As the Covid-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating soon, all my previously scheduled poetry events for June, July and August are cancelled and/or postponed until further notice. I am seriously considering cancelling all my events for the rest of 2020 as well, but for now I remain in a wait-and-see holding pattern.
Here I am on the second day of the National Beat Poetry Festival on Saturday 31 August 2019 in New Hartford, Connecticut. In this clip Debbie Tosun Kilday, the CEO of the National Beat Poetry Foundation, presents me with the Ohio Beat Poet Laureate Award for 2019-2021, and then I read two signature poems, "Bloodshot" and "Lens."
Indian summer sun squints, bloodshot like the wide wounded eyes of my cynical Seneca ancestors. On and on and anon, an endless queue of unrelenting conquistadors, lusting for booty or bust, defile our trust and defame the name of God in the name of God. Opportunity does not knock for trusting tribesmen, be they from Arizona, Africa, the Amazon or Akron. Riding roughshod over every allegedly endless empire including America the beautifully dutiful, The cursed hearse of history leads a parade of pathetic and unsympathetic plotters, plodders, priests and presidents, electable eels who feel their forked tongues and dung make them agents of distinction, instead of extinction. Sweetly sighing lullabies of liberty and expediency, these leaders open their bomb bays as they pray, first for the unconditional surrender of their enemies and last, if at all, for the bloodshot souls of the soon to be charred children of Hiroshima, Hanoi Belfast, Belgrade, Baghdad, Bethlehem New York City and coming soon to a theatre of war near you.
While quarantined at home, I started a new video series, "Rattle &
Numb Live." Here's episode #3, featuring the 3rd poem in my recently published Selected and New Poems, "Karma Souptra" (from 2009).
Tin can karma
In a cemetery green sedan
Drives into the past
Through the future
Running round and round
And over and over
The illusory track of time
Like a bomb
That never goes off
Like a song that rings
In Campbell's soup cans
Round and round the rims
Not going out or in
Just sticking to the circuit
Like a one ring soup can
Gerbil wheel circus
Till the tin finally erodes
The illusion of time caves in
And full circle
Cemetery green
Karma darts to the next can
In the aisle of now
On November 9th, I had the pleasure of being part of the Avon Lake Public Library's
Read Write Local program. Avon Lake Community Television recently
broadcast highlights of the day, including this clip where local poets Monica Weber Babcock,
Lisa Kahl and I read from our latest works and answer questions about
writing, publishing, and performing poetry. Special thanks to librarian
and moderator Gerry Vogel. (The three poems I read in this clip are "Kiss, "Dry Cast" and "Lens.")
I
very much enjoyed talking with Joshua Corwin recently for his Assiduous Dust podcast and then listening to his interview with the legendary
S.A. Griffin on that same episode. It's available via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. In my segment, I read three poems, including my recent "Random Rules" (after David Berman). Thank you, Josh!
