04/02/2018 Maria Rosales

04/02/2018 Maria Rosales hosted by Jan

Maria Rosales was born in London, and lived in Europe, North Africa,Canada, and Hawaii before settling in California. Her poems have appeared in Meridian Anthology,  Byline, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Poetalk,  the Nashville Newsletter, The Dirty Napkin Online Magazine, The Contra Costa Times, Medusa’s Kitchen, Brevities, The Art of Awe  and several Anthologies.  Her book “Time to Fly” was published with Small Poetry Press.  She has received many Awards from the Ina Coolbrith Circle, Artists Embassy International, and contests sponsored by Benicia Historical Museum, City of Pleasanton and Livermore Arts.   Maria hosted the successful PrimoPoets series for several years, and has served on the Board of Directors for the Ina Coolbrith Circle since 2007.   She currently hosts the Writing in Paradise salon in her home in Paradise, California.

Attachment

A Pantoum

“Even puddles touch the sky”

he said, “Despair is not the end…”

His cigarette burned, but the ash did not fall.

She watched transfixed.

He said despair is not the end, but

she held her breath anyway,

watching transfixed, as something between them

detached in slow motion…

Anyway, she held her breath

because suddenly there was no air…

oxygen molecules detached in slow motion.

The sidewalk became a cliff.                                                                                                  

Suddenly there was no air beneath

the tightrope of silence strung

across the sidewalk cliffs --

the chasm of fear widening.

Silence.  The tightrope strung

between his words sagged. She exhaled --

saw the ash fall finally, land at her feet in a puddle.

Sure enough, ripples reflected the sky.

03/26/2018 Grace Marie Grafton

03/26/2018  Grace Marie Grafton hosted by Gary 

Grace Marie Grafton is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently 'Jester' from Hip Pocket Press. Her themes range from lyrical sonnets to sestinas to experimental prose poems, with a concentration on response to fine art. Her poems have won honors from The Bellingham Review, Sycamore Review, Keats Soul Making contest, The National Womens Book Association, and Poetic Matrix Press. Poems recently appear in Fifth Wednesday, The Cortland Review, Ambush Review, Sin Fronteras, Basalt, Mezzo Cammin and Canary, among others. Through her work with CA Poets in the Schools and the CA Arts Council, she has taught thousands of children to write poetry.





The knell of winter


At 4 pm on a Tuesday, air almost bite-able,

you think maybe you could play with it, invisible

man-of-air or un-see-able woman singing her

sharp cold note, tickles you down your neck. You

wish you knew the words in the dark colors pulled

up out of the pit where the days are stored. The

draftsman of the future down there, drawing the plans

in his blind state, feeling his way, trained from his

birth to do this each year as the light grows

wan and the chill undresses the trees, the waters

forget their underground ancestors boiled

by fundamental lava. The future's plans all there

in his unreadable notebooks. And now the council

of the creators will spend ninety long nights

arguing about details and which of them must

roll naked in the snow to bring the future into being.


For Roy De Forest, 'Dogcart From Hell'


How black is the jest,

how red-wheeled the cart,

earth-brown the driver who doesn't

know right from wrong but,

like a passionate pilgrim, drives on

smiling ignorantly, just happy

to have a job and a dog to help.

If help is what this trip can be called.

Do we want to call it anything?

Can labels do any good?

The tree, passed by, is in disguise

as a famous actor, the Devil presents

a facsimile moon as prize to

the acting-tree who, we know,

has sold his soul. It's a reunion

of sorts: the beans of life sorted

to one side (the right, the wrong?),

the stones of death to the other.

They talk, the driver, the acting-tree

and the Devil with the moon prize

but they can neither be heard nor

understood.

3/19/18 Naomi Quinonez

3/19/18 Naomi Quinonez hosted by Bruce

Naomi Helena Quiñonez is a poet, educator and activist.   She is the
author of three collections of poetry, Hummingbird Dream/Sueño de
Colibri, The Smoking Mirror and The Exiled Moon.  She co edited
Invocation L.A: Urban Multicultural Poetry which received the
American Book Award.  Among her achievements are the American
Book Award, the Rockefeller Fellowship and the California Arts
Council Award.  Her poems and essays have appeared in many
journals and publications such as the Colorado Review, Paper
Dance: Latino Writing in the U.S. and Infinite Divisions.

