September's Poet's Place...enjoy!!

POETS PLACE
SEPTEMBER 2020

Hello friends We’re still here!!! AND…. It’s getting closer to that time where we begin to harvest our political leanings and formulate our decisions about the upcoming presidential election. I don’t need any convincing. My mind was made back in 2016. Witnessing our America allowing and enabling people to fan the fires of hate, openly and without guilt or shame, was enough data of horror for me to fuel my personal shame of this country, especially towards the leaders. But on a sweeter note… It’s my birthday!! Ya baby!! Time to party like it’s 1999!!!! Oh yeah right. No congregating. Many of us have been celebrating our birthdays on facebook. Sharing our lonely cakes, eaten only by the celebrant. Blowing out that lone candle, wishing for the cloud of doom to open up and SHOUT. IT’S JUST A BAD DREAM!!! OPEN THE DOORS AND LET THE CROWDS BACK IN AND PARTEEEEE!!!
Oh well….
This month we are hosting some new faces and definitely celebrating our fans who are contributing almost monthly to share their thoughts of strength, wisdom and faith- that we can survive even in the darkest times.
MUCHO Thanks to all of you!!! YOU have kept me going. Bless you all!!!


Can’t Go
By Linda Kaye
8/21/20

Can’t go outside
the thought of it in this heat makes me nauseous

Can’t see my friends or at least all at once, cuz they could possibly infect me with their humor or dreadful notions of Armageddon

Can’t eat too much food
food will add disgusting weight to the middle of my body causing tremendous anxiety about becoming fat which just the thought of that makes me sick

Can’t hide my disgust of the state of the country
words containing hope are hopelessly not found in my vocabulary these days

Can’t watch the news that continually spouts lies and perpetuates the ridiculous behaviors of stupid people and raging idiots that claim science is fake
and the president is the knower of all truths

Can’t leave my room because it’s cool in there and it’s hot outside so hot that my brain starts to sizzle the moment the door to the patio is open

there’s no justice

Can’t be impulsive because the state of impulsivity requires acting without forethought acting without forethought in these days could get me jailed or worse

Can’t go there

To write or not to write
By Daniel Schack

To write or not to write. That is the question. But not to write is a lot of spite about what it is to write. But is right? Write on!   

Mr. Daniel Schack is a high school graduate and had 3 and half years of college at s.u.n.y. Buffalo and s.u.n.y. Purchase from 1982-1985. He writes poems and creates visual art. Find Daniel Schack(on poetrysoup.com) to see more. Be well all.

Sexy Rain
By Julio Rodriguez –
3-13-2020

Sexy rain
Do love ya
Come down
Get me wet

Draw your curtain
Dim your light
Pour your sound
S-h-u-s-h-i-n-g cry

Your moisture
Tour mood
Gotta tell ya
Under the hood

Sexy rain
Falling sky
Fill me up
Blue’s delight





See ya
Smell ya
Feel ya
Love ya

Light you a candle
Have your tea
Your longing moment
Feeling free

Sexy rain
Sexy rain
Sexy rain
Sexy rain
Julio Rodriguez is a rare act. A cross between the late 50's beatniks playing bongos and doing radical 50's poetry and Gil Scott Heron and the "Last Poets" of the Late 60's early 70's. People have said that his poetry takes them back to NY's Harlem days... Julio Rodriguez, the Conga Poet found his nitch when he started writing poetry. He had found himself without a music band to play with, and one day combined his newly found poetry with his Afro-Latino conga rhythms. For the last few yrs he has played in many of LA’s poetry venues, concerts, nightclubs, protests, and street festivals. When he could, (pre-covid) his favorite place to play was on York blvd during the 2nd Saturday of each month. The Conga Poet recently released his first dbl CD (one in Spanish and one in English). He sells hard copies but the CD's are also available on iTunes and CDBaby .. His poetry is simple, sincere and provocative.




DISTRACTION 
3:28 a.m. 
8-27-20
By Mary Cheung

 
Distraction is what you do; When something is too painful to think about. But you can't stop thinking about it.
Distraction is what you need; when your will power is low and you just wanna have a scoop of ice cream and you find yourself eating 3xs as much.
Distraction is your way of coping; When certain ideals don't mesh with you, but you feel powerless to change it.
Distraction is a survival tool; When Covid-19 kills any hope of a sex life, and
the idea of wearing a full body condom is just too ridiculous.
Distraction is welcomed; When you know you should exercise more, but the thought of doing it, just tires you out already.
Distraction is required; When you wake up with scary thoughts and fears for your kids and you can't talk to them about it at 3 in the a.m.
Distraction is option #2; When you have an idea for your next painting, but you don't want to go stretch a canvas and haul out the paint and brushes.
Distraction is an alarm you set; While waiting for voting day and you're sick and tired of the state of your country.
Distraction is your self-help book; When you start re-living past relationships and you drive yourself crazy with wondering where the heck is Mr Right?
Distraction is your reprevail; Because all of a sudden you can't eat like you used to in your twenties and everything gives you heart burn and makes you gassy....
Distraction is what you do to forget: That the checks aren't flowing in because stupid Covid-19 has halted your work for 6 months now!
Distraction is your cereal bowl; because you are up in the middle of the morning and it helps to quiet your growling stomach.
Distraction becomes your "To-Do" list; When your daily schedule and structure is turned upside down and you have no set schedule. 
Distraction becomes the most important thing; When your Birthdays come faster than you want and you can't seem to slow it down.
Distraction is the name of the game for me these days. 
But I gotta remember what's really important and what's not. 
So I don't miss out on my 1 shot in life, all because I got, Distracted....
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

"At War"
by Lisa Montagne

The early morning light, 
Before I can see the world as it is, 
Looks like war. 
 
The haze of despair 
Lay on me like a blanket. 
 
The early morning air, 
Before I can breathe it in, 
Smells like war. 
 
The stench of it presses on my chest  
like an elephant’s toe. 
 
Depression lay in wait 
While Anxiety 
Rigs my brain chemistry. 
 
I see you, I say, 
As they creep up the stairs.  
 
They are stealthy, but I am 
Quieter, softer, gentler 
Pushing through the underbrush 
Of my psyche, knife 
Sheathed in the long boot 
Of my soul, 
Ready to strike. 
 
You may take thousands of lives 
A day, I say. But you! 
You will not win. 
 
I stand my ground. 
 
They shrug.  
They’ll be back for  
Another round. 


Lisa Montagne, Ed.D.

A native of Southern California, Lisa Montagne, Ed.D., is a poet, writer, artist, and college English professor who specializes in online learning. She has read her poetry to audiences in Los Angeles, Portland and Tampa, including at the Beyond Baroque poetry center and for Writ Large Press and PenWriter America.  She has been published by The Ear literary and art magazine, the Variant Literature Journal, Boomer Reviews, and Running Wild Press.


America: Mystery Babylon
By Ronald Carrillo, August 2020
Prelude:
America on the brink
Will she sink like a stone
Or will she be able to reverse her downward spiral
Will her people be picked to the bone
Or will the one per cent be revealed to have no soul

Interlude:
Our founding fathers writing hypocrisy democracy
The thirteen becoming one to form our nation
Separating infant colonies from her mother country
This child was born with serious birth defects
The infant country was Siamese in a north south divide
These twin selves could not live as one
Slavery was a luxury for the confederate gentry
However Dixieland was no friend of the black man
Kidnapped these people were reduced to a foul name
The geographical schism created a caste system
Liberty with cotton fields, lynching’s and plantations of shame

Absolutely a constitutional contradiction to enslave one race
A promise of freedom to form a more perfect union
Promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty
But only for white Christian men and their prosperity
Abstract constructs that remain in a dream space
For the immigrant refuse coming to Liberty’s shore
It’s a Ponzi scheme for a cheap labor force
That rushes through the turnstile of a false democracy
Like Rome her colossal skyscrapers were forged
Her infrastructure laid down on the backs of these huddled masses
Mother of exiles the whore of Babylon beckons the tired and poor
She offers nothing but an empty welcome and a hollow cry
This stony mother has no milk
No real nourishment for the homeless and tempest-tossed
Her manifest destiny went from coast to coast
Decimating the indigenous peoples and stealing their land
Warring on a weaker southern neighbor to seal the deal
Her industrial revolution brought more moths to her flame
Her poisonous perfume of power was now in full gear
The American experiment seemed invincible and real
The dreamers surviving on placebos
And still yearning to breathe free in her red, white and blue
Slavery now exchanged for government penitentiaries
The cruel pecking order of this democracy maintains the status quo
A malleable middle class fortifies the rich and creates an illusion
The bottom feeders don’t matter just fill the gap
They are the compost heap of progress
And the quicksand of the middle class can bullish or bearlike
Depending on the fickle stock market of Wall Street
She’ll go to war to make more greenbacks
She’ll interfere with other governments
To confiscate their natural resources
She’ll topple foreign leaders that don’t bend to her rules
She creates government gangs of security with impressive acronyms
She’ll assassinate her own leaders that don’t fall into line
Beware the military complex of her nature
This false mother condones crimes against her own people
She went off the rails of her own making morphing into a monster
Planned parenthoods promoting a policy of disguised eugenics
Public education to populate America’s factories
But an Ivy League education for the wealthy
G.I. bills to lure the poor to war
And loopholes in the law for the financially advantaged
The middle class tow the line and have been thrown a bone
Ball and chained with a mortgage for thirty years
And the underclass in ghettos, barrios and government projects
Low in-come with credit card enticements toward bankruptcy
Gee the American pie is covered with flies for the poor
The middle class gets a small slice then gets to pay taxes

She had to realize her dream of empire
She would not occupy foreign lands only devise a devious plan
Of financial dependency to rob 3rd world countries of their resources
She was a global player standing on the world stage
And creating a web of financial deceit
Homeless devastation all across this great nation
Paupers of depression make their beds of cruel concrete
Encampments of sorrow in the cold Los Angeles night
America’s fruited plain has become a junkyard of pain
A red, white and blue stain of despair
In the bowels of her once prosperous cities
Scarecrows once men no longer defend dignity
America you who could of done so much
Fell far short of your democratic potential
Was it not essential to stretch yourself for the greater good

Postlude:
Cool winds blow in from the land of the red dragon
Bringing in a virus to topple capitalism
Lilac vines spread their sweet scent despite the scourge
Freedom wavers quarantined and waiting for vaccines






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.


Janet Grey states- This work is from a writing group session.  We were told to create a Saint with a certain ability that we determined ourselves.
 
SAINT GENEVIEVE
by Janet Grey


From her earliest years, Saint Genevieve was different. Blind to the world despite her eyes’ absolute ability to see, she was consumed by shadows — not only in her perception, but her thoughts and dreams were shadowy, muted, foggy and depressed, and it was as though a giant cloud had invaded her world and was refusing to finally rain and wither away.  No one could understand how this could be, with her beautiful clear blue eyes that reflected all the rainbow of colors that surrounded her and her loved ones, Those giant crystal eyes… Every healer for miles around had deemed them to be perfectly healthy and able to see better than most others’ might.  Yet ask her to describe something in front of her, and she could not. She could “see" but she just could or would not see.  And so it was that her family learned of her inner world, a bright and shiny place where colors were infinite, and stretched in every direction in hues unknown to the others, rendering her descriptions impossible for anyone in her entourage to comprehend.  The imaginary places she’d describe were so beautiful that she would cry with joy in her meditations, but dreams brought about quite a different experience. 
 
