bar none group

Coffee Cup Complaint

2013-05-17T08:49:00.000-04:00

— for all the dharma bums,
              hanging out beneath broken
              down bridges

I want to rant like a over sexed rooster, staggering toward
some decadent hen house full of skeletal politicians,
      I want to blow out the pilot light on the stove
        in White Houses that compose songs about burning
wheatfields and magnifying glasses that inspect
      the lovers in every bedroom in America.
Get the hell out of our bucket of tears will you. . .
for Christ’s sake, release the scaffold you’ve got
      draped around our unfulfilled mysteries
        and archbishoped medicine cabinets full
      of broken dreams.
Oh you cancered catastrophe conundrum of drop dead
open window blues, I blow my continental harmonica
      up your swollen ass and blind your insightful eyes
        with shooting stars and the poetry
      of Charles Bukowski.
I have heard an ode of blistering pleutonium,
have met Jim Morrison inside the hidden doors
      of his trembling sensitivity, watched as you battered
        him senseless because he would not conform
      to your biblical pablum and water fountain
of supposed normality.
Like a cockroach inside the guesthouse of a magnesium
monotony you bleed with the retired blood
      of a 1940's radio station, offering nothing but
        the same old static and untuned guitar chords
      of a toilet bowl that flushes the remnants
of your pretentious bombs down the drain.
I traded in my new testament for a used copy
of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, I stripped myself naked
      on a Kerouacian highway and ran screaming past
        the sunflowers, chanting something about
      the berries of a forgotten wisdom,
waving a Tibetan prayer flag from the portal
of my eyes.
And as the amphetamine parade marches on the legs
of expiring diplomats, as the molesting ministers
      are unrepentant outside native sweat lodges,
        as Hieronymus Bosch repaints his garden
      of delights, I collect the crushed flowers
of our history and place them in an envelope
marked FOR GOD’S SAKE, RETURN TO SENDER.
So you skeletons peering through my window,
      you purpled and bruised excuses of humanity,
        get thee back inside the abstract abyss
where you belong, where mirrors of spiritual earthquake
      will haunt you forever and let me get on
with the railroad truths spoken by the hobos of yesterday
when freedom was as simple as a meal around a campfire
and there were no epilogues of confining grief

                          in our coffee cups.

– Marc Creamore

Marc Creamore is a poet living in British Columbia. His early influences include Beat and Chinese poets, Eastern philosophy, spirituality and musical songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Tom Rapp. He is the author of The Wrong Side of the Curtain, Bleaker Street and Other Observations, Tea Leaves And Denim, Corridors, Notes From The Abandoned Orchard of the Moon, and Bohemian Highway which contains Coffee Cup Complaint. Recently, Marc has been recording various poems with musical accompaniment on Soundcloud,"to give the bones of the words a more fully fleshed out existence." Coffee Cup Complaint appears here with the author's permission.

Le Fée Verte, Absinthe

2013-05-16T02:00:00.000-04:00

Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris

in the wilderness
of those green hours
gliding with the faerie muse
along café walls virescent,
sighing jonquil wings of poetry,
inventing tales
in the sooty red mystery
of elusive beauty,
beguiled by an opalescent brew,
tangible for the poet
and the pedestrian,
the same shared illusions
breaching the rosy ramparts of heaven

– Jamie Dedes

For more than five years Jamie Dedes has been sharing her thoughts and poetry through her site THE POET BY DAY, the journey in poem. Le Fée Verte, Absinthe first appeared at THE POET BY DAY, the journey in poem and appears here with permission of the author. We thank Jamie for allowing the Bar None Group to share Le Fée Verte, Absinthe with our readers and encourage you to visit her site and leave a comment. She does take them.

The Art of Futbol

2013-05-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

"Goal" by Teresa Puente

The beautiful game, the world's game, is an art unto itself. For the world's best soccer players, the pitch is a blank canvas where works of art are created game by game through skill and athleticism. For artists, soccer is the inspiration for their art. The Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer brings the two together for the third annual Art of Futbol art exhibition on Thursday, May 16.

Hosted by its charitable wing, the Chicago Fire Foundation, the club has assembled twenty Chicago-area artists and their original works to celebrate the art of futbol and the passion it instills. Soccer is forever entwined with the city's immigrant roots. Roots and people whose love of the game transcended boundaries, soccer brought and continues to bring ethnic communities together on the pitch in their adopted home of Chicago. The Art of Futbol provides local artists with an opportunity to capture the beauty of the sport by mining its rich past while sharing their unique vision with the broader community.

Pilsen poet and photographer Mark Butkus will present a mixed media polyptych of the poem, The Fire with individual stanzas displayed with images of soccer taken in Italy, Mexico, New York and Chicago. "The Art of Futbol has allows me to express my love of soccer in a creative way," says Butkus, who also exhibited in 2012. "You get to meet the players, other artists and give back to the community through the Chicago Fire Foundation. It's a win, win, win situation."

Columbia College professor Teresa Puente comes to the Art of Futbol from two perspectives. She previously attended as a guest and this year as an artist. Her submission, "Goal" is an image of a goalie in full flight diving across the net to make a save. Teresa's photo was captured in a small town in Mexico on the day that country won the Gold medal in soccer at the 2012 London Olympics.

