"Prophet" by Colin Michael Shaw

Colin Michael Shaw was one of ten readers who stepped up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the April 4 reading at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Eileen G'Sell, Susan SpitFire Lively, and Robert Nazarene.

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.

Prophet

Awkward introductions and casual fumbling
Relieve the tension and excuse the shaking girl
Who sat where you belong,
Lovingly weaving the basket I can put my feelings in later.

But I can’t see your simple spring cotton, ordinary beauty, sensible shoes...
Only your North City lights,
“Little lavender colored mints,
Teacups hung on hooks,
And pirate’s flying saucer”-
Because the multicolored jewels that spill from your lips
Make me “feel like I have tears in my eyes”.

So I close them, acquiesce,
To concentrate on your careful telling,
Of “scribbled notes in dove-blood ink on yellowed vellum”,
Delivered by the harried prophet from outside the cafe,
To you, then me --
Secret whispered from the edge of my memory,
Told softly as Grandmother’s hands, neatly folding linen napkins,
And a with kid’s smile, behind intelligent eyeglasses
Now I know what he said, but won’t repeat,
In a language I can’t speak,
But now understand.

-- Colin Michael Shaw

Medicine Man by Colin Michael Shaw

Colin Michael Shaw made his debut public reading Monday, June 14.

Medicine Man

We rolled into Elephant Butte at Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, in the afternoon, wiped out from our stay with Ernie in Las Cruces, as Rudy’s nephew Cipriano has watered us down with great enthusiasm there. DogWolf appeared at a little food stand with a giant wooden Sasquatch holding a fish out front. He introduced us to the proprietor, Two Bulls, a small and quiet man who took us down the hill to show off the little nightclub he was having built. After touring the tiny construct, we all agreed that we’d best reconvene under cover from the glaring afternoon sun at the local inn for some refreshment.

Back at the inn, situated within a breathtaking view of the lake and surrounding mountains, Kevin and I secured a room around the corner from DogWolf’s and retired to the lounge. There, Rudy and DogWolf shouted back and forth, laughing at each other's expense, recollections of wilder days gone by, while DogWolf’s wife and Two Bulls bummed Marlboro Lights off me. DogWolf refused our money, calling round after round until we were good and drunk. Just as we were about to move the party up to our room for an impromptu jam session on guitar, Two Bulls, who had barely uttered a word the entire evening spoke up, "You guys want a little medicine?" Rudy lit up with a big grin, "Yes we do!"

Back at the room laughing and drinking continued, as Kevin, DogWolf, and Rudy played and sang. Two Bulls popped in the door then, opening his tobacco can to reveal the magic ingredient for an entirely different kind of evening. We all greedily took our rationed dose and partied on. It wasn’t long though before everything had suddenly changed for everyone, but for myself, a Missouri boy far away from home in that strange Southwestern land, like never before. After the initial laughing match with Rudy, I began to see colors and patterns in the setting sun, becoming one with everything around -- the mountains and sky outside our room, the ceiling and wallpaper, the faces of my friends. I must have been wide-eyed, as Two Bulls looked at me knowingly, "That’s some good medicine, huh?" He continued on, seeming to speak from inside my head, "People come here... They don’t know anything. They don’t know about this land, who was here before us... What’s going on...."

-- Colin Michael Shaw, 2002

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

Chris Parr Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Leap Day!, Monday, February 29

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw
Chris Parr, co-founder of •chance operation•, will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, February 29.

Also featured will be Buzz Spector and Jennifer Goldring.

Chris is a performance poet who has read his work at art spaces, music venues, and poetry events, in his native New Zealand, as well as in Boston, New York and St. Louis.

© 2010 Christopher Parr

"Campus Coffee" by Christy Callahan

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw

Christy Callahan was one of ten readers who stepped up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the April 4 reading at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Eileen G'Sell, Susan Spit-Fire Lively, and Robert Nazarene.

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.

Campus Coffee

On Friday, my husband boards a plane for Missouri,
honeymoon shifting to a semester abroad.
I stare out the window of my Galway hostel,
and if I squint enough, I can see him return.

I lay on my bed’s patterned quilt,
hand-sewn edges tattered and fraying,
and coil myself into a dream.

When sleep no longer charms,
I sit on the stoop with the landlord’s
cat, watching pigeons dethroning
one another from the streetlight.

By Sunday, I am tired of sleeping,
and my dreams are starting to contain
more pigeons than people.

When my phone fails to find my husband
I walk one block left, return to the stoop,
then one block right, eyes on the streetlight,
pigeons volunteering as tour guides of Galway.

On Monday, I tell the pigeons it’s time
and walk three blocks past the roundabout
to my summer apartment at Gort na Coiribe.

