"What Is. . ." by Scott Miller

Scott Miller 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.


What is...

What is...
Merriment molded from mayhem
Order ordained from chaos
Life lifted from death
Happiness helped out from sadness

What is...
Boldness beckoned from bashful
Courage coaxed from fear
Seeing sifted from sight
Understanding ushered from perceiving

What is...
Kindness kindled from hate
Feeling fondled from apathy
Friendship forged from a stranger
Questioning quilted from exposure

What is...
Art?

-- Scott Miller

"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

"Villanelle for the Wife of My Stalker" by Julia Gordon Bramer

Julia Gordon-Bramer 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.

Villanelle for the Wife of My Stalker

He follows me around like the Moon at night,
waxing close over everywhere that I’ve been.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

She cuddles their baby and smiles too bright,
entrapped in his hard golden band ‘til the end.
He follows me around like the Moon at night.

He plans my return, makes arrangements, despite
what his dark moods, blow-ups, and death threats have meant.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

Long brown hair and beauty mark; she loves to write.
He’s made her his model of me, from back then.
He follows me around like the Moon at night.

He lies smug in their bed. With her, but not quite.
What’s unknown won’t hurt, and the truth can be bent.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

For five fearful years, this man has been my blight--
His forever love-curse we three cannot end.
He follows me around like the Moon at night.
She pretends that everything might be all right.

-- Julia Gordon Bramer

Julia adds this note: "Form doesn't have to be boring. It pushes the writer into new and unexpected places. Still, every syllable, the meter, and the repetition have a purpose. And with the villanelle form, it becomes like an incantation. Poetry is serious, powerful magic."

"Untitled" by Laura DeVoto

Laura DeVoto 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.

Untitled

Here I stand waiting so patiently.

Tell me what you want from me.

I gave you may soul and my heart yet nothing
was enough, it never was from the start.

I ask the lady for a ticket out of town but
instead I hesitate and look around.

All I wanted was for you to miss me, I
craved your energy, your spirituality, and your
mysteries. With my sympathy I took care of
your misery.

Yet, like a seashell on a sandy beach, I
was washed away.

I tried peeling your onion layers but you
built a wall and grew more.

Soon that wall became impregnable and you
slowly faded away like a silhouette in
the distance.

The path we carved was not written in stone
and its unfulfillment has left me cold.

The things we take for granted are only what
we imagine but in reality the facts overwhelm
the imagined.

The flair of your persona has left me
intrigued, this painful agony has pushed
my pride to its knees.

The sun has set and my departure is soon
to go its way, but I slowly turn my
tear-stained face and ask why...

The sun rises,yet to what degree.

Who does the blind lead, if everything is made
in China and we Chinese?

Corporate monopolies leading everybody into
poverty, world leaders taking advantage of
their sovereignty.

Technologies turning the planet into zombies.
Air quality so foul it's a struggle just to
breathe, depression and anger leading everyone
to self-destruction.

Gotta find the truth and believe, pick our-
selves up and reconstruct our democracy.

Endangered species and we're running out of
trees, crime rates so high it's a struggle
just to leave.

Why is living life such a fight to finish,
survival of the fittest when every hour is
a minute and every second is infinite.

-- Laura DeVoto

"A Day at the Museum" by Daniel Eberle-Mayse

Daniel Eberle-Mayse 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.

A Day at the Museum

I woke up and looked at the clock on the wall of my bedroom,
and I realized I was late.
So I scurried to make my coffee and roll some cigarettes for the road,
not bothering to brush the tar from my teeth or wash the death from my skin or
meticulously pick what costume will best convey the image I want to project to the rest of the world on this particular day.

I kissed my conscience goodbye and I told her that I loved her
like a hack actor or a dog barking for a treat.
And then I set off in my two-toned, battle-worn, champagne-colored car
and tried my best to keep my tired, sin-soaked, sleep-deprived brain
from leaving my body to the ravages of the other throttling death machines
that would tear me apart if disregarded for even a second.
And I arrived before I knew it at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center
just in time for the prison tour my well-meaning probation officer signed me up for.

Out in the parking lot I looked at the dull, unsmiling, muddy bricks and the twisting, malicious, arachnid intricacies of barbed wire.
The armor-plated arrogance of the sauntering, vacant gargoyle guards,
and the acrid stink of their glistening, oil-slick shoe-polish
sends the vague taste of vomit to my tongue as they pass by in their man-shell mimicry.
And after entering and sitting through the cautionary tales that I've heard a million times before,
we embark out to the "yard,"
where wet and dripping cat-calls from pathetic broken warriors ring out and bounce off each other in their crowded, sweating, sloppily veiled agony,
desperately searching for a distraction from the monotonous horror
of this regression to animal baseness.

