Dee Snyder’s Open Mics:

Rantings and Writings

Edited and with an Introduction by

Dee Snyder

Copyright ©2009 by Dee Snyder as compilation.

All poems and prose were submitted to Dee Snyder as original works by the au-thors. Rights to original poems and prose remain with the authors.

Compilation by Dee Snyder ([email protected])

Cover design, book layout and typography by Gregory Snook Cover illustration by John K. Snyder III

Back cover photograph by Gregory Snook

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Ann Brandstadter

Stale Crackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Bitterness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Eric Hendrixson

A Valentine’s Day Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Ceasefire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Outside the Courthouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Russell Henry

Hollow Houses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Whiskey Flows Downhill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Donald Illich

My Brother the Mercenary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

My Cult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Country Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

HH Judd

Advice to a Poet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Questions for Pablo: Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Questions for the Child of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Some Troubles at the Arboretum (Dedicated to Al) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Tony Masalonis

Dead Meat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Untitled (or: “Student”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Untitled (or: “Re-peater”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

J.D. Smith

No, Thanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

My Hoodie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Forsaking All Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Vespers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Dee Snyder

James and Cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

See Writer See Drunk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Valentine’s Day in Hell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Marisa Torrieri

Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Wet Mud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

INTRODUCTION

He walks straight, or not-so-straight, up to the mic, puts his lips too close, looks around or looks down, sometimes gets his papers out in front of him and then begins to read his hungry, angry, angst-filled, at times humorous or touching poetry and prose.... his Art. The audience shifts in their seats. People drink, smoke, even talk, or pass notes. The reader sometimes yells a hearty “FUCK” and throws his beer bottle against the wall, shattering complacency and comfortability and, sometimes, he’ll knock a chair over for extra effect. People laugh, people clap, or are silent. Sometimes people heckle. But it’s all in the context of the Open Mic!

I ran an open mic in Washington D.C. from 1998 to 2006, the first 2 1/2 years at Club Hell, then for 5 years at D.C. Arts Center, both in Adams Morgan, a diverse hotbed of restaurants, bars, apartments, the homeless, tourists, gawkers and vomit-spewing drunks, jocks, and military people.

1

In late 1998, with the encouragement of my friend Laura Qa (of Red Dragon Press), I took over the existing weekly open mic, Poetry in Hell. This raucous, fun open mic was established circa 1994 by writer Greg Gerding

I had no experience running an open mic, but I had experience performing as a comic, performance artist, and punk rock drummer. It was definitely a rewarding challenge to run such an open-to-the public event with so many talented, crazy, interesting, and varied-personality people.

I had a lot to learn and I had to learn it fast: how to successfully promote a Sunday night open mic in a small, dark basement bar, what to do when

the audience was louder than the reader, how to handle a heckler, and how to handle it when the reader seemingly never wanted to leave the stage, among other things.

In July of 2001, with the support of its director, B. Stanley, I moved my open mic across the street to the terrific, non-profit art gallery/theater, D.C. Arts Center. Since 1989, DCAC has generously provided a space for established and emerging artists.

This second open mic was called The Batcave, named for my love of Goth, the underground in general, and bats! For five years on the second Wednesday of each month, I hosted poets, comics, musicians, singers, belly dancers, and even a motivational speaker! Anyone was welcome. It was a blast.

From the very beginning, I noticed certain people became regulars, people who attended my open mics year after year. I got to really know them, often hanging out with them after the show.

The Open Mic is a pathway to confidence and more art and an inspiration to fellow artists and, most importantly, represents a COMMUNITY of artists who support each other, and sometimes they even become friends.

I put together this book to say thank you for open mics, thank you to the venues that provide a forum for open mics, thank you to my own open mics for uplifting me and giving me a purpose, and a big THANK YOU to my faithful, hard-core, talented regulars, showcased in this book. This all couldn’t have happened without you!