We were then told to choose from the “7 Deadly Sins” and write a first person narrative about the created saint from that standpoint.


LUST
Being a patron saint of sight and perception had its down sides.  As she grew older, Genevieve became accustomed to her extrasensory abilities and accepted the fact that not only could she experience beauty she could not really “see”, but she could actually see the probable, the possible and she could see passion.  And so it was that one sunny summer day, a young man passed her by and she felt a strange sensation all over her body — a throbbing that started behind her eyeballs and spread out and up and through her sockets in a way that should have burned or ached or disturbed her in some other way. Yet, on the contrary, this feeling was warm and delicious and something she’d never known before yet something she wanted so desperately to know more, much more of, and suddenly the possibility and probability that she could, at that moment, actually see, was that of a passionate entanglement with this seemingly inconsequential young man.  And so she found herself sitting for hours on end “seeing” and "seeing” and (hear Heavy Breathing here) “seeing” again — the passionate embrace that very well could be and “seeing” some more, so that the sensations she experienced were so intense that her cries and sighs and moans of ecstasy could be heard for miles around her palace, with its infinite acoustic halls, so that the echoes were further emphasized and emanated freely throughout the land.  Her patrons gathered, surrounding her home and gazing up at the windows with wonder, attempting to make sense of it all, lamenting and loathing the lusty laughter that penetrated their otherwise peaceful and silent existence.  And as time went on, and the moans and groans, rather than subside, instead became louder and longer, more emphatic and intense, and her lust became legendary and her special sight the stuff of wrath and ridicule, her canonization was called into question and her cacophony of catcalls took over whatever else one might have thought about her before that fateful day when the path of a young man changed the course of her life, and that of so many others, so destroyed were they at the thought of having lost their beloved Saint to the languid lusty world into which she had fallen.  
And the young man, the object of this Legendary Lust, having passively pushed a domino effect into actions so catastrophic in his wake as to alter the course of history itself, continued, oblivious, on his merry way through life, never the wiser.

Janet Grey is an avid traveler, photographer (www.greymattersphotos.com), and the Founder of TravelDrivers.com, a one-stop stop for exceptional private driver-guides worldwide.
Janet stays sane in the time of Covid-19 by walking the charming neighborhoods that are scattered throughout LA, and sharing shots of her discoveries on her @walkingwithjanet facebook page.  She is also the creator of the Pretty Postcard Project, inspiring others to spread love and appreciation in these trying times, while supporting our ailing postal service.  
Janet lives in Silverlake, California, USA.



In The Belly
By The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips

In the Belly of the Loveland
Does innocent souls meet
Dancing above the sheets
Seductive, exotic and free

It’s that Belly of the Loveland
Souls that are so deep
So deep & primitive
Certain glands must secrete

In that Belly of the Loveland
Let it take you there
Without a worry
Without a care

Dancing in the pale moonlight
In the Belly of the Loveland

Will she be free?
Exotic & Sultry?

Will she be free?

In the Belly of the Loveland
That is she
It is free!

The Belly
The Loveland
And...
Me!

The Poetess Reigns Again!

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets The Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show With JackieRay. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show With JackieRay and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.
Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.


August has Arrived! Poet's Place. Enjoy!

POETS PLACE
AUGUST 2020

AUGUST!!!! What? How did we get to August so fast! Is it me or am I getting …can’t, won’t say it. The “O” word. This month will mark the 5th month of the lockdown, stay at home, quarantine, social distancing, stir craziness!!! Writing and eating has kept me alive, but sane?? No way!!!

Hey everyone, I can’t thank you enough for keeping this column alive! Keep those poems and stories coming! Everyone is welcome! Including YOU!!!
ENJOY!!!

On a slant
By Linda Kaye
7/8/20

leaning towards a new leaning

drifting without understanding the
drift

reaching for the light to run from the darkness
wasting time in a world full of waste

daydreaming during my nightmare

seeing but not looking

ghosted during lovemaking
being chastised while in chastity
cripples mentally forever
a normal abnormality
alone but not lonely
happy but not happy

rusty brain
ruthless atrophy
loveless body, body less loved
choked out
loss of guile
relative reality
has come to pass


Illumination 
By Mary Cheung
5-10-20 -7-25-20
12:23pm

Warm golden light,
Burning through the haze.
Dawning of my consciousness,
Pulling me out of my daze.

Clicks into focus and its clear to me now.
The things that I have and I am grateful for.
As opposed to the greedy wanting,
That obscured me from before.

Its easy to get lost,
Lose your direction.
Drowning in our own needs,
Is it a necessity?
Or just our own greed?

Moving in automation from one day to the next.

sometimes it takes the end of the world drama to sharpen your view.
Its not the what I want and don’t have.
But the what I have and am lucky to have that counts.

I see it, its clear.
Tragedy brings us focus, shows us what is dear.

Lets not want for the end,
To move us to make amends.
Live each day like its special.
Because it is.

Treat our fellow humans and oneself with kindness and love.
Because it's deserved.


I've planted the seed,
Now let it grow.
Let the wonder and joys of life be revealed to you,
    and
        illuminate your soul.
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.



Cathay De Grande
By Reverend Dan Buhler
1982

In 1982, my favorite literally underground place to hear live music was the Cathay De Grande, a venue located in the basement space of what was once the Nickodell restaurant, a popular lunchtime watering hole during the Hollywood studios heyday.  It was located one street South of Hollywood Blvd. and one street East of Vine Street, at the corner of Selma and Argyle Avenues. In 1980, the space had been renamed Cathay de Grande and now housed a Mandarin restaurant at the street level and downstairs a person could find one of the most adventurous bookers of live punk and underground music in the city, and one never knew what would happen after going down the dark stairway for an evening’s entertainment. The downstairs venue was dark but not completely unfriendly, dingy but still somehow charming, but with plenty of danger still lurking around the edges of the room.  

Monday nights at the Cathay de Grande were often “Blue Mondays”, my favorite night at the club, where one could see (In My Humble Opinion) the premiere blues-with-punk-attitude bar band in Los Angeles, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs.  This was an extremely scruffy band that got by on musical fury and drunken charm. Top Jimmy, born one James Paul Koncek, got his nickname a few years earlier while he was working at the late night L.A. eatery, Top Taco.  Later, he became the roadie for the Los Angeles poety-punk band X, even appearing with them during their segment in Penelope Spherris’ Los Angeles punk documentary, The Delcline of Western Civilization, where X bassist and vocalist John Doe can be seen giving Jimmy a tattoo.  During a sound check for an X concert, Top Jimmy came onstage and did an impromptu performance of The Doors’ Roadhouse Blues upon which everyone discovered that he possessed an incredible blues howl.  Very quickly, Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs were formed and from the start they were a dirty, ugly, soulful band that could heat up the room and everybody in it. 

For a young 21 year old beer drinker like me, driving up to Hollywood for a Blue Monday at the Cathay de Grande was the high point of my week.  I usually had Monday nights off from work at Tower, since they had me working closing most of the other days I worked.  The store manager at the time really didn’t like me and was always trying to fire me for some perceived infraction or another.  He decided to annoy me by giving me the worst work shift in Tower history:  Tuesday, 5pm to 2am, so that the floors could get waxed after midnight, Wednesday Off, Thursday 4 to midnight, Friday, 4 to midnight with the Metal Boys (a portion of the Tower work crew that loved playing local metal albums way too freaking loud), Saturday 4 to midnight with the Metal Boys again, Sunday 9am - 5pm (yes AM!), and Monday I had off.  Thank goodness.  On one particular Monday night, my friend Dave and I drove the thirty miles up from Long Beach to the Cathay de Grande and were ready to hear some monster rhythm & blues.  Dave was the husband of a girl I dated in High School.  At the time, my social life was so bad that I was actually hanging out with my ex-girlfriend’s husband. Dave got into my troublesome 1972 Capri and we made our way to the big city.  When we arrived at the Cathay de Grande, we headed downstairs, got some beer, got a booth near the band and prepared to get drunk and kick out some jams.  Seeing a band inside the Cathay gave me a feeling of what seeing the Beatles at the Carvern Club in Germany might have been like.  The darkness of the club, the intensity of the music were so different from every other part of my life.  I felt cool at the Cathay, or, as cool as I could, being intensely not cool.  Classic Chess blues was playing over the scratchy sound system, and Dave and I quickly downed our first round.  I was feeling good.  Suddenly, there was a tap on my shoulder.  It was Mari.

Jesus Fucking Christ.  Mari.  The girl who only one year earlier tore my young passionate, romantic, utterly naive heart completely out of my chest and ground it into pulp with the nonchalance of somebody throwing away a cigarette butt.  Let’s flashback to 1980 when I first started working at the Tower Records store in Anaheim, and I was really just happy to be working in any record shop since the one that I had been working at (Billboard Record & Tapes, 10900 Los Alamitos Blvd in the Los Alamitos Plaza in the city of, you guessed it, Los Alamitos) just went out of business.  I was thrilled to be at Tower, then the “largest record store in the known universe” (according to their radio ads) and I was learning the ropes of the big leagues of the retail record industry. One day, while I was doing an inventory of Polygram rock albums, the cool punk girl that I worked with but never really talked to sided over and begun to flirt, coyly asking if my dental retainer, which I wore in an attempt to correct sixteen years of poor decisions from my previous dentist and orthodontist, was any impairment in kissing.  Her name was Mari and she was a red hair pixie punk who was five years older than me, dug glam rock, drove a 1955 Ford Fairlane and somehow seemed to find me attractive.  Flattered, we were soon dating, and I was stoked to be hanging out with a real live genuine punk rock and roll girl.  It was like my high school rock and roll dreams had come true.  I was working for the best and largest record store in the country and I had a punk rock girlfriend.  For a twenty year old kid I was living the life.  We would hang out in her bedroom at her parents apartment in Garden Grove, listening to the latest punk and new wave imports before getting busy with youthful exuberance. Despite my hanging around in her bedroom, Mari’s parents were always very nice to me, and I was on good terms with them.  She was a mom and her dad was a proud retired fireman. I was trusted enough that I was told about Mari’s older brother who had committed suicide a few years earlier.  I’m glad that they felt that they could confide in me.  Eventually, Mari and I were spending most every evening together and things were going along great until a few months later when Mari got very sick and had to go into the hospital for several weeks.  I would visit her after work and on her better days, she would show me the many stethoscopes that she had stolen from the hospital staff during her stay.  When she got healthy enough to leave the hospital, the first thing she did was to get herself transferred from the Anaheim Tower Records store to the Tower Records store on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood.  The BIG Tower.  At the time, the Sunset Strip Tower was the Mecca for all serious record shoppers, and being able to get a job there was considered very choice.  She got a job working in the newly-opened Tower Video Annex on the other side of Sunset Blvd, a video store that, like it’s record store companion across the street, carried an incredible collection of videos, giving the store quite a bit of prestige. She moved out of her parents apartment and found a apartment with a couple of roommates somewhere in Hollywood.  She was always busy and we saw little of each other but being a young romantic I still though we were a couple.  That all changed one day when she came back to the Anaheim Tower to visit me for lunch.  She picked me up in her ’55 Ford Fairlane and we got some fast food, and then she suggested that we go to a nearby park.  That sounded great!  It was so good to see her, but I could tell she had something on her mind.  I asked her what was up.  “I’m seeing a guy who does heroin,” she stated matter of factly.  “I wanted you to know, I’m really sorry”.  That’s what she said, that she was seeing a guy who did heroin and that she was really sorry.  She just slammed in the gut with a crowbar and she was really sorry.  I stayed cool on the outside even though I was completely imploding inside.  She might have kept talking but I heard little else after that, and after she drove me back to work I walked quietly into the back room.  I was keeping my cool just barely, a when my co-workers asked how my lunch with Mari had been, I froze.  I tried to hold my emotions but instantly every single speck of agony, loneliness and sadness erupted out of my mouth right in front of my coworkers and I cried loudly the wail of every dumped guy who was ever dumped before me.  Throughly embarrassed but unable to stop sobbing, I ran into the dingy employee restroom and continued to cry, becoming soggy with my tears.  After about twenty minutes or so of my wailing, my co-workers eventually got me out of the small room and allowed me to mourn in the managers office for the remainder of my shift.  I was completely shattered.  All my self-confidence was gone.  I knew I was alone, and while I did not want to continue, I did. But I sure was a mess.

