New Poem: FRAGILE

 impressed with your confidence 

 but wasn’t alert to your shades

 of discomfort discontent dissociation 

 just thought you’ll have a good life

 doesn’t matter if I’m not included 

 years later, didn’t expect your obituary 

 read the funeral home website guestbook 

 plenty of condolences for your partner 

 but only three people mourning you

 >

 wish there had been more true friends you trusted

 to confess I’m in misery I’m broken I want out It’s too much

 and have them drop everything to come to

 your side and help you find ways forward

New Poem: KEEP REPEATING

 neglect absence anger

 helicoptering

 demanding not explaining

 hovering

 hit hard say it’s a love pat

 screaming 

 give you some of what you want

 beseeching 

 if I could I’d pay her to date you

 belittling

 study hard harder 

 encouraging 

 don’t trust you not to be your brother

 discouraging 

 spend the summer away from bad people 

 limiting

 love me regardless of how you turn out

 trying 

 really really trying

 too afraid of your disappointment disapproval 

 accepting 

 accepting

 way too accepting 

 just can’t say no to you

 

New Poem: HOSPICE

 pencils down, no closure

 look at my mother 

 who almost never speaks

 existing but not living

 I’m in the hospice room 

 three days of visiting

 she only says my name once

 hospice nurse calls in from another location 

 involved with an assisted suicide 

 my mother would never want that

 sometimes she eats and drinks water

 but after I flew home to California 

 she stopped eating, water unswallowed

 waiting to see whether this changes

 or if I need to tell the hospice nurse

 to begin the morphine treatment 

 >

 when I patted her hand covered by blanket 

 she briefly opened her eyes 

 

 

New Poem: ALL ABOUT THAT OIL

 all about that oil that oil that oil

 see price per barrel go up up up

 if a hard-liner takes over, Donald doesn’t care

 CIA tries to manufacture people’s rebellion 

 just you wait for Donald and Benjamin to walk away

 because it’s all about that oil that oil that oil

New Poem: IT FADES EVENTUALLY

 all the times when you were cheated disappointed thwarted

 going along and burying misgivings to make others satisfied 

 decades pass and it’s too late to demand apologies 

 make the best of where you are in the days/years remaining 

 no more poems about being thrown out of cars, off of trains

 just deep mind-clearing breaths before entering the room 

R.I.P. Larry Jaffe

Just read on Facebook about the passing away of Larry Jaffe. New Yorker, Californian and, of late, Floridian.  Larry, along with the late Donn Deedon, hosted the Poetic License readings in Pasadena/Hollywood (Melrose)/Los Feliz/Silverlake.

His raucous informality as host and poet/storyteller gathered a large following of poets in various stages of developing both writing craft and stage presence.  

This was a time when SoCal readings—populist and elevated—thrived.

By 2002, the L.A. scene began to crave formality and a tighter standard as to features (mostly limited to prestige small presses and MFA degree holders).  Larry, perhaps sensing this shift, began hosting a reading at the Autry Museum which, after an initial evening resembling the Poetic License of yore, became shorter and more subdued afterwards and limited in terms of features plus invited poets with less time allowed (no open readers as I recall).

If memory is correct, Larry did host a one-off reading at the Rainbow Grill at the Sunset Strip around 2004.  It was  more in the Poetic License tradition and the last time I encountered him in person.

I was never allowed into the inner circle of Poetic License (writing this now as a neutral observation), but I did like to go to its readings and made a few friends/acquaintances there.

Essentially, Larry, Donn, Midnight Special’s Olin Tezcatlipoca and Joan Zoric and Pasadena’s Don Kingfisher Campbell and Jack Bowman were quite influential on my ventures in this subculture between 1998-1999.  Regardless of how the later years turned out, I’m glad to have met and learned from them.

Revised Poem: BEHIND YOUR CURTAIN VERSION 3

Behind your curtain

was a stage flat that looked like a brick wall

I hoped the wall would never change

You used to bless me with teenage smiles

then the smiles stopped justlikethat 

and everything I did got on your nerves

so I closed my curtain 

and never again stepped out for encores

>

Over two decades later,

I visited a restored home 

in West Los Angeles

the owner had a living room curtain 

pulled open to reveal a picture window 

displaying a view of a flower garden,

a swimming pool,

and a charming guest house

>

It’s the kind of sight

you would have loved

in the year

when we were both fifteen 

and wanted to become working actors 

before my parents and yours reprogrammed us

no more live that dream

it became renounce that dream

because it wasn’t….practical 

New Poem: THREE WHITE DOPES

 Stephen Miller’s literal whitewashing 

 Spraying from the Presidential mouth

 At an international function used to decorum 

 As Kayleigh tries to create the alternate reality—

 OH, THEY JUST LOVED OUR DEAR LEADER—

 And at least 62 percent of Americans brace for 

 Another  broadside smash from the Trump bumper car