[began 3 August 1998 in M.C.I., finished 28 August 2008 in E.OH.]


A fuzzy
Bumble bee
Was buzzing
Near my tree

I notizzed him
He notizzed me

My leavezz fell azz
He hooted like an owl
And sstartled me

Turned fuzz to fuss


- Jesus Crisis

        

Originally written 1 June 1998 at Marion Correctional Institution and long forgotten, I unearthed and slightly revised this poem an hour or so before leaving for my Phoenix reading on 23 August 2008.

I introduced it that evening as a piece "about firearms."


Preacher Gunn
Shoots a yellow green stream
Of ammonia and impurities
Into the white porcelain basin
Of his congregation
Where dehydrated souls
Drink their fill
Of a backward dog's swill

Preacher Gunn
Then runs like a rivulet
Down hill to home
Where he
Loaded and pearl handled
Pukes the hair of a backward dog
On his gun shy children

Me playing Rev. Isaiah Hawkins in Reflections of Possum Gulch
December 1998 in the chapel of Marion Correctional Institution

        

On Thursday 14 August, we had one hell of a good time at the monthly Poetry Night extravaganza hosted by Cleveland's incomparable Literary Cafe in historic Tremont.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know I'm late as hell in posting this blog (not sure, though, what hell has to do with being late, unless the wait was hell).  Shoulda been an easy one to post, I guess, since the second featured reader, David Hassler, canceled at the last minute and didn't show up.  His reasons?  Essentially, he'd slept poorly all week and knew he would have important work to attend to the morning after the event. 

Welcome to the club, Buddy!!!!

But we ended up not needing the Hassle after all.

The night's other scheduled feature, Michelle Krivanek (who won 1st place in Cleveland State University's 2008 Student Creative Writing Contest), drew a large crowd and kept us rapt with her poetic prowess.  Even inspired me to buy her Gender Names for Moon (published by The Language Foundry)....  Very nice!

Anyway, I am dreadfully behind on things I want (and have promised) to accomplish, so I will wrap this blog up here, knowing it doesn't give you a fucking clue as to how fucking cool the night was.  (I find it hard to write about the Literary Cafe without saying "fuck" at least once.)  If you really want to know how cool it was and is, you need to take your ass (and the rest of you) to Poetry Night at the Lit on the second Thursday of every month.

Or you can stay home and miss the fuck out.  Your choice.

The F word has been used in this blog by permission of Nick Traenkner, the Lit emcee, who I believe has copyrighted it.  Or maybe I dreamt that part.  Not sure....

Here are a few photos (by me, except the one of me) taken that night:

Dianne Borsenik and Geri Burroughs

Ray McNiece

Vertigo Xi'an Xavier

Nick Traenkner loosens up the crowd

Some of the folks eager to hear Krivanek

Michelle Krivanek

j.s. makkos photographs Krivanek while Miles Budimir and others listen intently

Krivanek emotes while performing Gender Names for Moon

Danilee Eichhorn during the night's open mic

Vertigo Xi'an Xavier and Ray McNiece

Open mic continues

I performed Low Kay Shun and Identity Crisis  [photo by Geri]

Dianne Borsenik

j.s. makkos

Carmen Tracey and Steve Goldberg have front row seats

Rob Rozine

Dominique and friend dance to Polka music while Nick looks for a poem on his cell phone

C. Allen Rearick

Überhost Steve Goldberg shows his sensitive side

Eric Alleman at the mic

Lots of other poets were present - but I wasn't as diligent about snapping photos as I was last month.  My apologies to the folks I missed....


* * *

To see more, even cooler photos from the night's festivities, please visit Lit Cafe proprietor Andy Timithy's Flickr album here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/literarycafe/sets/72157606679375635/

To see and hear Michelle Krivanek's featured performance, as filmed by Andy, click this link:
http://literarycafe.net/blog/?p=671

To see an open mic video montage Andy put together (including a moment of me), click this:
http://literarycafe.net/blog/?p=672


* * *

Even better, come on down to the Lit....

The Literary Cafe
1031 Literary Road
Cleveland, Ohio
http://literarycafe.net

Coming attractions include (but are by no means limited to):

Thursday, Sept. 11th: Phil Metres and Amy Bracken Sparks
Thursday, Oct. 9th: Mwatabu Okantah and Bridget Kriner

Poetry Nights begin at 9:30 p.m., with an open mic and other fun stuff to follow.
The bar opens at 8:30 p.m.
Other good shit happens on other nights.

Come and get your love!

And I hope you don't mind me saying this word one more time before I sign off:

Fuck!

