i'm fairly certain that i have seen my last poetry slam in phoenix. with the exception of the IWPS that will be in town in october, i can't imagine anything that will draw me back into that circle even if it is only as a spectator. the antiques that were peddled at last saturday's slam off shoved my whole slam career back into my face. ( Read more... )

requiem for a testimony ( Read more... )

heartfelt thanks to {9} the gallery, jack evans, shawnte orion, david tabor, jack cavanaugh, all the open mic poets, and everyone who came out to hear this 58 year old man boil down a year's worth of poetry into a 30 minute set. to be a part of the caffeine corridor machine is an honor i will never take for granted. i have already begun work on ( Read more... )

they must be putting something in the purified bottled water because the people of phoenix are losing the minds i don't think they ever really had. let's review. a few weeks ago driver number one gave me the finger because i wouldn't let him make his left turn through the intersection i was driving through because the light was green and i had ( Read more... )

seriously. when it's about 95 degrees inside and the sign up sheet is at 22 poets, have some compassion for the others on the list, for the audience, and for me. i don't feel bad about pulling you off the stage at the 8 minute mark because your poem is not going anywhere and your 3 minute intro was pointless. i am not trampling your artistic ( Read more... )

captivity haiku
you hate this city
you also hate this country
see you tomorrow

punk haiku
what's the difference
between being a punk and
being an asshole?

either/or haiku
my thirst for hunger
equals my hunger for thirst
i'll settle for soup

haiku for drunken poet
onyx in darkness
by mid morning his smooth face
will become sandstone

new born ( Read more... )

i believe in this world there are more people who without training can sit down and write something (myself included) and, ok, i guess that's a poem, than there are people who also without instruction can cut into a human body and repair an organ...and maybe that's bad for poetry.

after a recent visit with my daughter, i saw a grey dove perched on top of the street light in front of the house where i used to live when i was married. that gave me a bigger chill up the spine than the raven i saw perched on top of a telephone pole as i was leaving the southern arizona town of bisbee.

as much as i sometimes hate the grocery store parking lot that is facebook, car doors banging into car doors. people backing into you because they're not looking where they're going. driving the wrong way up the parking aisles. pigeons trying to indiegogo whatever foodstuff falls out of a four-year old's hands or mouth. carts strewn... i hate ( Read more... )

on a recent trip to southern arizona i saw two deer foraging roadside. it was a hilly, winding stretch of road so i was driving slowly. when they saw me, they stopped like deer, then retreated into the woods. yes, they were like two deer. i'm not going to say they were like two deer in the headlights. it was mid-afternoon and there were no ( Read more... )