Dee Snyder

February, 2009

ANN BRANDSTADTER

Stale Crackers

Performed by Ann Brandstadter with Grandma’s Mini

Stale Crackers and Peanut Butter Let’s try to love one another,

Don’t you touch them, or I’ll tell your mother, Stale crackers and peanut butter…

Hey, hey, hey, hey, we’re going away, Hey, hey, hey, hey, I bought them today, Hey, hey, hey, hey, you took them away, And now I’m hungry again!

Stale Crackers and Peanut Butter Let’s try to love one another,

Tell your boyfriend to get out of the gutter, Stale crackers and peanut butter!

Hey, hey, hey, hey, I’m going insane, Hey, hey, hey, hey, It’s gone to my brain, Hey, hey, hey, hey, and now I’m in pain, And I’m still hungry again!

Stale Crackers and Peanut Butter Let’s try to love one another,

Don’t you say a word,not even a mutter, Stale crackers and peanut butter!

Hey, hey, hey, hey, this song is too long, Hey, hey, hey, hey, it’s going all wrong, Hey, hey, hey, hey, let’s smoke from a bong, And we’ll never be hungry again!

We’ll never be hungry again! We’ll never be hungry again!

Ann Brandstadter

Bitterness

Performed by Ann Brandstadter with Project Applesauce

I smell bitterness, so you don’t deserve my kiss,

I smell bitterness, so you don’t deserve my kiss.

When you went away you said you’d be back here to stay, so now what’s this? Someone else is back instead, and now my head it rests upon my wrist.

Where’s that tenderness? Am I supposed to get that gist? What’s this tenderness? There must be something that I missed.

How am I supposed to know the face you show is really what it is?

I think I’ve figured out without a doubt, the truth’s come out, because you’ve slipped.

How am I supposed to know the face you show is really what it is?

I think I’ve figured out without a doubt, the truth’s come out, because you’ve slipped.

Where’s that loveliness? Did you not walk upon that mist?

I see pettiness. And now you wonder what you’ve missed.

All the while, you look inside the child, to find that missing precious bliss. But everyone around, they know you’re down, you turn around and clench those fists.

I smell bitterness, so you don’t deserve my kiss,

I smell bitterness, so you don’t deserve my kiss.

I smell bitterness, I smell bitterness, I smell bitterness

ERIC HENDRIXSON

A Valentine’s Day Card

I’m feeling like a mongrel dog tonight: I want to piss on everything I see.

I hope some drunken redneck starts a fight.

With every face that’s passed across my sight, My begging eyes looked up untrustingly.

I’m feeling like a mongrel dog tonight.

That shot slid down my throat without a bite; I’ve lost all sense of sensibility.

I hope some drunken redneck starts a fight.

And, yes, they’re playing Muddy, so it might Just be the twelve-bar that’s affecting me; I’m feeling like a mongrel dog tonight,

But laughing voices through the smoke and light Still fill me with the urge to disagree.

I hope some drunken redneck starts a fight

Or something happens, something to invite Some contact with this smiling, blurred debris. I’m feeling like a mongrel dog tonight.

I hope some drunken redneck starts a fight.

Eric Hendrixson

Ceasefire

They’re opening the hydrants on 16 And flooding Massachusetts. Every sign Of summer’s washing by: a couple green Discarded menthol wrappers and a shine Of rainbow motoroil that passes through The sunlight in the gutter to the shade, A crumpled paper cup, a flyer too,

And plastic flags from yesterday’s parade. The Anacostia will swallow all

These tokens as we watch them all go by And watch the passing of another fall

With half a look from one quick, glancing eye

As those strange loves for things we love decrease, Which always is the casualty of peace.

Outside the Courthouse

Outside the courthouse, trying to stay dry, I smoke beneath the awning. On the lawn, the rain falls up. I look again and sigh.

Who’m I to judge? The sprinklers are on. Inside, there is a motion to suppress

a motion to suppress a motion and

a moving speech to have the Court address attorneys’ fees. Gold rings on each soft hand, the counsel, pleading hardship, pulls his sleeves,

French-cuffed and linked with diamonds. Understand, I’m not here citing waste, which each man grieves, but, for the record, outside, on the lawn,

it’s raining, and the sprinklers are on.

