Christy Callahan at October Open-Mic

Christy Callahan was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon-Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

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

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

Grady Manus at October Open-Mic

Grady Manus was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

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

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

Rae Cailliach, "Autumn Wears a Red Dress"

Rae Cailliach was one of five readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

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

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

Autumn Wears a Red Dress

Autumn comes gaily clad,
Cooling the skin, but enflaming the eye;
She is the raucous harbinger of

Winter’s silent and unprotesting
Final death; the immodest,
Elderly grey,
Corpse to be concealed
Reverently beneath
Modest, white morgue sheets
Of snow and ice.

Autumn, she comes,
Crying and wailing;
Beating her chest,
Exposing her distress;
She can not be consoled,
Until that tantamont tango,
Naked and whole,
At last.

From the Debutante Spring
That grew like a wallflower;
Danced bare-legged and
Gawky limbed;
Rode her Papa's toes
Like an awkward colt.

Through to Summer ,
A Fine and Generous Lady
Ample bosomed,
Carnal and knowing,
Her skirts full and lush,
Fertile and green;
Her suitors, potent;
Her children, many.

Comes Autumn, then, finally,
Liberated from decorum and duty,
By the windsong echo of
Death-bone rattling drumbeats
Of thanks and praise;
Blessings.

Autumn dons her gayest dress;
Flaunts her harlot fashions,
Taunting like a Hollywood starlet
The phantom that approaches
To claim her last dance.

Autumn hosts a feast! A party!
A festive Big Easy Wake,
Held just before the
Last rites will be given.

Bare legged again,
But veined now, and thinner skinned,
Shedding her accessories
Coyly, one by one,
She boldly leads
Mourners dressed in riotous color;
And Dixieland bands,
Trumpets gleaming, toot sweet,
Through dream-soaked streets,
Announcing
The Year’s last breath.

Dressed in bold finery,
With nothing to celebrate
But certain death,
The Old Year is carried jubilantly
On the shoulders of the parade
To the Midnight of the Seasons.

On this Eve
The pyre is lit;
The uninvited and the dead
Feast with the living;
And the soul of
The unborn New Year
Runs mad with prophecy
And redemption in the streets;
The Old Year's breathe rattles
Like kindling,
And She lays to rest
Upon the dead wood crackling orange
Against the black night.

And Autumn wears a red dress
To the funeral.

-- Rae Cailliach

Author's Note: This was originally written just after Katrina and dedicated to the annual Red Dress Run in New Orleans (which actually occurs in Spring.) This is a poem that seems born (or borne) by hurricanes. I finished this and read it on October 29, 2012, as Hurricane Sandy was arriving in New York City.

"Autumn Wears a Red Dress" © 2005, 2012 Rae Cailliach

Will Kyle, "Mirror Zone"

Will Kyle was the musical guest at •chance operations• on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

Musical guest will be Tony Renner.

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

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

You can hear a version of "Mirror Zone" as performed by Will's band Swords & Horns by clicking here.

Mirror Zone

I'm afraid
You're afraid
Everyone's out there burning in their graves

Let us go
Let's go out
I'll find you out
Everyone we've told

I don't care
What we do
We will just slide away

And then we'll all be in the mirror zone

Oh, oh, the mirror zone

You will run
I will chase
I will burn
You will find every little piece of you ...

Down inside
In your heart
You will pull it up
And then we'll start
From the beginning of your ...

Life is hard
You don't care
But you will find your way
When you're older
I promise you

Oh, oh, the mirror zone

-- William Kyle

Drucilla Wall, "Laurel Oak"

Drucilla Wall was one of two featured •chance operations• readers on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

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

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

Laurel Oak

Each leaf a single finger,
pointing at every angle,
smooth in the dense, bronzey canopy
that had expanded skyward
for a hundred years,
a mere sapling when the house
was built beside it.

Each leaf an exclamation,
terminus of trunk, limb, and twig,
pulsing the root telegraph
of water, earth, and sun.

I shot your portrait with the rippling bark
filling the frame around you,
a second presence blending with your hair.
We knew the comings and goings
of that raccoon nested in a hollow
higher than our roof. We saw
the songbirds of spring and summer
taking rest, the eagle alone in the dawn
on his way to the river’s hunting ground.

The black breath of the storm swept
from the west, killing the power,
and caught me at the shop,
away from you.
Your voice kept breaking on the phone,
“I am in the basement, with the cat,”
as if that would comfort me.

I would have run through the torrents
and lightning to get home,
only our daughter was with me.
Somewhere a transformer exploded.
Your voice hesitated, “Out the back,
it lit up for a second. The tree,
there’s nothing there—just bucketin’
down like a feckin’ machine.
I heard something, like the sea, rushing,
then the siren,
I am in the basement, with the cat.”

