And Now For Something Completely Different: The Pink Palace, Part 1 of 2

THE PINK PALACE

The Greek Island of Corfu is known for its amenities, luxurious beaches, hotels, restaurants, and particularly effective public transportation system, but far away from the major towns, in a little cove, the laws of hedonism take over, and at an affordable price.


We arrived at The Pink Palace at eight o'clock in the morning. The ten-hour bus and ferry ride regurgitated fifteen sleep-deprived Canadians on the doorstep of a giant pink complex, where a blond woman with a Texan accent hollered, "Throw yr bags in the luggage room and join us at the bar." Check-in involved shots of pink Ouzo, a psych-up speech, and a buffet breakfast; it felt like a camp orientation on mushrooms. My girlfriend and I snagged a second Ouzo from the Canadian newbies at our table and waited.

We were shown to our room by a woman who'd stepped straight out of a dumb blonde joke: balloon-breasted, breathy-voiced, dressed in pink. She'd come to the Pink Palace from Canada on vacation and ended up taking a job there in order to keep partying. She told us we weren't allowed booze in our rooms but added that she didn't really care. We'd made reservations in advance and this turned out to be vital: the rooms are a good size but semi-hostel style, with three beds in each room. Without the reservation, we would’ve probably had to deflect some creepy sexual advances in the middle of the night. The rooms have private bathrooms and cost 25 euros (like 35 bucks) per person with breakfast and a three-course dinner included. And the view… the view is pure Greek island with a long beach wrapping around to cliffs that jut straight out of the waves, as you can see.


Our choice of activities was extensive: kayaking, guided quad safari, booze-cruise, mopeds, a pool-sized hot tub, pool, or foosball, but we opted for naps on complimentary lounge chairs at the beach. All the traveling and Ouzo had knocked us out; in the three days prior we'd seen the Irish grunge band Therapy?, went to the 1st International Athens Tattoo Convention, and drank Ouzo and smoked weed on the slippery marble rocks beneath Acropolis Hill until sun-rise. Our minds were at least three days behind our bodies and our souls were still missing.

To be continued...

Review - Show - Poison Idea @ Thee Parkside, July 20th

The night started with a friend asking me: Do you ever look at a five dollar bill and picture a beer? I said, No, I see it as two. I had about ten beers in my wallet then, and by the time I reached Thee Parkside there were only two left. The bar was already packed with an impressive display of punk fashion; seriously, the sum of silver spikes must have been in the millions. It was a phenominal showing of old school punkers. I’d just learned of Poison Idea and I guess that’s pretty fucked up since they originated in 1980, two years before I was born. The band’s line up:

Vocals-Jerry A
Drums-Chris Cuthbert
Guitar-Jimmy Taylor
Guitar-Matt Brainard
Bass-Rawbo

The original guitarist, Pig Champion, died in 2006 and his presence has been missed ever since. But that didn’t stop Poison Idea from rockin’ hard as fuck. But wait a second, who played first… oh yeah, the Texas Thieves! It’s great to see an opening band that lists the headlining band as an influence on their myspace page (and they‘re from SF people). These guys have a sound that almost rivaled their stage performance. Lead singer Fozzy began the show by slapping hands with everyone in the front row and calling them by name. Then they launched into superfuckingfast punk. I really liked them. The guitarist Johnny Bouldt was asked to tell the girls in the audience what he did to play the show, to which he responded, “I had to suck all yr dad’s dicks to play this show!” Later, Fozzy screamed to the crowd, “What’s it gonna take to get you to run around and hit each other?” It made me laugh really hard (while getting hit).

The Midnight Bombers were up next and the lead singer kinda ruined it for me, too self-obsessed. Also, they wore stupid matching outfits. But the music was alright and the drummer was a huge motherfucker. When he hit things it felt like Armageddon. He really should be in Nile or Napalm Death or something. Hey, dude, if you want to play with my death metal band email me!



I’m not going to say much about Poison Idea’s sound besides that it was tight, had a sense of humor, and hard. Earlier in the night it had begun to dawn on me that they were really big. I’d gone out to the patio and saw a neverending line set up in front of the Sold Out ticket booth. Quite impressive for 17th and Winsconsin or whatever. My bro said he was standing on the bar because the mosh pit was everywhere. At one point all the tables in the bar were even taken outside to make more room. That might explain why all my pictures suck. Anyway, here they are. Props to the bouncer (pictured below right), you earned yr pay that night. Poison Idea fucking rules!