"Kids went out to play in the local soccer field. Some ran barefoot and they didn't have enough players for a full team," Puente said. "But in their hearts they were proud to be Mexican and they too dreamt of gold."

Tickets for the event, to be held at the Society Art Gallery on May 16, 2013 start at $25. Two beverages are included with admission and proceeds benefit the Chicago Fire Foundation. For $10 more, guests also receive a ticket to the June 2 match between the Chicago Fire and Washington's DC United.

The Chicago Fire Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps the Chicago Fire give back to the community through grants and contributions. The Foundation has raised and distributed more than $1.5 million since forming in 1998.

Hotel Caribe

2013-05-14T10:52:00.000-04:00

I heard the cry of your soul.
The low keening moan
That crescendos into a howl.
I saw your face etched with pain,
The smell of death upon your breath.

I held you in my arms and
Wrapped my soul around you,
Absorbing your agony,
Soothing your fears.

You clung to me
With the strength of someone
Sinking into the abyss of madness
And I never let you go.

I gently called your name
And stroked your soft hair.
I stared into your eyes
until you saw me
And came back.

We defeated those forces
Which sought to devour you.
I watched your strength grow
Until the day came
When you no longer needed me.

On that warm evening
As we lay together
After making love
At the Hotel Caribe in Barra.

Remember?

– Charles Longstreet

(Hotel Caribe is one of the poems featured in Bar None: An Anthology of English Writing from the Costalegre. The author, Charles Longstreet, is one of the founders of the Bar None Group.)

I Was There Too

2013-05-12T09:16:00.000-04:00

Child,
I was there,
Behind the lens.
Although you can't see me,
I saw all there was to see,
Capturing all I could,
From behind the lens.
And now that you're grown
And memories are fading
And time is flying
And life is waiting–for no one,
I remember it all, my child.
I snapped it into eternity
Using that lens.
So in the years to come
When you're trying to relive
Some precious memories
By looking at these
Remember I was there too.

– Jillien Minera

Born and raised in new Orleans, Jillien Minera now calls North Carolina home. The creator of Life Through Words also sings in her church choir, having previously sung for the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. I Was There Too appears courtesy of the author.

Miles from Nowhere

2013-05-08T09:27:00.000-04:00

Miles from nowhere
Fighting with a sheet
Tossing and turning
Missing you so much
As you pull away from me
Telling me
That we had a deal
And I have nothing
More to offer
Than apologies
That will never be spoken
For you aren’t here to hear them

A Walk to Santa Monica

2013-05-07T11:18:00.000-04:00

Desolation angels
with Lululemon between their thighs
Avoid making contact
with their eyes

Who never saw
the lines upon their face
Only the lines of their youth
arrayed upon a mirror

Dreams that once took flight look back
at houses made of glass
Dreams that pierced through morning smog
Destination: Nowhere

The sign along the roadside reads
California 1
But all one sees are lost souls
Thumbing for the coast
What did California win?

Huddled outside a super mart
Heads or tails, a coin is tossed
Democracy in action
for the dispossessed
Who goes inside to lift the masses daily bread?

The hobo jungles
under passes
Pillows made of sand
"Why did the hobo cross the road? you ask
To seek shelter on the other side!

Roads always end
when the land gives in
And the Road they call Mother
ends at a pier Where

Desolation angels
with Lululemon between their thighs
Avoid making contact
with their eyes

Mexicality FAQ

2013-05-05T02:00:00.000-04:00

¡Cinco de Mayo...super mercado!

I am an American
of Mexican descent.

My family didn’t come
to this country,
this country came to us;
we were your hosts.

“No, actually,
the Native Americans
were here first.”

Well, we were
the product of
Spanish conquistadores
conquistadoring
the indigenous peoples.

“So, you’re actually European?”

Ask President Obama
since he’s half White,
which parent he claims?

“But you don’t look
Mexican.”

Thanks,
is that supposed to be
a compliment?

“Great, you can be
our translator!”

No, I only know about
50 words of Spanish,
and while that may qualify
you as being bilingual,
it brands me as
pathetic traitor to my culture
by Mexicans
from Mexico.

“So, were your parents
born here?”

Where, planet Earth?
Yes, specifically
in California and Colorado.

“So, do you celebrate
Cinco de Mayo?”

No, because I’m not
Mexican,
see first question.

“I admire Mexican culture
because they are
so family-oriented.”

Yes, we all come
from families,
and many of us practice
responsible birth control,
and haven’t brought
any children
into this world,
like myself and my brothers
Danny and Paul,
all three of us
college-educated
by the way.

“So you’re probably
for illegal immigration,
or some kind of amnesty.”

Sure,
but to be fair,
make it
retroactive to 1492.

“Why are you
so angry
about your Mexicality?”

I’m sorry,
I’m just tired.

Time for me to curl up
against a lone smooth cactus,
pull the brim of my sombrero
down over my eyes,
and take my siesta.

– Buddah Moskowitz

Mexicality FAQ was inspired by the Cinco de Mayo display for Corona beer found in Buddah Moskowitz' local Southern California grocery store. Buddah is the editor and creator of I Hate Poetry where Mexicality FAQ first appeared. He is also the author of I Hate Poetry 2.0: Formatted for Mobile Devices published in 2011. Mexicality FAQ is posted on the Bar None Group website with the permission of the author. Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with a beer, a tequila or a michelada. As Buddah says, "If you weren't lucky enough to be born Mexican, here's your chance!"

