes
ABOVE Placa Real the palm trees nod
like caged giraffes. Pubescent prostitutes,
dressed up in ra-ra skirts and Lurex boots
patrol their pitch. As evening falls an odd
pink light pervades the patched Baroque arcade.
A girl steps from the shadows, face aglow,
like some doomed saint by Caravaggio;
her sallow beauty mocks the drab parade.
Across the faded square a duo plays
upon accordion and clarinet,
up-beat and strangely phrased, ‘Those Were the Days.’
Fooled by the atmosphere of veiled regret,
we quietly deny what we became,
pretending yet, ‘our dreams are still the same.’
…and
North Church Street
From Graceways by Austin MacRae
THERE are no churches here. But folks don’t care.
I love how lives hang flapping on a line,
their threadbare faith a figuring of air;
the man who rocks himself and spies a sign
of kingdom come; the birds that congregate
to plead their case from glittering wires and shit.
I love the drunk who finds his twinkling fate
at the bottom of his pint and swallows it;
I love the kids with whipping sticks in hand.
I love the siren’s scream, the child’s reply.
I love how shelled-out, old Victorians stand
with shuttered eyes, shuddering at the sky.
I love the grave misnomer of this place,
and in it find a certain kind of grace.
You are strongly encouraged to check out Modern Metrics’ website and order copies. The press publishes important poets’ work at its own expense. Well worth the price of your support.
Richard dines with Henry Tudor,
Fat men at a bowl of roses—
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Richard dines with Henry Tudor!
Heard the news? They got the shooter—
Everybody nail their poses!
Richard dines with Henry Tudor,
Fat men at a bowl of roses.
More and more it seems to me
That evil is stupidity
Incompetence and laziness—
“Look, no one would have asked for this,
Stuff happens!” Donald Rumsfeld said.
He hit the nail right on the head.
My poem, The Dutchman, is included in issue No. 2 of Contemporary Sonnet, new online. Check out James Wilk, David Landrum and others, including our old pal Margaret Menamin in No 1.
We’ll pass the Padre Pio Cabernet
around this stained glass tank of piercéd sides,
repeating what those tiny voices say
from somewhere in their broken pots of clay,
petitioning the would-be suicides.
Hey, pass that Padre Pio Cabernet!
Impressive, how we put the grape away
and squeeze it through our tourniquets in tides—
Yet frequently we hear the voices say
they don’t believe our drippy passion play.
“Your pantomime,” they say, “of Mr. Hydes
will pass like Padre Pio Cabernet
through Mother Goose!” And just the other day
we heard novitiate cathedral guides
repeating what the tiny voices say:
“The bleeders’ oughta cork the damn Padre
and mop up all their sloppy old peptides.”
We’ll pass… The Padre Pio Cabernet
repeats on tiny voices anyway.
An epic poem on the life of Chaim Soutine, available from Dos Madres Press and Amazon.com.
My new collection , Coelacanth, is now available from Dos Madres Press and Amazon.
Waiting for Cassowary 