POETS PLACE
JUNE EDITION 2021
We’re open! Well pretty close to open. How did we get through all this chaos?? Wasn’t easy. Nothing is. We worked diligently at staying sane and safe. We followed the rules, well most of us did or we wouldn’t BE OPEN!!! Social distancing taught us how to be respectfully spaced from each other to allow for safe connections to be had. A standard that I hope remains, along with sanitation and continuing to wear a mask in public if you are ill and symptomatic.
June 2021 brings hope to our lives and validates that we can be resilient and power through the toughest of times. I am thankful that you all have continued to participate in this journey. You have shared your poetry and prose and you have hugged me through the barriers and the hurricane waves of sheltering in place. You are my saviors, my friends and my peers of hope and strength.
THANK YOU!!!!!
BIG Love, for reals, Linda :0)
BTW- I will be reading this published piece, Fools For Hope at the Arroyo Arts Collective’s closing reception of the same title June 19th 2pm at La Culebra Park in Highland Park, Ca. Check out the events page in this publication.
PLEASE JOIN US!!!
Fools For Hope
By Linda Kaye
Fools for hope
crow loudly for validation and encouragement
laughs hysterically for love
cries real tears for grief
and wishes for everyone to be kind
Fools For Hope will wait patiently for their turn
for justice
for democracy
for integrity
for sincerity thus-for prosperity
Fools For Hope will dust off their dirty knees after humiliation and continue to carry on
despite it all
Fools For Hope will continue to support and pray for the American way during times of crisis racism fascism and sociopathic narcissism
Fools For Hope are
Fools
For
Hope
it’s a necessary self medicating and positive process
individually wrapped in a healthy denial and sealed with a stamp of goodness
Don't Remind Me
11-16-2020
By Mary Cheung
Live music is becoming an old memory,
Slowly it slips away
Reluctantly it clings for new things, looking to pave its way.
My old friend,
of smoky rooms and dingy hole in the wall places .
I saw the Knitters play,
in an old Hollywood basement,
packed with bodies and sweaty screaming faces.
X at the santa monica civic.
Fleetwood mac on a massive stage.
Shriekback at the Variety Arts Center.
While Chris Issac rattles the
Greek auditorium cage.
There were many many more,
Live music,
to feed my soul,
adorned my eyes with visions,
Too kool to capture on a camera ya know.
Those melodies,
shoots into my veins,
Burns with fire,
too wild to be contained.
It lite me up inside, burning with unholy sin.
Until my outsides burned as bright,
as from deep under my skin.
High on life now from ur song.
Obliterates all problems,
There's no sadness,
there's no wrong.
It's becoming an old memory now.
That life is all but gone.
Artist scramble to find their audience,
And their outlets to perform.
Zoom it, slack it,
what other forms are there now?
Sludge of old memory;
Drips into a bright, shiny, plastic new form.
Distant,
foreign,
off a screen is where you now adorn.
Oh, what I wouldn't give,
To orbit in your space.
to be able to reach out and touch.
Scent and sight, fighting,
to occupy the same place.
Live music is becoming an old memory.
Like the old geezer who's been retired for the new.
High techy, cheeky, latest trend millennial,
yeah Covid..... I'm talking bout you!
Don't remind me,
this ain't over.
One day Live music shall return.
Life,
riding in on music,
It's not an "if",
but only a matter of "when".
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”.
Brown Eyes
By Lee Boek
Brown eyes
Invited me
To
Tomorrow
To Yesterday
A moment frozen
Forever
Just for the two of us.
They brought me
Back from the desert
To the well spring
To the garden
Of our love
Lee Boek, born and raised in the California Bubble, “first I was a teen-age evangelist whose ministry intersected with the civil rights movement while preaching in the southern United States. Then turning to the education I was warned never to get, to the anti war movement of the sixties, the environmental movement of the seventies and today. During this time I became a performer of satirical stories and sketches mostly based on my own life experiences. For the last nearly forty years I have been a member of and/or the Artistic Director of Public Works Improvisational Theatre”.