Salud!

First Lines Second Thoughts — The Great Gatsby

2013-05-03T02:00:00.000-04:00

"The Great Gatsby" original cover art by Francis Cugat.

First Lines Second Thoughts is a look at the first lines of well known literary works.
On second thought, do these opening words stand alone as poetry? With the fifth filmed rendition of this classic novel about to hit the screens on May 10, 2013 we look at F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925.

In my younger
and more vulnerable years
my father
gave me some advice
that I've been turning over
in my mind
ever since.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Set in the monied Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby barely caused a ripple when published in 1925. Though critically lauded, The Great Gatsby moved fewer copies than F. Scott Fitzgerald's two previous efforts; This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and the Damned (1922). During World War II — following Fitzgerald's death — the U.S. Army distributed 150,000 copies of The Great Gatsby to troops overseas. The book, now regarded as a "great American novel," has been popular ever since.

Give Us This Day

2013-05-01T08:48:00.002-04:00

Give us this day
Our daily bread
Give us this day
For we, the nearly dead

Give us this day
The under-appreciated masses
Give us this day
For hard hats and safety glasses

Give us this day
Who rise to catch the day's first bus
Give us this day
Chasing notes that read, "In God We Trust"

Give us this day
That teach us well, the teachers
Give us this day
That forgive us all, the preachers

Give up this day
For the smile on the face of the lunch counter waitress
Give us this day
For she works for tips for her daughter's graduation dress

Give us this day
For the farmer who toils in the field
Give us this day
Let them reap a big yield

Give us this day
The working man, the artisan
Give us this day
The migrant worker, the American

Give us this day
The firemen, the cops on patrol
Give us this day
The men of the deep, the miners in a hole

Give us this day
To those who fish the seas
Give us this day
To those who harvest the trees

Give us this day
For those who think forward
Give us this day
For those who bend backward

Give us this day
Give us this day
And we will call it May Day
For we will call it May Day

Frog Song

2013-04-30T02:00:00.000-04:00

Rana by Russell Rosander

Dedicated to my grandchildren, Madaline and Emily

Well, I’ve gotta tell you. There are still a lot of frogs in Mexico. Of course, frogs’ll live just about anywhere where there's water. At least that was true before the humans started getting’ careless and lettin’ all kinds of poison stuff get into it. Now, some places, there ain’t any frogs left at all.

Well, at least Mexico’s still got a lot of ‘em. A frog’s gotta feel lucky just to be here.

Well, you may be wonderin’ why frogs start everythin’ they say, by sayin’, “Well,” first. That’s because all frogs honor the first place where water came up outta the ground, the “well” of creation and it flowed into the Great Pond of Creation. That’s the place where frogs first got started.

Well, you may not know it, but frogs were some of the first creatures to crawl out of the water and onto a lily pad. We were some of the first creatures to grow arms and legs too. It’s hard to believe, but all life started out in that pond and it was the frogs that led the way for all the other creatures to come out of it and live on the earth.

Well, in fact, we frogs are still doin’ it. Frog children don’t have any arms and legs when they are born and live under the water all the time. Then, when they get a little older, they start to grow arms and legs so they can come up out of the water once in a while and sing as a gift to the Great Pond of Creation and because they are happy.

Well, I’ve gotta tell you, frog singers are about the best and in Mexico there are so many frogs that when they’re all singin’ together, they’re so loud that even the moon and the stars can hear ‘em. And when the moon and the stars hear ‘em, they smile down on Earth because it’s so good. Who knows what would happen if the frogs ever stopped singin’.

Well, Madalina and Emicita were two of the cutest little polliwogs you ever saw. Polliwogs are what frog children are called. What they wanted, more than anythin’ in the world, was to grow their arms and legs so they could climb out of the water onto a lily pad and sing.

Well, you know, if you try to sing under water, everythin’ kinda comes out, “Glub, glub, glub” instead of the fine, “Karoaka, karoaka, karoaka” that their mom and dad make when they sing up on the lily pad up on the surface.

Well, their mom and dad – who were very highly evolved frogs – and loved ‘em very much, told ‘em, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll grow your arms and legs soon enough and then you’ll be able to climb up on a lily pad and sing with us to the moon and the stars.”

Well, every day after that, the two little polliwog sisters swam in the shallows of the pond with all the other little polliwogs. Under the water, everythin’ is different than it is up in the air. The sky is real close up and is bright white all over. It’s really just the surface of the water, but it’s a lot harder to see outta the water than it is to see in. Down under the water, everythin’ is kinda shadowy and the stems of the water plants rise to the surface and disappear out of it under the shadow of the leaves.

Well, anyhow, they never went far from their home under the roots at the edge of the pond and always stayed close to the lily pads so they could duck under ‘em if a monster came along. There are lots of monsters in the pond. Some are called egrets, which are white birds with long legs and a long neck. Some are called ducks and the little ducklings all swim along by the shore lookin’ for things to eat. Humans think they ain’t monsters but just pretty birds, but in the pond, they are ferocious monsters who eat little polliwogs.

