Colleen McKee

Colleen McKee was a featured reader at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on October 25.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, November 22, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End. Cover will be $3.00; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

"listening to pharaoh jackson blowing..." by Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen, managing editor of Natural Bridge, was a featured reader at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on October 25.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, November 22, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End. Cover will be $3.00; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

listening to pharaoh jackson blowing...

you can’t just pull
up out of it when inside
our seeds expect
to be born
twice. You can’t exhale
like a worm and fog-up
the inner lips
of this cabbage. Notes
have to come
with brass wrapped
around and under
each bump on the tongue
because otherwise
why are we swinging
hips and rolling r’s
when you blow
the molded metal
into nothing but tracks?

-- Kelli Allen

"Untitled" by Ken Brown

Ken Brown was a featured reader at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on October 25.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, November 22, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End. Cover will be $3.00; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Learn, Artist! In Performance at Chance Operations

Robin Allen and Gena Brady Allen
Learn, Artist! provided the musical interludes at the Chance Operations reading on October 25.

Learn, Artist! to Provide Musical Interludes at Duff's on Monday, October 25

Robin Allen and Gena Brady Allen
The next Chance Operations reading will be held on Monday, October 25, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Ken Brown, Kelli Allen, and Colleen McKee. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Learn, Artist! will provide musical interludes. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3.


Tony Renner by Dana Richard Smith (in process).

Kelli Allen, Ken Brown, and Coleen McKee Featured Readers at Duff's on October 25

The next Chance Operations reading will be held on Monday, October 25, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Ken Brown, Kelli Allen, and Colleen McKee. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Learn, Artist! will provide musical interludes. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3.

Speaking of the open-mic, here's a poem by Colin Michael Shaw who stepped up to the open-mic, making his debut public reading, at the June 14 Chance Operations reading:

Prez

Really deep love, the kind that carries the kind of urgency
Like it’s your fist time feeling that, not like when you are
               middle-aged, jaded
You remember that?

I suddenly did as she tugged at my chest, looking into my eyes
And I let her kiss me full on the mouth
She doesn’t belong to me, she doesn’t belong here at all.

Long forgotten, so ancient or foreign or out of context that I
               kinda almost didn’t know what was going on
A heartache so sweet, because I know
I’m in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing.

Now Prez, he comes stomping over the hill looking for us
I snap back into my civilian shit and realize the lie
When he grabs her by the wrist and slaps the fucking shit out of her

I start to plead for my true heart, I start trying to talk it out
And Prez pops one in her head without missing a beat
Like he’s swatting a fly or something

She just falls away and he coming right at me
The whole time looking right at me
Putting the piece back in his belt

“Whatcha say, Loverboy -- you look tongue-tied man!”
“Oh no, not YOU, Poet! Show me how fuckin’ talented you are
with yer big fancy words, now… huh!?”

I stutter something, in the horror of it all,
the thought of finishing what we came to this damned place to do
with that bad, bad man

I pull the pistol from his belt and put the barrel into my mouth.
And Prez chuckles, “That’s gonna be hard for you, man…
That’s gonna be real hard to do...”

-- Colin Michael Shaw

Ken Brown to Read on Monday, October 25, at Duff's in the CWE

The next Chance Operations reading will be held on Monday, October 25, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Ken Brown, Kelli Allen, and Colleen McKee. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Learn, Artist! will provide musical interludes. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3.

Here's Ken's bio courtesy of Flood Stage: An Anthology of St. Louis Poets:

Born in Missouri- left town at nineteen...Returned twenty-one years later after Minnesota, Maine, and Mississippi in a tent,

Montana, Morocco- where he lived with a prostitute afflicted with polio. Normandy, Madrid, Grecian Islands- despondent- to upstate New York across the country in a Honda- through

Mexico- Vegas- Santa Monica for four years doing laundry for a living then dog-sitting at the Ding Dong... Wound up in

Australia-Perth- the out-bush for nine months- Hell’s Angels blew up land- went broke- made ten thousand dollars on Karma Kards- fell in love for the thirteenth time- engaged-

Kicked out of Australia- published in 45 periodicals- wound up back where he started.

You’re a Whore Now

Cars criss crossing caustically -–
you’re never gonna be my friend.
As a matter of fact I hope you croak:
It’s all based on the Zen of when...
And why were you so silent
after showing me resilience?
Your greed, your need for getting
what you think you’re worth
is less than ken.
Your promises, like vomit,
were like rockets in my pocket.
I offered you a future: You said yes…
But where was virtue?
You’re a vulture.
Where was culture?
I’m a statue, yes,
but you’re a whore now.