Journey of the Mind
By Valerie Larsen
Hello. My name is no one. And I think I’m invisible On your screen.
You can’t see me On your computer Zoom screen panel Because I’m blank. I’m gray, tedious, Mediocre, boring. I’m no one
You want to say hi to, Want to say bye to, Or want to hear from. I’m just no one.
But come with me at night time And hear the Spanish music In my room with no stereo on. Listen to the talk show—
But no radio is playing— And not enough meds are in my head. Hear all the different voices Vying in competition To hear from me now.
Or maybe if I don’t want To play with those friends, I can walk with a less broken soul I love to hear and see; Rejoice that I am seen and heard, And that we are both — real. Or I hear a friend on the phone— And treasure the goodness, The “realness” of this voice. Ah, to celebrate the genuine Fantastic tangible relationships I carry on with every day. Oh, the glory of reality. . .
Valerie Larsen is a retired high school English teacher of 37 years teaching in California. She now writes poetry in a writing group in the San Gabriel Valley and spends time working out and volunteering at a house of prayer. She is a recovering alcoholic with 27 years sobriety and she laments, “hold my head high with that acknowledgment. I have had chronic pain, emotional traumas, and addiction as part of my life. I have written all of my life and as an adult, spirituality has intersected with pain in my very personal poetry. It has become a therapy for me as well as an art form”.
THE BUG MAN
By Sarah Hunter
He introduced himself in his profile on Match.com as a “Renaissance man of Science.” What that meant, as it turned out, was that he was a pest control inspector for restaurants and businesses who hired him to kill bugs for an exorbitant price.
Here’s what happened: I responded to his dull, “Let’s chat” generic request on my internet dating service by asking him where he lived went to school, what he was interested in, and any other question which I thought might spark an imaginative reply. He replied by asking me to meet him at Starbucks for a cup of coffee. To the point, I thought, but maybe this man of bugs would be a testosterone-ridden hunk. Who knew?
I met him on a Tuesday at 5PM, a safe time, before the possibility of a dinner date and too late to get stuck at lunch in case of deadly boredom or physical grotesquery. The last one I had responded to said he was an architect who was building a winery on the Carmel Coast. Turned out he lived in a trailer in Alhambra and worked on construction crew, pounding nails. The only brush with a winery on the Monterey Coast was his collection of wood he’d stolen from a winery, which had collapsed some twenty years ago. Feeling safe, then, I appeared at Starbucks five minutes early, full of hope. Settling myself at one of the window tables; I awaited his entrance. He was on time. I admit to feeling a bit disappointed, but at least he was taller than I, male, and had rather attractive blue eyes under tortoise-rimmed glasses.
We talked about my job as a teacher at an East Los Angeles high school and my over a decade of sobriety. We talked about his job as a bug man. It was borderline pleasant enough. Besides, I was hungry to date; I admit it. So, based on his being my age (59), a single divorced male, college graduate and somewhat articulate, I agreed to set a second date to go to The Huntington Gardens’ Renaissance Faire, which consisted of music and poetry from costumed performers held on the picturesque grounds of the Huntington,
Showering in my favorite blossom-scented bath gel from Victoria’s Secret, I fluffed and powdered myself for my actual date with Roy. I pictured us sitting on the sloping summer lawn at the Huntington, laughing together, and sharing little witticisms, transported back into Elizabethan times. I would maybe share my favorite Shakespeare sonnets, which I loved teaching to my students every year. Frankly, I was a bit giddy.
It was a warm, perfect time of the day –almost sunset. Roy arrived on time again. I greeted him at my door in my purple silk top and long, flowered skirt. I’d set my hair, applied full make up and with all the extra care I had taken, looked good. He was dressed in tattered, torn blue jeans and a frayed gray t-shirt with armpit stains. On his feet he sported filthy, battered tennis shoes. Now gray, they were probably once white. Clearly, we weren’t on the same page.
