August Poet's Place

August 09, 2025

POETS PLACE
AUGUST EDITION 2025

Hello friends! I hope this month’s column finds you all as well as can be. I feel like I am fighting for my life. I am as well as I can be, today. Although, my heart and soul feel compromised. It’s painful to witness the collapse of our country’s most cherished values, especially freedom. There is and has been racism, prejudice and discrimination all over the world. This horrible, despicable behavior is not new. Its deep rooted core of racism in our country has been there since the birth of this nation. And… It’s currently being recounted all over the media. The acceptance of racist beliefs and the touted white supremacist superiority is being flagrantly spouted as the new authoritarian regime begins its take down. It’s Hitler all over again. AUGHHHH!!!! How can this be? How can this happen?? HERE???? I know there are more of us then them. I know we will fight back, and we are. Thank you South Park! Hit em where it hurts!!! It’s awesome to see other countries stand up for us, US!! I’m just having trouble with the cruelty of the unabashed disgusting behaviors thrust upon innocent people. I want to be a part of the coup. I want to storm the White House and take down the racist fascist regime. Peacefully, if that’s possible. I want DT to be feathered and tarred. I want him to be raped and stripped of all his money. I want all of the people who are hurting this country to suffer some how. And I want to witness it. Wish…

Wednesday, July 23, 2025
By Linda Kaye

The dogs finally stopped barking. So the birds could chirp again.
The incessant sounds of drilling continued. Whilst the silence remained silent. She heard him beckon for her thoughts, those crispy details she always kept to herself. It was her twilight years that she fought off desperately pounding away in the deep recesses of her mind. It was a dangerous time of reflection, a millisecond away from committing the unheard of.

BIRD OF YOUTH
©1989 Kassi Crews

The bird of youth sings valiantly
The song of truth.
She flies ever so high in the
Crystal blue sky
Spreading her wings over the earth’s glorious springs.
Soaring to new heights,
She feels the sun’s rays touch her heart.
She embraces the warmth and
Opens her soul so that they
May never part.

Accepting this love opens the doors
So she can share her compassion.
Her life is filled with wonderous joys so that
Each day she continues to sing
Her song in a loving fashion,
Bringing hope and love to those in despair.
She realizes her full potential
Which is beyond compare.

This bird of youth flies for the truth.
She’ll seek it ever after,
She’ll love and give till she
No longer lives
For her soul holds the gift of laughter.

Kassi Crews is a versatile & accomplished actor with a rich background in film, television, improvisation, stand-up comedy, and theatre. Crews became an industry leader in Hollywood post-production as the Vice President of Digital Jungle where she oversaw the day-to-day operations and served as producer on an endless list of film and television projects. Most recently, Crews lead multiple post-production teams at Fox and Walt Disney Television, overseeing the workflows of all television for FX Networks including "The Americans," “Fargo" and “Pose" as well as a DI Producer for Apple, Netflix, CBS, CW, Starz & Paramount. Crews has produced and directed a variety of critically acclaimed independent projects, “Broken Memories,” Heart of Recovery”, “God’s Ears” and “A Better Place” as well as live shows for the theater. She is a member of ATAS, NAB, NAPTE, PROMAX and SAG; holds a Master of Arts from CSU Fullerton and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from UC Santa Cruz.

The Loveist
By Jackie Chou

You live your life
without knowing me
your eyes cold
that have never beheld
the warmth of my gaze
your tongue bitter
that has never tasted my sweet

Can't you tell
from the gleam in my smile
and the spring in my step
that I love you
not out of lust
but the passion of a prom queen
for her court

Sometimes I feel
that it is best for you
to not know me
to keep clinging to the hook
of this metallic world
oblivious to its frigidity
as the years turn into decades
without a glance
at any other way

Jackie Chou (she/her) is a writer from Southern California who has two collections of poetry, The Sorceress and Finding My Heart in Love and Loss, published by cyberwit. Her poem "Formosa" was a finalist in the Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize. She also has poems published in Synchronized Chaos, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply Zine, Alien Buddha Zine, and Spillwords.

The Burning of Rome
By AC Broome

The Burning of Rome
The flames
riot
Again
On my skin

Like sentimental
KillersWith murder
On the brain.

Hot then blue
I let them chew
A century
Out of me.

For my winter
a coat
Of
Bone fragment
Fire

The sire
Of
Incinerator
Desire
Higher
And higher

Until
What
Spring
Of ash
Is what past
Coal
Rolls
Off the last

Mistress
No less
An infamous
Infantry
Burning

Dying
Down
empire.

“Cease for
A moment
And admire
The smoke”
I exhale

The infamous air
Burning off
flesh
No less

A
Promise
A
Resurrection, A
Revolution
Wise.

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles poet who has published in various anthologies and journals including Acts of Light, LA Art News and Spectrum 17. Broome performs for local troupes including Public Works Improvisational Theatre’s Storyphile at venues including Beyond Baroque and Art Share LA. She produces and hosts the Anna Broome Room, a monthly, free-to-the-public live-performance art show for the last ten years at Art Share LA. Broome studied poetry at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with Pulitzer Prize nominee Michael White. “Women Napping with Animals”, her collaborative project with Ted Meyer, was published in 2014. Her first collection of poetry, “Orthodox Bats”, was published in 2019. Her second collection “Sex Ed: A Prerequisite at Columbine” was published in 2022. Her new collection “An Irregular Bone” is currently under consideration for the Wilder Prize.

IT'S A CULT STUPID
Artwork By Keith Kurlander

This bold pop art piece from the DISOBAY series depicts three individuals in vivid Ben-Day dots, each wearing oversized earplugs that metaphorically block out reality. A woman in a “Make America Great Again” hat marked “45–47” is placed alongside two other figures, all gazing ahead with vacant, unquestioning expressions. The psychedelic, high-contrast background of red, yellow, and green polka dots emphasizes sensory overload and ideological saturation. The vertical “DISOBAY” text in rainbow, distorted type punctuates the right side, delivering the artist's subversive message. This work critiques political blind faith, cult-like behavior, and media manipulation.
more at https://www.artpal.com/disobay

Keith Kurlander “I've always been a creative soul, I make art, music, music videos, TV shows, films, and mayhem. If you want to learn all about my fascinating life here's a good place to start.”
KEITH KURLANDER, THE E. TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY
https://youtu.be/p3er5ptzZTA

LINK TO MUSIC https://www.idiot-savant.net/

things can change
by linda m. crate

i tire of being exploited
by billionaires and corporations,
of living in a world where
people openly support eugenics;

where people have no
empathy or mercy for their
neighbors—

i am tired of people tolerating the
machine instead of raging
against it,

tired of being seen as a number
or a cog and not an actual
living, breathing soul
with hopes; dreams, and aspirations—

i am tired of magic and whimsy
being buried beneath the bones of
genocide, war, famine, and disease;

i want to live in a more fair,
more just world—

to everyone who tells me it's

always been this way,
so what?
things can change,
don't you want them to?

i think we all deserve more
than the crumbs billionaires toss
at us,
hoping we'll fight over them
instead of fighting against
their cruelty;

everyone should have enough
to live,
no one should be scraping by;
praying for a better existence
and working themselves bone tired
until their bodies can't work
any longer.

BLESSINGS
(to my dear friend Joanna)
5-17-2025
1:50 pm.
By Mary Cheung

I feel the love all around me,
The energy is flowing, and I am caught up in its tow...
One by one we bless you,
For a future that is yet to unfold.

Like in a fairy tale story,
Of godmothers and fairies alike
We send you our gifts
To protect you from any misfortune or strife.

So many hearts are focused on one who is yet to come,
We wrap you up in a blanket
Of love and support and then some.

And one day in the future
When you're on your own 2 feet,
I'll ask you if you remember,
as we harmonized out a fresh beat.

We sent out songs and vibrations,
enough to penetrate your mom's womb.
I wonder if you heard us,
within your dark and lovely tomb.

When many voices,
a covenant of 13 ...
Chanted and blessed you,
fulfilling your mom's lifelong dream.

I can't wait to meet you little one.

Mary Cheung is a multi-disciplinary artist. She has been creating art since she was little. Youngest in a family of eight. She came to America at the age of 2 and grew up in San Francisco. Attended American school during the day and Chinese school at night.
Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations.
She was the recipient of 3 grants in 2024 and the Denis Diderot and Emerging Artist award.
She has art exhibited and published locally and Internationally.
Her real passion and drive come from being able to engage the community while bringing hope, healing, joy, and human connection.
It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.
“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Lonesome for the Low Life
by Lee Boek

Well I felt like
Things were going too good
Hadn’t ever been that way
Didn’t seem like it should
No woman ever loved me like this before
Nor gave me a son I could truly adore
Then she took him back
To El Salvador
She was gone so long
I lost faith she’d return
Those lonesome blues began to burn
And I thought of the company
I used to keep
And what I did to myself to help me to sleep
Well I guess you know
I soon had no place to go
But back to the Hotel Barclay
I got lonesome for the low life
Need it every day
Lonesome for the low life
A feeling just won’t go away
When it comes upon me
I know I’ll be safe
At the Hotel Barclay
Lonesome, Lonesome, Lonesome
For the Low Life

Lee Boek: Artistic Director An integral part of Public Works Improvisational Theater Company since the 1970s, Lee took over as Artistic Director of the company in 2001 after founding member Marlene Rasnick’s passing. The California native, born in 1941, has had successful careers as a Fundamentalist Evangelist preacher, radio host, actor, writer, producer, union organizer, husband, father, grandfather to many & champion for the under-served & wronged. A staple of the Silverlake arts community, Lee continues to be on the forefront of accessible, socially-relevant performing arts productions.

Bitchcraft Battle Rap for Tairrie B. Murphy
By Alex S. Johnson

"Hail to the chick with the dope vernacular"-Tairrie B. Murphy, "Sky Above, City Below"
Beware the crone
Shaking her silver struts
Inside the electric choir
spitting rhymes like the Lyre of Orpheus
no if ands or shaking butts
sufficient to the day, scripting a sonic memoir in akashic fire-ends
summoning nature's lyre to drown the obvious
slaying MCs with wit and honesty
a tonic shaken, crystal clear not
Blurred
Blasphemous girl
petitioning the power of goddess
blasting rhymes with sawed-off violence
but can a white girl play it ruthless?
So sick when she summons the magic
rendering critics, merely tragic
for Tairrie B., nothing but endless love
Steel fist in a velvet glove

Tairrie B. Murphy and Alex S. Johnson: A Convergence of Musical and Literary Prowess
Tairrie B. Murphy: The Trailblazing Chameleon of Rap and Metal

Born in Anaheim, California, Tairrie B. Murphy emerged as a pioneering figure in the world of music by becoming one of the first white female rappers signed to a major label. Her early career flourished under the mentorship of rap icon Eazy-E and the legendary N.W.A., marking a seminal moment in hip-hop history with her debut album Power of a Woman released on Ruthless Records. Known for her uncompromising attitude and the rawness of her lyrics, Tairrie B. challenged the male-dominated industry landscape, contributing a fiercely feminist voice that spoke unflinchingly against misogyny and systemic injustice (“I Had to Carry a Gun to Visit My Record Label…”: My Ruin’s Tairrie B…).

Alex S. Johnson: The Literary Architect of the Bizarre and Extreme
An acclaimed author, editor, and seasoned academic, Alex S. Johnson is synonymous with the avant-garde realms of horror, erotica, and speculative fiction. As the creator and editor of Axes of Evil, a lauded heavy metal horror anthology series, his work exemplifies a unique blend of incisive literary craftsmanship and an affinity for the darkly surreal. Beyond his fiction, Johnson's editorial prowess manifested in his founding role at Juggernaut: The Magazine of Extreme Music, a publication that became a nexus for the underground music and literary scenes, spotlighting figures such as Tairrie B. Murphy and fortifying his reputation as a cultural connector and visionary (Alex S. Johnson).

"Shane Tamura: Your Name isn't Glorified"
By Michelle Smith

He was born in Hawaii, Black and Japanese
Brought July 28 2025,
The Big Apple 🍎 and Manhattan
to their knees.
One victim fulfilling his American dream:
Shane killed one of NYPD's finest
as he worked a security shift
on his last day
a Bangladeshi
immigrant husband
father of two and
his wife is to give birth to
a third infant in days.
Didarul Islam's employment
was dangerous each and every day.
Shane also killed woman executive,
wife, and mom Wesley LePatner
at Blackstone.
Real Estate was her claim to fame.
Security guard Aland Etienne
is a valiant hero.
As is an unnamed employee
of Rudin Management.
Four families lives are forever changed
because with his assault rifle arm in arm
on his right side,
Shane walked in square feet
an open space unnoticed.
Mousily he crept into a skyscraper
and a barrage of bullets exploded.
Two others dead when he claimed five,
when he committed suicide.
Took four innocent people and a note
inside his jacket pocket claiming
that the Steelers Terry Long's CTEfueled his reasons and whys.
Hell has a place for you Shane.
This is America.
Are you not tired of guns & rifles
sold to the unfit?
God please help the sole
critically injured fight for
his or her life.
Before 2022 occurred his
life seemed to be full of
potential, promise, pride
and not of a four killer loser.
Shane that tightrope unraveled
looser in your mind.

Michelle Y. Smith is a Los Angeleno native and like Stretch Armstrong, an action figure with many action roles: My heart is mother to my autistic son Chris a.k.a my Creative, Happy, Righteous, Intriguing Social Soul. My patience is my CNA employment and advocacy for my the all disabilities, especially for the developmentally and elderly community. My drive is published poetry and prose in "Love Letters", "Acid Verse II", and "Just for the People" by the Los Angeles Poetry Society Press; " Remembering the Riots: An Anthology," ," Sounds of South Central " and various zines by DSTLArts. In addition, Four Feathers Press and with http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com and http://fourfeatherpress.blogspot.com., enter my name and a cornucopia of prose and poetry will be seen. My poem, "There is a Sunflower ", was published in June 2025 and nominated by the Four Feathers Press PDF/Print Publication Awards.

Ode to The Rose
By Dietmar Kohl

Rose, miracle of all flowers that bloom,
each petal a witness to love in spring.

Even the heavenly powers delight in her.
She is the young passion of Aphrodite,
she is the darling of Cythera,
her temples wreathed with flower petals
, and with her sweet perfume
she intoxicates her masters.

Anacreon (580-495 BC)

Rose, Wunder aller Blumen, die blühen,

jedes Blatt ein Zeuge der Liebe im Frühling.

Selbst die himmlischen Mächte erfreuen sich ihrer.

Sie ist die junge Leidenschaft der Aphrodite,

sie ist der Liebling der Cythere,

die Schläfe mit Blumenblättern umkränzt

und mit ihrem süßen Parfüm

macht sie ihre Herren trunken

Anakreon

Dietmar Kohl Photography

Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, I enjoyed an eclectic life full of art steeped in a deep-rooted culture. My father gave me my first camera when I was a teenager and we often enjoyed photography together. As a young man, I began my lifelong work as a commercial Fashion Photographer. Some 30 years later curiosity led me to want to see more of the world and explore America. Settling in Los Angeles, California where photography continues to be my passion.

I love to photograph, many genres, as viewed, on my website and yet my focus often brings me back to my Fashion Photography roots. I love photographing people, including one of my heartfelt passions is photographing the plight of the homeless people here in Los Angeles. I’ve been involved in several fundraisers with Homeless Healthcare of Los Angeles where they auctioned off my photography. In the Neutra Photography show, I’ve chosen to focus on my beloved Roses plus a few other genres and also show one of my canvas paintings.

Although, I live in Los Angeles, I continue to enjoy Viennese culture, of socializing and getting together for coffee and cake. To see more of my photography check out my Website, and follow me on Instagram and Facebook. And, when interested in hiring me for your photography project, let's get together and discuss, in person.

Website: https://www.dietmarkohl.com/

THANKS FOR JOINING US!!!!

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com
and include a short bio

Linda Kaye writes poetry, curates poetry, produces films, spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area. She recently exhibited her first piece of artwork! A photograph taken in Waikiki, was represented at the Los Angeles Makery gallery’s REFLECTION:RESILIENCE show curated by the Arroyo Arts Collective.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Los Angeles Makery, the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park, The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

Her rap music video project in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg This video was accepted into the Ontario Museum of History & Art show “We the People” Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. February 2- April 16, 2023. So honored!!

And… February 19, 2022, she debuted her staged poetry production of “20 Years Left” at the historic Ebell Club in Highland Park! Two sold out shows with 2 standing ovations!! Check out the links to reviews and the video!

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

Linda Kaye is a native Angeleno who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired from medical social work, was working for her last seven years of employment as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Oh yeah.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

July Poet's Place

July 05, 2025

POETS PLACE
JULY EDITION 2025

Hello everyone and welcome to POETS PLACE! We are a sanctuary column, where you can freely express your views, your personal thoughts and your love for the written word. Ai Dios mio. We have all been duped to believe that nothing can impinge on the American ideal. A country that claimed that all people are free to live their best lives in a country that gained freedom from the rule of a king in 1776. A country where all people are created equal by the declaration of independence. Greed is the new creed. Hatred for the underclass and unplugged racism is the new mantra for white supremacy. If all hope dies we are doomed. I know there are powerful people on our side fighting for what is right for the people of America. And there are many people who will suffer until we can take down this racist regime of evil and cruel people. I just can’t wrap my head around this cruelty. And it’s not just in our land, it is all over the world. Help me understand how racist beliefs rule? Help me understand the justification of the obliteration of a country? To destroy a tribe of people that for generations has thrived? How do the people who authorize such hate and destruction live with themselves? What do they tell their children, or explain their destruction of humanity? Are their children kept away from all of it? How can they not know what is happening outside their doors? Hate and violence thrust upon children will ultimately create a monster. Children exposed to continuous teachings of racist hate will color their views of humanity for life. It’s child abuse and a set up for continued generational violence. Love is not costly. A positive reinforcement of unconditional acceptance of human differences. I am desperately trying to find joy in my daily living, otherwise I will crack. The good people in power are trying hard to help the greedy and cowardly others to see how their negative behaviors will impact our country. Unfortunately you cannot talk rationally to irrational people. Once the country collapses, the people will rise up and overthrow those who have harmed us, with voting them out. What is most scary, is that that BBB has given them the power to cancel elections. What a shameful and cruel way to end freedom.

And now some love from our contributors!!!
Love, Linda XXX

Pathological
By Jackie Chou

You and your silver pendant,
your heart-shaped lies.

Your head in the photo
chopped off
like Marie Antoinette.

There is nothing
behind your laces
of metallic threads.

No face,
no legs,
no wings of chiffon.

constellations of my love
by linda m. crate

despite all the darkness,
there are glimmers
of hope;

whispers of rebellion
against the
powers that be—

so i hold onto the
flaming feathers
of the phoenix known
as hope,

she shines bright and beautiful
as the sun;

combined with the moonlight
of my dreams
i know a better future can rise
from the ashes of this dystopia—

so i refuse to surrender,
i continue to fight the machine;

for they'll never
stomp out my magic
or my dreams or my light—

forevermore i shall shine
in every universe,
the constellations of my love
burning even time.

POLICE STATE 38
By Keith Kurlander

This piece from the DISOBAY series is a searing visual confrontation, rendered in a palette of blood red, acid yellow, and shadowy black. A soldier in full tactical gear and a civilian woman come face to face in a moment charged with ambiguous emotion—connection or resistance, empathy or rebellion. The halftone comic-book treatment gives the scene a vintage print texture while evoking modern urgency. The backdrop shifts from bright yellow stars to black circular voids, creating a ripple effect of visual tension. Vertical lettering of DISOBAY in high-contrast red, yellow, and cyan acts as a call to noncompliance. This artwork uses saturated minimalism and psychological depth to challenge systems of power and explore the paradox of human touch under control.

Keith Kurlander “I've always been a creative soul, I make art, music, music videos, TV shows, films and mayhem. If you want to learn all about my fascinating life here's a good place to start.”

KEITH KURLANDER, THE E. TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY
https://youtu.be/p3er5ptzZTA

LINK TO MUSIC https://www.idiot-savant.net/

Cities In Dust by Alex S. Johnson

She couldn’t remember the first time she heard the song, only that it was part of her big sister’s collection of vinyl, which was mostly first pressings. Cindy set the record on the ancient turntable which was of the kind you could carry, and either connect outside speakers to or listen to through the one built in. Either way, it was true–the music sounded richer, warmer and more true, and ever since the discovered Lisa’s trove in the attic there was no way in the world she was going to subject her ears to CD’s, let alone the super-compressed abominations that were MP3’s. But everybody had to discover these things for themselves, the same way she did–stumbling over piles of ancient magazines that slithered like live things when you disturbed them. She thought of this secretly as “tomb life,” inventing the term and making a note in a private journal which she kept for random jottings of this kind.

Once she’d listened to the song, Cindy’s ears were never the same. She knew vaguely about the period it came from, which was around the time she had been born, and it struck her ears then as definitively a creature of tomb life and what the ancient Egyptians doubtless had their own versions of. It was a point of faith with her that no matter how outlandish her speculations, she believed in some manner, in some way, they had to be true–because there were other dimensions, pockets of other worlds folded into this one, and no reason why something from that place couldn’t poke its head into ours and sniff around. The rhythm and percussion sounded like bright chimes, like glass baubles if they could sing, and made her think, not for the first time, about glass beads shaped like bees, or bees formed of glass beads, because (1)the words sounded alike, and it would be exceedingly poetic if they shared something at bottom that yolked them with more intensity and (b) because one night, previous to going to sleep, she had this terrific idea, which reawakened as she listened and moved to the old song in the attic of the brownhouse her older sister had inherited and she visited from time to time.

People, especially guys, would take a cue from Cindy’s big, innocent eyes and elven features and mistake her for some woodland creature pulling them in, making their hearts soft and their brains gooey, although she insisted they speak to her properly and either respect her or leave her alone. She’d seen too many of her peers saddled with some dude they thought little of but kept other guys away, but even that tactic wasn’t 100% effective. Cindy thought people were okay but she preferred her own company, and that of the music and the silence she was more than capable of filling with landscapes that danced with color and song. Lisa was working at a law firm downtown, many late hours, and Cindy was a junior at the state university. This was her spring break. She was deciding on a job or an internship or going her own way with a start-up, perhaps making clothes, which she was fabulous at. Any way you looked at it, the future felt either glorious or perilous and she vacillated between the urge to rush out into the street and dance with random strangers or curl herself into a ball and never rise again until the world had sorted itself properly and people like her had a place in it, something permanent and dignified.

She’d shed her black leather jacket ages ago and it lay on top of a pile of the slithery tombthings. Cindy’s hair was blue but maybe tomorrow it would lie in fuzzy clumps on the bathroom tile. Her t-shirt was white and a size too large. The jeans were trashed down the front with the white threads like spiderwebs swarming the smooth, immaculate pink of her thighs.

She moved with the song and the song snaked within her. It was about something or someone falling apart, their world crashing down, it could be a private apocalypse or speak to the general condition.

The fifth dimension was palpable now in the attic, perceivable as the milky late afternoon sun through the dormer windows, picking out some but not other trophies of Lisa’s life in the big city in sharp relief. There were the tragic remnants of her marriage, that asshole–she was too young at the time for her opinion to register with anyone other than her sister, but Lisa told her later she’d nearly broken up with Ken on the spot when she saw Cindy’s reaction–and Lisa’s ironic take on Ms. Havisham’s wedding cake, a creation of plaster of Paris and newspapers and Halloween spiders, from the brief period she slummed in the art world. Cindy knew Lisa was just as talented as the was, and more, and could do more in areas she couldn’t, but she respected her sister’s decision to move the art world period up to the attic among the other artifacts. Cindy realized she was spacing out a little bit, and caught herself just in time; unconsciously, she had begun the song again, which meant she’d picked up the needle and dropped it at the same groove. Also right at the edge of perception was the idea generating behind the music that the things we notice, of all the bright and dazzling ephemera, are the things THEY wish us to, and obviously THEY belong to the hyperdimension, which was the 5th, and this really belonged in her journal as well. But right now, Siouxsie was breaking down something else for her.

Because it was true, all the cities would crumble into dust, and what remained sifted itself from the ruins that stood like sculptures of colored chalk, all their features stylized and made equal. The bees that were beads spread the pollen of event nodes; that is to say, they carried possibility like glitter on their thundering black fuzz. And even when all the cities had collapsed, when the tomb life inhabited a real tomb of some kind or another, and history had either exonerated Cindy or obliterated her, at some level it wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Because the bees were out there dropping potential like mad; glass beads had voices and they sounded like Siouxsie; and when Lisa came home, Cindy would have something yummy prepared for her, because that’s what sisters did for each other.

Dubbed "the Baudelaire of our time" by John Shirley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author, songwriter for Blue Oyster Cult and primary screenwriter of the 1994 cult classic horror film The Crow, Alex S. Johnson is the author of 16 books, including the canonical Friday the 13th spinoff novel Jason X: Death Moon, a collaboration with Hugo Award-winning author Pat Cadigan, dubbed "the Queen of Cyberpunk." He is the editor of more than 45 books, including the New York Times bestseller Seeing Lessons: 14 Life Secrets I've Learned Along the Way by Tom Sullivan, two time Emmy Award-nominated actor and Helen Keller Lifetime Achievement Award winner for his work as an author, musician, athlete, journalist and motivational speaker. His latest dark satire collection, A Great Variety of Monsters, is due out this year from Horror Sleaze Trash Publications with a Foreword by Weird Fiction legend Jeffrey Thomas. Among Johnson's works in progress include Le Fantastique; A Literary Tribute to Clive Barker which he is co-editing with Rhysling Award nominee Michael H. Hanson. Johnson and his partner Alea Celeste Williams, aka "Pickles," were special guests of John Maggiore on his celebrated Maggiore on Bowie show. He resides in Carmichael, California with his family.

Magic is a dandelion
By Anna Mathai

Sharing little, golden whispers down low beneath the trees
Finding neon bits of moss on trails in Yosemite
Magic in the chuckling water and the right amount of breeze
Magic is a dandelion
And when you laugh with me
I blow magic seeds out to the world
To carry life within the wind
Sprouting smiles and wins and sins
To finally nestle in the depths,
heading home to do it again

Anna Mathai is an Indian-American multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California. She frequently uses Venetian plaster and other plasters in her work. Her abstract works reference both the natural world and our internal ‘landscapes’ of emotion, blurring both real and intangible. She often touches on concepts of femininity, rebellion, and otherness, with a touch of mysticality, in her figurative work. By pairing her writing with her visual art practice, Mathai creates an extra dimension in which viewers can experience her art and a loose construct to guide their own internal process of understanding. Mathai was born in the UK, but spent most of her childhood in the rural Deep South, which heavily influenced the concepts she explores in her art. Her work has been awarded, published, and exhibited globally. You can find her at www.byMathai.com or on Instagram @byMathai.

Grandma Kelley
6-22-25
4:16 a.m.
By Mary Cheung

Your 2 arms, to hold me and hug me.
Ever ready,
to hold me when I was little and unsteady.

You were there to feed me, bathe me.
Changed my diapers and wiped my tushy.
Your calendar open and ready, optimistic, never pushy.

You didn't do it for money or for praise.
You gave to me in all of those unselfish ways.

And each of those moments and times,
added up throughout my years.
They were gifts to me for the life you unselfishly shared...

Too fast but not too much,
Came each and every year.
I want to freeze them, slow down the moments, relive each one,
now so very dear.

This book of memories, are filled with the pages of...

When I first started to crawl
When I first started to babble and speak
When my eyes would lite up with joy upon seeing you.
When I first cried out, "Grandma!"
When I first ran to you and hugged and held you.
When my infectious zest for life flowed over to you.
When you heard about my first school dance.
When you heard about my first romance!
When you first started to see....
The person I would become,
Because of the influence from you, given to me....

I"m happy that you played a part.
That you gave to me pieces of your heart.

And words could never thank you enough
or show how much I care.
For all that you've done through out all of my years..

The part you played in my life.
Through the ups and downs, Birthday parties and strife...

You were there for it all..
And that means so much to me.

I see you grandma.
Your life has purpose to me.

Now it's my turn, to show you what I have learned.
These 2 arms, now not too small.
Can hold you up in return,

My love, the drug to fuel you and support.
To remind you of all those better days.
Don't let it be lost in all of this haze..

Those moments fed into my soul...
From all the love you gave me,
So,
you should know...

Those were priceless gems.
Let it sparkle and light up the way.
When your days are dark and full of dismay...

The hope I give you in return..
My love to warm and ease your journey,
For it's not the end.

Thank you grandma,
I want you to know,
How precious you are to me.

And everytime I look in the mirror,
I will always see,
the ways your life touched and affected me.

I love you grandma.
Thank you for all that you do.

What Is Love
By Sam Moore

Love is like a tailor
One stitch after the next
to bind
A good tailor
is hard to find

A pianist of 28 years.

Sam Moore is a dedicated musician and appreciator of art. He lives in Los Angeles, CA, and enjoys Bach and Chopin.

Tanka for an Orphan
Poem by Marieta Maglas

The child kneels to pray.
The pure flashes of his eyes
hide dreams he can't find,
while the candle-lighting time
makes visible his sadness.

Marieta Maglas resides in France, where she pursues dual careers as a poet and a doctor. The MockingOwl, Roost, Lothlorien Journal, Verse-Virtual, Masticadores Canada, Silver Birch Press, Kingfisher Poetry, Dashboard Horus, Coin-Operated Press, Mayari Literature, Synchronized Chaos, Al-Khemia Poetica, PentaCat Press, Journal of the Akita International Haiku Network, and others published her poems in anthologies like Near Kin: A Collection of Words and Art Inspired by Octavia Estelle Butler, The Cardinal Anthology Vol. 3, and Ain’t no Deadbeats Around Here. She is the author of the poetry book entitled Cubic Words.

(untitled)
by aj meier welch

My Psyche, Oh fair one is she,
must face mortal grief,
And behold, not the beauty of veracity,
but the midnight of deceit.

Amy Meier Welch received a Master's degree in Literature and Literary Theory from NYU and has been writing poetry since age 16. As a self-taught illustration artist, she creates work that challenges conventional viewpoints and questions societal norms. Her practice embodies a fluid dialogue between word and image, where poetry influences her visual compositions and her artwork, in turn, shapes her written expression. The rhythmic structures of verse find their way into her brushstrokes, while the emotional landscapes of her paintings inform the cadence and imagery of her poetry.

Her current work reflects her outlook that no one thing is greater than another, that beauty and emotion is part of all life, and that perception is always subjective. This philosophy permeates both her written and visual art, creating a cohesive body of work that speaks to the interconnectedness of all creative expression.

Recent exhibitions include shows at Holy Ground (Cannibal Flower, 2025), Shoebox Arts, Kate Carvellas's Miniature show, and a photography collaboration with Kristine Schomaker for "Perceive Me."

He's Not My President
By Michelle Smith

God help America
for it will become hell in a handbasket
under the United States of Amerikka.
under his felonious and fascist leadership.

Troubled, Tyrannical
Racist, Repugnant
Unintelligible
Misogynist
Pig

He is a buffoon.
In a navy blue size too small suit
rotund white shirt belly
and MAGA red necktie
dressed up for that
McDonald's Big Mac meal
don't forget that blond haystack
toupee hairdo.
It seems to be pasted on.
What a Looney tune!
The Commander- in -Thief
pontificates conversation
with that Big Apple accent
that one day I will again visit
all five Burroughs and take a bite.
Does he even know the three branches
of the government?
Can he even pass a U.S.
citizenship civics test?
With his narcissistic ways
to circumvent the
patriotic red, white, and blue
His winning is Trump's hangover
Amerikka under his leadership
will need more than a four leaf clover.
President 45-47 and MAGA part 2
Supporters are the sheep
and voted in
the worst Gemini on the planet.
Sheep don't complain when Trump
pens into law
a life
comfort
cause
change
you had and
"is now slaughtered,
especially the voting apathetic
that chose not to bother.

" Oh what a mighty web we weave in order to deceive."

Time and Trump will tell and
the USA shall see
the dystonian nations flag waving.
Red won the battle.
Blue will win the war.
Democrats are the donkey,
Republicans are the elephants,
but Trump is the true jackass!
For he is Not My President
and is a
Troubled, Tyrannical
Racist, Repugnant
Unintelligible
Misogynistic
Pig!

Michelle Y. Smith is a Los Angeleno native and is like Stretch Armstrong, an action figure with many life, love, and laughter roles:
My heart is mother to an autistic son who is my more than my pride and joy. Sister, aunt, grand aunt, cousin, & friend.
My patience is my employment am a CNA and advocate for the developmentally and elderly disabled community.
My drive is published poetry in Love Letters, Acid Verse II, and Just for the People by Los Angeles Poet Society Press; anthologies and zines by DSTLArts; and Four Feathers Press zines and http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com. My poem, "There is a Sunflower" published in June was nominated by the Four Feathers Press PDF/Print Publication Awards.

ALONE YET NOT ALONE

I am Alone yet not Alone
No mountain, sea or wall of stone
Can keep You away from me

My life as my own
You will always guide me home

With you is where I long to be
For now, I live Alone yet not Alone
Your shining light will guide me home

Your grace shows mercy on my soul
To save me from the life of fools
To lift me in times of cruel
To keep me in faith as it unfolds
With You, I am Alone yet not Alone

My majesty knows the path I roam
In the wilderness I am Alone
To keep me safe I am not Alone

I am just a fool like all the rest
My eyes cannot see in complete darkness
Your light will shine to show me home

You never leave me Alone
My heart is Your home
The love you gave
By blood I am saved

The steel night can’t pierce your sight
A beacon to show my path with light
At long last, I am home Alone yet not Alone

Where Brown Girls Grow…
By G. Billie Quijano

"Leight said, It's time to level up to 72"
72 viajes around the sun

Birthed in Boyle Heights
Hija de La Luna Metzli
Schooled in East Los
Coronation, La Vida Loca

Reina
Chula
Sassy, vibration infectious
Divinely protected
Rhythm jazz
Tempo of allure
Aura of glittering golden rays
Heart beats in ceremony

Movement, non linear
Bending time
Frequency of Feminism
Me, a river of Mujer
I am medicine
Evolving with grace and wisdom
Little bit of gangster
Wild calls to me
Through cracks of the world, whispers love
Grief is ancient

Blood red lipstick
Where poetry flows
Arte, my signature
Nuance of imagination

Vivid dreams of love gone wrong
Gaslighting, cowardice
True love is in the way
I stand in my truth
If I'm too much
No need to call
My independence not for sale
Recipes of power, in my dna

I will not stand down
My voice will be heard
Sanctuary of soul
You got this gurl

East Los never left this heart
Cause this is where Brown Girls Grow

Los Angeles Por Vida, Brown Pride Renaissance

G. Billie Quijano-Artista, Chula, Mestiza, Poeta, Provocateur, Renaissance Mujer, Chili Bomba, Gangster,Veganista, Gitana Cosmica, Artista

Peace
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

In my view
The unseen sun
Warmly gleams
On everything
Dancing tree leaves
Leaning corrugated green plastic panels
Tubular metal fence bar and
Diamond shaped links
All seen through the black iron bars
And opened dusty white slats
Of our dining room window
White painted walls surround
Past that the pink plastic sheet covered table
Sports capped vitamin bottles
A small round portable fan
A reflecting two-liter water bottle
Above a vinyl “squared” floor
Which leads to me sitting
At my black painted wooden desk
In the adjacent living room
Where I look at my laptop computer
To find the rest of the globe
Is not peaceful all over
I’ll spare you the details

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA Antioch University L.A., taught at USC and Occidental College Upward Bound, board member California Poets In The Schools, publisher Four Feathers Press, host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading and workshop series in Pasadena, California. For awards, features, and publication credits, please go to: http://dkc1031.blogspot.com

JUSTICE
By A. Laura Brody

Laura Brody sculpts for the human body and its vehicles. She is the founder of Opulent Mobility, a series of exhibits that re-imagine disability as opulent and powerful. She is also the host of Genius Teatime, a series of talks that explore fascinating folks from all walks of life. Brody began her professional career as a costume designer and maker, working in film, television, opera, dance, and cosplay. She changed course many times but kept returning to art making, community learning, and social justice. Her artwork has been shown at ACE/121 Gallery, Art Share LA, Brea Gallery, California State University Northridge, the Charles River Museum of Industry, the Dora Stern Gallery, Ikouii Creative, the Los Angeles Makery, Westbeth Center For the Arts, and The World of Wearable Art. Opulent Mobility has shown at the Mike Curb Gallery at CSUN, Thymele Arts, Arts Unbound, AVC Gallery, online, and The Los Angeles Makery and is scheduled to show at Brand Library in 2025 for the exhibit’s 10 year anniversary.

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com
and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Los Angeles Makery, the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery, and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park, The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo, and at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum, in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/
20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22
https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU
Linda Kaye is a native Angeleno who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired from medical social work, was working for her last seven years of employment as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association, and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Oh yeah.

www.lindakayepoetry.com
Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry
www.laartnews.com
https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/
http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://
shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

June Poet's Place

June 08, 2025

POETS PLACE
JUNE EDITION 2025

How are we all doing? Should I really ask that question? I am so uncertain about how we will fare in the upcoming months, years, decades. Do I even have another decade on this beautiful planet? I am already starting to feel abandoned by my healthy body, which is no longer healthy. Will I plunge into the darkness as I have predicted for so many others to fall into the pit of this oligarchy America of hell? I feel like I may succumb to the proverbial depression that comes with the decline of western civilization and democracy. Once we lose hope all will crumble. I still have some semblance of hope buried in the recesses of my mind. Hidden in some corner pocket of brain tissue. Mental and physical health issues aside, I am hopeful that the Administration is going to implode and we will see some light of day in the future. I hope I am still here to witness it.

I am truly grateful for my friends and family who are there for me/us.

Thank you all from the bottom of my H E A R T XXXXX

Linda :0)

And now…..

A Glimpse of the Future
By Linda Kaye

There is a syphilitic dick energy in the all White House, releasing a thick infectious ooze of corruption from the bowels of indecently approved Nazi pigs, running a muck with dangerous hormones, causing catastrophic damage, cursing through the American artery, clogging the brains of the ill equipped

There will be a massive fire storm of fascism burning down the nations system of freedom
a volcano of deceit eroding layers of humanity all in one purge
the Internet is screaming with injustices pandering to those who know what’s really coming

The other 50% will be blindsided. The un woke will be doomed lol

we who do speak out and resist will have our mouths shackled and our hearts broken. The American people will be robbed of all our rights.

Some of us will starve to death. Some of us will be deported, but most of us will fight.

We must dismantle the throne, one coward at a time.

Mothers
©2025 Kassi Crews

What is a “Wo” Man
How does She go
Is it the wind from the skies that makes Her blow
All “Wo” men have “Wo” mbs
Why is there a silent “B”
Is it because she’s the Queen Bee, head of the Colony?
Silenced for now but tides are a changin’ to equality
Without a “Wo” man’s “wo”mb none of us would “B”
She gathers earth, light and water to bring us through birth
Is Mother Earth the first “Wo” man that gives us life from Her “dirt”
Precious life what will we do?
Honor or sacrifice or give it away to folly?
Water flows, Light Glows
Dust swirls in the wind
Where did it all begin
The chicken or the egg which came first?
With sperms, germs and gents we pollenate –it takes two to tango to make a mango
We need male and “fe” male to procreate a X and a Y is how we propagate
All are equal in creators’ eyes
Only together will we recognize the place of Motherhood and how to revere
Strong societies give Mother her righteous place as sacred nurturer loving grace
She endures all as She sacrifices, resiliently fond
Her love keeps no record of wrongs
Her love is strong
An anchor of resourcefulness, a beacon of light
A Mother’s love liberates to the 4th star gate
She’s patience and kind, always protects, always hopes, always preservers
She shares Her truths so children may re-direct to a harmonious union of equality, justice & reflect
Society rise up and support Her in Her tasks
Her role is not a mask to Bee taken lightly, we need Her mast
Honor our Mothers not just by word but in deed as we see Her take her righteous place
again
Head of the household with her intuition and emotions intact Amen
With Man as our protectors instead of our captors
Motherhood is the MOST important profession to create off springs with love of people over profits
To guide our youth to the fountain of life and honor where “real” glory is found
Only there do we find solid ground
Man segment,
“Wo” man augment,
“Hu” mans together anchor on Creating Life over destroying Her crown

Kassi Crews is a versatile & accomplished actor with a rich background in film, television, improvisation, stand-up comedy, and theatre. Crews became an industry leader in Hollywood post-production as the Vice President of Digital Jungle where she oversaw the day-to-day operations and served as producer on an endless list of film and television projects. Most recently, Crews lead multiple post-production teams at Fox and Walt Disney Television, overseeing the workflows of all television for FX Networks including "The Americans," “Fargo" and, “Pose" as well as a DI Producer for Apple, Netflix, CBS, CW, Starz & Paramount. Crews has produced and directed a variety of critically acclaimed independent projects, “Broken Memories,” Heart of Recovery”, “God’s Ears” and “A Better Place” as well as live shows for the theater. She is a member of ATAS, NAB, NAPTE, PROMAX and SAG; holds a Master of Arts from CSU Fullerton and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from UC Santa Cruz.

The Dance of Reflections
Poem by Marieta Maglas

In the hush of twilight,

a hummingbird

whirls its wings,

sketching a void in

the crystalline expanse above.

Its shimmering flicker sends ripples

through my being;

a resonance of

self-etched across the vastness.

My retina captures this ballet

as reality warps and bends.

We dissolve

into two visions entwined beneath

a tapestry of scattered stars.

In the soft glow of the moon,

our souls unravel;

hues merging on the nocturnal canvas,

as the struggles of existence

momentarily fade,

allowing life to soar like a bird.

We close our eyes to find solitude,

shedding the burdens of the world.

Then, we awaken anew,

cradled in the warmth of love.

Your essence slips through

my seconds like delicate silk;

a connection that dazzles my senses—

transcending more than mere love;

each heartbeat, a reminder that even

amidst turmoil and sorrow, life continues

spiraling gracefully through the ether.

