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the year i carried a copy of ferlinghetti’s book poetry as insurgent art like a pentecostal carries and twists their bible

i
i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
thoughts of kissing me
sleep on disreputable futons
show up at hotel room doors
unexpectedly
.

just about the time
one of my gods said
i was coming close to my
howl
.

but i’m nowhere in proximity
.
upping the ante is perhaps required
my addictions too mitigated by motherhood
and the yolk of practicality
.

i’m not lesbian enough
i’m not disenfranchised
i’ve never been to france
i’ve never given anyone a hand job for a grant
ted hughes has not yet abandoned me
.

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

the shape of gaping fish

things have a way
of abruptly
beginning and ending
in cleveland

we were staying
at the ritz carlton
above twisting shoreline
on the city’s
burning river

the bathroom shower
occupying the honeymoon suite
was befitting of
henry VIII’s royal court
or a discriminating
porn star

wall to wall marble
roman pedestals
four golden shower heads
the shape of gaping fish

dripping

a bounty of pearl bath beads
and sea shell soaps

he was on his knees
in front of me
licking
the water running
down my body
covering his nose and mouth

when he pulled back
and asked
if i would piss on his face

but
nothing about my psychology
dictates
i urinate on another human being

so i told him
no
firmly

my fingers still in his wet hair

he asked
why
too sick for you?
i apologize

responding

to each his own
but i choose neither to suffer
or be an agent
of such humiliation

besides
pissing in the shower
just isn’t
ladylike

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

friday morning porch swing in cleveland

you look like
one of those sexy 60’s film stars
in a convertible
you have warrants
but you’ll be fine as long as you don’t
go to texas

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

hydeout

my brilliant revolutionary friends
have started up
this ballsy publishing endeavor

at this moment
in a neighborhood in cleveland
whose best days were during WWII
there is a man sweating through
his derrida as darth vader t-shirt
in a garage constructed of rust and temerity

wearing splattered black framed glasses
and a leather apron if only in my fantasy
toiling
with a passion for art
and
ink on his hands

typesetting
over an antique price chandler press
one of my poems

there is something sacred
about the old ways
about friends uplifting each other
about creating a scene
about vintage onion skin paper bleeding

i have never been so honored
to call myself
a writer

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

Cleveland show tomorrow @ Guide to Kulchur: Text, Art, and News

guide to kulchur

https://www.facebook.com/events/266268206872424/

February 27, 2014   7:30 pm

Alicia Young and Russell Vidrick

will be performing poetry at

Guide to Kulchur: Text, Art, and News

1386 W.65, Cleveland, Ohio 44102
no cover charge
Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

vespers

her morning baptismal
standing in the shower
hard water streaming over head
travel mug grasped religiously
in her hands
as if left over vespers are being given
from the night before
thinking
she’s been drinking
smoking
eating
writing
reading
sleeping
way too much
but not fucking enough
and tomorrow she has to be in Cleveland

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

jesus died for this gravy

greek diner gods
seated in a booth

we were
that morning

the shore restaurant
in cleveland

one block south of mount olympus

vat of meats and nectar the centerpiece
of our table
lovely

i turned to my seat mate
post corned beef omelet
and queried

“Hey, Sarah? Are you gonna eat that pickle”

“No. Why?”

“Because if you don’t want it, I’m dipping it in that fucking gravy…”

chomp
moan
swallow

To which John replied, “Jesus died for this gravy.”

alex chewed through a laugh

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Uncategorized

what was killed by rome

she wakes
with egypt painted
around her eyes

the footprints of deep cleveland
tread lovingly upon her pages

anguish the opium of the living
in dying rust belt towns

children crying for the burning fields of gold
eyes searching for dead mother industry

he had come close
standing before her in the night
as she chanted
with her book of incantations
magic to coax a serpent up the spine
leather bag carried
from the city of the queen

art brought forth to revive
what was killed by rome

“My darling you were a mortician, but now you are a resurrectionist…”

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

punk theory

ran kate chopin
up my arm
late last night

the storm
inside my head
outside my window
caused the rafters to rage

i fell into a red lampshade trance

remembering his words
wall leaning
he never leaned over
to whisper
about going on tour

“Anywhere but New York. We can never go to New York.”

“Why?”

“I’ll shoot heroin and never come back…”

my eyes fell silent as my lips called a guy about booking Cleveland

he smiled

as the clash flew off the turntable dropping spanish bombs

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

barefoot in tremont

to be completely embraced by a city

full immersion within inimitable culture

sweet cleveland improper

bloody forms of honesty spraying from arteries covering complicit poets

forgetting we are strangers before the whiskey runs dry

artists willing to live one more night

our laughter shattering the gaslights
of dead writer heaven
into stars

to know the feel of the sidewalk

as he falls in love
with what the sight of cherry blossoms
do to your eyes

this is to feel poetry

this is what it is to be

barefoot in tremont