Friday, April 30, 2010

POETRY READING

On Wednesday, May 12th, at 8PM at St. Mark's Church, 2nd Ave. & 10th St. NYC, me and my old friend Ray DiPalma will read some of our poems. My first reading since the brain surgery. But as I said in the Facebook notice I made about this (my friend Jamie walked me through the technical routine to do it, have I said how much I don't like Facebook before?) don't expect me to sing. Though I do take a lot of different approaches to "the poem" and always have.

Here's one I took not long before the surgery:


NOW

Can you
believe
this sh*t?

I know
it’s all
mostly
contrived
but man
alive.

Or not
if the
“socialist”
“fascist”
“foreign-
born”
“terrorist”
gets his
way with
us old
men.

And women.

Like that one
collapsing in
tears sobbing
“I want my
America back…”

And yes some
of us see the
implied racism
in all that. But

it’s so
much
more.

A door
is closing
in their
universe
and they’re
afraid they’ll
be locked
inside forever.

They, and
even some
of us, can’t
see there’s
a window
still wide
open on the
other side.

The window
that’s letting
all that fresh
air in. Let
the future
begin...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one! And very skinny.
TPW

Anonymous said...

Dear Lal,
Remember this schoolyard rhyme?

Go in and out the window,
Go in and out the window.
Go in and out the window,
As we have done before.

We must not let "them" close the window.

Nice Chops, Bro,

Bob B.

Jamie Rose said...

Love this lals.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

As Mr. Shakespeare says, via Hamlet: (fear of death) "makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of." Conversely, my boooey Thich Nhat Hanh says, in concurrence with your poem, "In order for things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them."

Wish i could be at your reading!

Lally said...

Thanx guys. (That goes for you too Jamie.)