Peace, love and poetry,
John

        

Gotta lot to do today, but I want you to know my featured reading at Phoenix Coffee in South Euclid for Saturday Night with the Poet's Haven went very well....  Our friend Chris (Rune Warrior) came all the way from Detroit.  James and Dianne Borsenik took us out to eat before heading to the gig.  And a lot of fine poetic folk were in attendance (including, but not limited to, Wendy Shaffer, T.M. Göttl, Cavana Faithwalker, Steve Goldberg, Jean Brandt, Peter Leon, Rubin William and my wife Geri Lynne).  Split Pea/ce were also featured - and VertigoXX of www.poetshaven.com was our host and MC.

VXX recorded the goings-on and will be posting a podcast of them for your listening pleasure very soon at www.poetshaven.com, as well as on the Poet's Haven's MySpace page.  I'll try to let you know as soon as it's online.

I didn't take my camera or any notes - tried to focus solely on the poetry.  But Dianne Borsenik and Rune Warrior took a bunch of pictures and will probably be blogging something about the event very soon.  [UPDATE: They did it!  To read Dianne's blog click here; to read Chris', click here.]  I don't feel I'm the best person to review my own reading, anyway.  But I thought it went well.  I felt a little nervous at first (less so than I might have expected), but didn't take too long to start feeling right at home.  I was thrilled that so many friends showed up to show their support (the house was packed!).  During the open mic, I very much enjoyed hearing some of the performers who were new to me.  And several of the poets I've seen and enjoyed many times before outdid themselves, taking their already excellent work to deeper, more sensitive and more inspired levels.

I read several of my pieces live for the first time, including an untitled poem Will Northerner published a few months ago as part of his Blast Invitational, "Prison Scene" from Bloggerel, and my previously unseen "Preacher Gunn" (which I began writing 10 years ago in prison and revised slightly a few hours before the event).

And this was before the coffee kicked in! [photo by Dianne]

Other pieces I read included Holier Than Thou, Rapists, John Cage Engaged and Uncaged, and my epic Identity Crisis.  Can't recall for sure what else now....

Please keep an eye on Dianne Borsenik's and Rune Warrior's blogs for more... as well as on www.poetshaven.com for the podcast... and if you can, please check out the next Saturday Night at the Poet's Haven open mic event in person at Scribbles Cafe in Kent, Ohio, on September 6th at 8 p.m.  Rising star Dakota Kincer will be featured.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for your friendship, inspiration and support!  Peace....

        

I've been working feverishly to bring you video blogs from some awesome poetry events at Deep Cleveland and Joe Sundae's - but issues with my big computer have ground progress to a halt.  I seem to be getting the issues fixed.  But after today, I won't have time to work on video until Monday.  Frustrating....

I apologize to the folks who've been waiting patiently.

Fortunately, though, I've still been able to use my laptop all day (which does not have the software or memory for video), so I've been able to accomplish quite a few other things.  One is adding to my online library.

Last night I added The Flea by John Donne (to whom my high school creative writing teacher generously compared me in the early 1980s) and Prayer by Hilda Doolittle (who I chose as one of my "Favorite Poets from A to Z" in D Is for Doolittle).

Today I added a previously unpublished "epic" poem contributed by Deep Cleveland Poetry Hour founder Mark S. Kuhar (perhaps better known as markk).  I'm elated to be able to feature Mark's piece (get your minds out of the gutter!) in the library.  And it's a fine piece of work.  Please check it out by clicking here - or you can follow this permalink:

http://library.crisischronicles.com/2008/08/21/the-declamatia-by-mark-s-kuhar.aspx


* * *
I'm also excited to announce that I've received many excellent submissions for the library, from both the so-called known and the so-called unknown.  I haven't had a chance to respond personally to everybody yet, but wow!...  Upcoming contributors I'm particularly thrilled about having onboard include ArtCriminal Steven Smith and Macho Sex author Cheryl Townsend.  But let me shut up before I spoil any surprises.  Keep an eye out at http://library.crisischronicles.com.  Barring an act of God, I plan to post something new there every day.  Videos will have to wait until Monday, however....

Here's a photo Dianne Borsenik took of me and my video camera during this month's reading at Joe Sundae's in Sandusky:

Might help if I removed my finger from in front of the lens

        

Here are a few updates, reminders, et cetera (all in one handy place).

* * *

If anyone would like to order a signed limited-edition copy of my newly released 14-page Bloggerel chapbook you may do so by sending a check or money order for five US dollars (which includes postage and handling) to John Burroughs; c/o Crisis Chronicles Press; 420 Cleveland Street; Elyria, Ohio 44035.  I'll warn you: the poems included are already available on my blog.  But as a book lover I generally prefer a hard copy in my hands to reading from a computer screen, and I'm sure many of my friends feel the same way.

