Will Kyle Featured Reader on Monday, April 30 at Duff's

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw

Will Kyle will be one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading on Monday, April 30, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers are Christy Callahan and Dwight Bitikofer.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Not only does this reading mark the 2nd anniversary of •chance operations•, April is also National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month.

To help us celebrate, our musical guest will be Raven Wolf, who recently released his debut recording, Spiritual Jazz .​.​.​on South 9th Street.

We will also be giving away a free copy of the 100th Anniversary issue of Poetry to folks who will read a poem from the magazine at our open-mic.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Will Kyle, a native of St. Louis, earned his BA in English at the University of Iowa and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Will also performs as a singer/songwriter at open microphones around town. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Barbaric Yawp, Great Lakes Review, Earthwords, Big Muddy and elsewhere.

If You Want to be Miserable, Become a Vegan

The sky patters
the roof. You

finish, slip
your spotless

dish into the
sink and scrub

out the drawer
marked Meats.

A square soy
patty lingers

on my plate.
It jiggles

when I poke it.
I wish for

Jimmy Dean
and savor

my last pool
of yellow over

easy as it
ebbs toward

the toasted
whole wheat

with a half
moon missing.

In the garden,
a starling

at the feeder
bullies the thrushes.

The fence rattles
as the garbage

truck beeps
through

the alley
to collect

empty jerky
bags, Twinkie

wrappers,
and cans of Cool

Whip. I ought
to drive

to a bakery
that serves milk

on my way
to work.

I try to screw
the pooch

with the soy.
She sniffs

and withdraws,
leaving only

a screw you
fart behind.

You aim
your sponge

at the cheese
drawer. I mourn

Jarlsburg
and Velveeta.

You say
White Russians

are not part
of our future

routine. Ice
cream too.

What about
Frozen Yogurt?

When I go
for the paper,

a raindrop blows
in my eye.

Why not
a sputter of grease

spit from
crackling pan?

I sigh and rub
my face

as I will come
dinner: broiled

tofu, steamed
broccoli—no cheese.

-- Will Kyle

Raven Wolf Musical Guest at Duff's on Monday, April 30

Celebrate International Jazz Day with Raven Wolf at the •chance operations• reading on Monday, April 30, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid. Raven Wolf recently released his debut recording, Spiritual Jazz .​.​.​on South 9th Street.

Featured readers will be Dwight Bitikofer, Christy Callahan, and Will Kyle.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; $3.00 admission.

Not only does this reading mark the 2nd anniversary of •chance operations•, April is also National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month.

We will also be giving away a free copy of the 100th Anniversary issue of Poetry to folks who will read a poem from the magazine at our open-mic.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Connie Bollinger of KDHX writes of Raven Wolf:

Here in Saint Louis, a town with high expectations from its Blues Men, Raven Wolf stands as a master of soul and spirit. His brand of magical mystical blues and jazz is earthy, visceral, emotional. He whispers his soul into the saxophone and the music that flows out is alluring and tantalizing, like an ache deep inside your mind. He can make your heart cry with longing or lead you playfully into the coolest of cool jazz. His unique interpretation of the Native American flute is an experience not to be missed.

Raven Wolf doesn't just play music, he takes you on a journey through many lands and cultures, introduces you to many styles and genres. His performances are adventures into the sacred and the sensual, where delights abound and the only thing you have to do is relax and enjoy. Come journey with him.

Christy Callahan Featured Reader Monday, April 30, at Duff's in the C.W.E.

Photo by Sam Davis

Christy Callahan will be one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading on Monday, April 30, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers are Dwight Bitikofer and Will Kyle.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Not only does this reading mark the 2nd anniversary of •chance operations•, April is also National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month.

To help us celebrate, our musical guest will be Raven Wolf, who recently released his debut recording, Spiritual Jazz .​.​.​on South 9th Street.