RUSSELL HENRY

Hollow Houses

Ruby said she found herself a very fine man.

She’s a-walkin’ and a-talkin’ and a-holdin’ on his hand. But the things you don’t know, and the shit you can’t see are the problems of life that afflict you and me.

There’s a hole in her head, directly to her brain, and the things she scoops out are all the same. If you wanna know how to live like this,

get yourself a bottle, and proceed to get pissed.

Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Grandma’s in the bed, and she wants to bite your neck. Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Grizzly bears are comin’ home real soon. Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Big Bad Wolf is a-huffin’ and a-puffin’. Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Chicken Legs will keep it in the best neighborhood.

Put it on your credit card, you really need this; One more nightmare to complete your wish. A thousand motherfuckers are just like you,

they want to have the things that you want too.

One day you’ll have it, everything in place,

and a crazy motherfucker takes a bottle to your face. Your car is so nice, you forget where you’re going. Your car is so nice, where the fuck are you going?

Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Grandma’s in the bed, and she wants to bite your neck Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Grizzly bears are comin’ home real soon. Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Big Bad Wolf is a-huffin’ and a-puffin’. Hollow Houses, Hollow Houses,

Chicken Legs will keep it in the best neighborhood.

Whiskey Flows Downhill

I’ll ride a motorcycle right up the neck. I’ll drain the bottle, I’ll hit the deck.

It was a long time coming, but I paid him back square.

It was a long time coming, but he hung around there.

It was a long time coming, but my daddy said to me,

Whiskey always flows downhill.

I’m out the back door, and I’m prowlin’

I’m on the stump, and I’m howlin’

I think my pants are on backwards, and my leg is on fire.

Layin’ in the back-woods, burnin’ up a tire

It was a long time coming, but my daddy said to me,

Whiskey always flows downhill.

I’m on a longboat. I got a longneck. I got a stick,

and I’m a wreck.

I sent a bottle full of lyrics to every girl in town.

I tried to get up, but I had to lay down.

It was a long time coming, but my daddy said to me,

Whiskey always flows downhill.

Can’t get a handgun.

Can’t be too loud.

Can’t drive drunk.

It ain’t allowed.

It was a long time coming, but I paid him back square.

It was a long time coming, but he hung around there.

It was a long time coming, but my daddy said to me,

Whiskey always flows downhill.

DONALD ILLICH

My Brother the Mercenary

We mail him bullets every week, shine his Army combat boots, and listen

to his war stories for hours, countless odds, daring raids, bridges exploding in wood and metal dust, pale, bloody limbs hanging in jungle trees, flies swarming

in a cloud around victory. Christmas he brings war toys to us you can’t buy in stores, miniature tanks and baby flamethrowers, grenades to hang on the drying tree, a spring-loaded blade in the chimney for Santa and his elves.

My brother sleeps with one red eye open, jerks in the dark at nightmare enemies, moaning for comrades lost, exulting in an enemy’s cut throat. We don’t get too close, huddle in the corner away from the couch, and slowly skulk up

the steps to our rooms, where we lie awake, every noise not the ringing of sleigh

bells but the commandos seeking him, their knives and garrotes ready to silence his life and all the ones around him.

My Cult

Worshippers of my every

word, I have an announcement: No longer consider me divine, just really, really great.

Those of you who’ve sacrificed your life, health, and possessions, in my service, I can only

say “Oops.” I wasn’t thinking. My merging with the spirit must have been a case of soul poisoning, a bad burrito worming the grandiose in me, fertilizing a soiled mind.

How to replace me, your lord? Get drunk or fuck, I know I will. When I found there was no Santa, I threw away my toys. Go burn down my temple, stir up your own cyanide Kool-Aid. Play-time is over and saints have stopped throwing halos across my beautiful schoolyard. Stop—

bend down, pick up a leaf, crumble it in your hands. Feel its grit.

It’s been waiting for us all.