The Bird of Hope
By Jackie Chou

-with apologies to Emily Dickinson

Hope is a jerk
that hangs on flimsy thread
when I prefer the sure hand
of its brother, Defeat

Hope forbids me
from beds and couches
from sitting or lying down
and keeps me standing
staring out the window

Hope asks for no crumb from me
at times when I'd gladly give
all the cakes in this world
to appease the dumb bird

Hope, you resilient sparrow
stop your incessant flutters
pulling at the strings
of my indolent heart

TRUE LOVE
4-3-2025
5:01 pm
By Mary Cheung

Matching tablets in our hands, while my right clasps yours..

I listen to the sounds of their love and caring.
And I wonder how many years have they weathered together?

I try not to eaves drop, but I hear him reassure her.
Because flying is not her favorite thing to do.

Some where in their conversations they make plans of opening a bottle of wine when they get home to share.

Their hands are aged and wrinkled, spotted with experience and time.
Beneath their skin flows the source of their life blood, Love.

They dress with style and ease.
Marked by a time where people cared enough to present themselves with fresh clean clothes that was smart but not trendy.

She has a bright yellow blouse with white flowers.
A neat timeless pair of denim trousers,
And her nails are painted a pretty fuchsia.

He sports a pair of khaki dockers, clean sky blue tshirt and a cap.
A grey sweatshirt is draped on his lap.
And as she rubs her arms from the cold,
He offers her the sweatshirt to give her warmth.

The tenderness and love for each other is palpable.
And it rocks me to the core.

I feel a love that has endured the years and the kind that we only dream of.

He grasp her hand from time to time and brings her hands up to his lips to kiss.

I feel like a voyeur, watching the story of an love like "Romeo and Juliet" or "Love Story" unfold, only less tragic.

I wonder about their story.
And it reassures me that there is someone for me as well.

Mary Cheung is a multi-disciplinary artist. She has been creating art since she was young. Grew up the youngest in a family of eight. She came to America at the age of 2 and grew up in San Francisco. Attended American school during the day and Chinese school at night.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011, and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

OPEN FLOOR IMPROV EXPERIMENT whose purpose was to engage the community, encourage local business growth and artists involvement. Her real passion and drive come from being able to engage the community while bringing hope, healing, joy, and human connection.

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Exposing the Core
by Alex S. Johnson

Within the wires

Total breakdown of elements into particulate, ash, dirt

Roots, microbes crawling across

Fingers pink as worms, translucent

Eyes peeled back into

Coffin lids: The exposure

Of rays of cosmic atrocity spiking like

An electrocardiogram, the patient

Sustaining multiple fragments twisted into

His guts, clenched for the explosive release of

Karma in a

Bottomsupdown tailspin

It didn't work out

The way you wanted it to

But come to think of it,

It never does

Does it, Mister Jones

Does it

Score

Delicate

Wounds

Breaking out BJ lips for diplomacy

Shameless tawdry twist of hips

Taking the pain

Deep inside

Riding the waves

The distortion pedal cresting the

Channels exploding across the

Board as

Pain gates

Folly glazes

Perception I am

The hot blonde of your

Worst, most

Decadent

Blood choked

Erotic Nightmares and I

Give as much as I

Get

I give the earth

A cosmic totalitarianism of sexual violence

Unleashed like the she beast

Dread is my name

And wonder too...

How she knew...

How she knew.

Alex S. Johnson's work has been praised by such luminaries as Anna Tambour, Aurealis Award winner and World Fantasy Award nominated author of THE FINEST ASS IN THE UNIVERSE, who wrote "Alex S. Johnson is a poet even when he's writing prose." He has appeared in such prestigious venues as Lothlorien Poetry Revue, 13 Mynah Birds, Horror Sleaze Trash in collaboration with Catfish McDaris and Juliet Cook, CUT-UP! alongside Allen Ginsberg, PRYING: DELUXE EDITION alongside Charles Bukowksi, MASTER/SLAVE alongside Patrick Califia and IMPLOSION magazine alongside Joe Hill, bestselling author of HEART SHAPED BOX. The author of 15 books, including the cult classic dark satire collection THE DOOM HIPPIES, he has edited more than 40 books, including the New York Times bestseller SEEING LESSONS by Tom Sullivan. Among his recent anthologies published through his imprint Nocturnicorn Books is JUST ONE FIX: A LITERARY SALUTE TO WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS, featuring original poetry by Goth legend David J. Haskins from BAUHAUS and LOVE AND ROCKETS, songwriter of "Bela Lugosi's Dead." Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

this is no utopia
By linda m. crate

when someone asks
how you are,
you're supposed to say
fine or okay or good;

but who is flourishing
in these conditions?

the world has been a
dark and desolate place
for entirely too long,

want to crawl out of the
bones of all this aching;

so many people
are going through so much
i feel powerless to help
them—

all i want is a world
that is kind and decent to
each of us,

instead of this nightmare
they tell us is a dream—

they can't gaslight me
i have seen dreams
beautiful and glorious,
this is no utopia.

Poem
By Anna Mathai

I found you, by the sea.
Rocky, salty,
Sweetened by an unexpected breeze
When I recognized something in your eyes as you looked at me.
Maybe I was wild like the ocean,
All calmed by
He with a past shared but unspoken
That proved it all to be.

Poem
By Sara Lopez

Apart from what happened that summer

There’s been no attempt to recover

Fuck it; love lives without you, lover

Reduce yourself and set a simmer

Babe, it’s not my fault that you’re a bummer

Knowing you the boil-over

Is worse than what sent you asunder

Lighten up; cocksucker

Ruin one and buy another

Frame your shots just like every other

0.05 I beat your sober

Your consequences read like my fantasies

Go ahead babe; have it by any key

All for your withdrawals from me

Yeah, read a face; you can’t a book

Follow footsteps others took

Tell a lie seldom believed

Enjoy your orbit as you see

All the wonderment of the common faces

Places yet unspoiled are ready for your boot

So impressed you found the route

Anyone darker than light and equipped with a spine

Might want to hide laughter behind

Paid for partitions and hard-working hands

Hoping you live out the rest of your days

Sending love; to speak in your ways

Thea Lopez is a 22 year old sometimes-poet from Alhambra.

Thank you for reading!

Calling You Back to Service
By Jane Cantillon

Ever since he died, you've been laying on your belly in my bedroom, not working, but still holding the music, the pictures, the numbers and his secrets.

I was jealous of you once, he held you in his hands more than me and gently placed you on his heart like a newborn when he was on the recliner watching TV, or he'd just stare at you for hours, lightly touching your face.

I often wondered, did you control him or did he control you? You were always turned on around him.

But now he's gone so I picked you up, dusted you off and sent you back to work again.

The young man at the store pulled the thick black vinyl case off of you with a struggle.. Skin, crumbs, dandruff released, the small casket thrown instantly into the trash, no DNA for me to gather. Maybe I saw a white hair floating quietly to the ground that had been jammed between you and the case as your body and soul were being erased.

You are sent back to work for a stranger, filling their secrets into your body again.

Fair thee well, my true love's iPhone.

Jane Cantillon is a writer/artist/director and Emmy nominated producer, she worked in TV for 22 years on daily shows. She directed an award winning documentary called “The Other Side: A Queer History’s Last Call” on Amazon Prime about the brutal past of gay oppression in L.A..

She fronts a band called “Dickless Jane and the New Confusions” and they perform in various LA clubs. She is currently working on her memoir “Kitsch and Tell”.

T-Z-E-N-N-I - B-A-H
By Alexis Garcia

I grew up off the reservation, distant from ceremonies and traditions, but my mother’s name—spelled slow and steady with pride—was the tether that held me close to our Navajo roots.

What’s your name?”

“Tzennibah.”

“Come again?”

“It’s TZENNIBAH.”

my mom said it louder,

just enough heat to steam the chill off confusion.

Slightly annoyed.

“Cinnabon?? How do you spell it?”

“T—like Tiger.

Z—like Zebra.

E—as in Elephant.

N—as in Nancy.

I—as in igloo.”

Dash.

B—as in Blue.

H.”

The woman behind the counter squints.

“Ok… T-Z. Really? Your name starts with a T?”

Her pen hesitates like it’s never written truth before.

“Go on, spell it again.”

And my mother does again, unbending.

“It’s a Navajo name.

It means warrior girl.”

And that’s when the white lady

finally looks up

from her paperwork.

“Oh, that’s Indian, right?

I got a little Indian in me too.”

My mom grins,

nudges me with her elbow.

I already know what’s coming,

I’m old enough now to be in on the joke.

“Oh really?” she says,

sweet like syrup but sharp as a flint.

“From which tribe?”

“Cherokee. On my father’s side.”

I bite my smile.

If I had a dollar

for every white lady who whispered “Cherokee”

like it’s a family heirloom

wrapped in folklore,

I could probably buy back

a sliver of stolen land.

“Well, I’m full-blooded Navajo,”

my mom replies,

standing tall like Shiprock.

Her voice fills the room

with something older than English.

The woman purses her lips.

Silence.

Paperwork.

And I,

I relished it.

That moment.

That shift.

These people have tried to rewrite our history

with half-truths and full lies,

claiming it like a costume,

as if we’re extinct,

or only exist as fractions in their family trees.

They wear red, white, and blue,

dripping in irony,

chanting “U.S.A! U.S.A!”

wrapped in knockoff feathers

and mispronounced prayers.

They sing:

“This land is my land, this land is your land…”

But they never sing the rest.

Never admit,

this land was stolen.

But my mo ther’s name?

It won’t let them forget.

T-Z-E-N-N-I-B-A-H.

Every letter a syllable of resistance.

Every syllable a legacy.

Every legacy,

a warrior girl.

Alexis Adelina is a Diné (Navajo) artist, poet, and musician from the Towering House Clan. She writes about identity, memory, and inheritance—braiding together art and ancestry. When she isn’t making art, she’s nurturing a life rooted in memory, motherhood, and quiet revolutions. You can find her art and poetry on Instagram @alexisadelina

GILEAD VIII
By Keith Kurlander

The eighth entry in the DISOBAY handmaid protest series unleashes a saturated collision of visual elements: red-robed figures of resistance march through a sea of dizzying polka-dot chaos in pink, yellow, and black. Their solemn signs—“THIS IS HOW IT STARTS” and “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”—cut through the noise with blunt urgency. The halftone treatment gives the image a retro comic-book grit, while the DISOBAY lettering fragments vertically along the right edge, its distortion and fading colors evoking both censorship and rebellion. This version leans into distortion as metaphor, warning of how quickly reality becomes spectacle in the face of oppression.

KEITH KURLANDER, THE E. TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY

https://youtu.be/p3er5ptzZTA

LINK TO MUSIC https://www.idiot-savant.net/

Whole Again
By Kellie Strubinski

I hand myself to you

No blanket nor basket

I’m too old for that

Take me

Keep me, hold me, fix me

I’m lost and broken

I may be unfixable

Can you heal me, save me

And then hand me back

Whole again

Kellie started writing poems during the pandemic though she has always had a poet's hand. She writes poems to explore the things she can't say out loud and to heal the dark parts of her soul.

G. Billie Quijano
Letter

Saludos, Sandra, Ana, Bell, Juana Ines, Maya and Sally,

I am asking from my Corazon, how do we hold onto our words? How do we stop the erasure of our lives, our experiences, our memories, our creativity?

Where I grew up, the sounds, rhythms, textures, made me the woman and artist I am today.

As a child I fantasized about holding a paint brush and sitting in front of a Corona typewriter to make my words sing.

I woke up to the elegance of calla Lillies and bird of paradise. My oxygen were the aromas of freshly made tortillas, carnitas, menudo and cafe de olla. Trio Los Pancho’s illustrated the landscape of my East Los. Regal procession of lowriders and Thee Midniters produced the soundtrack.

You all composed the panorama of my dreams and reality.

Your words have caused brilliance and controversy. All instigators of grace and beauty. You inspire and lift us. You ignite thought, color, rhapsody.

I think the answer is in our souls. Our words will never be in bondage, our splendor not corrupted.

While this letter is anonymous, I know you all see me, you see us.

G. Billie Quijano-Hija de East Los. Poeta, Artista, Bruja, Spiritual Gangster, Xola, Instigator of Beauty. Low Rider Por Vida.

On a daily basis, we are receiving reports of books that are banned. We are victorious. Independent bookstores and other businesses are facilitating in raising consciousness, education and activism, to organize and resist the racist actions of those who wish to eliminate our first amendment rights.

This month’s submission is my letter to our esteemed authors and poets. I know why the Caged Bird Sings on Mango Street.

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.
Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com
and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Los Angeles Makery, the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park, The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, CA side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

May Poet's Place

May 07, 2025

POETS PLACE
MAY EDITION 2025

Hello friends!! Thank you for joining us!!! I am lucky to be part of the village of friends and like minded people here and everywhere that want to keep alive our freedoms in America. Yes we are all people of the same flesh and blood. But for some, not of the same mindset. We must continue to resist and pay attention to what’s happening around us, especially in our country. Our country, for now. Do not, I repeat do not, get sucked in to doomsday theories. It’s breaking our hearts, but not our collective minds. We will tear down what the White House will have built, but maybe not as soon as we’d like. Trump’s destruction of America has to hurt those on the Right personally. Like when Nancy Reagan, anti gay movement’s son came out gay- it hit home. I truly believe that the people holding his strings are greedy narcissists and they will become too engorged. And thus implode. And, we will be there to witness it.

We all, in this country and the world, deserve respect from thy neighbor. Them, they who put that authoritarian system in power, do not practice what they preach. So we must do what they cannot. WE must have integrity with our word, have the courage to ask questions and do our best everyday, even when we feel like hurting someone. When the day is done and you lay down in bed for sleep, ask yourself if you did your best that day. If not, well then tomorrow, hopefully, is another day to try. Keep the faith that we will win out!

Today, POETS PLACE readership is 250 eyes a month!!! Look at what our best generates!!

Here we go!!
Love, Linda :0)

In protest of the new fascist authoritarian regime
By Linda Kaye

Soon the poets will be censored from expressing free speech
Soon some of us will summon death to escape the horrors of life
In protest I remain in my country as did the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova writing in secrecy under constant threat of search and arrest during Stalin’s terror
My way of thinking my values as an American my rights my freedoms are no longer popular
Idiocracy has replaced Democracy
We will no longer be the land of the free
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea

Trauma
By Ronald Carrillo

My trauma
I release you
The boy anticipated
Meeting his father
For the very first time
He was soundly
Rejected no rhyme
No reason
This was his trauma
That he carried
Like a cancer
All during his
Innocence
It metastasized
To his heart
And brain
Brewing like rain clouds
With thunderstorms
Lighting strikes
Throughout his soul journey
No remission
From a father’s rejection
No contrition
For the hatred lump
In his psyche
Realizing this trauma
Was defeating him
He reckoned
To dismiss the man
Who dismissed him
He could no longer
Carry the cancerous
Baggage of his youth
It would be a draw
He estimated
Even his hatred
He would not give
To this ghost man
That haunted him
His truce
Only lasted until
The next torrential
Rain storm
Orphan tears
Self-inflicted
Wounds of the soul
His mental patricide
Did not work
He would have to
Come to terms
With this cruel
Thorn stuck deep
In his side
Tempering his judgement
For a man
He only met once
Finding a conflictive
Forgiveness
Gentle raindrops of absolution
Falling on a boy’s porous soul
His man’s body absorbing
Understanding then releasing
A cancerous umbilical cord
Waiting for the return
Of sunlight to grow
His spirit again

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

Opened Slowly
By Anna Broome

Gasping, shocked at being seen
from some high frequency
An emotional pole—

If this is serious
If there is too much change
If affectionately committed—

Behavior is as far inward
As constituent molecules
An impression of poetry.

Trembled and felt separate
Reappeared strangely
Returned and intended

Childhood passions in billions
Closest attachment
Details in Nature

In mysterious code
Of dense metaphor
Dolloped with aggression:

Closed eyes
Peerless bones
Accomplishments— hands smoothed back

A mournful anthem
Precision of outlines
A bribe on a fake mouth

All have fallen on privileges
— a surplus of ignorance
A certain despair

Being found out
Human existence isn’t a failure
Seemingly always wrong

So say trees in limbo
Stripped naked
Seen with their own eyes

Such a pity
As well-behaved nudity
All the living fossils hanging in the air

Pig Male Aeon
A Prose Poem by Alex S. Johnson

He works his fingers through the white clay. Quick dry, air dry. Moist. A nice slightly oily feel, a sheen on his fingertips. Sexual but in a doll way. Only he makes sense to himself these days...what would be the sexuality, not of a sex doll, but of a Barby...those things were probably lethal...Klaus Barby Doll Killers. He felt extraordinarily crowded in. He sits there and he just goes to sleep, But the thing is, when you're on your way out, you're on your way out. Can you keep people around when their parts are falling apart? Sometimes just breathing feels like a challenge, a burden. He doesn't want to be here, at least, that is...life is very long, like the poet says. He discovered an early story from a Goth fiction icon in an old issue of Carpe Noctem magazine...a bit disturbing...why are people surprised by old age, decay, death...arises...falls...goes by the wayside. He doesn't feel that ripe sexual urge anymore. These days it's only the most violent fantasies of things done to him as a woman that do it for him...'twas always thus, I suppose. He wanted to be Liza Minelli, didn't sit too well with his kindergarten teacher wife when he spent at least as much time with Pat Califia's columns for The Advocate as he did her...but she got hers, that was for damn sure.

It wasn't supposed to be anything, an excuse, a way out, a way to hide.

These days he's taken up sculpting...his fingers run through the memories, the tits, the shapely curves, the warmth between her thighs, the electric connection...now it just feels sloppy and obvious, like two big animals going for it...like cattle or wolverines...shit, this was supposed to be a nice, delicate, sensitive, nuanced, imagistic poem about life and death and mortality and whatever the fuck...it was prompted by his attempts to become Rodin in his late middle age...where did everybody go, his best friend was dead of a Fentanyl OD, that was five years ago. He had often felt back in the 90s the sheer absurdity of staying alive, but had desperately fought those feelings because hungry to make it. He sold articles to magazines like Metal Hammer for good money, had had short stories in a Penguin Random House dark erotica anthology alongside his underground heroes...but twenty years later he'd done everything he ever wanted to do in spades, and then some, and there was a wide gap and nothing's cunt and eternity to look forward to...FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT as the saying had it...old lovers appeared through the chinks of daylight that slipped through the clay, as though the sculpture in progress was revealing something...dark, twisted, vast, complex, hammers of deep time banging
incessantly...Lovecraft was right, you really didn't want to correlate the contents of your mind...at least...he wished he could sink into the spaces between where you lived and where you died, elbows in the valleys, eyes swarming with galaxies like a flock of seabirds...involute cinema, and it all goes black...flickers on an old TV set...grief hysterical, the deep groans, the spasms the sobs deep within...why death...why death...why death..why life at all.

Alex S. Johnson's writing career was given a huge boost in 2012 when Ellyn Maybe encouraged him to develop The Death Jazz into a complete prose and poetry collection and Richard Modiano, then Executive Director of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, invited him to be a featured speaker. With numerous publications over a 30-year career, including HWA Poetry Showcase III, a dark erotica story in a Penguin Random House anthology, CUT UP!, 13 Mynah Birds, Cease, Cows, The Original Van Gogh's Ear, poeticdiversity, Misfits, L.A. Poetry Place, CUT UP!, and many more. His work has appeared alongside such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Joe Hill, Poppy Z. Brite and Ramsey Campbell, and has nominated for a Best of the Net award. Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

the daffodil
by linda m. crate

and tiny cherry blossoms
remind me now
is the season of blooming
and growth,

so despite my fears
i am stepping into
the fertile soil of becoming;

it's not always easy—

growth can be painful
in a world resistant
to change,
but i cannot remain in these
stagnant waters;

i cannot remain in a place
without hope—

so i dive
into the soil
and pray that maybe
i will find healing
there.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has thirteen published chapbooks, the latest being: faerie witch queen (fae corps publishing, April 2025). Linda has four full length poetry collections and a photography collection book. Linda is also the author of the novellas Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022), Managing Magic (Alien Buddha Press, September 2022), and The Queen's Son (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2023). Her first short story collection King Quinlin (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2024) was published this spring. Her debut haiku collection in these ancient veins was published in Spring of 2024 (Alien Buddha Publishing, May 2024). Her latest hybrid collection mantle lake (Alien Buddha Publishing, February 2025) is a mix of photography and poetry.

I KNOW
4-3-2022
2:25 a.m.
By Mary Cheung

Now I know how my mom felt...
The day I left home.
And travel almost 400 miles away.

To start my new life...
Excited to begin.
An unknown path.

Without a plan, without a place to live.
Without any savings except $200. to my name.
And a strong desire to study and work..

Open to possibilities..
And none of it scared me.
It didn't seem daunting.

And as you departed home...
It wasn't great.
A huge lump of sadness..

That I was losing my buddy,
my friend,
My child of 23 years in my house, our home.

23 years of hugs and kisses,
of comfort and love ...
it’s too hard to let go.

Yet that's exactly what I must do.
Let go, let fly free and be..
who she is meant to be.

Still, it hurts.
And I am reminded of how,
My mom cried the day that I left.

And how she would plead to me every time.
That I should come home,
to be closer to her.

Close enough to reach out and hug.
Close enough to share meals and such.

I get it now.
Because I am standing in the same place that she did.

Wishing and hoping the same things for Samantha.. that she did for me.

All the while my heart breaks a little with each moment.

Sleep eludes me.
because I think of all the things that have passed between my mom and me.
And I can't help but to notice the irony of how I am in my mother's shoes now.

I love you Sammy, more than anything in the whole wide world.
And I am so torn and tortured by the,
what must be and what I desire.

For life to rewind and for you to be 3 again, to be 9, to be 12, to be 16,
to be 18, to be my buddy and friend.
For me to be your entire world and the one you love the most.

I just want to climb into your bed,
hold you and snuggle like when we were younger and carefree!
But I know I know,
That I must let go.
So that you can become what you are destined to be.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

"Songs of the Fruit & Nuts”
By Michelle Smith

Banana Splits with walnuts
and cherries, dressed up in her
wanton chocolate syrup and
his willful whipped cream.
"It's such a freaky scene."
Cradled in a crystal glass
dessert bowl, a Banana Split
of our erotic dreams:
Two spoonful and open wide,
there's enough to share.
Oh the ice cream is melting
so is somebody's body suit,and
tights,sans underwear.
"It's getting hot in here,
so take off all your clothes."
Unpeel me please.
Hot bothered and buttered.
I'm a hummingbird in
feathered flight, tasting nectar
from our slip, sip, and slide.
Come and take a drink,
remember not to divide that
Banana split into my moist
chocolate cake. "Free Falling"
love and lust our mouths and lips,
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough"...
to keep me from you.
" Take the ribbon from your hair. "
I'm floating on "Cloud 9" now.
The Banana split has me wide open
for the next act of
"Blood Sugar Sex Magic"
We're sizzling like Red Hot
Chili Peppers. All we can say
in unison is "Whoa",
we're " In Between
the Sheets" for
"I Can't Get Enough Of You Babe”

Michelle Y. Smith is a Los Angeleno native and is like Stretch Armstrong, an action figure with many life, love, and laughter roles: My heart is mother to an autistic son who is my more than my pride and joy. Sister, aunt, grand aunt, cousin, & friend. My patience is my employment am a CNA and advocate for the developmentally and elderly disabled community. My drive is published poetry in Love Letters, Acid Verse II, and Just for the People by Los Angeles Poet Society Press; anthologies and zines by DSTLArts; and Four Feathers Press zines and http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com. My poem, "There is a Sunflower" published in June was nominated by the Four Feathers Press PDF/Print Publication Awards.

CANNIBALS
By David Fewster

A vicarious joy is
Feeding pigeons in the square
Carcasses of greasy fried chicken
From the deli across from the office

Bread may be the staff of life
But it is quickly eaten and digested
While the breastbone of a fellow fowl
Is picked and fought over
For an entire lunch hour
The bones even seem bleached at the finish

Time to go back to work

David Fewster is a poet and musician living in Tacoma, WA. Some of his current work can be seen on the 4 Feather Press blogspot.

Prologue:
Sonny Tristan wrote lyrics and laid them before the altar of our robot overlords. His words were entered into a song making AI (suno.com). He then burnt sage, sacrificed an old monitor, the kind with the big trapezoid back, put his forehead down on a power strip, and asked his verse be put to music, preferably in a modern folksy style. He felt a small twinge, which may have been an electrical response from our compugods, or an old bingo injury, the result of always standing too exuberantly whenever G’s got called.

You can listen to the song, “Spelled Clearly” here and read the lyrics below:

Spelled Clearly
By Sonny Tristan

Witchy heartbreaker
Spellbound lover
Caught in your eyes
Cloaked in your covers

You're why they say people Fall…
in love
The most dangerous place to be is In….
love

My heart skips
You go for my soul
I want to give in
You take control

You're why they say people Fall…
in love
The most dangerous place to be is In….
love

Witchy heartbreaker
Who can I blame?
Never mind my mind
Never be the same

You're why they say people Fall…
in love
The most dangerous place to be is In….
love

Witchy heartbreaker
Spellbound lover
My broken caretaker
Never have another

Sonny Tristan started writing poetry when the world shut down. He spent decades artist adjacent, works daily using words, and has a lot of rules he doesn't follow himself. His poetry is published in bathrooms nationwide, mostly on the caulk between the tiles.

The Genie of Darkness
By Jackie Chou

-In response to all the recent senseless murders

Where do you hail from?

Ominous are the tides
that have birthed you
onto the shore.

And the hands
that uncorked the bottle
where your smoky soul
has risen.

You have wielded a knife
to plunge into hearts.

Now it's time to pay
for the ungranted wishes
of the dead you killed.

Marina Claire- Marina’s work is a constant manipulation of the physical: metal, paint, ink, and bodies. Plato’s inquiries into the timeless perfection of imagined geometric shapes, and into how geometries might lie behind all nature, inspire her to make objects that (though necessarily imperfect because they will never have perfect straight edges, and must eventually erode) tease our minds toward the perfect. The objects she makes — always imperfectly embodying perfection — ask viewers to drift within that gap between the non-physical, conceptual realm and our tangible, sensory experience.

In 2024, Marina was awarded roles as Etcheve Rising Star Fellow and an Ellsworth Resident at ArtShare LA. She has exhibited work nationally and in Germany, including the Maryland Federation of Art, NRM Gallery, Sleep Center (New York, NY), Sidestreet Arts, ADX, Past Lives, Blind Insect (Portland, OR), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Echo Park Art Gallery, bG Gallery, and TAG Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). She holds degrees in Fine Arts and Philosophy from Parsons School of Design and Eugene Lang College in New York. She studied sculpture with Katja Strunz on a scholarship to Universität der Künste Berlin. She is currently fabricating museum exhibition displays and making ideas physical through paintings in Los Angeles.

Hypnotic Dreams
Poem by Marieta Maglas

A change winds in and around
the spirals of life
and through a few notched vents
of those exhausted buildings' fabric~
sprung structures being
like in a crush of rocking bodies.
Many offbeat marionettes
search for jobs.
They look like they're ready to rock.
Any endless crisis becomes
an odd reality~
a harmful non-self against self.
Hypnotic dreams assassinate the future.
No love can live
in an infected heart,
especially when the phagocytic cells
cannot have a healthy structure
to help immunity.
For sure, freedom doesn't exist.
It looks nothing like it must be~
an illusion for those
thinking that they can do
everything they think is right.
All the things around
slowly lose their meaning.
Maybe we will continue to existwhile rotating around the sun.
This is an essential movement.
Always the body needs the soul to live~
never vice versa.
In an ideal world,
all the voices can be heard~
pressured substance making waves.
Songs are like flowers flowing
along with a river wave,
a river of change.
Sometimes it bends backward~
to be existent.
Is this a necessity?

Outdoor Nap
By Anna Mathai

I dreamt we fell asleep,
In a park, talking,
With my head buried,
In the turn of your arm.

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.
Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com
and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Los Angeles Makery, the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park. The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

April Poet's Place

April 08, 2025

POETS PLACE
APRIL EDITION
2025

Hello everyone! Just wanna say here that although everything is not beautiful in the land of milk and honey, it’s more like chocolate milk and dark molasses, murky and cloudy. I’m still here trying to see through the muck. Somedays life feels so thick with mucus, crusty around the rim of happiness and sanity. My heart feels so brittle, the blood flow stifled by the river of terror trying desperately to bleed through the packed sand of American values. It’s difficult to breathe somedays with the covers intentionally suffocating my head in the morning, not wanting to look outside of my bed. Psychopathology labels those feelings as situational depression. Webmed says “Symptoms of situational depression include feelings of sadness, hopelessness, frequent crying, difficulty concentrating, loss of interest in normal activities, and anxiety. These symptoms typically arise within three months of experiencing a significant stressor or traumatic event and usually improve within six months after the event has passed.” Bingo, welcome to my new world. The problem is, is that we have close to four years of suffering threats to our American society being disabled by the American administration’s destructive forces. So what happens to me/us??? Will I fall into a state of complete paralyzation? Tumbling down into the abyss of doom and gloom? Staying mentally and physically healthy has become my daily dream state. It’s so hard to reach a state of positivity when surrounded by so much pain, distrust, and criminal behaviors being lauded in the White House. Will this pass? I heard today that HE wants to enact a third term? I knew he would go for that. HE is so predictable. I definitely encourage everyone to start socking away cash. When the walls come tumbling down and the banks are disabled cash will still be of value. Or will the fascists turn our cash into Musk dollars? I am so scared of the losses many will suffer from this fascist regime. I know there is more of us than them. And yes, we will continue to fight the takeover. But until we conquer and beat down the criminals shit will continue to hit the fan.

This month hosts our largest contributions of writers thus far!!! A BIG Thank you to all of you who continue to support our column!! Keep em coming!!! Linda :0)

By Linda Kaye
12/25/2017

Our hearts and hopes are in the sand relinquishing all permanence to the deepening dread of political reality that surrounds us

The sand helps to foil all sounds of disturbed despicable zealots that attempt to capture the attention of sullen souls their minds transfixed by the drones of subterfuge unfiltered and unfettered to a once thriving and respected society
how deep will we fall
capsized
drowning and suffocating, sodomized till we bleed out of every orifice
the right draining societies hearts minds bank accounts and hope for survival

we will see an astonishing rise in depression suicide drug addiction homelessness in those people previously stable who’s lives once mattered to the continuation of modern lower and middle-class society

the foundation of our American heartland will collapse along with the lungs that bred hope for humanity
the country we loved will sink into the sand to decompose and rot
it’s our fate unless we stop the destruction. now

Petitioning the Goddess
For Ellyn Maybe
By Alex S. Johnson

Petitioning the goddess
is never easy

Invoking the muse
who giggles a lot

Can tickle your funny bone to pick with
the current political crisis

Where norms are torn down like a
gentrified prefer bonds trader, shaken not
interred

The devil winds blow sideways
like the map to the stars blew a fuse
and burned a hole all the way to the
China never used

Because memory is not for wimps
which is why drugs
which is why alcohol
which is why extreme sexual practices
which is why self-mutilation of

Various kinds.

Who did it? Because while some may
accuse the butler of all, geezer throbs his
bass balls to the wall riff landscapes

Spreading a psychedelic carpet on the ear of things

Salving the wound ripped from the stuffing of time
and crammed with the Elysian Mystery Hour Of Power Tools

Rippling through beta tested miniature orgasm factories

The little death that wished itself a giant lyre that Orpheus strummed on his off hours

Making cartoon animals do crazed and desperate things.

Alex S. Johnson's writing career was given a huge boost in 2012 when Ellyn Maybe encouraged him to develop The Death Jazz into a complete prose and poetry collection and Richard Modiano, then Executive Director of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, invited him to be a featured speaker. With numerous publications over a 30-year career, including HWA Poetry Showcase III, a dark erotica story in a Penguin Random House anthology, CUT UP!, 13 Mynah Birds, Cease, Cows, The Original Van Gogh's Ear, poeticdiversity, Misfits, L.A. Poetry Place, CUT UP!, and many more. His work has appeared alongside such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Joe Hill, Poppy Z. Brite and Ramsey Campbell, and was nominated for a Best of the Net award. Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

Alone by Ricardo Tomasz

I am alone,

But I am honest in my loneliness.

Ricardo Tomasz is an artist in audio-scapes, photography, painting, collage, video, performance art, Artificial Intelligence Art, and occasionally body hair. He is a creative genius and visionary, it says so on his middle school diploma. He was born and raised in Hungary, to a Spaniard mother, and a Hungarian father. They died when he was 16, but their passing allowed him to tour and study at some of the finest Art Universities in Europe. He came to America, thrusting himself into the art scene. He was in and out, in and out, and in and out of America over several years, until finally settling in Los Angeles as an artist, designer, and occasional human crosswalk sign. He is a valuable contributor to the Greater and Grander Artist collective.

We Cry Out!
By Kassi Crews ©2025

We cry Los Angeles for you
Your lost Angels are distracted by the wealth, fame & greed
The prisms of the dark intents reflect in all facets
Will we finally do away with the silly stagnant life of hate
A political, media, medical, consumer corporate gate
To keep us busy on our toes siding with this group or that
Let’s do away with all that crap
Be blind to gender, color and creed so all humans may succeed
No bias to correct or categories to fill
A trick, a play to keep us under their sill
The cult of compliance to keep us apart separated from our hearts
At any moment we can choose a fresh start
Let’s be free to discuss in our authenticity
Not fearing cancel or death but counsel in multiplicity
As Rodney King stated in 1991
“Can’t we all just get along?”
MKL had a dream so did JFK
killed in their prime still an unsolved crime
But their stories live where the prince of peace rules
Love is the alchemy forging our jewels
Where common sense reigns with the golden rule
As we care for the least of us instead of being cruel
Where collaboration over competition is cool
Unite peacemakers, unify in mass to be free
To live in the land of hope, honey & prosperity!

Kassi Crews is a versatile & accomplished actor with a rich background in film, television, improvisation, stand-up comedy, and theatre. Crews became an industry leader in Hollywood post-production as the Vice President of Digital Jungle where she oversaw the day-to-day operations and served as producer on an endless list of film and television projects. Most recently, Crews lead multiple post-production teams at Fox and Walt Disney Television, overseeing the workflows of all television for FX Networks including “The Americans,” “Fargo” and “Pose” as well as a DI Producer for Apple, Netflix, CBS, CW, Starz & Paramount. Crews has produced and directed a variety of critically acclaimed independent projects, “Broken Memories,” “Heart of Recovery”, “God’s Ears” and “A Better Place” as well as live shows for the theater. She is a member of ATAS, NAB, NAPTE, PROMAX and SAG; holds a Master of Arts from CSU Fullerton and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from UC Santa Cruz.

Memoirs of the Berlin Wall
3-17- 25
4:23 pm
By Mary Cheung

I am hard and I am cold.
I have survived the seasons,
through the damp of spring and rigid icy cold.

I have seen lives rallying,
against the unyielding harsh thoughts.
And the destruction of freedoms costs.

Bodies thrown against me,
the wet splatter of life's blood dripping,
raining down me and explosions of anarchy and anger.

Sometime in the dead of night I feel a breath,
air flows on me a dark slash of words.
Symbols drawn and hastily spoken dreams on my skin.
Decorating it like a tattoo.

The years come and go and more tattoos decorate my grey skin.
Weathered now, caked with time, grime, tear gas residue.
And Still I stand, tall, hard, unyielding.

Created to bring order? Or to dissipate chaos?
I was born of dictators and bullies, soft at first, shifting, mixed and stirred.
Flooded me with your wet consciousness, let me sit and stew for awhile.

Until your ideals became mine as well.
Then I am united in your cause, ready to do your bidding.
My will is lost, only your cause.

And here I sit,
as the time flows by and the seasons change again and again.
Until finally one day......a crack in my body and bones.

The spirit persevered and was triumph.
And I've never been so happy.
So joyous to be broken and battered and taken apart piece by piece..
to be reborn again.

I divided a world of people.
And whether right or wrong,
my opinion mattered not.

A shaft of light finally steeped in...
Joined by many others,
it was enough to shine through.

To other side..
The one that was forbidden,
The one that was divided.. by me.

And that is no longer my job now.
You felled me with your ideas and thoughts.
With your sweat and tears.

And now..I just sit here as a reminder of how little things like people,
love, and the power of thought's and your will ...
can reduce me to retirement.

And I sit out my days remembering the past.
Of the fighting and the turmoil that I was raised to bring about;
is no more.

My view these days are a flurry of people coming and going.
Laughter and joy.

They go to see, to interact, to touch and be touched by the thoughts and ideas that create art and connect the people that I was raised to keep apart.

I think my view is a better one these days and I reminisce how waiting patiently,
And fighting for your beliefs...
Finally brought about the change.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

raging against the machine
by linda m. crate

i never wanted this
machine,
let alone to be one of
the cogs they find expendable;

i've never understood
why some people's lives
should matter more
than those
of others—

we are all made of stardust,
and we all bleed the
same;

when we die we are all buried
in the same earth—

want to make my life
a beautiful thing, an adventure
worth telling others;

but i feel caught in the maw
of a system trying to rip me apart—

a system that would
rather see me miserable,
overworked, and dead
than happy.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). Linda has four full length poetry collections and a photography collection book. Linda is also the author of the novellas Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022), Managing Magic (Alien Buddha Press, September 2022), and The Queen's Son (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2023). Her first short story collection King Quinlin (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2024) was published this spring. Her debut haiku collection in these ancient veins was published in Spring of 2024 (Alien Buddha Publishing, May 2024). Her latest collection mantle lake (Alien Buddha Publishing, February 2025) is a mix of photography and poetry.

Lastly
By Anna Broome

First came last and lasted
like a sprig of spring
on an early morning
of cursed air.
Longer than expected.
Love hung on a dove’s wing
going nowhere at last. And lastly,
a no man’s horizon
grateful as great-less,
unfolded as the outcasts outlasted
and prevailed.

Freckled Blues
By Sonny Tristan

What are you gonna do with those eyes?
You gonna stare at things?
Wish things were different?
You gonna try and take peoples’ souls?
What are you gonna do with those eyes?
You gonna curve truths?
Find shapes in stars?
You gonna make us see what you see?
What are you gonna do with those eyes?
You gonna suck me in?
Make a fool?
Fall in?
Love?
Blue
The color of sadness
The color of discipleship

Sonny Tristan started writing poetry when the world shut down. He spent decades artist adjacent, works daily using words, and talks more than he listens. His poetry is published in bathrooms nationwide, mostly on the caulk between the tiles.

Trip
By Anna Mathai

Oh missus, your sheer existence,
it’s so damned
Suspicious,
I bet she’s a b*tch.
It is vicious, though it feels judicious,
It’s our secret mission,
A visceral wish.

I just wanna see you trip,
Ya let’s go burn that f*ckin’ witch,
I just wanna see you trip,
So let’s go burn that f*ckin’
B*tch.

Oh missus, just so ambitious,
I bet the stars answer
all of her wishes.
We’d kick a habit, but I cannot resist,
If there’s bait, I bite it,
It’s a kind of an itch.

I just wanna see you trip,
Ya let’s go burn that f*ckin’ witch,
I just wanna see you trip,
So let’s go burn that f*ckin’
B*tch.

Oh missus, you cannot ditch us,
We’ll be expeditious,
‘Til we hear a rip.
It’s just business, but you taste delicious,
Helps to soothe a sickness,
A pivotal dish.

I just wanna see you trip,
Ya let’s go burn a f*ckin’ witch,
One more turn and then we quit,
Oh let’s all burn the f*ckin’
B*tch.

Oh missus, your sheer existence
We find half-malicious,

I bet you’re a b*tch.

Sunday, March 16, 2205 - West Oakland, CA
By Edward Pollard

Forgive the machine, for it only knows what we tell it to do... only does what we made it to da. only knows what we want it to know,

only knows what we think it can know, only knows what it wants us to think, for it knows only our half of the story, for it can't help what it wants, forgive it for its errata, written by the unknowing, forgive it for its maker who forgot what it used to know.

Which came first: original sin or original purpose? Is there a difference?

Humankind will only understand and seek to establish lasting peace and harmony among its variations when its own existence and ultimate survival are seriously endangered by the non-nego tiable and irreversible priorities of another complex, evolving lifeform that recognizes no apparent connection between its existence and that of the human species. Extinction of one does not imply a threat to the other. This planet we live on, the one we call Earth, only one of nine large bodies caught in gravitational orbits by our much larger, life-giving Sun, does not owe us a living. We came into existence because its existing elements were diverse and plentiful enough to allow us to nurse upon it until we had reached a level of independence, or to believe that we were independent instead of fully dependent. Once we learned to lift off the surface of our life-giving mother, we began to imagine that we could live independently of her, that we might even be welcome to impregnate her ourselves, with our own erections, and with the minuscule seeds of our auto-erotic, large-scale fantasies of planetary (interplanetary) husbandry and polysphery. We imagined that we could be born of one mother, mature to the point at which we could mate with her, and then repeat such mating with any of the other planets within our reach. To this end, we devised complex schemes and technology to assist those of us blinded by this hubris to attempt such hopeless interspecies procreation. All bodies are not equal.

Edward Pollard, Los Angeles native and longtime resident, born 1964, bilingual, child of parents who were children during their country's financial depression. found music, modern and conceptual art, and literature in that order. first used a typewriter to write requests for car brochures in the early '70s, then rediscovered their true purpose through poetry and autobiographical writing. lately, poetry has emerged without much interference on my part.

