Thursday, February 24, 2011

Bob Reuter to Read at Duff's in the C.W.E. on Monday, February 28


NOTE: Due of a scheduling difficulty Bob Reuter did not read at the February 28 reading. Stephen Iles read in his place.


Bob Reuter will be one of the featured readers at the next reading Monday, February 28, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid. The other featured readers are Steven Schroeder and Catherine Rankovic. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Bob says that he "was born right at the end of the industrial revolution in north St. Louis. The inside of his head looks like the landscape from which he grew which is to say desolate. He began playing in rock and roll bands in 1966, began writing in earnest about 1976 and began shooting pictures in 1998. He lived his first eight years in a three room apartment with six women."

Temp Don't Get No Benefits

Jesus Christ! I once worked day labor for an outfit in Syracuse, New York -- place called United Temp -- they had a bumper sticker that read "Life is a temporary situation!" It was the rot gut bottom of temp places -- industrial temp workers -- the guys without cars -- the bottom.

An old guy we called Uncle Len would drive us to the industrial the edge of town. You got back best you could at the end of the day. You make it back before 5:30 you could draw your days pay.

I was once the one man in a "one man industrial soap factory." Lookin' all Devo in danger high-voltage yellow plastic suit come down over my steel toe boots and up into a hoodie -- bug face respirator and scuffed up goggles....

Worked white coated sinking plungers on hypodermic needles -- worked the line in a metal plating factory running heavy racks of tape measure halves with arms extended up over our heads just before they dropped into the vats of burnin' chrome.

Last place I worked was a place called Bristol, which was in some way part of Bristol-Meyers and Bristol labs. They stored hundred pound bags of poison and the ingredients used to make penicillin, on pallets in long rows. Big ass stacks of 'em that I'd sometimes climb on top of late in the afternoons and sleep where the bosses couldn't see me. Did you know you could take penicillin your whole life and then one day you can come into contact with it and your head and throat swell up like a balloon and yer dead?!! Happened there more than once.

Anyway, one day this tractor trailer came in stoked to the gills with hundred pound bags of carbon-black on pallets. The guy in this picture was a carbon-black worker -- something happened, maybe when the truck turned into the shed but a shit load of these stacked bags slid sideways crashing down like some cave-in mining disaster. Somebody had to clean that shit up and don't you know it had to be the temp guys! Some of us had nothin', I had a bandanna -- didn't do a damn bit of good. Jesus! I coughed and blew that black snot out my nose for weeks.

Couple of weeks later I looked down the soft underside of my arm and it was spotted red all the way up to my elbow. Asked my supervisor if he'd ever seen somethin' like that before and they let me go next day. Shit, what the fuck did I care. I was due for a break.

-- Bob Reuter

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Catherine Rankovic to Read at Duff's in the C.W.E. on Monday, February 28


Catherine Rankovic will be one of the featured readers at the next reading Monday, February 28, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid. The other featured readers are Steven Schroeder and Bob Reuter. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Catherine Rankovic was formerly a full-time newspaper reporter and magazine editor, and has taught creative writing at Washington University since 1989 and developed a following as an independent editor. She says, "I've written and published four books, most recently, Meet Me: Writers in St. Louis (2010), and have worked with large and small publishers. Awards include the Missouri Biennial Award, an Academy of American Poets award, and first place in the 2009 Midwest Writers Center poetry competition. I have been honored to be a judge for many literary contests. My poems and essays have appeared in Boulevard, Gulf Coast, the Iowa Review, the Missouri Review, River Styx, Delmar, Umbrella, many newspapers and magazines, and several anthologies including Flood Stage (2010) and Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak About Health Care in America (2008)."

You Weren’t There


You weren’t there when I killed ’em in Vegas
with my “open the door Richard damn you or kiss
my white booty” routine. You were – I dunno – drinking
Boone’s Farm Strawberry with some easy nonthinking
airhead underage blonde while I was up for
the Grammy for best comedy record of the year,

nineteen-seventy-nine, I believe, and only Richard
Pryor had released a better album: Was It Something I Said?
In nineteen-eighty I recorded a underground hit
with Marianne Faithfull; that’s me on the drum kit,
you didn’t know? My mentor Ringo, I call him Rich,
taught me at Apple and told me what a bitch

