"Terminology" by Susan Lively (Spit-Fire)

Susan Lively, aka Spit-Fire, stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on September 27. Also reading were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, and Matthew Questionmark.

The featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's were Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Musical interludes by Learn, Artist!

Terminology

The good war,
the forgotten war,
the other war.
There is no such thing
as a good war.
Almost every war
is a forgotten war.
How many other wars
do you think there really are?
You have no idea how far they’ll go,
how far they’ve gone.
You have no idea how far.

The good war --
what an honor,
to be killed by a suicide bomber.
The forgotten war --
forgotten by all,
the writing is on the wall.
The other war --
in that other place.
You know the one,
in that other race.
The race to the death,
the final test,
let’s see who can die the best,
let’s see who can lose the most numbers.
As long as we don’t have to face,
the man whose foot we’re under.

The good war --
what a privilege,
to give your life for the privileged.
The forgotten war --
because no one cares,
no one cares what happens there.
The other war --
the one they left behind,
it was all just a side effect of your mind.
Where it doesn’t even matter,
how much we cry.
Here it doesn’t even matter,
how many will die,
in the good war.

-- Susan Lively (Spit-Fire)

"Untitled" by Matthew Questionmark

Matthew Questionmark, stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on September 27. Also reading were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, and Spit-Fire.

The featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's were Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

untitled
see the difference in your defense
cloaking your dagger
knives the dark toothed fear
this mortal wound!
no time like the present
giving dirt for love
boxes of scorched hair scattered along your highways
making you have a three-toothed smile
as your mouth hits the pavement
this is as real as it gets
monetary notes flutter from your flatulence
pictures of jesus wearing skinny jeans
on the cover of your rolling stones
his hair all echo'd by bunnymen
!these great purveyors of modern times!
witnesses cream their corn
grope their mothers
scream and fall to the floors
pissing themselves with epileptic fervor
you cover these counts with your dirt
and say meaningless words
looking upward into the skyless stars
why do you cry when you have a cravecase to eat?
why do you cry when radiohead hasn't broken up yet?
grope your remorse
knives in your hot piss box
making mamma scream for pestilence
hip new screeching bounces in yer brain
this immortal world!
lava as blood!
trees are cunts!
let them suffocate from meat farts and factory toxins!
just sit there gumming your iphone
like a giant sour gummy worm
lazarus rises from behind the couch
only to blow his brains out five minutes later
teevee flashes before you
test patterns
indian head fades to allah
then to obama
screen goes black
the muffled weeping commences.

-- Matthew Questionmark

"Mythomania" by Erin Goss

Erin Goss stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic at the Chance Operations reading at Duff's on September 27. Also reading were Tiffany Mayet, Matthew Questionmark, and Spit-Fire.

The featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's were Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

Mythomania or foxtrotin’ on ladies night

For she is a doll: weeping, pouting or smiling, running or
reclining, she is a doll. She is an idol. -- Germaine Greer

Old storks gossip like heretical nuns about a girl
She’s conger-like tavern walls slippery
Daisy Mae cancering the hearth home mammary
Soft rubber hips gorge on pints and preachers

She’s trauma from an ax an up-like crevasse
Lake Baikal in August warm colder Marco Polo
Something guttural yeasted
An afternoon soirée around the neighborhood. Oh

Or projector perfected
Giving head hands on the helm
With three sulky emerald beats
She hams ghost penis ghost penis ghost whoo whoo!

-- Erin Goss

"Waiting" by Sean Arnold

Sean Arnold was one of three featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's. Also featured were Julia Gordon-Bramer and Byron Lee.

In addition, stepping up to the Chance Operations open-mic were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, Matthew Question Mark, and Spit-Fire.

Dave Stone performed improvisations on saxophone and alto clarinet before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

Waiting

shots ring out
jesus christ there's a lot of fires tonight
click clackity pen on grated steel like a song
a revolution
in that it's all,
as in the swinging hips of the thing,
in the nervous twitch,
to a beat machine,
hammering on the impulse
hammering out the impulse,
christening some new dawn with a tap,
flick of a match and smoke smoke
-- the wind brings upheaval,
thoughts are starving dogs wilting on the sidewalk,
the propaganda for the goods falls on sewn shut ears
coarse and beautifully sewn as everyday language,
fuck that motherfucker in the ass to hell
-- and so on.
steep and drawn out,
impending.
two men kissing goodbye (almost).
suspended in the lush impending,
sit
sit
sittin' in the waiting room,
the moon nearly cresting over light pollution,
nearly having a purpose.
the hanging man tow and a half seconds before the bucket kicks,
the suspended orgasm,
smattering across air like someone in the midst of CPR,
nearly coming to
finding it, finding it,
finding.
the word meander, at the E.
near suspended,
the corpse dangling across the dead body of theater.
mid-crash
-- a spinning out like a top
-- glass shards flailing in the middle of air,
nearly arms out.
a conversation just beginning.
the object in an acrobat,
brick on window,
again glass flailing,
stop motion in the act itself,
nearly arms in the air,
lighter to rag but just getting a whiff of gasoline,
taste it,
taste it,
the difference between an epic an a romance,
feeling less epic and more that last one,
waiting for her,
on the tongue tip,
the shots unfire and the fire truck takes back its sirens,
st. louis sleeps for now,
a tingle and stop
at the feeling.

