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November 5th, 2009
AGHA SHAHID ALI
The Wolf's Postcript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'
First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn't wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn't speak to strangers.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn't I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn't know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you'll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.
--
All Good Things - Jobe
PROSE POEMS
Arthur Rimbaud
Vagabonds
Pitiful brother—the dreadful nights I owed him! "I've got no real involvement in the business. I toyed with his weakness, so—it was my fault—we wound up back in exile and enslavement."
He saw me as a loser, a weird child; he added his own prods.
I answered my satanic doctor, jeering, and made it out the window. All down a landscape crossed by unheard-of music, I spun my dreams of a nighttime wealth to come.
After that more or less healthy pastime, I'd stretch out on a pallet. And almost every night, soon as I slept, my poor brother would rise—dry mouth and bulging eyes (the way he'd dreamt himself!)—and haul me into the room, howling his stupid dream.
Truly convinced, I'd vowed to take him back to his primal state—child of the sun—and so we wandered, fed on wine from the caves and gypsy bread, me bound to find the place itself and the code.
Ilya Kaminsky
from Deaf Republic: 6
Through Vasenka: a herd of boys runs. With their icy hands they haul a policeman and for an apple a look they display the man on the asphalt. Snow falls in his nostrils. I watch him. They circle his eyes with a red pencil. They teach his neighbors to spit in two red holes. I watch the snowflakes melt in their hair. The neighbor aims in the red circle, spits. I stand on a park bench and chew snow. Boys walk west of Tedna, carrying snowflakes in their hair. A neighbor aims in the hole, spits. Walking by night with their arms lifted up from their bodies. As if they were about to leave the earth. And were trying out the wind.
Russell Edson
Antimatter
On the other side of a mirror there’s an inverse world, where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the earth and recede to the first slime of love.
And in the evening the sun is just rising.
Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon childhood robs them of their pleasure.
In such a world there is much sadness which, of course, is joy . . .
Eloise Klein Healy
Asking About You
Instead of having sex all the time I like to hold you and not get into some involved discussion of what life means. I want you to tell me something I don’t know about you. Something about the day before that photograph in which you’re standing on your head. I want to know about softball and the team picture. Why are you so little next to the others? Were you younger? Were you small as a girl? What I want most is to have been a girl with you and played on the opposite team so I could have liked you and competed against you at the same time.
--
from Tim Kahl:
Presents
Jodi Angel, Valerie Fioravanti, Joey Garcia,
Paul Mann and Lynka Adams
Monday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 PM
HQ for the Arts at 1719 25th Street
Host: Bob Stanley
The Farallon Review will host a creative prose reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center. Monday, November 9, gathering at 7:00, reading 7:30 to 8:30. Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th Street (at R Street) in midtown Sacramento. Featuring: Jodi Angel, Valerie Fioravanti, Joey Garcia, Paul Mann, Lynka Adams. Free admission, with copies of the new issue of The Farallon Review for sale!
www.farallonreview.com
Jodi Angel’s first collection of short stories, The History of Vegas, was published in 2005 by Chronicle Books. The collection was named as a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005 as well as a LA Times Book Review Discovery. Her short story “Portions” was selected for Special Mention for the 2007 Pushcart Prize and has also been adapted into an independent short film. Her work has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Sycamore Review, and Carve Magazine, among other publications. She currently teaches literature and fiction writing at UC Davis and Sacramento City College.
Valerie Fioravanti writes fiction, essays, and prose poems. Her story collection, The Brooklyn Shuffle, was recently a finalist for the Tartt First Book Award. Her stories have appeared in North American Review, Cimarron Review, Hunger Mountain, and Green Mountains Review, among others. My stories and prose poems have earned four Pushcart Prize nominations, and special mention in Pushcart Prize XXVIII. I received a Fulbright Fellowship (Italy) to research my novel, Bel Casino, which is one of two novels currently in the works.
Joey Garcia is a certified spiritual direction counselor, but is most widely known for her weekly advice column, “Ask Joey,” which has been firmly entrenched within the pages of the Sacramento News & Review.
Paul Mann is a defense investigator for inmates on California’s death row.
Lynka Adams (aka “Moontrout”) is a writer, sometime antiquarian book dealer, daughter, wife and mother, seeker of Essential Beauty and the spirits in the night from which all creativity springs. She was born in the year of the snake.
--
from Connie Post:
VALONA DELI SECOND SUNDAY POETRY SERIES
SUNDAY November 8th 4 - 6 p.m
1327 Pomona Street Crockett
Hosted by Connie Post
Our Featured Poets are
Armando Garcia Davila and Peter Tamases
Armado Garcia Davila's poetry has been featured in Spanish and English newspapers and periodicals and he has readhis work on national radio. A former Healdsburg Literar Laureate, and co founder of the Poetry Slam series at Sonoma County Library, Armando has been and Arts and lecture series Presenter at Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University. His bilingual poetry book Out of my Heart is in its third printing and his love peoms have been set to music by acclaimed Jazz saxophonist Michael Boliar on Armando's CD YES!
Although Peter Tamases wrote his first poem in 2007 (in his seventieth year) his work has already appeared in a number of literary journals. Peter, who holds degrees from Columbia and Stanford Universities, was a finalist for the Arts & Letters 2008 Rumi competition. A liveley performer at Valona Deli OPen Mics he is currently finishing his first full collection with the intruging title
Waiting for Viagra to Kick in
Remember!
The Valona Deli "Take One Leave One" Lending Library
Bring one Poetry journal to donate and take one from the lending Library.
(please no donations of local poets' books and really "take one, leave one"
For our wonderful open mic: (One of the best open mics in the Bay Area!)
Please always bring a "back up" short poem (20 lines or less) ! In case we have a very large crowd, everyone can be heard with the "lightening round" open mic if necessary! Otherwise, bring a poem 40 lines or less for open mic.
Remember to stay for the wonderful Terry Henry Trio Jazz at 6 p.m.!
Please contact me with questions
Connie@poetrypost.com
--
All Good Things - Jobe
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