Wednesday morning I walk in windy rain
across the bridge that passes a dilapidated
tower house, a smile tugging my left cheek
as I picture myself crawling through its rubble.

The first day of class still makes my palms sweat.

On Friday, the pigeons develop a buddy system to trigger
the automatic doors of the university, stroll to the café,
and order white chocolate banana mochas, shooting me a wink.

-- Christy Callahan Clagett

Will Kyle to Read at Duff's in the C.W.E. on Monday, June 27

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw

Will Kyle, veteran of several •chance operations• open-mics, will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, June 27.

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

Also appearing with Will Kyle will be Nicky Rainey and Phil Gounis.

Musical guest will be jazz guitarist Tom Crammond.

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

A native of St. Louis, Will Kyle 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.

In St. Louis Before A Concert

I walk down
Delmar past
Vintage Vinyl.
A man standing

on a wooden box
is a statue. I toss
him a quarter.
For early

March the day
is warm
and orange.
Students laugh

and smoke
perched on
planters outside
Blueberry Hill.

Near the Market
Pub, a drum
circle pounds
entranced by rhythm.

Two women
in flowing floral
skirts sit outside
Brandt’s and barter

the romantic
business of life
over matching
Mojitos.

They ignore
the waiter as he
serves a bowl
of penne

in white
wine sauce.
Further down
the street,

teens crowd
Iron Age. They
crave same day
tattoos. For

expedience,
the artists
crave an
on-sight notary,

their lips
snap off
beartrap fucks
debating the pros

and cons
of such a thing,
their guns
buzz over

flesh, a funky
sewer smell,
a browned
apple core

and a kissing
couple
on a scrap
of burlap

as I pass
Meshuggah.
Skinker is always
shit to cross.

I jump out before
the light
and almost
get popped

by the extended
mirror of a baby
blue, fifty-seven
Chevy with

a beige bed cap
and Yosemite
Sam mud flaps.
At six PM,

The Pin Up
Bowl seats
exactly six
douche bags.

When I arrive
at The Halo
Bar, I receive
the inevitable

pat down. No,
my Moleskine
notebook is
not a camera,

my ballpoint
not a Sharpie,
yes, that is my
prick. They

return my ID
and stamp
a black five
with a braided

circle around it
on the top
of my hand.
I grab a seven

dollar Bloody
Mary and wait
in the queue for
early entry

to secure
the best spot
to witness
rock music

slide through
St. Louis
like a serpent,
or a maybe a never

ending parade
of black
and white
tour buses.

-- Will Kyle

"If You Want to be Miserable, Become a Vegan" by Will Kyle

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw

Will Kyle was one of ten readers who stepped up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the April 4 reading at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Eileen G'Sell, Susan SpitFire Lively, and Robert Nazarene.

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.

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

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

"Going to Find It" by Chris Parr

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw
Chris Parr, co-founder of •chance operation•, was one of ten readers who stepped up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the April 4 reading at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Eileen G'Sell, Susan Spit-Fire Lively, and Robert Nazarene.

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.

Note: Please click on the poem below to enlarge it to a readable size.

Going to find it...

(formerly “Lost Children”)
(for Don McGlashan & Ivan Zagni)

Chris Parr adds that this poem, "goes all the way back to New Zealand, before I moved to the U.S. and Boston. I wrote it originally for and while listening to a track on a very interesting EP (I'm sure I still have it, on vinyl) by Don McGlashan (genius behind The Muttonbirds, and Blam Blam Blam before them) and avant-garde guitarist Ivan Zagni, which they released in NZ in the early 80s."

Chris Parr reading "Going to find it...," also known as "Lost Children", backed by Tiger Mountain, circa 1997. (You'll have to open two windows if you want to listen to the recording and read the poem at the same time. Sorry 'bout that.)

Chris Parr by Tony Renner

Laura DeVoto

Laura DeVoto stepped up to the open-mic on March 14 at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, April 4, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid.

Featured readers will be Gary Geddes, Lindsey Klees, and Bob Reuter.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Cover charge is $3.00.

Musical guests are Josh Weinstein and Charles "Bobo" Shaw.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged.

Photos from •Chance Operations• #3

Stefene Russell

Gena Brady Allen

Eileen G'Sell
Many thanks to our featured readers, Stefene Russell, Gena Brady Allen, and Eileen G'Sell. Thanks to Colin Michael Shaw for making his public reading debut at our open mic. Thanks, also, to Paul Staples and Zach Heaton, who closed out the evening with song.

The next •Chance Operations• reading will be Monday, August 2, at Duff's in the Central West End.