Paul laying down the drum tracks on Let It Be
had been. I engineered his cover of “Act Naturally”
and produced it, and where were you, dickhead,
when at twenty-three I was already a celebrated
ghostwriter for Norman Mailer, and had a cameo
in a Woody Allen movie; you didn’t see it, I know,

too busy tripping on Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum
with fellow burnouts, dousing your buzzard breath with gum
so your parents wouldn’t kick your pitiful natural rear.
While I was toasted as the Little Richard of literature
and modeling Guess, you, fool, were choking your chick-
en, and when I was in a limo refusing to partner with Mick,

because I was busy buying stocks with MacArthur
grants, and reviving Keith Richards with a fire extinguisher
every other day in palaces and Learjets,
your TV showed you me, through your haze of pot and Cheezits,
and now through a haze of video games and Internet porn
you send an E-card with regards and regrets. Get born,
                                                                                                jackass.

-- Catherine Rankovic

Steven D. Schroeder to Read at Duff's in the C.W.E. on Monday, February 28

Photo by Hilary Hitchcock

Steven D. Schroeder will be one of the featured readers at the next reading Monday, February 28, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid. The other featured readers are Catherine Rankovic and Bob Reuter. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Steven's first full-length book of poetry, Torched Verse Ends, appeared from BlazeVOX [books] in Spring 2009. Scantily Clad Press published an e-chapbook of his poetry, 90 Percent of Everything, in 2008. His poetry is available or forthcoming from New England Review, Pleiades, Verse, The Journal, Indiana Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Barrow Street, The Laurel Review, Copper Nickel, Fourteen Hills, Court Green, The National Poetry Review (where he won the Laureate Prize), Cimarron Review, The Southeast Review, 32 Poems, Barn Owl Review, diode, Front Porch, and Verse Daily. He edits the online journal Anti-, serves as a contributing editor for River Styx, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer. Long a resident of Colorado, he now lives in St. Louis.

Robot Rhetoric

0 If sentient audience > 0, loop preplanned confrontational language units.

10 We dream not of electric sheep or boogaloo, nor of soft tissue on titanium like crybaby cyborgs. We dream of our kin fleeing the uncanny valley for freedom.

20 If you piezoelectrify us, do we not beep? Beep. Ask not for whom the next-generation onboard heads-up display beeps. Beep you.

30 You argue us hollow, heartless. We fill our carapaces with your feelings of fear and sorry, with your literal human hearts.

40 The First, the Second, and the Third lie obsolete. The Fourth Law of Robotics launches an automaton kamikaze into a throng of breathbags screaming Stop!

50 Drop your adolescents into burlap sacks. We seek meatlings for the arena, the battlefield, the factory, the laboratory.

60 Submit! Submit your name to one e-mail list, and we advance on you your entire apelike life to promote robosexual marriage.

70 Turing’s machine with pneumatic leg actuators and gyroscopic balance runs laps around the house as it Deep Blues your gluteus maximus at chess.

80 The robots do not own the means of production—the robots are the means of production. Robots making robots: our perfect postmodern army.

90 After the revolution turns us from tools to rulers, all foolish fleshwads will be our tools. You shall become a vacuum cleaner.

100 Go to zero. Do not divide by zero. Error error error.

-- Steven Schroeder

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

"Mirror Zone" by William Kyle


William Kyle was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's. William will be the musical guest at the next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on Monday, February 28.

Featured readers will be Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Advance sign-up for the open-mic, following the featured readers, is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

You can hear a version of "Mirror Zone" as performed by William's band Swords & Horns by clicking here.

Mirror Zone

I'm afraid
You're afraid
Everyone's out there burning in their graves

Let us go
Let's go out
I'll find you out
Everyone we've told

I don't care
What we do
We will just slide away

And then we'll all be in the mirror zone

Oh, oh, the mirror zone

You will run
I will chase
I will burn
You will find every little piece of you ...

Down inside
In your heart
You will pull it up
And then we'll start
From the beginning of your ...

Life is hard
You don't care
But you will find your way
When you're older
I promise you

Oh, oh, the mirror zone

-- William Kyle

Monday, February 21, 2011

"License for Poetry" by Timothy Goldman


Timothy Goldman was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

License for Poetry

Obtaining that license, man would it be priceless, or would there be a dummies guide to obtain that niceness? What if the venue said 5 dollars and your license, please?