The Pen May Be Mightier Than The Sword, But Does Beer Trump Them Both?

Do you like death as much as I do? Do you find it funny to stare at a human skull and later, in the mirror, try to imagine yr own, beginning with yr teeth, then peeling on past the lips while exclaiming: Alas, Poor Yorick? Well, death and literature have finally been combined in the SF literary scene to form the Literary Death Match, hosted by local litmag, Opium. The match took place last Tuesday (7/17) and ended with judge Howard Junker, editor of ZYZYYVA literary journal, and writer Stephen Elliot, of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, flinging insults, then beer. Since I have volunteered/interned for both ZYZZYVA and McSweeney's (both are linked to this blog), I find myself caught in the delicious middle of this battle of beer turned to blood on the page. Read the stories for yrself, as present by Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle or by ZYZYYVA editor Howard Junker. I personally find the latter more interesting, as Junker and Elliot have just today begun a dialogue through that medium.

*View McSweeney's via The Believer Magazine

TRUCKERMYTHOLOGY

the car door slams.
she rolls down the window quickly
cigarette stench exudes
like a stream
at the first crack
then firehoses out her nostrils
into the green world
and farts through her mouth like wind
through a bakery.
she says something then drives off
I think it was ‘fuck you’.

4/20/07
10:39am

TRANSLATION - Rainer Maria Rilke - page a month

The company is situation across from Raab, the greatest city in the northwest of Hungary. The man from Langenau rides out alone. Lowlands. Evening. The mist upon the saddle glistens through the dust. And then the moon comes up.
He sees it on his hands.
He dreams.
But out there, something screams to him.
Screams, screams,
tears him from the dream.
That is no owl. Mercy:
the only tree on the horizon
screams out to him:
You!
And he looks harder: it raises itself onto two legs. It raises a body alongside the tree, and a young woman,
bloody and naked,
lunges at him: Release me!

And he jumps off onto in the shadowy grass
and hacks through the thick knit
and he sees her image glow
and her teeth clench.

Is she laughing?

The horror.
And he sits back onto his horse
and races into the night. Bloody
laces tight in his fist.

* The second half of the first sentence I added for context. The military commander of Raab, Kristóf Lambert, thought the city indefensible against the advancing Turks, and chose to burn it down to nothing. To this day, the Turkish call it Gyor, Yanik kale ("burnt city"). Cornets Christoph Rilke must have seen it just before its demise.

Meningitis Stranglehold

no, its tooo cooldl jshe wasys
just seconds after suggesting
I remove all her clothing because
its too uncomfortable
to be worn.
spiked military mustaches have
waded through blood with less
of a shiver.
but I know nothing
and ask again
noooo, the beauty is
that you woon’t
get to look --
my god, if there’s any beauty then
I’ll have to be out of the loop
I think.
the hard crome machine stares
from the kitchen counter looking like
some medevil snow removal device.
her hands do in fact
look
cold, blue,
almost frost-bitten because
the sun’s behind her like a moon
doused in kerosene, then lit.
but my machine can’t quite lift
the newly fallen silence from her
barren parking lot eyes.
so we sip luke warm coffee,
a dove or something flies by
and I cut into the spine of a Tolstoy
almost forcing poor Ms. Karenina
into a meningitis stranglehold
so that she lets out a coo- coo
then I drop the whole thing
do you
really believe
we’re descended from apes?

4/12/07

TRANSLATION - Rainer Maria Rilke - page a month

At last, contact with his commander. Next to his horse the great man towers. His long hair has the sheen of iron. The man from Langenau asks nothing. He recognizes the General, swings himself down from his horse into a cloud of dust, and bows. The General has with him a letter, it must be orders from the lords. He spits: “Read that crap to me,” without moving his lips. He adds nothing; the cursing, enough. Anything more would be superfluous, authority states. That is the point. And one regards it. The young man reads and it is a long time until he reaches the bottom. Once there, he does not know any more where he is. These orders are for everyone. The sky is gone away. As the orders say, so the looming General:
“Cornet.”
And that is plenty.