Well, Madalina and Emicita were especially good children and minded their parents when it came to being safe. When you live in a place where there are monsters, you can’t be too careful.

Well, they did like to have fun. Polliwogs don’t have to come up for air like their parents do when they’re in the water. Sometimes, when their parents are in the water waiting for nice, yummy, dragonflies to come along only their eyes and noses are above the surface so they can see and breathe. The two girls love to sneak up and tickle ‘em. It was so funny to watch their mom and dad, who were tryin’ to be so serious and not laugh, it almost gave ‘em the hiccups.

Well, at night they would sleep behind the roots under the edge of the pond, dreamin’ of singin’. Sometimes, when they were supposed to be sleepin’, Madalina would say to Emicita, “let’s go out and put our ears up to the surface of the pond so we can listen to ‘em sing.” They laid on their sides with their ears to the top of the water and listened to the great chorus of frogs, singin’ to the moon and stars.

Well, one time, they were listenin’ so hard, that they didn’t hear or see the little ducklings swimmin’ along the shore lookin’ for food. Suddenly, the singin’ stopped. A sure sign of danger. That’s how the grown up frogs warn all the little polliwogs that might not be sleepin’ like they are supposed to, to hurry and get back under the edge of the pond. They got there just in time to see the ducklings feet paddlin’ beneath the surface and their heads and beaks plunge down under the water, lookin’ for things to eat.

Well, every day, the two little polliwog girls played and swam in the shallows along the shore. Sometimes, they chased water bugs, or played hide and seek with the little toad children and the turtle children, but toad children and turtle children ain’t much interested in singin’ and that’s all the polliwog girls wanted to talk about.

Well, one day, Emicita had an idea. She said to Madalina, “What if we sang our song words into one of the bubbles that come up from the mud on the bottom of the pond. Then, the bubbles will float up to the surface, pop, and all of our words will come out into the air!”

“Well, won’t mommy and daddy be surprised when they hear our frog songs? They’ll think we’re really grown up!” Madalina exclaimed.

Well, they spent the whole next day, tryin’ to catch bubbles. It’s really hard to catch a bubble when you don’t have any arms or legs, but they finally squeezed a bubble between ‘em. They kissed their song words into the bubble and let it go. It wobbled and bobbled up to the surface and popped, but all the song words came out at the same time.

Suddenly, an egret’s beak plunged into the water, right where the bubble popped. It wanted to eat whatever was makin’ the song sounds! It scared ‘em so bad, that they almost swam in the wrong direction, out into the deep water instead of under the edge of the pond. Their mommy and daddy, told ‘em never to try it again, because it was far too dangerous. They would grow arms and legs soon enough and would just have to wait before they could sing their frog songs to the moon and stars.

Well, then one night, when all the frogs were singin’ to the full moon and all the stars, the moon sent down a special moonbeam. As it came down from the moon, the stars sent down little sparkles that swirled around it. The moonbeam and the sparkles came down into the water and under the edge of the pond to where the two little polliwog girls were sleepin’ and kissed ‘em.

Well, in the mornin’, the girls noticed that they each had four little nubs on the sides of their bodies. Their mommy and daddy told ‘em about the moonbeam and the sparkles and told ‘em that it was the beginnin’ of a great miracle. The moon and the stars wanted to hear Madalina and Emicita sing.

Well, every day, the little nubs grew bigger. Then, their tails started growing shorter and soon, they had to swim to the surface to get little gulps of air.

Well, a few days later, they started to grow fingers and toes and each one had a little suction cup on the end of it so they could climb better.

Well, at last the day came when it was time for ‘em to climb up on the lily pad and sing with all the other frogs to the moon and stars.

Well, as the moon began to rise over the pond, Madalina and Emicita reached up out of the water and stretched their fingers over the edge of the lily pad. All the frogs in the pond were singin’ their encouragement and there was nary an egret or duck in sight.

Well, Emicita was the smallest and Madalina had to give her a little push with her, new, long, webbed foot, but they both pulled ‘emselves up onto the lily pad. It was strange to be up in the air. They could see everythin’ they couldn’t see from under the water. They could see the trees along the edge of the pond whose roots made their home. They could see the fireflies blinkin’ in the branches and they could see the great curve of the night sky above and the big shiny moon and all the twinklin’ stars.

Well, then the chorus of frogs began a new song. It started out softly and grew louder and louder. All the frogs sang, “Karoaka, karoaka, karoaka,” and Madalina and Emicita sang, “Peep, peep, peep, peepity peepity peep.” And the grown up frogs followed with, “Karoakity karoakity, karoak!”

Well, then all the crickets and little lizards joined in and the moon sent down millions of moonbeams and the stars send down millions of sparkles and soon, the air was filled with ‘em all and spread around the world. Madalina and Emicita sang and sang and sang and well, the moon and the stars shined down on ‘em and everyone was happy because it was so good.

– Russell Rosander

Well, when Bar None Group co-founder Russell Rosander passed along Frog Song, a story written for his grandchildren it was apropos that it would run on Children's Day. Celebrated on April 30, Children's Day is known as El Día Del Niño in Mexico. Rivaling Father's Day and Mother's Day in popularity, El Día Del Niño substitutes classroom studies for sports, activities and sometimes presents. Frog Song is Russell's present to Madaline and Emily.