Sad museum of powerless ghosts, what do you think when you swallow men whole?
For we are all savage hateful creatures filled to the brim with murder, excess, failure and spite.
Why, then, do you choose these paper tigers to devour and consume?
I can't help but believe that it's nothing but a coin toss,
'cause I'm just as much a liar and a killer as all of these monsters.
And no matter how high we lift our insipid egos with stale lovers and families we never wanted,
it will never change the stark unchanging fact
that we all belong in this zoo.

-- Daniel Eberle-Mayse

"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

"Surfing" by Jim McGowin

Jim McGowan 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.

Surfing

Encephalomalacia
is the
softening of brain tissue
at 1:45 AM.

All four lobes feel like pillows
lulling off to zombie sleep,
the strobing through control images,
dropping some LCD,
REM with both eyes twitching, lids open.

The time when reptilian brain is king.

The Familiar Stranger with
999 different heads and a blue suit
with coordinated universal tie
tells me

I should sit back,
relax and enjoy the ride,
trust in the men with the plans,
invest some blood in the stock market,
go buy some Cheetos.

The smile has 31,968 pearly white teeth
thanks to the magic of carbamide peroxide
aka 'whitening gel'.

One head suddenly breaks away from the others,
swears that God will provide
if I just order a DVD.

Another head breaks away
and says it can tell me the secrets
of making money and getting chicks.

Yet another breaks away
and tells me my penis needs a pill
to look and perform like a serpent.

Another and another and another

(beyond the... tacos... initially... eat... stop touching... gorgeous...)

begin peeling, like layers of an electric artichoke,

(what we do know... slammer... now... closed over... cracks in the fuselage...)

changing like machine gun gurus on full automatic.

I choke on the images,
riddled with slugs and slogans
complacent, dreaming,

I choke on my Cheetos.

(On the internet
I once saw a Cheeto
shaped like Jesus.

There's got to be a connection there.)

Oh why am I awake but I'm not?
Why am I awake but I'm not?
why am I still awake but I'm not?

Listening to

Here's the secret to..
Here's the secret to..
Here's the secret to..
Here's the secret to...

Servitude, Control, Lunacy,

A propagation of inert species.

Depersonalization disorder
is total detachment from self or surroundings.

Prosopagnosia is the inability to
recognize your own face in a reflection.

Catatonic stupor is complete deficit of motor activity
due to psychological dysfunction.

Those confined to mental hospitals
take drugs and watch TV all the livelong day.

Or is that watch drugs and take TV all the livelong day?

Whatever.

There are some who believe
this is a great potential for therapy.

-- Jim McGowin

Lindsey Klees

Lindsey Klees was one of three featured readers 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.

"dem bones dem bones" by Bob Reuter

Bob Reuter was one of three featured readers 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.

* * *

dem bones dem bones

She ran the damn roost when her old man was alive. You'd hear her screamin' orders at 'im all day long, you'd see her during the work day sneakin' in the apartments she rented, when the tenants were away -- then she'd snipe at the kids down the street. When the old man died she she came all apart, you'd hear her cry some nights by herself. I still remember her out front of the row apartments, bow-legged, feet planted firm, her body weavin' like a fighter an' singin' that old song bout dry bones and a red dress, how she missed 'em -- and then it started raining from somewhere up inside her skirt and i could hear it crackle an' spatter on the dried leaf covered sidewalk.

-- Bob Reuter

"Sandra Lee Scheuer" by Gary Geddes

The award-winning Canadian poet Gary Geddes was one of three featured readers at the reading at Duff's on April 4, where he read his poem commemorating the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings.

Sandra Lee Scheuer

(Killed at Kent State University, May 4, 1970
by the Ohio National Guard)

You might have met her on a Saturday night,
cutting precise circles, clockwise, at the Moon-Glo
Roller Rink, or walking with quick step

between the campus and a green two-storey house,
where the room was always tidy, the bed made,
the books in confraternity on the shelves.

She did not throw stones, major in philosophy
or set fire to buildings, though acquaintances say
she hated war, had heard of Cambodia.

In truth she wore a modicum of make-up, a brassiere,
and could no doubt more easily have married a guardsman
than cursed or put a flower in his rifle barrel.

While the armouries burned, she studied,
bent low over notes, speech therapy books, pages
open at sections on impairment, physiology.