“Oh, I blurted,” how are we going to get into a decent restaurant with what you’re wearing?”
The bug man replied, “To hell with any restaurant that won’t let me in with these clothes.”
You see, we had agreed to dinner after the faire. I was speechless.
“Come on, “ he said, “let’s go I’ve got the top down on my convertible. Let’s get going.”
“Could you put the top up? I just washed and set my hair, and I’m wearing contact lenses. The wind will disturb my lenses.”
“My son wears contacts, so you won’t be bothered. He rides with me all the time. Be a sport!”
“No,” I said, “this won’t work. I guess we’ll need to take my car.”
“Okay,” he chirped. “I can save gas money. We can take your car.”
Looking back, I should have booted him out the door at that moment, but as I said before, I was still curious and just didn’t know how to get out of the date gracefully. Besides, maybe some part of him would be like Jack Kerouac, a rebel drunken poet, or some eccentric with a beautiful heart underneath that callous and filthy exterior. Maybe he collected exotic artifacts and traveled to far away places and had elevated philosophies of societal customs. Who knew?
We arrived at the Huntington and all its splendor. Roy wouldn’t shut up. Not for a minute. He chatted on and on about the bourgeoisie around us and how foolish I was to actually possess a membership at the Huntington. Why did I care about art and all these paintings by “dead Dutch and English men”? Even the plants and spectacular landscape were a waste of “upper middle class talent
and taste.” “Who gives a rat’s ass about these Japanese Zen gardens? Just a bunch or raked rocks, for Christ’s sake!”
I tried to defend my membership to the Huntington while I counted the minutes until I could escape I sort did a little skip-hop to the car ahead of him. “Let’s get to the restaurant.” I called back. I just didn’t know how to tactfully get rid of him, so I thought moving through the series of planned events would be the best tack. Remember, also, that The Huntington had been my idea. I should have deposited him back at his car, but something inside me said, “Maybe dinner will be better.”
Roy, the entomologist in the gray pit-stained t-shirt and I (dressed for a formal dinner), arrived at The Wild Thyme Café for a bite to eat. I ordered a bowl of strawberries with a side of whipped cream and a cup of decaf coffee. I think Roy ordered a salad. Through the course of the dinner, Roy talked about my ex- husband’s father. It turns out that Roy had worked with him some twenty years ago, back in Detroit, Michigan. He told me Bob’s dad had been a total loser, a freak amongst gentlemen. Somehow this information made me feel sad and protective of Warren, Bob’s father. He went on and on about how Bob’s father had been unable to advance further in the ranks due to his drinking. All of this somehow gave me the notion I’d accidentally walked in on Warren in the bathroom and found him vulnerable and naked.
Then the Bug Man came forth with, “So, you say you’re in recovery and healthy now, and yet here you are drinking chemically drenched coffee beans and wolfing down fake whipped cream. Are you aware of the triglycerides and preservatives in that whipped cream? All those phony chemicals preserving those strawberries? You say you’re in recovery? HAH. You are doped up on chemicals!”
I jumped to my feet, shuffling to push the table back. “Okay, Roy, let’s go. Dinner’s over. I need to get home.”
He looked startled. “But, Sarah, it’s only seven o’clock.”
I shouted, “I don’t care -- we are out of here. Let’s go.”
On the way back to my house, which was thankfully only a ten- minute ride from The Wild Thyme, I stared ahead in dead silence. The Bug Man chatted on about the messes he’d encountered in restaurant after restaurant with the bugs and the germs. I tried not to listen. We arrived at his car, parked across the street from my house.
“Well,” he said with a little Winnie the Poo hang head, “I suppose this is the last time I’ll be seeing you, huh?”
Still staring straight ahead, my hands sweating at the wheel, contained fury in every cell, I replied,” yes, this will be the last time. In fact, I think when I get inside the house I’ll go online and cancel my Match.com membership.”