TRANSLATION - Rainer Maria Rilke - page a month

A day through the baggage-train. Cursing, sun-burned, laughing--: product of the dazzling, blinding land. The motley crew of boys comes strutting. Fighting and yelling. Prostitutes board, crimson hats over their long flowing hair . Beckoning. They are servants, their black eyes like wandering night. Seizing the prostitutes with lust, the boys tear clothing. They push and squeeze to the beat of a drum. And when they sense their poaching hands feebly resisted, the drum quickens, like they are playing in a dream, rumbling, crashing… And when they finish and light their lanterns in the night, a fantastic sight: wine, shining in the whores’ bonnets. Wine? Or is it blood? --Who can really say?

Review - Book - secret city - by Jennifer Barone

Enter The Word Kitchen of Jennifer Barone

I remember the first time I felt that I really got her. Jennifer was the featured poet at the Dalva Poetry Reading. Instead of her usual repertoire of reading two or three poems before introducing the first poetry set at Club Deluxe, Jennifer read at length. Her sensational descriptions of “plump tomatoes, bread,/ and mushrooms”, “grilled Cuban corn/ with cayenne pepper” filled my mouth, then expanded my mind. Her food-language seemed an entire world-language.

Her new book, secret city, puts the food on the plate. It is a collection of 18 poems by Jennifer accompanied by 21 visual artworks by Edward Barone, the poet’s father. Nine poems were written in New York City, Jennifer’s home town, and nine were written in San Francisco since she moved there in fall, 2005. With this form, the book mirrors the poet’s life. The poems spread across horizontal pages in three columns; none of the jaded vertical for Jen. She would prefer that you roll gently through this book. It is not a problem. To get from east to west.

A saxophone plays sadly. Food smells drift through the air from hot cucine as you walk through the streets of endless midnight doorways, each inviting you in for a taste of something exotic.

i’ve told you my dreams
somehow you’ve slipped
under my guard
and will know where to find me
- we must never have a fight

Once you’ve entered the intimacy of her dialogue, you realize that her words will never be said aloud in conversation, and yet, all of these thoughts and feelings will be present.

i look at you across the table
and everything disappears
except for pigeons flocking
into our conversation
seeing your eyes
full of love and smiling
shaking your head at me
- leave it to you

Stepping away from her love poems written to the saxophone man, Jennifer puts the two cities on display as she sees them. One of the coolest poems is moving underground; an image of the hundreds of thousands that take the daily trip of public transport: subway, muni, metro, whatever. She gets down to “i am the fingerprints on poles”, she is “the heaviness that/ weighs our chests down”, she is “the child’s wild eyes/ smiling from his stroller”, she imagines “i am the window/ my head is against”.

In San Francisco the poems become more descriptive. I “see” the last poem as a visionary demand that the reader see what she sees.

those who pray for heaven
who seek the promised land
as if it were forever unattainable
i don’t envy you

looking over the bay
you’d see us
on the balcony
sharing wine on a Monday
- saving heaven for later

All of a sudden, the previous poems are not quiet descriptions - they are demands: stop, forget, look around. Forget time, forget where you’re going, and internalize this; there is a lot to see. Yr senses will thank you.



About this book:

Format: 44 pages, paperback
Size: 8½ X 5½
Run: 200
Price: ten bucks
My Favorite WordPlay: lusty burlesque girls/ wearing too much make-up/ frilly panties and fishnets full of tears -- coney island
Get It, GET IT: thewordparty.com

Review - Amiri Baraka - City Lights Bookstore at 7:pm 2/19/07

When I was twelve and recorded a Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon over the only existent video of my grandfather, I learned that 15 minutes can eliminate hours of work. Today, I made 3 hours of tiresome transportation fruitless by arriving 15 minutes later than I had initially planned for the Amiri Baraka reading at City Lights.


(Above: Some of the multitude turned away)

I told myself, arrive half an hour early at least, I told myself, I told myself. But no, I arrive at 6:46 and there I am already, a million of me, I’m seated inside, I’m crowded around the door, I’m arguing ridiculous things like that I’m a student and that I’m here for a class - I’m kicking myself for drinking at a nearby bar - I‘m asking if there‘s space left in the basement - I’m laughing alone in helpless frustration on the curb… And who would have guessed Poet Baraka would draw such a crowd? Me. When I read the announcement at citylights three weeks ago. And who’s that getting back on the bus? Oh.

But this is not what I do on this blog. I do not indulge the superfluous undulating of my life. I try to create something.