-- Sean Arnold

[from Soliloquy From A Freight Yard Open Summer Window, 2010, the Saint Louis Projects.]

4 Short Poems by Byron Lee

Byron Lee was one of three featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's. Also featured were Julia Gordon-Bramer and Sean Arnold.

In addition, stepping up to the Chance Operations open-mic were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, Matthew Question Mark, and Spit-Fire.

Dave Stone performed saxophone improvisations before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

Right Now

Right Now

I want to see you. Peruse your
Present. Take in what will
Never pass your lips. Stumble with you towards
Shared sacrament and lie
With you among the wreckage.

I want to know you.

Right

Now


The Missing

Cigarette-toasted voice
Wielding wit that
Left me
In stitches.

Dimpled face between
Autumn strands
Seared in psyche.

I'm missing the point of not
Missing you,
Raging down a one-way
Street, wishing
Dead End would appear.


Food

It’s my
Drug

Better yet, it's
Everywhere.

I head to the break room to
Tie one on.

AA meetings in the gym.
(I get nowhere without a
Sponsor.)

I get the
Munchies without the
Smoke, but I'm just as lazy,
After the hit.

When the world beats me down,
I take it out on
The bag.

Krunchers, Lays, Ruffles.

Any one of 'em will do.

They're all the same.

No matter how many I
Pick up, they never get jealous.


Dilemma

Should my pants peak at my thighs?

Should I dangle participles?

Should a smile be rubber-stamped on my face?

Should I broadcast every thought unfiltered, or should a bitten tongue clamp
          down every concern?

Should my neck snap to the drums, or should my head bang to the riffs?


Should I choose between store-bought brands of black and white,
          or should I mix my own gray?

"Feng Shui" by Julia Gordon-Bramer

Julia Gordon-Bramer was one of three featured readers at the September 27 Chance Operations reading at Duff's. Also featured were Byron Lee and Sean Arnold.

In addition, stepping up to the Chance Operations open-mic were Tiffany Mayet, Erin Goss, Matthew Question Mark, and Spit-Fire.

Dave Stone performed saxophone improvisations before and after the featured readers and following the open-mic.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, October 25. Featured readers to be announced. Music interludes by Learn, Artist!

Feng Shui

Splinter-friend, where are you
hiding within your own
hoarded creations: wedged in the waiting
to live, under the skin of the paint,
the fleshy space between the words
in the sorest forest of books? The impossible
sure for the eye to set and rest
on just one clean thing. I mean,
it hurts. That paper scatter of thoughts
and the cluttered piles of lack,
burying the faith you hold so dear;
It is rusting under the table. Here,
it’s hiding beneath the hair,
breeding in the dirt and lint
like a dirty sailor. You, virgin-girl unclean,
still trusting in an uninterested God. You asked
me once if I wanted
to rescue you,
if my intention was Hero. No, fair
maiden, I know I am
as safe as your old food;
too ripe, a Petri dish
of a million micro deaths. I know
I am tempted to lean
toward the edge, the black dots of toxic
mold on your window ledge.
I know that I’m fascinated
with the Biblical lies
evil tells, with the false
pictures of light,
with the blood wet prayers
to cold, dead air. I
know our hearts
are pure, and yet
I watch, rapt: you
tumbling through
a cluttered, junky heaven
where the too-bright closes its eyes
to the shine you force on the dust
and He will gloss and grant
your every careful, withheld plan.
He will reward your
everything that you’ve prayed-for,
He’ll give you room
to store, and store. He collects
every healthy vice because you
believe. Believe
you’ll find the right words in a magazine,
the right Pantone shade of green,
the perfect note
in a song you won’t sing,
and you hoard what you can
bear because
you know, you know, you know
He’s in there.

Somewhere.

-- Julia Gordon-Bramer

Dave Stone Providing Musical Interludes at Duff's on Monday, September 27

Dave Stone by Dana Smith
Saxophonist Dave Stone will be providing the musical interludes at the next Chance Operations reading, Monday, September 27, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Julia Gordon-Bramer, Byron Lee, and Sean Arnold. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3.