And so I did.
Sarah Hunter began creating characters and dramas in her neighborhood backyard at age eight back in West Lafayette, Indiana. From graduate school to her time in Los Angeles, Sarah remains a dedicated student of classical and modern theater.
She has dubbed Japanese cartoons, done voice-over work, had her original plays produced in Los Angeles and Pasadena, and continues acting, creating, writing and dreaming. The most important thing for Sarah is the continuous re-inventing of herself each time she writes another play or TV episode. Working with Sandra Cruze, on TWO HEADS ARE BETTER PRODUCTIONS has allowed her to continue writing episodes and acting, working on her one- woman solo shows which she has presented at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA and her “Dogs are Better Than People” at the Whitefire Theater in West Los Angeles. She will be presenting this piece a second time, as she has been awarded “The Best of the Solo Fest.” Stay tuned for June 12 at 7PM.
Sarah loves writing and performing in the episodes in “We’re Not Dead Yet” (WNDY) and enjoys watching them on the YOUTUBE channel. She and her creative partner, Sandra Cruze have been awarded 5 wins for their series. They are having a ball and definitely not “dead yet.”
Life is good.
I Love Praising Women
By: IE Carlo
22 March 2021
Well look at them
I love praising women
Their shapes and curves, eyes, mouth, and hair
Their intoxicating glutinous maximum movement
as you observe them
in their heels
Like meals on heels I say is real
For all is revealed in that strid built of confidence and zeal
I live to praise women who are real
Give me a woman who knows her deal
And I am a happy man
Making it ideal
I love praising women
Who know their minds and speak
Clearly with purpose of mind
And adore comes to my mind
For what is a person without a mind
Nothing difficult to galvanise to this of mine
I love praising women making them a pleasure of mine
As I hope I’m their pleasure of mind
I love praising women particularly if they are mine
Ismael (East) Carlo, poet, actor begins on the streets of East Harlem, el barrio whose monica 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
Triad Poem
By Ronald G. Carrillo
• Tendaberry
She inspires me with her female epistles
Her soaring mezzo-soprano transports me out of my element
Tendaberry girl with the long hair evoking and emoting on her piano
She moves me and cherry blossoms appear while I am making tea
Nyro lyrics are jig-saws of her heaven and New York City
Gospel intentions with sewer reality situations
Tom Cat men edging out the backdoor of her life
Cruelty and devil captains adding her salty tears to the Hudson
I have been there and was used by those Tom of Finland men
Bouncers and bartenders with macho moustaches
Disco dancers and too cool pool players
Leather men and afternoon beer hustlers
But Laura’s arias were hard-core big city prophecy
I was fifteen and she guided my teenage footsteps to love
Sean and Filip were my first of that strange male persuasion
Fly by night and never a call always on the make having a ball
She was right “never gonna make a movie maker
Always be a city faker”
Tom, Dick and Harry all belonged to that same loser’s club
Tom cat feet prowling the back alleys and secret city streets
Then come a calling that big Captain man who soothed me
Big time lover man who knew how to use his hands
Wet kisses and too late sorrys sniffing the white stuff
Sharing my bed until we hit a dead end
Back to the sorrow of Tendaberry and miracles for her man
Like Billie she had the blues in spades
Had to give up her cigarettes and all the male charades
Frank-in-sense no longer made sense for me
A private inventory and freedom from the blues
Walking with poetry and pigeons along Hill Drive
I know I will survive all the Eli’s
No more sour strawberries from strangers
My life beyond the glitter and the lies now gone
Authentic no longer paying rent I own it
My life more simple but still spicy
Menudo but no mainstream
Laura before there was a Winehouse
Tendaberry and her 13th Confession predated Back to Black
But where is my sweet lovin’ baby
The Spring winds blowing magnolia fragrance in the Eagle Rock air
I am centered and patient with a full head of senior hair
Step forward and equal partners we can be
Mutual reciprocal senior men reaching a ten on our comfort level
• Blue Nyro Channeling Carrillo
Blue where were you when I was in high school
Oh Blue how did I come to know you
The Fabulous 52 and old black and white movies
Emily Dickinson poems of sorrow
Tennessee Williams and Miss Alma