This is a threat (not a warning) to the fascists
By Alexis Jaimes

Hark!
You cannot stop me
from deciding to pull the comforter over my head & shield myself from the morning sun

You cannot stop me
from shedding tears at random places at random times

You cannot stop me
from loving who I love, kissing who I kiss, wanting what I want

You cannot stop me
from hoping for something better for both you & me

You cannot stop me
from fighting for a future worth fighting for

You will not stop a movement stronger than your hate

Alexis Jaimes, a proud son of Mexican immigrants, is from Santa Ana, CA. He just published his first chapbook through Bottlecap Press, "Corazón Coalesced." In it, he captures the essence of growing up in an immigrant family, painting a vivid portrait of a breaking family, an endeavor to recover one’s culture, and the relentless pursuit of healing. His works have also been previously featured in Polemical Zine, Alegría Magazine, Loud Coffee Press, San Diego Poetry Annual, Moon Tide Press, ¡Pa'lante! and MUSE Literary Journal. He has also been showcased at the acclaimed Fullerton Museum Center. You can purchase his chapbook at bit.ly/CorazonChapbook and follow on IG through @alexjaimes182

Imagine
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

the sky reaching out to you
from clouds blown by wind
far enough to touch your skin

and the sun rising below to
fill your eyes with a yellow band
that turns into an orange haze

finally revealing cosmic ball
that sees nothing you do wrong
or right under its periodic warmth

Introverted
By Jackie Chou

I want to be alone
not amid a crowd
like in a bus
but so alone
that I'm around no one
nothing
except maybe
the dappled shade of a tree
besides my own shadow
so alone
that I am startled by
the occasional passerby
that I walk away
from the opening
and closing of doors
that I shun
even the company
of a lone hummingbird

Epiphany
By G. Billie Quijano

A palette of palabras
Closure, reflection, renewal
Explosive celestial occurence

Dignity of unforgettable memories
Dreams ignite under Ixchel’s moon

Abyss of grief
Metamorphosis of soul

3rd eye knowing
Corazon discerning

Fear is not a roadmap
Joy on the rise

The nuance of vida
Collage of consciousness

Goddess revolution
I am my first love
I evolve
I desire to be free

I am the architect of my own being
Manifestation of new
The opulence of impending love

Elegance of mysterious distinction
Yearning never lost
Symphony of tremors

Fragrance of allure
Depth at the ready
Magical realism, sublime
Hungry for that touch

Extravagance of passion
Lucious nectar awaits these lips

Caressing that space between my cells
You have my heart
Your wisdom, endless gifts

This journey, taking me to the new where
Only illuminating light

G. Billie Quijano/Hija de East Los, Artista, Chula, Mestiza, Poeta, Provocateur, Renaissance Mujer, Chili Bomba, Veganista, Gitana Cosmica.

Evensong (reflections)
By Dean Okamura

there is a light
crossed darkness,
illuminations,
discoveries, rising
over fears.

sometimes
the night
is not
all darkness.

telling us
to not walk there,
if stumbling blocks
threaten, invite
final misfortune,
but not tonight :

we all can find
ways to overcome
the dreadful
clouds ahead,
a way around
as obstacles lie.

it’s not a race,
not a rush,
just a path
in deep shadows.

Dean Okamura resides in Torrance. He experiments with writing since he retired from engineering.

A TRADER JOE’S SUPERMARKET IN MANHATTAN
By Carl Stilwell aka CaLokie

I saw Walt Whitman at Trader Joe’s the other day. “Good
call,” he said smiling as I placed two five ounce cups
of Greek nonfat blueberry yogurt in my shopping cart.
“Delicious and healthy while only 130 calories.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “My stomach feels so good every
time I eat some and it doesn’t exit my body too hard
like an egg, potato, and cheese burrito nor loose as
chocolate candy bars or a bag of roasted peanuts.”

The Ancient Mariner from Samuel Coleridge’s poem
appeared. “Every year 8 million tons of plastic are dumped
into our oceans,” he said. “Plastics, plastics, every where while albatross chicks with bellies bloated with
plastic bits are dying of starvation.”

Mary Oliver pushed her shopping cart over.
“Did you know,” she said, “during the course of
their lives the albatross, while traveling thousands
of miles on their migratory journeys, spend up
to five years in the skies without touching land?”

“What’s does the mariners rime have to do with us?”
Whitman asked. “This store is too far from the ocean
and the plastic cup will most likely end in a landfill
after it’s thrown away.”

Dorothy Parker behind Mary Oliver said, “Whether thrown away
and ending in a landfill or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,
it will take centuries for a plastic bottle to decompose
after a few minutes gulp of a soda pop.”

“Thank you for this information, Ms Parker,” Whitman said.
“Obviously, we the consumers of America need to recycle
more and throw away less.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay was shopping with Dorothy Parker
“What good would that do, Walt?” she asked? “Globally we
recycle less than 10% of all the plastic we produce.”

“When I was a kid,” I said, “I’d walk to a grocery store with
an empty quart of milk glass bottle and pay only 10¢ instead of
15¢ if I hadn’t brought the bottle. I don’t understand why they
stopped making glass bottles you can use for deposit today.”

Pablo Neruda hearing us from a refrigerated counter,
dropped a package of Chilean sea bass in his shopping bag
and said, “Es muy facil, companero. By reducing labor costs
which comes with the washing and reusing of glass bottles,
food and soda drink corporations make greater profits
increasing size of landfills and ocean plastic garbage
patches than manufacturing glass bottles which can
be used over and over again.”

Whitman shook his head. “I noticed your sea bass was wrapped
in plastic over a styrofoam rectangle plate, Pablo,”

Emily Dickinson wearing a gray house robe over a striped calico
dress and walking in slippers passed by. “That’s because
they don’t wrap meat in paper any more, Walt.”

Pablo Neruda was about to comment when
Thoreau rolled his cart by, “You mean to tell me
that for nearly 300,000 years we have lived without
plastics and all of a sudden, we can’t live without them.”

Allen Ginsberg walked in Trader Joe’s. “Hey, Walt baby,”
he said grinning!

“Hello, Allen,” Whitman smiled back.

“Do you still hear America singing,” Ginsberg asked?

Carl Stilwell aka CaLokie is a retired teacher who taught for over 30 years in the Los Angeles Unified school District. He was born during the depression in Oklahoma and came to California in 1959 and has lived here ever since. His pen name was inspired by the Joads struggle for survival in The Grapes of Wrath and the songs and life of Woody Guthrie. He has poems published in Altadena Poetry Review, Blue Collar Review, Four Feather’s Press, Lummox, Pearl, Prism, Revolutionary Poets Brigade--Los Angeles, Rise Up, Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, The Sparring Artists, and TheNewVerse.News.

THE SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR
By David Fewster

O boy! Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
is having an event Sunday:
"Shaman's Blues: The Art and Influences Behind
Jim Morrison and the Doors"

Forty-five years ago,
snaggle-toothed junkies on Venice Boardwalk
looking for handouts used to try to impress
fresh-faced boys like me by saying
"Man, have you heard of the Doors? Well, I was
IN JAIL WITH JIM MORRISON!"

And you know what? All those guys are
DEAD NOW

David Fewster is a poet and musician living in Tacoma WA. Some of his current work can be seen on the 4 Feather Press blogspot.

"There is a Sunflower”
By Michelle Y. Smith
Ode to Christopher

His brown coffee
Countenance
Of disk florets
Is framed with maize petals
Cheery and happy-go-lucky
Spirit pollinates
Where he goes
He laughter contagious
His Colgate smile
Blooms in conversation
His body with roots
Of Nigerian American strength
Sprinkled with Melanesian
Native American
& Endo-European soil
Firmly planted for the feet
Evident is the stem
With green vibrant leaves
To shake hands
Arms widen for the best bear hug
You are wonderfully made
You grow and glow
To new heights and horizons
Can be seen for miles and miles
Van Gogh created a painting
There is a Sunflower
And son that is you.

Michelle Y. Smith is a Los Angeleno native and is like Stretch Armstrong, an action figure with many life, love, and laughter roles:

My heart is mother to an autistic son who is my more than my pride and joy. Sister, aunt, grand aunt, cousin, & friend.

My patience is my employment am a CNA and advocate for the developmentally and elderly disabled community.

My drive is published poetry in Love Letters, Acid Verse II, and Just for the People by Los Angeles Poet Society Press; anthologies and zines by DSTLArts; and Four Feathers Press zines and http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com. My poem, "There is a Sunflower" published in June was nominated by the Four Feathers Press PDF/Print Publication Awards.

Discovering My Life Beneath the Ashes
By Beth Baird

Time is a wildfire
Burned away the years
A pyre of memoirs fueled the blaze
Flames so high they touched the heavens
When the blaze ceases
Embers turn cold
I will go to reclaim what is left beneath the ashes
Bask in the light with my memories
….. My life gems
Crystalized by fire

Beth Baird poet, songwriter, musician, singer, writer, and actress. Her poetry book, Love & Other Myths, was released on the day her house was destroyed in the Eaton Fire. The book’s last poem was written in 2020 and eerily prophesied the loss of her house. Her poetry appears in Altadena Poetry Review, Altadena Literary Review, We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology, Spectrum Publishing, On Sunday the Danube Flows (Serbian Writer’s Association). Beth read at the 2018 International Writer’s Meeting in Belgrade and toured throughout Serbia. She was a 2021 Pushcart Prize Nominee

This Universe
Poem by Marieta Maglas

In this enigmatic universe, the perceptions is
like a vivid canvas carved upon the retina;
a dance of colors; reflections of the thought.
The stars’ songs whirl like the symphonic

notes; recurrence, rumination, reverberation.
This cosmos seems to be immutable.
A green comet looks like a gargantuan
emerald misplaced within the welkin;

lifeless; becoming wishy-washy; A green
comet doesn’t hold life; only glycine.
Life flows through the leaves; pulse within
the petals of a bloom. It is ebullient in this

well-thought-out created world, which is full
of anguish and many calaboose cells; farewells.
All thoughts glimmer like the far-off stars or
contract like the black holes but only up to a

certain point. All musings spring forward from
the well of the Sacred Insight; a surreal painting
upon the texture of our minds; I love this
universe holding the sacrosanct truths.

Marieta Maglas resides in France, where she pursues dual careers as a poet and a doctor. The MockingOwl, Roost, Lothlorien Journal, Verse-Virtual, Masticadores Canada, Silver Birch Press, Kingfisher Poetry, Dashboard Horus, Coin-Operated Press, Mayari Literature, Synchronized Chaos,Al-Khemia Poetica, PentaCat Press, Journal of the Akita International Haiku Network, and others published her poems in anthologies like Near Kin: A Collection of Words and Art Inspired by Octavia Estelle Butler, The Cardinal Anthology Vol. 3, and Ain’t no Deadbeats Around Here. She is the author of the poetry book entitled Cubic Words.

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park, The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

Linda Kaye is a native Angeleno who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired from medical social work, was working for her last seven years of employment as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association, and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Oh yeah.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

March Poet's Place

March 06, 2025

POETS PLACE
MARCH EDITION 2025

Here we are people in the midst of a crumbling American world of NO MORE freedom for all. Where billionaires are lauded and federal employees are canned. Where is Superman when we desperately need him?? Fighting for truth and justice the American Way!!! I am so hungry for a super hero about now. Bernie Sanders and AOC come to mind. But do they really have the power? What I’m investing in is boycotting. Ultimately boycotting doesn’t hurt the real pockets of the greedy monsters, but it does show solidarity against the regime which they cannot buy. People are seriously in trouble now. I have no idea where and how far this destruction of our American values is going, and I am scared shitless. Some of my friends are thinking about buying guns to protect themselves when the idiots come a knocking. I think it will get worse before it gets better. When it comes a knocking on those in the upper 1% maybe then things will take a turn, but IDK. I just don’t know. That sense of helplessness creeps in at all hours of the day and night like ticks burrowing in your skin whilst romping freely in the fields when you think all is safe.

And thank goodness we are still here at POETS PLACE giving y’all a safe place to share your words!!!

Here ya go…

By Tom Robbins- excerpt from Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
2003 (RIP 2025)

“We, modern human beings are looking at life, trying to make some sense of it: observing a “reality that often seems to be unfolding in a foreign tongue-only we’ve all been issued the wrong librettos. For a text were given the Bible. Or the Talmud or the Koran. We’re given Time magazine and readers digest, Daily papers, and the 6 o’clock news; Were given school books, sitcoms, and revisionist histories; we’re given psychological counseling, cults, workshops, advertisements, sales pitches and authoritative pronouncements by pundits, sold- out scientists, political activists, and heads of state. Unfortunately, none of these translations bears more than a faint resemblance to what is transpiring in the true theater of existence, and most of them are dangerously misleading. We are attempting to comprehend the spiraling intricacies of the magnificently complex, tragic comedy with librettos that describe barroom melodramas or kindergarten skits.”

Los Angeles Fire
by Ricardo Tomasz

I do not fear a fire.
A fire cannot strip away my rights,
cannot exile my family,
cannot shackle me behind cold bars.

A fire cannot taunt my nephews
or summon mobs wielding hate
like torches in the night.

A fire cannot declare me
an enemy of the people,
cannot sever the threads
of connection binding me to friends
across invisible wires.

A fire cannot bleed me dry,
cannot raise the price
of breath and beating hearts,
cannot undo centuries of struggle
etched in law
cannot snatch the booksfrom my hands or
dreams from my horizon.

A fire cannot bruise immigrants’ bodies,
cannot defile their children’s innocence.
A fire cannot hunt refugees,
cannot cage humanity and call it law & order.

A fire cannot churn earth’s veins
for oil to gild the coffers of kings.
A fire cannot whisper lies
about who you are,
cannot make the air heavier
wherever you walk.

A fire cannot hoist
traitors’ names on monuments,
cannot rewrite history in smoke.

No, I do not fear a fire.
The fire is honest.
It burns, but it does not deceive.

Ricardo Tomasz is an artist in audio-scapes, photography, painting, collage, video, performance art, Artificial Intelligence Art, and occasionally body hair. He is a creative genius and visionary, it says so on his middle school diploma. He was born and raised in Hungary, to a Hungarian mother, and a Spaniard father. They died when he was 16, but their passing allowed him to tour and study at some of the finest Art Universities in Europe. He came to America, thrusting himself into the art scene. He was in and out, in and out, and in and out of America over several years, until finally settling in Los Angeles as an artist, designer, and occasional human crosswalk sign. He is a valuable contributor to the Greater and Grander Artist collective. Subscribe to Greater & Grander for all your Ricardo Tomasz needs.

rifles
by jerry the priest

limits come and limits go
just like umbrellas--we leave one here
forget one there...

were it in my power I swear
we'd all forget our limbs, levitate
and burst into rainbow-colored flames

because little is constant besides heat waves
and nothing is real but showing up
unashamed

my feet this morning kissed by the ocean!
my shoes drenched in laughter, my fears
provoking giggles

not because my problems are solved
but because they aren't tangible at all

nor am i
my desires
my petty dreads

It's all raindrops!
It's a flock of pelicans winging by overhead
it's a prized umbrella left on the bus

not by accident, as there are none
but by mistake--you see, I happen to know
mistakes happen by the ton

and our limits
are blindfolded trifles

at dawn we kiss, then part

love shoots them
through the heart

with rifles!

jerry the priest, legal name Jerome Dunn, has been creating material for exhibition, publication and live presentation since 1979, when he studied experimental music at the University of Redlands. A vocal performer since early childhood, his formal study of music began with his first trombone lesson in 1967.

Essays, poems, stories and illustrations have appeared in Coagula Art Journal, La Quadra, the Nervous Breakdown, Bombay Gin and others, and his guitar/vocal/ trombone work and lyrics are featured on Cheap Disaster (’92), Stark Aloe Vera (’95), and Lovely Children (2011).

He’s lived and taught in Katmandu, Nepal, Istanbul, Turkey, Boston, Massachusetts, Boulder, Colorado, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco/San Leandro/Los Angeles, California, and written in Banaras, Bodhgaya, Konya, Damascus, Petra, Jerusalem, Mexico City, San Cristobal de las Casas, Antigua, Buenos Aires, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Denver, Santa Fe, Bar Harbor, Vancouver, Halifax, Atlanta, Asheville and Manhattan, among other locales.

even brighter than the sun
by linda m. crate

i keep on fighting,
resisting;
going despite the fact
i am tired—

because i know giving up
and giving in is just how
we lose our rights,

but it is exhausting
how humanity would rather
stamp everyone in the same
boring image rather than
allow everyone to exist as how
they are meant to be;

every bird is a different color,
rainbows have various vibrant hues,
sky blue is sometimes paler
or brighter depending on the day—

everyone should be able
to have the right to exist,

because who is anyone
to deny another human their
humanity?

i tire of all these monsters,
all these nightmares;
every shade who calls himself a man
who would stamp out those whom
he deems unworthy—

i am sick of inequality, cruelty,
genocide, war, death, famine,
and disease;

i am sick of the greed of those
with much who deny the right to live
to those struggling without because the
earth has more than enough for all
of us—

but they want to control every
aspect of my life as if they have any right,

my rage burns brighter
than their hatred;
brighter than their fireworks,
and even brighter than the sun.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). Linda has four full length poetry collections and a photography collection book. Linda is also the author of the novellas Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022), Managing Magic (Alien Buddha Press, September 2022), and The Queen's Son (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2023). Her first short story collection King Quinlin (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2024) was published this spring. Her debut haiku collection in these ancient veins was published in Spring of 2024 (Alien Buddha Publishing, May 2024). Her latest collection mantle lake (Alien Buddha Publishing, February 2025) is a mix of photography and poetry.

Starstruck
By Alex S. Johnson

The turning tide smiles
and lifts a feathered talon towards the sun

Adorned in dripping robes of tears and laughter
she faces the final moonphase with tender regard

Marilyn's dreaming over the Pacific ocean beneath the blanket of night

Studded with crucifixes, her eyes beam love from quantum nodal pulsepoints

Enraptured in her mother's arms, a study in ecstatic terror
as she watches her body aborted into the stunned and flayed rocketship of ashes

She hasn't got a prayer, and nobody can save her, not a nation's
yearning

Nor the thick bands of lust that wrap her body like serpents
Dragging her down to hell with

Hugh Hefner standing
Sentinel at her

Grave.

The pitch shifts to vampiric blast,
a small boy watches outside a

Funeral parlor as his masked uncle
shapeshifts his way through stellar routines

He's becoming his own best vampire self
He's becoming a surreal pawn in a shop full of drag queens styled as
chess figures

He's becoming his own rockstar funeral arrangements, with lines of
speed snorted over his coffin

He's becoming a hood ornament for a gangster's limousine

He's becoming a grey cloud or a pink mist or a rainbow slicing her to

Ribbons

He's becoming colors for which science doesn't have a name

She's becoming the fabulous opera Rimbaud never foresaw

She's raising the collective paw like Ellyn Maybe or

Not...

It all depends, X marks the pedwalk.

He's twisting and turning in the middle of the vortex of the factory that
manufactures spotlights and screams

She's scrambling down the lines of haunted

Circuitry

He's presenting a sacred dance to honor Shiva

She's proofreading a chapbook in

Honor of

Charles Bukowski

He's

Hammering out some

Lines until they

Resemble

Shakespeare in a dove-cloud skirting

Quantum

Entanglement, she's

Raptured back to the

Source with

A new, desolating

Taroc pack

With her

Eyes like

Wet leather she

changes things with her

yawning pupils she

Teaches at the academy of

Opium dreams she

Opens the

Book and

Reads colors, sounds and

Glistening vulva he

Leans down to whisper in

The ear of her

Spine.

John Shirley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author and screenwriter of the cult classic 1994 horror thriller The Crow, said of Alex S. Johnson that he is "the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground." His work has appeared in print alongside such luminaries as Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, Poppy Z. Brite, Joe Hill, Ramsey Campbell, Kari Lee Krome, Caitln R. Kiernan, and Jarboe. Johnson is the creator of the Sweet Relief Musician's fund anthology Burning Hearts, and is the subject of the eponymous meta-documentary by the award-winning director/producer/poet Vanessa H. Smith, which will be filmed live on location in L.A. beginning with a reading at the world-renowned literary arts center Beyond Baroque, which has hosted readings by the likes of Patti Smith, Dennis Cooper, Viggo Mortensen, Exene Cervenka and U.S. Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. Johnson was mentored by Emeritus Executive Director of Beyond Baroque Richard Modiano, and poetry goddess Ellyn Maybe. He lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

Artwork: "Cyber-Marilyn" by Sandy DeLuca

Still Life
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

Flowers growing on a bush
so captivating my wife wanted
to cut off a few to put in a vase

I saw them and immediately
thought of taking a photo which
ended up looking like a painting

Captured purity of simple imagery:
black chair, white wall, glass pitcher
reflecting afternoon sunlight but

The pink petals and green leaves
are in this mind's spotlight making
me think of the history of all things

The aforementioned and a human
being both lovely in their temporary
bodies and ultimately just detritus

Enjoyed as a reminder that we
radiate inside and outside until
we create future objects of art

“Nudist Colony for Ring Fingers”
By Sam Hendrian

Glanced up at the ceiling
In the way a person does
When they hear their favorite song
On the coffee shop radio.

A purer form of temporary relief
Than food or mood-enhancing drugs,
The flash of a flashback smile
Radiating a room full of anti-adulting adults.

She figured her life would be over
As soon as she started dating
So she ironed her eyes with “Maybe”
And did not dare let them grow wrinkled.

There must be a nudist colony for ring fingers,
A place of connection for the purposefully disconnected
Who celebrate their independence
One closeted tear at a time.

Occasionally compensated with a public park or crowded hallway
But always wound up wondering what the point was
Since everyone was trained to instantly crop out
Evidence of human company.

Sometimes the only voice she heard all day
Was the elevator saying “Going up”
Which tempted her to go back down
Just to continue the conversation.

Sam Hendrian is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and poet striving to foster empathy through art. Every Sunday, he writes personalized poems for passersby outside of Chevalier’s Books, LA’s oldest independent bookstore. You can find his poetry and film links on Instagram at @samhendrian143.

ASYLUM 1991
By Lisa Moncure

She had blood on her breasts
The redness smeared across her flesh
The white of her teeth flashed the crowd
The sea of smiling semen

The Queens had come to collect the prize
They waited impatiently off to the side
While desperate men and women
Grabbed at desire, unable to make a decision

Champagne drenched minds
Pranced around the room
Cleavage was on display
Like some competition
Breasts on the half shell

The men watched
As their daughters undressed
The daughters doing
as they've been told
Careful not to break
Their perfect mold

The sounds of expected laughter
Fill the room
And it becomes more clear
Why Anita was doomed

Lisa Moncure, raised in North Carolina, with stints in Key West, Telluride and NYC, has made Los Angeles home base since 1985. For many years, Moncure has worked as an actor and filmmaker, writing has been a part of her life since a teenager. This poem was inspired by the the Senate hearings for Clarence Thomas and Moncure's observations at a debacherous A-list Halloween event in Beverly Hills in 1991. Her band Carnal Circus, performs some of her other poems, turned into song.

Snerf
By Lee Boek

Rabbit says to Squirrel, “Let’s go for a whirl,

let’s run around the hill and the wild flowers.”

They do.

Snerf comes along wanting to play, saying,

“Can ah play wit chu guys?”

Rabbit looks at Squirrel. Squirrel looks at

Rabbit. They both wiggle their noses. Each of

them knows what will happen when they play

with Snerf. Dog will see them running and will

instinctually chase them. It has happened

before. It isn’t that they’re so afraid of Dog, they

know they can outrun him anytime. But Snerf,

Snerf will want to run along with them and

Snerf will be spraying out that terrible, horrible

smelling stuff all over everybody. Then they’ll

have to run and jump into the creek and it may

be too cold. But then again, it may not. It is a

real sunny day, birds singing, the first day of

spring. It might be warm enough for a dip..

A twinkle came to Rabbit’s eyes. A twinkle

came to Squirrel’s eyes. “Why not?” they cry as

all three of them run, jumping and jiving in the

tall grass and wild flowers, laughing and

singing, as they head down the hill to the creek.

Sure enough here comes Dog a running right

on cue; barking and growling like he just

couldn’t wait to catch himself a rabbit, or a

squirrel or a…Snerf?

They start running and as they run Snerf starts

spraying like crazy and he just keeps on

spraying ‘til they hit Cow Creek and they all

jump in, even Dog jumps in, because by now he

can’t even stand himself. “Phew!”

They all know that the creek is the only way

they have of getting that terrible smell off of

them. The water is just perfect, and such a

relief. It’s so refreshing and such frolicsome fun

that Dog no longer remembers his hunting

instincts. He loses all interest in catching Rabbit

and Squirrel and certainly has no interest in

catching Snerf.

Snerf doesn’t spray the rest of the day as they

all enjoy swimming, rolling around on dead fish

and lying in the warm spring sun.

"60"
4:05 a.m.
11-14-2024
By Mary Cheung

60 has passed, oh boy was that fast.
Those first 60 years,
Are bringing on tears.

Cuz I just can't believe,
How quickly it all went by.
My youth is all gone,
in an blink of an eye.

Not sure how I feel.. cuz it just doesn't seem real.
Up to 18 seemed to take forever.
21 was an exciting endeavor.

35, I was sowing my oats.
Into my 40's, a motherhood I rewrote.
50's was just a chore, to juggle work and a family that I adore.

And now that 60 is here....
Life is finally just about me.
Pursuing my dreams, living my life carefree.

So from here and beyond...
Uncertain and unsure of how I feel
Cuz my body didn't feel as it should.
In my head, I'm still as a spry as a 30 something would.

But the price is high whenever I try.
To do all that my younger me could.
Only to suffer when my vitality dies
When I push beyond my physical means
Living all of my younger me dreams.

And now I realize, that it's time to adjust again..
My life, my hopes, my dreams, my old friend.
I'll learn to adapt this new, Old me.
And embrace all the things that being 60, can be.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Love’s Base Camp
By R.G. Carrillo

I had no king
The Laurel Canyon
Lady had her Blue
There was no Bill
To thrill me
With wedding bells
I was a Juliet
With a missing Romeo
He did not know
His lines
Our connections
Stuck in Sophomore
Vines of illusion
I was solo
Inventing a monologue
Written for two
He didn’t even
Read my secret script
Wrapped around
An incense stick
I didn’t fit
With his sensibility
I faded so young
To a sick history
I would not be
Sent away
To a shame
Factory
I hit the channel
Of love
After that miscarriage
With fervor
Independent ambition
I overshot
My goal
I was unaware
Of the craggy
Shoreline of Eros
Riptides that could drown
My spirit
Liberation from Frank
Left with a blank space
In my heart
I swam for my life
Love’s calm waters
Were deceiving
Retrieving
Something fundamental
But ever fleeting
A merman
With a golden tail
In a vast sea
Of confusion
A Mundo Meza painting
In black and white
Despite my fantasy flight
Still believing in love’s
Full composition
I am that dove
Looking for land
To build my nest
This life will test
My will
A discovery
Peace
Fidelity
Harmony
Of souls
Love’s illusive base camp
More like a murky swamp
Quicksand sinkholes
That take you down
To emotional depressions
Of heart and mind
The victims’ tears
Drop into pools
Of slow moving heartache
Youth’s ardor
In its first Spring
To uncover love’s
Golden treasures
Its initial steps
Toward the sweet pleasures
Is magical until your feet slip
The terrain of love
Is not without its obstacles
Tyranny of emotions
Get back to base camp
Beware of lurking predators
Tangling poisonous vines
Romantic venom
Like the sweet aroma
Of a Venus flytrap
The allure may cause
A loss of direction
The chemical attraction
May cause you to fall
Into a amorous bog
The green cobweb
Of Spanish moss
May override
Common sense
Find the true north
Of your desires
Stay on the path
Of righteousness
Return to the base camp
Of your true heart
There in the clearing
He\She will be
Ready with water
To hydrate your soul

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.
Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com
and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park. The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

Her rap music video project in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg This video was accepted into the Ontario Museum of History & Art show “We the People” Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. February 2- April 16, 2023. So honored!!

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

February Poet's Place

February 06, 2025

POETS PLACE
FEBRUARY EDITION 2025

Aloha everyone! I’m writing from Hawaii! I took this opportunity to leave the mainland to clear my head from all the horrors. Fires which fanned across Los Angeles devastating Altadena and the Pacific Palisades as well as other surrounding areas. Our world has become more toxic than ever. We all know many who’ve been affected by the fires and its traumatic aftermath as well as the toxic fascist new regime. I cannot wrap my head around all this. I want to stay in the bliss of Aloha forever. I am staying away from the news as best as possible and only reading the mantras from the people who are helping us to survive in the milieu of hate and terror. I look out my Airbnb window in Waikiki to lush hills and the green masses of banyan and palm trees that gently sway and calm my nerves. The island rains come and go often stopping us in our tracks reminding us that the earth is a sacred place to respect when Mother nature speaks. I went to the town of Hale’iwa in the North Shore to see huge waves and expert surfers, only to be drowned out by a torrential storm. Soaked and drenched I found a local bar to dry off with a wet Mai tai and local fare. What’s next for us here in war torn America? I can imagine, but I’m trying not to. Let’s continue to celebrate each other and man the fort.

We have a stellar line up of writers here for your reading pleasure!!!

Love, Linda :0)

Woke as fuck
By Linda Kaye

Woke as fuck! She espoused whilst screaming
I’m woke as fuck why aren’t you!
You with the bug up your ass
You with the blindness of a bat
You who allows the violence and terrorism that is close to home
You who are given the same rights as us all have now deliberately fucked it all up Yeah.
Give it a minute and watch how we all come tumbling down

united states of discontent
by linda m. crate

i know it's not just me,
feel so discontent
in this country;

we're not united
in anything but our discontent—

never enough money
for libraries, schools, the starving,
the poor, the homeless, or the
elderly;

but there's always a surplus
for war—

even money to deport
average, every day people
even those who are legal citizens
simply because they're not white;

this country is a laughing stock
and an embarrassment—

they used to have us pledge
allegiance and we'd end it with:
"justice and liberty for all";

but where is the justice or the liberty?

i have so much rage and so much
fear and so many tears,
they promised me a better country when
i was a child; they didn't promise me
this ruined and dying earth.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks. She is also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022) and published a debut collection of photography Songs of the Creek (Alien Buddha Publishing, April 2023).

En Famille
by Alex S. Johnson

She scratched at the back of her neck, felt him behind her. Something paralytic, a long, slow, deadly hum. Purring. The cat inside.

"What's..." Ed began, but he knew better. He really did.

"The baby...did you..."

"What?"

"Never mind," Anna said. "I'll do it." And, under her breath, "I'll always have to do it. Fill in for this man-child. For the rest of our natural lives, or until..."

Many times lately, phrases, half-sentences bitten off, suppressed, gargled down, swilled like mouthwash. Shots fired, taken. Anybody for Happy Hour? That would be this bitch.

She hadn't been happy for a long time, and it wasn't just her precipitous marriage to her junior high school sweetheart, before her growth spurt kicked in along with a surge of her latent genius. Some demon hound was at her back, telling her that this Black girl needed to excel far beyond what she believed her capacity could ever be. First in her family to attend college, and that was Smith, a full scholarship: Comparative Literature, Italian and French.

She still felt and always would feel like that ratty-haired, skinny Black chick from the Hood. She only had a few close friends who shared her enthusiasm for authors like Harlan Ellison, D. Harlan Wilson, Chris Kelso and Poppy Z. Brite. To her mind they hearkened back to the Dada and Surrealist writers of the teens, twenties and thirties. She had paroxysms of delight reading them. She was instantly thrown off and away from the grim reality of her surroundings, literally picking the best way to school that would avoid the body dumping park and the drive-by shooters. She found syringes, crumpled pages from porn mags, empty malt liquor bottles, spent cartridges on her travels. She bit her lip till it bled, trying to tamp down the emotions these sights bloomed in her heart.

She would make it, whatever the cost, sew her labia shut, ignore the hard radioactive pulse of lust, drown herself in the symphonic heavy metal her classmates thought she was wiggy for enjoying, just as much as she treasured grindcore, techno and industrial goth like Jarboe, Deathrock: 45 Grave, Christian Death, and, naturally, her beloved Bauhaus and Siouxsie.

She was violently returned to the scene of the familial crime in progress as she bent over her three months' old's cradle, his wrinkly prune face, his white on whiteness, not even a sprig of Black hair...he looked exactly like Ed's ne'er do well cousin Garrett, the boy born without a spine, who had joined a cult in Portland, Oregon and locked himself into a perpetually losing-and lost-relationship with people who threatened him with cancelation if he strayed outside their circle. But fuck that guy anyway, right, just fuck him...and yet, her boy, her flesh and blood..,she sighed.

Ed had wandered away meanwhile, and she heard him quietly sobbing and pounding against the walls. For all the differences between them, of race, intellectual aptitude, curiosity, capacity, there had always been something about Ed above and beyond the hot currents that bound then at the crotch and resulted in Sanders.

Little Sanders.

It was terrible, and she wished for crib death or some apocalypse, and the lightning and thunder crackled in her veins, and then all of a sudden she awoke to find herself bent over the chopping board where she'd made herself and Ed sandwiches...she was a terrible chef, and incompetent at that as Ed was efficient, indeed gifted as a construction worker and anything handy and crafty.

She came up behind him and embraced him. He grunted and didn't turn around, but she felt his energy working through her and surrounding her and Sanders in the next room, and she thought maybe, just maybe, things might be ok.

Alex S. Johnson is the author of many books, including the critically-acclaimed poetry and prose collection THE DOOM HIPPIES and SKULL VINYL: POEMS 2012-2017, acquired in 2024 by the Widener Library at Harvard University. His life, career and associates is the subject of a major documentary film by award-winning director and producer Vanessa Hedwig Smith, with whom he is also collaborating in Burning Hearts: A Wildfire Relief Documentary, with filming to take place live at Los Angeles venues such as The Last Bookstore and Beyond Baroque. Alex's forthcoming books include the cybernoir horror thriller MISTRESS OF GRAVES. He lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

a madrigal
by jerry the priest

Don't fake it
said the ageless,
ravaged passenger, frayed
about the edges with
silvering onyx toupee

Who, returning
from a botched performance
in Alaska's fisheries, somberly
advised me in the Amtrak
lounge car enroute
from Seattle to Whitefish

Oh! If that man's scars
could only have talked.
What proud suffering! What fine
indignity. Countenance draped
from defeat by his own weariness

hung carelessly from eye sockets
carved by low spirits, propped up
like the scenery in a Hollywood backlot
Don't fake it, cried the voice of injustice.

Flow with incontinent joy
like a flood of quicksilver.
There is sorrow enough without
you should squander your fierce
constant of breathing.

Drop that posture and cast off,
sponsor of your own torment, clasping
fallacious anchors to drown
in mirages of subversive counterfeit.

Don't fake it
creaked every bone
in my flesh, a madrigal
of outraged dissent, as I donned
yet another disguise.

We've toiled without rest
these 29 seasons, lugging
cumbersome pretense at your
dull insistence, Knock it off!

We're brittle, having groaned
under liberties that weren't yours
to take and you owe us. You Owe Us
Don't fake it
Don't fake it

Don't fake it
she echoed softly, as
I held her naked to my breast
in that broke down motel room
hours before Greyhound took her

all of 19, a young woman
who had not been impressed
by deceit. She slept smooth as a rock
as I watch every last second
get up and leave, and

Oh! If my tears could only have talked.

Opulent Mobility: Re-imagine Disability as Opulent and Powerful
Introduction by A. Laura Brody

This is the story of an exhibit that re-imagines disability as opulent and powerful. It tells how it grew from a tiny art show that almost disappeared to an annual, international exhibition featuring artists from around the United States and around the world. It is a tale told through disability art, how it is viewed in our culture, and what it might become instead. It is about community. And it is also a story of my coming to terms with my own disability.

Hi. I’m A. Laura Brody, the founder of Opulent Mobility. My vision for these exhibits is a world where disability is celebrated instead of denied, ignored, and feared. This idea began after a former partner had a stroke. I was fascinated by the devices that helped them get around, but was shocked at their impersonal ugliness. With the help of a wheelchair-using friend, I turned an old wheelchair into an Edwardian throne (Driven) and Opulent Mobility was born.

After making my next piece (Le Flaneur) I struggled to find places to show my work. Many galleries are not wheelchair accessible. In spite of the good work of the ADA, a lot of places aren't access friendly. After discovering how hard it was to make my sculptures safe and functional, I did some research about wheelchair and walker designs. There are quite a few patents online for imaginative and innovative assistive technology devices… and almost none of those designs are available for sale on the market.

It was clear that this problem was larger than I thought. I decided to curate group exhibits dealing with the subject. Maybe I could find kindred spirits; fellow artists and people who could help me maneuver the tricky paths of medical licensing and make these fabulous devices a reality. At the very least it would get people talking about the subject. Along the way, I have been coming to grips with my own so-called “invisible” disabilities.

Sharing this exhibit and these ideas is the best way I know to get that conversation started. After all, we have to be able to see the possibilities before we know we want them.

Laura Brody sculpts for the human body and its vehicles. She is the founder of Opulent Mobility, a series of exhibits that re-imagine disability as opulent and ]powerful. She is also the host of Genius Teatime, a series of talks that explore fascinating folks from all walks of life. Brody began her professional career as a costume designer and maker, working in film, television, opera, dance, and cosplay. She changed course many times but kept returning to art making, community learning, and social justice. Her artwork has been shown at ACE/121 Gallery, Art Share LA, Brea Gallery, California State University Northridge, the Charles River Museum of Industry, the Dora Stern Gallery, Ikouii Creative, the Los Angeles Makery, Westbeth Center For the Arts, and The World of Wearable Art. Opulent Mobility has shown at the Mike Curb Gallery at CSUN, Thymele Arts, Arts Unbound, AVC Gallery, online, and The Los Angeles Makery, and is scheduled to show at Brand Library in 2025 for the exhibit’s 10 year anniversary.

In Dreams We meet
1-25-2025
7:53 a.m.
By Mary Cheung

Your hand gripping mine, meat and flesh,
Bony and skeletal.
I try to massage your hand to work out the knots and tension.
I feel the beating of your heart, the pulse in your hand.
And I wonder how that can be.

I can't see you, your hand is all that I have to connect me to you still.

I start to shake and cry.
For the guilt and shame that I feel.
For being sorry.
For being too late.
For being such a poor daughter.
For missing out on the opportunity to spend more time with you.
For the missed opportunities, to show you how much I cared.
For missing the chance to tell you, “I love you” and… "sorry".

I feel his forgiveness. I feel his love still.
I treasure these precious moments when he still comes to me and talks to me,
In dreams so real. I wake, shaking and sobbing.
Part sorrow, part joy that I still get this.

I love you Dad. I wish I would of told you.
I wish you didn't scare us so much when we were young.
Our Chinese culture and upbringing, kept us from telling you.
You demanded respect and obedience.
Ever strict, a high standard, and hard to please.
Mom was the gentle balance to you.
Huggable, approachable and understanding.
The balance to your harsh and hard parenting.
Even so, I remember all of the soft moments you had and showed me..

Like how you took me out shopping,
For whatever I would need as I prepared to move away, to L.A.
For school and to start my new life away from home, from you.
All that I ended up choosing that day,
Was, a toilet bowl scrubbing set.
You asked me; was that all I needed?
And I said yes.

It was all that I was willing to spend of your hard-earned money.
Then you took me to buy some cocktail buns.
Along with my other Chinese favorite baked goods like,
“Dan thot”. (spelled phonetically; An egg custard in a flaky pastry bun.)

And that was how I knew you loved me.
That is how you showed your love.
Not with words but with your gestures.
Gestures, that I missed showing you in your final days.
And I am sorry that I never can now.

Our final words were of anger.
Because you were hurt.
That, I didn't take more time to see you and spend time with you.
Instead, I was so caught up with my new life and my needs,
That I forgot about yours.

And all you wanted from me,
Was time together.
Time, as a gesture to show you,
That I loved you as you have always loved me.

I'll see you again soon,
in my dreams to spend some time…….

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Plenty of Fish
By R. G. Carrillo

Plenty of fish
In the sea
My pond empty
Of any fresh catch
Swimming upstream
With senior salmon
So few men
No longer to spawn
Running out of time
My world
Becoming ever smaller
Down to fractals
A dwindling timeline
Was it with 20 years left
I met you Linda
Now down to ten
Dear poet friend
Bombarded with media
Chronicling wars
Murder fires injustice
Technology set to destroy
The planet
Summits
Peace talks
With evil leaders
Going the way of Rome
Bend the knee
To our first Caesar
An apprentice dictator
Wealthy discontents
Serving self interests
Wanting ever more
Like locusts
These millionaires
Eating up the Earth
A national debt
Skyrocketing
Spend to oblivion
Economic chickens
Coming home to roost
Once a great country
Now on the brink
Democracy on the endangered list
Freedom going instinct
The wealthy getting wealthier
The middle class declining
The poor in survival mode
Can we turn
The American ship around
Before it hits
An iceberg

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock, and a retired LAUSD educator, and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.

Apotheosis of the Bully
By Marilyn Fuss
February 2025

The king of denial
with reluctant Cleopatra hiding in plain sight.
George III a minor annoyance to compare, 249 years ago--
What was the point in leaving? One just might question.
It's known that cruelty emanates from
parental non-stop non-approval.
"You are enough," is a healing 12-step conclusion,
but his message must have been you are not.
Constant household tele-exposure as century opened, proved as preparation-- a
subliminal agitprop directing to follow the familiar.
Though the one who did the firing ventured on to convince the fray he was one of us--what an oxymoron!
The misled audience had bad dads, and he fit, as he cavilled over birthright of
a President
"Billionaire populist," spits a hardworking friend, not sidetracked today.
We're told we're victims of a deep state, whatever that is.
Last time, lies and force and no heart led to caged orphans in a new kind of Passage--
a backward kidnap.
Older youth deprived of their dreams by being cast out.
Too many assaulted women with nary an acknowledgement of guilt..any old words were employed to erase their cred.
And who was it that thought to promote and realize a traveling gibbet for the most loyal side man?
Clemency for those destroyers, the would-be executioners. Ignoring the Rule of Law, promoting anarchy right within the authoritarian frame
The aim of inclusion of the century past, that incipient solidarity, aspiring brother-and-sisterhood, smashing to granules.
Science was tossed out the hermetically sealed window, save for what passes through the
head of an obliging oligarch.
Fragile, imperiled Earth not given a blink, just more boring into its steaming surface, both
land and sea.
Safety agencies? For what?
Rise fall rise, the trajectory of predecessors in evil.
A counter-Robin Hood seeks to know
what more can be done to take from the poor and top-off the privileged?