Donald Illich

Country Music

Country artists refuse

to write a song about me, though I guarantee them a hard life drinking

and carousing, holding a Bud with a callous factory hand, dating and losing every truck stop

waitress in the nation. They keep guitars quiet when I check on their progress. The Nashville

skyline turns black when I question the great picker in the sun, “Ain’t I

good enough reason to

drown one’s sorrows?” Clouds rumble like Harley Davidsons outside juke joints, where I’m

about to be hit with bike chains of lightning. My love’s in the Opry’s wings, encouraging me

to sing, so gorgeous ghostly banjos play when I belt one out, protected by her angel’s strings.

HH JUDD

Advice to a Poet

Now listen,

if you want to read poetry in public

you are going to have to deal with drunken boors and dimly lit venues in scuzzy bars

where you can’t even see your own poems,

or else you will be selected out of the gene pool. Furthermore

some people will always get more applause than you, some people will always walk out as you read

or laugh at your most serious lines, and that’s just the way it is.

If you don’t like that, buddy, then

you can go back to the Kafka story from which you came and live out your life as a cockroach.

HH Judd

Questions for Pablo: Wind

Wind flutters the feathers

of the soaring redtail under clear sunshine, on the icy crust of the day-old snow, prisms surround the fox tracks:

isn’t the stupidity of strident folks who harangue the snow dangerous?

The dawn my cat became colored glass, where did he go after he visited my bed: he was saying “farewell,” wasn’t he?

You know, every belly feather on that redtail I could see as the wind held her over me...

each feather matching a snow prism,

each feather stroking the wind and whistling. Must this be the farewell from a dying god?

Questions for the Child of God

Why are wood thrushes allowed to sing out in such ignorance of their doom,

why such a cruel trick on them?

And though I can hear them on the forested slope

outside my window, I know they are surrounded by a relentless city. What kind of stunt was that

for the Child of God to call a wonderful September night in that beautiful year of Nineteen Ninety—

Dear Child of God,

are you waiting for aberrant B cells* to metastasize? will they come with guns,

maybe after a warm dinner is set, maybe as spring approaches,

maybe supported by well financed opinion polls,

maybe they’ll spring out from time bombs planted on my skin, maybe they’ll appear in doctor’s offices plotting to take

the children away from people who don’ t believe in god, perhaps they will come with guns,

supported by an overwhelming public opinion, maybe you will never write back

and I wish I could say I don’t care.

But I do care and my world isn’t so neat, so

are you waiting for aberrant B cells to metastasize, Child of God, in your world so neatly explained?

Outside my window on the forested slope,

ignorant wood thrushes sing out, not able to fight back.

*B cells manufacture antibodies

HH Judd

Some Troubles at the Arboretum

(Dedicated to Al)

It was a Ponderosa Pine that led the Bonsai pavilion into rebellion. Living free for a hundred fifty years,

one day men dug it up from its rocky niche and wrapped the training wire around its limbs. It was made to heed like a servile dog.

For twenty three years it endured the wire as stupid tourists gaped at its proud bark. Then on a most beautiful sunny day

its trunk broke the training strand and its limbs tied the hated wire-steel into a noose.

As the gardener made his usual rounds

to check each pot before the visitors came, the pine slipped that noose around his neck and choked him until he was dead real good. “Follow me, my brother trees, throw off

the wire and pick up the spade and we’re free!” the strong-willed pine cried. The Chinese elms, rallied behind the arbor leader, as did

trident maples and even young scrub oaks. Now some elderly Japanese white pines were aghast. For centuries they enjoyed the pampering from their human lords, and might have ratted against the plot

if an alert olive tree had not poured herbicide in their pots. The olive proved that esteemed dotards could nicely die. Alas for the rebels, Fate played a trick.

One of the grounds keepers from the herb patch entered the pavilion to use the phone,

and stumbled over the twisted limp corpse. She screamed before being felled by a spade. The rest of the grounds keepers were stunned, but with axes and brutal slash and burn, they retook the green house after a fight. Then they cut the Ponderosa’s roots, denuded the smaller trees and smashed

all the cute pots into smithereens.

