![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
It was BBQ on paper plates
mood: 
chipper
chipper
Debra Nystrom
Outer Banks
—reading Chekhov
Like cool silk billowing, the breeze brushes my arm
and is gone; one after another, spent waves hurry over
the sand as if to offer something, then take it back;
you would laugh if you were here, at the little biplane
puttering above the sea to trail its ad, STEAMED
CLAMS AND DANCING AT DAN'S, the letters
threading through the roar that absorbs them and
the puttering, gull-screes, kids' squealing, low voices
of the couple under the nearest umbrella—desperate, it
seems, to solve something after their long walk—still
kissing now and then, running their hands over one
another, but talking on and on, his head shaking as she
covers her face for a time. I look away and read, listen
to the surf's peeling off at an angle from the ocean in
sheets—four huge unravelings repeat, one after another:
lower sounds down the beach, higher, highest right before
us, then deepest beyond, while wind lifts my sleeve and
collar again, trails hair across my face, echoes in my ear
to toy with the birds' tearing cries, children's giggles,
distinct phrase of the man—'we will think of something'—
ribboning over the sand, then drowned in the larger noise
of water borne up from below to wash over us.
Debra Nystrom's newest collection of poems is Bad River Road, either forthcoming or just out from Sarabande Books.
--
Taylor Graham
Lies Of A Mountain Moon
That night I rode a silver stallion over the Sierra passes,
scouting out the route. OK, it was a small white Honda
I was driving up the four-lane headed east not west, away
from sunset; timing wrong for dawn. Moon a hair past
full. I joined up with all those adventurers who pressed on
through deserts, over granite goat paths, to the stopover-
ranch in a grove of cedars. Cars and pickups parked every-
which way. What a feast was laid out for us dusty, travel-
weary folk. It was BBQ on paper plates, and what a line;
some of us still waiting for our grub when the festivities
began. Poetry with sweet accompaniment of music. Bass,
guitar, and fiddle hired for the country-western dance
to come. When I stepped up to the mic, the crowd went
silent, chewing on their ribs and buttered biscuits.
How a poem transforms everything. Of course, mine
was scant on rhyme, it lacked the cowboy meter. Might
I say, it was more Pegasus than buckskin. But nobody
booed me off the stage. I flew my silver stallion
all the way back home with headlights.
--
Also from Taylor Graham:
Upstairs Poetry reading next Wednesday, June 24 from 6 to 7 p.m. at The Upstairs Art Gallery, 420 Main St (2nd floor), Placerville. It's a poetry open-mike read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen. No charge.
We hope to see you there!
--
Presents
Julia Levine and Nancy Bodily
Monday June 22, 2009 at 7:30 PM
HQ for the Arts at 1719 25th Street
Julia Levine is the author of three books of poems Practicing for Heaven (Anhinga, 1999), Ask (University of Tampa Press, 2003), Ditch-Tender (University of Tampa Press, 2007). She has published in many journals, including Ploughshares, The Nation, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner and Crab Orchard Poetry Review. She lives and works in Davis, California as a clinical psychologist.
Julia Levine
Let Us Empty This Room of Facts
While children fly through the indoor pool, squealing,
wingbuds of their missing arms and legs,
a threshold
where weight slides most easily into water.
The stump is innocent.
The three-legged boy, fluid as a seal.
I take a shower listening to two girls
in the stalls beside mine, singing,
picturing the city out those windows:
rain arguing bitterly with the bay,
taxis ferrying all the joined and perfect couples.
What does it mean to say something is missing?
One of the girls holds her towel with her teeth,
Her arm ending like a sausage, taut and handless.
Admit it.
It’s not the loneliness
that makes you stare.
It’s the fear
you might never embody the damage
of your life
as they do —
wholly, exactly as it is.
Nancy Bodily has worked as a journalist and has recently set her sights on becoming a registered nurse. She lives in Davis with her husband and daughter, Cassidy. She is the DJ for Earth Mama Mountain Music Hour on KDRT in Davis. She is the next-door neighbor of James Lee Jobe.
Nancy Bodily
Chance
That time we were in lab
all 30 of us skinning our cats
and coming to terms with their mortality
and our burden
formaldehyde dripping from our clothes
and spirits
then we opened the door
to find a celebration
complete with hors d’oeuvres, wine
and a cat on a leash sitting in the lap of an artist
whose work was a pinion root
formed in the curve of a woman
deep in the throes of an orgasm
that time seemed too much of a coincidence
or the time I fucked Jim Morrison
in a dream
house in my hometown
and I could smell him all muley and sweet
and taste his essence in the veggie/feta omelet
I swallowed eagerly that morning
while studying and listening to
"love you two time babe"
as it blasted from hidden speakers
in the always quiet cafeteria
that time seemed too much of a coincidence
bombarded now by pithy playground language
of parents planning a mom’s group
where they can drink warm milk with their babies
and talk about the weather
while I’m sitting here on this picnic table
jonesing for flamenco and a shot of tequila
and that time, coincidence gave way to every day
--
All Good Things. Jobe.