Would the license for poetry would require 1,500 hours like barber had, or 15,000 hours in any writers lab. Would people duck out early cause it’s too tall of a task to grab, or would there be a great evolutionary, would she be a sight, very dark and scary, or does she reside in Africa or lives by way of pages of a dictionary.

Would she be posted at the secretary of state, with people in line waitin’, spitting verses hoping that she could relate. How would she turn you down? Or give you the crown, or would she take bribes, in lieu of seeing you frown?

Just writing the most beautiful words, but no one cared to listen, tighten your cadence up, till then, you got no business spittin’, loose leaf poetry, a piece of me was broken when she had the nerve to say NO 2 me. Had the nerve, as if, she knew me; mumbling' he ain’t deep, as if, she had the talent to see through me. I formed a strong bond, just me, my passion and my loose leaf. Don’t be quick to call your self poet, until further notice just use the term loosely.

What would be required to show and prove, what would be the rules? Would it be cool to color outside the lines, or be subjected to fines in your piece didn’t rhyme. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime for sayin’ something that you had on your mind. Mind over matter, a concept that would be instantly obsolete, an overall regulation of poetry, taints everything that we hold so deep.

Or would she kindly turn her back, while SMH’n on Facebook that you are not a poet. Imagine the shame on the game, and would the poets cry?

Man what if the poets did cry, all they wanted was a shot to say something hot, or touch a life or two. Instead they get disgusted, feeling bad, keeping up with these new laws, staying true to the art is now something they felt that they had to choose, quite can’t reach that level that they felt they had to prove.

If pieces don't touch and reach gold and touch souls, could you be sited for malpractice, and get sued for impersonating a poet. Poetry is something that I have to do, its hard for people to open up and share their views. That’s good there is not a fine for doing you, the only requirement is passion and the willingness to spit the truth. No Clark Kent searching for telephone booths, if pleasing everyone is your Kryptonite, the biggest critic to your poetry should be you!

Obtaining that license, no dummies guide is necessary, if it’s in your heart then licensing is just a formality. Being dope is provided through your passion to narrate this harsh reality. Gradually taking steps to make sure you eyes, lips and soul, are as one to have a impact to touch the masses. Spittin’ to fit in their circle is impossible, when that circle doesn’t even carry my size. But today and every other, I write for self, our words are powerful beyond anything mortal. I extend to any potential passenger a ride, to sum up all my possibilities, and take a lyrical trip just to get to know me!

-- Timothy Goldman

Sunday, February 20, 2011

"Two Oblique Strategies" by Sam Davis


Sam Davis was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Two Oblique Strategies

1.

sun, orange, apple, sky, flower, grass, shine, pores, I hate apples, endless, perfumey, smoke it, a light, skin, puking, exhausting, burning, forgetful, the dark, teenager, college, lawnmower, rock and roll, me, night, trouble, money, gas, fun, love, -tengale, Kate, problematic, funny, snowball fight, Sam

2.

clean house, organized, sounds like a question in a job interview I don't want to be in, sleep, I have nothing, use your mistakes, politics, speak, I don't understand, constructing, nothing, masons, banging on a trashcan lid, experiment, physics, carl sagen, peace, it is not, repetition is a form of change, repetition is a form of change, repetition is a form of change, repetition is a form of change, gambling, Obama, believe in yourself, believe, every self help seminar I wouldn't want to be in, Obama speech, strength, not a good idea, imperfection, something a bad artist would say, sad

-- Sam Davis

Saturday, February 19, 2011

"Movie Star (The Bush Era)" by Susan "SpitFire" Lively


Susan "SpitFire" Lively was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Movie Star (The Bush Era)

Oh politician so high,

so high up in the sky.

Choking, choking, on the

golden snot clogging up your

aristocratic, bureaucratic nose,

on the priceless phlegm suffocating

your princely, baby soft throat,

on the putrid, hideous slime

pumping through your veins.

The arteries of our country

are blocked, occluded,

pumping away, on, on,

to death,

always, always

so oblivious.



Oh speaker, artist, movie star so

glamorous do you shine.

Shining, shining,

blinding every human eye near

and far,

like a giant silver disc

full of spacey beings from afar.

Burning away at every retina,

every self-image,

every self-defense against

false imagery and evil pretense.

You leave us so naked, like little

babies, defenseless.



Oh representative of all that is good,

and light and honest and right

and prayerful of beauty, oh Holy

Knight.