You can also buy Bloggerel securely through PayPal:

* * *

Here's a message I posted on the Yahoo Clevelandpoetics list-serve:


Dear Clevelandpoetics friends,

I'm making new additions to the CrisisChronicles Online Library - and we're accepting submissions from living poets (with a slight emphasis on northern Ohioans).
 
http://library.crisischronicles.com

In the past few days, I've added to the site works by Arthur Rimbaud and Clevelanders d.a. levy, Langston Hughes, and Dianne Borsenik.  [You can also find Whitman, Wilde, Byron, Malcolm X, Lao Tzu, Meribeth Hutto, Danilee Eichhorn, Edgar Allan Poe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Baudelaire and others there.]
 
The CrisisChronicles online library is fairly new and still a work in progress, but I'm excited that it's already receiving hundreds of views a day.  I will continue adding new works daily (as well as creating an index for the front page as time permits).  Right now you can easily navigate around the library using the "category archives" box in the left sidebar.
 
Here's the permalink to the text of Cleveland legend d.a. levy's "PROSE: on poetry in the wholesale education & culture system" on the CrisisChronicles library site.  You might recall that I already posted a video of me reading the piece here.
 
Peace, love and poetry,
JC

* * *

When Geri goes back to work tomorrow (Wednesday), I plan to work on my unfinished reviews of recent poetry events.  Coming this week: video of the open mic highlights from Joe Sundae's on 3 August in Sandusky, video and pics from 8 August's Deep Cleveland reading in Strongsville (with Chris Franke & more), and a blog about Thursday's festivities at Tremont's Literary Cafe (featuring Michelle Krivanek and more).

* * *

Also, in case anyone's missed it, I was recently published by www.thecitypoetry.com.  You can peruse the issue online, or purchase a print copy of issue 22 at the editor's cost here.

* * *

And one other thing: please don't forget my first-ever featured reading will be taking place this Saturday 23 August (8:00 p.m.) at Phoenix Coffee in South Euclid, Ohio.  Split Pea/ce will also be featured.  The event, including an open mic, is absolutely free and will be recorded and podcast on www.poetshaven.com.  Come be a part of the fun.   And if you can't, then please check out the podcast when it is available.

Thanks for your friendship and support! 

        

I used to read the newspaper every morning, religiously, before anything else.  Got the Cleveland Plain Dealer for a while, still get the local Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, and I receive the New York Times every day by e-mail....  Strange, though: the last month or so, for the first time in years, I haven't been quite so diligent about reading them.  Got a pile of unread Newsweek and Time magazines, too....  I know we need to keep ourselves informed - but I wonder if that has anything to do with my revived attention to poetry....

Yesterday I went through my regular e-mail inbox and found over forty unread New York Timeses from July and August there.  I mean, I guess I've been keeping up on news somewhat through other avenues, but....

Bush Has Rice, Rice Has Bush

Anyway, I knew Russia has been "engaging" Georgia lately - but this headline from yesterday's New York Times was news to me: Rice, in Georgia, Calls on Russia to Pull Out Now.  Hmm... Here we have one pre-emptive warmonger who used bullshit as a pretense to slide it into Iraq (or at least swallowed her boss George/Dick's pretense and then spit the gist of it in our direction) telling another warmonger that he's wrong to slide his pretense into another country's orifice.

Instead of preaching hypocrisy to our competition, perhaps we should strike a bargain... say "you pull out yours and we'll put out ours."  What do you think?  Give peace a chance....

        

On Thursday 7 August, Geri and I checked out the music and poetry open mic session at Jim's Coffeehouse in downtown Elyria.  A cool place with good people and plenty of talent on display....  We were happy to see our friends Dianne and James Borsenik there as well.

You might recall my tripod issues in Sandusky the prior week.  This time my tripod was on hand and perfectly fine - but I ended up having camera issues (can you say operator malfunction?), which prevented me from catching Dianne's and my performances on film.  Fortunately, I did catch some of the other local talent.

The following 3-minute video includes minister and poet Dan Samms paying tribute to Emily Dickinson's Hope, Jimmy Pearson (of the band Starting the End) playing part of one of his original songs, and Jim's Coffeehouse's very own poet-in-residence (and event organizer) Carrie Slone sharing one of her pieces.  I wish I could show you even more.