What does it mean when a poet has grown so great that he sells out? literally? not literarily. The Great Man’s 9/11 poem got him attacks from all sides as well as required the complete elimination of the position of Poet Laureate in the state of New Jersey. New Jersey State writes that “Baraka refused New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey's call for him to resign. When McGreevey attempted to fire Baraka, he found no provision in the law for removing a state poet laureate. Subsequently, on October 17, 2002, a bill was introduced to the New Jersey Senate that would eliminate the position of state poet laureate; it passed and became effective July 2, 2003.” Poet Baraka’s actual words were “NO, I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE, I WILL NOT RESIGN. In fact I will continue to do what I have appointed to do but still have not been paid to do." And get this, "Publicize and Popularize poetry and poets throughout this state." He should have said country. He achieved it. Perhaps this man is a loud dissident. But through the glass windows of the bookstore, he looked like Walt Whitman, he looked peaceful and proud. And, at 72, this man made me feel like I was at a Beatles’s concert - alright, a James Brown concert.


And, as far as the aforementioned question, I think the answer is, well, learn it again: The Early Bird Catches The Worm.

Book Release and Reading - Jennifer Barone - Bird and Beckett Books @ 2788 Diamond St., Glen Park

Props GIRL!

If you don't know who this pleasant and ambitious young lady is - from her creation of thewordparty.com (linked on this blog), or from co-hosting Club Deluxe's Tuesday night Poetry & Jazz on Haight/Ashbury, or from her eastcoast counterpart thewordparty in Brooklyn - well, you should. And buy her fucking book titled: secret city!!! Ten dollars!

Buy it at: thewordparty.com

"i demand softer voices to counter
the piercing screech of breaks"

"you are a used world
your clowns are drunk and lazy
like wafting air of hot dog grease
and french-fried meat"

"letting crumbs fall on your chest
the pigeons eat them
and are uplifted"

Reading - Cafe Prague @ 485 Pacific Ave. (where it meets Columbus) @ 4 pm every Sunday

Cafe Prague has been kicking for a long time thanks to Mark Schwartz. But last Sunday was a real bummer. The poets were all ready to read but the host couldn't keep quiet during the performances. Overall, the distraction made for a poor time and I know for a fact that it intimidated new readers enough that they did not read. Poetry isn't about egos, it's about grabbing tiny bits of terror and beauty as they flow through and around us and grabbing hold of them. The shadows that we ink on paper are proof of such electrical currents or muses and are, perhaps, the only way two seperate people can share such things. But such delicate substances need a safe environment in which they can be developed and then released again, back into the wild. That is what makes a poetry reading a space of clarity.

Reading - Dalva @ 3121 16th St. - Featuring Monique Marquisa de Magdalena - WARNING: NUDITY

The Dalva poetry reading (7-9:00 every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month) has been one of my favorites; the tiny wooden room with a low ceiling is tucked in back, past the bar, and the space feels like an illegal gambling room or a meeting place for anarchists, or even, scatological poets. Thursday the 11th: stepping through the unmarked door into the suffocating air we barely found standing room in the antearior. Every seat was taken and the staircase in the corner was filled all the way up to the second floor. The 1st poet was followed by a gush of applause. The room was crowded for a reason.

Up came Ozzy with a poem that veered toward madness; and yet, it was about searching for books at the public library . He pronounced words with a brutal Rhode Island accent where "R"'s are "ahh"'s while referencing old Bezerker mythology as well as the giants from Beauwolf in a way that made the room shake. Somehow we were in a tangle with all of written history while searching the card catalogue. At one point he says: "KEYWORD / spelt B / E / R (AHH) / S / E / R (AHH) / K / I am not crazy!" Include lunge toward audience and wide unseeing stare. Always a pleasure.

The featured poet, Monique Marquisa de Magdalena, I'd seen at many readings but I'd never see her do anything like she did this evening. I'm not certain of the particulars but she was channeling Anita Berber, an intriguing German exotic dancer in the 1920's who is "probably the first person to dance naked" and who pioneered modern dance itself. She lived wild and died at the age of 29 after 3 marriages and many drug and orgy filled nights. She wrote a book of poetry with a husband titled: Die Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Ekstase (Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy).