And now it was a year later, I’m at the the Cathay de Grande on Blue Monday waiting to hear my favorite band Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs and then all of a sudden she pops in out of nowhere.  I was stunned.  She looked a little goofy in a black cowboy outfit, but otherwise she looked like Mari.  Thank goodness Dave was there.  He reminded me to play cool, and I did, giving a casual “hey” and “how’s work”.  She talked but I didn’t really hear her in the loud club.  She seemed to be by herself, but I did not invite her to sit with Dave and me.  She then left and Dave got us a couple more beers.  

Around eleven o’clock or so, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs started their set and it was as if the gods of the blues themselves were pushing the Rhythm Pigs to play harder than I had ever seen them, with Steve Berlin wailing on the saxophone, Carlos Guitarlos strangling his lead guitar, Dave Drive obliterating his drums, Gil T. thumping the bass and Dig the Pig chugging away on rhythm, the Pigs were making having a good time in a room with my ex-girlfriend as easy as it could be.  But even the mighty Rhythm Pigs only had so much power.

When the Pigs finished their set, some punk guy I didn’t know came up to me and said that the girl I had been talking with earlier was now passed out on the floor.  Concerned, I got up to take a look and found Mari so completely out of it that neither splashing water on her face nor shaking her would get any reaction.  I then knew my evening was about to change.  Fortunately she was breathing and I gave Dave the keys to my Capri and told him to get himself back to Long Beach and that I would get my car back tomorrow somehow.  Mari’s purse had somehow not been stolen and inside I found the keys to her Ford Fairlane.  I slung Mari on my back (which was not easy considering she was nothing but dead weight at the time and totally not helping) and trudged up the stairway back to street level, where I set her butt on the floor of the tile lobby of the Cathay, and set about to look for her car.  She was utterly out of it, but I was able to lean her against the wall without too much trouble.  Her eyes were closed and she was completely sweated through her clothes. I headed to the door. 

“Hey! You can’t leave her here!” shouted the Cathay doorman.

“I’m not leaving her here, I’m going to go look for her fuckin’ car!”

“Bullshit!” shouted the guy, “You can’t leave her here!”

“Look!” I said, “Here’s my damn wallet!” I tucked my wallet down the unconsious girl’s top.  This seemed to placate the doorman.  Then Mari immediately projectile vomited all over herself and the floor.  

“I’ll be right back I swear”, I told the doorman.  He cursed and then stopped himself, with a look that said he knew I was about to have a rotten time.  I ran out the door and started to look for Mari’s Fairlane which was fortunately just around the corner.  I came back to the lobby to the received doorman and scooped up Mari who had thrown up a few more times but was still unconscious.  As I was carrying her to the car in the cold night, some clown asked “What did she take?” to which I replied “Fuck if I know”.  I got her in the front seat of the Fairlane, a big comfortable bench seat, and leaned her over so that she could lie down with head resting on my lap.  I started the car and headed off.  

But where?  I had absolutely no idea where she lived in Hollywood, and she wasn’t talking.  I didn’t know any of her friends in Hollywood.  The only people in her circle that I did know were her parents who lived a good 45 miles away, in the city of Garden Grove.  I had no other choice.  I headed the car to the entrance of the 101 Freeway South, and as I did, Mari’s back arched and she immediately vomited a seeming endless flow of smelly warm puke, which collected between my pants legs and ran down onto the upholstery of the Fairlane. This was going to be a very long, wet ride.  She burbled a few attempts at words, but mostly just vomited.  I turned on the radio and shook my head at my situation.  Mari continued to vomit between my legs as I drove the length of the Harbor Freeway and then down the San Diego Freeway into Long Beach.  Once in Long Beach, I realized that I still had not contacted her parents to let them know about the wet vomiting package I was about to bring to their door.  I stopped the car at the only place that I knew was open in Long Beach, the 7/11 store near the airport.  Once I parked, I slid myself out from underneath Mari’s head, leaned her against the passenger window and walked my puke covered self inside the store.  The clerk was nonplused.  I got an orange juice and some water, paid, walked my puke covered self outside to the payphone and called directory assistance.  They had a listing for Mari’s last name in Garden Grove.  They connected me to the number.

It was about 3 in the morning.

“Hello Mr. T_____?  Hi, this is Dan, Mari’s old boyfriend, remember me?  Well uh, I have to tell you that I was at a club in Hollywood tonight and I found Mari passed out on the floor and I couldn’t leave her there but didn’t know where to bring her so I all I could come up with was bringing her back to your place if that’s okay.”

Of course It was, and I drove to Garden Grove with Mari continuing to throw up on my pants every now and then. Arriving at her parents apartment, I again flung her on my back, and up the stairs to her parents apartment.  When I made it to the door, I rang the bell and both her parents answered.  They must have turned her old bedroom into another space, for they had a made a makeshift space on the living room floor, with an inch of towels padding her from the floor.  Her father helped her off my back, as she was covered in puke and still mostly unconscious.  I explained the evening to them briefly and her mother thanked me for bringing her to them.  I really had no other option.  

“Somebody must have slipped her a mickey”, her father said and I had to agree.  He was very grateful and offered to drive me and my puke-covered clothes the ten miles back to Long beach.  I accepted the offer and as we walked to his car I mentioned that Mari’s car interior was a bit of a mess.  He said he wasn’t too worried about it, and I gingerly got into his car and sat my puke covered pants on the clean towels that Mari’s mom had provided.  When I got home, I entered the backyard through the side gate, kicked off my shoes and peeled my vomit covered clothes off my cold damp legs.  A shower had never felt so good.

Reverend Dan Buhler has been a late-night radio institution in Los Angeles since 1996, playing the best Rock ‘n’ Roll music of the last 100 years on his award-winning, late-night KXLU radio program Music for Nimrods. He is a member of the Bloody Brains band and lives in Northeast Los Angeles with his wife Carol and two cats, Junior and Baby Lux.
RevDan airs Music for Nimrods on KXLU 88.9 FM on Friday nights early Saturday morning from 3-6AM; Wednesdays at 3-6PM on 88.9FM KXLU and Sundays 4-7pm LIVE on TWITCH.TV/reverenddankxlu.com



ESSENCE OF BEAUTY
By The Poetess Reigns
July 31, 2020


What is love?
But a LOVE...
A Love that is meek
With fantasies to seek

What is an emotion?
Whipping roars within the ocean
The ocean deep
As the dancing clouds meet

What is beauty?
Where does it meet?
Beyond the surface
And between the Sweet

The Sweet sensations of lust
Hidden between the bust
Of the WOMAN
Streaming across her hand

Gifting into the land of beauty
Is it merely skin deep?
When the Orpheus
Of the orchestra speaks

Into the hearts of men
Women and children descend
Into a musical lyre
What the dramatical theory

Of Life
Living beyond strife
Into the Abyss
While the souls coexist

Amongst the Elite
Sipping the wine of the sweet
Nectar of the fruit
Topping the trees roots

Seductive is Thee
Essence of BEAUTY

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets The Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show With JackieRay. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show With JackieRay and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.



August Prayer: 2020
By Ronald G. Carrillo

These days are still
With something foul lurking in the air
Only the wind spreading truths
We are all linked together in this viral pool of humanity
From China to California
Our vanity gods hitting upon hard times
Paying for centuries of environmental crimes
Viral and bacterial fines being handed down
The planet knows how to heal itself
Mother Nature the divine feminine healer and protector
Allowing man to conjure his own vectors
Like a teenager in rebellion playing with his own devices
Mother Earth copes despite man’s interferences
This viral storm a pandemic of pandemonium will pass
But the most fragile will be on the frontlines of its killing fields
Then the darkness will subside and meld into light
Purple sonata of song from skyscrapers of pain and privilege
Female voices that trace our history in blood
Chitlin circuit performers lead the way with gospel support
The stain of slavery is a plague ripping the stars and stripes apart
She is losing her democratic center and trust under God
A viral pandemic judgement to shake the nation awake
Her people are comatose in a false liberty
How long can this last
This hard fall toward collapse
The financial imbalance is extreme bordering on obscene
We are back to the days of King Louie and the guillotine
Pointing the finger of blame on our national shame
The weak and poor endure most of the attack
Protests on the streets leave fires burning
While capitalist hyenas exploit this financial flatline
Capitalism on its deathbed
The storm up ahead for the rest of us to deal with
When it is not even gone yet the vultures already feasting
Corporate capitalism cannibalizing the red, white and blue
Lady liberty has lost her democratic moorings
The violent history of the stars and stripes is in our blood
Through genocide, slavery and myth
She will reach her terrible end
The racial dam is broken
Leaking for years and unattended
Her cracks have surged with willful neglect
Her hardened heart against some of her people is sinful
America reflect and turn back to founding principles
Exclusion must be erased from our national soul
We can move forward and breathe free
Finally realizing our greatness with no ties to political pompousness
No hollow trumpets sound
No fear mongering to divide the people
Discovering once again our evolved common ground

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.



Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.


It's July! Here's your Monthly Poetry from Sweet Linda Kaye and her Friends!