 


Jim's Coffeehouse holds these open mic sessions the first Thursday of every month at 7 p.m., and you're invited.  If you'd like to perform, contact Carrie at 440-284-1444 or show up by 6:30 to register.  Yes, their coffee is amazing (I like the Blue Moon) - but so are their tea, chai, fruit smoothies, sandwiches and pastries.  Jim's Coffeehouse hosts lots of other artistic events as well.  They have free WiFi.  And they're quickly becoming the place to hang out in Elyria.  If you're in the area, please check them out.

Jim's Coffeehouse
2 Lake Avenue
Elyria, OH 44035
440-284-1444
www.jimscoffeehouse.com

        

[I'll write more about last night's amazing poetry event at Cleveland's Literary Cafe in the near future, after I get caught up on a few other things.  For now, I'd just like to share a poem I debuted there.  Namaste....]

Jesus Crisis, Thursday 14 August 2008 at the Literary Cafe

Identity Crisis

I don't want to be anyone but me
Man
Really
I just want to be all I can be
Until I can't be
Know more
A pure and enduring shooting star
Until it's time to say sayonara
Ka-pow
And ciao

I don't want to be King or Prince
But in another way I do
Since I have a Washington Monument
Full of dreams
Musical schemes
And I know very well
What it's like When Doves Cry
But I don't have a clue how to answer
The Question of U
(I'm pointing to myself here, too)
And I wonder why it's vice versa
Instead of versa vice

I want to be from the country
And I want to be from town
I want to be the Nowhere Man who
Wherever you go
You find around

I don't want to be Allen Ginsberg
Except when I'm Beat up
Which is most of the time anymore
Though I don't really believe
In time anymore
And belief in time is such a chore
When Corso Kerouac Cassidy and Burroughs
Are my constant companions

But at times I get terribly tired of feeling Beat
When I'm On the Road less than I'm on the commode

I want to go Furthur than Kesey
But I don't want the cuckoo's nest
And I know why the caged bird sings
Though I'm not sure about the rest

Maybe the birds and their songs
And our rights and our wrongs
Are all Maya
In a multitude of hues

The colors run through me
Like a rainbow in an oil slick on an Elyria street
Running through the halls of Marion Correctional Institution
On the eve of the new Millennium 
While I watched the 2000 fireworks across the world
From my cell 
On PBS all night long
And I wonder
How it's possible I've never been freer
Never been more of a seer than there

And I want to be that free here
Find perfect vision outside of prison

Like it was in the years before and after Bush
In between the ears before and after religion
Tradition
Convention
Ambition
Subtraction and long division
Before and after I was a Skyline Pigeon
With no clue who I was
Or who you were
Or who we are

Maybe I do want to be Ginsberg
Or Kerouac
Coleridge or Kant
Byron
Christ
St. John of the Cross
d.a. levy
Lennon
Martin Luther King, Jr
King Tut
The kid in the cheap seats eating Junior mints
Wishing he were purple like Prince
Or green like the US Mince
Finally infatuated with the friendship of Peppermint Patty
And earning the love of Lucy
And Desi and the little red-haired girl
And Fred and Ethel Mertz
And Pigpen Jerry Garcia
Che Guevara Citizen Kane
And Linus without the line
Or the lie

I don't want to live in vain
I want to be like Steven B. Smith
Michael Salinger
A .44 Magnum
Not just a Derringer
Johnny Cash, Johnny Carson, Gary Larsen
Tearing down Bergen-Belsen, Washington DC
Garfield and Odie, O.D., and Oh Die
I want to give Peace a chance
But be able to accept that War
Is her partner in the cosmic dance
Accept that both are lies
That nothing in the universe is left to chance
And yet in another sense everything is
And "there's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so"

But what do I know

I want to be Dostoevsky without the crime
And especially without the punishment
Have freedom without the army and the government
And I'd sometimes like to choose
The Karamazov I prefer
And refuse the others
Pretending one brother is better than another

But I know all too well
That we're all all-four Karamazovs
We're all Kazantzakis,
Who said "the doors to heaven and hell
Are adjacent and identical"
And I think they might be the same door
There might be only one door
We all look at it like blind men looking at an elephant
One grabs the trunk and calls it snake
One grabs the leg and calls it pillar that will not break
One grabs only a whiff of the tail end
And calls it P.U.