Monique Marquisa de Magdalena turned down the lights and put in a CD - two drummers and guitarist began playing Natural Born Killers-style country - then she began a gothic reading about stripping, drugs, and touring the world: "they called me / the ice queen / the little devil goddess! / I was banned from Berlin / I played Baghdad / I played Beruit / in all the dirtiest clubs / I was banned from Europe". Everything felt punk rock and her music and dancing was hypnotizing. She passed out a bottle filled with Cognac and "pretened" to blow cocaine. Soon her clothes began to come off and a Anita Berber-mantra began. You never know what you'll find at Dalva.



(Pictures Top to Bottom: Hosts Adam Wolf and Elz Cuya, Ozzy, 3 pictures of Monique Marquisa de Magdalena, Jesse reading, myself with Cognac)

Christmas Bloody Christmas

finger queen
sounds enough like
fingering
the noose tightens
around her throat
and an orgasm bangs against
the universe’s outer walls
hmmm…
how was that, babe?
a potter knows pottery
and tea. some cocktails
make themselves before
the garnish even begins to
get questioned, sorta like
“fast wars” and premature
ejaculations of media versions
but I’m not a political poet
in any way shape or form. Female
form, then. Two breasts and
a machine gun fire blasts through
sexual moans in Cambodia, a
taste of sea creatures, the measure
of salt and constant coverings:
panties, undies, kelp, or other
seaweeds - today I’m reading and
the writing is the same
sort of Beckman
only without all his
“fucks” and “tennis socks” or
“white tennis socks” or whatever
I don’t really need to quote him
for the whole poem, do I?
Her chest, then. Sex best bent
over something, don’t care what
but her head banging something too,
her hair in a fist and drilling like
Alaskan oil fields from behind - that is
not a
metaphor. A blue, red, and white
flag covers a pile of half-burned bodies while
you open up each one of your Christmas
presents.
Or are you Jewish? Fucking happy
holidays. Did you receive money or a money shot
in the head this year? If violence weren’t
so easy, then she wouldn’t be pregnant would
she? I’d really like to stay out of
this poem but now it’s too late, let’s
send more troops (poets)!
Blah-betty blah-betty blah ha ha -
The bonanza returns to it’s origin of
man: finger-queen, goddess of the
morning’s coffee and blue pajamas or
maybe my parents have just entered this
holiday poem through the living
room door
exploding mortar
I lay dripping cold blood
between her legs.
(what a copout)

12/24/06
Christmas Eve
10:43am

TRANSLATION - Rainer Maria Rilke - page a month

Firewatch. They sit and wait.
Waiting… they’d sing of it, if weariness did not keep them silent. The red light is heavy. It falls like dust over their feet. It crawls up to the knee, illuminates folded hands. It is flightless. Their faces are in the dark. And yet, for some time now, the eyes of the small Frenchman have been illuminated. He has kissed a tiny rose, and returned it to his breast, where it now wilts. The man from Langenau has seen the rose because he cannot fall asleep. He thinks: I have no rose, none.
This, raises his voice. And he sings a dirge that the women at home sing in the fields, in fall, once the harvest is complete.

************************************************

The little Marquis says: “You seem very young, sir?”
And the man from Langenau, half in sorrow, half in defiance: “Eighteen.” Then silence.
Later, the Frenchman asks: “Do you have a bride at home, Mr. Donzel?”
“You?” comes the response from the man from Langenau.
“She is blond like you.”
And silence falls, until the German bursts: “Why the devil? Why do you sit there in your saddle and ride through this irritable land to fight Turkish, then?”
The Marquis laughs. “To return.”
And the man from Langenau becomes solem. He thinks of the blond girls with whom he used to play. Wild play. He would like to return to his house, for only the blink of an eye, only for that long, but instead only the words: “Magdalena - that I may be forgiven!”
How - ? thinks the young man. - Once again, they are unfathomable.

**************************************************

One day, in the morning, there is a rider, and then two, three, ten. All in ice, huge. Then a thousand behind them. The army.
Everyone must separate.
“Good luck, Marquis.--”
“May the Maria protect you, Mr. Donzel.”
They may never hear of one another again. And once they were friends; brothers. When once, they had one another to confide in, now they find that they cannot tell one man from another. They hesitate, falter. The haste and hoof beats resound around them. The Marquis pulls off his heavy right-hand glove. He takes out the little rose, holds a petal to the man from Langenau, like a man might break off and offer a host.
“That this may shelter you. Take care--”
The man from Langenau is astonished. He looks at the Frenchman for what seems forever. Then he slides the foreign petal under his tunic. And it swells from the billows of his heart. Horn call. He rides with the army, the donzel. He laughs sadly to himself: an unknown woman protects me.

