Join us for an autumn night of poetry with local poets David Horowitz and Francine E. Walls. David is the founder and publisher of Rose Alley Press and earned bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and English from the University of Washington and a masters in English from Vanderbilt University. David’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Lyric, Candelabrum, […]
Join us for an autumn night of poetry with local poets David Horowitz and Francine E. Walls. David is the founder and publisher of Rose Alley Press and earned bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and English from the University of Washington and a masters in English from Vanderbilt University. David’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Lyric, Candelabrum, Exterminating Angel, ArtWord Quarterly, and The Sporting News. His most recent books, published by Rose Alley, are Strength & Sympathy, From Notebook to Bookshelf, and the poetry collections Streetlamp, Treetop, Star; Stars Beyond the Battlesmoke; and Sky Above the Temple.
Poems by Francine E. Walls appear in the writing text, Writing Across Cultures: A Handbook on Writing Poetry and Lyrical Prose, the anthology, Peace Poets v. 2 & journals such as Pontoon, Passager, Ekphrasis, damselfly press, Avocet & Strange Poetry. Born & raised in the Pacific Northwest, she worked for years as a college librarian and teacher. Her blog of poems & photographs is at A Long Perspective. See Below.
https://wordandimageworker.com/category/poems-photographs/
Art Gomez is hosting as Rayn‘s doing a Pongo Poetry Workshop.
September rain fresh linen
a blanket lain last hours
of summer spilling out
off the roof gutters
autumn takes a breath
before winter ice and cold
take the hills rip colors
from the trees red g/old
apples barley corn
birds soar into the wind
remind me we all die
regardless how much we
lean into or oppose it — I am
alone not without fire
or love long before the snow
Rayn Roberts
Lyn Coffin & Thomas Brush Readings PoetsWest @ Green Lake Public Library
09/14/2019 – 4:00pm to 5:30pm Poetry
PoetsWest’s features the best at Green Lake Public Library each second Saturday of the month. Our current features are Lyn Coffin & Thomas Brush.
Lyn Coffin has published over a dozen books of poetry, including Human Trappings (1980), The Poetry of Wickedness (1981), Crystals of the Unforeseen (1999), and Joseph Brodsky was Joseph Brodsky (2012). Her books of translation include the Anthology of Georgian Poetry (2013), edited by Dodona Kiziria; and White Picture (2011), selected poems by Jiri Orten translated from the Czech. Coffin teaches literary fiction in the Continuing and Professional Education Division of the University of Washington. She is reading at the New York Poetry Festival this year then leaves for Mexico, where a bilingual book, Verde Vida (This Green Life, Pregunta Editions) will be presented at some festivals. Her book of translations will be published in the fall by Adelaide Books in New York. Website: http://www.lyncoffin.com
Thomas Brush is an award winning poet whose work is found in Books: Last Night (Lynz Press 2011) Even Money (Seapen Press, 1988), Opening Night . (Owl Creek Press, 1981) and in the Journals: Fine Madness, Indiana Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Quarterly West, Tar River Poetry Review. His book “Last Night” won the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize in 2011/
Seattle, WA 98115
COVER PHOTO by Gwyn Henry
Summary
Realize caring for others
is caring for yourself
when to help & when to
mind your own fucking business.
Cheers!
Cover photo by Rayn Roberts
I say with a sigh, blood is not nobility
count how oft’ the Red Queen cries
“Off with his head”, she hardly says
anything else– Power ‘tis said
Twists ladies as men turning them quite
Bellicose,
Blood’s no guarantee nobles will lead
To better or worse shifting us either way
It’s red
with/out gender
We favor no crown, no throne, no aristocracy
We got revolution, remember, we can still march to the sea.
The cat chases its tail, the dog whimpers in sleep,
The heart skips a beat…
It’s not a nightmare, not a movie, a TV show.
Wake when you will, but where will you be, in bed alone,
In the den, your unknowing hand holding a gun,
At your desk starting at nothing?
It doesn’t matter—Looking deeply matters:
Unless you turn it inside out, look long at what you find
The mind eludes the eye of reason.
Recall the flowers of betrayal and delusion with merciful disregard,
Struggle all your life to save this dying thing
This beaten, bloody thing called love.
For the tail is chasing the dog,
The cat is barking in sleep, the heart is cracking
Hope is a Gypsy song rising over the ash of Auschwitz
Mad men rule the world—
And if they wake from a coma of hate, will they give a vision truth?
Will they feed the poor, give up peace?
When will your heart slow to a murmur and hiss into silence?
I want to say the cat is calm, the dog is happy, humankind is wise and kind,
But the cat is gnawing the cage, the dog is humming a dirge,
The good flower columbine was never a flock of doves:
Littleton, Kosovo, Dachau, Wooded Knee, Kabul, Santa Fe, El Paso:
Large extensions of the fist we use to abuse the children—
Where next the murder of the day, massacre of the week,
Where next the World War?
The heart is failing, the heart is failing, there are no known donors.