Already signed up for the open-mic are Matthew Questionmark, Shane Signorino, Spit-Fire, and Erin Goss.

Freedonia Music says:

Whether it's jazz improv or free improv, Dave Stone's playing is known for its passion, intensity & inventiveness, a genuine and personal voice, a consummate musicality, and a propensity for singeing eyebrows and twisting knickers on a regular basis.

Sean Arnold to Read at Duff's on Monday, September 27

The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on Monday, September 27. Featured readers will be Julia Gordon-Bramer, Byron Lee, and Sean Arnold. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3. Musical guest will be Dave Stone.

Sean Arnold is currently a poet, anarchist, MC, visual artist, roustabout, and bread delivery truck driver living in St. Lucipher, MO. His writing chronicles the pretensions and directions of everything and nothing at the same time but, most importantly, often straddles the line between idleness and revolt of thought. His goals in life are thus far both grand and minute.

Arnold was first transfixed with poetics as an angsty preteen. Now 22 years old, he has with his first book of poems, Soliloquy from an Open Summer Window, taken these inclinations to their most logical conclusion yet. However, this first book is just a stepping stone in one vast open letter to those left indignant and smarting from current political pastures, but also optimistic and secretly in love, convinced another world is possible.

$1.37: The Cheapest Cup of Solitude Yet

$1.37: the cheapest cup of unsustainable solitude yet tucked in
               the armpit of an acoustic breeze,
& folks with twice my eyes on a semi-back street unearthed by
               brick red wings.
making digging motions in the armpithairs of loneliness,
an open invitation to sing loud if it at least rustles the hairs.
and if i’m lonely what the fuck are the young people supposed
               to do without me?

fuck ’em. They can keep their society, belligerence,
i need a smoke and a gray prairie.

if you want a poet, i’m yr poet, but otherwise i’m a papercup
               half-full of desolation out the window. you can have yr
               air-conditioner culture,
the wind is hot but it’s nice, it tickles my arm hairs, these tiny
               tallgrass blades, each one a different story, each story
               a scorched desire to be different.
transformation is each throttling cartwheel of the wind.
i couldn’t write fast enough to catch it, but it’s still in my mouth,
               fragmented, snagged in spit,
each dry accent a staccato breath,


it is knowing what you want in a world wasted off its ass
               in post-post-modern superironic indecisiveness,
too cool for nothing is nothing to cool for.

sweating the devil out in its own wind, supergodless supergod
a steady forfeit of time to bones,
protestant anti-wind-ethic, bone grind annihilation, too slippery
               for it, bursting clouds in the argument for a transient sort
               of god,
the highrope of synaptic burn of not knowing what the hell
               yr saying.
having time like i have nothing,
fighting off redundancies with a heavy sword,
hammering out the nothingness,
into a flat sheet of wind.

-- Sean Arnold

From: Soliloquy from an Open Summer Window
Saint Louis Projects 2010

Byron Lee to Read at Duff's on September 27.

The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on Monday, September 27. Featured readers will be Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer, and Byron Lee. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3. Musical guest will be Dave Stone.

Byron Lee is a features writer for Limelight Magazine and River City Examiner. He is a graduate of Lindenwood University's MFA in Creative Writing program and has been published in Drumvoices Revue and The East St. Louis Monitor. He is a resident of North County.

Requiem

The fruit of your mind was
Mine for the taking, but I was
Distracted. Thorns from brittle branches
Cut deep. Ants, given the
Power of bulls, ran roughshod
Through my head.

Forgive me.

For running from the
Passion that pulled me in. For stepping
Back from the table with my cards
Held to my chest. For wanting a tailor-made fit, when your
Off-the-rack ways suited me
Just fine.

-- Byron Lee

Julia Gordon-Bramer To Read At Duff's on Monday, September 27

Photo by Michael DeFilippo.
The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on Monday, September 27. Featured readers will be Sean Arnold, Julia Gordon-Bramer, and Byron Lee. An open-mic will follow the featured readers. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge $3. Musical guest will be Dave Stone.

Julia Gordon-Bramer recently came to realize her last 21 years in St. Louis trumps 20 years on the East coast, and she's having real problems accepting that she is now a Midwesterner. Over those landlocked years in the Lou, she launched and ran the '90s alternative rock zine, Night Times; wrote several thousand poems (a handful of them decent); picked up a BA in English from Webster and an MFA in Creative Writing from UMSL; and today, when she's not flipping Tarot cards, she teaches English at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley.

