Shane Signorino will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, March 26, at
Duff's, 392 N. Euclid. Other featured readers will be Joe Schwartz and Stan Wallach.
Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.
Musical guest will be
Nick Pence of Last Minute.
Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click
here to sign-up via e-mail.
Shane Signorino is currently enrolled in SIUE's M.A. in Poetry Writing Program where he is also working on his Teaching of Writing Certificate. He has been published in
Big Bridge,
Mixed Fruit,
Soundzine, and
Red Clay Review. He won SIUE's William Carlin Slattery Memorial Award in Poetry for 2012. He holds degrees in Experimental Psychology, English Language & Literatue, & Theatre. He has won slam poetry competitions in St. Louis and Chicago and has acted in many professional productions.
morning ritual: coffee, cigarettes and song
the rooster crowing coffee is black as street gravel patch and thicker than memphis molasses pie. sweet. so very, sweet. doctored to the brimtop with pink nymph sugar dust and mother's toasted almond milk. the cup. the loving cup. the lucky loving cup. powdery beige with jagged brown tagline:
damn i'm good! and good is just how i be feeling while swallowing the morning's first dark chocolate, hot tonic, right as ragtime or juarez rain. in a lithe con man's sleight-of-hand, trading the hot as alabama asphalt coffee mug for one, pure american spirit cigarette. lighting the tobacco turtle-heading from the tip with the backside of a lightning bug. or maybe the cheap, neon green gas station lighter. burn it down to sup the badland indian smoke. hold it in like the ghost who just ain't quite ready to be exorcised, then release it into the autumn fog, sending the wayward specter homeward bound. on the pawn shop record player, vinyl spins like a thin black snake moaning, soul singing
my morning song by
mister crowe's garden. soul singing to me, little ole me. beckoning me to singsong along. begging me to trance dance down to the seven seas bearing a ruby ring. good old timey organ key tickling, ragtag banjo picking, splintered wood guitar strumming, mad latino congo drumming, three african mamas with their rafter-cracking choir hallelujahs. and one hippy mystic, southern fried in blues, funk, soul, and rock-n-roll, harping himself silly while howling
said dizzy found me last night! i saw some kinda new light! said i woke up in a whirl-wind! say baby, just you watch my head spin! said the spectacle that makes you cry! time for the feral morning. time for the itchy feet song. time for the new day dream.
-- Shane Signorino