In Search of Roberto Bolaño

2013-04-28T08:19:00.000-04:00

There's a soothing cadence to his voice, though I don't understand anything he says.

I feel tired. That's how soothing his voice is.

Smiling and nodding I drift away to a very comfortable place. The room dims and we go from talking about Roberto Bolaño to Roberto Bolaño and I talking about Roberto Bolaño. In a room full of Roberto Bolaño readers, the writer and I are anonymously invisible as we sit on gray folding steel chairs. Only one of us is talking and only one of us is thinking in English.

That's no matter.

I've had conversations with Bolaño when he was alive and...ever since. It is what it is, as my good friend jessica would say. If you believe, you can understand. We've always had an understanding. Not Jessica and I but rather Bolaño and I.

A book of memories is being read from the dais. The memoir is being passed around like a joint and we each take turns reading select passages from Bolaño's life. This communal sharing is something that I have not done since sharing Li Po with the Dharma Bums of Barra de Navidad. Bolaño is noticeably uncomfortable. He just wants to be left alone.

Bolaño reads of his childhood in Chile as if he is discovering his own past. He fidgets and sweat begins to bead on his forehead. What seems to him an eternity is only a minute and a half in Mexico time. He nervously passes the book along and hears about his move away from home. It dawns on Bolaño that in a room full of Bolaño fans and look-alike middle-aged men with attitude Bolaño is less than his imitators.

Gaining his confidence, he bcecomes more animated. He actively joins the discourse of his life and his writing. He wants to discuss his craft. As is his custom he addresses everyone by their last name. He addresses me by my last name while simultaneously elbowing me in the rooms while patting down his chest looking for a pack of cigarettes. He's excited and wants a smoke. I remind him that I don't smoke and I insist on being called by my given first name. That's always been a bone of contention between the two of us. I don't call him Bobby. We always have these percolating issues that resolve themself until we meet again. I remind him again of my given name as he lights up a smoke bummed from another soul.

Bolaño has risen.

Drinking. Women. Smoking. The holy trinity of prose. Write about any one of the three he would tell me and you have one third of your audience in rapt attention. They will be on the edge of their seats before they even read a single word. He explains the restless nights, the failed relationships, the consequences of a quest. He weaves a tale of art and life grabbed by the throat and wonders aloud if it was all worthwhile.

He returns to his seat as others continue to examine his life. Bolaño still frets about how he is perceived.

"I worked hard at my craft," he tells me wearily. "But the myth of me is self-perpetuating. What can I do to be taken seriously?" What could he do? He's been dead too long to be heard.

The resignation in his voice is depressing and I change the subject by asking him if he ever went to the famed Mutualista in Guadalajara. He has. Bolaño then regales me in a tale of drink, women and of a smoke so thick that it would leave a white shirt beige while dancing. Everyone smoked in Mexico back then. Everyone danced.

He tells me that he would lean against the wall by the women's lavatory. Partly to feel the night breeze rush in through the 19th century windows left ajar to circulate the cloud of smoke. Partly. But mainly he stood their all casual cool to ask every woman who came out of the restroom if they wanted to dance. Most would say no owing to various reasons and excuses such as being accosted by a stranger by the restroom. Yet in the course of an evening he could find at least ten partners. Tonight, the stature of these women grew in Bolaño's retelling. They were the most beautiful, the most rhythmic and they became legends, immortalized in Bolaño's own nicotine stained words.

"That is the problem," I say shaking my head in dismay. "Your personal stories fascinate. That's why you are where you are. You complain about the stories of your life and that they pale in comparison to the stories of your art but you perpetuate these stories." Our discussion then devolved into an argument on censorship and self-censorship.

Bolaño was incapable of censoring himself. That is why his legend grows. The more that he would protest, the more the people wanted to hear his stories and not read his stories. As fascinating as the fiction was it is the fiction of his life that lives on more than his written words.

"You know that I never had a drink in my life," he says defiantly running a hand through his thick hair.

"Neither have I," said I raising my drink in toast. "Neither have I," I repeat and we both begin to laugh.

The One About St. Mark's Place

2013-04-25T10:45:00.000-04:00

There was that night on St. Mark's Place?
      At St. Mark's Church
I stand corrected – At St. Mark's Church
     OCC Q PIE Wall Street
We were going to change the world – again
     Just like our parents thought they would in the 60s
Just like their parents thought they did in the 40s

     But you remember that night?
It was the Poetry Project
     Yeah! The ghosts of Ginsberg and other dead rebels
We all brought food
     And Wine!
It was a potluck
     Thanksgiving with the dispossessed

Reading poems...
     ...many of them bad
Writing poems...
     ...many of them worse
I didn't know what to wear, and you said
     Wear what you would to court

And the music
     That folkie from Minnesota
Who was heading down to New Orleans
     Channeling Woody Guthrie with a guitar strap string
That was a night!
     That was just another night on St. Mark's Place

Beat It

2013-04-24T09:01:00.000-04:00

They laughed at struggle and tears
fears and nomads wandering
in the dust of explanation

Scowled at happiness
written on beach sands

Frowned at roaming
aimlessly wherever tides of wind
took the soul as faintly delivered spirits
roared in adoration

