What I Want, by Joe Mahay at Capitola Book Cafe

What I Want

 

What I Want can’t really be written because
I wouldn’t want to admit it even to myself.
Part of it is dark; part of it is risque;
Part of it no one can know.

What I might SAY I Want
Would be said only to please others -
Love, caring, comfort, freedom from
Pain and death

I MIGHT even want world peace;
Certainly want to stop brutality,
Human trafficking, squalor, needless disease.

I Want my children to be happy
I Want my mother to die before indignity
I’d love to be able to freely share and communicate
with my siblings without prejudice

I’d like to be open to change and growth
to die with dignity myself
to age with grace and equanimity

I’d like to choose easily to wear outlandish hats
and garish colors that please only myself

I’d love to have waves break over me
without fear of the undertow;
feel the strength of a whale,
warmth of the Sun.

I Want to take my youngest granddaughters on a trip
to the other side of the world.
Watch them wonder at the different ways people live.
To carry them on my shoulders
and have them laugh!

I’d love to watch the leaves turn pink and purple and back to pink,
fade to translucent blush, waft on to the stream,
float out of sight.

I Want to stop writing right here, but not before
tasting the lips and touching the skin of Naomi.

But, since I can’t stop, I’ll Want some more:

Good coffee, down quilts, warm fireplace, a nice pinot
(a little on the fruity side), dreamless sleep, time
reminiscing about old friends and old times
with smiles returning on people from long ago.

Passionate politics, dreams of perfection,
visiting with Michelangelo or Da Vinci -
even Jefferson or Franklin would do.

I’ve really got to bail on this project.

I can start again -

I want to be free from ringing in my ears,
from wanting my mind to be numbed.
To be able to tolerate more
discord, disjunction, dismay, disappointment.
Let the buzz reverberate before trying to turn it off.

It would be great to just “go for it” without
worrying about what happens to the rest of the world or to others.
Just serve myself.

Bob Dylan said, “You’ve gotta serve somebody”.
I say “Why not serve yourself”.
Now I’m getting too close to the first part of my song.
Need to stop now - too dark.
Don’t want to know.

Nice Catch, by Alicia Wright

 Nice Catch

The shopper stalks her prey in the retail jungle.
She eyes an evergreen cashmere sweater
from across the room.
The flourescent lights bare down,
causing her to sweat;just barely.
She makes a half circle,rearing back
And taking long strides towards her catch.
Arms upward,reaching outward for the
stretch towards the hopeful gain.
Clutching the warm,soft and fuzzy sweater closely
with both hands.
The hunt is over.
Until,just out of the corner of her eye,the shopper
spots a plaid wool skirt.
For a true shopper,the hunt for fashion is neverending.

Shopping, by Anne-Louise Vernon

Shopping (1) 

Shopping.
Poor creatures.
Searching…..
Magpie glitter, a hollow longing,
all too attractive, cajoling, and fine.
Threads of what we hope will hold us together.
Promise, intoxication, a giddy hunter’s thrill.
Indulgence, regret, then back to square one.

Shopping (2)

The fridge was full, but all was unrelentingly wholesome, bare of the faintest motif of indulgence.  Listless perusal of its contents gave rise to rebellion. I went out and bought that damn whipping cream.

Shopping (3)

Coastal plain. Nothing to buy. No shops. Sights to drink in, salt air to chew, and sun to wear. Not one way to spend a penny, but richer by far than when I’d first arrived.