But what is that elephant
Man
Really
With the incredible memory

It's Steven B. Smith
And the firth of fifth
It's Ray McNiece and Tolstoy's War and Peace
It's Donald, Dianne, dreams desire denial demerol
The doomed and the Divine
It's juiced up Roger Clemens saying
Look Babe I didn't share my cigar
With Jose Canseco or Andy Pettite
It's the heavy and the petty
Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt and Mario Andretti
Racing toward the grave
Slaves of the thrill and the almighty dollar
Kerouac Corso Ginsberg and Burroughs
Delivering us from literary squalor
Bush and Cheney making us holler
Whitman and Dickinson
Clinton and Monica
Dylan with his harmonica
Clapton and Hendrix with their guitars
Jay Leno with his classic cars
Venus and Mars and Pluto
A big black hole
And a supernova
And so unimaginably much more

I don't want to be any of it
Man
Really
I don't want to be Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
John McPain
Cheech and Chong
Kennedy Nixon
Mason Dixon
K-Fed, A-Rod, Brangelina, Britney or Bono
Or do I

I just want to be me
But what is this "me" anyway
What am I
Man
Really

I don't want to be Kipling,
Shere Khan Genghis Khan
An ex-con
The naked Nagasaki bomb bleached Japanese child
The so called whore in the so called Nazi Joy Division
Or the so called Not-See in her
I don't want to be the caged bird
But I want to sing
And I want everyone to listen to my whistling and chirping
Until everyone's bending
And maybe only pretending to listen
Which is probably all they were ever doing in the first place
Bending
Pretending to hear
Man
Really

And me too
Though I try like the Devil not to
I pretend to listen and then wonder what I'm missing

Maybe the whole shebang is a lie
Mighty Maya,
Caged birds, songs and all
Because how free can we really be
Man
Really

How free in the land of the penny pinch
And the US Mince
And poetry turned know-it tree 
Or no-it tree

It's all bleeding like a sappy lie
Sticky sweet
Through the crimson streets
And in our futile funk
We tap the trunk
Try very hard to refine or define the goo
Yet it's totally true, too
All too real
And there's nothing more real in this whole ordeal
We call the universe

It's all illusion
It's all allusion
And it's all there is

Kurt Cobain said "All in all is all we are"
But he did not believe it
Said the gun
And if there's no fun in the pretense
If there's no joi in the vivre
Then we might as well leave
And maybe someone who sticks around will be happier.

I want to be Faithwalker
And sight walker
Oblivious to and aware of every hurdle
I want to be Theresa Göttl
Stretching the window from out of the desert
To be like Hansel and Gretel
Eating their gingerbread house 
And being tasted and tested but not consumed
To impress all the chaps
And even perfect bound books
Like Larry Smith and Mark Kuhar
But be the Top Dog
Deeper than Cleveland
Like a Jim Thome homer back in the day
Finding its way to the bottom of Lake Erie
And beyond
To be professors like Howard Ellis, Timothy Leary 
John McKenna, Helen Shepard
And the Good Shepherd
The innocent shepherd boy blue
With the sheep in the meadow and the cow in the corn
And a Satchmo horn that I can blow like Miles
And a free pass to get me through
The most expensive turnstiles
And the aisles and aisles and miles
Of poetry in your eyes

I want to be like my wife Geri Lynne
Like my mom again
Like my grandchildren
Like my dad
Like my dear old granddad
But without the nasty Nazi tattoo on his hand
I want to maintain a bad boy image
Without having anyone mistake me for bad
To keep them from messing with me
Without keeping them in fear
And maybe then I won't be so sad
Around here

I want to have a certain semblance of madness
To infuse and inspire my art
But I don't want people to take me too seriously
When I appear to fall apart
Or think I'm really mad except in the most brilliant of ways

And I guess that what I want most these days
Is out of this daze I've been in
Since God-knows-who knows when

I'd like to be able to start again

I want to know who I actually am
And to be it
I want folks to see it
Man
Really see it
And not judge it and hopefully love it
And be what they are and love it
And I'll love it too

You know there's a part of me that thinks I'm really you
And yes, you're really me
And if we could just open our egotistical eyes and see it
We could love
Man
Really
And maybe love would be all we need after all

And I don't think things would get too terribly boring
With all this love and no warring
As long as we didn't all live forever
And overpopulate the earth
To the point that we suck her dry and
Destroy our chances of living at all

But we're doing that already anyway
And I wonder if our birth and being
Really complement the earth we're seeing
Or condemn it

And while we're feeling up the elephant in the room
Blind as bats and batty as Babe Ruth
We mistake the lie for truth and truth for lie
We swallow maxims like an eye for an eye
And wonder why we can't see
Maybe there is nothing real or untrue
But thinking makes it me 
And makes it you

I suspect I know all too well
That we're all Karamazovs
In handwritten Russian heavens and hells
Nabokovs
Molotovs
Kerouacs jacking off
We're all Mandela and Frederick Douglass and Crazy Horse
Stephen Biko and the Velvet Underground and Nico
Zorba the Greek and Nikos Kazantzakis
Who said in The Last Temptation of Christ that
"The doors to heaven and hell
Are adjacent and identical"
I'm willing to bet my chances at either-or
That they might just be the same door
That there might be only one door after all
And we're all pretending to see it
Like blind men looking at an elephant

One grabs the trunk and calls it a snake
One grabs the leg and calls it a pillar that will not break
One grabs only a whiff of the tail end
And calls it P.U.
But we fail to see it be you
And be me as much as it be him or her
Or B.M.