Still quivering, the Ponderosa’s trunk was wrapped in dirty, oily canvas sheet and tossed on the flatbed of a pick-up and taken to a secret garbage dump that was kept hidden from public sight. The flatbed towed a cart with a big mess

of sticks, the once-rebels turned deadwood. No longer did the Bonsai have to wear

the hated wire or be anybody’s pet.

As free trees they all burnt in the trash pit.

TONY MASALONIS

Dead Meat

Dead meat is safest when it’s hot as hell All seething microbes flee or die in pain Dead meat is safest when it’s froze as well.

Improper topic for a villanelle? Perhaps it’s true I go against the grain.

Dead meat is safest when it’s hot as hell.

There’s a narrow range in which microbes can dwell Where bring they Salmonella and Ptomaine

Dead meat is safest when it’s froze as well.

And why is it, of these things I must tell?

Why do such oddball thoughts besiege my brain? Dead meat is safest when it’s hot as hell.

Dead meat is inert matter for a spell, Then in our bodies, cows! pigs! live again! Dead meat is safest when it’s froze as well.

So, when the butcher rings his tolling bell He merely keeps alive the grand food chain. But dead meat is safest when it’s hot as hell Dead meat is safest when it’s froze as well.

Fire

I threw another log upon the phoenix

I bagged my feelings, tied them to a stick

We strive, I think, for something that will free us.

I knotted up my fortunes in a helix

I lit a fuse that proved to be a wick

I threw another log upon the phoenix.

It’s been awhile since I been to Venus

It’s been a mile since I heard that “click”.

We strive, I think, for something that will free us.

We tilt on rocks that prove to be a zenith

The road to the nadir is getting slick.

I threw a water jar upon the phoenix.

We tell our tale to all who would believe us

We weave a shawl from all that made us sick.

We strive, I think, for something that will free us.

I’ve often played the note on which I’ll leave this.

Have some of each, you needn’t take your pick.

I throw a Molotov onto the phoenix

We strive, we strive, for something that will free us!

Tony Masalonis

Untitled (or: “Student”)

I’m learning to crawl But I ain’t got no knees

They’re all worn off from praying, From aiming to please.

I’m learning to fly

Cuz I must get there now Cuz I know that I’ll have you Just not when or how.

I am burning from cold Where the night beat the day Where the el train is idling— Down, down, and away.

To the tunnel of Freud To the flow’r of O’Keeffe

Where the weather shall change And they’ll send no relief.

Where the heat and the light Shall return when you’re blind Where the road to the heart Is the best you can find.

Where the babe in a manger Has stopped counting sheep And where neither the talk Nor the kisses are deep.

Where the shepherds are wise As their means will allow Where I know that I’ll lose you But not why or how.

See, I once learnt to walk But the bar was too tall

So I’ll drive to the school where They teach you to crawl.

Untitled (or: “Re-peater”)

How dead-on was your timing as you ran to catch my bleeding. I thought that you were rhyming but you only were repeating. You were wiser than your years, the way you hold your breath; you were moving me to tears and then you’re boring me to death.

You tilt your head down low; the ground absorbs your glance. Is that your Zen humility, or’s that your fighting stance? Is your glass raised high in toast? Or do you beg for change? Are you crawling cross the floor to grab up money, dirt, or grace? You tell me now it’s coins, you snatch up at such price. Were they scattered here by Abbie Hoffman or by Jesus Christ? Your tastes can be obscure at times, or sometimes prole, or lavish; is your head thrown back in awe, in pride, or simply to be ravished?

And now you touch no senses, lying perfect, almost still. You said you’d never do this, but now I’m sure you will. You send my pressure climbing as you jerk abrupt in dreaming. I thought that you were rhyming but you only were repeating.

J.D. SMITH

No, Thanks

“Sip. Savor. Do the happy dance.”