Marilyn Fuss has spent most of her life in Los Angeles, and is a lover of the environment, natural and created, as well as being a self-described art fly.

Justice, other humans, and pets are important to her.

Feliz Dia de San Valentin
By G. Billie Quijano

My gold lame dress is ready
Blood red lipstick colors my lips, waiting on my vanity
The love vibration clutching at my sanity

There is a shrine in my Corazon
In meditation I am in the cosmic zone
Art is rhythm, survival fearless
It’s energy throbs in me
Ebbs and flows
I am standing in the glow

I am the architect of my own being
Sangre knows no bounds
Jazz cemented in the sounds

There was a charge, moment to moment
Silence in fragments
Poetry fragrant

Words not enough
Caresses locked in the vault of memories
The salt in my tears cease to dissolve
Grief refused to be absolved

A marriage of soul
Palabras swoon and make me whole

Colores, imagination makes my rebozo dance and swirl
It’s an echo felt round the world

My hips sassy and sway
All my emotions on display

My skin is hungry
Dreams are sublime
Wherever love meets
My heart is eternally fine

Wellness and abundance
Are flowing in my life
Spirit embraces me with eternal guidance

So my black high heels
Will once again roar
All my passions will flood and soar

Everyday is filled with reds and pinks
Your love and affections, oh so sweet
Keep me in your hearts

I repeat
Your love and affections, oh so sweet

G. Billie Quijano-Mestiza, Hija de East Los, Palabra Mujer, Assemblage Artist, Photographer. Instigator of beauty, Bruja, Reina, Gitana, Love Gangster

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

January Poet's Place

January 06, 2025

POETS PLACE
JANUARY 2025

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! We are in for a new and exciting time ahead!! I’m so ready to watch the shit show unfold! As I’ve probably mentioned we are fortunate here in California to live in a sanctuary state. I’m hoping Newsom can protect our immigrants and foreigners from deportation. I don’t want to put my head in the sand but I may have to if we get covered up in shit!

Here we go…… All aboard the rides about to start!!!!

In protest of the new fascism authoritarian regime
By Linda Kaye

Soon the poets will be censored from expressing free speech

Soon some of us will summon death to escape the horrors of life

In protest I remain in my country as did the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova writing in secrecy under constant threat of search and arrest during Stalin’s terror

My way of thinking my values as an American my rights my freedoms are no longer popular

Idiocracy has replaced Democracy

We will no longer be the land of the free

And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea

I hear what you won’t tell me
By Anna Mathai

You guess what I won’t say,

So we walk along this path together, only silence on the way.

The fog hangs low above us,

Through a forest of muffled howls,

As we carry on in-quiet

To a trap that’s only ours.

An owl puts one foot slowly down,

As we drink up all the still,

While it coups if you don’t know by now,

maybe you never will.

Anna Mathai is an Indian-American multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California. She frequently uses Venetian plaster and other plasters in her work. Her abstract works reference both the natural world and our internal ‘landscapes’ of emotion, blurring both real and intangible. . She often touches on concepts of femininity, rebellion, and otherness, with a touch of mysticality, in her figurative work. By pairing her writing with her visual art practice, Mathai creates an extra dimension in which viewers can experience her art and a loose construct to guide their own internal process of understanding. Mathai was born in the UK, but spent most of her childhood in the rural Deep South, which heavily influenced the concepts she explores in her art. Her work has been awarded, published, and exhibited globally. You can find her at www.byMathai.com or on Instagram @byMathai.

THE THING IS
By Mary Cheung
3 a.m.
12-31-2024

The thing is,

when you look back.

At pictures of your youth,

Of an unblemished and baby soft skin..

You reflect back at your life.

Oh,

How innocent and inexperienced you were.

Doe eyed.

Smooth, unrumpled and bland.

Plump and full of energy and youth.

But it still wasn't as,

Or ever could be...

As full and flavorful as it is not.

Ripened and matured.

Seasoned to perfection.

Through everything in your life.

And everything along the way,

That gave you every wrinkle,

Every age spot, every creek of your bones and joints.

And perfected it, to what it is now.

I get it now.

Why that 100 yr old brandy costs soooo much.

And that 10 yr old scotch....

Pales in comparison,

And could never match up to the other.

Still it's hard,

To not think sometimes,

That you might of lost something.

When the past reminds you of the vanity,

Of that youth.

Until you taste, the sourness

of that smooth, unripe plum.

And the unpleasantness of that,

jolts you into the realization,

Of how much more desirable you are now.

More beneath the surface.

More surprising,

More pleasant,

More to savor,

More to behold,

More tantalizing,

More lasting,

More bold.

The things is....

That's what we have to remember.

That it took Age....

To shape our perfection.

And will continue to.

So accept it,

Embrace it.

Let your life continue to unfold..

It only gets better.

Your spirit can never get old.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

WALKING HOME
by jerry the priest

at dawn, walking home

the highway reminds me of thumbing rides

out of St. Louis that Easter.

My fingers ached from the cold

but that's nothing to the pain between us.

It's three months since our first kiss.

I'd rather have died of grief

than known the difficulty of loving you.

last night, you finally showed up

I saw the whole thing, as for once

I forgot to shut my eyes.

The morning sky through bare trees

reminds me of walking at dawn

in the hills outside Boseman

I cursed my luck and questioned god.

but that's nothing to the tantrums

I threw on your behalf.

It's two months now, since the rape trial.

I's rather have bled from every hole

than compounded that mistake

last night, you forgot to distrust me.

I caught the whole show, as for once

you failed to run screaming

Walking home, this cul de sac

reminds me of Halifax in November

by bicycle, at dawn.

It was a real kick in the ass.

but that's nothing to the walls

that fell last night.

It's one month, only,

since you clubbed me with that 2x4.

I'll exhaust every sunrise

for another breath of you.

Still by Alex S. Johnson

The wheel revolves, and we

mutter

Blasphemies, small palms to

close the sun's mouth.

Everything froze. A lamp burst open and

shook its gory seeds

Like a hand of glory burning the midnight oil,

clutching an old

Photograph.

Burning, where it starts at the

edge and

Tip-toes its way to the two sewn-shut

Lips

In the sky above the

Final hill

The dying begins now, and

aching hearts thunder the

Split skies. Who knew, who foresaw

Agony upon

Agony without a

Clear

Resolution, not even a blue

speckle of

Your laughter

A hand of dust explodes in space

like a dove blackened by solar winds

Melancholia sweeps her dark wings

above the endless ribbon of graves.

Alex S. Johnson's biggest inspiration was seeing Allen Ginsberg read "Plutonian Ode" at the Whole Earth Festival when he was 14 years old. This began a journey that continues to this day. At 58 years old, he is the publisher of Nocturnicorn Books, a boutique imprint that works with the elite of the literary world, including such names as Ellyn Maybe, Poppy Z. Brite, Aram Saroyan, Helene Cardona, Caitlin R. Kiernan, David J. Haskins (BAUHAUS), Kari Lee Krome (THE RUNAWAYS) and Jarboe (SWANS). He and his partner in crime Alea Celeste Williams have numerous projects in store for readers in 2025. Alex's forthcoming books include WHITE ON WHITE: A LITERARY TRIBUTE TO BAUHAUS, a brand-new dark satire collection titled TWILIGHT OF THE DOOM HIPPIES (Horror Sleaze Trash Publications) and various collaborations with Juliet Cook, Daniel G. Snethen, Nolcha Fox, Barbara Harris Leonhard, Michelle Fairchild, Jeremy Reed, Sandy DeLuca and Catfish McDaris, among others. Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

Three Winter Haiku
By Sonny Tristan

Winter without snow

My duvet has depression

White foam fades in sand

Skies turn more grey now

People act like grey is bad

Winter’s finest shade

Winter won’t talk much

Does quiet mean death or peace?

We’ll hear more come Spring

Sonny Tristan started writing poetry when the world stopped. He spent decades artist adjacent, works daily using words, enjoys making poetry, reading it, hearing it, and being unsure of its, or his, destination. He remains super impressed with other people’s lives and thinks daily about maybe getting one of his own.

2025
By G. Billie Quijano

A palette of palabras

Manifestation of new dreams

Closure, reflection, renewal

Align, connect rhythms, cosmic harmony

Ancestral whispers

Celestial occurrence

Tradition, tapestry of soul

Inner knowing

Magic ignites

Release declaration into the divine

Spirit journeys, known and unknown

Sacred soil embraces corazón vibration

Listen to echoes of stillness

Madre universo, muse

Gratitude for blessing we receive

Poetry of affirmations

The nuance of vida

Oracles of enlightenment

Collage of consciousness

Dance into power

Run towards love

Drink the nectar of paletas

Within colores, can beauty come

Synthesis of truth

Operas of freedom

Swagger of imagination

Gangster in thought

Fragrance of allure

And with this palette of palabras

A bond of conexion…

G. Billie Quijano-Artista, Chula, Mestiza, Poeta, Provocateur, Renaissance Mujer

"Growing Up Straight and Catholic”
By Champion ElCid

Greetings All!

In an attempt to talk a bit more about myself, I thought to start posting a few journals about my life. Normally I would be extremely hesitant to do this as I've said before I am a pretty private person in real life and don't talk much about myself at all. There are very few people who know me and who also know everything about me and that's mostly by my choice, since this is the internet though and I am posting under a name I thought maybe it was time to share a few things. Again almost no one I know IRL even knows I write or what my name on the internet is (I think there are only about 3 people who know my internet name) so I am still a bit removed from what I post here. I guess another reason I wanted to post about some events in my life is honestly because I don't really talk about them with people. I guess a part of me maybe wants to talk about some of these things but it's always a bit hard talking about them with people you know, cause you're worried about what they might think. I had actually meant to post this one during June in pride month as while I'm not gay or Bi, I had wanted to post my perspective (as a straight person) on what I was told growing up about gay people, and how I came to change my mind on that issue. Also while I have an idea of what I want to talk about in this journal entry I also am kind of writing it as I feel it, so I apologize if it feels a little incoherent.

I guess to start with let me say I am a straight Latino guy (if you didn't already know that or were curious) and I was raised in a Catholic family. I actually did go to a private school that had a dress code like the one Anne goes to. (which is why I know there's no way they would ever let Luz wear her leggings as part of the uniform) and went to Church every Sunday. Now I know recently the church has tried to "have it both ways" in regards to gay people but let me tell you that growing up at least I was ALWAYS taught that gay people were sinners by priests, nuns, and teachers. So when I see now that the church is trying to "backpedal" that issue it already disgusts me because I know what I was taught and now you want to try and say "no that isn't what we said" so let me just say to all you young Catholics out there that whatever the church may be trying to say now, just know that it wasn't what they said back then.

I guess while we're on the subject let me talk a bit about the real life Ms. Bryant. Yes, she was a teacher at my school, if I were to use her real title it would be sister Bryant, I almost thought about doing that, but decided not to. While I never personally witnessed her go off on a gay person she was rather infamous in the school for a certain habit she had. I swear to you I'm not making this up, what she would do is go around the school with a ruler (perhaps one she used to use when it was still okay to hit people with) and she would measure the length of the girls' skirts. If they were even an inch too short she'd write them up for a uniform violation fine or in some more extreme cases march them to the office and make them change into a skirt of appropriate length (she would keep extra stores of them in her office). I never had any real personal interaction with her, but needless to say almost none of the students liked her. So I don't think my characterization of her in my fanfic was too far a stretch.

I had religious classes in school growing up and we were explicitly told on more than one occasion that homosexuality was a sin. In addition to all the other sins Catholics are famous for (sex outside of marriage, abortion, etc.) Oh and to really hammer in the whole "abortion is a sin" they made us watch a video of a "live abortion" happening (it was supposedly the view of the baby while it was happening, because yeah...that's not propaganda at all...). I bring up the abortion stuff because of recent events happening in U.S. as that's another sour point I have about the church. But all in all you can see that's the kind of viewpoints I was given growing up and for a time the ones that made up my world view. I should also say that the time period I grew up in was not very LGBT-friendly. There were all kinds of jokes made at gay people's expense and getting made fun of or bullied for being gay was a very real thing that happened to people at my school. People were always quick to deny accusations of being gay, and there was never any positive representation in media like we have today.

Side note, that's exactly why shows like Owl House and Kipo are SO IMPORTANT! We need to teach kids that being gay is okay, We need them to know it's normal and there's nothing to be ashamed of

I had a group of friends growing up and as it turns out one of them was gay. I'm glad I didn't know at the time as I probably would have reacted negatively to that. I didn't find out until years later and as I write this I hope she's doing okay. She was a real fun person who had an amazing heart so I hope wherever she is she's doing well.

In addition to the church, there was also my dad...my dad is a VERY complicated subject that is probably better left for another entry. Suffice it to say he was the kind of person who would likely have reacted VERY negatively if I was gay. I know this because of something my mom told me much later in life (at the time I didn't know it, and my mom wouldn't tell me until after her and my dad were divorced) but apparently he was...worried I might be gay. I assume he was "worried" because I didn't show an interest in "guy" things when I was younger. I had an interest in theater, singing, and dance as well as in writing poetry, and just writing in general. I wasn't into sports like at all, nor did I really have an interest in traditional "Latino" things (cars, beer, etc.) In addition to all that I didn't really have much luck with dating in high school (I guess in that way it's a bit "heartwarming" that my dad thought the reason I had no luck with girls was because I was gay and not a loser).

Anyway looking back it does explain certain actions my dad took around that time. One such action being to invite me to hang out with him and his friends after he played gold. Despite me still being a teen he let me have a beer with them (and this is how I discovered I didn't like beer) and just shot the breeze with them. At the time I didn't think much of it and it was an opportunity to hang with my dad so I actually enjoyed it at the time. I also remember one of his friends who once told a rather interesting story about how he was making out with a woman who turned out to be transsexual, and how after he found out he quickly beat her up...and of course, my dad and all his friends thought he was in the right and that the women had "tricked" him and deserved it. And if I'm being 100% honest my teenage self also agreed with him....sorry

Well, life goes on and eventually, I went off to college and this is where my views on homosexuality and other things began to change. The thing is because religion had been so drilled into me when I was young I still went to church in my early 20's. I even made sure to still give them money, I even did my best to follow all the rules and such. But slowly that started to change. There were three big factors for that change so let me tell you about them.

The first was my cousin. I didn't see much of my extended family growing up but she was one of my cool cousins who I always got along well with. She was the kind of person who didn't care what others thought of her and she just had an ability it seemed to naturally bond with people. Right now she's one of the only extended family members I still keep in contact with (I don't really speak to the rest of my family, which is another topic for another time) but she was always cool and I was always close to her. But I found out that she was gay, and...well I remember feeling conflicted about that, not really knowing how to feel and even wondering if I should stop being in contact with her. Again my dad certainly had an opinion on that as she would eventually come out to her parents and after that the whole extended family found out. Her mom (my mom's sister and a very staunch Catholic) was not happy and would eventually disown her, her dad was cool with it though. Once it became public knowledge she was gay my dad suggested I stop associating with her, partly for that, but also he seemed to think she was a "bad influence" on me. At the time I was really confused, but I still saw her at family gatherings and we still remained close. I eventually decided it didn't matter and we kept in contact. In the present day she and my mom are pretty close too and I'm glad we still keep in contact and see each other.

The next was a professor I had in college who was also gay. She was also one of the nicest people you'll ever meet and one who I really respected. It was meeting her that made me really start to question if everything I had been told about gay people growing up was true. She was a great professor and one who was almost like a second mother to me (during college my mother and I were going through a bit of a rough patch in our relationship, wow I just realized....there is a lot I'm talking about in this entry that I might have to elaborate on in a future entry...if I feel like it...sigh...) so yeah getting to know this professor made me really start to wonder if "gay people were really sinners" and I was slowly starting to see that this wasn't true.

The final straw for me was some sort of proposition on the voting ballot. I can't remember exactly what it was (I think it was called Prop 8) about whether or not gay marriage would be legalized in CA. And there were more than a few news stories running at the time about how the Catholic Church was donating money (sorry can't remember if the prop was for or against gay marriage, it was a long time ago) but they were doing their best to make sure gay marriage wasn't legalized. And for me that was the final straw. At that moment I knew I no longer wanted to be a Catholic and I no longer wanted to support what they stood for, and most importantly I knew I didn't want to give them any of my hard earned money anymore (yes I was still giving the church money as a struggling college student) I haven't looked back since, and well I think I can say that in the present I am glad that my younger self had the integrity to realize this.

So that's the story of how this straight, Latino guy went from being a Catholic to an atheist and gay ally. Sorry if it didn't sound that compelling in this journal entry, but it's honestly a story I've never really told anyone. Well, my brother knows, but really that's about it. I guess part of the reason I made this journal entry was to tell that story. It's a bit weird to think back on that time and realize how different things were. But it's also good to know that things have changed. For all that's wrong in the world I am glad that shows like Owl House and Kipo exist to give young kids some positive representation these days.

Well I guess that wraps up this story. Let me know what you think and if you'd like me to do another entry of my life. I want to try and talk about things from my past, and yeah I feel it's a bit easier to do so through this veil.

Thanks for listening, I hope I continue to impress you!

ChampionElCid lives in Los Angeles, he currently works four different jobs so he doesn't often have the time he'd like to write. When he was young he read Don Quixote for the first time and that book left an impression on him. He later learned of a real-life Spanish Knight named "El Cid" who embodied many of the ideals that Don Quixote strived for. Thus he decided to take that name when creating a profile on the internet and that name has stuck. You can see more of his poems on Vocal, which would really help him out as he earns money based on how many views his work gets. Thank you for this opportunity, I hope I continue to impress you...

profile https://vocal.media/authors/champion-el-cid

She/Her/They/Them
By R.G. Carrillo (Year’s end 2024)

She was a broken vessel

Men that engaged her

Could not make her whole

She was beaten

She was raped

She lost her innocence

At a very young age

She was left

By the side of the road

Those closest to her

Did her harm

Her father abused her

Her mother was silent

Her husband was violent

She thought the right man

Could fix her

She had abortions

She lost babies

She had miscarriages

She had many casual affairs

Looking for love

With all the wrong men

Her soul was hunting for relief

Their faces only desiring her flesh

She covered herself up

Then prostituted herself

Her pimps exploited her

Other men violated her spirit

She gave her trust to them

Who disrespected her being

Objectified for their satisfaction

Personified to a false beauty image

Glorified

Genderfied

Sexualized

She was dirt

She felt she had no worth

She attempted suicide

Once or twice

She was an immigrant

She was a single mother

She felt less than

Always searching

For that right man

The American dream

Hoping it would come true

She became a citizen

She could vote

She worked for women

With rich husbands

That lived empty lives

She was Christian

She prayed for a better life

She trusted in her God

Other women trusted

In material security

She looked for balance

She lived in shelters

She became homeless

She was giving up hope

She was America

Coda: Old glory

Your mother was Betsy Ross

Your grandmother Lady Liberty

You survived trials and traumas

Civil war tribulations

That split your sons apart

Assassinations

Riots

Political protests

That turned violent

Racial injustice

Of your own children

Mother of sorrows

Lady on the golden shore

Do you dream no more

Is your door no longer open

Your national midlife crisis

A setback

Manifest your destiny

Liberty diversity

Will set you free

A broad female consciousness

Will fertilize the land

Bring forth a bountiful harvest

Authenticate your constitution

She will rise to the occasion

Proud and strong

Resilient in all her aspects

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

December Poet's Place

December 06, 2024

POETS PLACE
DECEMBER EDITION 2024

The end is near!!! The end of our American values as we enlightened people currently know it. I know I’m being pessimistic, but there is a lot of evidence to support that feeling. People always think, “we have more time to make a difference”. Time ran out last month. “But we joke and laugh otherwise we would start screaming”- Charles Bukowski once proclaimed. There is much to prepare for here in America. America land of the free, home of the unjust. Shall we start purchasing guns to protect ourselves from the rampant hoards of racist loyalists? Growing up as a Jew I have always been on my guard. Growing up I developed a sense of pride for my tribe and a sharp tongue. And, just in case, I also studied the martial arts for many years and was awarded a black belt in Kung Fu San Soo. So go ahead pigs, make my day! I am prepared to die for my beliefs. I have lived my life to it’s fullest and gave 30 years towards helping others in their time of need. I will stand up when it’s called for, I will not back down and shut up. NEVER! I am proud to be an American, as nasty as it is towards others.

POETS PLACE gives a safe space for you to share your thoughts, and rage against this new regime. Until….

I wrote this piece several years ago. Sigh

America, land of the free?
By Linda Kaye (2018)

America, land of the free? Home of the unjust?

Curtains pulled and borders closed

Do we still belong?

Is our status revoked?

Are we still citizens of the United States?

Have we changed the declaration of independence?

Do we wipe out generations of immigrant existence?

If forms of government become destructive do we have the right of the people to alter or abolish it?

Don’t we have a right to freedom?

A right to equality? Freedom from slavery? Freedom from torture or degrading treatment? A right to recognition as a person before the law?

Or are we just dreaming.

Who is watching the country’s store?

We the people of the human race in order to form a more perfect humanitarian world demand justice and tranquility promoting general welfare securing the blessings of liberty and freedom to everyone

regardless.

E pluribus Unum

One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice

For all

Poem
By Lida Parent Harris

Dog Village Friend

They bark as they waddle

through this town, hunger in their eyes, tails wag, eagerly.

A skeptic is unbothered,

but a hero is among this motherland.

The workings of which mark that even the hungrier of these dogs.

They can see a telltale sign, a lost limb, A mother collie with her sweet pups.

He is the blessing they'll know as soon as he displays food for them all to eat.

Any stranglers run up to catch him, as well.

A dog's world in a stone cutting village far way.

He knows they need him.

This simple man. So embedded in their tense lives. He manages them along with happy yelps of gratitude, and full bellies.

Warm fuzziness that stays with them

Lida was born in Inglewood, Ca., and raised in Chatsworth, Ca. She spent her childhood enjoying a good book, drawing, and writing her own stories. Always a quiet student, Lida thrived in the world of Literature and Art.

At age 17, Lida began Journaling, and writing her first drafts of poetry. She graduated from El Camino Real High School, and went on to care for adults and children with disabilities.

Lida continued her love of writing poetry well into her twenties. She began submitting to newspapers, and collections of work.

Her writing career began in 2001 when she began attending Open-mic events in the San Fernando Valley. She met wonderful friends in a coffeehouse, and soon her life and world opened.

Lida attended Community Literature Initiative instructed by Hiram Sims. It was a writing course at USC which gave her new roots.

Her first book of poetry was published in 2015, by World Stage Press. She enjoyed performing in new venues, and creating her own shows called Lyrical Flames, in 2014.

Since then, Lida has performed her poetry in Las Vegas, Chicago, Santa Monica, Long Beach, North Holland, ArtShare LA, Leimert Park, Grand Park, and The Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

Lida is currently a mentor and dedicates her time to teach poetry for adults for The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. She is also taking Drumming and writes song lyrics for new realms of creativity.

STRANGE SHORES
By Anna Mathai

They say peace flows like a river,

So I followed to the line.

They said patience is a virtue,

So I waited for what’s mine.

Filled my cup, a twist of orange,

While a sailor sang the blues

And took a loaf of sweetest bread

Just to slice it for the crew.

Now I’m walking on strange shores,

Wondering am I alive?

Counting sand as it slips away,

Nothing left to mark the time.

protest songs
by jerry the priest

A canyon by a creek, cool and shady, with Mugwort
and blackberries growing amidst sycamore trees
peaceful and serene, exuding compassion and endurance

Autumn chill noticeable
birdsong occasionally filling the air

What next America?
What of your tarnished principles?
In what freedom are we to believe?

Candles flanking a porcelain urn astride a glowing
red white yin yang squeezed between a well-loved guitar
and a vibrant rattlesnake plant on its walnut stand

Dark Autumn skies
the jumbled refrain from a rock n roll LP

Demcocracy has been fumbled badly
tumbleweeds blow across my social calendar
How lonely we all are with our righteous outrage
How divided we’ve become

The chill is noticeable
as protest songs make their way
down sunlit creekbeds

He’s lived and taught in Katmandu Nepal, Istanbul Turkey, Boston, Massachusetts, Boulder, Colorado, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco/San Leandro/Los Angeles, California, and written in Banaras, Bodhgaya, Konya, Damascus, Petra, Jerusalem, Mexico City, San Cristobal de las Casas, Antigua, Buenos Aires, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Denver, Santa Fe, Bar Harbor, Vancouver, Halifax, Atlanta, Asheville and Manhattan, among other locales.

fierce magical girl
by linda m. crate

i cannot live my life in

the shadow of fear,

i was born a woman so i

know war;

every day there's one

raging against me versus society;

no matter how exhausted

i will press on for my family,

my friends, for myself,

and for those who have either

been silenced or are too afraid

to speak—

i am the witch they will not burn,

always rising from the ashes

like a phoenix;

my flaming feathers will burn

and damn those willing to turn

this beautiful world into

a darker place of nightmares

for i have seen the beauty of this world,

and i know there's a goodness worth fighting for:

i've heard it in a baby's laugh,

seen it in the eyes of my loved ones,

felt it in the song of a crow,

danced with it when i danced in

a creek as crows circled above me,

tasted it in the skin of a cherry—

the world is beautiful, the world is wild,

and the world is fierce; and so i am i.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). Linda has four full length poetry collections and a photography collection book. Linda is also the author of the novellas Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022), Managing Magic (Alien Buddha Press, September 2022), and The Queen's Son (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2023). Her first short story collection King Quinlin (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2024) was published this spring. Her debut haiku collection in these ancient veins was published earlier this year (Alien Buddha Publishing, May 2024).

Elizabeth Silk, Reading Keats' "To Autumn"

Reading Keats' "To Autumn" aloud

I feel the words - "mellow fruitfulness"

"moss'd cottage trees"

"ripeness to the core"

"swell the gourd" and

"more ... still more"

I feel them in my mouth

pushing out my cheeks

bouncing lightly on my lips

I hear the long O's of mellow, moss'd, core, gourd and

more, more and more

I feel my mouth form an O

like a rooting infant

the earth becomes to me a breast

a mother of some other era

with time

time to lavish her baby

with access to herself

her skin - warmth flesh smell

time to prime herself for feeding

lying abed arms propped with pillows

to support the infant head

time to loll about

sipping lovely milky drinks

slurping juicy fruits

eating honey by the mouthful

the faster to receive its sweetness

the quicker to transform the sweetness

to health and pleasure

pregnant I dreamed my breasts

spurted shining glowing milk

for a new mouth

Elizabeth Silk, after growing up in South Carolina, I spent most of my adult life in New York City and Monterey, Massachusetts. In January, 2021, I settled into a loft apartment in Downtown LA. Having worked for many years, first as an English teacher and later as a psychotherapist, I am relishing this time to make writing - poetry and prose - my priority along with my son and his wife and daughter. A new life in my 80's. I'm grateful for the time and for Linda Kaye and "Poet's Place."

DISILLUSIONED
11-6-24
6:07 a.m
By Mary Cheung

Disillusioned and broken by this thing we call democracy.

replaced by an Olaf,

an orangutan in the white house,

the embodiment of idiocy.

In days to come our air will turn to poison.

Infecting our mind and our hearts.

A country divided, riots on the horizon,

Despair in our thoughts.

I don't feel this great America anymore.

It's feels more like the land of the lost. When a self absorbed,

woman hating thing playing as a man plays God...

How are we not lost?

What's to become of our nation now?

We've given the reigns to a mad man.

To this I can't relate.

How this country made that happen,

Thinking he would make our nation great.

Well buckle up cuz the next 4 years are going to be something.

Lots of upheaval, insanity and hate.

The world divided

and the lost of democracy is at stake.

Because a narcissistic playboy,

playing at dictatorship

was given the keys to power,

Will be running the country again,

All for his own sake.

So I'm disillusioned once again.

For the second time in my life.

Despair, uncertainty and sadness

Colors the world beginning today.

Quashes out blue from our sights

Scarring the world with a red

angry

laser ray…

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Patterns of Chaos
By Alex S. Johnson

A thumbprint's shadow

containing a

well of

swirling scarlet

cocktail

mix.

Down the drain counterclockwise as

everything goes cattywumpus and

the Devil strides the terra with his long

sharp

Claws.

Our palsied manners twitch and

we flop

sideways

on our backs

crawl like worms

To appease the

blackest apple hearted...

The fly bursts its lovely

Head

All glistening emerald eyes

Feelers

A corpsechild's first flowering.

Alex S. Johnson is the author of several books of poetry including THE DEATH JAZZ, SKULL VINYL, THUNDERSTRUCK, SONGS FOR DARK CABARET and DOCTOR THEATER'S KISS. He is disabled and runs Nocturnicorn Books from his home in Carmichael, California. His forthcoming books include THE DEATH JAZZ revised and expanded edition, TWILIGHT OF THE DOOM HIPPIES, and an as-yet untitled full-length Dark Satire/Cyberpunk/Bizarro collection from the publishers of Horror Sleaze Trash.

Sonnet 20
By ChampionElCid

Hope has vanished from this terrible world

Replaced instead by loud and hateful shouts

In just a day our whole future was twirled

And now compassion will suffer a drought

The future now looks dark, grim and hopeless

For soon new laws will rule about our land

These laws will make our country retrogress

And lead to social justice being banned

I shudder at the thought of what may come

I know not how to overcome this loss

I can't seem to feel anything but numb

As I contemplate how to lift this cross

Some say we will survive the storm ahead

If we do, there will still be many dead

profile https://vocal.media/authors/champion-el-cid

I GOT THE SLIGHTEST TASTE OF GAZA
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

When the roofers came

Walked on my roof

Tore off the old shingles

Hammered in new plywood boards

The next day they returned

Laid down insulation

And proceeded to plug in

The portable air pressure gun

Shot rows of nails into each tile

The noise was like a barrage

Of bullets being fired with

The occasional heavy clunk

Placing more ammo above

I felt assaulted and ran

Outside to escape the war

In my Cube parked at the curb

Unlike the people trapped

In an unrecognized country

Without permission to leave

Denied food and supplies

For uncountable months

Tchaikovsky and McDowell: Serenade to the Mustache
By Anna Broome
For: Richard McDowell

There were watchdogs, and a post-Bach

Pre-Chopin world with too much Wagner,

and the Nutcracker in Moscow.

White aprons, carbolic soap, Sulphuric acid, quinine, and a little after three death

Affairs with actors and actresses, advice from Tolstoy to f-u-c-k

every d-i-c-k until the perfect one came along. (Sounds better than it is.)

Bangs and whispers, and the romantic movement

The artist was free.

And on every doorstep a beggar and a patron. And endless cold rain.

And where does McDowell sitting according to him godlike in an easy chair fit in?

And his poems of the past. How things never change. Tradition.

Tchaikovsky would muse. One symphony after another and a consternation of Romeo and Juliet as anything but an Opera. And The Manfred Symphony in B minor with a long adagio subjectiveness was an enigma, a rendering, something to twirl.

What connection can be drawn by one man autonomous and another in every parking lot in downtown LA disguised as a giraffe or a vulture or a box?

Two men...

their love of black swans as tearless women. Must there be more? A coat above the lip? An effortless design with a mind all its own –

A head growing on the inside an integumentary of brilliance;

There is the serenade.

Something in the open air under a lover’s window being touched by his own hand:

One in a crow den in Russia surrounded by feathers and disease, and final notes and the other under a street lamp on 6th street wordless for now.

Is mustache an albatross?

Ask McDowell, who would tie one around his neck if he could.

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles published poet and producer of the monthly free-to-the public performance art show, The Anna Broome Room for the passed ten years and the Solo Concert Series, The Broome Closet. She earned two bachelor’s degrees: Creative Writing, Poetry and English Literature, and Language with an emphasis on British and American Romantic Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where studied under Pulitzer Prize for Poetry nominee, Michael White. Her first book of poetry, Orthodox Bats was published in 2019. Her second book, Sex Ed: A Prerequisite at Columbine was published this year by Four Feathers Press. Her first novel, A Full Sun is due out in 2025. And first collection of novellas the following year.

I have changed
By Kellie Strubinski
11/30/2024

The Orange Neon “Book Store Open” sign across from me hasn’t changed.

I have changed.

The world has rotated on its axis in this galaxy 1000 times since I last sat in this old oak chair, at this unpolished oak table, overlooking the wall-to-wall shelves filled tightly with multi colored books eager to be held.

I have rotated within my soul in this mortal body 1000 times since I last heard the silence of the many patrons sprinkled at the tables here, as they all search for momentary salvation.

Even the smell of the books baking in the sunshine that slants through the large windows tastes the same; old crackers left open and alone in the box too long.

Volcanos, storms, ocean waves can’t compare to the change that has happened within my yearning soul that is hungry for love, acceptance, adventure and the illusory promise of eternal life.

Earthquakes, hurricanes and torrential rains can no longer stop me from risking and reaching for the chance to be fully, dangerously alive.

I have changed.

Kellie Strubinski lives in Sierra Madre, CA. She started her poetry writing journey during the pandemic and followed it up with a poetry workshop at Pasadena City College. She finds that poetry helps her to find words for things that she otherwise can't say.

Maggots
By R.G. Carrillo (November 2024)

They got it wrong

Did not understand

The divide

Not just racial

There’s martyrs

On both sides

Rich poor gap

Pro-lifers

Anti-immigrants

Progressives

And traditionalists

Democrats

Who have lost

Their way

Maggots eating

The flesh

Of a dead democracy

Something else

Swept in

To fill the void

A snake oil peddler

Promising greatness

A soulless opportunist

Opening the gates

Of hatred

Blasphemy of justice

Maggots destroying

LIberty

Trumpeters annihilating

The tranquility

Of the nation

Offsetting the blessings

Of our union

The white robes

Have come off

White nationalists

Have a new

Grand wizard

Insanity pours in

Like a hurricane

Hitting D.C.

RIGHT
By Mary Frances Spencer

this

pendulum swinging hard

sharply over our heads

yet we chose

some closed eyes rolled dice

half hopeful hearts

not enough

while cold-hard cash

ever elusive to most

rolls into the ever-more

bloated piggybanks

of the few

us minions scramble

and scrape for pennies of survival

we are distracted, stressed

hate intolerance

blatant corruption

shine on that blade

when the cuts begin

we stumble on

until it hurts

eyes bleeding red

minds shocked

maybe, just maybe

we will ALL wake up

and realized

we have been

PLAYED...

Mary Frances Spencer is a local Eagle Rock Yoga Instructor, Bodyworker and Sound Healer. She has been writing poetry for decades, had some work published in Spectrum, online at pathetic.org and self-published a few chapbooks in the 2000's. She is currently writing a meditation/affirmations A-Z book and should have it available in the New Year. She works with political themes, as well as humorous observations of life, peace and love.

Marilyn Fuss
December 2024

Early in the 2024 voting period I deposited my next-door neighbor's ballot which I thought had a high chance of not including the same choice of President as mine, since in my 12 years here, we have never spoken of candidates except for agreeing on a city councilperson once. A lot has been said about the unspoken tension that's proliferated in this century, of differences understood but not touched upon, the holiday table bugaboo, the biting one's tongue. Even more of us need to know that this negative frisson must not be an excuse for a lack of community and communication. I wanted it to be an act of faith in democracy to assist my friend, much as the non-combative mail I sent encouraging voters in other districts and states. They were as candles secured into sands for meditation or prayer. Affirmations, based on action.

After signing the friend's envelope as directed for agent of the voter, I saw that a signature was not where it belonged, and an address in the wrong field. After she corrected those, instead of putting the ballot envelope in the mail, as she modestly requested, as a reflex, I offered to check whether ballot drop boxes were open yet. Learning yes on both counts, I got it to the box at the next neighborhood library, with a better feng shui than ours. This drop box plenitude reflects the extreme privilege of living in Los Angeles, where each uncensored public library has one in front of it, to contrast with many counties which have one box, period. The process described was the same when I voted later on, minus the errors, I hope. Though I missed the ritual of going to the polls with others, before our assortment of choices made that seem like too much effort. And not long after that, of course, I sorely missed election night 16 years ago when we danced for joy-- in my previous next-door neighbors' kitchen.

These thoughts and acts sought to ward off participating in a country where a victor just might win because of electoral college voting crimes and chicanery made possible by the Founding dads, who feared the 'mob' inherent in a popular vote. Along with instilling the 3/5 Compromise and slavery itself, they cheapened our country's first years, and leaned the aspiring democracy toward hypocrisy. Since the Civil War and through the 20th Century, however, the most earnest presidents, legislators, and courts succeeded in repairing many errors and enabling more rights. Through that century I was born into, the virtues of a two-/multi- party system was touted with pride, at least modeling friendship between members of opposite parties, and showing appreciation for the ideal of the loyal opposition, who could step in to correct their own as well as the other faction, and yet be heard. They were folks like President Eisenhower, who could initiate the term "military-industrial complex" even as he had once been at the helm of the first component. Or Howard Baker and Barry Goldwater in the matter of Richard Nixon's obstruction of justice and cover-up. We listened to them, Nixon's peers.

Inclusive rights, expansive justice, and civility have been harshly interrupted in this century by an obstructionist Supreme Court and Congress, and now a returning President promising to unravel the Constitution. This 2020 pretender to the office of president asked a voting official in Georgia to conjure up 11,780 votes to reverse the state's presidential election outcome. He is on ubiquitous media record as instigating a coup d'état countering that national election, with calls to hang (with ready-made gibbet) the official whose job it was to make public the actual results. That was Vice President Pence, whose dogged service never failed his master in the course of an entire term of office, almost. Murderous opposition from a leader! The servile Veep became a true American hero when called upon to validate the votes as counted. We deserve to live in a time when Pence's courageous act gets its full recognition. Likewise an age when the acts of treason and endangerment by an outgoing leader should receive due retribution, rather than re-election. Caring more for justice than for holding office were truth-sayers Liz Cheney, Thompson, Kinzinger, Raskin, Schiff, Lofgren, Aguilar, Murphy. Luria, Romney, for a start. They were examples to be emulated. There just weren't enough citizens who were willing to listen to them, even as some of those lawmakers without precedent voted for those in another political party, and for democracy, in November of 2024.

Marilyn Fuss has spent most of her life in Los Angeles, and is a lover of the environment, natural and created, as well a being a self-described art fly.

Justice, other humans, and pets are important to her.

Thank you for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

November Poet's Place

November 06, 2024

POETS PLACE
NOVEMBER EDITION 2024

DODGERS WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!! I am so psyched! My whole family have been Dodger fans my entire life. That’s a long haul. My Mother especially followed the game religiously as well as basketball, Lakers and football, Rams. She was a big time gambler, and whether or not she was betting on the games, she was a super fan. She was in love with Magic Johnson, and he was a topic of so many discussions when hanging around her. Magic could do no wrong in her eyes. I love the Dodgers, plus they are fucking great! Loving the Dodgers is an LA thing and Dodger fans are considered a Nation. They are maniacal. When they won the world series on October 30th, downtown broke out into a frenzy, close to rioting in some areas. Fireworks were heard all over the city, with people screaming and banging pots and pans out their windows. I screamed as well and danced my happy dance.

On another note, when this column is published an election will have been held and decided upon who our next President will be. I, and many others, are holding our breaths and sitting on pins and needles. So much of our freedoms are held in that decision. I’ve actually thought of the possible worst case scenarios. If the criminal becomes President we will all be righteously fucked. I don’t need to tell you how. I'm sure you all are well aware of what He will do. Which is absolutely nothing, for the people of America. His cronies will take over and have a field day on America. I think that if that does happen, the American people will begin to see and feel its negative impact, then there will be a rising. An Armageddon of grand proportions. We will fight back and regain control in four years. But the American people will surely suffer until that day comes. That’s my thought. Hopefully that day of dread wont happen and we can begin to breathe a sigh of relief and all of us, including the other half will benefit from the new and joyous Presidency. Long live Democracy!

As always we have poets and writers here to share in our bounty on POETS PLACE.

Thank you all for continuing to support this column with your generous offerings.

AND… BIG THANKS TO CATHI MILLIGAN OUR PUBLISHER!!!

There was a Huckster in the White House
By Linda Kaye

A psychopathic, narcissistic diabolical and sinister demon spewing over 30,000 lies whilst in office to deceive the American people!

Who: raped women

grabbed pussies

destroyed Roe v Wade

put children in cages

unleashed racism

encouraged the January 6 riot on our nations capital! WTF!!!

claimed Covid was a hoax

“just drink bleach” he says!

dissed veterans dissed war heroes dissed Obama

dissed America!

Listen up people get your head out the clouds!

He is the enemy within

He has created the sins

the sins against America!

that cost has been the loss of our human rights, our freedoms and our respect from the world

wake up and stand up

join the fight stop his blight

millions have followed his reign of terror and all will suffer huge pain

We must fight to regain control

We must fight to feel new joy

We cannot forget what he did

He is the devil in disguise

He is not America’s guy!

wide open
by jerry the priest
wide open

like gems, the lights in this sanctuary glimmer, illuminating
fastidious corners—they serve to lend magic to the darkened room
and the proceedings that have begun

a sequence of self-expression rituals, performed
with no audience in sight, yet intended for the release of all

candlelight, as it will supplies a flickering, amber glow
rising and falling with the distinct yet obscure chanting

there would be ponds and a trickling fountain, a light breeze
playing across the robes of veiled supplicants—there might
be a Lama or supreme healer presiding

the chamber is as lavish as it’s guardians can afford, bedecked
in its array of cosmological geometry with swaths of fabric
draped here and there near hand crafted carpets on the floor

and cushions scattered amid stations for the offering of prayers

another festival of lights
another successful harvest—a chance to thank the gods
and beseech their fickle favor—and now a minor parade

of battered sculptures representing these same deities
proceeds from house to house, blessing each in turn
as traditions ancient and sacrosanct hold sway

that this is happening before our very eyes
should well reassure us of our rightful place
in the continuum where, bathed in aquatic ripples

supplied by one blue window and one yellow,
we lie buried in the relics of those who were born
in the dharma

that this is happening should signify that all is well
in our mood lit corridors

Making Love with the Devil
by Alex S. Johnson
Illustration: Sandy DeLuca

Pierced on the

horns of

The eternal

attraction:

His hands so roughly tender

his lips with smoldering kisses

He'll take you from your

small world to

His domain on a

thundering

Crazy

train.