And all in all is all we are
Like Kurt Cobain said before he blew off his head
All in all is all we are
Despite our poetry
Or know-itry or no-itry
And one day we will know it
See
And if Kurt didn't really believe it all before
He said ciao and ka-pow
He does now.

        

T.M. Göttl at Joe Sundae's in Sandusky on Sunday 3 August 2008


This is the video that almost wasn't.  Almost everything that could happen did to prevent me from making the hour-long drive to Joe Sundae's in Sandusky to film a poetry reading that afternoon.

First of all, I was late leaving because I could not find my tripod - and I'd promised both Larry Smith and T.M. Göttl that I'd film the event.  Being that it would be my first videotaped poetry reading blog, I wanted everything to be perfect - and certainly didn't want to trust the camera to my shaking hand.  It might not shake at first.  But after two hours of filming I figured it would get tired and shake.  Plus, no tripod meant my hands wouldn't be free to take still photos with my other camera - and I'd have to trust someone else to handle the filming when I got up to read during the open mic.  I never did find the tripod.  And finally I couldn't wait a moment longer to leave home or I'd be late.

That's when our puppy Leda had diarrhea - just as I was about to walk out the door.  I couldn't just leave it there in her kennel!  She'd be covered in it by the time I came home.  

So I cleaned that up and was finally on the road, about to take the ramp onto Interstate 90 when I remembered where my tripod was - in the back of my wife's truck at her job in Grafton.  Too late for me to retrieve it now!  So while I was kicking myself for not remembering where it was sooner, I got on the Interstate... without thinking.  I'm used to 99% of all the poetry readings I attend being east of where I live, so I got on east I-90 before it hit me that for Sandusky I needed to go west.  I had to drive all the way to Avon before I could turn around - and so I was running even later. 

Going west finally, I decided to check my computer print-out of directions.  I knew there were four different Sandusky exits off the freeway, and figured it might be a good idea to know ahead of time which one I needed to follow.  That's when I realized that I was missing page two of the directions and would have no way of knowing how in the heck to get to Joe Sundae's, even if I knew which exit to take (which I didn't).  By this time, I knew I was going to be late already, and if I went home to get directions, I might as well not go to the reading at all, since I'd miss the featured reader and much of the open mic anyway.  The only options were go home and stay or press on - and I chose the latter.

I remembered the Taoist concept of being like water, as well as a line from a Beatles song, and I made up my mind to stop stressing out and just flow.  I thought, "I may not make it to the reading; but wherever I end up will be where I'm supposed to be." 

Then I fantasized about how nice it would be to have someone in front of me to "blaze a trail" to where I was going.  And just then a black Chevy TrailBlazer (no kidding!) with a license plate that read "JET" flew by me at over 90 miles per hour - and I said to myself, "I'm going to take that as a sign."  I pulled out, hit the accelerator and followed that truck from Elyria to Sandusky.  And for once there were no cops in sight.

As we were approaching Sandusky finally, I began to worry again about which exit to take.  That's when the TrailBlazer got in the lane to exit onto route 250.  Wow!  It then jerked back onto the Interstate at the last second and continued west.  But I imagined that the truck was sending me a message about where to get off - and I had no idea where I was going anyway - so I exited the freeway.

Then I was going north, closer and closer to dead-ending in Lake Erie.  All I knew was that the site of the poetry reading was on Washington Street.  But I'd given up on actually finding it - was already late - and started thinking I might just end up writing poetry on the Erie beach.  But a block before I got to the lake I saw a sign that read "Washington Street."  And before you could say Joe Sundae's I was exactly where I'd wanted to be all along.

I ran in the door - and found that my friend Dianne had saved a seat for me right up front.  I'd missed T.M.'s first three or so poems; but I was still able to catch the lion's share of her performance, including all of my favorite pieces.  The Beatles were right after all.  "There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."

Now you can be there, too.

Here's the video I shot of Göttl's featured reading, with as little editing as possible.  It's about 30-minutes long, but worth every second - and at the very end you'll see me interviewing the poet briefly.  