Starbucks Frappuccino Light Poster

I don’t do the happy dance.

I don’t put on a happy face,

And I don’t take a happy stance

Or find an inner happy place.

I take my coffee black as fate,

Smoke unfiltered, belt straight gin,

As if it could relieve the weight

That stretches hope’s best fibers thin

While men slit throats for petty cash, Pimp their daughters, foul their streams And smash to fragments, burn to ash What they can’t bear away, yet gleams.

So keep your sweet foam and your cheer, For what it’s worth. I won’t dance here.

My Hoodie

My hoodie is a part of me

I wear it and I know what it means to be free

I take it to the ballgame I take it to the show

I’ll take it to the courthouse if I ever have to go

It’s a blanket it’s a pillow it’s a pair of wings

When I’m set up in my hoodie I can stand among kings

[Zip zip]

A girl said I can’t kiss you if you keep that hoodie on

I kept the hoodie zipped tight—that girl had to get gone

[Zip zip zip zip zip zip zip zip zip]

Napoleon marched his army to the sea

He said I’m tired of this jacket man I need a hoodie

[Zip zip zip zip zip]

I’m not alone in my hoodie vibe

Let me tell you ‘bout the rest of my hoodie tribe

An Eskimo wears his hoodie in the snow

A monk wears one so the girls don’t say “hello”

We’re white yellow black Christian Muslim and Jew

And a hoodie my friend might look good on you

It’s the deal it’s a shield I can wear it in disguise

I’m living big and phat and my hoodie’s just my size

[Zip zip zip zip zip zip zip zip zip] My hoodie

[Zip zip zip zip zip zip zip zip zip] My hoodie

J.D. Smith

Forsaking All Others

Having failed in such attempts as I’ve made, having so far failed to make the attempt,

or not having been apprised until just recently that the attempt could in fact be made,

I nonetheless from this day onward and ever after abdicate from my place in line for, and renounce, further servings at the voluminous and double X-chromosomed buffet of flesh.

I will foreswear from this day forth

such lips as are not found in my household. I will never again caress the wholesome flesh of a next-door neighbor,

nor the beach-bare expanses of blondeness that populate advertisers’ palettes

and the taut brunette coffeehouse servers of pierced brows and well-read eyes,

let alone the rare genuine redheads

like strawberries dappling a bowl of cream or plumes of green-eyed flame.

Farther afield, I will not roam into the arms and lithe legs of a Buenos Aires tanguera,

nor those of a doe-eyed Ethiopian sweetheart who might encompass me

in her bronze planes and volumes once she explains the unfolding and deployment of injera.

And never will I—not that I had before—

cradle, one in each hand, any of those Japanese cupcakes who, rising to perhaps five-one in their platform shoes, cover their mouths to laugh

and accessorize in Hello Kitty well past their thirtieth year.

The days of unchecked choice are gone.

Someone else will have to explore how it feels to remain on a quest for every feminine possibility, perhaps finding it, finding it wanting,

Dee Snyder’s Open Mics: Rantings and Writings

or just failing and charting the ways men can go wrong for all time— pecker-tracked, cigar-clouded, miasmic with gin and malt liquor

in flophouses and SROs, clutching for comfort

a vaguely stained pillow and a Daily Racing Form, or—far less often—aloof, distinguished

in a marmoreal estate, a stratospheric condominium with, at most, paid companions

and an abundant sense of ending up

empty-handed at the beach after sifting every grain of sand.

Another man will have to plumb those depths or in his mind turn them upside down

until they look like greater heights, Matterhorns of breast and mons veneris he can lie about having scaled.

Some other retired and lounging lion

will have to recount the exquisite gazelles he brought down and those that, just barely, got away.

I will be busy from this day forth. There will be a job to go to,

to pay the mortgage

to house possible children.

There will be the laundry and the grouting, the afternoons with the financial planner, the visiting or being visited in hospital and the latter days of assisted living before transfer to one of two

prepaid and adjacent plots.

