Scheduled Readers

2008-11-11T11:38:00.001-08:00

The purpose of this blog is to promote the upcoming poetry event titled, "As We Speak...", which will be held at Bela Dubby. 13321 Madison Ave. (just West of 117th), Lakewood, Ohio 44107, 216-221-4479.

What is Bela Dubby?"We are an art/coffee house in Lakewood. We serve Phoenix brand Fair-Trade roasted coffees and a great selection of microbrews. Brooklyn Beer exclusively on tap. Art shows every month. Live original music. Free WiFi, kid friendly and non-smoking. Comfy vintage kitchen tables, chairs and couches. Great place to read a book, run the home office, check yer email, drink coffee or have a beer and order from a local pizzaria for delivery right to bela dubby."

C. Allen Rearick

Bio: C. Allen Rearick lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a core member of The Guerilla Poetics Project. His work as appeared in such online and print journals as: Remark, Zygote In My Coffee, Identity Theory, Mad Hatters' Review, Poesy, Opium, Dogmatika and much more. His chapbook, Through These Eyes, is available from Tainted Coffee Press (2008). He has a split chapbook with U.K. poet Miles J. Bell forthcoming from Criminal Class Press. Visit him online at: Myspace and his personal blog.

Read a Review of "Through These Eyes"

Poem:

REQUIEM IN STILL LIFE

Bogie was 14 when we moved
from Cleveland to North Ridgeville.
He had survived a year in
that strange house. Multiple layers
of stairs leading to big empty rooms,
a backyard too open for a dog his
age to roam, and the quietness,
yes, the extreme noiselessness of
it all for him and everyone else
around like shadows moving along
funeral parlor walls. I don’t know
what had kept him alive for that time,
laying there whining, half-asleep,
seizing, our pit pull licking
the gray in his tired, worn jowls,
the bare spots of his auburn fur,
his massive tumors. My father
knew what he had to do, we all did.
And I remember hating him for it,
hating him for a lot of things.
A man can break a thousand times
and never show emotion.
But that afternoon, after my father
had placed a dirty rag, soaked
in nail polish remover to the dog’s
mouth, a pool of molasses
in a garage filled with other things
my father loved – socket sets, gas
cans, a 1984 Harley Davidson
Electra Glide, creamy white and
chromed, his father’s black and red
1946 Dodge pick-up truck, I saw
for only the second time in my life
my father cry. I said nothing, didn’t
need to. I just put an arm around
his shoulder, hugged and comforted
him, his face pressed hard into hands
too tired to hold up his head.
The nauseating stench of acetone
and sadness in our nostrils like
a torch-song setting fire to the

garage.

Dianne Borsenik

Bio: A former flowerchild and current redhead, Dianne Borsenik believes in karma, music, and the films of Quentin Tarantino. Active in the local poetry scene, her signature poem "Lovechild" has been riding the buses and trains of Cleveland as part of the 2008 RTA "Moving Minds" project, and she co-produces the ongoing Lix and Kix poetry event. Her poems, haiku, and lyrics have appeared in, among others, Slipstream, Nerve Cowboy, Voices of Cleveland, The Magnetic Poetry Book Of Poetry, Frogpond, Ko (Japan), Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac, Lyricist Review, The City Poetry, and Zygote In My Coffee.

Poem:

PINK HELL

the other day

I read

where someone had written

that hell

was not black and hot

after all

(you know

all vast and vaporous

brimstone

and lake-of-fire)

but pink and wet

and I'm not sure

how they knew that

but it made sense to me

I can see hell being all

squishy and squirmy

and uncomfortably moist

worm-ridden

and dank-smelling

like the worst basement

you've ever been in

its floor yielding

to your footsteps

like slippery mud

only it’s not mud

but blood

or mucus

or some other

pink-tinged

viscous

body fluid

with its puckered walls

closing in

swelling about you

like the muscles

of a uterus

around a fetus

and I can see where

you could find yourself

unable to back out

once you've entered in

feeling all

panicky

trapped

and claustrophobic

and you can't catch

your breath

and you can't see

an inch before you

only that damned

gelatinous

pinkness

and you're engulfed

and you know

it's too late now

nothing is ever born

again here

John Dorsey

Bio:

John Dorsey currently resides in Toledo, OH. He is the author of "Harvey Keitel, Harvey Keitel, HarveyKeitel" with S.A. Griffin and Scott Wannberg,Butchershop Press/Rose of Sharon Press/Temple of Man,2005, and "Moshing With The Cosmos" with Iris Berry,Magenta Press, 2005. He can be reached at mailto:atmarcherevans@yahoo.com

Poem:

kansas city

your dreams crush bones
in waning cigarette light
poets we have become
the last of the
dinosaurs maybe we always
were our death song
strung together with the
moonlight melodies of
afterhours jazz if art
tatum was here now
would you still call
me a drunken butterfly
just because i want
to go back into
the chrysalis with a torch
just because i'm here
still pounding on the
chest of every person
i meet in every
alley just to see
if they're still alive
if i was dead
you'd call me a patriot

if i see a ghost
mouthing words i will
cut a paper heart
out for them place it
in a shotglass and
swallow a sunset even
if it means spitting
up dinosaur bones every
night searching through the
remains of heaven as
if it was a plane crash

if i was merely
dreaming when art "superman" pennington
asked all us wordslingers
to join the second
coming of the negro
leagues why has jackie
robinson been leaving me
urgent voicemails every day
since i got here

no my ball went over
that fence a long
long time ago i
can't steal the bases
in my prayers back
i wouldn't want to
rosa parks has been
using them as a pillow

"superman" said he didn't
see the floods coming
who knew that christ's
favorite sexual position was
the french horn

when someone said that
we're all invisible inside
the sun i questioned
the existence of ghost colored marbles

Zach Moll

Bio:

Zachary Moll lives in Ohio with his son. The twenty two year old spends his time with cameras and pens when not slinging eggs for dimes. His poetic and photographic work has been featured in a variety of journals and magazines, but we know that doesn’t mean much. Come see him read at Bela Dubby's!

