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.