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
Bringing you art and culture in all of Los Angeles.