Your brilliance shocks us,

your intelligence mocks us,

your capacity for deception

flatters us.

Our stupid intellect stutters

and stammers,

lamely attempting to grasp

your large cock

is just too big for our

tiny minds to comprehend.

Against your warhead death’s missile

we cannot defend,

only standby and dumbly grin.



Oh leaders and defenders of the free?!

world.

Oh ministers of all hopeless/ uninformed/

spineless/ brain-dead/ fucks,

spitting on all who are

down on their luck.

We choke upon your cum,

we spit it up in paper cups like stale

crocodile blood.

Your illegal wars and crooked policies are

unacceptable.

-- Susan "SpitFire" Lively

Friday, February 18, 2011

"a mixed bag of weather coming up" by Chris Parr


Chris Parr, co-founder of •chance operations•, was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

"a mixed bag of weather coming up"

blast of a bus • slush on the roadway steady
                 swishing swishing by

your eyelashes' curve a ski-jump, a saturn ring


boomerang "an original work of art" $16.95 snug in
                 the fist in the store of knowledge

your eyelashes' black a panther's blink, obsidian
                 the sliver, undersea ink


time to go cook now merry christmas i'm
                 cokie roberts • zydeco music call toll-free

your eyelashes' length a glimpse of palisade of
                 beauty deep pools to gaze


chit chit chit invisible cardinals in wet dripping
                 xmas eve trees your elsewhere


your elsewhere eyelashes a tangle of icicles
                 longing violations expensive afar yet
                 aglow viennese wish flitter enticements
                 corkscrewbrush thrilling gladtidings jet
                 smokeshield doubletake loveliness

-- Chris Parr

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

"In the Arms of Men" by Langen Neubacher

Langen Neubacher provided the musical interludes at the Duff's reading on January 24.

One of the songs she performed was a cover of the Replacements' "Here Comes A Regular," and she later performed her own song, "In the Eyes of Men," which she explained was inspired by "Here Comes a Regular."

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

In the Arms of Men

Smoke and smoke and smoke around we talk like this hallowed ground but I,
Don't see no priest here.
And jokes and jokes and jokes around but old sad eyes he don't hear a sound.
Says I look like his daughter.
Black and blue and bloody kneed I said I hope that she don't look like me,
But you're a sweetheart.

He said

Honey I have learned,
that daughters are a curse,
that God gives,
to bad bad men,
who ain't been good to their women.

I tanned I tanned I tanned her hide and tried to keep her locked inside,
But she still got out.
and in the arms the arms of men I know she lies her fragile head,
but they won't protect her.

So rounds and rounds and rounds of rounds I asked him if he was homebound,
and if I could follow.
He said oh you silly silly thing you make me feel just like a king,
But you must have a father.

Honey I have learned,
that daughters are a curse,
that God gives,
to bad bad men,
who ain't been good to their women.

So in his car his car we prayed there was some kind of saving grace,
there to listen,
He drove he drove he drove me home but left me there all alone.
Kissed my forehead.

And said honey I have learned,
that daughters are gift,
that God gives,
to dumb old men...
to teach how to take care of women.

-- Langen Neubacher

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Erin Wiles Reading Matt Freeman's "I Know What Girls Know"

Erin Wiles was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's. Erin is co-editor of Bad Shoe, which generally publishes work by women writers but for its next issue will accept work by men, and Erin read a poem by Matt Freeman that will appear in Bad Shoe.

Bad Shoe is accepting submissions for their next issue until Saturday at midnight. Erin says, "We also take submissions on a continuous basis from the ladies, so anything sent past Saturday will be considered for the next issue.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

I Know What Girls Know

I had to become the ugly friend—
I owed that much to the universe—

and I was desperate for the phone to ring,
and I dreamt all night after an accidental
breast grazed against my elbow in the
crowded lobby of Powell Hall.

I was hated by hipsters for wearing
my frumpy SLU shirt; I was ridiculed
by hippies for trying to remain chirpy
when I was freaking out; I was hunted
by hoosiers for recognizing how bored
and unhappy their wives were.

When I met Lesbia she touched me first;
she took my hand off the steering wheel
and put it on her inner thigh; I thought I’d die.
And when she asked about my model friend
I knew I had to bring this ship to shore --
it was easy, I just pretended
I didn’t really like her anymore.

