Poetry
• On Returning to Venice - Stuart Z.
Perkoff
• From My Mouth (from a
notebook, found in an alley) -
Anonymous
• Clan Of Darkness - Validus
Veritas
• Stripes - Hal
Bogotch
• Here (for Venice) - Pam
Emerson
• Reply to the California
Coastal Commission Staff Report on #8 Brooks, Venice - Michel
Evelyn
ON RETURNING TO
VENICE
By Stuart Z.
Perkoff
time is confused on the streets
of my city
returning, it is now & always
as i walk
thru footsteps of
memory
fog limits vision, & my eyes
turn
inward, where birds fly the
feet
over paths of intricate
memories
ghosts over my shoulder do not
push or press
rather, their eyelessness peers
to pierce
the veiled images of the future,
or
the flowers ballooning from the clouds of
mist
2.
all
is not voice
or vision. real
walls
separate the
rooms
within which
movements
are limited by space. & the
bodies
within
it
what endless
histories
walk each separate
flesh
each mind
touching
its
own
chronology
which
goes beyond, encompasses
boundaries &
isolations
within
rigidity
the flow of
continuity
3.
o
ghosts
o my
past
the face i
wear
o my
city
my
flesh
the space
given
yr voices in my
ears
yr tears in my
eyes
hands
touching
songs
ringing
from room to
room
in the houses of my
mind
-----------
FROM
MY MOUTH
(from a notebook, found in an
alley)
By
Anonymous
I don’t know why I
think this...
sometimes I dream that my
friends
have to make decision over
me,
or my
enemy.
As I watch them, one by
one,
side with the enemy, a
tear
drops from my heart, so I
don’t
let them know that I feel
betrayed.
Then they say to me,
“Don’t worry about
it!”
-------------
Clan
Of Darkness
By Validus
Veritas
I belong to a tribe unholy,
engulfing me,
permeating my presence.. I see
the past
Quickly I see, laid before me,
my heritage..
My ancestral
tree
My father, was so
adored,
He had the very stars on his
tongue.
With a wave of his hand, he could
command an army,
Yea, even the hosts of
man
Destined for greatness, and yet that same
patience,
brought him to
ruin
My mother, was so
ignored,
She has the sense of the wisest
judge..
but somehow that wasn't
enough.
She would try to save, to solve a
behavior
with a rod of furor, timeless and
envious.
But my father's will and charm were
too great,
and he embraced his destruction..
with seeming joy
My father's father,
was so enslaved,
A Master of vessels, great
and majestic,
At first glance, he was mighty,
but his fool within.
rent with a grin, found
a release, and increased velocity
toward the
slide of infernal entry, even
deception.
My father's mother, was so
inebriated,
Not of the vine, but of ignorant
bliss,
A kiss, and all was well, a spell
unbroken..
a wrong word spoken, and anger
swelled upon my father's back.
No stick of
wood, nor iron skillet could quench the
burning,
the yearning for revenge, on the one
who leaves, and always deceives.
My
mother's father, the epitome of Evil,
Known
of many names, Father of Wrath, Enticer of
Demons,
Will of Wills, Smiter of Youth.. yet
damned by truth.. untold.
A legacy shorn of
sheep unshaven, pitiless and
careless.
Vengeance via castration would
scarce be justice, for such crimson
cruelty,
life cannot redeem, the seams of
scars left untended..
swells of blood in
pools thereof
My mother's mother, was
so blind,
Seeing her savior in forms
unwritten, smitten by need,
Greed.. an
all-seeing eye; Deny, and LIE!
A sacrificial
lamb, a wicked scam.
How can such depravity
exist in society?
By this type, one who sees
and turns unseeing, unbelieving,
as the child
screams
Six.. the number of
predecessors.. count them.
And here I stand,
my will in hand, intact.
I must act.. Now it
is I that man the helm, my own realm to
create.
The odds are unfavorable, One will
vying six,
I summon my strength, and at
length begin the path, where wrath
unfolds.
Horrors untold.. I face them daily,
three in my face, three in their own
place.
But burdening my mind, I must find the
will to defeat, these miserable
cretins
I
will.
------------
STRIPES
By
Hal Bogotch
I have a day off
today,
But I’m not doing anything
special.
We’re doing laundry, Laura and
I.
Washing
clothes
Doesn’t have anything to
do
With
remembering
Fallen
Soldiers.
I’ve
never had to go
Through Basic
Training.
Enlist in the Armed
Forces,
Or go overseas to fight in a
war.
I’m old
enough
So that I never had
To register for the
draft,
To enter the mouth of the
lion.
-------------
HERE
(for
Venice)
Here
no
one quite belongs
each of us an
unexpected
face.
Our
life stories meet
in quick, sharp
scenes.
Not
belonging,
none of us
say,
“what are you doing
Here.”
Pam
Emerson
(Reprinted from the March 1974
Beachhead)
-------------
REPLY
TO THE
CALIFORNIA COASTAL
COMMISSION
STAFF REPORT ON # 8
BROOKS, VENICE
By Michel
Evelyn
Bicycling down doubt-shadowed
alleys
lit by the half-light of a night
ready
Venice,
I lower my lids, look
through
lashes as I coast to
where
Windward Avenue and
Main
circle.
The
cement undulates,
I look through, looking
through the ground
I can see the canals
embalmed
in their
asphalt shroud.
My reflection quivers in
shimmering
black
top.
Obliquely glancing I
see
S shaped ladies dangling
parasols,
waiting for the 6:15
gondola.
Scuttling, circling round the
corner,
small boys in sailor
hats
throw sleazy popcorn at
indignant
birds. A little girl in pink
bows
and troublesome white
stockings
takes it all in.
A Carny dream man in a
boater hat
and rolled up sleeves snaps
his
suspenders at the future ghost of
me
and I shiver in the airless
twilight
of my
present.
I glide through cement
water.
My Galaxy Flyer, a sedate barge
drawn
by
legendary ducks.
I look up at the dappling
leaves of trees
shedding lace curtain light
on the streets
of Amaroso Andalusia
Patricia.
Down to Ocean Front Walk and I
am
jostled by ghostly crowds scented
with
summer memories of cotton candy
hot
salt sweat, the dog-eared scrap book
rem-
embrances
of a little girl in troublesome white
stockings who took it all in.
And white
glazed tile all progressed over
with glitter stucco
Where Linnie Canal is
alchemized by
golden
graft
into Bellini
Out of my eye's corner, a shadow
soundlessly
bicycles through the chiaroscuro
secret Venice alleys
all future-clean and
wide enough for
thing-filled vans.
The bicyclist
sees the ghosts of poets
impaled on charred
skeletons of gaudy pigeon
marked columns
built on smokey dreams of
Sweet Caporal
coasting to
where
Windward Avenue and
Main
circle, the future
ghost
glances obliquely through lowered
lashes
and glimpses me
gliding
thoughtfully as I glance
obliquely
through lowered
lashes
to catch a glimpse
of
S-shaped
ladies
Posted: Fri - July 1, 2005 at 07:15 AM