We will also be giving away a free copy of the 100th Anniversary issue of Poetry to folks who will read a poem from the magazine at our open-mic.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Christy Callahan earned a Bachelor of Social Work degree from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is currently studying for her MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry at UMSL. Christy's poetry appears in publications such as LitMag, Bellerive and Bad Shoe. When not attending classes, Christy works both as a social worker and a graduate assistant.

Mirror Trees

When spring came that year, my fifteenth year,
the Magnolia tree sighed and grunted,
and feigning interest would only produce
russet-colored brittle buds
and as they bloomed, then died,
my mom cried a horrible cry,
the sound tires make as they try to dig
their claws in to wet pavement.
Dad hid in the garage, twisting metal
and swallowing scotch.
When fall came that year, my fifteenth year,
the pine tree coughed and spat
needles across our roof,
clogging our gutters and tingeing it green.
My dad cried a horrible cry,
the sound a brake pad makes with its final grind
on the rotor before death.
Mom hid in the greenhouse,
planting Brazilian Verbena
and sneaking Pall Malls.
When winter came that year, my fifteenth year,
mom moved us to Manassas
where Magnolia trees never disappoint
and dad lingered in the garage,
awaiting the pine tree’s next move.

-- Christy Callahan

Note: "Mirror Trees" previously appeared in Bad Shoe, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011.

Dwight Bitikofer Featured Reader on Monday, April 30, at Duff's in the Central West End

Dwight Bitikofer will be one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading on Monday, April 30, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers are Christy Callahan and Will Kyle.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Not only does this reading mark the 2nd anniversary of •chance operations•, April is also National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month.

To help us celebrate, our musical guest will be Raven Wolf, who recently released his debut recording, Spiritual Jazz .​.​.​on South 9th Street.

We will also be giving away a free copy of the 100th Anniversary issue of Poetry to folks who will read a poem from the magazine at our open-mic.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Poet Dwight Bitikofer is active in open mic circuits around St. Louis. He has had poems published in Untamed Ink, Mid-Rivers Review, Writers’s Journal and on the MetroLink. In the past year, he has done some experimental, improv shows with St. Louis spiritual jazz musician Raven Wolf C. Felton Jennings II. Such “po-jazz” performances have been done at Dressel’s, at Focal Point, The Kirkwood Train Station and at McCaughan & Burr Fine Arts in conjunction with the Old Webster Jazz & Blues Festival. By day, Bitikofer is publisher of Webster-Kirkwood Times and South County Times community newspapers. In his 20s, he was a Yellow Cab driver in St. Louis. Before that, he was a Kansas farm boy and a wheat harvest combine jockey from Texas to the Dakotas. Great Plains winds and open horizon lines remain in many of his poems. Bitikofer still enjoys the road and has visited 49 of the 50 states, half the Canadian Provinces and recently made a road trip with old friends in Germany and Switzerland.

Drawn Lines

Cloud-view, looking down
shadows on the land
these lines drawn straight
unnatural paths of perfection
made with engineering precision.

What purpose? What regard
to natural form of earth,
pencil-poked canvass
of rights-of-way and roads,
rivers dammed to blue lakes.

Some roads follow terrain
–- these I respect –-
but wonder still at numbers
of natives displaced, at numbers
of rattlesnakes per square mile
and on which sides of mountains
cougars still prowl for prey,
and from which canyons
still echo eagle cries and sighs
of wind in leaves
of mesquite and cottonwood.

Some lines I recognize, others seem
a desecrating doodle or premeditated
ruler lines marked to stamp the land,
claim it for destruction of every
thing that creeps and crawls,
slithers, runs, flies and walks
to remake it for something “useful.”

Cloud shadows, unruly lines shaped
by masses of air, cold and hot
confrontations slipping just beyond
the grasp of Manifest Destiny’s control,
slipping just beyond controlled rectangles
and circles greened by earth’s reserves of water.

Slipping just beyond what we have learned to control
and what we haven’t learned to just let be.