And there will be, in spite of these chores, and infusing them,

as morning’s coffee warms its cup, a luster of contemplated joy

that grows and brightens with attention. This leaves no hours in the waning day

to quest like a Captain Ahab of the amorous or coolly conquer like James Bond.

There will only be the daily drama

where I will play, in the male lead, myself.

J.D. Smith

Vespers

My day of mere fact and unwatchable work somehow leads to the rock-star moment when every light goes out

but the one that haloes me— the impossibly long-stemmed garage-sale special

lamp next to my bed

that I have to seize and tilt to reach the switch

but first must bobble like a microphone stand on a futon-high stage

before an audience of none throwing off balance

its mini-manhole base

to swivel like the hips of the King, and roll around before I reach up, steady the bounce

into a Chuck Berry duck walk, a Mick Jagger grasp

for satisfaction that will never come

and planting that lamp like a 60-watt seedling (that could have been

the name of a psychedelic band) I steady the evening’s last light into an angled rest

that lets me make

a last one-handed reach aor the hexagonal switch

and in the instant of turning it with a safecracking click

I am Jim Morrison

lizard King before the void

I am Hendrix along the watchtower I am John Paul George

even Ringo (but okay and as one with that) crossing Abbey Road

I am, in spite of my genitalia, Janis, free with Bobbie McGee

and Freddie Mercurially on parade I am the second Elvis, aiming true, both Smiths, Billy Idol,

Siouxsie and her every Banshee, Kurt of blessed memory,

Eddie still with us,

a transistor-to-MP3 existence flashing behind my eyes Spark and after-image

in the retina Settling to dark The day is complete

I am backstage of myself and then I am asleep

DEE SNYDER

James and Cat

Last Wednesday I was sitting at the bar at Metro Café. A young woman next to me, Heather, and I started talking about music. She said, “I don’t usually like the bands that play in here. They’re too rock and roll. I like stuff like James Taylor and Cat Stevens.” I raised my eyebrows, and then as some sort of explanation she said, “My parents were hippies.”

This reminded me of when I was a teenager and my best friend Cindy also loved James Taylor and Cat Stevens, stuff that would put me to sleep.

Cindy and I were both loner/weirdo/outcast sorts, so we gained comfort in each other’s company. We were hanging out all the time, almost every day, and I sure didn’t want to be listening to Taylor and Stevens.

You’ve got a friend. You’ve got a friend….. who doesn’t like music like that!

So one day I went over to Cindy’s house with Iggy Pop and the Stooges Funhouse album. I said, “You have to listen to this!” We sat in her bedroom and smoked pot and listened to it over and over and over. All afternoon. And slowly Cindy started to understand. After awhile she said, “This is really great stuff.” And I’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about the pot.

The best song I can think of by Cat Stevens, I’m bein’ followed by a Moonshadow, just can’t GET to you like a song by Iggy can.

Out of my mind on Saturday night. 1970 rollin’ in sight…

His music makes you want to get on a roof, take off your clothes, dance and gyrate and sing and scream and wanna have sex!

So how do I explain all this to Heather, my barstool mate at Metro Café? The only real way is to abduct her, take her back to my apartment, strap her in a chair and make her listen to the best music in the world; I wanted to dig out all my favorite albums, and just play that music at full volume until she, just like Cindy, learns to understands. She must understand! She must learn to understand!

Then I sit back and think a moment about this and suddenly realize that I’m as bad as a religious fanatic who is driven to convert people to my religion. I’m right and they’re wrong. I’m right and they’re all wrong. I listen to the best music. Only I know what the best music is. I’m right! I’m right!

I gotta right, a right to choose, anything I want, any old day….

As long as everyone else chooses the exact same thing!

Dee Snyder

See Writer See Drunk

See writer, see drunk.

See writer get drunk and write.

See drunk writer write.

See writer walk into bar, get drunk, and write.

See drunk writer walk into bar, already drunk, get more drunk, And write.

See drunk writer scribble and scrawl,

Squint to see the paper he can hardly

See in the dim, dark, smoky bar light.