But me
I beat drums into a panic
and spread myself thinly
over cobblestone
tarmac, pebbles, and dirt
remembering only
the lack of wherewithal
that claimed the life of my pant-less dog
how I had to bury him
on the side of the road
on the outskirts of Meadville
after it stopped raining

Crying did not erase
the blisters I'd developed
from using a plastic fork
and leaving it as a grave marker
one I'd never revisit

Betsy (my blue Chevy)
ran out of gas near Echo Town
so I hollered into the canyon
but no one heard
but my own voice

Walking makes no sense
with these feet
but a traveler sometimes has no other choice
but to let fate blow into the air and move along

Yup, beat life until it finally beat me
and I was left with a blank stare
that had run out of paper, pencil lead,
and patience

– Renee Matthews-Jackson

For Renee Matthews-Jackson poetry is her passion. The poet from Cleveland, Ohio is also a playwright and accomplished actor. Renee made her theater debut in 1987 in Joseph A. Walker's classic, The River Niger at the world famous, Karamu House Performing Arts Theatre.

Beat It! was inspired by a quote from Jack Kerouac's San Francisco Scene, “...and everything is going to the beat – It's the beat generation, it be-at, it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world and like old time lowdown and like in ancient civilizations the slave boatmen rowing galleys to a beat and servants spinning pottery to a beat...”

Love Is and Other Google Poems

2013-04-23T11:50:00.000-04:00

Feeling lucky? There was a time that Google's web search claim to fame was the "I feel lucky" button. You knew that there was a web page that you wanted to get to but you didn't know the URL.

The lucky button was intuitive. The lucky button was a godsend and saved people countless seconds.

Google is even more intuitive today. Start keying in strokes and Google tosses up options as you type. Some have turned these options into Google poems.

The practice of forming Google poems is popular enough that a website dedicated to Google poetry – Google Poetics – popped up last fall. Google poems have been featured in places such as The Huffington Post and The Telegraph. And now, The Bar None Group.

Here are a few of our examples...with a slight editorial touch in some cases. What did you come up with?

Love Is

Love is a battlefield
Love is art
Love is an orientation
Love is all around
Love is a verb

Love is a four letter word
Love is a many splendored thing
Love is all you need
Love is a losing game
Love is a verb

From Here

From here I saw what happened and cried

From here its possible

From here in French

From here...IN

On the Day

On the day you were born
On the day I died
On the day I was born
On the day before

Life Is

Life is good

Life is beautiful

Life is a highway

Life is but a dream

Life is short quotes

Life is a beautiful movie

Life is magic

I'm Feeling

I'm feeling lucky
I'm feeling playful
I'm feeling trendy
I'm feeling good

I'm feeling puzzled
I'm feeling hungry
I'm feeling under the weather
I'm feeling fat and sassy
I'm feeling good good good

Sic Vita

2013-04-22T09:51:00.001-04:00

Morning dew at Walden Pond.

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,
And sorrel intermixed,
Encircled by a wisp of straw
Once coiled about their shoots,
The law
By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out
Those fair Elysian fields,
With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth make the rabble rout
That waste
The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,
Drinking my juices up,
With no root in the land
To keep my branches green,
But stand
In a bare cup.

Some tender buds were left upon my stem
In mimicry of life,
But ah! the children will not know,
Till time has withered them,
The woe
With which they're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,
And after in life's vase
Of glass set while I might survive,
But by a kind hand brought
Alive
To a strange place.

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,
And by another year,
Such as God knows, with freer air,
More fruits and fairer flowers
Will bear,
While I droop here.

– Henry David Thoreau

Who better to represent Earth Day than the first environmentalist of American arts and letters – Henry David Thoreau? Not to be confused with Henry King's Sic Vita, Thoreau's poem owes a debt of gratitude instead to one of Thoreau's early influences, George Herbert (1593-1633). Written in 1837, Sic Vita is considered among the best of Thoreau's poems from this stage of his life in letters.

Thought I'd Get Stoned On My Birthday

2013-04-20T04:20:00.000-04:00

Marrakech Express, Morocco 2011

Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
Found I didn't really have to try
Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
Since my friends had all said good-bye

Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
Thought it would be better than to cry
Man I felt alone on my birthday
Will I be so alone when I die?

Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
Lovely though my family may be
Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
And pretend I was just 33

Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
Even though I knew it wouldn't last
Thought I'd get stoned on my birthday
and let the whole damn day just go past

– James H. Webb

What better way to recognize 4/20? Thought I'd Get Stoned On My Birthday first appeared at Hello Poetry and appears here with the author's permission.

Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out at CIMMfest

2013-04-18T12:08:00.000-04:00

Ya-Ya's getting out to see the Rolling Stones circa 2003.

The fifth edition of the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival (CIMMfest) kicks off tonight, April 18. One of the highlights of the four day (April 18-21) festival that brings together live concerts and film is a 10 film retrospective of the world's greatest rock and roll band — The Rolling Stones. Immortalized on film by the likes of Jean-Luc Goddard and Martin Scorsese, Mick and the boys are celebrating 50 years of rock and roll in 2013.

Officially known as CIMMpathy for The Stones, the retrospective — which begins on Friday night — marks the first ever screenings in Chicago of Rolling Like A Stone and I Got the Blues in Austin. The former won Best Music Documentary at the SilverDocs Film Festival while the latter has Chris Jagger (brother to Mick) interviewing blues artists.