-- Drucilla Wall

Marcel Toussaint, "Beware"

Marcel Toussaint was one of two featured •chance operations• readers on October 29 at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The next •chance operations• at Duff's reading will be Monday, November 26. Featured readers will be Chris Parr, celebrating the release of his new book of poems, Going to find it...; Julia Gordon Bramer; and Steve Schroeder.

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

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

Beware

Beware of the mind
where thoughts grow in the night
once the lights are out,
the Moon shines through
windows without a blind.

Beware of the mind
where thoughts grow in the night
after the cat lets out a meow
a chill comes through your spine.

Beware of the mind
where thoughts grow in the night,
when the hands of the clock
cover the strike of midnight.

Beware of the mind
where thoughts grow in the night
when your day was stressed,
your driving erratic,
sleeping, you toss around.

Beware of the mind
where thoughts grow in the night
when the floor squeaks, the door grinds,
a lit candle comes into the room
held only by an arm.

Beware
It is Halloween Night.

-- Marcel Toussaint

Will Kyle Musical Guest at October 29 Reading at Duff's

Will Kyle will be the musical guest at the October 29 •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End.

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

Featured readers will be Drucilla Wall and Marcel Toussaint.

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

Drucilla Wall Featured Reader on Monday, October 29, at Duff's

Drucilla Wall will be one of two featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, October 29, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid. The other featured reader will be Marcel Toussaint.

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

Musical guest will be Will Kyle.

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

Drucilla Wall’s book of poetry, The Geese at the Gates, is available from Salmon Poetry. Her second collection is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in the coming year. She serves on the boards of the St. Louis Poetry Center and the Warriors Arts Alliance. Wall has offered poetry workshops at the Veterans Administration Health Offices in St. Louis.

Her recent readings include such venues as the Over the Edge Series in Galway; River Styx series in St. Louis, Dances with Words series in Montana; and others.

She is the curator for the Poetry at the Point Reading Series for the St. Louis Poetry Center in St. Louis.

Individual poems and essays have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal; and True West: Authenticity and the American West.

She received her B.A. degree from the University of Wisconsin, her M.A. from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. She teaches poetry, essay writing, and Native American literature, at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has earned awards and fellowships for her work.

Her work are diverse ties to home places ranging from County Wexford and Galway, Ireland, to the American settings of Missouri, Nebraska, Alabama, and Pennsylvania. Her writing engages her mixed heritage of Creek/Muscogee American Indian, Irish, and Jewish identity. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and has spent summers with family and friends in Wexford and Galway, Ireland, since 1985.

Lifeguard

They trod her into the blue concrete.
I saw that.
She tried to push upward,
her arms like streaks of pale fish
at the shallow bottom of the water slide.
Maybe I saw that,
in the chop of children.

Thirteenth summer, first job,
the world an unforgiving mirror,
new bikini hiking up in the back,
I had refused to wear my glasses.
Hold this safety pole and stand there.
Just watch. Just do that, okay?
And I did. But she was still under,

doing a doggie paddle all wrong.
I felt that. So I jumped in,
pulled her to the surface,
wondered at the weight of her head
rolling on my shoulder.
I did not call for help.
Only ran like some big gawk of a bird,

bouncing the child out the gates
of the supervised area.
I may have shouted at her
above all the fun, above the din
of their horrible little minds,
so easy with their feet and their throats
and their team sports and their sing-a-longs.

She coughed and started crying.
Stupidly, I lay her on her side,
slapped her back. Good. That’s good.
Coughing is good. I am sure
I carried her to the Nurse’s Station.
Someone said, get a towel.
Or maybe we were both wrapped
in one big blanket, side by side
on the edge of the medical bed,
shivering less and less.

Then, nothing happened,
plowed in through the door,
the open windows,
unmeasurable nothing,
even into September.

-- Drucilla Wall

Marcel Toussaint Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, October 29

Marcel Toussaint will be one of two featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, October 29, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid. The other featured reader will be Drucilla Wall.

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

Musical guest will be Will Kyle.

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

Marcel Toussaint was first published at the age of twelve when he drew and wrote Holiday cards to be sold to US personnel stationed in North Africa. He never stopped writing.

His poems have been featured in fourteen anthologies, including America at the Millennium. He has read on various radio and TV stations including National Public Radio and the Education channel and the 100,000 Poets for Change.

In early 2009, Toussaint’s poetry entered in the National Veterans Poetry Awards competition won gold medals in the categories of Patriotic, Personal Humorous. His poems are featured in the National Veterans Poetry Anthology.

A selection of his poems has been published in Korean, in Wilderness January 2011. Toussaint writes in English, French and Spanish and has been translated to Dutch, German, Catalan, Korean. He has read his poetry in Paris at the Club des Poetes and in Valencia, Spain 2008. The poet reads his poetry at various open mikes in the St. Louis Metropolitan area.

Marcel Toussaint represented The Saint Louis VA at The National Veterans Creative Arts Nationals in Fayetteville, Arkansas October 2011 and brought back a National Gold Medal in Poetry. He performed his entry on stage and the show was videotaped by PBS to be run in November 2012.

