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

Nicky Rainey 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 will be Phil Gounis and Will Kyle.

Musical guest will be jazz guitarist Tom Crammond.

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

Nicky Rainey makes a zine out of envelopes called "Let's talk about people," & will send you one if you email her by clicking here. She directs Saturday creative writing workshops for young writers ages 6-11 (through StudioSTL) and has represented St. Louis at the National Poetry Slam.

Watching TV & Playing World of Warcraft with Angelito88

On Day 57 of the BP spill, I watched MSNBC & traipsed
through dungeons with Angelito88, Christopher's cousin or maybe
               nephew,
studies petroleo engineering at University & needs breaks so we
               chase gryphons.

At 22 and 27, this game is our generation's golf, refined.
We're humans and dwarves, not fucking Orcs. We drink coffee,
type about family & politics across sea and shimmering flats --

I say:
               the dolphins are blowing oil out of their blowholes
               the dolphins are acting drunk

Angelito88's newspapers put the spill on page five next to the story about the drug cartels creating alliances with Hezbollah, can you imagine how those intermarriages will go over with the grandmothers. In his state, people have oil-wells in the backyard, owned by the government.
Angel's glad BP didn't bust a valve on an entire city.

We clear the iron forge & he changes the subject:

               you know, when they play Warcaft in China,
               there's flesh on the skeletons
               and the dead are in tidy graves

Inside my house, I see a waning crimson gryphon on one screen and blowout preventer valves on another. Two blocks away --on North and South-- sits an old Jewish cemetery where the graves look tidy, but are truly filled with swarms of little angels, myriad dungeons, our ancestors & friends wearing crowns of oil and water.

-- Nicky Rainey