POETRY

So I took part in a poetry reading Thursday evening at the Montclair NJ public library. It was the publication reading for the 50th issue of the poetry mag LIPS, founded in 1980, and edited then and since, by Laura Boss who has sustained it with the help of Jim Gywn, and both are to be commended.

It was one of the best group poetry readings I've been to in many years, and the reason is because everyone who read a poem from this issue read well and all the poems were good, many of them simply terrific. I highly recommend you buy a copy of LIPS 50.

Here's the poem I read and is in the mag:

TIME CASTS A SPELL

I have no fuckin’ clue what that’s supposed to mean.
Time is a human invention.
What’s a date to a fly?
What’s a day to a fly?
A lifetime.
What’s a day to a tree?
One breath.
Does my hair mean the 1960s has cast a spell on me?

Maybe it means the reason I love to watch
Old black-and-white movies on TV is
Because they remind me of my childhood
When my parents were still alive
And my three oldest brothers and
My oldest sister who I adored
And my aunts and uncles and older
Cousins and despite, or because of, the war
And all its horrors and the post-war challenges
The future looked bright and inviting
and my immortality certain.

Or, maybe it means despite the ways you’ve aged
When I heard your voice it brought back every
Moment of pleasure and joy we shared when
We both were young enough to still be ambitious
But old enough to appreciate an interruption of
That to take time for new love.

Or maybe it just means I’m old
But carry with me in every moment
The sum of my experiences
The total array of emotions and
Thoughts and all that I’ve witnessed.
So that in any situation or circumstance
The history of my life is there
With me, reminding me of how
Much time matters
When there’s so little left
To cast its spell.