-- Ken Brown

Reprinted from Flood Stage courtesy of Walrus Publishing.

And here's another poem that Ken just sent Chance Operations. Ken says, "Hope you like it. Took me years to write.":

It Goes Like This

Ditzy Betsy --
stoned and spacy:
Never let's me
make her crazy.

Then there's Kristen --
never kissed her
though she's frisky:
We drank whiskey.

Fuckin' Jackie --
way too wacky...
L.A. glitzy-
born in Dixie...

Last there's Lizzy:
Never boring,
always busy --
way too risky.

-- Ken Brown

Kelli Allen, Managing Editor of Natural Bridge to Read at Duff's on Monday, October 25

The next Chance Operations reading will be held on Monday, October 25, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Kelli Allen, Ken Brown, and Colleen McKee. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Learn, Artist! will provide musical interludes. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3.

Kelli Allen is an award-winning poet teaching, studying, and writing in St. Louis. She is the managing editor of Natural Bridge, a journal of contemporary literature.

Evolving

Intention is one wing.
The nest will always be
too distant from the ground—
             there is no going back
or up. Falling is our book
of nights, letters to cousins
written on someone else’s fur.

Stories we sing
to each other shade
and creep around
the intricate margins, sometimes
infectious, sometimes running
             loose, all wildness
             and teeth. I am
             nine syllables
             from my knees
and I cannot do
what you do.

-- Kelli Allen

Colleen McKee to Read at Duff's on Monday, October 25

The next Chance Operations reading will be held on Monday, October 25, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Ken Brown, Colleen McKee, and a reader to be determined. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Learn, Artist! will provide musical interludes. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3.

Colleen McKee says:

I am the author of My Hot Little Tomato, a chapbook of poems about food and the erotic, published by Cherry Pie Press. It has a real fishnet flyleaf.

I am also co-editor, along with Amanda Crowell Stiebel, of Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America. This is an anthology of personal narratives, mostly from the perspective of being a patient. It's not exactly a policy book or medical textbook; it's more the human face of the the women trying to navigate the system. It's published by PenUltimate Press.

I write poems, essays, and a little fiction, and do some freelance editing. I also teach writing at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Lindenwood University. I write most of my poems on public transportation; I dream frequently and in color; I spend a lot of time in Portland, OR; and I can probably kick your ass in Scrabble. I write every day and try to be a nice person. When that fails, I try at least to be honest.

The most recent places you can find my work are the current issues/editions of the following: Criminal Class Review; Women Artists Datebook 2010; and Untamed Ink.

The Letter Opener

As I peruse the Black Cinema
postage stamps, a woman
with an everywhere Afro
and gold lame tunic rushes in,
a fistful of mail, to yell,
“God loves you ladies! I
love you ladies! God bless you all!”
then runs away from the darkness of the p.o. boxes
into the urban summer sun.

“She does that every day,” sighs
the matron in blue behind the counter.

The skinny girl ahead of me in line,
a butter knife stuck in her greasy blonde hair,
says, “Some people just got the sunshine.”
That’s when I notice, she does,
and I smile up at her on one knee
as I hold up the line to pick up the mail
she drops like a white handkerchief.


-- Colleen McKee

Dave Stone

Dave Stone performed improvisations on soprano and tenor saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic at the Chance Operations reading on September 27.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Musical interludes by Learn, Artist!

"Terminology" by Susan Lively (Spit-Fire)

Susan Lively, aka Spit-Fire, stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on September 27. Also reading were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, and Matthew Questionmark.

The featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's were Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Musical interludes by Learn, Artist!

Terminology

The good war,
the forgotten war,
the other war.
There is no such thing
as a good war.
Almost every war
is a forgotten war.
How many other wars
do you think there really are?
You have no idea how far they’ll go,
how far they’ve gone.
You have no idea how far.

The good war --
what an honor,
to be killed by a suicide bomber.
The forgotten war --
forgotten by all,
the writing is on the wall.
The other war --
in that other place.
You know the one,
in that other race.
The race to the death,
the final test,
let’s see who can die the best,
let’s see who can lose the most numbers.
As long as we don’t have to face,
the man whose foot we’re under.

