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
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.
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