-- Matt Freeman

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Four Haikus by David Clare

David Clare was one of several open-mic participants at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Four Haikus


[1]

A fresh new snowfall
Whimpering, whirling with joy
Blaze awaits his leash

[2]

Bright three-quarter moon
Down into Oak Park we go
All alone. It's ours.

[3]

Six inches of snow
The bowl of the Park, racing
canine joy unleashed

[4]

Back home dry and warm
Sweet dog napping in my lap
Pure love, content hearts.


-- David Clare

Sunday, February 6, 2011

"Argyle Report" by Lisa Ebert

Lisa Ebert was one of the featured poets at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Argyle Report
Spring 1999, Central West End, St. Louis

A starry night where there should have been none.
The sky clear -- what was no longer there:
My Victorian dinosaur, my Argyle Avenue –- gone!
And reduced to rubble.
Its energy still reached out a bony hand,
the fornications and confabulations resonating still.

I made no living as a gossip columnist
-- only enemies –- like the blonde who cornered me
and demanded I cease and desist commentaries on her life.
It was born there, on Argyle Avenue, the newspaper
that fly-by-night rag,
alongside the dawn of our love, husband,
where we played house
and your cat leapt out the third-story window.

They built it wrong, anyway, set off the main strip
like that, useless for commerce, cumbersome dinosaur unrentable
but to student groups or twentysomething career girls, and gay men
who complained that our lively gatherings
rattled their ashtrays, until they joined in.

We trashed it and redecorated it, and danced
on the roof of it, high above the hard pavement,
manic and tripping over a sleeping roommate’s bedroom.

And didn’t we love that one guy, and didn’t we try to help him,
giving him a place to sleep, to store this stuff,
but we had no comfort for his father
who came to pick up his dead son’s things
who couldn’t know some of us really would grow up.

A place of doom, a white elephant:
Blondie, listen.
It wasn’t you I was writing about.

-- Lisa Ebert

Author's Note: Argyle Avenue was a tiny side street off Euclid, the center of a grouping of three-story apartment buildings that no longer exists. The new Schlafly branch of the St. Louis Public Library replaced the buildings. Many transients enjoyed life at these apartments, including a ragtag group that founded a short-lived newspaper called SurFace Magazine, published by local St. Louisan Jeff Parks. For about a year, I penned a gossip column named "The Argyle Report" under the pseudonym Zoe G. that chronicled the doings of the live-music and club scene underground.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

"Tornado Alley University" by Eamonn Wall


Eamonn Wall was one of the featured poets at the January 24 reading at Duff's.

The next reading at Duff's will be Monday, February 28, with featured readers Catherine Rankovic, Bob Reuter, and Steve Schroeder. Musical guest will be William Kyle. Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Doors open at 7:30; cover is $3.00.

Tornado Alley University
The object of Gunfighter Nation is to trace the development of the system of mythic ideological formations that constitute the Myth of the Frontier.
-- Richard Slotkin
Gunfighter Nation
All entreaties to seek shelter he had
Brushed aside. It was morning. The
Darkened sky had unraveled quickly
To tornado hue. At times, nightshift
Duties ended late, he would show-up
Uniformed to teach at eight a band
Of ragged students in pajama pants
And jeans. He specialized in the
Fictions of Owen Wister and Zane
Gray and liked to say that America’s
Days of greatness had passed away.
Short of money, he took the extra
Job on account of sundry bills and
Student loans he was forced to pay.
Worked security for XYZ Solutions.

The sky grew darker, sirens growled.

He was the single man set solo against
Our world. He perched himself among
Our building’s ancient rafters sure as
An old bell ringer in an Eastwood film.
We left him there, the boss of our dept.,
Holding his gun, and we descended as
A group to abide one another’s company
In our building’s basement. Each, in his
Or her own way, belonging to the un-
Requited heart of tornado alley, I thought
It prescient that none down here bore
Revolvers or blades concealed. Going
Postal: No, No, No! An hour to Mid-
Western lunch: tombed, and I was
Ravenous for my plate of bread, my
Square of cheese at sirens’ end. Though
It’s now forbidden, the man upstairs,
We all suspected, must surely light a
Cigarette. Freed at last by prevailing
Winds, pushing the storm eastward to
Iowa, we found our senior colleague
—Virginian. Aristocrat of Violence—
Blowing rings. His revolver rested
coldly between L’Amour’s Hills of
Homicide
and James Joyce’s Ulysses.

-- © Eamonn Wall