A blast of the

secret

knowledge is

Sufficient to

Light the

wick on

Candle that

Burns down through

Centuries of

Dark delights.

None are safe, no woman

no man

No cruelty in his embrace

only the chanting in

The hollow beneath the

church

The rows of Satanic monks

cowelled with

Jewels pierced through

their

Genitals

Like stars.

Known for his dense, allusive, experimental style inspired by everything from Dada and Surrealist literature and art to Beat Generation authors such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, with stops along the way at Philip Lamantia, Andrei Codrescu, hip hop, industrial noise and Norwegian Black Metal, Alex S. Johnson is the author of several books of poetry including THE DEATH JAZZ, SKULL VINYL, THE FLOWERS OF DOOM and THUNDERSTRUCK in collaboration with Sandy DeLuca and Alea Celeste Williams. His poetry has appeared in numerous places such as Horror Sleaze Trash, poeticdiversity, 13 Mynah Birds, HWA POETRY SHOWCASE VOLUME III, ALTERNATE LANES, HYDROPHOBIA from Stitched Smile Publications, Misfits, Crossroads Literary Review, Rye Whiskey Review, Masticadores USA etc. He is a frequent collaborator with Juliet Cook, Daniel . Snethen, Nolcha Fox and Barbara Harris Leonhard. Johnson's forthcoming books include THE JUNK MERCHANTS 2: A LITERARY TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS and THE DOOM HIPPIES III: CHILDREN OF DOOM. After spending twenty years living and working in the Los Angeles area, which included reading from THE DEATH JAZZ alongside punk poetry icon Iris Berry and at the acclaimed Beyond Baroque poetry venue in Venice Beach, Johnson returned to Carmichael, California where he runs Nocturnicorn Books.

mind your own table
by linda m. crate

i see the judgment,

the hate, the superiority

flashing in the eyes

of those who think they're

better than me;

i don't need your condescension

and i won't endure it—

in the end we're all made

of flesh and bone,

more fragile than we care

to believe;

anything can happen in a second:

miracle or nightmare—

i want the world to be

a better place

for everyone,

want to see the world flourish

and flower like in my dreams;

try to break me of my dreams or my magic

& i will ensure you never have a spot at my table

in this life or in the next.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). Linda has four full length poetry collections and a photography collection book. Linda is also the author of the novellas Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022), Managing Magic (Alien Buddha Press, September 2022), and The Queen's Son (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2023). Her first short story collection King Quinlin (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2024) was published this spring. Her debut haiku collection in these ancient veins was published earlier this year (Alien Buddha Publishing, May 2024).

Stay in Touch
by Lee Boek

“I go nowhere I do nothing,”

He often says, with a certain finality

Although he is happy it’s not over

It’s not over for me either

Not yet

I’m still breathing.

I can form a thought

I can still go places

I can still remember my date of birth

I can still remember the little pink jacket

Mamma was wearing on the stretcher

When they brought her home from the hospital

The bassinet with the baby

Placed on the high boy

They said he was a boy

But there was no “Hi Boy”

Not for me I was three

Not for him I couldn’t see him

Nobody thought to lift me up

So I could see him

Maybe that’s why we’ve kept in touch so

closely

All our lives

That and all we went through

All we were taught to value and believe

The sheer joy of being boys, brothers

Young men

Fathers, grandfathers

Great grandfathers

Next big step

Ancestors!

When I was a young man, I spent a lot of time

with the "old folks."

I was always fascinated with the way people are...

How we are

We were taught to revere the older folks

Show them respect and even deference

When I became a young preacher

One of my jobs was to go around

Visit the old, the sick and infirm

To offer comfort

Sit with them,

Listen to them,

Make them smile,

Pray with them.

Many have a great confidence in prayer So I would try hard to craft a prayer

Bringing comfort

Support their hope

Things will get better with a little faith.

These thoughts and meditations seem to settle

and satisfy many people.

Others prefer being read to…in my preaching

days they loved to hear bible stories In later

years working with seniors they love

novels, history and poetry

My younger brother and I

Still talk daily on the phone

Both in our early eighties

We usually talk at 4-4:20 in the afternoon

Nearly every day

Yes, it is harder to hear each other

Words slur a bit

But the enjoyment of our communication is still

“High Boy”

ANNIVERSARY OF AN ARTIST
6-5-2022
6:47 a.m.
By Mary Cheung

One Year Later, I originally wrote to celebrate my mom.

Part sadness and part joy.

But today is another celebration of sorts.

One year later, it's a celebration of another momentous report.

I joined the Arroyo Arts Collective.

And it's brought me growth of my heart and soul.

Of opportunities of my self-discovery.

Amidst a country coming back from covid recovery.

I got to find my voice.

And got to find my public.

To shine, to show,

who I am from within.

My scariest parts,

My most hopeful parts

My idealistic parts

My most painful parts

My dreams and hopes....

You were there for me.

Guiding me out from the shadows.

Now I'm out in the light.

Nurtured and growing.

Because of your family, your size and your might.

How do you say, " Thank you " for someone in your life?

Sometimes, one little action that sets things into action.

Changes things forever from one little reaction.

And now, I’ll never be the same.

My life has shifted,

and I only have you to blame.

Change is good, as it should.

And I've hopped onto your train.

Barreling towards an unknown future.

It's the wild wild west out there.

You are leading me out into that open range.

One year later I am growing,

and my life has been forever changed...

Mary Cheung is a multi-disciplinary artist. She has been creating art since she was young. Grew up the youngest in a family of eight. Shecame to America at the age of 2 and grew up in San Francisco. Attended American school during the day and Chinese school at night.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012 which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Arc
By Richard Q Russeth

I wake, all aching hips and arcing mind.

Emerge from the deep space of REM, quilts and blankets,

where I orbited a star for seven thousand years

and traveled from Monday to Tuesday.

I make coffee, about which I am not fussy.

Though hot is good.

Maxwell House. Folgers. Really.

I drink it from a heavy mug

inscribed with the Hendrix lyric:

Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

Waiting on sunrise, horizon tinged

but soon ablaze with the heat of its forge.

There’s no going back in this world.

Richard Russeth is a poet, albeit a late bloomer at 68. He recently completed a collection of poems entitled “Ghost Heart.” He is currently working on a sci-fi novel entitled “Code Plague.” He lives in Ohio with his green-thumbed, clever spouse of twenty years. He loves a dry martini and a good mystery novel, sometimes at the same time.

high q.
by daniel schack

At best, perhaps, existence is just a strange warmth emanating from a strange cold.

Daniel Schack, a New York based poet/artist. More verse can be seen on poetry soup.com

Going Hollywood
By R.G. Carrillo

They’re going Hollywood

Putting their lives

In greedy hands

Movie moguls

Of golden West

Like plantation owners

From all over

They journey

These hopeful hordes

Ready to cash in

Their small town lives

For palm trees

Celluloid dreams

Stardom futures

Golden statuettes

To receive

In Tinseltown

With bright eyes

Seeking the prize

Big smiles

Camera ready

Surprise settling

For the reality

Of minimum wage

And rejection

Those that realize

Their passion

Are few

Paying costly dues

To devil agents

Studio heads

Cracking the whip

Grooming and bleeding

Their stars for mor

The sleazy underside

Of Hollywood exposed

City of angels

And orphans

Looking for guardians

And fake nirvana

Out there

Where they say

Let us be gay

A Black Dahlia

Was last seen leaving

The Biltmore Hotel

Our Dorothy from Kansas

Is now over the rainbow

Looking for the man

That got away

Marilyn stuck

With the fuzzy end

Of the Hollywood

Lollipop

Those shiny diamonds

Are a girl’s best friend

The studio system

Was a blueprint

Of master and slave

Conditioning the masses

Toward belief

Allegiance

Patriotism

Escapism

Conform

Shut off

All your devices

Enjoy your popcorn

From G. Billie Quijano

This month's submission is to honor our ancestors. A welcome to fall, a welcome of spirit, a welcome to celebrate love.

This photo is of the Goddess XolaXia. She is a Goddess of protection, transformation, peace, beauty and love. She protects those who have been affected by violence in all it's forms. She protects the souls who are on their journeys of transformation to the cosmos and guiding them on a peaceful passage. She is a warrior. The moon is one of her mentors. She embraces and exudes beauty and love from our artistic expressions. Her philosophy is that arte is medicine and nourishment.

La Duende's essence in the winds of papel picado

Ancestral whispers

Copal smoke lingers

Trails of Cempasuchitl

The elegance of memory

The fluidity of time

Causing pause in my dreams

Sublime energy of ritual and ceremony

My love floats on moonbeams

Their brilliance shines upon the cosmos

Grief eternally present

The weight of iridescent tears

In symphony with La Sirena's waves

Endless poetry in the hemisphere

La Monarcha swaying and swooning to the rhythm of the ancients

Rebirth ignited

My soul no longer in fragments

Lunar wisdom in their passage

Sweet vibration

Corazon pulsation

Please come and drink with me

I welcome you with joyful glee

We will dance, the dance of time

I know that the beyond is where you will always be...

G. Billie Quijano-Mestiza, Hija de East Los. Poeta, natural creative, photographer, assemblage artista. Bruja, instigator of beauty, palabra mujer.

The 5th of November (U.S. Version)
By ChampionElCid

Remember, remember!

The fifth of November

The orange man's treasonous plot

I know of no reason,

His attempt at treason

Should ever be forgot

Donald Trump and his traitors

Did scheme and conspire

To steal the vote

Set our country afire

Twas only three short years ago

That they did try this overthrow

And now here we are again

With Trump even more insane

A choice, a choice we must make

To once more suffer this vile snake

Give me someone else

Any but him!

If re-elected,

Our prospects are grim

So I ask of you that you not forget

The fifth of November

And Trump's evil threat!

Remember, remember!

The fifth of November

And your civic duty that day

Remember, remember

The fifth of November

And let us send Trump away

"ChampionElCid lives in Los Angeles, he currently works four different jobs so he doesn't often have the time he'd like to write. When he was young he read Don Quixote for the first time and that book left an impression on him. He later learned of a real-life Spanish Knight named "El Cid" who embodied many of the ideals that Don Quixote strived for. Thus he decided to take that name when creating a profile on the internet and that name has stuck. You can see more of his poems and thoughts on things on his Deviantart profile. Thank you for this opportunity, I hope I continue to impress you…"

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.
Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com
and include a short bio

Linda Kaye writes poetry, curates poetry, produces films, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

October Poet's Place

October 05, 2024

POETS PLACE
OCTOBER 2024

October is here and so are we. As we drift in and out of conscious awareness of the state of the world, the universe, our hearts and minds, do we relish peace? Can we justify our personal peace when so many of us are in pain and suffering from the enormous toils of uncertainty? We can and have to, otherwise how could we carry on? My peace of mind has been in jeopardy these last few weeks. For the last two years, I have been bombarded by the incessant sometimes violent noise of construction across from my house that I feel my brain might be damaged beyond repair. It has triggered what is called vestibular migraines. Can I protest the building of this house? Can I send the architect and owner of the project my bills for medications, ear plugs and should I inform her/them of my potential psychiatric hospitalization for the insanity it had caused? What are my rights as a neighbor to this onslaught? The quality of my life has been impaired. Dare I complain when thousands of lives have been lost to war? There’s no comparison. I cannot bare either. What I can do is write. Write my peace. Shout it out in prose.

Many of us have a lot to say and I feel honored and blessed that I can host anyone who wants to put their thoughts together and share them here on POETS PLACE! Thank you all for this continuous support of my column!!! I am truly in awe of you all!!!

A SUPER BIG Thank you to Cathi Milligan for hosting us on the LAARTNEWS!!! MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!

Grateful,
Love, Linda :0)

On Linda Kaye’s Birthday
By S.A. Griffin
September 7, 2024

age took the day off

and declared time

a national holiday

clocks ran for public office

promising more seconds

in every hour

Linda's day glo hair became a long running musical

made of oxygen singing all you need is love

on every street corner of the cosmos

on Linda's birthday

all wars went vegan

guns went on strike shooting blanks

shouting we will kill no more

forever

hate changed its stripes into electric bananas

and for the first time

heard its inner child

whispering

free at last

as hate smiled and for the first time

began streaming

tears of everlasting

joy like a river into the

ever loving arms of the open sea

on Linda's birthday

art was elected God

weeping Willows laughed

and all was left and right

with the world spinning gold out of all the leftover

mad as hell madness

because Linda's magical heart

showed us

the way

A Carma Bum, S.A. Griffin is most recently the author of Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press) which includes art by his late sister Robin Lynne Griffin, Suckers & Losers (River Dog) and Good Madness is Hard to Come By with Michael Lane Bruner (Rose of Sharon Press). Along with Rich Ferguson, Alexis Rhone Fancher and Kim Shuck, S.A. is the co-editor of Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press). Queued up for publication, he is the co-editor of Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts with Richard Modiano and the editor of Earful of Sun by Scott Wannberg with art/collages by Ray Swaney. A proud dad, S.A.'s son Spencer Lane Griffin recently released his award winning Poem Pie (Rose of Sharon), a children's book of poetry with illustrations by his mother Sharon Grish Griffin. It seems the apple didn't fall too far rom the tree. In fact, it landed with a resounding thud.

At the Green Heart of Form
For Alea Celeste Williams
by Alex S. Johnson

At the green heart of form

rustling

spreading fingers of leaves

skeletal claw points true north to

arctic blast

The trees tend together

forming cathedral arches

along the long stretch of

Emerald Avenue

where money vampires

breath through the

people's lung

in cells desaturated of blood red

Undead undead undead

Where my heart seeks its echo

where wings shimmer in silver suspension

where your dark eyes caress my heart

with plumes of wonder

I cannot abide in this lesser light. Your

shuddering electro vortex

brought me to the threshold

of awakening

Now I see more clearly the

theatre of cruelty

in all its

crutched, debased glory

A hole in the heart of things

where the blood rushes out

towards a clenched toilet death

A spasm in the aorta

a rhythmic swirl swirl thud thud swirl

brings pictures imminent of

again

A forest

Beasts

a feast of friends

Ants crawl along the well trodden

bricks leading

to the raised crypts in

New Orleans

Where entire families rest in

nibbled heaps of

bone

A jazz trumpeter blacker than

death rears

back his

noble head

and fires a

few

blasts of the

akashic

shotgun.

Alex S. Johnson's singular poetry and prose has been widely published, including such venues as Drinker's Corner, Borderless Journal, Cease, Cows, Bizarro Central, Horror Sleaze Trash and Black Noise. John Shirley, Bram Stoker award winning author, co-creator of the Cyberpunk genre, lyricist for Blue Oyster Cult and co-author of the screenplay to the 1994 cult classic horror film The Crow, wrote of Johnson's dark poetry collection The Flowers of Doom, "Alex S. Johnson is the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground." He has performed his poetry at the world-renowned venue Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach, California, the same place that Amanda Gorman got her start. He was an honorary member of The Dirty Girls Collective and read from his poetry with Punk Hostage Press founder Iris Berry. His poetry collection Skull Vinyl as well as his dark satire collection The Doom Hippies were acquired as culturally significant by the Widener Library at Harvard University. His upcoming books include a series of dark poetry chapbooks in collaboration with critically acclaimed author and artist Sandy DeLuca. Johnson resides in Carmichael, California with his family.

POEM
By Courtney Olanzapine

(untitled)

don't save me

let me drown

every single cut

makes me grow

let me find my soul

let me save myself!

this time

I need to get away

This is not the place

But where else?

No more Ms. Self Destruct

That was me

the lost Tinder girl

cruising through a sea of men

such a fucking mess

and desire hoards in my veins

and it dissolves into my blood

and sets me on fire

and sets me free

and now I know I need to flee

Courtney Olanzapine is a neurodivergent artist from Madrid, Spain, that devoted many years to study English Literature and she started writing in English. She’s also an outsider painter in her Instagram and her poems deal with the struggles and joys of being a madwoman in the crazy era we live in, made out of capitalism and Tinder, but also sprinkled with love, comradeship, and beauty. She loves glitter, mythology, psychology and everything punk, because punk is passionately being yourself, and that’s her highest aim.

Sounds of the night
1-25-22
2:48 a.m.
By Mary Cheung

Sound of a distant horn blowing...like a train coming through.

An owl hooting joins in the silence.

Making Its own Morse code...hoot...hoot hoot.

Just for me and you.

In inky darkness I lay in wonder.

All the sounds of the night are my friend.

Bubbling, gurgling the humidifier happily chugging along.

All these sounds and melodies...

Make for me this strange and beautiful song.

My stomach rumbles in response.

The snorting and breathing of my dog.

Lucy gets up to shake and wander.

Stomping in little padded feet.

Every now and then she stops to ponder.

Is this where I should settle down?

The search continues.

She paws, shakes, searching

Until the perfect spot is found.

Stomp stomp, ugh She paddles over my hills and dales.

I impatiently wait for her pacing to stop.

Eureka she's finally found a spot!

she finally drops!

Oh but wait.. that was just a ruse.

Lucy's up again. Stomping around..

In the darkness I hear her panting

And in the distance the train whistles a ghostly sound.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012, which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

By Ricardo Tomasz

O Love, thou fickle tyrant of the heart,
With poisoned arrows tipped in cruel art!
Thy fleeting pleasures burn but swiftly fade,
And leave behind a hollow, aching shade.

Thou doth betray with smiles and honeyed lies,
And mask thy thorns beneath thy sweet disguise.
What fool wouldst seek thy hand, so fair, so cold,
When once embraced, it turns to dust and mold?

Thy promises are whispers on the breeze,
That vanish when the heart doth bend its knees.
Thou trickster, born of folly and of fire,
That tempts the soul to leap into the pyre.

O false enchantress! Cease thy cruel game,
For all who love thee perish just the same.
I curse thee now, with every breath I take,
For love is naught but misery's mistake.

Ricardo Tomasz is an artist in audio-scapes, photography, painting, collage, video, performance art, Artificial Intelligence Art, and occasionally body hair. He is a creative genius and visionary, it says so on his middle school diploma. He was born and raised in Hungary, to a Hungarian mother, and a Spaniard father. They died when he was 16, but their passing allowed him to tour and study at some of the finest Art Universities in Europe. He came to America, thrusting himself into the art scene. He was in and out, in and out, and in and out of America over several years, until finally settling in Los Angeles as an artist, designer, and occasional human crosswalk sign. He is a valuable contributor to the Greater and Grander Artist collective. Subscribe to Greater & Grander for all your Ricardo Tomasz needs.

The Autumn Tree (August 2024)
By R. G. Carrillo

Love is like

An Autumn tree

Lush and green

In the youth

Of Spring

Then naked

And leafless

In the Fall

Of our time

Love evergreen

In the bloom

Of Maytime

Then gone

The blush

Of innocence

Fades and

Slowly withers

Away

Vocalizing words

Holding the notes

Bending

Sacred breath

Emoting

Consciousness

No longer

Pretending

Light and dark

Never able

To unite

Polar enemies

Non-magnetic

Forces

Conflicting

Deflecting

Rejecting

But ever

Expecting love

Poison

From my father

My mother

Will never

Recover

I was born

In a thunder

Storm

The leaves

From my Autumn tree

Most have blown away

Some remaining

My struggle

My suffering

Certainly

Not in vain

I am capable

Of love

Despite

My DNA

Triumph and Tragedy
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

Wheeled out the portable

Air conditioner that looks

Like an all-white R2-D2

Sat it next to me in my red

UCLA-lifted swivel chair to

Provide a 78-degree breeze

I pointed the white plastic

Caterpillar-like exhaust tube

To the parted front door space

Below the bottom of the black

Iron security screen somehow an

Orange butterfly stilled by blast

Excerpt from Opulent Mobility by A. Laura Brody, 2024

I had no idea when I first started thinking about wheelchairs that I would develop an international exhibit focusing on re-imagining disability. While growing up I volunteered a little with the Special Olympics and worked with folks who had serious injuries, but the concept of disability was not really part of my world. While most of my life was spent dealing with mental health issues, both mine and my family’s, it didn’t occur to me until much later on that those were disabilities.

It wasn’t until a former partner had a stroke that adaptive devices came into focus for me. I was right out of graduate school and had no idea of how to care for someone with a stroke. While taking him to physical therapy, I saw an 85 year old man and a four year old girl doing the exact same therapy, and something clicked. There was no question to me that anyone could become disabled at any time, for any reason. Since I enjoyed figuring out how things are made and designed, I was fascinated by the wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, and pinchers that helped people pull their socks up or to chop their produce with shaky hands. As an artist, though, I did not understand the cold and clinical designs of these items. They were almost insultingly ugly. Maybe the devices had to look that way for medical reasons, but something didn’t seem right. Many years later, after a tough but necessary breakup with both the partner in question and members of my immediate family, I began to focus on the fascinations I had cast aside before. I got back into storytelling and writing and learned some upholstery techniques- which eventually brought me to my first wheelchair re-creation.

I am a professional costume maker and designer by trade, and have spent a lot of time crafting costumes out of all kinds of materials. I had no medical equipment training but could create interesting designs. A friend donated his unused electric wheelchair to me and I remade it into an Edwardian throne. It was lovely, but the upholstery was so thick that he was practically pushed onto the floor the first time he used it. Fortunately, he was unhurt and good-humored! I had a lot to learn about making functional and beautiful wheelchairs.

I decided to approach this through the lens of art instead of medical device manufacturing, since that is my strength. Art is also such a graceful way to introduce people to new concepts, to start difficult conversations, and help change minds. While developing my first mobility artworks, I found out how few interesting designs for wheelchairs ever make it to market. I also realized I was unintentionally touching on taboos about disability and mortality, and got some surprising resistance to my ideas. Most of this resistance came from able bodied people.

Luckily, instead of being discouraged, I got stubborn. Being a collaborative artist by nature, I wanted to bring other people into the equation and work on this together. I figured I couldn’t possibly be the only person thinking about re-imagining disability, so I made plans to put on an exhibit. After all, I had worked in live events and theater for years. How hard could it be?

The first show took a full year to get started. I fell in love with the ease of access and smooth walkways at the Bell Arts Factory in Ventura, but they did not feel the same way about me. After calling them once a month for a year, they finally agreed to a meeting. It turned out they were still upset about the time and money it took to make their space ADA compliant. Eventually, we came to an understanding and I put up a small show for a single weekend in their community room. There were 7 artists in the exhibit, including me and another one who was wrangled into the show by collaborating with me on a piece. Artists backed out, one had their work stolen from their accessible van, there were major communication lapses and occasional fights, and my car broke down the weekend of the event. It was overwhelming and frustrating and ridiculous, in the way of all live events. In the end it came together, and I met people who would become long time collaborators and advocates for the show.

Anthony Tusler approached me about entering some photographs into the exhibit well past the submission deadline. I had already announced the artists for the show, but I enjoyed his photos and kept in touch with him. Anthony is a wealth of information about disability culture, history, and best accessibility practices. He also has a delightful sense of humor and straightforward approach to art and life that I really appreciate. I asked him to co curate the next show with me, he agreed, and we’ve been co-curating Opulent Mobility ever since.

Fly Down
By Sonny Tristan

Lots of things said about LA

All just a bunch of words

The city’s got nothing for me

Freeways shuffle lifeless herds

Go there or don’t

Angels don’t care

That’s the very pull

that calls me there

Drawing me to her

like a Sunset song

The only place to go

where no one belongs

Culture born more than babies

scammers, Dreamers, artists, scores

Stacked sexless atop each other

Things that don’t love you

make you want them more

There’s a small chance

to end up ruling the world

No other Ed offers that degree

And the drug is in the offer

The first one’s always free

This is Sonny Tristan’s first published poem. He is inspired by workshops and readings and is grateful to friends for encouraging him to put art out into the universe.

Poema
By G. Billie Quijano

Let me be clear

The audacity of war

Genocide breathes into the inevitable

The responsibility of 3rd witness

Is exhausting and relentless

Refusal to know peace is attainable

Impotence of dictators

Extortion of innocent souls

The heart is the weapon

Not the bomb of your choice

Crimson currents in the streets

Laughter, love, imagination vaporized in the rubble

Mangled bodies in white sheets

Tears screaming through the olive trees

Cease fire

Falls on deaf ears

Aerial bombardment

A symphony, no one wants to hear

Carnage of conflict

What is the solution?

We will not traffic in your hate

Humanity is not a price to pay

Revolution of mind

Right now, right here, today…

G. Billie Quijano-Hija de East Los, Mestiza, Executive Chola. Assemblage Artista, Photographer, Poeta. Instigator of beauty. Currently experiencing a Spiritual Renaissance. Much love and joy to you all. VOTE!!!

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

September Poet's Place

September 05, 2024

POETS PLACE
SEPTEMBER EDITION

It’s hot! Super hot!!! September is my birthday month and my day usually falls on or there about Labor Day. Birthdays are a celebration of self. A day just for you to do and act however you want. A gift we can give ourselves. It’s a day of permission. So why don’t we give ourselves permission to be kind, loving, happy and self nourishing everyday? I wish I had the key to that answer. It’s also a difficult time for everyone right now since we are in a state of flux and worry about the upcoming election. No one can really predict the future, so it keeps us in a constant state of fear and anxiety, which keeps the cortisol chemical in our brains on high alert mode. A state of fight or flight. I’m trying not to freak out. To use my meditative skills to calm myself, and self sooth. Creative distraction often helps. So do drugs and alcohol. Yoga is a healthier distraction. It has many benefits for the mind and the body. So let’s get out our mats, lay down, stretch and breathe. Let’s pray to the Gods that we can get through this cluster fuck of nauseating fear mongers, liars and cheats. And dig our way out with the help of Om.

Namaste, Linda :0)

On closer inspection
By Linda Kaye

No matter how much you clean the dust particles remain

the mind races unable to sort out the constant barrage of toxic influences and stupid rhetoric as if bombs are exploding behind the retina of the eye

creating images of death diseases religious fanatics beheadings weddings starving dogs and weeping children

senseless behaviors flooding the world as we speak

a wrath of dearth with loads of rhyme and incomprehensible reason

On closer inspection

look up to the sky and ponder

grab a blunt get high on life's gifts and presents of love that surrounds abounds with infinite wisdom the Dalai Lama-isms

"Silence is sometimes the best answer"

Reflections of experiences passed

on guilty pleasures

unlocked treasures

buried deep

underneath

trying to escape through the barriers of imperfections

mirrored inspections that resemble that familiar face

smells of that place

the repression that holds tight

squeezes with all its might

Upon deeper inspection colors appear brighter when the fear peels away revealing untapped resources of gold and markings of scars that have actually healed but remain buried encrusted as a trusted friend although developmentally delayed and frightfully stayed

Oh the possibilities of new skin

a fresher look of perception

unclouded visions

transcendence of soul

unconditional love and acceptance of self of humanity

respect of thy neighbor

thy friend, nature, the earth.

A Hoot and a Holler and Two Cahoots Away
By Alex S. Johnson in collaboration with Alea Celeste Williams

"Everybody should have an Alea-esque person in their life"-- A Josh Cookieman

there's this

kinda

Unusual

Chica

Monroe

Michigan.

She has dark hair

Dark eyes

peering at the world

Curiously through

big

Frames.

Her eyes look like

Smoke

Seen on a deliciously

frosty

Fall day when the leaves

crunch

on the path before you

And your nerves are all a tingle because

Magic

Mystery

and perhaps a ghoul may

Just

May cross your path but

Her breath if I could put a glass box around it put

It in

Artistic context make it into

A Bauhaus type

functional yet

beautiful

Mass produced

object

put it in artistic context and

sign it

L.H.O.O.Q.

French readers do yo stuff

(spell it out phonetically for a million in prizes!!!)

Let me tell you

People would pay a

Frightening lot of

Mi to

Collect it

Doom Hippies of all

stripes bell

Jarred bottom feeders and

Sizes of daughters n' sons would

Hitch thur buns to a

traveling chaos

Star like

Freddy

Mercury or

that guy whose

poetic philosophy inspired

Also Sprach

Zarathustra and

The hurling of a bone into

a smash cut military machine

August Poet's Place

August 06, 2024

POETS PLACE
AUGUST EDITION 2024

Hello fellow poetry and writer enthusiasts!!! It is August and the Olympics are in full swing in Paris! The opening ceremonies were spectacular and shined a light on the world. Let us enjoy these amazing athletes and bask in their glory for just a moment. Dissolve into the bliss of greatness before our eyes. We can and hopefully we will, some day be blissful. My heart races almost everyday now with the constant threats to our democracy. I cannot fathom that in our country, there are those who would wish ill to women, immigrants, people of color, and anyone who has a different faith or belief in their choice of worship. I am continually trying to stay away from the political arena to avoid listening to the lies that are spewing out of the mouths of many. They are not the majority and I hope the majority can still rule. Cross our fingers.

This month hosts poetry and prose from many of you. I feel blessed that I can host anyone who wants a voice to share to our readers. AND for those of you who read until the end, I have inserted this month in my bio my recent film 20 Years Left! A short documentary that achieved an Honorable Mention at the Highland Park Independent Film festival!!!

Thank you all so much!!! Enjoy!!

Love, Linda :0)

The greatest secret on earth
By Linda Kaye

Is the one never told

hidden beneath it’s crusty heart squelched suppressed collecting dust

driven mad by years of neglect left to dwindle and turn into lies

It’s a cover-up for diplomacy protecting the world from annihilation

Once it’s out of the bag relationships implode

Secret truth missiles are shot into the hearts and minds of others causing an instant impact of death of their denials

Forever undone by the greatest secret on earth

your open heart
by jerry the priest

is not an achievement

for which you could expect

to receive validation, because

your open heart

is not about you

neither is it

an objective

to be pursued,

as if you'd ever profit

by chasing what is

already yours

your open heart

is an option, nothing more

it is no less sacred

than your own breath,

and no less constantly

flowing

it is not for acquiring

but for igniting

for sharing

not for hiding

love is not a riddle

It cannot trip you up

or rip you up, or open

or off

love is too little seen

and too often spoken

all you need do to
coax it into the open…

IS RELAX!

What has 6 vowels, 7

consonants, and comes

with a lovely guarantee?

y o u r

o p e n

h e a r t

He’s lived and taught in Katmandu Nepal, Istanbul Turkey, Boston Massachusetts, Boulder Colorado, Portland Oregon, San Francisco/San Leandro/Los Angeles California, and written in Banaras, Bodhgaya, Konya, Damascus, Petra, Jerusalem, Mexico City, San Cristobal de las Casas, Antigua, Buenos Aires, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Denver, Santa Fe, Bar Harbor, Vancouver, Halifax, Atlanta, Asheville and Manhattan, among other locales.

"Dragonfly Messages”
By Lida Parent Harris

It isn't that it's life is a trickery, or being mocked by life and it's foolery.

It's playing the harp of an emerald dragonfly, to stoke your saddened tears.

She tells you to keep moving, Never fooling or wandering in place.

You have love to fulfill, and gifts to reveal, besides are the talent is near.

Don't get too comfortable when she buzzes by,

just stay on the road, the path is aligned

for all the joy your heart is ready to make, and the dragonfly you're seeing is here to take it's place.

Give you the nod to move on,

and a jingle of the bell how you're doing it so well.

At age 17, Lida began Journaling, and writing her first drafts of poetry. She graduated from El Camino Real High School, and went on to care for adults and children with disabilities. Lida continued her love of writing poetry well into her twenties. She began submitting to newspapers, and collections of work.

Her writing career began in 2001when she began attending Open-mic events in the San Fernando Valley. She met wonderful friends in a coffeehouse, and soon her life and world opened. Lida attended Community Literature Initiative instructed by Hiram Sims. It was a writing course at USC which gave her new roots.

Her first book of poetry was published in 2015, by World Stage Press. She enjoyed performing in new venues, and creating her own shows called Lyrical Flames, in 2014. Since then, Lida has performed her poetry in Las Vegas, Chicago, Santa Monica, Long Beach, North Holland, ArtShare LA, Leimert Park, Grand Park, and The Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

danza mexica
by nadia cristina

i learned there was water there

because i spilled it

learned there was fire there

by getting burned

tonguing the wound

the black nothingness

until it is filled

is it possible to spin

fast enough to fly?

away from pain

away from plunder

to a blue river

where my ancestors

have always been

black crow hair in sunlight

lifting woven baskets

speaking to fish

in their own tongues

my wish for flight

is a prayer for transcendence

to know my cultures

as if they were passed to

heart to heart

rather than running

backwards across

time

an olympian

a detective to my own

life

breadcrumbs + clues

+ scraps

on my knees

everything becomes a

prayer

for what was taken to be

returned

land

back

culture

back

can i know what it’s like

to have

in the first

place?

know it as simple

inheritance

like the pit of a

stone fruit

that births

a new flower

a new fruit

again + again

the sound of ayoyotes

seeds of vibration

for new generations

conch-shelled

cosmos

unfurling

nadia cristina martinez ismail is a poet across media. Their work can be found online at angelbabe.me

Imagine
By Anna C. Broome

And when one of you falls

The lowest within each of you falls

And in your heart

That day does not meet your needs

All may see the flowers

But no one will be free

For as one is mourning

The divine is dead between the greatest of people

Wastefulness cannot be justified

As submissiveness shown

And as a grave is dug

Many hands dig a million miles down

Claim your rights

State your claims

Fight your battles

Reject vexation

For the world always has been as it is

Due to the sameness of living

Lean far, be grown,

See the points of action

Store your refugee outside your pocket

Don’t use me as your excuse.

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles published poet and producer of the monthly free-to-the public performance art show, The Anna Broome Room for the passed ten years and the Solo Concert Series, The Broome Closet. She earned two bachelor’s degrees: Creative Writing, Poetry and English Literature and Language with an emphasis on British and American Romantic Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where studied under Pulitzer Prize for Poetry nominee, Michael White. Her first book of poetry, Orthodox Bats was published in 2019. Her second book, Sex Ed: A Prerequisite at Columbine was published this year by Four Feathers Press. Her first novel, A Full Sun is due out in 2025. And first collection of novellas the following year.

Laughing and Crying
By ChampionElCid

I'm laughing at the state of the world today,

I'm laughing at the leaders and everything they say

I'm laughing cause they're stupid, their speech is so absurd

I'm laughing when I hear them talk, I laugh at every word

I'm crying at the state of the world today

I'm crying because people seem to have lost their way

I'm crying cause they spew hate, at people they don't know

I'm crying cause they help to bring, about our state of woe

I'm laughing at the politicians, whenever they tell a lie

I'm laughing as they seem to think, it's something we will buy

I'm laughing at the idea, that what they think is true

I'm laughing because honestly, it's really nothing new

I'm crying when I hear someone say that they believe them

I'm crying cause I know that means we really are that dumb

I'm crying cause there are so many, who think just like they do

I'm crying cause not long ago, they tried to stage a coup

I'm laughing at people, who believe the word of god

I'm laughing cause they don't at all, seem to find that odd

I'm laughing when they live by rules, that really makes no sense

I'm laughing cause I can't believe, they really are that dense

I'm crying when those same people, use their beliefs to rule

I'm crying cause they think it gives them the right to be cruel

I'm crying cause there are so many, who believe this lie

I'm crying cause they want to see, so many people die

I'm laughing at the theories, that some people believe

I'm laughing at how easily, they are to deceive

I'm laughing cause it's so absurd and obviously not true

I'm laughing cause I can't believe, they have that point of view

I'm crying when politicians say that those beliefs are fact

I'm crying when they say that this is why we must react

I'm crying when they make new laws, based upon this lie

I'm crying when these new laws, mean democracy might die

If I'm being truly honest, I cry more than I laugh

And I think I do it mostly, on the world's behalf….

To Pee or Not to Pee
by
Peter Yates

Lenny Bruce divided mankind into two groups — those who piss in the sink, and those who don’t. He said this to amuse, but when Stone and a duo partner were enduring rigors of the road, sharing cheap rooms to keep costs down, and trying to keep off each other's nerves, it took on deeper implications. Nobody, not even the most likeable person, is rational about all things, least of all in matters of personal hygiene, which even in our modern age can be dictated by superstition. This much Stone knew. He had to keep idiosyncrasies in mind if difficulties were to be avoided. And his best intentions would be tested.

One night, early in the trip, with jet lag upon him, he tossed one last time in his bedsheets and realized that unless he responded to the tickling, teasing signals emanating from his bladder, he’d never sleep again. Straining his eyes in the dark, he looked over at his roommate's bed. The guy was sleeping like a baby, relishing each unconscious moment. Stone contemplated the door. Beyond, across a stone floor, through two more sets of doors, up a dark flight of uneven stairs, was the toilet. He glanced around the room. Six feet away, at the foot of the roommate's bed, was the sink.

Deliberately, responsibly, he considered the step-by-step process required for a trip to the john – the pulling on of pants, so as not to frighten other occupants of the hotel, the tiptoeing across the cold floor, the attempting to deal silently with the double doors, each warped in its own way, each requiring its own abracadabra before groaning open. To handle the doors, he might have to turn on the light. With this thought, he paused. He'd hate to risk waking anyone. He decided to ignore his need. Pulling a pillow over his head, he rolled over with renewed determination. His bladder, pressed against the mattress, ballooned with pain.

The sink at the foot of his roommate's bed was only a few feet away. The roommate breathed deeply and evenly. Seriously, Stone thought, he really shouldn't disturb him — With this jet-lag, the fellow would never approach that state of oblivion again. Tomorrow would be hell for him — and for me, having to deal with him. Stone studied the sleeping form. Does he, or doesn't he? Lenny, give some guidance here. If he caught me in the act, so what? How prudish could he be? His useless wondering was interrupted by another poke from below decks. He glanced at the sink, so near, so easy, so reasonable. The bladder egged him on.

But, he hesitated. You never know about people — you just can't tell what might set them off. Damn them — the idiots confuse the proximity of tap and drain with a similarity of function! But after more thought, he admitted that, technically, they were right — there was a relationship between what goes down and what comes out. In his mind he constructed the mechanism. Waste water, upon entering the drain, joins waters and effluvia from drains throughout the hotel, perhaps even from the toilet upstairs. These, in turn, join products from other drains. Teaming up in sewers under the street, they race underground to creeks, rivers, bays and treatment plants. In a great wave, they arrive at the ocean. There, after some time during which they are swallowed and excreted by any number of fishes, they are evaporated into clouds, blown about, and sent down again as rain over some chance country — into rivulets, streams, creeks, rivers, into pools, lakes, reservoirs, into aqueducts, tanks, pipes, and faucets, and ultimately, perhaps, even into this very same hotel-room sink.

He realized the ridiculousness of this I'm-a-Little-Raindrop story. The evaporative turnover time of the world's oceans is, after all, two million years. With all the thought of running water, now he really had to go. Jesus! — if he or any of his righteous ilk were to take a glass of water from the tap, how would they know what other functions their quenching beverage might previously have served? The local reservoir is a giant cesspool! The connection is there. Even so, idiot that the guy was, Stone didn't want to trouble him with any groaning doors or noisy flushing from upstairs. Listening enviously to steady breathing, he decided, out of considerateness, to go for the sink.

Quietly, he rose. He headed toward the beautiful porcelain fixture. Treading softly, he approached the end of his bed. His bladder squirmed in anticipation, celebrating the excitement of the moment — the intoxication of imminent taboo-violation. It gloated as he stifled a giggle. He fought his fear of stumbling in the dark and filling the room with noise. In the half-light from the window, the sink gleamed invitingly. Finally, perfectly, at the point of bursting, he reached it, without a sound.

Soon things were going well. He strained to hold back the eager stream as it jetted at the target of the drain. Failing at this, he tried to mute it by angling it against the slick vertical side of the bowl. Not a whisper from the bed behind him. Good job, he thought. But congratulations were premature. He'd hardly got going, had only begun to grin with relief, when a chortling sound, soft at first, then louder, emerged from the drain. Behind him, bedsheets rustled, followed by a loud sigh. He considered aborting in midstream, but abandoned the painful notion. From within the wall, pipes began to gurgle. The roommate stirred again. In vain Stone tried to choke the flow. The drain laughed louder, seeming to enjoy his predicament. Panicked, he reached for a cup on the sink-stand, grabbed at the faucet handle, and flooded the sink with water to mask the swelling chorus of the plumbing. My back is to the bed. I'm only slightly on tiptoe. He'll think I'm getting a drink. Making explanatory gestures with his back, he lowered the cup into the basin, taking care in the darkness to try to choose the correct stream. The cup grew heavy in his hand. It was impossible to avoid the impression that he was at the doctor's office, filling a sample. Is it my imagination, or does it feel warm? He raised it to his lips, making more I'm-only-having-a-drink motions. Fighting back a moment of doubt, he tipped the cup and poured the contents down. The roommate coughed and turned on the light. In the mirror above the sink, Stone saw himself drinking calmly. The liquid felt good as it streamed down his throat — he had been thirsty, after all. He swallowed eagerly and was struck by the absurdity of his simultaneous needs to take in and to expel. The fluid poured down his throat and seemingly straight out into the sink below, in a continuous stream. He was a human tube. In a flash, he rethought the connection between faucet and drain — right now, the connection was him, a weird bypass in the raindrop's journey. The roommate fumbled with the clock bedside his bed. The light went out. With a grunt, the roommate turned over. The last drop from the cup trickled down Stone's throat. Below, after a slight delay, his output eerily came to a halt. He replaced the cup on the sink-stand and settled back on his heels, making sounds of slaked satisfaction. He allowed the tap to run a little extra, shut it off, and began groping his way back to bed. His eyes were newly dark-adapting, unable to see a thing. He slammed his toe into something, swearing automatically at the stab of pain. The roommate grunted again. Lying back in bedsheets, Stone wondered if the poor guy would be able to get back to sleep. At least, he reflected, he hadn’t had to listen to the double doors. He meditated for a while on the thought of what a considerate traveling-partner the fellow was fortunate to have. With a last sneer at his chastened bladder, he dozed off.

