10/01/2018 Marvin R. Hiemstra features

10/01/2018  Marvin R. Hiemstra hosted by Jan

Marvin R. Hiemstra appeared a valiant Leo in the Year of the Rabbit and was instructed by a tiny prairie grass frog on his wrist at age three.  Honors Graduate from Iowa Writers Workshop and founding Editor-in-Chief of the Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review with work in Caveat Lector, Amsterdam Quarterly, The Satirist, North American Review, and elsewhere Marvin publishes and performs around the world. Dana Gioia called the DVD French Kiss Destiny, “superb work.” Shawn Pittard, The Great American Pinup, said, “What I hold closest to my heart is Marvin’s reminder of the importance of human affection in this totally terrifying 21^st Century.”  Library Journal reported, “Whimsical poet/humorist Hiemstra shares his thoughts and observations on society: a very agreeable addition to contemporary American literature.”

AUTUMN DAZZLE

The last bowl of red cherries

for this year means autumn.

Oops!  One clever cherry escaped

the bowl.  Everyone laughs.

I am carefully arranging wildflowers

in a boat-shaped basket.

Wind hits verandah, twists

arrangement.  It looks better.

Pure wind from the North

transforms a quiet hill of flame

maple brocade into a shimmering

spirit forest, all ablaze.

It’s time to put fresh white paper

on all the shoji.  No more

patches!  Oldest tree in the garden

wears brilliant persimmons.

“Pearls!” shouted Yogi when snow fell

through a ruined thatch roof.

Pearls tumble through our sun yellow

wisteria leaves.  It makes me blue.

Missy Church features 9/24/2018

09/24/2018   Missy Church  hosted by Gary 

Missy Church runs Naked Bulb open-mic, now on it’s seventh year in Fruitvale. She founded Naked Bulb Press and helped to bring the first lit crawl to Oakland. Missy has appeared in numerous readings in the Bay Area over the last ten years and her first full length book, CHURCH, by Paper Press can be found on her mom’s book shelf or at paperpress.org

Looking Back and Thinking, What Was I So Worried About

To be bare and so far apart
our bodies, a panic attack
magnets propped up
in just the right way
skin on skin
reject
attract

I whisper, I love you
with the night ears
of cotton swabs
bee’s wax and
the intermittent breath
from my muscle memory
to yours

9/17/2018 Clyde Always features

09/17/2018 Clyde Always hosted by bruce

Clyde Always (the Bard of the Lower Haight), being the All-American tall-talesman and dime-a-rhyme vaudevillian that he is, has successfully provided audiences, both at home and abroad, with the refreshing splash of laughter and the snug comfort of joy; to inspire creativity is his primary objective here on planet Earth.  You can catch his act any Friday evening at Cafe International where he serves the community fostering new talents as host and ringleader of the weekly open-mic showcase. His writings and artwork have recently been accepted to exclusive publications: Poetalk, The Broke Bohemian, 17 Very Funny Very Short Stories and others.  Melanie Bell and the Story Salon, the bard’s debut novel, published by Rational Malarkey Inc, placed as a semifinalist in the Faulkner Society’s William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in 2017.  He lives in San Francisco with his wife Haylee the Ukulele.

Bloodbath!

What ruthless warrior am I,
to cause this crimson flood?
Remorseful now, I stand and cry
above a sea of blood.
Oh, slaughterhouses everywhere
will crumble down in shame;
and Tarantino’s kiddie fare
seems infantile—tame.
The Chupacabra’s drank a sip
compared to all this swill.
Count Dracula would curl his lip
and call it ‘overkill.’
Was Gettysburg a lousy joke?
Were Spartans rarely rough?
Felt Caesar but a measly poke?
Was Patton just a puff?
Attila’s savagery’s now moot,
that tender, gentle Hun…
and Genghis Kahn would lick my boot
to see such horrors done!
            Perhaps a tiny trickle fell
            from Christ upon the cross,
            but none have raise such gruesome Hell
            as I, who’s tried to floss.

Truly Edison features 9/10/2018

9/10/2018 Truly Edison hosted by Jim

Truly Edison is a senior at Alameda Community Learning Center, and the current poet laureate of her school. She lives in Alameda with her parents, her three siblings, and her pet dog. She has been writing poetry since middle school, and is very active within her school's poetry club. She describes her writing as a form of dreaming while awake; a method of processing outside images and sensation through words.

"BODYWORDZ"

My heart is no organ of fire

Because I'm much too shy

It's more of a deer at the side of the highway

Wandering the dying grass with headlight eyes

It lives only at dusk and dawn

Creeping into the light when all others lay still 

Decaying in the shallow end of sleep

In my mind I conjured up a collage of you

Eyes and ears and tongues disconnected 

Out of context

But what finally did it was

A single strand of my hair on your bathroom counter

And the fraud of intimacy

It so coyly implied