His new novel Terms of Interment, came out October 2011.

The Promised Rose

Inside the greenhouse, warmth, mist, and light
soothing in the early hours, curled dainty petal lips
preside over a completion of a rosy glow.
I searched for you, the promised rose,
on a slender stem with a collar of leaves,
diamond water beads sparkling this morn.
You were holding court among the courtesans
who gravitate in the shade of your persona
wanting to be players in the garden of love.
I paused and gasped, recovered my breath,
moved closer to admire your elegance,
your presence taking over my heart.
With shyness I extended my hand
to hold you for an embrace.
I moved closer and touched your side.
You stung me with a thorn. I jumped back,
letting the blood run down to the ground.
This blood will empty my heart
and create a circle with me trapped inside, wounded,
with no hope for the promised love.

-- Marcel Toussaint

Matthew Freeman Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, September 24

Matthew Freeman will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, September 24.

The other featured readers will be Jazzy Danziger and Kelli Allen.

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

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

Musical guest to be announced.


Matthew Freeman has been a poet since he was a teenager in Dogtown, St. Louis. Since then he has fallen in love, traveled the country, and sung his songs. He now lives and writes in the Loop neighborhood of University City, Missouri. The Boulevard of Broken Discourse is his fourth collection of poems. Matthew compiled Flood Stage: An Anthology of St. Louis Poets, a landmark anthology of 55 area poetsMatthew recently received an Albert Montesi Award for his poetry from Saint Louis University.

Critics have high praise for Freeman’s poetry:

“Gritty and real, full of personality (and personalities), urban St. Louis scenery and experience.” —- J. Gordon, Nightimes.com

“Simultaneously hip, funny, and sad.” -— Dorothea Grossman, Poet

“A microscope into the world of an extraordinarily talented schizophrenic.” —- Suzanne Shenkman.

Jazzy Danziger Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, September 24

Jazzy Danziger will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, September 24.

The other featured readers will be Kelli Allen and Matthew Freeman.

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

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Jazzy Danziger’s debut collection, Darkroom, is the winner of the 2012 Brittingham Prize in Poetry.

Jazzy studied at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns/Poe-Faulkner Fellow in poetry and the editor of Meridian. She currently serves as editor for the Best New Poets anthology. She was raised in Maitland, Florida and lives in Webster Groves.

Watch Jazzy Danziger reading two of her poems, "The Visitor" and "Other Mothers," in the offices of the Riverfront Times.

Kelli Allen Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, September 24

Kelli Allen will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, September 24.

The other featured readers will be Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

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

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Kelli Allen is an award-winning poet, editor, and scholar.

Her poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Echo Ink Review, Poetry Quarterly, Fjords, Abridged, Other Poetry, Lyre Lyre, the Blue Sofa Review, WomenArts Quarterly, the Caper Review, It Has Come to This: Poets of the Great Mother Conference, Foliate Oak, Greatest Lakes Review, Lugh Review (where she was the featured author), Blackmail Press, the Chaffy Review, Euphony and elsewhere. She has been the featured poet for Desperanto Press’s segment “Tea With George” for September 2011.

Kelli's fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for the 2011 Rebecca Lard Award. She has served as the Managing Editor of Natural Bridge. She is also the founder of the Graduate Writers Reading Series for the University of Missouri St. Louis. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is currently an adjunct professor of English/Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Kelli gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US.

Kelli's full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, is forthcoming from John Gosslee Books October of 2012.

The Twelfth Swan

Every year we gather the feathers
in small aluminum jars. They fall
from the autumn sky in bursts
for five days. Since the sister
could not complete the final shift
of thorn-made cloth, we know
he will circle above us, one wing
fighting against the arc, a pink
fleshy arm beating uselessly opposite,
a reminder of the periphery.

We have never been able to determine
how he acquires height and stays
drifting rough, ugly in his half-dance
amidst whatever weird fog lingers
this time of year. But he comes,
always with sound as trampled
tissues after our carnival’s last
swift removal of distraction
a few months before. We hear
the one wing, too white, and we look
away. The same the next day and the next.

Yet, the feathers meet us as we walk,
where we greet each other and pretend
to notice only the shifting branches
and graying walls all stone beyond this
or that street. The fourth day
we glance longer and higher
and prepare the pewter to seal
the jars we will fill. He is gone by dinner
on the fifth day of each flight in each year,
in the month we mark by orange coolness
and restless movements toward under-
ground. We have heard a story
about an unnatural affair and a fire,
but cannot remember where it begins
or might end, and so catch what we can.

-- Kelli Allen

Chris Parr at August Open-Mic

•chance operations• co-founder Chris Parr was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, and Michael Sullivan.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

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

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Michael Sullivan at August Open-Mic

Michael Sullivan was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

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

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

Musical guest to be announced.