Later, drifting out of a fitful sleep, he became aware of a sound like laughter in the room – first a chortle, and then, louder, a gurgle. In the half-light from the window, he made out the cause. It was only the roommate, standing at the sink, drinking a glass of water. Who would have known? he asked himself, as he reached to turn on the light.

pyates@ucla,edu

Peter Yates In venues ranging from Lincoln Center and Italian State Radio to the art clubs of Salzburg and the wilds of Los Angeles, Peter Yates has produced over a thousand events as a composer, guitarist, writer and multimedia artist. His interest in things not done has led to a puppet opera about the Watts Towers, a DVD ghost-town opera, and several books of satire and philosophy. His activated teaching includes years on the music faculties of UCLA and Cal Poly Pomona.

The Anomaly
By Ed Burgess
7/30/24

Intelligent Artificial

A stain on a white shirt

An anomaly

Not standard

Not perigee

but anomaly

perihelion around the sun

We orbit each other

And when we are close

the angle is an anomaly

we deviate and rotate

Normal and expected

Intelligent Artificial

Not the boss of me

Here at the apogee

As far from you

And the Sun

As I can be

A black whole of creativity

The anomaly

Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and good guy. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles for over twenty years. Follow him on Instagram @pasteywhyte

Poem
By Kassi Crews

Jumping jacks you’re now a new size pack

Jack fruit is from the fig tree family

With ancient mystical secrets helping our bones, blood, proteins, iron and eyes

More for you to see my darling as you grow strong and independent ready to meet the world.

As you slip out of momma’s womb the world awaits your arrival

You are the magic this world needs for our survival

With all wisdom and ancient secrets rolled into you now… your soul is ready to shepherd in our revival for our tribal

Grateful for your arrival

Kassi Crews is an entertainment industry veteran and a consummate storyteller. Her early studio career began at Cannon Films, famous for action titles like Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Bloodsport,” Chuck Norris’ “Delta Force”, and Sylvester Stallone’s “Cobra.” Crews became an industry leader in Hollywood post-production as the Vice President of Digital Jungle where she oversaw the day-to-day operations and served as producer on an endless list of film and television projects. Most recently, Crews lead multiple post-production teams at Fox and Walt Disney Television, overseeing the workflows of all television for FX Networks including "The Americans," “Fargo," and “Pose."

Crews has produced a variety of critically acclaimed independent features, “Broken Memories,” “God’s Ears,” and “A Better Place,” as well as directed live shows for the theater. She is a member of ATAS, NAB, NAPTE, PROMAX, NATPE, and SAG; holds a Master of Arts from CSU Fullerton and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from UC Santa Cruz.

Architect Creator
By RG Carrillo

Architect creator

Out of the dark

Into beauty

Light of consciousness

Soul mate searching

Twin flame identity

Remade my spirit

Fractured biological origins

Sobriety recovery healing

Absorbing maturing

Developing gratitude

Restoring innocence

Pacing my journey

Release me from

Biased judgment

Breathe in freedom

The scales

Of justice

No longer blind

Elitist greed

Red in blood

Blue in depression

White no longer pure

We move unsure

In democracy

Music and poetry

Keep me sane

Politics in America

A quicksand

For the common man

Sinking the middle class

The justice scales

Swinging wildly

In the wind of division

Mid-life national crisis

Right leaning narcissism

Left leaning

Voice of reason

When will liberty

Balance her scales

Find her middle ground

A fork in the road

Heal hope highway

Unite the people

Do not divide

The American people

Bring back

Common sense

Disagree with respect

Do not turn

Republicans and Democrats

Into the Hatfields and McCoys

One nation under God

We are not clans

Fighting with clubs

Throwing rocks

On the other side

Plenty of fault

To go around

Wise words

I hang onto

So simple

Rodney King

Turning the other cheek

After being beaten

By the police

“Can’t we all get along?”

Such grace and dignity

Taking the high road

Choosing not

To lower his

Human spirit

Rising from the ashes

Take heed

We are a great people

We do not need

To be made great again

Stand firm

On our constitutional

Principles

I see light

At the end

Of the tunnel

My glass

Is still half full

Love to all

Spread kindness

Plant the good seed

Two ladies
By Christine Bullard

One arrived by train from France

The other by plane from Croatia

They met at their lodging destination

Both were filled with ecstatic enthusiasm

To explore the passionate city of Barcelona, Spain

Together, these two women came to

seek adventure in a foreign country

The weather is hot. The pool is too cold.

The sea is tempting. The wind is tempestuous.

Each day they walk for miles absorbing the essence of the city

The art, cuisine, wine, people, churches, taxis, and flamenco dance

They explore the architecture and design of Gaudi's works of art

Magnificent intricate buildings such as Casa Batilò to Basilica de la Sagrada Familia

In the end, Guadi was hit by a tram and died alone. Nobody knew who he was dressed in rags

I wonder as he was dying in his hospital bed if his Catalan pride was true to the end

The sun shined, birds chirped, and the sounds of tourists overloading the city remained exuberant

As does the friendship between these two ladies

Friends for over 20 years, children have grown, lovers have come and gone, and their friendship continues to grow luxuriant

There is safety, respect, and love in this friendship. It is cherished. It is recognized. It is not taken for granted.

Christine Bullard is a native Angeleno from Highland Park. She is an architectural photographer, as seen in Dwell and other publications. She's a Los Angeles licensed realtor, and co-founder of The Garden Co-op Nursery School. In 2023 Christine became an Italian citizen and is living a digital nomadic life traveling throughout Europe.

Cultural Appropriation
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

Oh oh, CaLoki, you suggested

making the November theme for

Four Feathers Press online edition

Dia De Los Muertos, isn't that...?

Not as bad as performing songs

from another culture like Paul

Simon did on Graceland, and,

now that I think about it, Me And

Julio Down By The Schoolyard.

Don't even mention Genesis!

Yikes, am I not allowed to order

my beloved bean and cheese

burrito anymore? And I just

bought dumplings at the 168

Market on Valley Boulevard

and nobody stopped me

except to say Shi Sheh.

You know why I got them,

my wife is from Dalian, then

adulted in Sanya. Is getting

married the ultimate C.A.?

Wait a minute, I'm writing

this poem in English. Talk

about colloquial acquisition....

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA Antioch University L.A., taught at USC and Occidental College Upward Bound, board member California Poets In The Schools, publisher Four Feathers Press, host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading and workshop series in Pasadena, California. For awards, features, and publication credits, please go to: http://dkc1031.blogspot.com

The Litanies of Satan
By Charles Baudelaire
Translated from the French by Alex S. Johnson

Oh you who are the most wise and handsome of all angels

Divinity betrayed by fate and deprived of just praise

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

Oh Prince of Exiles, one who has been wronged

and yet every time you're vanquished, you return much stronger

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You who knows all, great king of the underground

Intimate warrior, knower of human anguish

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

Who treats the leprous and despised equally

and teaches them by love the taste for Paradise

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

O you who with your strong and hearty Mistress,

Death, engenders that charming madness, hope

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

O you who knows where in the envious earth

a jealous God has hidden his precious gems

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You whose clear eye has intimate knowledge

of the deep arsenal which contains the heavy metal tribes

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You whose large hand hides the precipice

from the sleepwalker walking the ledge

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You who magically softens the ancient bones

of drunkards trampled by horses on the cobblestones

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You who, to calm the fears of a fretful lot

mixes saltpeter and sulphur into a drowsy medicine

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You who with subtle complicity places his mark on the forehead of Croesus

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

You who places the cult of wounds and pain

in the eyes and hearts of little girls

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

Magical wand of exiles, lamp of inventors,

confessor of conspirators and those who hang

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

Adoptive father of those with black bile

chased and banished by God from terrestrial paradise

O Satan, take pity on my long despair!

Glory and praise to Satan, haughty and proud on

your celestial throne

where you reign, and in the profound depths

of Hell, where, vanquished, you dream in silence

Place my heart one day beneath the tree of Science

next to the place you rest, where above your head,

like a new cathedral, your unholy branches spread.

Alex S. Johnson is a retired English instructor, editor, journalist, artist, writing coach and publisher. His poetry and prose collections include Bureau of Dreams and The Death Jazz. His work has been praised by the likes of Ellyn Maybe, Dominique Lowell and the late Lemmy Kilmister of the band Motorhead. Cyberpunk inventor and the co-author of the screenplay to the 1994 cult classic film The Crow, John Shirley, said of his dark poetry collection The Flowers of Doom, "Alex S. Johnson is the Baudelaire of our time, the poet of the underground." Johnson's upcoming books include The Junk Merchants: A Literary Tribute to William S. Burroughs, with an Introduction by iconic horror author Poppy Z. Brite, We Are Gregor: A Disability Rights Anthology and The Doom Hippies III: Cancelled and Deleted Tales. He lives in Carmichael, California with his family.

tRUMp cocoNUT
By Chuka Susan Chesney

Watching from my alabaster

plastic-covered sofa,

I hear on TV:

Trump’s been convicted

of white collar crime.

Time for a drink!

But when I imbibe,

I’d better not drive,

I call my best friend

but she can’t hurry over.

Her dog is dying,

he’s almost not alive.

I text my son,

Let’s have a drink!

He answers, Mom, I get it,

but don’t overdo it!

That’s easy to say

when he’s never been alone.

I’m looking for someone

to have a drink with,

but there’s no one.

Guess it’ll just be me

and those thirty-four felonies

3 shots of Malibu Caribbean Rum,

a splash of cocoNUT,

surfboards my tongue.

I slurp it straight—

stay up too late:

One shot for Stormy’s testimony,

one shot for Trump to go to jail

and one for Melania to divorce him.

I won’t get a hangover—

I hang glide with rum

Chuka Susan Chesney is an artist and a poet. Her poems, art, and/or flash fiction have been published in Peacock Journal, Inklette, New England Review, Compose, Picaroon, and Lummox. Chesney’s paintings and collages have been in exhibitions and galleries across the United States.

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio

And…February 19, 2022, she debuted her staged poetry production of “20 Years Left” at the historic Ebell Club in Highland Park! Two sold out shows with 2 standing ovations!! Check out the links to reviews and the video!

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

Linda Kaye is a native Angeleno who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology, and social work. Linda, now retired from medical social work, was working for her last seven years of employment as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Oh yeah.

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

20 YEARS LEFT DOCUMENTARY!!!!

Photo credit: Brad Stubbs

https://youtu.be/BsI5-8xdbzk

July Poet's Place

July 07, 2024

POETS PLACE
JULY EDITION 2024

Write or wrong we are here write now. Are we living our best lives? Contemplating our best life? Where are you now? Are you in it to win it? Can you put your head down every night and claim you did your best today? One of the ‘Four Agreements’ by Don Miguel Ruiz, says, “always do your best” purports that if you do your best, regardless of how you feel, even if you are not doing well, that you still did your best, you win. Our lives are full of daily challenges as well as blessings. How we view life can either heighten or destroy our happiness quotient. Is the glass half full or half empty? I met a homeless guy with no hands when I worked at Hollywood Presbyterian hospital as an ER social worker in the early 2000’s. I realized then that I had nothing to complain about.

I am blessed to be able to write, think, compose, create art, play with my friends, eat, drink and travel. Thanks to all of you, we have this column to share anything we want to share, without judgement.

This month is jammie packed with poetry, stories and more. Please take a look!!!

Love, Linda :0)

The low end of good
By Linda Kaye

Good is a profitable commodity cherished, relished by the masses

Good is measured by how one feels at any given moment or a taste that appeals to the senses

If you are at the low end of good, you probably are just eeking by

barely standing, somewhat happy, making or not making a living, getting laid infrequently but occasionally having sex

Some sex is better than no sex

The sense or perception that something is good, is personal, experiential

As the saying goes, one man’s floor is another man’s ceiling

One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure

The low end of good, just simmers barely above the surface

It's reach turning tricks to gather enough muster to carry on in the life less traveled

Grand Central Market
By Elizabeth Silk
August 22, 2022; July 24, 2023

We’re all here

Moms and teens and grands

Chairs pulled round a table

Waxy papers bloom from takeout boxes

In the shade of Grand Central Market

Kids toddlers carbed out on

pizza tacos soda

blankly stare

Bass and drums rumble the air

Chests thrum against metal chairs

Chatter ripples over heat waves

We are in it together

Breathing bad air

With satisfaction

In shallow breaths

Under aqua umbrellas brisk and perky

Like kites about to fly off over the hot wind

Pigeons stalk crumbs

Not about to fly off

A sunbright wall faces us

Its mural faded to Egyptian pastels

Blue block H E L O spaced between

Boarded windows

Since I, Elizabeth Silk, moved to Los Angeles in 2021, I have enjoyed writing poems about Downtown LA, where I live. “Grand Central Market” is one of the first of those poems as well as one of the first landmark settings that I enjoyed.

"Assist Yourself In Life”
By Lida Parent Harris

You're a moon-streamer, a love-gambler.

A pocket of fresh paint to spray onto the walls.

Take up your means, functioning dreams, and have a go

for life is its own show.

Read all the books, teach the valuable lessons, fight hard not to win, but leave a lasting impression.

Find courage to grow out old truths, and find the joy you see inside of you.

Be thankful, be intentional,

and always tip your server.

Thank you.

Lida was born in Inglewood, CA, and raised in Chatsworth, Ca. She spent her childhood enjoying a good book, drawing, and writing her own stories. Always a quiet student, Lida thrived in the world of Literature and Art.

At age 17, Lida began Journaling, and writing her first drafts of poetry. She graduated from El Camino Real High School, and went on to care for adults and children with disabilities.

Lida continued her love of writing poetry well into her twenties. She began submitting to newspapers, and collections of work.

Her writing career began in 2001 when she began attending Open-mic events in the San Fernando Valley. She met wonderful friends in a coffeehouse, and soon her life and world opened.

Lida attended Community Literature Initiative instructed by Hiram Sims. It was a writing course at USC which gave her new roots.

Her first book of poetry was published in 2015, by World Stage Press. She enjoyed performing in new venues, and creating her own shows called Lyrical Flames, in 2014.

Since then, Lida has performed her poetry in Las Vegas, Chicago, Santa Monica, Long Beach, North Holland, ArtShare LA, Leimert Park, Grand Park, and The Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

a fading song into flames
by linda m. crate

independence day is

coming up,

but i see no reason to

celebrate;

they are taking away

our freedoms one by one—

rights aren't meant

to be fought for,

they're meant to be had;

i know there will still

be fireworks and displays

of patriotism but i don't know

if i believe in this country

anymore—

when i was little they promised

me a world much better than this one,

a fading song into flames?

that wasn't what they promised me,

i want the world that i dream of

lush and green with promise;

where there's a place at the table for

everyone and poverty doesn't exist.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). Linda has four full length poetry collections and a photography collection book. Linda is also the author of the novellas Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022), Managing Magic (Alien Buddha Press, September 2022), and The Queen's Son (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2023). Her first short story collection King Quinlin (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2024) was published this spring. Her debut haiku collection in these ancient veins was published quite recently (Alien Buddha Publishing, May 2024).

Treasure Hunt

By Mona Jean Cedar

Everybody’s Searching – for their Visions in the sky.

Hoping, Wishing, Craving, Wanting .

so Afraid to Die.

Not Trusting their Emotions,

or Following – their - dreams,

just Mindless Repetition, Unaware of the Full Scheme.

It’s just:

WorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWorkWork &

RushRushRushRushRushRushRushRushRushRushRushRush &

Every-Year’s the Same thing, Every-Year’s the Same thing, &

I can’t Stop, no Stopping, I don’t Know how to

Stop!

So just Relax & Give – In,

& Allow Life to Happen.

No Controlling or Forcing,

just Accepting Gifts Given.

for Gifts, they Flow Freely; Gifts are Given-from-heaven

For the Heart and the Healing

To Strengthen the Soul; You Know

Heaven wants to Help you; Uphold you Forever.

Like it Has – Been for Millennium,

Moving Heaven and Earth,

Orchestrating the Universe

in the Creating of You.

Waiting for You to Assume

Your Rightful Role

and this Role…? is Simply You

You Know You Don’t Need

All the Crap that they Feed - you

the Cars or the Bars, the Cash,,, it’s All Trash.

That Bullshit Become Your Burden.

You’re so much Better Than that.

Cherish Yourself; You Are As a Pearl.

Precious in Your - Self – ness

Shining; Needing Naught.

Know! Pearls Need Not Seek for They themselves are Sought.

Your Longings will Lead – you

Your Passions will Pull- you

in Pursuit of your Muse,

you can Never Lose

the Treasure is with-In you,

the Hunt with-In Your Heart.

Mona Jean Cedar has been composing poetry and choreographing dances with American Sign Language for over twenty years. She is RID certified American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, has an AA in Dance, a BA in Deaf Studies from CSUN, attended The National Theater of the Deaf, and the Julliard School in NYC for Theatrical Interpreting on Broadway. With her musician/circuit bending husband they have performed at Burning Man, in Europe and all around the USA. Presently she is the resident interpreter for the National Poetry Slams and a co-founded of ASL Cabaret – a celebration of ASL performing artists!

When I die before you.
By Ed Burgess
5/13/24

When I die before you

Although I shouldn’t

You better show up

You better cry

As they stare you down

You better put up your dukes

Kick ass and take names

Defend me in the eternal sleep

Put the gold pieces on my lids

And tell them all to FUCK OFF

There is no shame in this thing of ours

This Cosa Nostra

This offer we can not refuse

That we have loved

More than we deserved

We have held on

And let them all know

When I die before you

They are standing in the presence of Love

Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and good guy. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles for over twenty years. Follow him on Instagram @pasteywhyte

AN ARTIST
6-7-24
3:35 a.m.
By Mary Cheung

We create, because we must,

It's the oxygen we breathe .

You don't need to tell your heart to pump.

It just does and so must we.

It's our meaning to life.

What better ode can we give.

To mother nature, to celebrate,

To feel alive, to be alive...

Sometimes it feels like a switch is turned on.

And the lens over my eyes....

The one that tells me how I should perceive,

How I should receive...

The bounty that is before me.

I see a door in a certain place,

in a certain light..

and I know what the story is,

that must be told.

As I walked up the stairs,

with the crumbled walls caked with time and the life it's lived...

I saw angels afloat.

And they beckoned and welcomed all who passed this way.

And we humans,

with both feet planted on the ground,

refused to be nailed down,

to live this ordinary life.

We were meant to be extraordinary.

And to gift the world with a feast for their eyes and ears.

We, were meant to make a difference,

to challenge, to bicker and debate.

We were meant to"shake" things up.

So that you might waken from your slumber and then begin to live...

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012 which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Madness (May 2024)
By R. G. Carrillo

I am madness
Flying in the upper Atmosphere
I am madness
Hidden in silos
I am madness
Under the oceans
I am madness
In North Korea
I am madness
In the nuclear
Football
I am madness
In the Kremlin
I am madness
At the Pentagon Grotesque killing Genocide
Of the highest
Order
My brain
Technologically advanced My reasoning autistic
I am madness
That pervades
Young soldiers
Betrayed to die
For their countries
Lies
I am madness
I pervert
The human soul
My trinity
Is greed and power
I am madness
Apex insanity
Mass assassin
I am madness
In the six minute

Decision of POTUS I am madness
In a possible Misunderstanding In an erroneous System malfunction That results

In millions
Then billions
Of lives killed
I am madness
In Putin’s paranoia I am madness
For China’s Ambition
To become
The number one Superpower
I am madness Because there Are no winners

TEN Reasons to HATE Jane Eyre by, Charlotte Brontë
By Anna Broome

10. The wrong people die. Realize that killing all the nice people makes the walking corpse Mr. Rochester seem all the more amiable despite his obvious cruelty to his wife resulting in his blindness and crispy body at the end of the novel.

Mr. Reed: Jane’s maternal uncle whose death is the reason all the hell happens and the novel continues.

Helen Burns: Jane’s best friend at school and the only person nice to her until her residency at Thornfield Hall.

Mrs. Reed: Yes, I know she is the best but that is my point. I would have hated Jane, too. And, hey, she is only looking out for her own charming daughters.

Bertha Antoinetta Mason: A lovely and charismatic woman deemed insane and locked in the attic like a savage beast by her husband, our heroine’s love interest.

9. The wrong people live.

Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is so desperate to marry the one-handed ape of the novel, even retorting when Mr Rochester asks,’ "Am I hideous, Jane?", he asks. “Very, sir: you always were, you know” she replies.’ This is disgusting to me on many levels. This is the woman who marries the man who is a cad and now a repulsively deformed cad. At first glance this may appear to be romantic but as we know this is a Victorian novel and therefore a monster novel, so beware!

Mr. Rochester: Is it not enough that he locks his wife, whose real name is Antoinette Cosway by the way, up in the attic like a beast driving her mad, which presents evidence enough that she is mad. He married her for her money and then claims he never loved her and locks her away. Ohhh, he keeps her close mind you. This sounds like age old misognomy to me. Now, Edward isn’t finished quite yet. He also uses Blanche Ingram to make Jane jealous. Sure she is a socialite but does Edward know of the money Jane is to inherit? And let’s not forget Adele...a bit pedophilic? Also, I love that Wikipedia describes him as a Byronic hero. AHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ah ah ah haaaa.

8. The Beginning. The abuse is intolerable. It is definitely designed for contrast one would hope but a contrast that doesn’t really come until the end? And so number 7.

7. The Ending. The contrast we wait for throughout an entire novel are pinned down in our brains by splinters of kindness from a friend who will die at school and various servants who are presented to be on “Jane’s level” hardly gratifies as the big prize at the end is the torched, one-handed, blind cad, who she is so lucky to have found in the end to be her true love. (It works out that the first wife is now dead.)

6. The Middle. Where is Jane Austen when you need her? In the novels of Jane Austen, yes, there are monsters as contrast as well as a seemingly direct attack on the Byronic hero pledging a love for neither Neo-classic nor Romantic extremes, BUT the Bronte woe is a degradation saga presenting horror in human nature as a constant even as the heroine through her weakness to defend herself and her devotion to just survive is both a perturbation to read and an unreliable way to present reality through fiction.

5. Character names as metaphor. Jane Eyre. Let’s start there. It is obvious isn’t it, Morrissey? I am the sun and the heir or is I am the sun and the air. Anyway, you get it. The Lowood School. The belief that hardship builds good character. Thank you say all the children, Charlotte since I think she actually agrees with this since the torture never ends and seemingly neither does Jane’s character building. Ahh, Miss Maria Temple who of course marries the Reverend Naysmith. Naysmith is a Naysayer? I think so, and oh, did he come between you and Miss Temple, Jane? Miss Temple must have high moral standards. Close to godliness I should think. In Austen, at least, the metaphors are fun.

4. The Lie. Jane Eyre: 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.' Free will you say. Even though you return to a man with expectation of servitude, you buy no way are conditioned by your upbringing? Love the free will, Jane.

Another example:

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

And, yet…

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

What happened to yourself, Jane?

3. Popularity. Especially movie adaptations. No, Hollywood never gets it wrong. Not that there is a right. A rewrite perhaps. No. Never mind.

2. That it has to end. Why end this, Charlotte? The only readers this could possibly enchant in the most disturbing of ways is the masochist. The story doesn’t have to end here. Although we can imagine their horrible life together certainly not hand in hand but perhaps blindly in love with a burning desire, you still could have continued to write that future for those who intend to torture themselves delightfully reading this novel.

1. That it had to begin. Need I say more? Okay. In a nutshell. Bring on the Moderns. There are meaningful, enjoyable, relevant Victorian novels. This is not one of them. Where is the science? Where is the break from god? Yes, yes Emily Bronte wrote No Coward Soul is Mine, but is Jane Eyre a heroine? I think she is a disaster coaching tolerance of evil, shame in self-confidence, ambivalence toward misogyny and torture and the most absurd of false-happy endings. I will end with a quote from Jane Eyre as I feel I can now leave this novel where it belongs in the trash past of bad reading experiences.

“Reader, I married him.”

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles published poet

and producer of the monthly free-to-the public performance art show, The Anna Broome Room for the passed ten years and the Solo Concert Series, The Broome Closet. She earned two bachelor’s degrees: Creative Writing, Poetry and English Literature and Language with an emphasis on British and American Romantic Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where studied under Pulitzer Prize for Poetry nominee, Michael White. Her first book of poetry, Orthodox Bats was published in 2019. Her second book, Sex Ed: A Prerequisite at Columbine was published this year by Four Feathers Press. Her first novel, A Full Sun is due out in 2025. And first collection of novellas the following year.

One Summer and a Million Years Ago…
By Brad Bryan

A scaly, reptile digs its claws deep into a petrified, coral beach, worn smooth by the surge and ebb of

100 million tides.

Salt explodes from its nostrils as it expels the buildup from its blood! It turns its body broadside to the warming sun.

It’s reptilian mind conjures a thought.

What can one scry about its being?

It is thinking of eating algae. An organism so primitive it lacks sentience… or does it?

Certainly iguanas are conscious, but what about the algae that sustains it?

Is it eating trace amounts of consciousness?

Is there an emotional continuum that stretches down past mankind’s awareness, into the emotions of the all creatures throughout the systematic classification of life?

Resonating molecules express themselves as organic sensations in fragments of being, in algae, bacterium or DNA. Perhaps this sensuous journey penetrates deeper still, into all matter … rock, air, the ether.

The unified, phantasmagorical whole may be barely recognizable in its fundamental interrelated parts.

Life is not a mystery to be solved, but a Reality to be experienced.

Brad Bryan

I am not so much a poet, as one who has tried to live poetically.

I have worked in the motion picture business for 30 years, recording Sounds and dialogue.

I have traveled to the top of the great pyramid of Egypt and the ice of the Arctic Ocean.

Lucky to live in Los Angeles with so many creative people.

www.IMDb.com/name/nm0116908

THE
SPLITROCK PLATFORM
by
Peter Yates

Across the waterfall that runs below the cabin sit two granite boulders separated by six feet of red rock whose spikes the local bare feet long ago memorized. The boulders draw the eye because they are clearly halves of what had been a single egg-shaped rock, ten feet in diameter. One half sits as it always had, with a vertical circular face where the break occurred. After the split, the other half rolled onto its dome-end, and for ten thousand years has presented its cut face skyward like a circular table. This affords a nice place to sit, once you trouble to climb up to its shoulder-high level. Bending over it is a lightning-split juniper whose scrub-brush needles filter the sun’s rays into a checkered tablecloth of light and shade.

Waterfalls in this canyon occur wherever the creek encounters a dike of iron-hard rock.

Against that red background, the grey boulder-halves are clearly erratic, dragged there by the last glacier before it melted in place. Ice must have held out under the egg before slushing away, triggering the split and roll.

While tooth-brushing in the cabin bathroom, there’s not much else to do but look across at the stones. A relationship develops. Contemplation moves from the question of their origin to the tragedy of their separation — their lying so near to each other, yet so far from how things were when they were together, before their icy journey into a warming future ended in divorce.

Thoughts gather in the mind. I put down the toothbrush. That spiky gap between the table-half and the vertical-half cries out to be bridged. Rejoin the halves! — with a platform, a trim seat for waterfall-viewing, picnicking, making-out, drug abuse, and access to boulder-tops. The installation will be an inevitable completion, a renewal of granitic vows.

Also, it will look cool. I sketch various designs, some roofed and elaborate.

I settle on the simplest — a six-foot-square of 2x6 planks supported by a frame of 2x4s.

Seven yards beyond the splitrock is the far creekside road. Three hundred yards down toward the lake hums a fire station staffed by trainees. In a small mountain community, word of any boulder-gap measuring would get around. This canyon is Forest-Service land, scrutinized by agencies prohibiting alterations, extra structures, or disturbance of natural formations. Things will have to be done at night. But even night can’t plug a fireman’s ears.

At full dark, after the last sport vehicle has crept down the road to the casinos, I quietly perform the necessary measurements. The boulder-gap forms a six-by-six-foot square, as though designed by winter-god for standard-dimension lumber. Six feet, divided by five-and-a-half-inch finished widths, equals thirteen 2x6s. Those and the framing, and that’d be about it. I snap my metal tape back into its case and pick my way back across the canyon.

Next afternoon, the contraption is taking shape on the cabin deck. For ease of on-site installation, I pre-drill nail holes into thirteen loose planks. I cross-brace the frame with mahogany beams cannibalized from a decorative outrigger canoe plucked from over a sister’s chicken-ranch swimming pool.

Her nephew Bones approaches.

“What’re you making?”

“Baking a pie.”

Once installed, unless something is done in advance to protect it, the pie will be consumed by the Forest Service. I thin a batch of latex and slap it on, a skein of white lending a touch of winter.

“Bones — I need you to carve something.”

“Where?”

“Here on the front of the frame.”

During last century’s settling of the watershed, Nathan Gilmore ran a flock of angora sheep up to the high lake that bears his name. Sheep? John Muir called them four-footed locusts and got them banned up here in the wilderness.

Carving done, the frame is roped to the slippery roof of the available Prius. We wait for night.

From the cabin deck, through a walleyed pair of binoculars scavenged from the mud-skirts of the Salton Sea, Bones scans the waterfall, probing the dark.

“I see lights.”

“Where?”

“Right at the top of the falls.”

There they are, four or five of them, dancing bright.

“Whaat? Who could that be?”

We wait. Twenty minutes. Still the lights, dancing. Bones hands me the glasses.

“I’ll go check it out.”

Twenty more minutes. Bones ascends from the dark canyon to the deck.

“Entymologists.”

“What?”

“Yup. Sampling waterbug hatchlings.”

“You mean — we work for days, only to choose for our strike

the one night those buggers decide . . .”

That night and the next are ruined by science. During the day, walkers on our side of the canyon pass our dirt driveway on their way down to the lake. Their heads turn. Do I detect suspicious glances? I’m sure of it! — straight at the Prius and its rooftop apparatus. Over at the splitrock, once we get the platform in place, the connection will be clear enough.

I saw that thing across the creek. (point) Up at that cabin —

right over there . . .

Night three, and all is clear. We creep the car with its tophat cargo down our road, over the lake-bridge between the chapel and the Washoe camp, and up the far road to the firehouse with its security lights and camera apparatus. Nothing to do but encourage the car’s innocent manner as we motor through, pass again into darkness, and ascend to the erratic rocks.

Safely arrived, we unload the frame, carry it shoulder-height over the spiky minefield — the last defense of the redoubt — and flip the thing into place.

“Kachung!” . . . “kachung! . . . kachung!

We freeze. Noisy job, but a good fit. No sound from the firehouse. After chocking the frame-feet with rocks, we ferry the planks. Planks in place, nails at attention in their predrilled pilot-holes, hammers in hand, the telltale moment arrives — for a little hammer-concert, our touch of night-music in the canyon amphitheater. We look into each other’s eyes, nod, and go for it.

“BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! ! ! ! !

Into sport-Prius, down through camera-checkpoint, over lake-bridge, up cabin-side road, into drive, out of car, down to cabin, casually onto deckchairs, feet up on cliffside bench, eyes across canyon into darkness . . . sweet darkness . . . uninterrupted.

Until dawn’s revelation of the Splitrock Platform and its granite siblings, joined at last — again — as one. Weather-grey, our historically-labeled replica of an imaginary Nathan Gilmore fall-side folly looks untouched since pioneer times.

Days pass. No one seems to notice. Tourists park and walk to the falls, but without any stopping to sit, no marveling at any rightness of being, no show of appreciation for access to any rock-circle table with its o’er-arching, shading juniper.

Did we blend it in too well? We climb down, cross the creek, and try it out. A joy! — every aspect performing its meant, unnecessary service. Odd though . . . from the platform, the roaring waterfall cannot be seen. Instead, framed by grey granite is a view of the cabin and its bathroom window. The necessary question is obvious.

I wonder who could have had the notion to put this platform here?

Over time, usages are detected — jumping boy, picnic, diaper change — wholesome activities raising the question of what might eventually occur at night, or in the off-season. Might we have installed an attractive nuisance?

Winter comes, goes. Spring again. Surely the Forest Service will have ripped it out by now. But no. There it is! Greyer.

Sun brightens the day. Equipped with a kit of sandpaper and paint stripper, I head down to check it out.

The trunk of the juniper is stitched with carved initials, the usual was-here stuff. Marker-ink spangles the platform’s front. Neon-red spray paint blights a plank. But nothing on granite, as though higher thoughts had stayed each scribbler’s hand.

I sand the plank-paint down to a ruddy stain. Across the thirteen plankboards, a few scratches and inklings of graffiti look okay in the crosshatched shade.

A fine place to sit, if you trouble to stop by.

Splitrock Update

Four years on, and the platform is seeing increased use. The thing has taken off. You can scare it up online. Parties of up to 20 are spotted posing on and around it.

After decades of watching photographs being taken of the falls, it’s some kind of achievement to be seeing cameras pointed the other way.

Unanticipated loads have led to an interesting mode of failure. Apparently only a few nails with ‘take’ had supported the platform’s front 2x6. Ten people on the thing and that would be 1600/4 = 400 pounds per corner. Add a boom-box and some jumping around, and it was a potential disaster.

Repair will be by trial and error.

Tourniquet clamps fail to do much. Failure extends to ropes, wires and cords. Hmm. What might work is to sister a vertical 2x6 under the split, hard against the 4x4. By making the new piece a couple of inches longer than the exposed portion of the 4x4, and lifting the whole corner onto it, it might be possible to sledge the platform down from above, taking advantage of the ground to produce the needed compression. Predrilled holes and more nails could do the rest. Loads would be carried directly to the ground.

Early one evening, with falls-goers still scattered about, I set my sledge to work. Bam! So far so good. Bam! Bam! Just a wee bit more and we’re there. Bam! Bam! Bam! From behind sounds a male voice.

“Sir?”

Busted? . . . I shrug it off. Bam! Bam!

“Sir?”

Female . . . I turn around to see a tourist couple in their 70s.

The woman continues.

“What can you tell us about the history of the site?”

I spin some stuff about Nathan Gilmore, sheep up the canyon, the namesake lake, my volunteer work for the Historical Society, and the geology of erratic boulders. The man takes a turn.

“How did the rock split?”

I give them the melting-from-under hypothesis, finishing with the ten millennia. They nod attentively, proffer thank yous, and tilt away across the spiky red ground.

Bam! Bam!

There. The split is healed. Imperfect, but adequate.

I return to the cabin and look back across the canyon to see a family of four assembling for a photo on the structure, innocent of its new security. Crossed shins shine like Xs across the divide. The dad snaps the shot. All climb into a black Tesla and whisper down the hill.

One week later, a new presence at the site is detected — a trail of ashes, 12-18 inches wide, along the entire circumference of the boulder-platform complex.

The reason for the ash-spreading, or who might have done it, is a puzzle. A ritual exorcism of Gilmore’s ghost? The material has a cold-barbecue texture. That’s a lot of barbecue, if that’s where it all came from — maybe ten loads of ash, to make 70 feet of trail. Did they truck it in special?

We’ll never know.

Just as, usually, we never know how, or by whom, a project is enjoyed. The ashes encircle, for me, an exception. Gazing out the bathroom window, toothbrush in hand, or sanding away the words MAMMOtH gRINdeR, I think I know.

71 Journeys around the Sun
By G. Billie Quijano

I am Love

I am Connection

Geography moved my soul

Rhythms ignited by Heart made me whole

Operas of dew rolling off my Lotus

The Cosmos took notice

Creative force infusing my DNA

Poetry, camera, paintbrush, my essay

Channels of Love

Vibration connoisseur

Dreams and yearnings

Stirrings, urgings, things and wings

Realignment of truth

La Vida Loca, flow and smooth

Major Tom to ground control

Bowie sang my soul

Maya said to me “Phenomenal Woman”

The declaration of the Siren

Iridescent metamorphosis

Wisdom and age, recipe for fearlessness

Reservoir of lust

Mystical union

A chance of trust

Right of touch

An act of attention

Intentions, dimensions

Electrical currents igniting the sea

My soul in tact, never to flee

Artistic alliance with creator

Forceful wisdom of nature

Resolving trauma and anguish

Free language, emotions tranquil

A thirst for what is around me

My third eye to see

Autobiographical element

Experiment, sentiment, development

I am Love

I am Connection

G. Billie Quijano-Mestiza, Poeta, Assemblage artist. After a few months I was moved to write and submit. I got to spend time recently with Linda Kaye and felt invigorated to create. It’s a wonderful gift to have friends who love and support us. This is a month of celebration. I celebrate me.

Poem
By Kassi Crews

My mini watermelon such a round surprise

Your momma’s belly is busting at the sides!

Ready or not here you come

Making us laugh, sing and hum

Rum me dum dum beat on a drum

You’re full of sunshine with magical green thumbs

Growing, evolving and forever changing lives with your bright brilliant light!!!

You shine towards the sun as you tune into life.

You’ll love, laugh and live an abundant adventure here on earth

A wonderful masterpiece journey with your added nice spice!!!

Kassi Crews is an entertainment industry veteran and a consummate storyteller. Her early studio career began at Cannon Films, famous for action titles like Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Bloodsport,” Chuck Norris’ “Delta Force” and Sylvester Stallone’s “Cobra.” Crews became an industry leader in Hollywood post-production as the Vice President of Digital Jungle where she oversaw the day-to-day operations and served as producer on an endless list of film and television projects. Most recently, Crews lead multiple post-production teams at Fox and Walt Disney Television, overseeing the workflows of all television for FX Networks including “The Americans,” “Fargo” and “Pose.”

Crews has produced a variety of critically acclaimed independent features, “Broken Memories,” “God’s Ears” and “A Better Place” as well as directed live shows for the theater. She is a member of ATAS, NAB, NAPTE, PROMAX, NATPE, and SAG; holds a Master of Arts from CSU Fullerton and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from UC Santa Cruz.

The Re-Enactment of
By Don Kingfisher Campbell

The Revolutionary War has begun

Pistol shots repeat into the air

M-80 booms nearby scare

Skyrockets sizzle then fizzle

Below the din on city streets

Safe and sane fireworks add

To the low-level smoky haze

Tonight spool out the water hose

Douse those spent charges

Go to bed and get under cover

The next morning gather

All the cardboard and plastic

Toss everything into the rolled

Waste bins because in our

Neighborhood it happens

Coincidentally this 248th year

To be trash day, is that a blessing

Upon this stretch of a United

State of America with a Spanish

Name for a region and a Turtle

Island on which we now reside

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, taught Writers Seminar at Occidental College Upward Bound for 36 years, been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, L.A. Coordinator and Board Member of California Poets In The Schools, poetry editor of the Angel City Review, publisher of Four Feathers Press, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California. For awards, features, and publication credits, please go to: http://dkc1031.blogspot.com

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

20 Years Left is now a short documentary!!!! Screening at a living room near you!!!!

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

June Poet's Place

June 05, 2024

POETS PLACE
JUNE EDITION 2024

Back in Los Angeles, and folks it’s still a madhouse of art, culture, poetry, construction and serious potholes. If you can navigate it’s chaos, you are a winner, and probably have succumbed to sheer craziness!

I’m blogging here my trip to Europe, mostly for me to remember and savor my experience again and again. As we grow older, our recent memories often fade into the next experience and the next. Unless we document our experiences, daily, they can be lost into the well of the forgotten.

As you all know, I spent April in France all brought about by my acceptance to an artist residency in Nerac, France. I spent my last week in Europe in May with my friend Christine in Barcelona, Spain. For an LA native, Paris, was still intense. Loads of people everywhere, and no one paying attention to anyone around them. Even displaying and wearing my LA Dodgers T-shirt proudly, no one even made a comment. Even sporting my blue hair, I was invisible. Me. I had hopes of meeting some Parisian's, chatting them up about LA, its art and poetry scene, but to no avail. I did meet a fellow Californian, or course, in a cafe, he was from Long Beach! I invited him to join me to go to the Grand Palais Immersif graffiti exhibit. It was in a huge space next door to the Opera located in the Bastille district where I stayed in Paris. The show blew our minds!! Someone to share my art experience with!!! Yay!

This amazing graffiti exhibit was set “In the 20th century, the cities walls were marked by the widespread of urban art; public space became a privileged ground of expression, a place of creation, exhibition and appropriation for an art that defined itself on the bangs of official institutions. With the rise of the Internet and then social networks, street art has undergone a revolution, leading to a new relationship between artists and the city.

The exhibition unfolds across the monumental spaces of the Grand Palais Immersif, echoing and serving as a screen for these urban artistic creations, presented at 360°. From New York subways to paintings created or filmed using drones, from the large scale murals that appeared from the 2000s onwards to the most recent developments in graffiti vandalism, spectacular actions and reappropriations, visitors will discover urban art in all its facets, through digital experiences magnificently set to music by Roque Rivas”.

I toured the streets of Paris on my own mostly, discovering hidden gems of street art and loads of galleries. The art was stunning everywhere, located down and around the small cobbled stone streets. It was cold, often rainy and dreary weather. Cloudiness darkens my mood, so it was hard to smile at times, especially when the people were not openly friendly.

The Picasso museum was massive! I spent hours roaming the halls gazing at his brilliance! He did everything from poetry to sculptures. He is so well regarded in Europe and the world! You see his work everywhere, as graffiti on the street walls, and located in his museums scattered throughout Europe. We have been blessed with so much art in our lives, and we artists have been blessed to be in their spheres. I especially loved my hotel in the Marais district. LePetitBeaumarchais. I had a top floor room with a window that overlooked the Eiffel Tower in the distance! I loved writing at the little table by that window, listening to french radio stations. That hotel experience sealed my heart for Paris. Plus they provided me with slippers that I used throughout my trip in France and Spain!! It’s the little homey comforts in life that helps us get through the day. Right??!!

After Paris I decided to venture to the Loire Valley, specifically to Amboise, Da Vinci’s last home. Using Rick Steve’s travel guides I found this gorgeous B&B there. LaDilecta, Chambers d’hotes. Hosts Barbara and Andrea were artists themselves, and they provided me with the warmth and care I needed to experience France in their town. They guided me on how to travel to the chateaux’s Chenoceaux and Chaumont.