POETS PLACE
JULY 2020


July!!! Yes. Let the fireworks begin!! Wait… They’ve already started. Nightly, since the pandemic began. Sigh. I’ve read in the local papers that it has become quite the problem in our neighborhoods. Let’s pray there are no fires due to the epidemic of pyromaniacs! Most of us are staying safe and following the precautions of wearing masks in public and actively, sometimes hourly hand sanitizing. I know I am. With over 30 years of hospital work as a social worker, I am fully versed and trained in infection control procedures. Not trying to out anyone, but before the pandemic, I had seen many a health care worker not washing their hands in between caring for patients, and coming to work sick and not wearing a mask. As have many of us! DOH! And you wonder why we’re in the bad shape that we’re in!! Stay safe everyone.

This month we are hosting some new writers and poets from afar. Even some celebs!!! I hope you are enjoying the column! I know I am!!!

KEEP UP THE GOOD AND SAFE WORK!! AND HAVE FAITH WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS!!!!

No Fanfare
by Linda Kaye
6/2020

It was over. Done. She had spent the last difficult and challenging days of her working career, saying her last goodbyes and farewells to her long-term therapy clients, support staff and to one of the best bosses of her career. This time was especially sad, choking back salty tears, sometimes expressing them, allowing them to lightly trickle down her face, alone, reflecting on the many hours spent in her office, counseling clients as well as offering her educated and supportive advice to countless suffering individuals who were dealing with an array of mental illnesses, that, because they couldn’t problem solve effectively, their lives were often in shambles. Knowing she did her best to help, she felt hopeful they’d be okay and would use the tools she had provided them. These people and countless others, were her bittersweet thoughts on the last day before leaving her office.

She was leaving with all her cherished posters of Bowie, the old Fellini movie posters, once belonging to her husband, whom she had ransacked from his office when he retired and put them in hers. She took the vintage childhood game puzzle with her that many of the clients, including her, labored over for months. This one particular puzzle represented the countless hours she spent bonding and developing trusting relationships with her clients which often helped to soften the upcoming discussions of the hardships they had experienced throughout their lives and gave them a comfortable psychological and supportive place which to begin the healing process. No way was she leaving that puzzle behind! She wanted, needed to take some remembrances from her office to begin the newly imposed social distancing. She hoped that having these items near her would add some comfort for her now that she was to work from home.

Now what? What she really had to face was-what now? Since the production of her new poetry musical was on hold till the quarantine was lifted, and that social distancing was the new rule due to the pandemic crisis from the virus-Covid19-she laughed loudly, unhappily, almost a scream. Her clients basically had been insisting all along that she would be bored once retired “what are you going to do when you retire? They mused. “Well I have a whole other life!” She chuckled. What was that line from the Bible she thought? “You make plans and God laughs?” Face that now. What was she going to do now that everything that was planned had come to a screeching halt! Bam! She felt as though she was bouncing off a cliff hanging by a long bungee cord just swinging up and down and up and down. Bouncing endlessly without the stability of her plan. Many of her friends it seemed we’re also bouncing around trying to figure out how to cope with this new world order. Why were her coping skills fraying at the edges? Failing her to make sense of this catastrophe?

Apparently, as she finally realized, was that Her catastrophe was fraught with an adjustment to life without work. The same advice that she has passed on to many a client, friend or family member, that any new change in your life needs time for adjustment. Breath.

She was retiring from a lengthy career of more than 30 years in the helping profession as a social worker. Yes. Helping hundreds of people work through devastating illnesses, crisis, traumas of all sorts, mental illness, significant deaths and dying. Where was her safety net? Who, she thought, could help her through this compounded loss? Everywhere she turned people were going nuts. Panicking about the current virus crisis and were super paranoid about getting sick. Who is ill? Who had symptoms? What were the symptoms? How are we supposed to behave? Where did this virus come from? Who was to blame? Thankfully years of social work education and experience had taught her to accept what she could control, such as her own response to these new rules and changes to societal norms- no touching no hugging no handshakes and social distancing 6 feet apart from everyone until? No one really knew. It wasn’t apparent yet. The evolution of this new world order would pan out eventually. The administration’s initial lack of concern, “this will blow over attitude“ hadn’t been fully realized at the beginning. She only felt her own painful confusion that was hitting her where it counts- in the gut. Throughout her life she had experienced an array of stomach problems due to life‘s challenges and stressors provided by an unwanted dysfunctional and lackadaisical parental upbringing in childhood. Although she, thank goodness, learned to survive her childhood experiences escaping from youthful omnipotent impulsive situational decisions that could’ve been fatal, those near misses had helped to strengthen her courage to survive- mostly unconscious and not recognized until she landed super depressed in therapy but that’s another story.

OK so now what? Retired, home 24/7, no poetry production to produce.
No goodbye party from work, everyone’s paranoid, freaking out thinking the worst-case scenarios. The daily headaches started up again, sore muscles from the gardening work and the newly found walk in the hood. Getting diarrhea from eating all the wrong foods not IBS friendly, experiencing phantom chest pains- checking her temperature, sometimes hourly for the slightest possible increase in temperature. Desperately wanting to go somewhere anywhere! Was anxiety entering into her purview of unwanted symptoms?
As the hours turned into days, then weeks, the hillsides began to call. The rustling of the leaves on the patio whispered their secrets of peaceful surrender sharing their happiness from the new attention given to them. They showed their appreciation by singing and harmonizing their praises of new growth and luster. Not only did she recognize and begin to adapt to this next chapter in her life did her body begin to heal from a lifelong internal suffering of gastric pain. Her 30 years plus career of service to others had come to a close and although there was no public fanfare- her garden spoke volumes of praise, which quieted and calmed her heart.

The Earth on a ventilator
by Inessa Love


Symptoms:
raising temperature
difficulty breathing
plunging oxygen levels Diagnosis:
the Earth got COVID 19
No wonder this wicked disease targets our lungs
To keep breathing we need
The feverish Earth is pleading for help, sending us a message to
We gotta stop
large sporting events
clean air s t o p
huge entertainment industry
massive cruise liners with pools and casinos
do not gather in crowds
We gotta stop
filling up the landfills with things we buy and throw away stampede traveling like the Earth is our backyard constantly running away from the discontent
We gotta stop
nursing homes
prisons
factory farming
stay home
maintain social distance
The virus is showing us our disgrace that we can’t run away from by simply
washing our hands
As the smog clears we can see more clearly what we are doing to the Mother Earth
We gotta stop
being the viruses inside its body
multiplying incessantly
using up our host’s resources cutting down its oxygen supplies
We gotta stop consuming
entertaining distracting
our young are spared from the karmic debt the rest of us have to pay
for our overindulgence
the poor, sick and frail are more likely to die but not without infecting the rest
we cannot build borders tall enough to protect us from the global misery we have created
the wildfire is ravaging the human race
like we have ravaged the Earth
We gotta stop
slow down
the Earth needs to breathe too.

Inessa Love
Professor
Department of Economics
University of Hawaii at Manoa


DRINKING PISCO SOURS WITH NERUDA
by Richard Q Russeth

A poet is an erratic bus
that must wait on
its good-for-nothing driver,
which requires such patience
that, sooner or later,
even the most patient
will try to drive the bus themselves.
Not because they can,
but in hopes that
the driver will hurry back to save them.
but often as not, he does not,
and there is a spectacular crash,
leaving words scattered
and dying everywhere
on a vast, white plain.

Simpler to simply wait
until the driver returns,
red-faced and drunk,
from drinking round after round
of pisco sours with Neruda
under the hot Chilean sun,
and then follow his lucid directions
to a poem that is but merely
three days drive, allowing ample time
for strong coffee with bell hooks
and Maya Angelou
along the crooked way.

Richard Q Russeth
Baker, Poet, Conjuror, Photographer, Attorney
www.richardqrusseth.com

The Weekend I Thought I Had COVID

by Dan Frischman

I went to sleep just after 11 pm last Thursday. At 2 a.m., I was jerked awake by a frightening reality: I was gasping for air, and the effort wasn’t going at all well. I leapt out of bed, panic-stricken, struggling to draw in breath. I made the loud, hellish sounds you’d expect in this situation, and though I was alone, any witness would have been fairly certain I was on my way to becoming a statistic.

When the attack ebbed a minute later, I was propped against my dresser, sweaty, shaking, and wheezing intensely. My first thought: It’s real. This is real. I have Covid. How...did...I get it?!

Was it the checkout clerk at my local supermarket a few days before who wore neither a mask nor gloves? When I questioned him about it, he said, “Yeah, I use a hand sanitizer whenever I can,” which I read to mean not since Tuesday. That was it?!

Well, I’m also a bit slow to wash my hands in general, and I never washed the food containers or boxes I brought into the house. (The regular mail, I was very careful with. Go figure.) So the clerk? The packages? Other than that, I’ve been very careful, but I’d apparently made that sole mistake the virus is lying in wait for.

My chest hurt for hours after the attack, perhaps due to the gasping or maybe on account of the well-advertised Covid symptoms. The deep, dry coughing fits that immediately followed, for instance, were so forceful that I shut my windows in case neighbors heard me, leading them to call an ambulance. I considered 911 myself, but even though hospitals have been our heroes, Covid ward images on TV had me likening them to the Hotel California.

I decided to wait it out, though even when my breathing situation returned to relative normalcy, I couldn’t sleep — I was too anxious to even shut my eyes, fearful of a second, worse strike. I lay there instead, monitoring my every twitch.

In the darkness, the bleak thoughts crept into my mind until they were dancing about unencumbered:

Is my Will what I want it to be? Yes.

Have I filled out my health directive? Yes, it’s sitting in a pile of papers...in a box...somewhere.

My Trust and Power of Attorney in place? Yeah, no, been meaning to get to those for a few decades.

And then my mind inexorably dropped to the sunken place:

Are there any final words I want to say to anybody, other than the standard “I love you’s?” Yes, and those things will be said. One apology is involved, and one simple “Thank you” to someone I’m no longer in touch with.

Next: In that moment, I realized I want to be buried rather than cremated. Why? I don’t know, it suddenly felt suitable to me, and have you ever watched a marshmallow roast? Okay, right? Death itself, I decided, I could accept if this was indeed it for me. There were many centuries before this that I wasn’t around, and that didn’t seem to bother me much, so why worry about the next few?

And finally, what do I want to be buried with, and where should I write it down? I realized, oddly, that the short list included a magic trick, the lot of which are my personal “Rosebud.” Well, perhaps just a magic wand, tucked in my hands. Why damn a good magic trick to eternal darkness, and where in the casket would it not look stupid?

These were my real thoughts in the dead quiet of 3 a.m.

On the plus side of this morbid revelry, I was good with being single and alone at that moment. If there’s something I’ve learned in this isolation period, it’s that I’ve been more comfortable in my own skin, having dropped the FOMO that comes with thinking that I have to be doing more to entertain myself. Even Saturday, the perennial date-night standard, has joined the What-Day-is-This-Again? Club, and hanging with my cat, reading, or watching a show has felt just fine. This mindset could change once this sh-- storm has lifted, I realized, and I’d definitely want a new love relationship when one presented itself.

