'scuse me for

outwardly processing but

I can't control myself

these days. There's too much

to masticate and castigate

not to. But I'm

low on patience

and need action. Abolition.

Absolution that this statecraft

between us, between the world

is more than funds and suppression.

More than archived warheads and

blanching at darker skin than cardboard.

I don't buy it.

It's not policy

it's theology.

And the faster we make

that distinction

the better. God can't lead us

all into battle

but each

will claim

his banner.

And you know the shit-storm

that shadows: tin cut messiahs

yell for blood

and everyone bleeds.

We all become bovine

and crave a good steak

w/our pillaged wine

and sterling spoons.

We feed their children ours

and that has got to stop.

'cos I won't spend

my golden years

mucking out

the shit of kings.

Bleaching their chambers

of virgin blood. Lighting their pyres

and burning my own.

Quinn's  

330 Main Street  Beacon, NY

Monday,  February 27th    8-11pm    Suggested Donation

Calling All Poets & Quinn's presents JAZZOETRY – Music Set To Words.

This hotly anticipated inaugural event features many of the Hudson Valley's celebrated

actors, poets, and storytellers who know how to groove 'n flow with the incredibly gifted

musicians that make up the Jazzoetry Quartet.

The evening will move in and out of time with jazz instrumentals & jazz vocals, as poets

and storytellers perform spoken word and improvise with the ensemble.

Jazzoetry Quartet:

Kitt Potter - Vocals/Jazzoetry

Neil Nail Alexander – Piano

Robert Kopec - Upright Bass

Eric Pearson - Sax, Reeds, Flute

Jazzoetry Features:

Dutchess County Poet Laureate Poet Gold

Mike Jurkovic

Glenn Werner

Born in 1941, Eamon Grennan is a Dublin native and Irish citizen who has lived in the

United States for over thirty years. He was educated at University College in Dublin

and Harvard University.

His collections include: Matter of Fact (Graywolf Press, 2008); The Quick of It, (2005);

Renvyle, Winter (special limited edition, 2003); Still Life with Waterfall (2002),

winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Selected & New Poems (2000);

Relations: New & Selected Poems (1998); So It Goes (1995), a finalist for the

Paterson Poetry Prize; As If It Matters (1992); What Light There Is and Other Poems

(1989), a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize; What Light There Is (1987);

and Wildly for Days (1983).

As well as a number of Pushcart Prizes, he has received awards from the National

Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and from the

John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

He taught at Vassar College until his retirement. He lives in Poughkeepsie, and spends

as much time as he can in the West of Ireland.

Join us for a very special evening.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/eamon-grennan

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury

what else do you need to know?

How they've fleeced your bloodline.

Gutted your sons and defaced

your angel daughters.

How they put the planet

up for sale. Sky brown. Dead Sea.

Cut down mountains to get their goods

to a new market now that yours is

dark and shuttered.

How you always owe them something

even if they've claimed

each extremity. One by one.

Lopped off and

thrown in a hole

leading to

the process machines

that break the shit down

into dinner. Packaged brightly

w/lots of salt. And sugar.

And booze. 18% by volume.

How we dance on our last leg

the latest gyration. The newest dodge

and hustle. And I wish I had a hacksaw

to cut the shin away.

Letter Home

Some Civil War guy

in 1863 wrote:

Martha, I have seen

the dog

'n pony

show

and I

can't watch

no more.

Me neither.

I know

the feeling.

Especially

blue

vs.

gray.

I know

the blood

don't matter.

The air

is out

of the

balloon.

You can call

customer service.

But I doubt

they answer

the phone.

shiny banjo catfish . . my first collection of haiku, senryu, short poems 'n post-its . . .

Jane Street (our tellings)

 They all wanted to fuck me
on Jane Street but didn't.
Such was the luck
of the brotherly type.
A witness to women
learning to walk
along the Rockaway sand.

Playing them Dusty. Joni. Laura.
Our voices rising to the sky
black w/worry. Intrigue. Late periods
and trouble at home. Manhattan dying.
The Bronx afire. The autumns
in Washington Square.

We talked to the city and
the city talked back.
Whispered us secrets
and lies. And truths that later
proved true.

They all wanted to fuck me
on Jane Street but didn't.
Such was the luck
of the brotherly type and
some pangs still play
in our tellings today.
Certainly sickness. Certainly death.
Certainly the tides, high and low and
who did who on Jane Street.