lo-fi poetics: 4th st berkeley ca

with & for anna

day after the summer solstice people watching 

window shopping & the weather can't get much better

i watch the human comedy as if i were a non-player-character

but that would be wrong so i go inside peet's coffee

because i need to pee + i want a cup of ordinary black coffee

back outside we sit at the table as we figure out the rest of our day

slight breeze sunny the smell of freshly cooked food young people 

selling baked goods to raise money for their organization

while i notice across the street a pair of alphorn players so awful

that honking car horns would be better music

while a growing collection of grey-haired populists 

with their protest signs cluster on the street corner

& my coffee is so bad it is like licking a dead battery

seasonal by jim mccrary

y'all know i love jim mccrary as a poet, man & overall good/cool dude so here is a recently published chapbook of poems by jim by nuallain house publishers' micropress imprint neo-mimeo editions which harken back to the mimeo press revolution of the late 1960s of DIY poetics but for our present digital age.   in short, my kind of publishing.

for poetry, in my estimation, is better served by a gift economy in a community of poets.  poets, i think, are all brothers & sisters past present & future even if it may not be always a happy family.  especially in our era of late-stage capitalism where value is often the sine qua non base level worth for everything, human & non-human, in our civilization.  poetry belies that base level worth of late-stage capitalism where things & services & people are bought & sold.  

here is our brother in the international republic of poetry, jim mccary's chapbook of marvelous, harrowing collection of poetry, seasonal.  

peace & love

poetics in a dead mall

knowing this would happen i took my phone my notebook & a pen

to the Sunrise Mall 

found a table at the food court & took a seat among the scores

of seats all around me

knowing i wanted a poetry of end-of-times where better than

a dead mall

i wanted it i wanted it so badly a quiet place where i would observe

life around me 

without being observed & i knew it would happen when i got here

at this dead mall

but no one is never not seen everyone from elderly mall walkers

getting in their 10000 steps

to the odd teen seeking who the fuck knows saw me

sitting alone in an empty 

food court taking notes for it is poetry i seek while my mall-mates

search for somethings i can't name

i was not invisible but was on display like everyone who walked

past me

the hungry the desperate the lonely the who-the-hell-knows why 

they do the things they do

but it was a poet they saw jotting down lines & images 

making a poem out of this dead mall

bad tattoo

my friend finally did it 

showed me her 'bad' tattoo

the one that she's embarrassed to have

i couldn't make it out

have no idea what the tattoo

represents or is supposed to be

& yet i told her of my 'bad' tattoo

the one on my ankle that was inked

by my brother when i was 16

with sewing needle thread & india ink

was supposed to be a skull but instead is a blob of blue ink

& how it is my favorite of my tattoos

because that is the one that is most artless

that art is more than the finished product

made by great genius or even competency

for it is in the actions itself 

the scars left over from the thrilling

being of life & how we all bear 

some scars that living on earth

will give us for it is the beauty & horror 

of everything we can receive 

& everything we can give

rip sly stone

i've been watching live performances of sly & the family stone all day when i heard sly passed away a couple of days ago.  i grew up listening to his music.  my dad, a cholo in his youth, loved motown, soul, rhythm&blues etc etc.  sly & the family stone was often on the family turntable.  played loud.  stone lived a troubled life, but he made some really fucking great music & was one of the most charismatic performers.   the whole of the family stone were phenomenally gifted musicians & performers.  & they were dedicated thru their music to demolish racial barriers.  

as evidenced in this performance.  i don't know what TV show this is from.  but this video of sly & the family stone live is like finding a bag of pure, uncut happiness & shooting it directly into your vein!  

i am everyday people!

lust for life

i have observed my 58th turn around the sun 

frankly, i am surprised that i've made it this long!

but even so, it is easy to become a bitter old man 

compare the world of my youth to today's world

finding today's world lacking

but really really really it is an astonishing time to live

for our human civilization

& so but then when i get down & that is often

i remember that 

there is still so much to learn 

so much to discover

so much to explore

from the past & in the present & to the future

keeping going 

keep growing up out & older

until the fucking wheels fall off!

writing + writing

it is a slow, lazy summer kinda sunday here at casa de bronson/lopez

i found myself thinking about the late NZ poet rob allan who was quite active on social media

allan's account on twitter [or, sheesh, x] was allanrob9 if you are interested in reading his posts for they are still up & available 

allan's poems were decidedly 'post-modern' you can read a few here https://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/dunedin/allan.asp

but i would argue, perhaps allan would disagree, that a portion of his poetics is his social media posts 

his posts were mostly photos taken of Dunedin/Port Chalmers & they were often of the local flora, buildings, the port, boats & ships, rarely people & almost never self-portraits

allan was also a slightly astringent commentator on the goings on of the day & was generous in retweeting his friends works as well

social media is a kind of writing too

we could argue that till the cows come home but nearly every creative person, whether she be a poet, home cook, gardener, painter etc etc. possesses a social media site

nearly all the painters i am interested in use instagram to publish their works

so there is writing done in the traditional ways like pen to paper, books etc etc. + writing done on the electronic frontier that would include email, texting, blogging, instagramming, you name it

& so it is that i miss rob allan & his posts  

he is a man that i wished i had reached out too

i am not the only one who has this wish here is a lovely post by a fellow writer who calls allan a friend even tho they never 'met' [but they did meet like one would meet writers in their works, perhaps even more for social media is indeed now, today, part of the 'social' hum of living in the 21st C] https://petchary.wordpress.com/2022/11/06/in-remembrance-of-a-twitter-friend-i-never-met/

finally, here is another lovely memorial to rob allan by his friend the poet kay mckenzie cooke with a charming detail of her & rob's competiton to see who can post the first photo of a magnolia in blossom on twitter In Memory – 11th Letter In

rob allan's works on social media are a proof that the electronic frontier can also bring us together 

peace & love

in honor of Pride Month here is one of my favorite poems by my man thom gunn

i really dig its plain speech, its form, its sexyness, but even more i love how spectacularly intense & human love is expressed by the poem's queer speaker

this is a poem of fleshly desires & a love so concentrated it is like a laser beam focused on even the most hardened of hearts

for we are human in the struggle of it all & in this poem gunn hits all the right notes to remind us that we are indeed sexy creatures graced with the ability for great love

but 'we are not catholic, see, so it's all right'!

poem excerpted from my man thom gunn's collected poems

for all our queer brothers & sisters & non-binaries

for all of us cis-gendered as well

peace & love 

happy PRIDE MONTH!