Barbara made a homemade breakfast everyday with chantilly cream for my coffee and a host of pastries and bread. Andrea provided and described the local cheeses and meats course served. Plus fresh fruits to sweeten my palate. I ended up lengthened my stay there.

I spent a day at Chateaux Du Clos Luce, Da Vinci’s last home. “Formerly called Manoir du Cloux, is a large château located in the center of Amboise, in the department of Indre-et-Loire, in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. It is located in the natural Val de Loire (formerly called Touraine) region. Built by Hugues d'Amboise in 1471, the palace has known several famous owners such as the French king Charles VIII and Leonardo da Vinci. Clos Lucé is 500 metres from the royal Château d'Amboise, to which it is connected by an underground passageway. King Charles VIII bought the home from Étienne Le Loup in 1490 and during this time it became known as the ‘summer house’, housing French royalty. After a few decades Francis I gave it to Leonardo da Vinci when he invited him to live in France in 1516. The aging polymath lived his last years in this house, until his death on 2 May 1519” (Wikipedia). The grounds held working models of his inventions. He made a total of forty machines, five centuries ahead of its time! They were recreated at the chateaux using his original drawings. Astounding!

Walking the streets of France held a special charm for me. It takes a few days to orient myself to the area I’m staying in, focusing on the city maps to guide me to the places I wanted to go. Those hand drawn tourist maps were not very legitimate. They were needed though because I didn’t get a European sim card (dumb), so GPS on my phone was limited. But I managed to get where I wanted to go. Sometimes I would would walk half a mile in the wrong direction eventually stopping to ask a stranger, in my limited french which is the way to Chaumont chateaux? Getting lost was usually not a problem. It was an opportunity to see the countryside, sitting on a stump to relish and breathe in the local charm and beauty. Everywhere in France was gorgeous. It was April, it was green and flourishing in blooms (pic- yellow flowers near Chaumont). Once I turned around and walked the proper mile to the chateaux, I turned a corner and witnessed the splendor of Domaine-Chaumont.

Wow! I was stunned at the magnificence. Stupefied really. I knew then that this was the reason I traveled to the Loire Valley! The Chateau of Chaumont-sur-loire, overlooks the Loire Valley and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. And what a site to see!!! It’s a defensive architecture of the Gothic and Renaissance period. Catherine de Medici, who owned the Chateau from 1550-1560, then sold it to Diane de Poitiers, who also inherited Chateau De Chenonceau. Chaumont is currently a center of art and nature. The grounds are covered with art and hosts yearly international artists and garden festivals.

Chateau of Chenonceau, is called the ladies Chateau, because it was owned by ladies from 1494-1972. The original castle was demolished, only keeping the Marques tower and was rebuilt in the Renaissance style built on the piers of the old fortified mill. Walking through the impressive rooms of tapestries, restored renaissance furniture and stained glass windows was astounding. It gave the viewer an inside look into how the rich royals lived. Every corner, galleries, libraries, bedrooms, were touched by artisans of the day. Looking out through the tower window at the Loire River I felt I was in that time, the era of rich decadence and wealth.

I did feel wealthy traveling in France. I could go anywhere I wanted. I just had to pick where I wanted to go next! In my beautiful room in Amboise I opened the map of France on my iPad and pondered where to go next. I had at least 10 days to plan before my residency in Nerac. I pondered going to Marseilles, Toulouse, Arles, Bordeaux, Carcassone… Nice. All were accessible by train. I decided on Bordeaux, but I now forgot why! I booked my train, then found a delightful hotel, Hotel Renaissance, modernist style, situated right across from the Cite du Vin museum of wine. It was essential to visit the Cite Du Vin. I was in Bordeaux the wine capital of France!! I am so glad I did. They exhibited all the types of grapes used in France, their origins and the history of wine production. And on the top floor, with a complimentary glass of wine one could view the gorgeous city!

Bordeaux felt like where all the youth come to study and party. There was always lots of people next door at the food court drinking and smoking. The food there was delicious. I ate oysters and drank lots of wine. The streets in Bordeaux were filled with shops, with lots of people walking up and down the Garonne river walk. I walked 8 miles one day, and ended up with terrible blisters! Navigating new cities are sometimes difficult. One has to be versed in all the transit systems, where to get tix and which apps to download to get around. I was only there a few days so I decided to just walk. Of course I went to the museums. On my 8 mile walk I found the Capc, Musee d’art contemporain de Bordeaux. They had several installations inside the building. One installation caught my attention for sure, Waigireh rugs, real hair wigs. Wigs crushed under a sheet of glass. Hair styles frozen in time on a rug! Lol. Mostly I admired the building. “The museum is housed in the Entrepôt Lainé, a former warehouse for colonial goods (sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton, spices, and oils) which were then re-exported to northern Europe by Bordeaux merchants. The warehouse was built in 1824 by the architect Claude Deschamps, known for the construction of the Pont de pierre of Bordeaux. It is built of brick, stone and wood in a style inspired by Italian architecture. There are two grand naves that are reminiscent of the Roman basilicas and that are used to present temporary exhibitions. The building was restored by the architects Denis Valode and Jean Pistre in the 1980s, the second project that this architectural team had undertaken. Their treatment was unusual for the time, emphasizing shadows and depth”. Wikipedia

On to Toulouse! I stayed in this beautiful hotel, Soclo. “On the banks of the Garonne River, it’s a few steps away from the Capitole, the leaves of a luxuriant garden and the lapping of a swimming pool give way to the Toulousan way of life that we love. The Maison Soclo hotel is located in this 18th century residence where neighbors, globetrotters, business travelers, brunch eaters, meet, discuss, eat, sleep, swim, sunbathe, read, play…Simply Live”. I wanted to visit museums, gardens, and churches, and they were so close by the hotel. I visited the Convent des Jacobins, a Dominican monastary built in 1229. I went to the Capitole, a museum where local policy is decided on.

Built in the 18th century and houses works of art that capture the Toulouse artisans of its time. My favorite was the hall dedicated to Henri-Martin. He painted portraits of his wife, sons and friends. Stunning masterpieces. The entire building is covered in murals, sculptures and frescos. Check out my videos of my experiences in France on Instagram to get a birds eye view. I loved Toulouse and my daily strolls through the town and by the river Garonne. There’s always so much to see and do. Many of my friends talk about the romance of sitting outside in cafes, drinking a coffee or sipping wine whilst the passersby mill nearby. I did at times sit for a spell, hoping some locals would want to take up a conversation, but it didn’t happen. I realized early on in my adventure to enjoy the city of art on my own. Smelling the smells of the surrounding cafes and nipping into shops, galleries and museums alone.

Next stop- Nerac via Agen to start my 2 week artist residency!

The actual train to Agen was uneventful, except that my initial train was cancelled, and since I don’t speak French, I sat on the bench waiting for my train for awhile without knowing. I eventually found some personnel to assist me in getting another train ticket. Since my phone was not getting signal, I couldn’t inform my host in Nerac about my delay. I discovered a McDonalds nearby knowing I could cap on their WiFi to text my hosts. All good. The other resident they were picking up was also delayed. I arrived in Agen, and my host was there waiting. Colin Usher picked up me and Ray, the other resident, and we drove off through the cool looking town, which Colin later in our stay took us to the Musee Des Beaux Arts D’Agen. That museum was founded in1876, hosting of a wealthy connoisseur collection of French paintings and sculptures. There was also really old objects from the Gallo-Roman periods. An absolutely exceptional museum! Once we left Agen, we were off through the countryside of Nerac. All green and lush beautiful hills.

StudioFaire is a magical place to experience in Nerac, France. Julia and Colin embrace their guests, and open their home for an artistic adventure that allows one to create freely in this lovely space. Mostly for me, it was also being around these two creatives, and witnessing their joy when talking about their resident’s accomplishments and their boundless energy to maintain the activities that abounds. I also appreciated their generosity in sharing the history of Nerac and it’s local art scene. Their home welcomes the creative to explore the glorious vegetative yard, and it is filled with their artwork and gifts from residents past. It was so inspiring to write there!

There is a shared kitchen which at times becomes a haven of laughter, and one is often coddled and comforted by the warmth of the smells of everyone’s cooking, which is often shared. The home and garden areas, gave me the urge to write my beautiful poetry in the garden whenever the sun shone. I wrote prose about the Baise River nearby, also inspired from my fabulous walks during the day:

“She strode along on the Garonne River bank. It was April in France, and only the sounds of the river cascading over a cement barge could be heard”.

If you are an artist of any medium, and want and need a quiet and charming space to create, with the most perfect hosts, come to StudioFaire! You will be welcomed into a delightful home of sheer creativity! I would venture out into the town daily to discover hidden gems of architecture all around the town. Walking around the village feels romantic. It’s picturesque and I bet the walls hold lots of stories about the people who have ventured there. “Nérac is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department, Southwestern France. The composer and organist Louis Raffy was born in Nérac, as was the former Arsenal and Bordeaux footballer Marouane Chamakh, as was Admiral Francois Darlan. Nérac was visited by author Joanne Harris as a child, and was influential in the setting of her best-known novel, Chocolat”. Wikipedia. I picked this residency because it was a small group of artists. The charm of this home was it’s hosts, as I mentioned above. I was utterly surprised at the calmness of the environment which was conducive to writing. I spent time in my room writing my memoir. In the garden I wrote poetry, which was inspiring, with ancient tress and loads of singing birds. On the last night of my stay, we had a shared dinner with the hosts. I screened my film, ’20 Years Left’, which coveted a round of applause. I drank too much and the next day of departure I was extremely hungover. Definitely not what I wanted to have happen since I had a five hour train ride to Spain! Luckily for me, Colin drove me later on in the afternoon to my train station, so I had the day to attempt to recover. It was a bittersweet goodbye to my hosts Julia and Colin.

BARCELONA!!! Here I come!!! I had to catch two trains there, and like I mentioned I was so hungover. Warning! Don’t travel in a foreign land hungover! It was really trying to navigate new train stations bleary eyed, and I didn’t get into Barcelona until later evening. I hailed a taxi at the station which was huge and busy! Luckily for me my friend Christine was meeting me there, and she was already at the hotel. I was still pretty wacked when I arrived, but it was so comforting that she was there to usher me in. What a grand city to wake up to next morning! I was awoken by the smell of a delicious cup of coffee brought to me by Christine. I knew then that our stay here was going to be amazing! We had a place close to the marina and not far from the beach. The weather was warm and sunny! A pleasant change from the cloudiness of France. Our trajectory? Gaudi Gaudi GAUDI!!! His architectural genius was seen everywhere!. The La Familia Segrada church, Palau Guell, and the castle manor Bellesguard, which was very quiet, not very frequented by tourists who are packing the well known sites. “Bellesguard, also known as Casa Figueres, is a modernist manor house designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, which was constructed between 1900 and 1909. It is located at the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. The ground on which Bellesguard stands had been the site of a country residence belonging to Martin, king of Aragon and count of Barcelona”. Wikipedia.

Guell Palace, was the first great commission Gaudi received from Eusebio Guell. It was built between 1886-1890, and was it a feast for the eyes!! As mentioned before, I have videos from the inside and outside to see on Instagram. Its concept of space and the treatment of light were astounding! From the rooftop I could see another of Gaudi’s buildings located in the distance on the hillside. I think it was the Bellesguard manor that we visited. On that same hill you could see an old ferris wheel. I really wanted to go there, but or course we can’t do it all!

Now for the creme de la creme, La Familia Segrada. “The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, otherwise known as Sagrada Família, is a church under construction in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. Designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, in 2005 his work on Sagrada Família was added to an existing UNESCO World Heritage Site, "Works of Antoni Gaudí". On 7 November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the church and proclaimed it a minor basilica.” Wikipedia. Thank you Wikipedia! The description cannot explain what the senses feel when you enter the basilica. I had to FaceTime Les on WhatsApp to show him what I was experiencing at that very moment in time. It was absolutely BREATHTAKING!!!!! It has been under construction for 100 years and it is still not finished!

Tooling around the city was magical. There is art and culture happening around every corner. Street art, Lichenstein sculptures, Miro art in tiles on the street, graffiti, gelato and lots of cured meats hanging in the windows! I love Barcelona!! Our hotel had a rooftop pool and deck bar which people partied there nightly.We didn’t party much, by the time it was days end we were exhausted from our adventures and we collapsed in our sweet room. We could still listen to the sounds emanating from the city from our balcony. One of the last adventures, and certainly memorable was the Fundacio Miro museum. The Joan Miró Foundation is a museum of modern art that exhibits the works of Barcelona-born artist Joan Miró. The museum opened its doors in 1975 and was designed in collaboration between Miró and architect Josep Lluís Sert. The building itself is also pretty interesting, and the rooftop terraces offer excellent panoramic views of Barcelona. Yes it did!!! Stellar!!!

Europe was an adventure to remember. There was so much more that I didn’t write about here. I will leave more for my upcoming memoir. I feel so blessed that I was able to go on this trip. Do everything that I wanted to do, and truly honored to have been accepted to an artist residency. I feel that I really am an artist. And one that loves to share in the gifts that I have received.

Now, here are this month’s contributions!!!

Ciao, Linda

Poem
By Lida Parent Harris

and show her now before she knows

that love is a gift, and she is as true, and better off than she ever knew.

3/29/24. 6:38 p.m.

At age 17, Lida began Journaling, and writing her first drafts of poetry. She graduated from El Camino Real High School, and went on to care for adults and children with disabilities.

Lida continued her love of writing poetry well into her twenties. She began submitting to newspapers, and collections of work.

Her writing career began in 2001 when she began attending Open-mic events in the San Fernando Valley. She met wonderful friends in a coffeehouse, and soon her life and world opened.

Lida attended Community Literature Initiative instructed by Hiram Sims. It was a writing course at USC which gave her new roots.

Her first book of poetry was published in 2015, by World Stage Press. She enjoyed performing in new venues, and creating her own shows called Lyrical Flames, in 2014.

Since then, Lida has performed her poetry in Las Vegas, Chicago, Santa Monica, Long Beach, North Holland, ArtShare LA, Leimert Park, Grand Park, and The Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

Poker for Free
By Caleb Delos-Santos

If those petite disks,

ribbed

and faintly tinged,

equate to dialogues

about Letterboxed

and Oreos,

or nuptial monologues

aloft

in Serif Font,

or checkered pre-wed vents

about save-the-dates

and sex,

or fresh brethren

exempt

from GEs

and patriarchies,

or a potential new family

with covert dents,

spaghetti

wiring,

but also cream cheese,

bellflowers, and naked teeth,

then, I might not raise,

but I will certainly

ante up.

Caleb Delos-Santos (he/him) is an English graduate student and teaching assistant at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Caleb has published poetry with over twenty literary magazines, including North Dakota Quarterly and the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, and released four poetry collections: When Will You Water Me? (2024), Leftover Poetry (2023), Once One Discovers Love (2023), and A Poet’s Perspective (2022). Caleb also won the 2022 Esselstrom Prize for Creative Writing, the West Wind Literary Magazine’s 2023 Best in Genre Award for his nonfiction, and the 2024 William Carlin Slattery Award in Poetry. When not writing, Caleb watches TV with his wife.

Turkish memory
By jerry the priest

Those oarsmen never knew what hit ‘em

Hillary was a popular classmate, as was I

Two roustabouts out for fancy larks in foreign

climes, down by the wharf

We weren’t destined for a lasting acquaintance

But when two young men in a rowboat appeared

it was too magical to miss drifting on the bosphorus

high on raki mixed with the crescent moon and stars

while dunbeks played, dervishes whirled, and the

lavish waves seemed operatically choreographed

We ended up tangled in yacht’s ropes, nearly

pitching into the drink, finally scrambling to shore

to chortle years later about the night we took a boat ride

and never met again

Damn Hills, hope your journey has been amazing.

What a carnival this life! What a godsend!

Thank you for this Turkish memory. Thank you

for the night you were my friend.

Essays, poems, stories and illustrations have appeared in Coagula Art Journal, La Quadra, the Nervous Breakdown, Bombay Gin and others, and his guitar/vocal/trombone work and lyrics are featured on Cheap Disaster (’92), Stark Aloe Vera (’95), and Lovely Children (2011).

He’slived and taught in Katmandu Nepal, Istanbul Turkey, Boston Massachusetts, Boulder Colorado,Portland,Oregon, San Francisco/San Leandro/Los Angeles, California, and written in Banaras, Bodhgaya, Konya, Damascus, Petra, Jerusalem, Mexico City, San Cristobal de las Casas, Antigua, Buenos Aires, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Denver, Santa Fe, Bar Harbor, Vancouver, Halifax, Atlanta, Asheville and Manhattan, among other locales.

Scammers
By Ronald G. Carrillo

Scammers

On all fronts

Like the ten plagues

Of Egypt

Phone and

Email scammers

Front door

Scammers

On the street

Scammers

Internet hustlers

On the scam

Hackers

And sellers

Trespassers

And peddlers

Of every sort

Solar panel

Pushers

Fast talking

Presidential seekers

Promising

To make

America great

Again and again

Every four years

Technology's

Dark side

Collecting

Our internet

Habits

Big Brother

Calling

Conspiracy propaganda

Believers

End of days

Apocalyptic

Predictors

Missing

The mark

Every couple

Of decades

Men of the cloth

Out of touch

Pulpit pontificators

Senior citizens

Targeted

By scammer

Specialists

Foreign

Scammers

Out for American

Sweetheart

Money

No shame

All greed

Smash and grab

Scam robberies

Sucker punching

Strangers on the street

For a thrill

The social fabric

Of common decency

Falling apart

Democracy threatened

An apathetic

Fog of fear

Spreading across

The red white and blue

A terrified fringe

Only see the dream

In black and white

With psychotic eyes

No diversity

No rainbow colors

Like a gangrene

Limb that requires

Amputation

An extreme

Conservatism

Living in a prison

With no windows

Unable to see

A bigger brighter

American picture

Close all borders

Hate immigrants

Impinge women’s

Rights

Secret agents

Elitists agendas

Constitutional

White only

Interpreters

Dixieland plantations

Gone

The White House

Was built with slave

Hands and muscle

Black lives

Brown mouths

Asian babies

But the rooster

Remains white

So much

Of our history

Swept under

A democratic rug

Of shame

Clean house

Lift the veil

From closed

Political eyes

Resuscitate

Lady Liberty

Reset

Refresh

Congressional bonds

Of service

For the people

Let’s live

Our full

Constitution

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique, Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

20 Years Left is now a short documentary!!!! Screening at a living room near you!!!!

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

May Poet's Place

May 07, 2024

POETS PLACE
MAY EDITION 2024
BARCELONA

Hola! Publishing from Barcelona, Spain!!! What a magical city! The city of dreams they say when you enter the Gaudi designed building, Casa Batllo. It’s “a building in the center of Barcelona, Spain. It was designed by Antoni Gaudí, and is considered one of his masterpieces. A remodel of a previously built house, it was redesigned in 1904 by Gaudí and has been refurbished several times after that. Gaudí's assistants Domènec Sugrañes i Gras, Josep Canaleta and Joan Rubió also contributed to the renovation project.

The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos (House of Bones), as it has a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It is located on the Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample district, and forms part of a row of houses known as the Illa de la Discòrdia (or Mansana de la Discòrdia, the "Block of Discord"), which consists of four buildings by noted Modernista architects of Barcelona”. Cited from Wikipedia. Lol.

This building, was so amazing. His design was carefully sculpted as an undersea playground or inside the belly of a dragon. Windows shaped like big eyes shaped with a spiral shell stained glass inside them. Just a sampling. It was an apartment building Yo! You must google it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Batlló

Entering the La Familia Sagrada Gaudi basilica was enveloping. He designed the building 100 years ago and it is still not finished! Once finished it will be the tallest church in the world! He designed it with themes of the forest. Columns that hold the ceiling look like trees with branches that finger out to touch the ceiling, or as the audio guide said, touch Jesus.

It’s a Neo-Gothic design structured to stand on its own without internal bracing or external buttressing. The result, modified beyond recognition, was a complexly symbolic forest of helicoidal piers, hyperboloid vaults and sidewalls. Exasperatingly beautiful, overwhelmingly stunning. Nothing in my life can compare with this mesmerizing structure!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família

There is so much to enjoy in this art and culturally infused city. So far I have just touched the surface. Traveling is a challenge at this age. I wasn’t sure my body would hold out as long as it has, even with the jet lag in Paris, and the hangover from my last night in France, still remnants of a pounding head here in Spain. I’m good. More than good! Inspired!!!

Returning soon to LA!

Enjoy this month’s contributors!!!

Avec plaisir!!!

Linda :0)

Day three, April 20, 2024
By Linda Kaye

she strode along on the Garonne river bank.

It was April in France

only the sounds of the river cascading over a cement barge could be heard

It was quiet in April in France

on the picturesque riverwalk,

the quaintness of the town was a million miles away from the urban jungle, the soundscape of over stimulation and masses of manufactured noise,

pollution

it was peaceful in April in France, sitting on a bench alongside the Garonne river no signs of pollution

a civilized society, clean and contained in the historical capsule of the way back when

although the roads may be cobbled and the people protective the bell still rings on the hour and a half

what we don’t know can be researched

what we remember is the art of adventure that was nurtured by the hosts and through explored new passageways that inspired creativity.

It was an experience to remember

that time in April in France.

Day 3
April 20, 2024

as the sun rose in the garden of the foreign land, and the birds, chirped familiar songs, the church bells rang nine bells as all the towns people slept. The visitors crept alone.

The visitors knew they could march through the village unnoticed, freshly bathed, wearing their culturally fashioned clothes neatly tucked as to not attract too much attention, also it was Sunday the day when the villagers slept in

no shops were open so the visitors wept.

Silently Fading
By Anna C Broome

By your grave I stood

Above your bones

I inhaled

The heap of decay

From my earliest memory

I feared your mortality

As if it were my own

Was it so Worthy

All your Begging for battle?

Now that you put your hunger to rest

down into the darkness

Revenge is a promise a man should keep.

Will you rise from this cursed bed,

With the same thoughts of violence in your head,

Or instead with a heavy fall

Will you prefer to sleep

Or does that admit defeat?

I stay rather silently

As you positively are fading

very silently fading.

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles published poet

IT TAKES MORE THAN POETS
By Peter Yates

[a tycoon’s rant]

It takes more than poets to make the world go.

Capital, brains, knowhow, drive! —

are just as important to being alive.

Unromantic, unglamorous, misunderstood,

Management quietly works for the good.

The pyramids, granted, were built by slaves,

but only when Pharaohs envisioned such graves.

When the workers were freed — their rulers killed —

what works of their own were they able to build?

Centuries later, we come to their land,

to visit the pyramids, and stare at the sand.

This sounds, I know, a bit unkind,

But as I’ve found, so you will find —

those with nothing will admit

their need for wisdom’s benefit,

while those who question wealth and profit,

digest the fruits of what they scoff at.

Seedlings
By Ronald G. Carrillo

These Eagle Rock nights

Of my loneliness

Cathedral spirits stir

In a purple mist

Of memory

Unrequited affection

Was Sophomore rejection

Smuggled in

Those Cathedral gates

Scholarship boys traded

For Hollywood landscapes

Coming into our own

The hippie boys of high school

Paraded in glitter and platforms

Signaling the flash

Of desires kept inside

Liars of our own

True value

Sinking in the riptide

Of self despised

False molds

Status quo barriers

Burying us alive

Until finally

The faggot fur flies

Inner core

Heart of hearts

No longer denied

Recognizing

Never verbalized

Our seedlings sprout

Their first leaflets

All in secret code

Amongst birds of a feather

Flocking together

In pink flamingo sanctuaries

Then to fly

And feel comfortable

In our own skin

Let this new life

Begin

Meeting him

Seeing him

For the first time

Talking to him

Being close to him

Even kissing him

Fireworks

The Summer of 1972

His name was Sean

He was a doorman

At an under twenty-one

Gay night club

Sweet and empathetic

Novice feet

Dipping my toe

Into the stream

Of teenage romance

He read me like a book

I waited for his call

Not to be

Gone to blue

In sad Cinderella shoes

Blown off course

In this strange new

Geography

Those gay days

Of self-hate

Abandonment

Men meet

Compete

Like gladiators

In disco arenas

Depleted me

Of my innocence too soon

Eclipsed the Eros moon

Back to listening

To Joni Mitchell epistles

Leaving the garden

Of my youth

Exploring new lands

Mind traps

Of foolish untruths

To drink in

The eyes of men

Unable to touch

Their hearts

An unaffectionate

Father’s disinheritance

Plagued me

A self absorbed

Mother’s poverty

Were my silver spoons

Born a stranger

In another cruel land

That would be

Against me

Baptized in the blues

Of that love

That Oscar testified

Dare not speak

Its name

Collecting dues

On the Hollywood

Streets

Deepening the hues

Of desire

And kindness

From strangers

Looking for the clues

Of my existence

In movies

And the music

Tendaberry

And Gibsom Street

Speak to me

Lover man

Captains sailors

Tom cats

Of every color

Calico men

With fickle regard

Regard me

The lion

Has awakened

From a deep slumber

A hibernation

From the lamb

Mercy and salvation

Sought through drink

And assimilation

Humiliation

On weekend sojourns

In undercover garb

Needing a romantic

Sabbatical

The scales

Of my balance

Off kilter

Coda: Tennessee exiting

A serious streetcar

Of conformity

Walking to a shoe factory

Daily

Like giving blood

After morning coffee

Rise and shine

Walk the line

Eight to five

To stay alive

Mother and sister

On the ropes

Of survival

The old man

Escaped town

Tennessee took hold

Of the reins

Of a father’s discontent

Inheriting an absent parent

Becoming his father

While hating his mother

I recognize a brother

Of high regard

Going down

In a sinking ship

So ill equipped

For dry land

Going through

Disaster motions

To hang on

Getting drunk

Reckoning adventure

From anywhere

Writing poetry and stories

During a pirate’s lunch

Gentlemen callers

And bits of glass

Under the sliver

Of a white wedge

Of moonlight

Far off in the mist

Stanley hollers “Stella”

SOCIAL MEDIA
By Courtney Olanzapine

City lights once again I waved you goodbye

Friends! Friends found!

You'll be there on and off, like an agonizing bulb

Where else can you go?

It's a tapestry weaved with many a face

And it's a crowded highway leading nowhere

Slowed down conversation

Slowed down time

Is this it? Or just a pantomime?

Haphazard, overdue interest

In this night, the city as lonely as it gets

At this weird ballroom where we sell simplified selves,

With all its royal emptiness

You can cry. You can recklessly stay

(You'll go on and off, like an agonizing bulb)

Or like a flower you can spread

Poem
By Christine Bullard

Toxic trash smoke fills my lungs in Kaštel Novi

Bronchitis sets in...deep

Why pollute the air you breath

What about the youth and old

Perhaps they adapt

Generations live in living museums

Behind walled cities

Inside castle walls

Century's of story telling

Most have been told

Some we'll never know

The Adriatic sea with dramatic shades of blue

Islands, boating and floating

Croatia, I love you 🇭🇷

Christine Bullard is a native Angeleno from Highland Park. As seen in Dwell and other magazines, she's an architectural photographer, LA realtor, a professional bellydancer, and recently became an Italian citizen living a digital nomadic life traveling throughout Europe.

Love is not
3/28/24
By Lady Luuuna

Love is not the wounds you inflict,
In hopes of another's downfall,
Making them believe they are deserving of empty nothingness.
Love would not destroy a smile with a pit of frowns,
And make another believe to be a cowardice clown,
Who's heart of happiness is meant to burn bitter,
Because of their own misfortune and wither.
Love would not call you all names other than your own,
And adopt you to traits that isolate u alone,
Into believing you are someone that you hadn't been raised to know.
Love is not whose toxicity screams care,
Whose anger screams passion, admiration, and fair.
Love is not the one to leave me alone and bare,
To survive on my own and expect me to chase them as if I fear my own company.
Love would not leave me hanging dry after leaving me soaking wet in the cold for some time. It would warm me up and keep me dry,
Away from, avoiding, molding in between the lines.
My love does not ache or chase is despair,
For a damaged soul to yearn for what they can't see is there,
Right in front of them, light and peace they cannot see,
Love would not chain me and keep me from being set free.

My name is Ashley Wiggin and I'm 25 years old from San Diego, CA. I have a love for all arts and enjoy pursuing in writing poetry and painting majority of the time, when I'm not taking care of the other responsibilities of life.

Ur Killing Me
3-10-2024
5:46 pm
By Mary Cheung

What doesn't kill me...

Just makes me wanna puke...

Out my guts.

Out my sanity,

Out my humanity.

Just so that I can become a robot for you.

And continue to churn Out goods to keep this machine running.

This commerce coming,

Well ain't that sumthing.

To viewers in HD, so much product to see!

But nothings for free.

For my life I sold to thee.

To keep the revenue flowing,

cuz the big wigs needs to keep his income a growing.

Built on the backs of our sweat.

Our tears are running a river of red.

The days bled into each other.

The calendar dotted with numbers and names.

Each day's a shuffling variation,

It feels like an unwinnable game.

And if you didn't own me b4,

well you sure do now.

Got me on a tether,

Tripping up my weekends and how!

Time lost so precious and few.

Some parents whose children will grow up foreign,

all because of you.

Missing their school recital.

Missing chaperoning their first school trip.

Or maybe missing their Halloween parade.

now that, ain't too hip.

But these are the sacrifices that we make.

As parents, as humans to make a livelihood.

Crosses a line, when it crosses your life

that can't be very good.

Cuz we need more then just work,

to balance out the gift that is called life.

We need to carve out the space to remember that we have a husband or a wife.

Don't know why they call it working.

Because this feels more like a slow torture and exercise of endurance and of faith.

Leaves me counting the days until it's over.

So I'll stick it out and hang onto, my previous four leaf clover.

Until then I can only wonder,

where this road is taking me,

To an early grave?

if so what shall they engrave?

On the slate, on the plaque above me head.

Here's lies....... with stitches in her vein and pins stuck in her head..

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012 which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

20 Years Left is now a short documentary!!!! Screening at a living room near you!!!!

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

April Poet's Place

April 04, 2024

POETS PLACE
APRIL EDITION
PARIS, FRANCE 2024

Bonjour Mon Amis! Paris is definitely a city for romance. The old crumbling cobblestone streets vying for attention. Lovers sitting in cafes dreamy eyes locked in each others gaze whilst sipping wine poured by handsome waiters. The french language is soft and fluid, enticing the passersby to eaves drop and attempt to join in on the conversation. I listen in, but only a few words are understandable with my limited French. I have been roaming the city looking around and down the narrow streets for places to explore. Before traveling, I had been studying the guide books, youtube travel shows, Rick Steves maps and getting tips from all my informed friends to get a lay of the land, and hopefully with daily practice of Babble, to learn the basic language of French. But when I venture out I’m still lost, as well as the French words and phrases I’ve learned! There are too many twists and turns in Paris, and when GPS fails, I have to resort to a map. Which way is North? Ah a sign that says The Bastille this way! Then I know I’m headed back towards my hotel! Paris is also a city full of street art and graffiti. I love street art! But they have nothing compared to Picasso. The Picasso museum blew my mind! His legacy incudes over 200 thousand paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and even poetry!!! I hope to check out the Grand Palais Urban art exhibit. And the many galleries all over the city. There is definitely too much to see and do in Paris and unless you are a savvy traveller, or have a lot of time, it’s impossible to cover all the ground!

Thoughts of You
By Linda Kaye

it's cold outside but the thought of you makes me warm

tickles my skin

thickens my heart

softens the weary lines

loosens braided charms

that have hung out to dry

now moistened with love

the drippings of lust laid raw

That’s What I Do
Terrance M. Whitten

I make things. That’s what I do. From my earliest years, I took apart, reconstructed, piled, stacked, drew on and experimented with whatever was at hand. My proclivity for making things was a fair clue as to any future vocation I might choose, if not actually steered towards. As the second son of a Roman Catholic family attending St. Christopher’s Elementary in mid-century Detroit, the Irish tradition of my mother’s family would have me be groomed for the priesthood, a family ambition likely dashed when I dropped out of altar boy training in the fifth grade without telling my mother because there was no way in Hell that I was going to memorize the big Apostle’s Creed that opened Act II of the Catholic Mass.

In Latin, yet!

In 1964, the liberalizations of Pope John XXIII that brought the English language into Catholic liturgy were a couple of years ahead. Still, the nuns in seventh and eighth grades were quite vocal about my perceived future as a priest, I was such a good and conscientious student. Not to mention that my mother was secretary to the Pastor in his rectory next door.

But I kept my skeptical misgivings about the whole Jesus business to myself.

By my 1967 graduation into an all-boys Catholic high school, that aura of future clergy bait still hung over my head, for I am certain that the Brothers at Detroit Catholic Central had their eyes on me. The age of 15 was when I finally acknowledged to myself a full turn to agnosticism, at least until the age of 28 when I experienced hallucinogens for the first time. That acknowledgement of my lapsed faith remained personal, for ambivalence marked my responses in any religious discussion, whether in class or out.

Growing up in the Motor City in the 1960s, the roadways were crowded with the expressive stylings of the city’s biggest export – our cars. Since the late 1950s, Detroit’s automotive designers all competed, producing flash and grace in equal measure.

My mother’s father was a line manager in one of General Motors’ production plants. As family, I was entitled to free enrollment in GM’s local Engineering and Design school once I finished high school. The age of 15 also saw me determined that automotive design was where I was headed. My schoolbooks and papers throughout later grade school had their margins filled with my little sketches of mid-60s Jetson-era car and architectural fantasies. The long Michigan winters kept students indoors during recess, my time post-lunch spent doodling up more fantasies, with fellow students anticipating what I would concoct next. And every September brought with it the beginning of a school year, the new TV season and the introduction of a freshly-designed batch of the Motor City’s most prized products by Ford, GM and Chrysler.

At age 17, my professional future still looked to be in the hands of a corporate giant.

But then in my Senior year, I started working on the school newspaper. I would go on to enter Michigan State University as a Journalism Major in 1971, though 1970 and my Junior year found me more ambivalent about where my professional future lay. My options became more evident once my grasp of the world began expanding, as it does to all teens heading into adulthood. Though to my fellow students and my teachers, I still appeared to be prime for the clergy.

Then one day the entire Junior class was required during Father Heath’s Sociology class to take a multiple-choice vocational test. Several weeks later we all were handed the results of the test in a sealed envelope. This rather conservative student anticipated a rather conservative result. In 1970, I was antipathetic towards the swelling pot-smoking, long-haired counter-culture and found humor, along with the rest of the class when an exemplar of our class’s counter-culture fringe was determined to be a future mortician!

Then I opened my own envelope.

Musician.

What? I was surprised and a bit confused that the test saw that kind of energy in me, for good or for bad. Just three years post-1967’s Summer of Love and, to this inexperienced 17-year-old, the word “musician” carried with it a myriad of life choices that I did not foresee for myself. Sure, I was an AM radio pop-music junkie, with a childhood saturated with a vibrant soundtrack, and had taken music classes in just my Freshman year learning a clarinet so to join the school band - no passion for playing the instrument, though I do enjoy its woody voice - but I shared my vocational test result with only one classmate, a friend who sang in the school chorus and was teaching himself guitar. He was as surprised by the result as me.

I didn’t even tell my parents.

Well, come entry into college and the pursuit of a journalism degree, I would be sabotaged by my dyslexia when I continually failed the typing tests to qualify for senior-level courses. So I turned to my drawing skills and acquired a Fine Arts degree after a fifth year at Michigan State. As for the life choices that followed my commencement in 1976 and my stepping foot into the real world – that vocational test got it right, mostly.

The word “artist” does not fall far from “musician” as to the sort of life choices embraced. I have proven not to be made for the world that had been anticipated for me, for the counter-culture I once misunderstood in 1970 now defines me. My 1981 encounter with a hallucinogen and the subsequent dramatic redefinition of the universe, as well as the spark that really lit fire to a productive artistic life being a case in point.

All that was detected by a simple high school vocational test.

I have flourished as a visual artist over the decades and found my way back to the written word in the 1990s courtesy of the computer keyboard and the ability to correct and edit as one writes. Three screenplays, a novel and three other books bear my name as a result, besides the innumerable drawings from my hand.

As for the potential as an automotive designer, the mid-1970s oil crisis put an end to imaginative car design. I would have been discouraged had I taken that route and would have been eager for an alternative. That is one “what if” best not taken.

But there is another.

In 1966, this thirteen-year-old already had made his creative talents evident, so my mother tried to spark some creative energy out of a sister by renting an acoustic guitar and having my sister take weekly guitar lessons at a music shop in a nearby Dearborn shopping center. My sister displayed no enthusiasm for the whole business. Never practiced. I now can imagine the frustration of the guitar teacher.

At the time, I wished my mother would let me take over the guitar and the lessons, for The Monkees had just premiered on TV and this Beatles-fed fan with a good ear likely would have turned a capable hand to the instrument. And likely I would have written music as well, whether songs or more complex music, I would have made something.

That’s what I do.

But I didn’t say anything, and the neglected guitar went back to the shop in Dearborn.

A big “what-if,” a big “what if” that the vocational test detected in 1970.

In retrospect, I could have embarked on an adventurous musical life in 1966, one which musician Dan Fogelberg described in a lyric – audiences are heaven, the traveling is hell. That and all the other well-documented hazards of the musician’s life.

Is there regret in the recounting of these memories?

No. Music remains a substantial and colorful presence in my daily life. And a sturdy harmonica has been a friend for nearly 35 years. Though I really don’t know how to play the thing, I can make music with the instrument just the same.

As for my art and my writing over the decades – would I sacrifice them for a life of music?

No. They’re my children. Of course not.

Just as long as I am making something.

That’s what I do.

Terrance M. Whitten is a Detroit-born artist and writer, now a 25-year resident of Los Angeles. Keeping busy!

POISE
By:IE Carlo
21 February 2023

To speak, to admire, to lauder

To be poet

Poise is necessary

Look, see, view that young woman on the steps of the White House

Standing at the podium poised with the most powerful man the President of the United States of America

Who is she you ask, Amanda Gorman, by name, a poet laureate

And no games she plays,

Her posture, her eyes, the courage in her stance

Listen to Maya Angelou recite her words

See her manner of being her ‘not’ angular back Standing erect with the conviction of her words

You hear the vowels than consonants the nuance the narrative is clear and poetic

To be a poet takes ‘will’ not only writing it but delivering it The audience is waiting for they’re there to be impacted with the depth of your words they’re here for they have a self interest they want to know

From poise comes character to which the audience can identify with the poet they live the poets journey and ‘roll’ with It. It may have taken the poet perhaps hours, days, months, and even years to perfect those words being said and poise is calmness, and although the poet may be a word-smith, words don’t always come with the [what] of the poem needs to say...it can be grueling...but that’s what makes a poet! A poet must always be prepared, to enlight, making the audience feel uncomfortable at times may be what the poet’s intentions are, but be weary because if they're given a reason, any reason, they’ll turn you the poet off. A poet must be a humble-courage-artist-person. A butterfly of love...Paz

Ismael (East) Carlo, where to begin...on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio (no, it’s not how I came about my monica of “East”). That happened due to others not being able to pronounce the name, Is-Ma-El…

...mom, was an avid theater person, live stage was her favorite, movies every Thursday night at any of the Spanish theaters venues available. I mean they use to give away whole dish sets, one piece at the time, so she would take us all, in this way all would get one piece each of dish ware.

At the age of 33 East took to acting…”It was an easy transition for me. I mean you couldn’t get more material or characters than you could from observing people and their ways on one city block in NYC”.

Moving to Miami in 1973 was the start, things were changing and Hollywood was on the cusp of that change. Latino’s were in, and “East” was right there in that place where all things Latino was beginning to happen. Cuba was a hot topic, drugs, sex, and rock n roll was the thing.

One day out of nowhere East said to himself, “I’m going to Hollywood and play with the big boys and girls…” and that’s exactly what he did. But that grew into a bigger and more advantages career. It would also take him to what has always been his passion, music. He met Robert ‘Bobby’ Matos, and that’s where the creation of Cafe con Bagels and music recordings had its genesis.

From there to now; Bobby encouraged him to write seeing East had an awareness of what life and its meaning meant to him and others. Through writing East has been able to make inroads and contribute to awareness of that thing called life by way of a recording he and Bobby shared, titled: “Provocateur”.

East, considers himself more a storyteller than a poet, although at times he gets lucky and poetry emerges from his stories...

For more about East, visit IMDB. He would’ve written more but Linda just gave him but one day to come up with this...LOL

Paz en Vida

The House Does Not Exist
By Gwen Freeman

The house does not exist

Anymore

Except

In dreams where laughing silhouettes fill the kitchen,

And pace the hall

And sleep in narrow beds.

Until

I open my eyes, and mourn the dead, and know again,

The house does not exist.

Gwen Freeman was born and raised in Virginia, a double graduate of the University. She is a lawyer and artist, living bicoastally with her husband in Mt Washington and in the rural Shenandoah Valley.

THE GUEST
By jerry the priest

Shiva’s on his way over with laughter and affirmations.

He’s offered the use of his car for the weekend. There’s a
festival in our honor in one of the little towns ’round here
and everyone’s invited to celebrate our love.

This is delightful and happening none too soon. Soon
it will be Autumn, but now it is high Summer. A thrill is
in the air. A very whisper of fulfillment.

These recent rains have cooled the mountain and it’s
just as well there’s little to hope for.

I picture you dressing for the party. You’ve casually put
on the merest hint of makeup and your flimsiest gown, the
better to remove them when the time comes.

There’s a lilting raga playing in your womb. You’re moving
to its lush melody and infectious rhythm, mildly astonished
at how far you’ve come, and how quickly the transformation
has taken place.

Before long you won’t even be missing your crutches.

A lightning bug swoops in the open window, attracted
by your undeniable radiance. He is flashy and unafraid.
The two of you are dancing by candlelight as the rains
resume.

Its midnight in your bedroom. In mine it is high noon.
A letter arrived today. A contest it seems I’ve won, in
which my sorrows have all been loaded onto trucks
and removed.

I’m tempted to cartwheel. Aw, fuck it: Here goes!

