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Showing posts from November, 2022

Thursday, November 24, 2022: John Grey's "Tijuana Market" and "Today in Finland"

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© 2022 marie c lecrivain John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Red Weather . Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Rathalla Review, and Open Ceilings . Tijuana Market  So many stalls, so many Che Guevara tee-shirts, an occasional benign Christ, pyramids built of onion and peppers and a Mariachi band playing for atmosphere and tips. Old women smothered in fibers, their earth-colored rugs weaved with cochineal fingers, and so much corn on the cob soaked with butter, and DVD’s of masked wrestlers. Hammocks for the weary, quetzals for the quick eye, and serapes the size of blankets, hats large and exaggerated enough for tourists to wear

Monday, November 14, 2022: Colin James's "Heaven, I'm in Heaven"

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                                                                                                                       Edvard Munch Bio: Colin James has a couple of chapbooks of poetry, Dreams Of The Really Annoying from Writing Knights Press, and A Thoroughness Not Deprived Of Absurdity from Pski's Porch Press. He lives in Massachusetts. Heaven, I'm In Heaven Edvard Munch will greet me. He's wearing a three piece tweed suit procured during his frequent trips to Savile Row. Impressive sideburns. We are standing in an empty room with an oak floor and a cheesy cloud and sky wallpaper. Our conversation is monosyllabic regarding the tardy Ibsen. At this very moment there is no need for a ferris wheel's just pure, passive symbolism. © 2022 Colin James

Monday, November 7, 2022: Mark States' "Avenue of Dreams"

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Mark States has written three poetry collections ( Reinvention from Mother's Hen in 1995, Grip of the Past from CC Marimbo Communications in 2000, and Tongue Control from The Laguna Poets Series #215 from The Inevitable Press in 2001).  Former host of Poetry Express (Berkeley, CA 2002-2011) and facilitator of the Public Speaking for Poets workshops at the Berkeley Art Center, Mark has appeared in such publications as Oakland’s Neighborhoods, Oracle, Poetalk, and the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly ; and on-line in Poetrymagazine.com, The November 3 rd Club and poeticdiversity.com . He currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. AVENUE OF DREAMS The last time I visited Nana’s house – in the passenger seat of a late-1970s Chevy as my friend the driver nervously watched the people on the block nervously watching us – it was an hour or so before sundown in East Oakland. She’d been dead 8 or 9 years, house sold, now two pickup trucks in the driveway and children’s toys s

William Allegrezza's "Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah"

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​​   William Allegrezza edits the press Moria Books , Moss Trill , and teaches at Indiana University Northwest . He has published many poetry books, poetry reviews, articles, translations, short stories, and poems. He founded and curated series A, a reading series in Chicago, from 2006-2010. More information about him can be found at https://www.allegrezza.info.   Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah 1. A red cliffs looms above me. The birds  Play. A mule deer grazes  near the creek’s edge.    Last night I hiked through  a gulch with hanging ledges and a dried creek bed  filled cacti.     I would like  to soak in the stillness and take it back to the  rush of daily life.  2. My daughter tells me that she  has just seen a hummingbird, and I think she must be  mistaken for the desert surely is no place for  such a creature,  but then one stops  briefly near me. I need to throw away what  I think I know to be open like a child to the magic before me.  3.   The birds screech  at me for my