The Films:

The Rolling Stones Charlie is my Darling – Ireland 1965 (+ Q&A with director Mick Gochanour and producer Robin Klein)
The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus (1968) (+ Q&A with filmmakers Mick Gochanour and Robin Klein)
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! (+ Q&A with producers Mick Gochanour and Robin Klein)
Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One)
Rolling Like a Stone (2005) (+ Q&A with director Magnus Gertten)
I Got the Blues in Austin (+ Q&A with director Richard Jernigan and blues singer Lavelle White)
Muddy Waters & The Rolling Stones at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago ’81
Stones in Exile
Some Girls – Live In Texas ’78
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones

CIMMpathy for the Stones is the second major film retrospective of The Stones to come along to mark their golden anniversary. New York's Museum of Modern Art held a month-long film exhibition that coincided with The Rolling Stones December dates in the Big Apple.

All films for the Chicago retrospective will be screened at the Music Box Theatre. Ticket packages are available as three-day passes or individual tickets.

If you've never seen The Stones at their peak, CIMMpathy for the Stones offers a glimpse of the band at each stage of their career. From the mid-60's before they broke, to the lightning-in-a-bottle that lead to Exile on Main Street and the club shows and stadium shows that have now become their stock and trade, CIMMpathy for the Stones has something for every Stones fan.

The Stones are also hitting the road in May, playing select North American cities on the 50 and Counting tour. If CIMMpathy for the Stones whets your appetite, The Stones are playing the United Center on May 31 and June 3. (More dates and cities are being added — a third date in Chicago is not out of the question). With The Stones track record the 50 and Counting tour may result in another film for another retrospective down the road. Last we checked, The Rolling Stones film oeuvre was at 16 and counting.

First Lines Second Thoughts — The Last Good Kiss

2013-04-18T03:30:00.000-04:00

First Lines Second Thoughts is a look at the first lines of well known literary works.
On second thought, do these opening words stand alone as poetry? Today we revisit The Last Good Kiss. Written by James Crumley. Published in 1978.

When I finally caught up
with Abraham Trahearne,
he was drinking beer
with an alcoholic bulldog
named Fireball Roberts
in a ramshackle joint
just outside of Sonoma, California,
drinking the heart right out of
a fine spring afternoon.

— James Crumley

Fame and fortune never found James Crumley (1939-2008). Respected by his peers and an influence upon them, Crumley was considered a cross between Hunter S Thompson and Raymond Chandler for his writing style that changed the detective novel in the 1970s. His private investigator, C.W. Sughrue, also appears in The Mexican Tree Duck and The Right Madness. The Last Good Kiss is considered one of the most influential crime novels of the 20th century.

El Jimador

2013-04-16T09:11:00.000-04:00

Medicine
best taken with
water, mineral or
on ice
sometimes,
Margaritas
2 for 1.

Don't do a shot,
drink it slow
sip it,
smell the earth it came from,
seven years to grow el agave
harvested by el jimador de Jalisco.

Taste your medicine,
discover the aroma of
vanilla and cinnamon
mixed with sweat and sun.

Sip it or slam it if you must,
she will become part of you
seep into your blood
root herself in you
like Mexico,
running through your veins.

—Teresa Puente

Teresa Puente is a Professor of Journalism at Columbia College in Chicago. Ms. Puente also encourages Latina women to write and publish their stories in Latina Voices. El Jimador first appeared in Take Two: Another Anthology of English Writing from the Costalegre. The art accompanying this poem is El Jimador by Russell Rosander.

Sharon Olds' Stag's Leap Wins 2013 Pulitzer for Poetry

2013-04-15T16:03:00.002-04:00

The 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry was awarded to Susan Olds on April 15 for Stag's Leap. The book is " unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self knowledge." Along with being recognized for a "distinguished volume of original verse by an American author" the Pulitzer comes with a cash prize of $10,000.

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Stag's Leap carries the reader through the seasons when the author's marriage was ending. Olds opens her heart to the reader and the radical change in her sense of place in the world. Olds is naked before us, curious and brave and even generous toward the man who was her mate for thirty years and who now loves another woman.

Born in San Francisco, Sharon Olds was educated at Stanford University and Columbia University. Her first book, Satan Says (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award. Her second, The Dead and the Living, was both the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1983 and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Father was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize in England, and The Unswept Room was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Collected Poems, by the late Jack Gilbert (Alfred A. Knopf), a half century of poems reflecting a creative author’s commitment to living fully and honestly and to producing straightforward work that illuminates everyday experience with startling clarity; and The Abundance of Nothing, by Bruce Weigl (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern), a powerful collection of poems that explore the trauma of the Vietnam War and the feelings that have never left many of those who fought in the conflict.

For Jack and Allen

2013-04-15T02:00:00.000-04:00

I’m hallucinating spiders.
Cracked benzedrine haziness
smoking and supping ethanol fumes
from cracked glass, dirty frompaw prints
and titted & cocked filth.

Jazzed up and panting. I’m listening
to the other room; the other world. I can
hear smirks, whisperings of zips
and ripping of buttons.