Pay no attention to the background coffeehouse noise that sometimes filters in from the other room.  Next time I'll get there early and run a line from the mic amplifier to my camera.

I also filmed the open mic portion of the event, which included me reading John Cage Engaged and Uncaged, as well as some fantastic performances by John Dorsey, Larry Smith, Dianne Borsenik, Zachary Moll, Rob Smith, RuthAnn Brooker, Jack Vanek, Dan Murphy and others.  But I'll save that for a future blog, so I can get this posted tonight.

If you haven't already, please order a copy of T.M. Göttl's fantastic book Stretching the Window here.

To check out T.M. Göttl's BuffaloZEF.net artist page, click here.

To visit T.M. on MySpace, the address is http://www.myspace.com/tmgottl.

She's also very involved in the Evening for Chuck benefit for Pancreatic Cancer, which will be held on Sunday, September 7th.  Please check out www.eveningforchuck.com for more information and to show your support for this very important cause.  Please!


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Coming attractions on my blog, besides some excellent Joe Sundae's open mic highlights, include video from the Jim's Coffeehouse open mic in Elyria on Thursday, video of Christopher Franke's featured Deep Cleveland reading at the Strongsville Borders on Friday, and highlights from the Strongsville open mic session (including me, more T.M. Göttl, and performances by a dozen other excellent poets).  A cornucopia of cool poetry in all shapes, sizes and colors....

Stay tuned!

Oh... and I ended up finding my tripod at home later that evening.  It wasn't in the truck after all.

        

Here's a poem I debuted publicly on 30 July 2008 at a venue that does NOT censor.
Gotta lotta positive feedback....
Would love to read it at one that DOES....
It's best if you hear it live.


Low Kay Shun


If you see Kay
Tell her I love her
Miss her
Wish she were on the menu

If you see Kay
Tell her I'm sorry
She's not allowed in this venue

Not sure why
Doesn't make much sense
Might have something to do with religion
Or the government.

Her friends Whore and War are welcome anytime
But if you see Kay
Tell her no way!
She can't come.

Most everyone else
Can come til they're dumb though.

A few other folks are welcome as long as
They wear the acceptable contextual clothes:

Dick Van Dyke
Can come as often as he likes
But buy him
Own him
Call him my Dick
And he's not welcome.

Billowy pussy willows
Can blossom and blow as they wish
But own one
Mention that "My pussy will O..."
You'll soon discover
That fair or bare or not
In this place
You're pussona non grata.

My Ps and Qs and I
Are free to come and go
And lie as often as we will

But if you see Kay
Tell her the powers that be
Have had their fill of her
And swill like her
Is barred from the menu
In this venue
By the men who'd rather
Go home and sin you
While warning a word like you
To not intrude on their poetry
Their peach
Pity free dumb of speech
In this low Kay shun.


[by Jesus Crisis, Summer 2008]

[self portrait from June 2007]

        

I hear-tell the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing was an "awesome" and "beautiful" event.

I hope I don't offend or hurt anyone's feelings.  I try to see the other side as well - and I concede that the Olympic Games in general aren't all bad, and even have a potential for good.  However, I feel compelled to share some of my honest feelings.  With all due respect.... 

I'm sure the opening ceremony was an awesome sight.  The best scripted movies can be awe-inspiring - like the Hummer and Cadillac Escalade can seem like awesome vehicles, especially if you let the advertising be your guide and ignore their contributions to unnecessarily polluting, helping destroy our world, and keeping us in dependence (slavery) to fossil fuels.  

I can't help but feel that McDonald's, General Electric, Coca-Cola, NBC and the other corporations who sponsor these Olympics are contributing to (and profiting from) a parallel form of destructiveness - making multimillion-dollar profits in collaboration with a murderous, civil-rights-repressing Chinese government - and making that profit-machine awe-inspiring and beautiful so we'll swallow it like a cold can of Sprite on a hot summer night. 

Forget the imprisoned and tortured Buddhist monks.  Forget the decimation of Tibetan culture.  Forget the kidnapping of the Panchen Lama.  Forget the persecution of Falun Gong practioners and other spiritual seekers.  Forget the tanks aiming to mow down peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators during the massacre at Tiananmen Square.  Forget it all, because Coke adds life, GE "brings good things to life," sports should be supported at all costs, and lest we forget, we Americans need some entertainment to go with our potato chips and Budweiser.  Maybe we'll win some gold medals, too, so we can flaunt our alleged superiority.  I wonder if competition trumps common sense in the land of the U.S. Mince?