Waiting For Godot

Originally for The Believer Magazine:

Waiting For Godot
performed by The Gate Theatre Dublin
presented by CalPerformances
at the Roda Theater, Berkeley, CA
on November 2, 2006


VALDIMIR: Moron!
ESTRAGON: Vermin!
VALDIMIR: Abortion
ESTRAGON: Morpion!
VALDIMIR: Sewer-rat!
ESTRAGON: Curate!
VALDIMIR: (with finality). Critic!

Waiting For Godot, the play by Samuel Beckett, defies criticism. During its performance, the sparse stage and almost superfluous language provoke one of two responses from the audience: either Beckett is God, or that Beckett is Bum. With a director hand-selected by Beckett himself in 1988, one year before his death, and the original cast from that year’s premier performance still together, The Gate Theatre Dublin’s performance left me with the former opinion, and the laughter that filtered through Berkeley’s Roda Theater confirmed that I was not the only one. But aside from its humor, Waiting For Godot’s ability to question its own existence is perhaps its greatest feat.

Throughout the play, the two tramps Vladimir (Barry McGovern) and Estragon (Johnny Murphy) repeatedly state their worst and, more importantly, our worst fears: nothing has happened and nothing will happen. When the lights rise we find a rock, a tree, and Estragon tugging hopelessly on one of his boots. Murphy’s bearded and time worn face has a zombie-like expression, his eyes peer out as though he is not there at all, and he states blankly: Nothing to be done. The two bums will not escape this phrase. They can only sit and wait for Godot, a man they have never met and whom they know nothing about. Director Walter D. Asmus does relieve the despair by focusing on the play’s powerful wit rather than allowing the full weight of existentialist despair to sink in. However, McGovern’s and Murphy’s intimacy on stage suggests they know each other better than anyone should and have already said all that they can think of to each other. Like old travel buddies they bicker ceaselessly and always make up; but their discourse, like their journey, never gets anywhere. Each response seems to degenerate from the former statement ad infinitum.

So how is it that Beckett’s work continues to astound and entertain audiences around the globe? Is there a point? So little actually happens that the play defies the critic’s desire to take a standpoint from which to argue for or against. One of the most widely agreed upon of these shibboleth’s is of course that “Godot”, pronounced God-oh, is the lord almighty. However, Beckett himself never confirmed this. Even when Vladimir and Estragon are joined by Lucky (Stephen Brennan) and Pozzo (Alan Stanford) the action never advances and nothing is achieved. Pozzo, the most hopeful and boisterous of the quartet, ultimately fails at entertaining the two companions and raises his hands in surrender. Nothing to be done.

In the final scene of the play Vladimir speaks with a boy (Barry O’Connell) who has come to tell him that Mr. Godot will not be coming today, but that surely he will come tomorrow. Vladimir seems resigned to the fact that Godot may very well never arrive, and that this is his fate, but he still ritualistically asks the boy a slew of questions. The ritual continues unabated until the boy asks what he should tell Mr. Godot. Vladimir pauses, then stutters, “Tell him… tell him that you saw me and that… that you saw me.” And that, perhaps, is all that a playwright may ask of his audience: that they see the performance and bear witness to its existence. Waiting For Godot may be meaningless, but it does exist - of that much we can be mostly sure.

Everything's Working

Yo, my blog was down and I just wanted to say thanks to all the people that told me about it, nice to know someone reads this thing. Hope you all had a happy halloween from yr perspective areas in the world---Mattie (Matthew Barney w/Bjork)

Poetry Bus Tour @ The Club Deluxe

I don't know the 1st reader, Joshuan Beckman in audience, Noelle Kocot with band, and the scene outside. Thanks to Ingrid Keir and Jennifer Barone for putting it all together and rockin' it as usual!

Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour @ The Make Out Room

"Shaving the moss off our blood"

Pics: BUS, Matthew Rohrer, Cole Heinowitz (squirming feet), dude on BUS, Lisa Fishman, and the crowd.

The writing is in the street and in the air - listen up!

"Almost as sweet as thinking about a moment of you thinking about me"

"Angles are the highest fate of form"