See him avoid people, eye contact,

Conversation, touch.

Don’t touch me there!

See him stumble home alone and drunk,

And cry and cry.

Don’t touch me there!

See writer, see drunk.

Dee Snyder’s Open Mics: Rantings and Writings

Valentine’s Day in Hell

Drunk jocks, drunk marines

Drunk students, even single drunk yuppies. They’re all shouting, louder and louder,

drink upon drink. All 80 of them. Shouting, yelling at full volume. It’s full volume, baby! It’s open mic night.

It’s Valentine’s Day in Hell.

Heartbroken, horny. Numbed, oblivious. They stumble into Hell.... Club Hell where the chairs wobble and the roof leaks, and the missing toilet paper reminds them of something, they don’t know what.

And the roof leaks like their oozing liquor-soaked lonely sick hearts. Their hearts OOZE out ouzo, vodka, gin, and Miller Light.

Hey, it’s Valentines Day in Hell. Shout it out loud... SHOUT out the meaningless bullshit, on Valentines Day, now Valentine’s Night, in Hell.

This is worse than any hell I’ve ever been in.... alone on Valentine’s Day, now Valentine’s Night in hell...trying to maintain some semblance of order.... order and control. I’ve got to control this mess, this chaos, this blah blah blah of drunk people... I’m trying to run an open mic here!

Their drinks, their droning, their Sunday night holiday, mean more than anything... being polite, being respectful, being a decent human being, in Hell, on Valentine’s Day, now Valentine’s night, in Hell.

MARISA TORRIERI

Sheets

I tried to smell you in my sheets this morning. It was useless—

My faded, sage-lotion scent seeped through, warming the thin cotton—

so I crumpled and tossed them into the hamper, making room on my bed for freshly-laundered ones that smelled sweet and floral and

will never wear the scent of your body.

The new day spread out before me— the fog outside reminded me

it will get much colder before it gets warmer, reminding me

We spent last winter Warming each other’s bodies. You were a sheet of flesh— Soft and cushy enough

I simply smelled myself to sleep.

I wonder what your next lover will smell like— Sweet, faded sage?

Or musky, with hints of cigarette in her kiss … What will she taste like?

Will she be thick-thighed, blonde and little? Will others call her cute?

Or, will she be very different from me— Dark in the places I am bright,

edgy in the places I lack edge, skinny in the places I am fat, uninjured where I am damaged …

Will you smell her and see the whole world spread out before you? Will you forever commit yourself to her sheets?

I have a feeling

this will be a long winter.

I do not smell any lovers in the near future— there is no one else

I want wrapped in my sheets, And the sheets

on my bed are as good as new—

but your paintings still weigh on my walls. Other reminders tug at me—

Though you are not visible, sometimes I can feel you in my bed. I often think about spring—

Just three more months and the world will be clothed in a sheet of freshness, three more months and many more laundry cycles later,

and maybe I will finally learn To smell the roses …

Maybe I will take one breath of spring

and new opportunities will spread before me … Yes! I can almost smell it now!

Marisa Torrieri

Wet Mud

A Poem for Greer

She holds the bag of twenty-ounce cups against her breastplate - thrust from the heart-

she is the girl in their green logo

the siren smile that traces a set of perfect, ivory teeth.

Her muddy-colored hair swirls like mocha down the back of her neck. The ladder of cups she has built hides the rows of eyes

from the fine lines of her neck and chin. “What can I get for you?”

She takes them down, one by one, pulling at the black-handled filter baskets, hammering out the grounds of old drinks.

Only you, baby

The sighs and droopy eyes lift,

espresso melts through two silver shoots into matching shot glasses. She taps each one into the cup,

lining its base with dark, bitter undertones.

She chisels away at the day that wears her down behind the counter.

But tonight,

she will take the suspended moonlight and drink it, she will tiptoe across the freshly mopped floor and untie the strings of the dirty, green apron, and toss the trashbags out the back door,

she will inhale the quiet that awaits her.

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