This, however, hinged greatly on my ability to remain a sentient being, and in the moment, I was feeling closer to becoming sediment. By dawn on Friday, I was shaky and trudging about like a White Walker, the center of my chest feeling torched. At six-thirty a.m., I made an online appointment with a doctor. Then I called family to fill them in, and my brother Bill reminded me of something major:

He and I both suffer from GERD, which is the prettier name for chronic acid reflux. He’s had episodes where it hit him so hard, he had to gasp for air. This happened to me once, too, eighteen years ago at a cousin’s wedding in Chicago. After a huge dinner, and many drinks and desserts, I woke up in the wee hours, fighting for breath. I was later diagnosed and treated for acid reflux.

The comparison between then and now? Late Thursday night, I decided to snack on a few M&M’s I bought for a magic trick, since I’ve been posting short performances on YouTube. A few M&M’s became half the family-size bag, along with an equal portion of roasted peanuts. I then went right to bed. If one was looking to test oneself for vestiges of GERD, this was as good a plan as any.

That was, in the end, the complete cause of the incident. A Covid test confirmed what I already knew by Sunday — that I was fine — and I felt lucky and grateful, with extra empathy and sadness for those who are presently suffering or have passed.

I am now assigning my own incident to the past as quickly as possible. Today, Monday, feeling spry once again, I returned to figuring out what trick I will next film and post for my modest social media following.

I also wiped down the f---ing food containers.

— end —

Dan Frischman is an Actor/writer/magician best known for his 80s/90s roles as "Arvid" on ABC’s Head of the Class, and as "Chris" on Nickelodeon’s Kenan & Kel. TV/theater director. Short magic performances at http://www.houdanny.com

Under My Skin
by Mary Cheung
1-7-15
3:42 a.m.
 
You invade my thoughts,
   I cannot sleep.
 
Giving birth to velvet dreams.
 
Rubbing  low, a tender touch.
   Softly brushes and flames my soul.
 
A hole that grows in your absence still,
   Waiting, aching for you to fill.
 
A hunger, a thirst, there is no control.
 
You stroke the fire,
   2 halves made whole.
 
You invade my thoughts,
   I cannot sleep.
 
I resign myself to the lust and the heat...
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.

RAFT OF THE MEDUSA: 9/21/17
by Ed Burgess

Lashed to this raft
Lost at sea 
No walls in sight
Can't build a wall on water

If you Can't swim
Then start drowning

Ripples of time 
Push us 
into a kind of sleep
We dream about walls
We dream about homes
our mothers baking
Apple Pies 
Just for us
Not for you 
Or you 
Or you either 
We fall deeper into sleep 
We drift farther out to sea 

Get off our lawn
Stay away from our dreams
We can have it all
We can fit 
More shit 
Into one bag

We can make you be 
Like us
We will build a wall
God himself
Has shown us how
We will show YOU. 

Waves of time 
Crash over our heads
We are awoken
Huddled together on this raft
Not in a dream

We are in the desert
We have built the wall
It is right over there
And right here
Between us

Tear down this wall
Break through the fear
Drift out to sea 
Know that you are free

The dream is real
But only when we are awake   

Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and all around bon vivant. He has lived in LA for 20 years and is an active member of the art community. He has exhibited his artwork in many galleries around Los Angeles.


The Full Moon, Souls, and Things
by Jen Bouchard

Energies shift
All sediment putrid below the coals of hell
Bubbling outside my door
What awaits me is chaos
The biggest threat is the danger to my mind that has to stand still But can’t
Do I go this way or that way
Do I step left to race towards or do I dodge right to avoid
Carry on my back the broken/lonely/sick/forlorn
Worn from work
Torn ex lovers I hear your cries
Your tugs on my nightgown
My tight cap I firmly wrap around my eyes
Cover my ears
Drown your wails
Hollow whimpers
If I loosen
I am not certain I will make it to the other side
Where my dreams goals and aspirations
Sickening to my stomach
Lie
Plastic poisonous
Toxic
You do not wish for my arrogance
When you fold your hands to pray for my soul
I should be so humbled to imagine in my mind’s eye You
Pressing your hands
Kneeling in the river of salvation
For my safety
For my happiness
For me to be saved from my broken status
Once this is all over
For us to both be alive so you can hold out your arms To embrace me
Me.
Foolishly putting things on a ridiculous pedestal I cling onto things
When it’s your spirit alongside me
That I truly wish to attain
Your spirit
That I would never have to ask for permission
To cling onto
You recognize me as a someone
That is a blessing beyond comparison when I have wasted precious years on things
That regarded me as someone they would have to fit in between their lunch break and next appointment.
Open arms
Warm hearts
Helping hands
Laughter sprinkling comfort to your words How to repay the spirit you offer
A warm spring
I soak in your calm waters
On the eve of this full moon
I embrace souls and release things.
~ Jen Bouchard
Bio:

Jennifer Bouchard is a poet/actress residing in Los Angeles. Being a sexual assault survivor, the majority of her writing revolves around her healing process. Jennifer recently performed a piece at Healthy Housing Foundation’s slam event, The La Dream. She also recently self published her first collection, White Helmet.
Contact Info:
Jenn3382@gmail.com


Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.


June Poet's Place

POETS PLACE
JUNE 2020


June!!! How many days now have we been locked out of our normalcy? Lunacy more like it! I have been feeling as though I’ve been dropped off a cliff, tethered to a long bungee cord banging my head against the hard rock, swinging back and forth and back and forth trying to knock the reality into me that- Yeah. Now what?? Plans? I had plans. Yes, and Bam! I was omnipotently believing and shockingly thinking, as we all have, and forcefully been hog tied and brought to the realization, that all is different now!! And not to say that I’m religious, but what was that saying in the bible? “You make plans and God laughs”. Haha. Guess what! This one’s on you! Me! All of us! Sheltered and ordered to stay in place! Keep your distance and cover your face! Okay. Of course I will comply. New rules.

Enjoy this month’s offerings from local poets. Keep em coming folks!!!


Lunacy
By Linda Kaye
5/20/20

Lunacy is thinking that you willed the squirrel in your garden with your mind to kill that annoying mockingbird.
Lunacy-lunaticus- madness. Driven mad by the confines of the country’s stay at home order. She bathed in her vomit thinking it would heal her nerves.
Irrational thinking by whose standards? Could she instead have drunk Clorox bleach to kill any virus still lingering in her body? Is someone a lunatic who believes that Moses actually could part the waves for the Israelites to escape the Egyptian‘s?
I think therefore I am.
I believe therefore it’s true. First signs of lunacy- confused thinking.
Pandemics create pandemonium the capital of hell, Paradise Lost. Don’t eat the apple it’s contaminated! Equals extreme fear, worry and anxiety-signs of lunacy.
Social isolation equals social withdrawal drought from human contact equals depression, accelerated cognitive decline-lunacy.
The lunatics once released from captivity will create a new world order of chaos and mayhem isn’t that happening now in Wisconsin?



WHEN THE NIGHT GAINED ITS STARS
By Richard Q Russeth

There is the sadness of flowers of course,
when they throw their seeds to the wind and
there is nothing to hold them.
no angel or sun or rain.

There is the suddenness of loss -
as when a friend dies that you’ve been
meaning to call but then you get the news and
everything is broken glass.

There is that place where love and hate intersect,
that sniper’s dream, that place where
you can never run fast enough,
and everything is far.

There is the dream that ends with an alarm.
Another that ends with eternity.
And another that just ends and you realize
the sunrise ever does not wait.
There is hopelessness of course. Always that.
The wonderment of god
and why does life hurt so much
when all you did was open your eyes
after a journey of blood and stars and months.

There are times when
only bare trees make sense,
only clocks keep time,
only babies give hope,
the impossible cost of truth
is revealed,
forgiveness is given,
and the trees bloom
with a passion born of forgetting
that they’ve done it a hundred times before.

We are given this life for remembrance,
for that moment when truth had a beating heart,
for when all that was thought lost was found,
and the night gained its stars.

Richard Q Russeth
Baker, Poet, Conjuror, Photographer, Attorney
www.richardqrusseth.com




Pain in America
By Ronald Carrilo

I want to release the pain in your national heart
Before our allegiance falls apart let me hold you
My prayers are mixed with sin
I live in the duality of America
Her gaps ever widening
Her politics false
Only win win even in the face of loss
But you are my constitution
Your love for me is my Bill of Rights
Your flag of stars and stripes are my refuge and republic
Your kindness is my democracy
Release envy of the mind
The paradigm shift has started
We now live in another time
Our gold is not worth a dime
The old financial guard fears a coup
A people’s flu for recharged freedom
A viral awakening in a cesspool of greed
When there was no need
The money changers from ancient times have followed us
The crusades perfected this thievery and spread its evil seed
Our federal reserve is neither federal or the people’s monies
High crime in desperate times wash to our shores
The masses are easy to control when asleep or masked
But the giant must awaken and tend to the task
Our migratory routines no longer work in the scheme of things
We are chained in serfdom
Our democracy has become polite slavery with benefits
Profit is everything but it requires a stealth sleight of hand
A high demand for wealth
Engineered adroit deception of the people
Even a manufactured virus to deceive
Fake news the people receive daily like manna
Survival mode rules in the cruelty of this world
Coda: That dream time has passed in sorrow
Alas we reap what we sow
Although we can still find salvation in our penance
The years of our toil in a city of tears are slow
Our angels have dispersed into the shadows of our shame
Many fingers point to those they think to blame
Pick up a mirror and find your truth
Many lessons still to be learned
But we begin again dusting off past errors
Looking toward heaven we take new steps


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, and Neil Young.



We’re Fixin to Kill Us
By Eva Mauer- with a little help from my friend Pat
Based on the protest song by Country Joe and the Fish

Our right to party’s in jeopardy
No big groups says the CDC
They’re sayin too close we must not stand
No open beaches in Covidland

So put down the facts and pick up a gun
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun

And it’s one, two, three what are we waiting for
Who cares we don’t give a damn
We’ll party in Covidland
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly gates
Well there ain’t no need to wonder why
Whoopee! We’re all gonna die

Come doctors and governors let’s move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Now you can go take away our right for fun
To protect those old folks whose time has come
You’ll know our fun has just begun
When we’ve blown us all to kingdom come

And it’s one, two, three what are we waiting for
Who cares we don’t give a damn
We’ll party in Covidland
And it’s five, six, seven
Open up the pearly gates
Well there ain’t no need to wonder why
Whoopee! We’re all gonna die




Pat & Eva are retired physicians, who were both dismayed at the results of the 2016 Presidential election.  This is their first foray into songwriting.  Their co-writer was a nice Jewish boy who wrote the most popular Christmas song ever written.  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.




DIGITAL LIFE
By Mary Cheung
5-15-20
1:06 a.m.

Life in pixels and I'm captured on a screen,
I interact on a 6"window,
Glimpses of life onto a hand held screen.
is that enough?

I interact on a 15" laptop,
is it enough?
Go bigger, go bigger.
Digitize, I fantasize...
big enough to seem real.