Poem:

Aneeda

Aneeda-

She rose

Like the devil

Reaching out for a soul,

Chilling bones with her heel

And sauce walk,

The up and down bobbing of her eager steps

And heads adjacent

Following the flow of pure

Intrepid life force,

Blooming confidence,

Breathing in temptation

And exhaling stars,

Moonbeam beauty streaking

Through the room

In red dress rememberment,

A mission brought her here,

Slummin’ with goofs and sharks

In a thick smoke to which

She played shark fin,

Honest if trusted,

Empty if seen,

Standing proudly at the helm

Of her newly appointed course-

Life in her hands and

No other,

Marionette to none-

Now soaking in the faces shocked,

Stunned at this unchained hunger

Stalking round the bit,

Looking for that piece been missin’,

Love been gone,

A companion of flesh and venture

To help prod the wonder,

A poor stained angel is the fact,

A bottomless pool of

Crystal clear conscience

And love could be,

So deep and pure it looks

Like nothing but a nice plunge,

Empty girl showing her goods

With dog show excitement,

Advertising a future

In hopes to ease the present,

Hungry,

Longing,

Bait.

Robert Fraser

Bio:

Robert Fraser is a Cleveland based poet who has been writing for 15 years. His first book “Poems for The Short-Term Memory” was published in 2007 by Cornerstone Book Publishers. He is the poet and singer of the poetry rock band Hobo/Monk which has enabled him to bring his work to a wide range of people during their live performances. He is currently finishing work on his next book, while doing readings, and touring with the band. Give his work a read or listen at:
www.myspace.com/poetrobertfraser.

Poem:

Hobo Divination

I saw the last whiskey man martyr –
Quenching his beliefs
While pissing in an alley corner,
Soon to be preaching woe after woe
By a cardboard home with a newspaper roof.
Passing the bottle back and forth
With dirty hands
Like it’s oxygen.

Down and out in the eyes
A defeated hunger in an unwashed mouth.
Drinking – Drinking and Drinking
To his health –
Where ever it may be.

In the winter so cold
In the summer so muggy
Cardboard walls don’t hold up well when wet –
Using such architectural necessities
Like trash bags and duck tape.

Leftover delicacies
Loose change investors
Luggage of pop cans and bottles –
So he can get a few dollars for his troubles.

His back is sore and dirty.
His hands are weathered, and cigarette stained.
His face long stretched with sorrow and life.

It’s too easy to envy and hate –
So he does it.
It’s harder to smile –
So he tries not so often.

Barrel drum fire for warmth -
Standing with a hole in his boot,
Whistling a tune
He thought he had forgotten.

He takes another drink…

Fire flashing shadows
On dirty brick walls –
The streets are busy
But he doesn’t care.

He starts talking to a girl
That ran away from Home.

He tells her of his life-
How he has seen this city at its worst –
From death – to theft – to jailing,
He has looked out from behind
Cold steel bars of withholding
More times than he’d care to recall.

These streets are filled
With a heartless chill, and stale air –
So you may re-breathe the pains of your life.

All dreams are lost
When all you eat
Is a daily meal of regret.

He coughs loud with cigarette phlegm, and whiskey.

She looks at him terrified –
With a shiver from cold and fear.

He has seen that look before in the alley -
She is making a choice on how to survive.

He says with heart and hunger -
“This is as good as it gets ya know,
When you’re in the alley by the fire”,
And she starts crying.

J. Lester Allen

Bio:

J. Lester Allen currently resides in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where heworks as a part-time postal employee. He has had numerous piecespublished throughout the small press in such publications as: KillPoet, Debris Magazine, Red Fez, Underground Voices, CP Journal, BrainBox, Poetry Warrior, Heroin Love Songs, MEAT, Gloom Cupboard, TheBeatnik, Eviscerator Heaven, Off Beat Pulp, Up The Staircase, decomP,Opium Poetry & Seven Circle Press.His work has also been included in "The Beards" anthology released2008 by Tainted Coffee Press of Ohio.You can reach him at: http://us.mc379.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lesterjallen@gmail.com or on myspace at:www.myspace.com/mad-cap.

Poem:

DUNGEON CRAWL

I bathe my thoughts in
the stomachs of frogs
happy for your smile
the bright wind cannot touch me
the fly I am ice-cream cool
in the many eyes of Christ

it is the same for all of us, I'd
imagine
we find our voices in the
rings of trees
in the reflections of
ancient armor while searching carefully
for point of entry with one
thrust
through flesh
and bone
then finally the victory of blood the sound
of joints
resigning
as the beast collapses at your feet
twitching just a little
then still

at this point two words of advice:

expose only enough weakness
to lure them in and never
lower your sword

with any luck at all

they will never
quit coming.

As We Speak...

2008-11-11T05:49:00.000-08:00