Writer’s Manifesto/Battlecry, Geoff Lawson

Writer’s Manifesto/Battlecry

What are we?  We are writers.  We are the historians of past yesterdays and future tomorrows.  We are the scribes of our generation, a generation today, maybe the last generation, maybe the next generation.  We may die but our words will live on.  We have/keep/maintain our connections to each other and to the past and in that vein we are the bridge to the future.  I live today.  Geoffrey Chaucer lived 500 years ago.  He s my best friend.  He is who I was named after.  Same as Willie.  You know, Shakespeare.  Mark Twain and Mary Shelly have been my inspiration and writing mates that spanned years.  Who are yours?  Are they the same as mine?  Are they different from mine?  But however you feel about them, you know one thing: they still live through us.  We aren’t warriors, we aren’t soldiers, archers, or artillery men.  Not in the vein that you know them as.  We don’t destroy, not intentionally anyway.  We create.  We give life, we give love, we give drama and on the written page we make it come alive.  Our words may/can/do more harm than good if used correctly or even incorrectly and they will last long after the gunshot or sword wound has taken the life of the innocent. 

     Epic is a word that describes what we put our minds to.  Immortal is a word that comes to mind when we are talked about. Think about it.  Geoffrey Chaucer, Homer, William Shakespeare.  How long have you known them?  You write their words and its as if they were sitting right next to you, guiding your hand. 

     I know, I realize as you may have, we aren’t warriors, we are only scribes, writers.  But we are epic.  We are heros and we will live on.  In the hearts, the souls, the minds, the bodies of those who knew us, did what we did and set off on their own written paths to glory while we looked on and choose our own. 

     It is satisfying putting pen to paper because we know we are writers.  We are not alone and will live forever.  Raise not your sword, your shield, your flag, or your cross.  Raise your pen and sally forth and be one with the ink. 

- Geoff Lawson, 11/10/12

Shopping Like Fevered Dogs, by Travis Clarke (Campbell Poetry Circle)

Shopping Like Fevered Dogs

The rain was blanketing Pasadena like a somber Rose Parade, and I needed to put my life in boxes. Black crates, compartments, purge the memory of disorder with a box of albums. Purge the photo albums with a 12 x 16 cage.

There's a Crate & Barrel at the end of a long, imposing one way street.

Gray buildings, erected three stories.

Fortresses blocking out the clock tower on Colorado Avenue.

I knew it was time to open my wallet, and with an eyedropper tease out the sting.

On my way I stopped at The Gold Bug. Like Poe the haunting bells sounded my arrival.

I stared breathless at the window display of festooned antiques, all oak and deep precious metal.

I felt like an archaeologist forced to stare at mirrors, and my reflection was a $20 bill.

A consumer's opiate for an itch that wouldn't go away. Then I bought a box.

Records are old, by definition.

Black circles, concentric.

Or clear red, as if red is ever clear. Or porcelain white.

Why did I love to put on retro airs? Is this the itch again? Never a day without it.

I reclined in a leather chair that cradled my sore back like an expensive coffin and poured a glass of whiskey, stuck the needle on the groove and let John Coltrane serenade my supremely wanting ears.

A love supreme, carry me home.

I awoke to squawking an hour later.

Was it a tenor saxophone, or a crow outside my bedroom window?

Wishing for a swim but it's raining, and the silk tree in the yard is leafless.

I swim inside my thoughts instead. Caressing a ghost from not long ago, but long ago.

I lift up the glass and there's a ring.

The table is older than the music.

I curse at the absence of cleaning supplies.

Maybe I should go shopping. That would make everything new again.

Space is the place.

Somewhere, she's tripping over her sitar like a hailstorm wrecking glass.

She sits crosslegged and rocks back and forth.

She's alone, but she always was, more than most.

Or it just seemed that way. She keeps herself to herself.

Luck, loss, love, leave it running. The car, the turntable, the city you came from.

Plant a garden behind a tower that carves the landscape into distinction, that pins it to your landmark soul.

New placemats, new friends and new ideas. Old vices, old houses, middle-aged neighbors.

If I was Kilgore Trout it would all feel normal.

I think it does anyway. We invent our own version of Norman Rockwell.

A dog, a cat, a microphone. Shiny toys and clean air.

I take a breath so deep it catches in my chest, and I walk.

I walk until I can't feel a thing. This time I don't feel like shopping.