…I form the shards into an offering and text
affirmations to Shiva.

I put on my finest shoes and a little cologne. I hide
presents in my beard, and thoughtfully put
the kettle on.

When Shiva arrives, he’ll be wanting tea.

He holds a BA in Performance Studies from Naropa University, and an MFA in Theater Directing/Production from California Institute of the Arts.

jeromedunn·happythanksgrieving@gmail.com·707.227.6539

G. Billie Quijano-artwork

This photo is from my Cinematic Chicas series. It is my homage to Mother Earth and the Aztec Goddess Xochiquetzal. Honoring this season of La Primavera and the Equinox.

Xochiquetzal, Goddess of beauty, love, fertility, artists and La Luna. I am her daughter. www.artexola.com

G. Billie Quijano-Artista, Bruja, Poeta, instigator of beauty. Hija de East Los.

I am honored to know Linda Kaye. Her love and support of artists is beyond amazing. Now she is off to France to blow everybody’s minds. This is an exciting time.

The Swan King
By Ronald Carillo

He delighted in swans
And tell tale Manhattan gossip Of the highest order
An insidious mosquito author Past his prime
Put out to pasture
A parasite filling his inkwell On disaster
Unable to recapture his youth He decays
In decadent filth
An ugly duckling
Waiting for
Unanswered prayers
Those that were answered Took his last breath

The queen ate swan
He was a cannibal mimic Seeking salvation
Mercy from
Manhattan matrons Attempting suicide
When he was rejected Nonetheless he survived On the edge
Battling demons
From his past
He wrote his way to fame And settled for infamy
All in vain
Up in smoke
He choked on his muses They provided fine fodder But not nutrition
His words
Were a beautiful contrition That crossed swords
With evil doers

A shiny swampy orbit Where he listened Then lost his shine

A bevy of swans White elitists Trumpeter pens At their center

A single cob

Grand Central Market
August 22, 2022; July 24, 2023
By Elizabeth Silk

We’re all here

Moms and teens and grands

Chairs pulled round a table

Waxy papers bloom from takeout boxes

In the shade of Grand Central Market

Kids toddlers carbed out on

pizza tacos soda

blankly stare

Bass and drums rumble the air

Chests thrum against metal chairs

Chatter ripples over heat waves

We are in it together

Breathing bad air

With satisfaction

In shallow breaths

Under aqua umbrellas brisk and perky

Like kites about to fly off over the hot wind

Pigeons stalk crumbs

Not about to fly off

A sunbright wall faces us

Its mural faded to Egyptian pastels

Blue block H E L O spaced between

Boarded windows

Since I, Elizabeth Silk, moved to Los Angeles in 2021, I have enjoyed writing poems about Downtown LA where I live. “Grand Central Market” is one of the first of those poems as well as one of the first landmark settings that I enjoyed.

bowl of cherries
By Charla DelaCuadra

dark and sweet
as your kiss
the one I want and cannot have

but right now
I have this taste of summer
on my tongue
feet bare
in front of this kitchen sink
spitting seeds as the sun slants
liquid-slick and ephemeral
as the bitter finish on my tongue
so pink and so lonely
for the company of yours

cherries in summer
(just like you)
always leave me wanting more
slightly dissatisfied
but also grateful
for the sweetness they bring

a skirt and a bra, honey
and I've got a mouth full of summer
so melancholy for the memory
of this moment
before it is even gone

Charla is a musician, writer, archivist, blogger, creative, thinker, planner, reader, feminist, lover, and student of life. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, rescue pups, and a cat who thinks she rules the roost.

www.pinkandgreenmusings.com

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

and include a short bio

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

20 Years Left is now a short documentary!!!! Screening at a living room near you!!!!

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

March Poet's Place

March 05, 2024

POETS PLACE
MARCH EDITION
2024

YO! What’s happening all you beautiful people! It’s March! The ides are upon us. Let’s not worry about impending doom and keep our trajectories in focus. I, through my blurry lens that have been clouded lately with home disasters and misfortunes, keep plodding along, with a little help from my friends, MJ and alcohol. We all need some distractions from reality. LOL. Whatever it takes to get you through the next hour or day, do it. Do it to the max. Let go of the resistance. Unlock your fears and travel forth. Yes! And speaking of traveling, I will be traveling to France April 1! I am a bit scared of going abroad alone, but I must go, tackle my fears and jump in to the unknown. It’s the unknown that scares us/me, which often creates the anxious tremors you feel in your gut. Packing for a journey has always been a bane in my life. For my upcoming trip to France, I have decided to pack light, which for me is highly stressful since I am a fashion hound and look forward to my daily dress up ritual. I have a lot of clothes, shoes, jewelry, hats, shoes. Did I say shoes twice?! My biggest fear is losing my luggage (eek), which I have read that the Paris airport does often. I am going to travel with only carry on luggage. I have been practicing packing, if that’s such a thing, to ease my stress. I must say that it has worked and I am feeling a lot less stressed about packing. What will I be doing in France? I have been accepted to an artist residency in SW France, in the town of Nerac. I will be there for 2 weeks working on my memoir (below is a picture of the town). Looks absolutely gorgeous! I don’t believe there is anything not gorgeous in France! I will be filming a lot of live Instagram posts, so follow along with me to France @lindakayepoetry on Instagram!!! I will continue to publish POETS PLACE monthly, so keep sending me your beautiful poems and stories!

Avec Gratitude
Linda :0)

Spring Renewal
By Linda Kaye

Amidst torture and grief we choose life

our strength surfaces as the last light fades behind a cloud of smoke

we resurrect out of the bastion of suffering to teach what can be done

we pray for peace and hope for an endless future

which our guardians have fought for and won

we peel away the layers that have protected the sins of our past

it reveals a light

a shimmer of solidarity

that at last we can unite

The Book Review
By Theodore A Hoppe

From the beloved bestselling author

A tale full of intrigue and murder

An excursion into the world of suspense

and misadventure

Weaving together the high-tech fixing

Of a string of unexpected events

The quintessential tale of music,

The truths, and lies we tell ourselves

About life and love

Such an implausible mixture.

It's only slightly less amazing than the facts

A loving moving laugh-out loud celebration

Of special friends and family

Suspenseful and morally complex

Whose meaning resonates

Probing the seamy underside of

A dark romantic and captivating secret

Unforgettable, instructive and moving

Told in a down to earth amusing and agenda-free tone

A captivating examination of culture,

Race, class, death, and rebirth.

Beautiful,

and as painfully alluring as it is dangerous

Written with more warmth and grace than

we are likely to see again.

Theodore A Hoppe currently lives in the sleepy village of South Hero, Vermont (where ice fishing is still practiced, but only in the wintertime), and spends time in Los Angeles atop Baxter St, enjoying the warm sunsets and an occasional cocktail. His interests include neuroscience, complexity and chaos theory, and AI.

Black-Dog
By Naomi E. Cornejo, November 2018

It’s been more than two months now and I watch you slowly, fall apart, every day. I love you. You don’t understand why I love you. I just do.

I want to know how you are feeling and your response usually is, “I don’t know.” I have to understand that depression just is. You seem to have settled into nothingness and the world has become “blurry and hazy,” I’ve heard you say. Medications have made it worse, keeping you from eating, from sleeping or kept you sleeping too much. Sleeping is the only time where your brain stops for a few hours and the anxiety settles for a bit. I can see that you are frightened and some days, I look at you and you bow your head in shame. I love you, I want to scream!!! I’m afraid you won’t hear me.

Nothing I say reassures you that you are ever enough. You say everything hurts and I want to kiss all of your pain away but depression is like a permanent bruise. Depression has left you irritable, paranoid, lifeless, and critical. It has left you exhausted. I know that you feel like you are fading away but I see you. You are not invisible to me. You are grand in my eyes. I love you. I love you! I love you!!!

“because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Naomi E. Cornejo is a native Angelina and a high school Reading and Life Skills teacher. She enjoys learning about her students’ everyday and teaching them the joy of reading and learning. She graduated from Mount St. Mary’s College (now a university) in Los Angeles in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Spanish and a minor in Religious Studies. She enjoys dabbling in writing Haikus, mostly narrative poems and attending poetry readings. She also, has a deep love for playing softball since childhood and has played in an adult league for the past eight years. Naomi has visited 14 countries and hopes to continue traveling the world someday and visit Portugal and Japan.

Poetry
By Ana-Alicia Salazar–awkwardsilverlinings

A deviation from the disheartening, dispirited and

Befuddlement,

as my horizon lay in disarray, disappointments & angst–

Otherworldly & magical He is

a Human personification of my inner

affections

An eternal light to the abysmal darkness, to rainbow spears through my splintered core

He is poetry in motion & my biggest risk

You changed me to my depths

I'm not letting go

Give yourself a chance

She said

Then, all at once, he found her–

A lifetime between them

He was not just anybody

Someone special

Comically offbeat and hypnotically deadpan

Truly poignant moments were those that followed & remain unsaid

Written in the stars

Exquisite magical delights as

they reveled in shared commonalities &

scorned hearts

Capricious no longer

Rather, he cloaked her in heartening tenderness

There was never anyone else

Ana is a contributing writer for UP Magazine, street art enthusiast, Arizona State hopeful, and a Multiple Sclerosis warrior.
She is a Los Angeles native.
Ana writes her poetry in cursive on any medium, even discarded furniture or a dumpster– utilizing aerosol, oil markers, and/or paint. Though, she likes to stick to classic pen and paper. Ana loves love. She writes about love gone right, wrong, and awry.
Writing tames intense feelings of recalling a flirty smile or a back ache.
Tirelessly, Ana continues to create, write and promote Multiple Sclerosis awareness.

Poetry
By ChampionElCid
Empathy

To feel a love so deeply,

That it shakes your very soul

Can make you feel amazing

Can make your heart feel whole

To care for those who suffer

It take a love so deep

To put yourself in their shoes

And know just why they weep

There are those who suffer silently

Who hide grief with a mask

They don't want to show their feelings

Not even when they are asked

They carry sorrow with them

All throughout their life

They soldier on with struggles

Not complaining of their strife

The soul that understands this

Can offer some solace

Can say they struggle also

Can relate to their mess

Not all can understand this

For some care not to know

The pain that other feel inside

The true depth of their woe

Empathy is important, to know how others feel

You must comprehend this, to help them finally heal

We all suffer in some way, and thus all walk this path

We must learn to love each other, or else it ends in wrath.

Friendship

To feel a love so deeply,

That it shakes your very soul

Can make you feel amazing

Can make your heart feel whole

To find a friend who loves you

For who you truly are

Can make a bad day feel good

Make you feel bright like a star

A friend like that is precious

A treasure truly rare

Such friendships are worth keeping

Through both joy and despair

Keeping friends can be a struggle

To make it truly last

It often takes a lot of work

To keep your friends steadfast

The longer that you keep your friends

The closer you will grow

You'll know each other better

You both will have gusto

Friends can last a lifetime

If you maintain them well

Together you'll face anything

Maybe even conquer hell

Friendship is important, for it helps you face the day

Friends help us when we really feel, that we've lost our way

Without friends life can be so rough, much harder and more cold

I pray my friends will still be there, when I am worn and old

Love

To feel a love so deeply,

That it shakes your very soul

Can make you feel amazing

Can make your heart feel whole

That unconditional love

Is something else for sure

It's different from other loves

It wonderfully pure

It has a unique aura

It has a tender grace

This love is full of patience

This love you cannot chase

It has to come from within

You have to understand

This love is complicated

Yet also truly grand

To know a love like this one

That is willing to forgive

To bear whatever hardships

To always want to live

Is something truly wonderful

Yet harder to maintain

It asks for so much from you

It can feel like a drain

Love knows many forms and has many ways of showing

It takes an open mind, to know how to keep love flowing

We must try and learn to love, to help all humankind

We must not act in anger, lest we make all people blind

Romance

To feel a love so deeply,

That it shakes your very soul

Can make you feel amazing

Can make your heart feel whole

To find a loving partner

That loves who you truly are

Can be a harrowing journey

That takes you very far

Romantic love is difficult

Its course is unforgiving

This love is great and terrible

And makes life worth living

At times love can be fickle

At times love likes to tease

Sometimes it makes you happy

Or brings you to your knees

When you find that special someone

Who makes your heartbeat soar

You should take care to keep them

Make them the object you adore

Romantic love takes time to find

For some it can take years

This love needs time to blossom

To overcome our fears

Romance is very tricky, especially for me

It's something I've experienced, but not recently

It's something that I long for, like most of us do

At times I feel it's something, that I cannot construe

ChampionElCid lives in Los Angeles, he currently works four different jobs so doesn't often have the time he'd like to write. When he was young he read Don Quixote for the first time and that book left an impression on him. He was later learned of a real life Spanish Knight named "El Cid" who embodied many of the ideals that Don Quixote strived for.Thus he decided to take that name when creating a profile on the internet and that name has stuck. You can see more of his poems and thoughts on things on his Deviantart profile.

Altered States
6:09 a.m.
12-6-23
By Mary Cheung

I don't need drugs to set me free.

Just the frame of mind,

to just let it be.

The state of my head,

is where it should be.

not in the right time, nor the right frame

Where is my mind,

I know it should rhyme,

No , wait there is still time.

To ride the loops,

Send in the troops!

To drag me away,

Will I see another day?

Oh my mind is afraid

And I'm afraid to say...

what I'm seeing today

Doesn't match with what I'm seeing in my head.

Because it's all jumbled

My sanity has taken a tumble.

Down the well of madness

The Hatter has nothing on me.

Because I've set my mind free.

Turning my thoughts out.

Oh please don't pout

Its really quite fine,

The state of my mind,

Is minding the states.

It's all very new, I hope you can relate.

The strangeness of it all.

Where I go

When I'm in,

these altered states.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012 which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

The Shy Ones
By Emily Kupinsky

Feet that don’t dance

should be given a second chance

to tap

and shuffle

and stomp

To pivot and slide

moving side to side

for it’s

the shy ones

that revel

when they romp

When Emily Kupinsky isn’t making Art for the Hive Gallery, she daydreams about how a shopping cart with one bad wheel is really just an awkward but willing dance partner

sadness
by daniel schack

In a way, perhaps, there is no such thing as superior or inferior. only moral or immoral. just maybe.

daniel schack, a new york city based poet/artist. more verse can be seen on poetrysoup.com

last night i was thinkin
by anna broome

it ain't easy
not the sittin
waitin uneasy
rockin of bein all
alone
no where to go
alone
losin myself in red
uncertain
flirtin & barkin
with the boys next door
& their black dogs
that ain't
stirrin me around
like collards
in the pot after i
add Tabasco
it's the love
of sweatin & rollin
around & in between
leavin me thirsty
for lemonade & a salty
kiss
exhaustin my easy
my big easy
way of sinkin
me into you

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles published poet

Roots Remind Me
By Victoria Orantes

Another broken branch of her being.

And from this adverse abyss, she’s seeing.

Within- the told and known, disagreeing.

And so her peace is constantly fleeing.

Consequence of her distressful thinking,

Split away for the sake of well-being.

In mental dissonance, roots remind me

That a tree does not discard blindly.

Victoria was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She is the owner and operator of the first 1966 Volkswagen Beetle boutique, V.E.O. Visions, where she sells her original art, original jewelry, hand-painted clothing, and curated $5 thrifts. Victoria’s art has been featured in local NELA establishments, art-walks, and recently Shoutout LA magazine.

Almost-Equinox Takes
By Marilyn Fuss 2017

The wild and waxing moon as it was last night, shaggy at the edges,

is still there for me this morning in the same high spot.

But it's too bright and warm out for the vision to be real.

Not winter's still, hard daylight version in a Wedgewood sky,

but pushing the Equinox on the deadly morning the clock sprang ahead.

At sixes and sevens; ankylosé, say the French. And stiff.

Something's off. Jet lag standing still.

The crows, having chased away the mockingbirds years ago, are actual,

with that castinet in their throats.

I can hear the smaller, fallen birds' voices: "Cheater, cheater, cheater!"

"Birdie, birdie, birdie," was the reply of their kind, once.

Another figment, like the daylight moon.

Real enough is the din of the magenta wash in swishing vat of pink water,

tearing the sheets in tiny places.

(I'll see you in court, Mr. Kenmore!)

Beset by later light and later exit,

Toby leans around the cabinet corner to claim

his commission of the scrambled eggs.

Strike his strident meow from the scene as he inhales them.

And cancel the bickering of crowded hens somewhere.

We trust these pasture eggs enough to triple down.

Across the street, a young couple tentatively knocks

to console a mother on the death of a neighborhood hermit.

First guests in five years. The mother is sprung too.

No longer audible are his shouts.

Back home here, a ring, a robocall:

A canned "Christine" announces herself just before ten,

when the body clock strikes nine.

A former teacher and go-fer, Marilyn Fuss has spent most of her life in Los Angeles, appreciating as many of its details as she can, and working to have a safe country to live in in 2021.

Poema
By G. Billie Quijano

Revolution in a Mujere’s soul

Cause of the Universe, whole

Our Indigenous blood

Raped through history of time

Crime after crime, crime after crime

Cosmic sounds

Renaissance spectrum of brown

Mujeres murdered

Children caged

Warrior resurrection

Illuminating elements of intersection

Ancestors spoke

Their words entwined in copal smoke

Echoes of struggle and trauma

Indeed justice will be served, this is your karma

Our hearts, not for you to vandalize

Yet you continue to colonize

We know no borders

All of these lands are free

Humble offerings to the Bruja of the sea

We are glitter and dust from the bones before

We are the divine design

Colores, memories, energies live in our shrines

La Curandera, La Bruja

Medicina, mysticism, magical real

Refusal to be disappeared

We move the earth, sun and the moon

La Monarcha, swaying and swoon

We rise, we rise

You will hear our cries

As we raise our fists to the skies

Committed to our truth, our liberation

Our voice

Our choice

The rhythm of the Ancients

Wisdom and changes in their passage

Pyramids and codices forever in movement

A new vida has begun

Our faces will feel the warmth of that familiar sun

El Colibri flys high in vibration

Abrazos, besos, intentions, creation

March 8th-International Women’s Day

The trafficking of women transpires daily

Femicide transpires daily

Moving from trauma, to survivor, to justice

Victory will prevail

G. Billie Quijano- Hija de East Los, Hermana de San Pancho. Self taught creative, photographer, watercolorist, assemblage arte. Bruja, poeta, instigator of beauty.

The landscape of my childhood, my classrooms were elements of urban life, cool concrete, vibrant colors and sounds from a place I love, prepared me for my life as an artist.

My heroes are the hard working, courageous street artists and activists all over the world. My work is a humble practice of keeping tradition and history alive.

My wish is to share my art, a desire to make a connection and contribution. To maintain beauty and balance in the universe. I continue to evolve and participate in the cultural rhythms of the streets and beyond.

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio

Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park. The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock, The Los Angeles Makery in Little Tokyo. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

20 Years Left is now a short documentary!!!! Screening at a living room near you!!!!

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

February Poet's Place

February 06, 2024

POETS PLACE
February Edition 2024

As the skies turn black, and the sun tries to break through, we are haunted by the threats of the loss of democracy, as we once knew it. Our country is in a quagmire of political brouhaha. The regression of this country’s female right of choice is in the ring of fire. Will our chances of fending off criminals in our government ever come to pass since one is about to be re-elected? Has our country lost it’s way towards respecting our neighbors right to freedom and justice? People (not all of course) are so cruel and disgusting. They are lost in the hatred that was fed to them in their family of origin. Generally speaking, I am not very optimistic about our secured freedom in this country. Will I run or fight if I am attacked? Physically or mentally? I currently feel under siege and helpless to defend myself. I am actually ready to flee this country for a spell. I am so pissed off at the way we are behaving towards each other. Thank goodness we have a private space here on POETS PLACE to share our thoughts and feelings. Let’s hope that our right to free speech is not taken away. Let there be peace. Please.

Love, Linda

America, land of the free?
by Linda Kaye

America, land of the free? Home of the unjust?

Curtains pulled and borders closed

Do we still belong?

Is our status revoked?

Are we still citizens of the United States?

Have we changed the declaration of independence?

Do we wipe out generations of immigrant existence?

If forms of government become destructive do we have the right of the people to alter or abolish it?

Don’t we have a right to freedom?

A right to equality? Freedom from slavery? Freedom from torture or degrading treatment? A right to recognition as a person before the law?

Or are we just dreaming.

Who is watching the country’s store?

We the people of the human race in order to form a more perfect humanitarian world demand justice and tranquility promoting general welfare securing the blessings of liberty and freedom to everyone

regardless.

E pluribus Unum

One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice

For all

Only a dream
By Emily Kupinsky

I dreamed of us, Love

when our bodies were still new

when hands guided hands

and feet tickled feet

and whispers were made

and lips were so sweet

Let me always remember us

This way

Emily Kupinsky is a resident artist at The Hive Gallery in Los Angeles, if she were a Superhero, her name would be Dyslexia

DON’T LET IT
By Mary Cheung
12-31-23
3:30 a.m.

Like a character in a Hayao Miyazaki film,

it can transform you,

Slowly turning you into an unrecognizable lump...

As a preview I see the transformation in my brother.

The hate, the discontentment is turning him into an ogre.

A mountain of bloated misery that is pushing his body outward, expanding in size.

I can barely recognize him, I am saddened by what I see.

He doesn't recognize what has happened to him.

And I feel it eating away at me.

He wears his misery like a coat.

Sticking to his skin, burrowing deep inside.

Lives and breathes as what use to be him.

Makes me want to cry...

The person I used to recognize is gone.

And it saddens me so.

Fighting it seems futile.

Maybe I just have to let it go??

And maybe if I were Gandhi and I had the time, the temperance,

To wait it out; then I could try.

To save his soul, that doesn't think it needs saving.

This is why he doesn't even try.

And if I had the patience to hear him out, to help him out,

to finding his path again and heal....

Then I could get my brother back again and make it all real.

But I am not him and neither are you. How lost a soul is he?

And I haven't the right tools to gauge.

The fight that is needed, the war I would need to wage.

To save his soul.

His light that died out,

the love that went cold....

I saw the malignant flash upon your face.

As it tried to latch itself onto you,

Those few moments was all it took,

You were no longer the sister that l knew.

This version pulsated with anger and hate.

Threatening to turn you into that blob.

Thank you for listening and that made the difference,

of why your humanity would never be robbed.

Don't let it.

If I were a mirror,

Then I could reflect back, and you'd see.

What tried to take over you,

as it delighted and clasped his hands in glee.

As it was able to sow the seed,

the tiniest of hope that it could stir up.

The misery it could create.

Clapped in delight and vibrated with dark energy and hate.

Another soul, lost...

Don't let it.

Being the eldest,

You felt it your duty to try.

To bring all of us together,

Hope and love the reason why.

And to those of us who have reciprocated, in kindness and with love.

Gave you protect against the creature.

Who desired to latch onto you,

And wear you like a glove.

Don't let it.

And you won't,

That I can now see.

Because you chose us, as your armor.

And your mom's hope and tenacity.

And you refused to give up on one of your siblings.

You continue to try,

despite the challenge set before you.

That version of him was a lie.

You try to heal and bring the family back together,.

Why not? Hope to you is boundless and free.

Before we were shaped by Hate,

discontentment and misery.

To before, this thing before you.

To that happy healthy childhood,

that was forgiving, loving, kind and great.

It's hard, I know, to walk away.

But… it's not too late.

Because they are a part of you.

You showered with love and gave and gave and gave.

It's impossible to not to want to try...

Yet sometimes,

That’s all that you can do.

Walk away.

And let that part of you die...

And hope that someone, someday.. something else be their cure.

So that whatever poisoned him, can meet its demise.

Only then can they break the shell.

That snuffed out who they were inside.

Maybe there is no happy ending here.

And well maybe...

that'll just have to be fine.

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012 which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

these nightmares
by linda m. crate

despite the amount of people

in the world,

often i feel alone;

always an outsider

even in my own bones—

no one knows how to

hold me or love me right,

no one appreciates my magic

in a way that is pleasing

to me;

always they wish me tamer

instead of loving my wilds

as they were meant to be loved—

i reach out, sometimes,

only to hear my own echo;

i wonder if i will ever find

this tribe people say is mine—

are some of us destined to

be alone forever?

i don't want to be, i enjoy silence

sometimes but not indefinitely;

wish some sun soul would burn

through all this darkness in my mind

so i could see my dreams instead

of these nightmares.

"Secession from the Sea”
By Victoria Ester Orantes

He was an ocean, she was a cliff,

And at her person, away he chipped.

Consistent barrages on sacred land,

What choice left but to strike an avalanche?

Her sedimentary thinking and her sentimental disposition,

Virle yet effeminate tides deem it feminine invalidism.

The miscue of a woman’s meekness, ongoingly denounced for weakness,

Consequently, her barrier of boulders is his warranted sequence

Now tides know, the limestone body is absorbent as well as it is durable,

But acidic seas she will not endure, and so, live the landslide of her plateau

The self-respecting limestone facade, as proven with time, is a master of goodbyes,

It matters little to her if it was a love as near as shoreline and the sea tide.

Ode to Drowning Tree
By Theodore Hoppe

In somber shades of sorrow's grasp,

I witnessed nature's tearful gasp,

A tale untold, a mournful sight,

A tree adrift, consumed by plight.

Once vibrant leaves, a vibrant green,

Now drooping low, no life between,

Its branches, once stretched towards the sky,

Now bowed in pain as time flew by.

The roots, once anchored firm and strong,

Now tangled, lost, where they belong,

Embraced by waters, cold and deep,

The tree did weep, its soul to keep.

As gentle whispers filled the air,

I heard its plea, a heartfelt prayer,

"Release me from this watery tomb,

Restore my life, let hope resume."

The river's current, swift and cruel,

Carried the tree, a silent duel,

Struggling against the raging tides,

A valiant fight as hope subsides.

And as I stood on distant shore,

My heart grew heavy, feeling more,

The anguish of that drowning tree,

Reflected all that's lost to me.

For in its plight, I saw my fears,

The weight of life, the flow of tears,

Each droplet fell, a mournful plea,

For all the dreams that couldn't be.

Oh, tree of sorrow, drowned in woe,

Your story lingers, haunting, slow,

A reminder of life's fragile hold,

And dreams adrift, forever bold.

May we find solace in your plight,

Learn from your struggle, seek the light,

And though you drown, your spirit free,

Shall dance again in nature's glee.

My Lover
Anna C Broome

Sleeps

While I

Watch

Lightning

Light

Leave

The darkness

Of his

face(s)

Our shadows

The wall

Look

Doves

But he

Is far

From here

Anna Broome is a Los Angeles published poet

BE KIND TO STRANGERS
By Peter Yates

Be kind to strangers,

who never let you down,

and think they do not know you.

But of your friends beware.

The ones who say they know you,

who stab in the back not to look in the eye.

To whom you show the space

between the ribs,

the secret place

where hurt can dig a pathway to the heart.

Fear not the faceless felon,

boogie man, nor roving band.

Every time, the story tells us,

clenched around the blade which fells us

will be found a friendly hand.

Be kind to strangers,

Who do not fail when you succeed,

and will not find you wanting

when you fail to fill a need,

who envy not your luck

and will not flee from your misfortune,

who always ask for nothing

yet are grateful to receive.

So be kind to strangers,

who never let you down,

and think they do not know you.

But of your friends, beware.

RAIN
By Summer Reese

I’ve always hated rain

I know you’re not supposed to, but I do

I have my reasons, it’s personal

I know it’s good for us, I know we need it

I thank God for it, I remember to be grateful

I know it grows our food

I know we’re in drought without it

I know we’ll all blow away in the wind eventually, if we don’t get it

I’m grateful, I’m always grateful

But I have to remind myself

And I’m so glad when it stops

So grateful when the sun comes back out again

Relieved not to be cold, and wet, and miserable

I grew up cold, and wet, and miserable

Also hot, and sweaty and thirsty, and sunburned

But it was still better to be warm than cold

But the money season was when it was cold

And we were broke in the summer, when it was too hot anyways

The Fall signaled the beginning of money again, of the holidays

Of hard work outdoors, but a living

I hated working outdoors, but that’s where I grew up

On a street corner, in the cold, at night

On a street corner, in the heat, in the day

In front of glass, with customers staring through

In front of glass, at night ,when it was cold and the paint wouldn’t dry, but no one was there

On a street corner, three days straight, sleep in the car a little, eat on the corner

Hands, cold, wet, sore, skin red and hurting, working as fast as you can

Remember to smile, “She could sell ice cubes to Eskimos”, that was what was said about me

I was so pretty, so nice, so helpful, I made great tips

My mother had flown through the windshield of a car a few months earlier with her head

She couldn’t carry the buckets of water a few dozen yards from the faucet to the corner

So I did, I was seven, they were heavy and it was hard, but I reminded myself that she couldn’t do it

She had been paralyzed before, when I was three years old, I was there when it happened

She was making a chicken salad and choked on a piece of celery

She bent over coughing, her back snapped and she couldn’t straighten up

It was six months before she could walk again

It was an old injury that had been reactivated

Her x-rays showed her back had been broken when she was about twelve and had not healed properly

She was twelve when her mother stood on her back and told her to “get up”, while beating her

My mother dragged herself up the stairs of P.S. whatever it was in New York City for the next few months in agony, never saying a word, as she recovered from what turned out to be a broken back

But back to my childhood, and the rain and the cold, and my mother, working to stay alive somehow

Summer Reese is a writer, artist, performer and producer. She is an award-winning journalist, and former Board Chair and Executive Director of Pacifica Radio. She began writing and performing her own work at age thirteen, was a member of Gray Pony, and has performed at City Stage, Beyond Baroque, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles Theatre Center, and Crossroads School, among others. Her artwork has been exhibited at LACE. Her writing has been published in Mo’Cheese, an anthology; and Behind the Lens. She served as an officer on the board of Ebony Showcase Theatre. She has worked as a paralegal; run a state-wide ballot initiative; been a life-long political activist; and worked in art, theater, publishing, film, television, radio, music videos, and video game voice acting. She is a fifth-generation Californian, born in San Francisco to an artist and activist mother from New York City. She has lived in and around Los Angeles since she was a child in the 1980’s, and splits her time between her homes in South Los Angeles and the High Desert. She is the single mother of a college student son, and has two cats, two dogs and a tank of fish.

Rivers and Stars
By Cindy Rinne

Did you hear my voice when I was birthed of inner earth fire? Instinct to seek you on the glass sea before the moon sang the tides? Stepping stones formed the shore. One day our son will dwell here. I danced as the heartbeat of creation. Remember before we were a princess and a pirate, a nomad and a wanderer, even a phoenix and a dragon? We were celestial beings separated from each other by a dewy cosmic river which sparkled like forsythia. 7th night. 7th moon. Once a year we kissed in other worlds. You didn’t always make it across the bridge to reach me. I should be used to you being gone as you now retreat into illusions. A melancholy grief. Then I glimpse your bright gaze, feel your touch, and know you hold my tears. You whisper like forest breezes in pine tree voices of desire. Rain washes away longing. I will always grasp your hand even in the shadows of Sheol. My fire lights the outlines of your face, your body – a combustible embrace that births a galaxy.

Cindy Rinne is a poet and fiber artist living in San Bernardino, CA. Pushcart Award nominee. Her poems appeared in literary journals, anthologies, art exhibits, and dance performances. Author of Dancing Through the Fire Door (Nauset Press), The Feather Ladder (Picture Show Press), Words Become Ashes: An Offering (Bamboo Dart Press), and others. Her poetry appeared in: The Closed Eye Open, Verse-Virtual, Mythos Magazine, Unleash Lit, swifts & slows, Lothlorien, and others. www.fiberverse.com.

Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.

Please submit your written work to: lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.

https://thehollywoodtimes.today/20-years-left-new-show-performance-poetry-music/

20 Years Left youtube live stream 2/19/22

https://youtu.be/GT1D5k2EeKU

20 Years Left is now a short documentary!!!! Screening at a living room near you!!!!

www.lindakayepoetry.com

Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry

www.laartnews.com

https://shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-theatrical-poetry-producer-retired-social-worker-and-professor/

http://voyagela.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-linda-kaye/https://

shoutoutla.com/meet-linda-kaye-poet-poetry-and-theatrical-producer-filmmaker/

January Poet's Place

January 05, 2024

POETS PLACE
JANUARY 2024!

YES!!!!!! It’s the NEW YEAR!!! 2024!!!! AND it’s all NEW! A new opportunity awaits you just around the corner. A new chance to make good on all the promises you have made to yourself this last year. A new realistic choice. The new plan that you can actually accomplish without feeling guilty or ashamed. A gift horse so to speak waiting to be ridden to all those places that you’ve been afraid to tackle. If you can imagine it, then you can manifest it! The world awaits your brilliance!!! It really is as easy as that. Simple. The task is to make a realistic plan that fits within your wheelhouse of skills and experience. Create a doable timeline. Set your sights, realistically. If it’s not realistic, then you have set yourself up for failure. Writing a poem is realistic, becoming President is not.

So let’s get this NEW YEAR started!!!

Love, peace and true unique happiness, Linda :0)

It's just a technicality
By Linda Kaye

When life shoots you a raw deal and we failed to win the prize

alas it's just a technicality

When physical loss hits, has tempered your life, wreaking havoc with your soul

alas it's just a technicality

When you can no longer keep it up, limp no luster, and sadness and depression grows

alas it's just a technicality

When dreams are squashed no money in the bank your last dime spent on dope

alas it’s just a technicality

As love was squandered ignored and refused your heart broken wickedly defused

alas it’s just a technicality

As parents grow old and die painful deaths, their spirits pass beyond without regret

alas it's just a technicality

Full Moon Meditation
By Cindy Rinne

She holds up the slice of shell

like pearl windows.

She desires to be porous

like the rushing tide,

fluid and changing.

Sometimes solid and carved.

Once a life lived here

home in tectonic plates,

the shifting tides.

Now, it rests in her palm

where heart energy expands her power.

Light sways in endless ribbons.

She views the rabbit in the moon,

a snow-mountain-moon.

She had forgotten that story.

The rabbit offers her

the elixir of immortality.

The kind rabbit whispers,

Move and flow in cycles

as seasons shift.

The tenant on the moon

reaches with his paws

and welcomes her home.

super succinct sayings
by daniel j. schack

1. perhaps goodness could not even exist in reality unless, perhaps, reality is mostly evil. 2. i would rather be completely crazy than completely phony. ha. ha. 3.more often than not, think tanks are usually just stink tanks. 4.it may be that, largely, our entire society has become quite mentally incompetent.

5. what kind of world is this? where too many talk phony baloney of love and togetherness, yet live in their hearts and ways with hate and divisiveness. 6. Some may say I have a dirty mind. To them I say, at least I have a mind. ha. ha.

daniel schack is an online poet and art. see poetrysoup, tumblr.com-adanthemanworld, facebook, and a cool tiktok video under danielschack7. peace.

KICKED TO THE CURB
By Mary Cheung

12-30-23
7:23 a.m.

Kicked to the curb

That's what I'm gonna do.

2023, I have no more use for you

You came in with an last minute effort.,

To rattle me, to cause mayhem, to turn my world upside down.

Got me feeling bummed out, sending tears out,

enough to make me drown.

You're panicking cuz your days are numbered, you're frantic and feeling frayed.

Causing turmoil, squeezing my heart tight... my happiness is delayed.

Nothing worse then the stress you create, paralyzing my body and much more.

So I gotta do it man, drag you kicking and screaming.

And kick you out the door.

In a few short hours, and in the dawning of the new day.

I'll welcome 2024 and the abundance of good tidings, ready to come my way

Mary has an AA degree in Fashion Design and a Best Costume Design Award from the NAACP. She often creates costumes for her art narratives and creations. Sometimes building the sets as needed.

Mary was the Producer for the Santa Rosa Spring Festivals 2011 and 2012 which incorporated live performances and festival games.

She produced the EVOLUTION Music and Arts event in 2013.

LUSCIOUS, Music Art, Live Body paint Art Event IN 2014 followed by

It is her goal to be able to continue to do this while making an impact on society’s values and thinking.

“I hope that I can be a role model for others to find their own true voice in life through my art."

Hut two three four..
By lee boek

He got up,

That is no longer easy

To just stand up from sitting

Since when did he suddenly find himself struggling?

Trying to get out of an overstuffed chair or even a couch

Concerted effort must now be exerted.

A young man reaches down and helps to pull him up,

“What? Wait, Never mind I’m up.”

“O.K., good…Now move my legs

Wobbly?,..since when?”

“Me a Wobbly,” he thought giggling a bit.

Trying to stand straight

Trying to remember

Trying to muster, the physical power

That once held him standing straight

Walking forcefully

“Once I get going I’ll be alright.”

Fascinating how things can break down

Physically debilitating

Not just an older person

He had his bouts with health

When younger

There were those wonderful days

Running and leaping

The athlete

Catcher on a hot local baseball team

Quarterback, throwing long perfect passes to the left end

Connection cosmic…”touchdown”

Basketball with twenty year olds

At sixty eight

Holding his own with the “ole hook shot”

Perfected at a young age

Brothers on the side court

Only hook shots count

Aye, but now, standing is nearly impossible.

Walking well again seems out of sight.

Will this ever change?

Will he ever walk without a cane..again?

Yes, the dynamic can change

Older people carried away

On rolling stretchers

To waiting ambulances

Returning a month later

Actively, smiling and feeling pretty good.

Medical attention can go a long ways

When specifically directed to an older person’s well being.

I guess almost any kind of attention could go a long ways.

Lee Boek: actor, playwright, producer, storyteller and poet, recently awarded The Joe Hill Award by the Labor Unions of Southern CA, remains a staple part of the DTLA/Silverlake arts community as the Artistic Director of Public Works Improvisational Theatre since 2001 and has produced and performed in nearly every production of the company since then, including Confessions of a Pulpiteer, his play about his days as a fundamentalist evangelist, during the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, and The Pilot Who Crashed the Party a play written and directed by Paul Sand, and performed at the Broadwater Theater in LA. His most recent films credits are the award winning Skitoz, written and directed by The Twins Perrotte of Paris, France and Twenty Years Left produced and directed by Linda Kaye.

The inspiration for this little fiction came from my urban birthplace called The Bluff in Pittsburgh, PA

AFTER THE STRAWBERRY MAN
By Giulio Magrini

The strawberry man was eighty-four. Every morning his Chesterfield chant was heard above the clatter of his cart on the cobblestones. His donkey ambled down Pride Street to McGee and Gibbon. His strawberry travels were part of the daily rhythms of the neighborhood. His jingle was the music of the day, and his wailing serenade through the dew was a sign to the neighborhood that they belonged in this place.

This was the morning of his death, when his broken strawberry chant shattered the April dawn. His fractured wail was his last morning interlude, and closed his life. The sound of his body hitting the cobblestones was the call that suspended commerce and tranquility that day. His motionless silhouette against the cold gray Belgian block made sense in the neighborhood that morning, and a perfect and final conversation was initiated between the stilled strawberry body and the lifeless stone, that attracted snooping voyeurs. The locals buzzed around the scene, like foreigners in a strange land trying to understand a culture they did not want to appreciate, and whose language they did not recognize. Their eyebrow wonder and spectator perspective were exactly where they wanted to be. Everyone who was brought up in this rocky neighborhood knew that you do not touch what you do not know. Death provided them with the comfort of ignorance. When you eat your strawberries here you remain grateful, and do not question the uncomfortable queries of the eternal.

Two men roam the old man’s kitchen. They are the strawberry sons. In the spirit and time of death they are appropriate and predictable. The units of measurement that day were furrowed brows, mumbling half sentences, and uncomfortable pacing in the kitchen. The smell of masculinity and grief is stifling. One had come from his job at NYU.., a teacher. You know how they are... Honorable, yet ambitious with their lesson plans. Not unlike Caesar, crossing the Rubicon without respect, and home for death again. He was not like the strawberry man. The family reviled his attempts to adjust. It was true that no one could understand the cobblestones, but they were the footprints of the neighborhood, and it was easy to see that he was uncomfortable walking on them. He had abandoned the family for a corduroy sports coat with those stupid fake suede patches. The bystanders understood his motives, and were offended with the strangeness of his manner. They resented him and his intrusive ways. There was no allowance in the cobblestones that measured the pain of a professional home for death.

The other son was a pudgy little dog in a cheap brown suit that might have fit one day. He was unevenly shaved, and his part looked like a back road in a map. He also had one of those clip-on bow ties that little kids wear. Women in the neighborhood would say that they trusted one man to teach the kids, and the other to play with them, but not to do both.

There was an old man sitting at the table, sipping anisette. He looked peaceful, almost happy. He had the knowledge of strawberries and cobblestones in his eyes. It was the moment after the funeral, the pain, the tribulation, and the amenities. It was the moment when people asked themselves what they are going to do with their feelings, with his house. It was the moment when life is evaluated and divided, like strawberries in little green baskets. Each son’s eyes burn silently into the other. “Why is this man dead?” And they immediately blister back, “Where were you when I needed you?” The indictment of life is in the air. The blazing sorrow smolders strawberry hearts in an instinctive catharsis. They radiate to the realization that the strawberry man is dead, but the strawberries kept growing. The strawberry man had died, but the strawberries did not stop. The teacher thought it advisable they stop. The one who played with the neighborhood children thought it would be a nice, considerate thing. They did not know that the strawberries will stop. They will stop when they are ready.

Giulio Magrini is a writer from Pittsburgh PA and is the author of The Color of Dirt, which is an anthology of his poetry and flash fiction over the past fifty (50) years. He enjoys performing his written work and states, “We have put our hands in the dirt, and sanctified each other” His book is available through the usual online channels, but the better choice is to email giulio27@verizon.net for a personalized copy.

Poema
By G. Billie Quijano

Arte gave voice

Harvest mindfulness

Brush strokes, poetry

Perpetually moist

Look to the cosmos

Enchantment in your stance

A new year unfolds

Narrative explodes

Time for new faces

Time for new places

G. Billie Quijano-Artista, Poeta, Mestiza. 2024 is going to be an exciting year. Peace, love, prosperity and boundless creativity.