A Delta nightingale who believed but could not receive love
Rising out of smoke and desire
Before love even spoke its name
Then that Sophomore year of Frank
With all my innocence to blame
My heart reached for the flame of love
You burned me Blue learning Nyro dialect
Seagulls and clouds in purple Cathedral skies
All lies except for Tendaberry and Blue
More layers of you in Holiday, Kahlo and Etta
My own poetry buttressed my teenage obsession of depression
Leaving Phantom fairies and into the disco kick-line
Now alcohol drank with Blue as I fell
Retreating completely from the garden
I was tempted and ate of the forbidden fruit
Turned to salt and killing my spirit brother
I fornicated with another with no name
Blue watched me go insane
Then the plague like a flood to clean my brain
Blackout to a groundhog’s day of repeated pain
But no recovery all in vain for Blue
I was now cruelly addicted to oblivion
Repeating nights and weekends of obsession
Drinking and fantasizing near death
No clear thinking only a Blue out of focus
Losing my breath but still conscious
My eyes unable to see you
My pulse unable to feel you
My heart beating erratically for you
My frequency out of tune
My energy failing
Waiting to fall into the Blue
• La-la-la Laura
Songs of inquiry
Piano chords on the spectrum of pain
Switching to major never staying in minor
Vocals searching for resolution and closure
Lovers unresolved in testaments of fidelity
Bleeding lyrics speaking for broken hearts
Sub feeling to sub feeling with no healing
Crescendo and climax with no satisfaction
Life in gray tones with no energy for action
Stuck in lethargy and doubt
Not able to see my way out of fear
Life on the edge in a fractured America
Can’t breathe in the racial air of discontent
Cruel democracy hanging from dead constitutional trees
Black lives bent and stunted unable to realize their full potential
Bled and the ill racial spread of hate toward brown immigrants
And now attacking American citizens of Asian descent
Why are the white entitled afraid
Are we no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave
Essential kindness for all
Reverential respect for life
Then the red, white and blue will reach its manifest
A holy spiritual destiny that can attest to Martin’s dream
Speak its truth to Laura’s fury in her soul to save the country
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.
DETOUR
By Stephen Buhler
Deep into someones' heartland,
Construction aims to ease commutes
And prepare future development
With roads blocked before being replaced.
On an unaccustomed route I see
Someone who farms (not a farmer –
A doctor – we know such things
Even about distant neighbors)
Has moved an ancient, unused horse trailer
To the side of the highway
With a newly commissioned banner about
White Christian men sailing the Mayflower
And writing the Constitution.
No word about the women, Christian
Or otherwise; no word about men and women
Denied rights and privileges; no word
About broken treaties or 3/5 representation.
It was not a large trailer, after all.
But it was large enough for desiccated memories
From textbooks that cultivated legislatures
Seek to make again curricular law of the land.
So when I pulled behind a truck
Bearing the license plate of another state
Deep into someones' heartland,
I puzzled after its possibly gnomic inscription:
II V7 I.
Was this another militia message?
Was this related to III percenters and worse?
And then music paved a way: I remembered that
In the key of C, this is D chord and
Then G7 and then C.
Perhaps the most comforting progression
In the world of jazz. It is home
And all about going home.
As I negotiated the detour on my way back,
I realized that these numbers were not a solution,
Much less a resolution.
But perhaps their coordinates charted a pathway
Not only back but forward.
Stephen Buhler teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and performs with the Americana-and-More group Tupelo Springfield.
Thanks for joining! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.
With great hope for a loving and accepting future!
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.
Linda Kaye writes poetry, curates poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.
Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco
Her most recent project a rap music video in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg
.
Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
www.lindakayepoetry.com
Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry
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