She's been published in MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry, Bad Shoe, The Arkansas Review, CARVE, Indiana University NW's Plath Profiles, and others. Her program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis nominated her for Meridian's Best New Poets 2010. Her groundbreaking article on the underlying mysticism in the work of Sylvia Plath can be read here while she completes her latest book on the subject, Fixed Stars Govern A Life.

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed herein (“our Relationship”) did not reflect reality in any way.

Past promises should not be construed as contractual or otherwise binding.

Previous history does not constitute or imply affiliation, endorsement, recommendation or favor.

Author (“Me”) has full discretion to add, alter, or remove all or part of

memory of you (“You”) at any time, and cannot be held

liable for any losses or damage, direct or indirect,

caused or alleged to have been caused by our breakup.

No animals were harmed in our making.

No stars were harmed in our breaking.

Only me. WARNING:

I am a professional.

Do not attempt this at home.

-- Julia Gordon-Bramer

[Originally published in Bad Shoe, August 2010.]

Raven Wolf

On August 2 at Duff's, Raven Wolf provided musical entertainment on various saxophones and flutes, playing mostly his own compositions but also Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight." Click here to hear a sampling of Raven Wolf's music.

The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on September 27, October 25, and November 22. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge will be $3. Musical guest on Monday, September 27, will be Dave Stone. Further details to be announced.

Lew Prince

On August 2 at Duff's, Lew Prince read a selection of poems by the late Arthur Brown. Click here to read "The Assassination of Charlie Parker."

The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on September 27, October 25, and November 22. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge will be $3. Musical guest on Monday, September 27, will be Dave Stone. Further details to be announced.

"Simple System Monitor Opera in Esperanto" by James Weber

On August 2 at Duff's, James Weber read a selection of his poems. Click here to read more poems by James.

The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on September 27, October 25, and November 22. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge will be $3. Musical guest on Monday, September 27, will be Dave Stone. Further details to be announced.

Simple System Monitor Opera in Esperanto
(for Anthony Renner)

When Jasper opens arms to include
Iron, he chooses to transcend chert.
When Jasper ornaments a wall, he occupies
a poor girl’s sad fortune, even
a’courted. With no moon left, Jasper
jerks a green thumb and plants
a disco ball atop a lightning rod.
This is a beacon for the kids.
When Jasper requires snuff box, snuff
box appears if requested aloud.
To vocalize needs is to return a letter.
Jasper ain’t easy to love, like
a cowboy, and busts combinations
of pants and maybe a “Love
in Vain.” Honey bees faked a death, buzzed
all night long. If Jasper got
a nickname, it’d be in discretion “Well,
Buzz Awhile.” If your Humboldt County author
exasperated and hairless and freshly farmer
tanned got hi-speed 1988 boom-box dubbed
a slid heart-lost-your-mind or and hilarious
A.K.A., a summer, stage, pen or assumed
name, assured it would be “Sting It,
Then.” Everyone rightly insists no
half-steppin’ where focused
disowners thrive. So Greek meals aside
and cast, and Grecian folk film myths crumbed
off establishment tables, no backyard boiled on
single kerosene burner singing C-130 Hercules
prop tone mini-love, that is, no straight
swooped Nike brand captured phrase, please baby.
This is a real they never get. Do,
Jasper, and the world will forget.

-- James Weber

Richard Newman

On August 2 at Duff's, River Styx editor Richard Newman read a selection of his poems.

The next Chance Operations readings will be held at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on September 27, October 25, and November 22. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; cover charge will be $3. Musical guest on Monday, September 27, will be Dave Stone. Further details to be announced.

Soulard Mardi Gras Round

“Jesus had a huge impact on Christianity,”
one of my composition students writes.
Two days after Soulard Mardi Gras
plastic beer cups topple down the street.
After lunch my stomach acid begins to gnaw.
Plastic beads lie on my girlfriend’s vanity.
Blue Port-a-Potties steam on every corner
two days after Soulard Mardi Gras.

One of my composition students writes,
“Leave her lie where Jesus flang her!”
Reelect Ken Ortman your Soulard Alderman.
Stomach acid gnaws. A siren grows louder.
From the tower of St. Peter’s and Paul’s
one can see, over the brewery, a cemetery—
the town’s shadow lengthening toward night.
Plastic beer cups gather in doorways.

“Leave her lie where Jesus flang her!”
The town’s shadow lengthens toward night.
A Port-a-Potty steams on the corner
of St. Peter’s and Paul’s. A siren grows louder.
Two days after Mardi Gras, on the vanity,
plastic beads slink between lotions and powders.
One of my composition students writes,
“Jesus had a huge impact on Christianity.”

-- Richard Newman

(From Domestic Fugues. Originally appeared in Tar River Poetry, Fall, 2006)