Like life from b4.
Only now its all digital.
We live stream,
unless you're really, really poor.

Now I zoom zoom.
Singing, dancing, working,
All fits inside of a room, room!

Streaming on the internet, caught up in the flow.
Birthday parties and celebrations.
How do we handle,
our personal relations?

Touching each other on computer screens,
Our eyes meeting on web cams as we stream.

Class rooms and higher education.
Those who are out of work and on extended temporary vacations.

I can't remember what its like, to feel a hug anymore!
Or the soft pressure of lips of ones that I adore.

Of heated desires,
electrons dancing on my skin.
The friction of our bodies,
as we commit,
     the ultimate sin.

Now I'm just an observer, forced to touch the hard cold screen.
Desperate to replace human interaction.

Living life, in little,
     digital... fractions.

So this is the new norm,
We're all tricked into believing it's all ok.
Losing our voices.
The government tells us,
what to do. What to say.

Inside this digital world,
Life within a little black box.
Strained and contained.
Waiting to break free.

I can't wait to go analog,
Digital just isn’t for me.

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.


“Virus of the Soul”
(May 2020)  by Lisa Montagne
 
Sometimes I lay
Awake
At night
Worried
That you Worry
 
That the Government will
Inject your soul with a virus.
 
During the day,
The Media
Swallows you whole,
Head to foot,
In its wide maw, chewing you,
Feeding,
Until it spits you out,
A poison after all. 
 
The Aliens, flying through chem trails,
Will be next to sicken you with sadness.
The man on YouTube said so.
From his basement studio,
The man said they are in league
With the Illuminati—which is real, btw,
Because the Internet said so.
 
Things just don’t add up, you say.
Look at this, you say:
I mean, these alien footprints
Are in my backyard this very minute.
They are here!
You screamed through my phone:
They are here!
 
You look to the Emperor to save you.
But he wears no clothes.


Lisa Montagne, Ed.D.

A native of Southern California, Lisa Montagne, Ed.D., is a poet, writer, artist, and college English professor who specializes in online learning. She has read her poetry to audiences in Los Angeles, Portland and Tampa, including at the Beyond Baroque poetry center and for Writ Large Press and PenWriter America.  She has been published by The Ear literary and art magazine, the Variant Literature Journal, Boomer Reviews, and Running Wild Press.


Thanks for joining us! Let me know how we’re doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.



May Poet's Place

POETS PLACE
MAY 2020

Still life in Quarantine

As May rolls around and the city remains under tight restrictions to stay at home, all I can think of is what will the city look like when the gates re-open, and the humanoid masses are let out of their cages. Will we swarm, dance, scream hysterically towards the once forbidden mostly deserted streets and hug everyone we see? Pig out in the once neglected, locked up and barren restaurants to eat and sit all day in chairs once verboten? Rush through the yellow barricade tape at the local beaches yelling, “Here I come, last one in is a rotten egg!” Rush the counters of Starbucks for that desperately needed latte beating down the crowds that have been creating traffic jams bleeding out into the streets from the only open drive thru in you’re neighborhood? Will we have learned that our arrogant negligence of other’s health has been a precursor to this pandemic!! Have we learned that due to the rampant denial of contagious behaviors - many people are horribly sick and many have died? We have forever been going into public places whilst we have colds n flu’s, sneezing on others’ shopping carts, vegetables and bathroom sinks. Will this obnoxious contaminating behavior continue as before this storm hit?

Kids- I don’t personally plan to rush out into the city, carousing as before - drinking carefree in local bars, dancing and raging (yes, me) in rock, jazz n punk clubs, or wrestling in gyms too soon after the quarantine is lifted. I want to wait a bit and see how everyone else responds before I feel safe enough to venture out.

What do you think?

This month we are hosting poets and writers from all over the country, including Puerto Rico! Sharing, wholeheartedly, maybe even exclusively, their sometimes hidden harbored intimate raw feelings and delightful sensibilities. Their stories may be revealing their truths, but definitely their heart and soul, unburdened, released just for you and me.

ENJOY!


The Wolves of Washington” - Unitsi Ai

All right are wrong 
And wrong are right
Lashing their tongues 
with all their might.
Snarl and shun brothers
Drawing Battle lines 
Night falls 
Brings rise
Two packs
One prize
Howling 
Mother Moon

Desperate claws of rage
Grasp and engage
While praying
For day to come.
A reminder
Both sides are made 
Of Sun
And sons
Of the same 
Father.


Austin Musick (AKA Unitsi Ai ) is a writer, poet, lyricist and actor. Originally from East Tennessee, she grew up with The Great Smoky Mountains National Park as her backyard where she and her five brothers and one sister spent the days in the woods and on the river. Austin graduated from the University of Tennessee with her BA in Theatre with a minor in business. When not creating, she serves as the President of TAO Enterprises, a Commercial Real Estate corporation on the East Coast. She has lived in California for the past ten years with her two daughters. As a strong and independent single mother, Austin, strives every day to teach her children the value of pursuing one's dream, never giving up hope, and valuing the gift of life. She feels the most valuable lesson she can teach them is the importance of giving back in gratitude for the blessings we have been given; to pay it forward by giving more than we take in this lifetime.

Karmic Synchronicities: 2020
By R. G. Carrillo
April 2020

The dark forces are only getting darker
But are finite and unable to expand
Karmic synchronicities of inner fulfillment
And service to our fellow man are changing the social consciousness
Ride the wave of this change
Find your crest of social metaphysical design
Reset and enter this new dimension
Who do you trust?
Decades of meditation and spiritual development
Are coming to the forefront of man’s being
Millennials riding on the shoulders of their Baby Boomer cousins
Will lead this new paradigm shift
The materialism of the past is a tar pit of futile fossils
Edgar Cayce beings are no longer the exception
Our DNA is ever evolving to meet future humanitarian needs
Marvelous human nature maturing and manifesting our destiny
The birth pangs of a new social order for the people
Will abort a new world order from the puppet masters of Wall St.
Corporate devils will feed no more
Will no longer deplete the lion’s share
Some seed fell among the rocks
Some seed blew away in the wind
Some seed was choked in the weeds
Some seed fell on fertile ground
Spring will bring a new harvest
Coda: The wrath of God
When man turns his back on the creator
Like a virus released in pure clean water
Sin spreads from seed to harvest
Look inward reset your heart
Protect your soul
Persevere this pilgrim’s progress of gratitude
Develop an appropriate attitude of love
Let kindness be your spirit guide
Be of service and support to your community
Return to the garden of your exile


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, and Neil Young.



Lilly White Country
Lyrics by Pat & Eva Mauer, December 9, 2016
To the tune of ‘White Christmas’, by Irving Berlin
Copyright TXu 2-081-539 Reg. Dec. 15, 2016.


I’m dreaming of a white country, just like the one I used to know
Where money glistens, and women listen, and the Klan can still put on a show.

I’m dreaming of a white country, just like the one I used to know
With monster tariffs, and racist sheriffs, and no more jobs in Mexico.

I’m dreaming of a white country with every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright, and may all you neighborhoods be white.

Pat & Eva are retired physicians, who were both dismayed at the results of the 2016 Presidential election.  This is their first foray into songwriting.  Their co-writer was a nice Jewish boy who wrote the most popular Christmas song ever written.  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

The Bicycle Brand T-shirts you wore
 
Bicycle Brand,
   made in Hong Kong, 
      just like you.
 
I take a deep breath,
     I am surrounded by you
I take a deep breath,
     and inhale your scent, 
 
I am transported back in time.
 
I take a deep breath,
     and my childhood bleeds into view.
I, am home again.
 
Home smells of you,
the scent of cooking and care.
Of love, sweat and tears. 
 
My nose is in your shirt.
I take a deep breath.
 
Bicycle Brand, inspected by #40.
Original stitches still intact.
Washed and handled with care,
     all of these years...
just like you did for us.
 
Softly I hold you to me again,  
    and I take a deep breath.
I carry you into me always.

Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.


©The End Game
By: IE Carlo
26 April 2018


The End Game. Governments playing serious games with our lives, our childrens lives, an apocalypse of a mishap for the world. should we sit back and allow it to happen? We should be outraged with disdain. This thing call politics for the privileged is against all of humankind. 
The most ironic and iconic is the fact that The End Game is all we have in this life. We are all going to die, you know it, they know it, all of humankind know it. So what the fuck is wrong with all of us humankind? 
Pray to whatever god you wish to pray too, but leave science alone! That’s where the game is. 
I heard, probably here on facebook, something quite interesting; it could have been a commercial that also proves The End Game. 
It starts with the caveman; he lives off wild berries, fresh meat for protein, roots right from the ground, nuts, breaths the cleanest purified air. Drinks the cleanest purest water, has plenty of exercise, and dies at thirty eight…!
People we must get off this idea of living forever and recognize how truly vulnerable and precious we are. We are part of that universe and there is no room for hate and ill will. Using our resources for the betterment of the humankind is our mission, if, but we strive for that kind of world. I believe it could happen in this lifetime.
Leaving our lives to others to use as pawns in their quest for control via force, threats, intimidations, and war, is not conducive to the humankind. 

This thought is a universal thought I am sure, for the ones that are in control are but a small band of incompetent fools, who think small for the humankind. Using God or whatever narrative fits their agenda. 
Be aware people, life is to be lived via a set of rules that has been in place since the beginning of humankind and takes all of humankind to keep it in place, and that is to live in peace by way of helping humankind in its quest through science and the fact that no one leaves here alive. Life is for Living!
“The End Game”!

Ismael (East) Carlo, poet, actor began his career on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio whose moniker of “East” happened due to others not being able to pronounce the name, Is-Ma-El…
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.
Paz en Vida


DANCING IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC
by Richard Russeth

I.

My parents were not good dancers.
They did not love it, and so only for
certain well-worn songs would they venture
into the sea of swirling cocktail dresses,
my father holding both his cigarette
and my mother’s hand.

I never thought my father would die,
but two packs a day, and sometimes three,
was not good.
I never thought my mother would die,
but admittedly her whiskey habit was a bit much
even for an Irish gal.
So, it was not so very surprising,
in either case, when the doorbell rang,
and death bade them leave everything behind,
an overnight bag being superfluous.
Though I think my mother might have,
had she had the chance, taken the makeup valise
where she hid the small pills.
As for my Dad, he just put down his cigarette and left.

As for me, I miss the smell of zippo fluid,
the promethean spark, the sharp intake of breath
and then, relieved sigh.
I attended both funerals,
and though eight years part,
It felt like I had simply stopped for gas
going from one to the other.

Eventually, all the friends of my parents
answered the doorbell. Most were surprised,
the way people are surprised when told they’ve
won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes,
nobody expects to win that silly contest.
We tell ourselves it’s inevitable, but we don’t
believe it. Other people win, not us,
or, anyways, not for a long time


II.

Now the pandemic couple
strolls onto the dance floor,
their lovely carnation boutonnieres
just so; oh, come now,
surely you knew it was a couple!