And while they milled and shouted on the commons,
she helped a boy named Billy with his lisp, saying
Hiss, Billy, like a snake. That’s it, SSSSSSSS,

tongue well up and back behind your teeth.
Now buzz, Billy, like a bee. Feel the air
vibrating in my windpipe as I breathe?

As she walked in sunlight through the parking-lot
at noon, feeling the world a passing lovely place,
a young guardsman, who had his sights on her,

was going down on one knee, as if he might propose.
His declaration, unmistakable, articulate,
flowered within her, passed through her neck,

severed her trachea, taking her breath away.
Now who will burn the midnight oil for Billy,
ensure the perilous freedom of his speech;

and who will see her skating at the Moon-Glo
Roller Rink, the eight small wooden wheels
making their countless revolutions on the floor?

-- Gary Geddes

"Jimmy's Place" by Gary Geddes

The award-winning Canadian poet Gary Geddes was one of three featured readers at the reading at Duff's on April 4.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid.

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

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

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

Jimmy's Place

We found the cow in a grove below the road,
leaning against an alder for support,
her udder swollen, her breath ragged and grating
as a rasp. I could have drowned
in the liquid eye she turned to me.
Her calf, though dead, was perfectly positioned,
forelegs and head protruding from the flaming ring
of vulva. Too large, perhaps, or hind legs
broken through the sac, dispersing fluids.
Much as we tried we couldn't pry it loose
and the flesh around the legs began to give
from pressure on the rope. The cow
had no more strength and staggered back
each time we pulled. Tie her to the tree,
I said, being the schoolmaster and thinking
myself obliged to have an answer, even here
on the High Road, five miles south of town
where the island bunched in the jumble
of its origins. It was coming, by God,
I swear it, this scrub roan with her shadow self
extending out behind, going in both directions
like a '52 Studebaker, coming by inches
and our feet slipping in the mud and shit
and wet grass. She raised her head and tried
to see what madness we'd concocted in her wake,
emitted a tearing gunny-sack groan,
and her liquid eye ebbed back to perfect white.

-- Gary Geddes

Rae Cailliach Reading from the April Issue of Poetry

Rae Cailliach reading Dave Stone's "Drycleaners" from the April issue of Poetry -- courtesy of the Poetry Foundation -- during the open-mic at the •chance operations• reading at Duff's on April 4.

We celebrated our one-year anniversary, National Poetry Month, and Jazz Appreciation Month with three featured readers, St. Louisian's Lindsey Klees and Bob Reuter, and award-winning Canadian poet Gary Geddes; ten open-mic readers, and a jazz trio.

Celebrate National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month Tonight at Duff's

On Monday, April 4, we'll celebrate our one-year anniversary and National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month with featured readers Gary Geddes, Lindsey Klees, and Bob Reuter, and a jazz trio, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on Monday, April 4. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Cover charge is $3.00.

•chance operations• made our debut at Duff's one year ago on Monday, April 12, with featured readers Chris Parr, Matthew Freeman, Elly Herget, and Erin Wiles.

Featured readers will be Lindsey Klees, Bob Reuter and the award winning Canadian poet Gary Geddes.

Musical guests will be Tim Greer, tenor saxophone, Ben Kramer, bass, and Kyle Shea, drums, playing a variety of jazz standards.

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

The first 10 folks to ask will receive a FREE copy of the April issue of Poetry magazine, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation. We hope that at least a few folks will read a poem from the magazine at the open-mic.

Everyone attending will receive a copy of the chapbook "Poems for Your Pocket 2011" by Tony Renner.

It's Our Birthday and We Have Gifts for YOU at Duff's on Monday, April 4

On Monday, April 4, we'll celebrate our one-year anniversary and National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month with featured readers Gary Geddes, Lindsey Klees, and Bob Reuter, and a jazz trio, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, on Monday, April 4. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Cover charge is $3.00.

•chance operations• made our debut at Duff's one year ago on Monday, April 12, with featured readers Chris Parr, Matthew Freeman, Elly Herget, and Erin Wiles.

Featured readers will be Lindsey Klees, Bob Reuter and the award winning Canadian poet Gary Geddes.

Musical guests will be Tim Greer, tenor saxophone, Ben Kramer, bass, and Kyle Shea, drums, playing a variety of jazz standards.

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

The first 10 folks to ask will receive a FREE copy of the April issue of Poetry magazine, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation. We hope that at least a few folks will read a poem from the magazine at the open-mic.

Everyone attending will receive a copy of the chapbook "Poems for Your Pocket 2011" by Tony Renner.