Protesting showings of Leni Riefenstal's Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will in Holocaust-era Germany might have accomplished nothing, like protesting the Beijing Olympics might accomplish nothing.  But does that mean folks like us should just say "fuck it," sit back and enjoy the show - support the filmmakers, the movie houses that show it, and by proxy the spectacle's Nazi producers - all the while allowing our heads to be filled with propaganda over and over again?

I can't help thinking of a Dead Kennedys song title from the 1980's: Triumph of the Swill.

        

Today is 08/08/2008... a date that will live in infinity.  Ain't it great?

I wanted to post a long, cool blog to celebtrate, but I'm feeling a bit quiet and nostalgic.

I remember as a kid (in the early 1970s) being infatuated with the short little SchoolHouse Rock videos that got played during the commercial breaks between the longer Saturday morning cartoons.  I'd sit and endure shite like Aquaman, just so I wouldn't miss a SchoolHouse Rock clip.

Here's one appropriate for today and my accompanying mood.

        

Last Wednesday (30 July) I was privileged to partake of an unparalled poetic event at Lakewood's Madison Rose Bookstore.  Surreally sweet... and I exaggerate not.  Granted, I haven't been around the scene for as many years as some folks.  But in my experience with poetry readings, this was like no other.

It felt like one of those groovy Happenings from the Sixties I've read and heard about, or a high octane hootenanny where everyone's sitting around a bonfire getting each other off artistically, passing around a joint of creativity.  Good shit!  And it felt like the Spirit of unadulterated poetry was probing and penetrating the people there, flowing in a river of spilled "wine," song and surrender to whatever muse you might choose.  [Disclaimer: no literal drugs, wine or flames were present at Mad Rose that night - they weren't necessary.] 

Eight days later, I still have difficulty putting it into words.  So I'll just give you a list of flames... er, names.

Guilty poetic parties included featured readers dan smith and Ben Gulyas.  I've always liked dan and his work, and it's always a treat to hear him read, but I've never seen him more inspired and on fire than that night.  Hot!  And Beat-ish Ben Gulyas (who I'd never met before, though I dug his written words) was blazing, too - bringing a pile of kindling to the party and throwing an endless stream of poetic logs on the fire at perfect moments.  Multi-dimensional artist Jim Lang had a huge hand in feeding the Mad Rose fire as well - and when he broke out a photo slideshow and oriental music to accompany one of his pieces near the end, it felt like he'd just thrown gasoline on it.

Other hot hands on hand included Russ Vidrick, Terry Provost, Christopher Franke, Dianne Borsenik, Jack McGuane, J.E. Stanley, Steve Thomas and another cool poetic cat whose name I didn't catch.  Witnessing the conflagration were my wife Geri Lynne, a fellow taking photographs for the Observer, and our gracious Madison Rose hosts (who also provided free coffee and cookies!).

Issues with angles and lighting (and getting swept up in and "distracted" by the poetry) kept me from getting good photos of everyone.  But Dianne Borsenik has kindly allowed me to plunder some the pictures she took that night to supplement mine.  Behold these mugshots of the artistic arsonists:

Jesus and Geri pose pre-reading  [photo by Dianne]

dan smith and Ben Gulyas  [photo by JC]

Jim Lang  [photo by JC]

J.E. Stanley  [photo by JC]

Steve Thomas  [photo by JC]

Dianne Borsenik  [photo by JC]

Ben Gulyas  [photo by JC]

Terry Provost listens intently while Christopher Franke reads behind him
[photo by JC]

The poetic blaze continues  [photo by JC]

Gulyas shares a bit of flower power with Lang  [photo by Dianne]

I read "Rapists" after debuting my anti-censorship poem "If You See Kay"
[photo by Dianne]

dan the man  [photo by JC]

Still high on poetry after arriving home  [photo by Geri]

* * * * *

Check out the Madison Rose Bookstore calendar online at www.madisonrosebookstore.com to get hip to their upcoming sales and groovy art/music/poetry events.  It's a cool joint with cool people.

You know, it's a damn shame I didn't film this gig, so you could get the full effect.  But if you want to get a taste of dan smith and Ben Gulyas reading live, you can check out video of this dynamic duo (filmed by Andy Timithy on 14 December 2006) on the Literary Cafe's blog at http://literarycafe.net/blog/?p=48.

I did, however, film most of T.M. Göttl's fantastic featured reading (and the awesome open mic that followed) Sunday 3 August at Joe Sundae's in Sandusky.  I plan to post some of that video on my blog very soon.

Tonight (Thursday 7 August) I will be checking out an open mic at a new venue (for me, at least):