The good war --
what a privilege,
to give your life for the privileged.
The forgotten war --
because no one cares,
no one cares what happens there.
The other war --
the one they left behind,
it was all just a side effect of your mind.
Where it doesn’t even matter,
how much we cry.
Here it doesn’t even matter,
how many will die,
in the good war.

-- Susan Lively (Spit-Fire)

"Untitled" by Matthew Questionmark

Matthew Questionmark, stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on September 27. Also reading were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, and Spit-Fire.

The featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's were Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

untitled
see the difference in your defense
cloaking your dagger
knives the dark toothed fear
this mortal wound!
no time like the present
giving dirt for love
boxes of scorched hair scattered along your highways
making you have a three-toothed smile
as your mouth hits the pavement
this is as real as it gets
monetary notes flutter from your flatulence
pictures of jesus wearing skinny jeans
on the cover of your rolling stones
his hair all echo'd by bunnymen
!these great purveyors of modern times!
witnesses cream their corn
grope their mothers
scream and fall to the floors
pissing themselves with epileptic fervor
you cover these counts with your dirt
and say meaningless words
looking upward into the skyless stars
why do you cry when you have a cravecase to eat?
why do you cry when radiohead hasn't broken up yet?
grope your remorse
knives in your hot piss box
making mamma scream for pestilence
hip new screeching bounces in yer brain
this immortal world!
lava as blood!
trees are cunts!
let them suffocate from meat farts and factory toxins!
just sit there gumming your iphone
like a giant sour gummy worm
lazarus rises from behind the couch
only to blow his brains out five minutes later
teevee flashes before you
test patterns
indian head fades to allah
then to obama
screen goes black
the muffled weeping commences.

-- Matthew Questionmark

"Mythomania" by Erin Goss

Erin Goss stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on September 27. Also reading were Tiffany Mayet, Matthew Questionmark, and Spit-Fire.

The featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's were Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

Mythomania or foxtrotin’ on ladies night

For she is a doll: weeping, pouting or smiling, running or
reclining, she is a doll. She is an idol. -- Germaine Greer

Old storks gossip like heretical nuns about a girl
She’s conger-like tavern walls slippery
Daisy Mae cancering the hearth home mammary
Soft rubber hips gorge on pints and preachers

She’s trauma from an ax an up-like crevasse
Lake Baikal in August warm colder Marco Polo
Something guttural yeasted
An afternoon soirée around the neighborhood. Oh

Or projector perfected
Giving head hands on the helm
With three sulky emerald beats
She hams ghost penis ghost penis ghost whoo whoo!

-- Erin Goss

"Waiting" by Sean Arnold

Sean Arnold was one of three featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's. Also featured were Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

In addition, stepping up to the Chance Operations open-mic were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, Matthew Question Mark, and Spit-Fire.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

Waiting

shots ring out
jesus christ there's a lot of fires tonight
click clackity pen on grated steel like a song
a revolution
in that it's all,
as in the swinging hips of the thing,
in the nervous twitch,
to a beat machine,
hammering on the impulse
hammering out the impulse,
christening some new dawn with a tap,
flick of a match and smoke smoke
-- the wind brings upheaval,
thoughts are starving dogs wilting on the sidewalk,
the propaganda for the goods falls on sewn shut ears
coarse and beautifully sewn as everyday language,
fuck that motherfucker in the ass to hell
-- and so on.
steep and drawn out,
impending.
two men kissing goodbye (almost).
suspended in the lush impending,
sit
sit
sittin' in the waiting room,
the moon nearly cresting over light pollution,
nearly having a purpose.
the hanging man tow and a half seconds before the bucket kicks,
the suspended orgasm,
smattering across air like someone in the midst of CPR,
nearly coming to
finding it, finding it,
finding.
the word meander, at the E.
near suspended,
the corpse dangling across the dead body of theater.
mid-crash
-- a spinning out like a top
-- glass shards flailing in the middle of air,
nearly arms out.
a conversation just beginning.
the object in an acrobat,
brick on window,
again glass flailing,
stop motion in the act itself,
nearly arms in the air,
lighter to rag but just getting a whiff of gasoline,
taste it,
taste it,
the difference between an epic an a romance,
feeling less epic and more that last one,
waiting for her,
on the tongue tip,
the shots unfire and the fire truck takes back its sirens,
st. louis sleeps for now,
a tingle and stop
at the feeling.

-- Sean Arnold

[from Soliloquy From A Freight Yard Open Summer Window, 2010, the Saint Louis Projects.]