03/12/2018 Cathy Dana hosted by Jim With a Mini-Feature by Bruce Isaacson

03/12/2018 Cathy Dana hosted by Jim With a Mini-Feature by Bruce Isaacson

Cathy Dana, President of Alameda Island Poets, just became Alameda's new Poet Laureate.  She founded and runs The Mighty Pens poetry club and high school poet laureate program at Alameda Community Learning Center.  2014 Dancing Poetry Grand Prize winner and first prize winner of the 2013 Benicia Love Poetry Contest, it's no surprise Cathy titled her first book of poems "My Dad Believed in Love." 

Empty Nest

Still Not Ready to Say Goodbye…

The morning after her son left home for college far away

she noticed a crying baby had taken up residence

in her heart.

Everywhere she went in the house

she found remnants of him:

the sprouted-wheat bagels he’d introduced her to

the carton of eggs he scrambled for breakfast

the lonely hook where his egg-frying pan had hung

the heavy whipping cream he put in his coffee

the green-leaf houseplant from his room

now seated by her picture window.

Not to mention his disheveled but vacant room.

She already missed his deep bass voice, ordinarily so logical, so rational,

so full of facts and theories and techie tidbits,

but surprisingly soft and teasing when he would come up the stairs

in that certain mood, saying,

“Where’s that boy-o?  Where’s that kitty?  Where’s that boy-o?”

He would find Raffi, scoop him up,

cradle him upside down like a baby,

start rubbing his tummy

and bring him to her, holding Raffi so she could

stroke his head, ears, neck—all his favorite spots.

Her son would become the voice of Raffi feigning resistance.

“No.  Stop.  Don’t,” the voice protested in mock indignance,

even as the cat closed his eyes dreamily and purred.

Continuing to stroke Raffi’s tummy

her son would assume Raffi’s voice:

 “I’ll give you an hour to stop that and put me down.”

Trying to hold back giggles,

they would stand cuddling their kitty in the kitchen.

The morning after her son left home for college

she slipped into her bedroom to begin her morning ritual,

straightening the covers and pillows,

opening the curtains to let the light in.

Every day, she gathered up from her husband’s nightstand

the stuffed animals she placed together on the bed:

her son’s long-ago toy, a tall cloth doll Pinocchio

and, on either side of him, a mama and papa teddy bear

to watch over him.

But this day, as she looked toward the nightstand,

there, for the first time in Raffi’s three-year life--

the first time ever--

she saw their kitty lying on top of the nightstand

snuggled up with Pinocchio and the teddy bears.

She stood there looking, shaking her head,

leaving the stuffed animals where they were.

Then she leaned in close.

“Make sure he’s safe,” she whispered to Raffi.

“Make sure he’s okay.  He’s our boy-o.”

3/12 Mini-Feature Bruce Isaacson:

Bruce Isaacson is a poet and publisher of Zeitgeist Press, with over a hundred poetry titles to date. He’s known in the Bay Area from the Cafe Babar 1980s poetry community.  He earned degrees at Claremont McKenna, Dartmouth, and Brooklyn College, where he submitted a thesis to noted American poet Allen Ginsberg. More recently, he was the first Poet Laureate of Clark County, Nevada-- a community of two million souls that includes the City of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Strip.  

From: The Last Lie, Zeitgeist Press, 2017

Unnatural Selection

One poet after another

up to the mike we're like penguins

waddling to the edge of the ice

Like dice thrown against night sky

Like a transistor radio in a demolition zone

It's hard to hear your true voice

As cars screech & crunch on Flamingo

As people cope with treatable diseases

in the bathroom of the public library

As if we needed metaphors for suffering

As if Crete were an island

We humans are made to love truth

and tell lies. 

Ode to a Diet Cherry Coke

O dark, fizzy syrup—

bonded to clear water.

O faintly fruity eau—

You explode on my tongue

with taste, a virtual

bomb of refreshment.

You darling of the Coca

corporation, made rich with billions of

momentary satisfactions, like little mini

taste-gasms leaving syrup to rust in

the machinery of my body.  Yet how I

love you, fizzing in front of me I

sharply realize that you are

master and I indentured to

your momentary pleasure. 

My stomach lining gets a

hole the size of a dime, my energy

sapped for hours after fix of fizz,

but I do not blame you,

brown and bubbling beverage,

whatever my body is, it was made to

live, die, drink.