The last dance is theirs always,
and when they trade partners,
their scent, a perfume steeped with earth,
iron and regret, lingers on the skin
and stings the eyes.

When the band finishes the tune,
their parting words are the same always:
“Pity you thought you were invincible, my dear,”
and then whispered discreetly:
“This dance can be sweet,
but only with those who adored the dance,
and never cared what the song.”

The crowded ballroom watches
Johnny swing the band
to the rafters and back.
All through the night, no one notices
the handsome couple
straighten each other's boutonnieres,
and with a small curtsey,
walk into the swaying crowd,

with no particular tune in mind.

Richard Russeth is a poet, writer, photographer, magician, baker and lawyer. You can check out his photography at www.richardqrusseth.com or follow him on IG: @rqrusseth. Richard and his wife Charlotte live in Evergreen, Colorado.

Thanks for joining us! Let me know how were doing here and PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the arts!!
With great hope for our future
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

April Poet's Place

POETS PLACE
APRIL MONTH 2020

April 1- this is definitely NO JOKE! Do you actually feel safe at home? Can
you definitively say you are secure enough and have the tools and the
resources to survive without the rituals of daily living that have sustained
you for most of your life? Our world, as we knew it, has been altered
drastically, and without any warning. There were no bells sounded to alert us
of impending doom. To give us time to pack up and store the necessary
goods to sustain us until the storm passed. We’ve had to stop what we were
doing, as if a stop motion camera was paused in mid-
walk/drive/laugh/loving/hugging/touching, or the cords were cut on our car
batteries, and then to immediately adjust to being quarantined like the lepers
were in 1866 on the island of Molokai! REALLY?? Is that our fate next? I
certainly hope not. I believe my most valued resource is hope. Without
hope- Well you tell me…
My current state of mind…
Stolen Pleasure
a manifesto
by Linda Kaye

This moment in our time has created a noticeable void
A dangerous precipice that has opened up multiple fissures and gaps
draining our swamps of endless pleasure troves
What used to be is no longer
What is or was lost are stolen pleasures
What personal pleasures have you lost? Are they defined by personal
existential fears of losing obsessive psychological needs?
The greed’s of societies decadence are prevalent from the overflows of
negligent squander, idiotic beliefs that the carousel runs forever
The pervasive magical thinking of security “they will fix this and take care
of us” mentality
What security? Does it really exist? Can security be proven?
By what means? What have you invested in yourself to claim that you can
be secure in the life world you have designed for yourself?

If the masses come knocking will you share your wealth? Your poverty?
If projection towards your future comes to pass what resources do you
consider most valuable? Have you invested in your family and friends who
will hopefully come to your rescue if you have neglected your own security?
If we admit today’s society is sick from a devastating illness are you
prepared mentally for the consequences? If you fall into a profound and deep
depression what, who will save you from yourself? Are you really prepared
for this?
Survival depends on the preparations you have invested in your whole life
Are you ready? Here it is.


This month I am please to host several poets. We begin with-
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her
works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She
mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is
wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style
Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often
paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word
art as another form of expression”. Here is Mary’s poem for the April
edition of ‘Poets Place’
Death of Humanity
9:20 a.m. 3/17/20


By Mary Cheung
Its the death of humanity,
Its very scary, very sad
Price gouging, hoarders, scammers,
everyone out for themselves...
How did it get so bad.
I go to the pet store, to buy treats for my dog.
Only to find a parking lot full…
of people waiting to buy guns,
A 6 hr back log.
Scrounging for guns to "protect" themselves they claim...
becoming each others enemies?

Instead of each others saviors,
we only have ourselves to blame.
An apocalyptic movie, come to life.
So this is how it begins,
Paranoia, panic sets in.
everyone loses,
and nobody wins.
Its a ghost town out there,
grocery stores seemingly a mile long.
fights over the last loaf of bread,
where did it all go wrong?
Have we lost or minds?
Will it ever be fine?
A crisis is the true test of our humanity.
Right now, its dying because we are too panicky.
As I look out my window and I spy nature,
And the reminders of life..
It gives me hope… that we'll rise again
Despite the pandemic and strife.
Combat paranoia and fear,
fight it with love, kindness and compassion.
Let’s make sure humanity doesn’t disappear.

For more info on Mary Cheung please visit her at
https://notjusttheordinary.wixsite.com/marycheungartist
https://www.facebook.com/mary.cheung.1675

Leon McConnell, another poet who is sharing his thoughts with us, is the
author of the poetry books All of my Snipple Snapples and Meow Rawr
Frillzies as well as being a musician and the writer/director of the film
HomeSick. He lives in Los Angeles.

Back to One
Here I am. Back to 1. Looking at the hole and thinking of better ways to
climb it.
Passing clouds remind me of those who’ve been down here in the dark with
me, such good friends. For years, they’ve been living somewhere in my
stomach and I want to pull them through. If memories are energy and energy
is matter then these people are alive in the moments between souls, stuck in
the crannies of a braincell
Knocking on the windows of your memory
Something your cat watches out the corner of it’s eye. All ghosts are
welcome to climb this hole with me. I’ve found the haunting helps lubricate
some synchronicity. See, I’ve been stretching and growing and feeding my
aura. I flipped a switch like the kitchen light and became a beacon, attracting
all the weird ones society says are unlatchable. I laid down and left a light on
for them. I’m riding the wings of moths fresh out of dreams and licking their
dust off my fingers. I’m tallying matchstick towers towards coincidence,
trying to burn brighter, working at becoming a better daylight, trying to
become today tomorrow.

And finally,

“Armageddon or Heaven”
by Ed Burgess 4/1/20

Red, white and blue
Red blood from our hearts
White phlegm from our lungs
Blue on our lips
Dead and alive
Free but enslaved
Wrapped in our flag
While it burns
Our throats sore
Inhaling the smoke
Hot in a fever dream
The Armageddon has come

Heaven’s door opens
We see the other side
Is it better in Armageddon
Or is it better in Heaven
Only we can decide
To stay inside ourselves
Or venture out beyond
Into Armageddon or Heaven
Ed Burgess is an artist, poet and all around bon vivant. He has lived in LA
for 20 years and is an active member of the art community. He has exhibited
his artwork in many galleries around Los Angeles. He also writes poetry and
sometimes reads it publicly.
Thanks for joining us! PLEASE, more than ever, continue to support the
arts!!
With great hope for our future
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

Hello Hoodlum!Tomorrow, Sunday April 5th at 4pm PDT, get ready for TEA TIME with REVEREND DAN live on Twitch.tv! Wild Rock 'n' Roll for your afternoon refreshment! Grab a cup and I'll see you tomorrow at https://www.twitch.tv/ReverendDanKXLU

Hello Hoodlum!

Tomorrow, Sunday April 5th at 4pm PDT, get ready for TEA TIME with REVEREND DAN live on Twitch.tv! Wild Rock 'n' Roll for your afternoon refreshment! Grab a cup and I'll see you tomorrow at https://www.twitch.tv/ReverendDanKXLU

March Poet's Place

Poets Place
March 2020

As we roll into March we find ourselves contemplating our presidential choices and decisions for democratic candidates. Maybe we are hopeful and maybe not. How can we not be cynical in this climate riddled with so much doubt and not enough security? Are we just waiting for “The Glew”? As the Poetess Reigns writes in her poetry offering. “Tick Tock waiting for the clock…” What can we do to hold on and find the calm and some serenity? “Just one moment let me take a good long look at him (or her or them). With a fresh pair of eyes like a newborn baby looking at the sky for the first time”. Jen Bouchard touchingly writes in her piece. We need that softness, that caring, for ourselves to nurture us through those waves of darkness that sometimes over burden us, and cloud our senses. Let’s declare squatters rights in our own domains! As Ron Carrillo so adeptly wrote in his piece “The Writers Domain”. Right on Ron! For myself, I am humbled by the poets and writers that I share the Los Angeles stage with and I want to host you all! For this month I offer this poem:

Journeys End

Her heart bled yearly, as did this season’s balled and rotted roses. With only one day left of life before the inevitable decline. In her mind she desperately and fruitlessly clung to the fading color that was once radiant. It felt as though her heart would break as the petals loosened and began their journey downward. A frequent reminder of it and life’s demise.

The beginning of the blooming cycle was a harsh and constant reminder of when her Father, a man of fierce convictions first planted those rose bushes. It was around the time, unduly, of her only son's untimely death.

The blooms would peak and laugh at her she thought, the same time of year creating for her a somber reflection, a slap in the face, of the passage of life a rebirth of a new season of unrelished change. The colors textures smells always changing. Never as lush as the year before but subtly different, coaxing- as were her perennial dower thoughts.
You’d hope that watching and participating in the constant cycle of growth and budding of the roses would help to distract away from her painful and tragic loss.
A medicinal tincture if you will, to alleviate the depression and profound sadness.
Counting religiously the falling petals as she did time. Everyday. Always.


Here are the offerings from our talented poets of March 2020!

The Poetess Reigns aka JackieRay Phillips is Creator of The Poetry of Justice Show, Where Social Consciousness Meets the Arts. The Show is designed to spark the interest and awareness of social diversity ranging from arts, entertainment and social justice at large. Catch The Poetry of Justice Show Saturday nights 6:00-8:00pm PST Live @Yikesradio.com and @AcceleratedRadio.net in addition to all other podcast streaming platforms. You may also view and subscribe to the Show’s YouTube channel @The POJ Show. Follow us on IG @The POJ Show and FB @ The Poetry of Justice Show and JackieRay Phillips.


The Glew



Tick-Tock

Waiting for the clock

To stroke the strike of 12



Twelve dancers prancing

And glancing...



Through the trees

With electric energy

Seamlessly true

Ecstatic and wildly new



Existence
The way of life

Loving beneath the skin

Getting it ALL in

Into the groove



Stop!

Don’t you move

Making it smooth
Into the right place

Hunting the great Fate



A quest for self

Like a Big Game TROPHY

Recognizing the Stealth

Ho-Hum...



Who have we become?

Is this really new?

Sudden! Like BOOM!?

Straight out the Blue?



What about you?

What do you think?

What makes your heart sink?

Into the well...



Praying to GOD it’s not Hell!

Those fiery gates of fright!

Sometimes even on a Friday night!

What the sight!



To see...

Just Me...

Being ME...



Ooh-Wee!



Jen Bouchard is a poet and actress residing in Los Angeles. Last fall, she traveled to New York to perform her work in a Burden To Bare Art exhibit, performed in The Vagina Monologues at Muckenthaler Cultural Center, a featured poet for Polar Harmony organization, and performed a spoken word piece for Healthy Housing Foundation’s first poetry event, The LA Dream. She recently self published her first collection, White Helmet.


You were the last chapter of my story.