Soft piano titters;
bassy cello and 50s limp wrists
flail to the Beat. It’s all there,
the visions of the Road, howling & gnarling
& begging & cavorting up through my back
and into the base of my skull.

The Number Four book sits slapped
and curled waiting to the bent and used;
thumbed and flicked by children & children's
children.

For Jack and Allen first appeared within the online pages of the National Poetry Lab. The purpose of the National Poetry Lab is to be the place for poets to, "experiment, test and share great new British poetry." The Bar None Group thanks the National Poetry Lab for allowing us to share For Jack and Allen with our readers.

Library Walk: Samuel Beckett

2013-04-12T12:57:00.000-04:00

Born on April 13, Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was the 1969 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. The author of 22 dramatic works, six collections of poetry and numerous other novels, novellas and biographies he is best remembered for the play where nothing seemingly takes place — Waiting for Godot.

Described alternately as absurdist or existentialist, Waiting for Godot was originally written in French as En attendant Godot and published in 1952. Translated by Beckett himself, the English version of the play premiered in London in 1955. In English, the play downplayed the biographical details of the main characters — Vladimir and Estragon — while adding more gravitas to the concept of memory and memory loss.

In the play, Vladimir and Estragon converse not just to pass the time, but to avoid the silence that envelops them throughout.

Silence.

Vladimir: What do they say?

Estragon: They talk about their lives.

Vladimir: To have lived is not enough for them.

Estragon: They have to talk about it.

Vladimir: To be dead is not enough for them.

Estragon: It is not sufficient.

The passage that is enshrined on Library Walk projects the protagonists view that life is empty...death is empty and that the best course of action according to Estragon earlier in Waiting for Godot is to do neither.

Samuel Beckett always insisted that Godot was not God.

In 1996, the New York Public Library, the Grand Central Partnership and the New Yorker magazine convened a panel of esteemed lovers of the written word and came up with a collection of quotations from the never-ending oeuvre of literature.

These quotes were cast in bronze by New York sculptor Gregg LeFevre and then laid out as sidewalk plaques on E 41st Street in 1998. In 2003, the stretch of E 41st Street from the New York Public Library entrance on Fifth Avenue to Park Avenue was renamed Library Way.

Whether it be a birth day, anniversary or publication date of a seminal work, the Bar None Group will revisit these 40+ quotations from time to time — quotations that inspire one to write, read, explore and embrace literature. We last visited Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Chris Hosea: 2013 Walt Whitman Award Recipient

2013-04-10T14:52:00.000-04:00

Marcel Duchamp's notorious Nude Descending a Staircase.

The Academy of American Poets announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery has selected Chris Hosea as the recipient of the 2013 Walt Whitman Award, the Academy's prestigious first book prize. The award was established in 1975 to encourage the work of emerging poets and to enable the publication of a poet's first book.

As the winner of the Whitman Award, Hosea's manuscript, Put Your Hands In, will be published by Louisiana State University Press in 2014 and the Academy of American Poets will purchase and distribute thousands of copies of the book to its members. Hosea will also receive $5,000 and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center. A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Chris Hosea earned an A.B. cum laude in English and American Literature from Harvard College. He then went on to receive his M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

About Put Your Hands In, John Ashbery writes: "Exactly a century ago, the Armory Show brought European avant-garde art to New York. We are still experiencing its consequences. Among the works on view was Marcel Duchamp's notorious Nude Descending a Staircase, which a derisive critic wanted to rename, 'Explosion in a Shingle Factory.

"Both titles come to mind as one reads Chris Hosea's Put Your Hands In, which somehow subsumes derision and erotic energy and comes out on top. Maybe that's because 'poetry is the cruelest month,' as he/she says, correcting T.S. Eliot. Transfixed in mid-paroxysm, the poems also remind us of Samuel Beckett's line (in Watt): 'The pain not yet pleasure, the pleasure not yet pain.' One feels plunged in a wave of happening that is about to crest."

Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets mission is, "to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry."

Du Fu's Winding River

2013-04-10T10:11:00.000-04:00

Each piece of flying blossom leaves spring the less,
I grieve as myriad points float in the wind.
I watch the last ones move before my eyes,
And cannot have enough wine pass my lips.
Kingfishers nest by the little hall on the river,
Unicorns lie at the high tomb's enclosure.
Having studied the world, one must seek joy,
For what use is the trap of passing honor?

I come back from the court each day and pawn some spring clothing,
Every day I return to the river as drunk as I can be.
I have many debts for wine all over the place,
For men to live to seventy has always been unusual.
I see the butterflies go deeper and deeper between the flowers,
And dragonflies in leisured flight between drops of water.
As we're told, passing time is always on the move,
So little time to know each other: we should not be apart.

— Du Fu

Winding River is in fact two poems — Winding River I and Winding River II. Written by Du Fu (712-770) circa 758 after government forces recaptured Chang'an. Winding River I and Winding River II appear here in chronological order as two verses under one title.

Du Fu is regarded as one of the great poets of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) though it was not until the Song Dynasty (960–1279) that Du Fu's work gained favor in China. Critics have referred to the Confucian poet as the "poet historian." Rivaled only by Li Bo in terms of influence, Du Fu's earliest surviving poem describes a poetry contest.

Kenneth Rexroth described Du Fu as, "the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet who has survived in any language."