For the first time, I went to New York to read for Cave Canem at their poetry series at The New School. The date I was given—2/20/20—felt auspicious and unavoidable. I was briefly concerned about being able to get time off work, but realized, broke and foolish or not, I’d quit my job over that …
The Trip
Aaron*, (Not his real name) whom I’d known since college, a man who knew my parents at least distantly, is now one of the few elders in my life and therefore one of the few I would trust in the way we trust elders and family. We talk and are honest with one another but …
Closure
1. Featuring: NYC Reading My first ever reading and visit to New York happens February 20th at the New School. I always wondered how or why I’d first visit NYC—apparently I have to be invited. I’m the Dracula of Poetry; you invite me in, I may never leave. Actually, I haven’t broached taking time off from work …
I Am Trying To Say A Few Things
We haven’t spoke in forever. I think of you often, wanting to push words, sweet as flowers, towards you in offering. But truth told my heart aches. My words gets stuck, behind my sternum, wanting to emerge. But they flap noisily in vain. I’m alright. I’m fine. I want to say something. But what? …
PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award
My book, Black Steel Magnolias In The Hour Of Chaos Theory, has been awarded the 2019 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. I'm honored to stand along with fellow poet, Vernon Keeve, in the ceremony on December 7. Info on the event can be found here. You're owed a longer story, check-in, but all I got …
Listening To Marian Anderson Sing Go Down Moses For The First Time on Vinyl
Hear it yourself on Archive The vinyl noise floor of a 78 sound of an enflamed red curtain opening to an audience of ghosts filling the black air A piano primes the ether in an imagined drawing room All these years this song was launched in bass throat cannons To hear it aloft, living through …
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The Introverted Stand-Up
I was scheduled to read at a backyard poetry event in West Oakland on a Saturday. Days after agreeing, I was coincidentally asked to read again in San Francisco that same night. I hate having to read on weekends. Can't say why, I'm just stingy with them. So even the thought of this made me …
Found Poetry: Uncombable Hair Syndrome
Uncombable Hair Syndrome (UHS) is a rare structural anomaly of the hair shaft and usually appears in childhood It is characterized by dry, frizzy, silvery-blond or straw colored hair that's disorderly It stands out from the scalp and cannot be combed flat, according to the National Institutes of Health. the stiffness of Uncombable Hair has …
Writers Block
The awful virus of it; the expectations of genius Arising out of nothing mere attention to the banal I’ve gotten old enough to just watch and wait. Here’s a old haiku just for writers block: Disobedient poems! They never come When you call. Heel, u sombitch. Heel. But even if I sat in the grass …
Strangers
The day of this interview, I took lunch and sat in the café downstairs from work. The café is awful; the items pretty and sweet and pointless. It rained noisily. I sat facing a boiling puddle and listened as close I could to the reporter on the phone. His voice warm and friendly, his questions …
The Dirty Rat 