-- Dwight Bitikover

Stan Wallach at March Reading

Stan Wallach was one of only two featured readers at the March 26 •chance operations• reading at Duff's.

Joe Schwartz, author of The Games Men Play, was the other featured reader. Open-mic readers were: Marcel Toussaint, Dan Eberle-Mayse, Christy Callahan, Chris Parr, Will Kyle, and Tony Renner.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be Monday, April 23.

Featured readers will be Dwight Bitikover, Christy Callahan, and Will Kyle. Musical guest will be Raven Wolf.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Joe Schwartz at March Reading

Joe Schwartz, author of The Games Men Play, was one of only two featured readers at the March 26 •chance operations• reading at Duff's.

Stan Wallach was the other featured reader. Open-mic readers were: Marcel Toussaint, Dan Eberle-Mayse, Christy Callahan, Chris Parr, Will Kyle, and Tony Renner.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be Monday, April 23.

Featured readers will be Dwight Bitikover, Christy Callahan, and Will Kyle. Musical guest will be Raven Wolf.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Nick Pence of Last Minute Will Be Musical Guest on Monday, March 26, at Duff's in the C.W.E.

Nick Pence of Last Minute will be the musical guest at the Monday, March 26, reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

Featured readers will be Joe Schwartz, Stan Wallach, and Shane Signorino.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Nick says that "Last Minute is a band heavily engaged in the roots of American music. With brotherhood at the core of this group, each show they show their family like connection and express the truth in anyway they can. Having blues and folk as the foundation these musicians rarely shine too polished but always stay, and play, tight as a knot."

Joe Schwartz, author of "The Games Men Play," Will Be Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, March 26

Joe Schwartz 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 Stan Wallach and Shane Signorino.

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.

Joe Schwartz is a writer following in the footsteps of Dashiell Hammett, Donald Goines, and Chuck Pahlinuk.

In The Games Men Play he has combined twenty-one short stories that will take the reader on a haunting journey through the darkest St. Louis streets to its most rural counties. A terrific, fast paced storytelling style that never wastes a word, his work constantly entertains and demands to be read.

A St. Louis native, Joe Schwartz writes exclusively about the Gateway City. His first book, Joe’s Black T-Shirt has been read thousands of times on the Internet and has sold hundreds of copies.

Stan Wallach Featured Reader on Monday, March 26, at Duff's

Stan Wallach 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 Shane Signorino.

Stan Wallach was one of 10 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the February reading.

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.

Stan Wallach is a St Louis native and local attorney. He has presented his poetry and prose at a multitude of venues around town. His short story, "Under," recently won third place in the St Louis Writers Guild annual short story competition. Stan's screenplay, "Woolly Bugger," a story of love, betrayal, serial murders, and redemption at a Missouri trout park, is in pre-production with a local independent film company.

Shane Signorino Featured Reader on Monday, March 26, at Duff's

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

Will Kyle at February Open-Mic

Will Kyle was one of 10 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the February reading. (Will Kyle will be a featured reader at the •chance operations• at Duff's reading on Monday, April 23.)

Featured readers for the Monday, March 26, reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be Joe Schwartz, Shane Signorino, 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.

Chris Parr at February Open-Mic

Chris Parr, co-founder of •chance operations•, was one of 10 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the February reading.

Featured readers for the Monday, March 26, reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be Joe Schwartz, Shane Signorino, 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.

Dwight Bitikover at February Open-Mic

Dwight Bitikover was one of 10 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the February reading. (Dwight will be a featured reader at the •chance operations• at Duff's reading on Monday, April 23.)

Featured readers for the Monday, March 26, reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be Joe Schwartz, Shane Signorino, 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.

Christy Callahan at February Open-Mic

Christy Callahan was one of 10 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the February reading. (Christy will be a featured reader at the •chance operations• at Duff's reading on Monday, April 23.

Featured readers for the Monday, March 26, reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be Joe Schwartz, Shane Signorino, 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.