I created you into a godlike stature with the veins of all my monsters
So I could look high and marvel at the debris and decay which is now called my past life.
My past life a whole pile of sad tales Which I now close and leave at my bedside table.
As a reminder to never live in that story again.
But sometimes you jump out the pages
Come alive
When a new lover comes to leave his clean canteen of drinking water on my bedside.
When his godlike shadow bounces on the wall
There you are.
Latching yourself like heavy iron
My tired eyes
Crumbling like fallen warriors
Battle worn and fed up
I would give anything for just one clear look.
A breath of fresh air his baby smooth skin
Words filling me with sweet forgiveness
He reminds me with his song to forgive.
Yet your story still lingers to kill the magic of his kiss.
Let me have just one moment.
Just one moment let me take a good long look at him.
With a fresh pair of eyes like a newborn baby looking at the sky for the first time.
Just one moment where you haven’t carved yourself on me like a tattoo
Burning the insides of my lips
Turning them to prickly thorns
Leaving him scathed bare and raw to the bone.
Just one moment let me look at him
Let me be reminded that I have soft lips
That I am welcoming and warm
That I swoon and giggle and god forbid moan
Let me take my new lovers canteen of clean drinking water
Let it wash over me like I’m being baptized made holy again by his perfectly imperfect pure immaculate skin.
Harmless non threatening fearless his shadow bounces until the entire rooms spins.
Let it heal me or that very least let it be temporarily relief
Let the thorns slowly fade as I feel the magic when we play.
Let the music stay the same
Let me not be reminded of that day
One year
One fight one anything
It’s moment like these.
When I’m pleading for the impossible to be.
It’s moments like these
That I have to make peace with the fact that I might not ever be free.
Otherwise you will cover me whole
Until I lie with you in a dark hole
Dreaming the impossible dream

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.

The Writer’s Domain

The dark and light of it
Left me in shadows and doubt
About a mystery never clearly explained to me
I was without him
But within my own space
I realized what I wanted
But didn’t need his embrace
It was a myth we were all chasing
Racing for a spin on love’s roulette wheel
It wore me out knowing I could never win
Let’s make a deal with jeopardy
I dipped my pen in Eros’ blood
And replenished my Soul in the poet’s love
That only words can represent me

Distilling bad dreams and fending off enemy Lotharios
Still grinding my own coffee beans
And fighting the righteous fight
Despite bad karma in the night
And astral traveling in another life
Trying to make things right in such poor light
Like a moth drawn to uncertain flames
I declare squatter’s rights in a writer’s domain




Thanks for joining us!
Please submit your work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

Linda Kaye

For February - Valentine Month 2020

Poets Place
Valentine Month 2020

Here we are again fellow writers and poets extraordinaire! We are featuring 3 delicious writers to wet your whistle with their talents galore.

Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Heights 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, and Neil Young. His piece this month was written for my upcoming poetry musical “20 years left”.

Jeff Rogers is a well known poet and writer who lives and performs in Los Angeles. He grew up in Michigan college towns. You can find his work in The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. He's been active with the poetry and theater performance troupe Gray Pony since 1988. He performs his work, and MC's poetry and arts events around Los Angeles, including the Drunken Masters New Works Series.

Denise “Nisi” Summers is an Ohio-born poet based in LA’s Westside. She works at Philosopher’s Stone Poetry, where she manages digital content and hosts community events and poetry readings. She is a founding editor of and contributor to PSPOETS’ publications. Nisi is also a member of the Night Owl Players, a local multi-media performance troupe that brings together art, music, and poetry. When she is not writing or performing, Nisi creates mixed media artwork, buries herself in books, and ponders the meaning of existence. She is still learning to juggle.

20 Years Left
by Ronald G Carrillo
The new decade brings vision to my patina
Yoga keeps me practicing presence and breath
A novena in maturity – Namaste!
Moving forward in my senior gait
No longer hesitating on my goals
I am feeling whole in spirit
No longer procrastinating but creating new dreams
The hour glass is emptying fast
My gratitude is ever present
My heart is full and still beating
Sparks from 1972 light my way
This life journey I am still completing
Youth was not my crowning glory
Much more comfortable in my senior skin
I swim upstream to my origin
All my sources are joining forces in holiday
Time to begin a new communion
Quality on the loom of my journey
A weaver’s eye picking ever new colors and fibers
Quantity fulfills me no longer
Its quick sensation is for fools and beautiful youth
I am now stronger in my core reducing from things
Their shine distracts and takes up my time
I need to align my poetic rhyme with the divine

Writing in my senior phase of life serves me well
The muses are everywhere
And my pen is responsive to their call
It may be a flower that attracts my attention
It may be my penchant for harmony
I am more aware of the glory of Nature
My relationship with God inspires my words
The red, white and blue are my home base
American soil is my compost heap

Love is playing in my head still
Youth’s bloom gone too soon
Her blush of innocence once pink and fragrant now spent
She pulls aside her veil to view a lover’s full moon
But love’s cruel rule robs her resolve
Her buds dry and scatter without result
A bitter pillow to swallow with no decision
Her vision blown away in the leaf litter

Life’s meaning a personal inventory screening
Striving for the better in my firmament
Holy acts in daily living
Forgiving and pushing past 21st Century AI and 5g
Social media distractions from being the real me
Meeting the challenge to be authentic
Practice presence not texting social gluttony
My senior time is precious and my priorities straight
No longer a leaf in the wind of senseless fate
I continue my journey like a disciple spreading the word
Wield your life sword and continue to engage to your last breath

We all forfeit parts of our physical selves to maturity
Aging mentally develops and tames the ego
But youth’s good looks surrender unquestionably to time
Our senior position smooths out our rough edges
Wisdom waters dissolves our bumps of regret and shame
No longer playing the game we can drink the tea of tranquility
We can walk a golden path of gratitude with peace of mind
Blessings from the heavens
Spiritual security from left to right
All calm and serene on my green home front
Gentle days pass into nights of bliss and solitude

The bloom is off the rose
Her petals parched and picked
And have become wilted in the sun
I too am losing my youthful color in the Autumn of my being
Now becoming white washed with age and some grace
I am disappearing as I pass the baton of responsibility
Like a ghost on the sidelines I move on
This new generation recharges my soul
Like a vampire I am transplanted and transfixed
Millennial soil is rich and fertile
New buds appear all around me complex yet simple
And some are special hybrids
These astound me with their aroma and singular color
The alleluia in their flower
Bedazzles the onlooker in the early morning hour
Their petals are water colored Art
Dew drops are Nature’s accessory
Their shapes are still God’s mystery
I take in their aromatic history

Things Wondrous Made of Plain Things
by Jeff Rogers
We buy three stars
Made from rusty nails and screws
by Nan Wollman at Future Studios

Then we move on to Clare Graham’s MorYork
Where the mild-mannered front gallery gives passage
To a fantastical trove of assemblage art oddities
And found-object storage
As elaborate internal architecture,
Archaeology and geology.

Twisting aisles and alleyways
Of sculptures hanging down like stalactites
And sculptures rising up like stalagmites
And raw materials in free stacks and nestled
In the drawers of tall thin apothecary chests
Lure us ever deeper into a labyrinth.

Bundles of doll parts mummified in cellophane, dangling
Near serpentine columns of nested bottle caps
And the sharp geometry of scrabble-tile city towers.
Straight rows of long low display cases
Enforce a stubborn order along one wall.
Founds objects here have waited so long
For their turn to be harvested, molded and shaped
They have become shape itself.

Move closer then to the shining silver chairs and see
They’re made of aluminum can pull-tabs and think
How can that be comfortable? But give them a try, sit
And feel their shocking springy give, how it calls you
In soft metallic whisper to settle in and stay, rest,
Imagine, let your mind pick its way back through
Things wondrous made of plain things.

What is the Science of our Spirit?
by Nisi Summers

It is the coherent pursuit of wisdom
Of knowing the physical and natural
World; our everything is unknown
So we venture to know it intimately

It is the observe and report of mistakes
By the nature of discovering each other’s
Selves; the ever-changing structure
Until we cannot learn anymore

It is the biochemical weapon of love
To relent the haunting tribunal
Man-Made; unjust claims will remain
So we must fight this to change

It is the method we materialize
To make small sense of what is
Art; the ultimate alchemical balance
Until creation is secure and endless

What is the Science of our Spirit?

It is the paint gliding canvas in streetlight
To kiss guitar’s airy note, typewriter keys’
Tac-Tac; the ancient formula awaits completion
Until the words can reach ears poetically

It is the search for the stone and sword
By combining forces, our metals to find
Elixir of Life; what we came here to do
Until there is no more, becoming realists

It is the chrysopoeia of our spirit tonight
By the transmutation of gold
The Magnum Opus; Art and life collide
So the philosophy rides stoned high

What is the Science of our Spirit?

It is the identity of consciousness
To keep light on the moon, to pull the
Oceans; kinetic energy to keep us creating
So that we know this is science.



POETRY NEWS/EVENTS

Jeff Rogers is reading next at Stories Books in Echo Park on February 13 and co-hosting Drunken Masters: Poetry on February 26 at General Lee's in Chinatown.

Nisi is hosting several upcoming events! Get on board and check them out!
Elevate Studios Presents Play Time Neyborly 2/9 11 am-8 pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/977524059300110/
*Not hosting this, but PSPOETS will be participating

Open Mic: A Night of Love w/ PSPOETS - Gravlax 2/11 8 pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/467031063975917/

Green Dreams - Mar Vista Art & Music Walk 3/7 6/10 
https://www.facebook.com/events/321636232073465/
Night Owls will be participating, details are TBA

Thanks for joining us!
Please submit your work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
Linda Kaye

Poet's Place

Hello LAARTNEWS readers! Linda Kaye here. Starting today LAARTNEWS launches the ‘POETS PLACE’  which will feature local LA based poets for your daily reading pleasure. Follow us @laartnews/poetsplace and submit your poems, thoughts, suggestions and encouragements for our inspirational 2020 kick off! Let your creative juices soar and rock our socks off with your brilliant prose. We look forward to a stellar year of creativity! We start off today featuring a poem from my new chapbook “What’s Your Hubbub” of poetry styling’s.

Forbidden Fancy

 

sssshhh be quiet look right up the alley just behind the corner through the gates of wrath swathed in the disciples of a moralistic canvas lies a forbidden fancy

temptation pulls at your lust strings envisioning hidden treasures packed and overflowing with rich delights too delicious to eat all at once

sacrificing security of the unknown

fearful of unleashing untold risks destruction of the moral fiber loosely sewn and deliberately unfastened just so slightly to allow the hot breath to escape

knowing full well of the consequences

falling gleefully through the exposed traps that could alter one’s protected future wreaking havoc of changing the expected course

but you enter anyway for what lies beyond is pure ecstasy of the kind only fairytales espouse

a hidden gem that shines so gloriously bright intoxicating- drawing in only the strongest of hearts and minds

 a reward of just desserts

WHAT are you waiting for?

POETRY NEWS/EVENTS

Friday night January 17th 8:30 pm facebook.com/therappsaloonpoetryreading, will feature Mona Jean Cedar, hosted by the beautiful and talented Elena Secota. Linda Kaye Poetry and Josie Roth, violist will also join Mona Jean for a reading of “Forbidden Fancy”.

Thanks for joining us!

Linda Kaye