The Wading Pool BY GEORGE BILGERE The toddlers in their tadpole bodies, with their squirt guns and snorkels, their beautiful mommies and inflatable whales, are still too young to understand that this is as good as it gets.
Austin, Texas June 7, 2015 photo by Alice-Catherine Jennings
A day at the neighborhood pool screams summer. Everyone’s in a good mood. The kids are electric; the parents can chill; and the singlets’ skin glow.
Born in 1951, George Bilgere has been called the baby boomer’s poet. You can watch a video of Bilgere talking about his poetry here.
Cat, Failing BY ROBIN ROBERTSON A figment, a thumbed maquette of a cat, some ditched plaything, something brought in from outside: his white fur stiff and grey, coming apart at the seams
photo by Alice-Catherine Jennings cat courtesy of a friend
I’m still writing cat, cat, cat…but I’m getting better. I’m now reading poems about cats.
…when i can taste the rare culture of cuchifritos y lechón chitterlins & black-eyed peas & corn bread
Photo By Toby Hudson (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0}I’d been spying the food trucks on East 11th St for quite some time. Located close to East Side Yoga, I knew that one day after my noon stretch, I’d stop by one of those vegan/vegetarian food trucks circled around chairs and grass and a dose of East Austin funk.
Yesterday, the vegan African food sign lured me in past the partial metal fence. I entered food truck land. I was tempted by the Colombian choice. I’ve been to Colombia so thought at least I could make an educated choice but I was feeling hot and steamy so I stayed the course and headed towards Wasota African Cuisine.
I ordered the V. 6 Jollof Rice and Spinach and V10. Akara (Black- eyed Peas Fritters). I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting but the owner said to sit in the shade as it would take awhile to blend and cook everything. He likes to make everything fresh for his customers—and, the food was guaranteed. Guaranteed? Like authentic? No, like I will give you your money back if you do not like it. For $10.72, why not?
Here are my ratings on a 5 star system.
Hot and spicy: 5 (You can order it less spicy but I like the heat!)
Taste and texture: 3 1/2
Value: 5 (There was enough food for 4.)
Service and Friendliness: 5
Authenticity: Have no idea???
If you check out Wasota’s FB page, there is a special offer for 15% off.
Jesus Papoleto Melendez on the fire escape of his building on East 111th Street in East Harlem New York City. Photo By vagabond (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0}The akaras, or black-eyed pea fritters led me to “Oye Mundo/sometimes” and I discovered Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, poet and playwright and one of the founding poets of the Nuyorican poetry movement. You can watch him read “¡HEY YO / YO SOY!” here.
& i can feel a conglomeration of vibrations / heat waves body waves people waves of real gente / & i feel gooooooood
Yesterday the egg so fresh it felt hot in his hand…
caught up inside his fist, not ready to give it over to the refrigerator or the rest of the day.
One of my favorite ways to refresh my look after a travel day in airports and planes—that dead air of space—is to get my hair done—the whole enchilada—base color, highlights and cut, especially if your hair stylist is Mel Martel, Creative Director at Ricky Hodge Salon. She rocks! Not only am I “re-doed” but I got a bonus—a gift from her chickens, 1/2 dozen eggs.
These eggs never made it to refrigerator as after the hard workout in the salon chair, I was hungry—voila! An omelet with spinach and cherry tomatoes for lunch. Thank you Mel!
Good things build on good so after the omelet, I found the “Boy and Egg” poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, one of my favorite poets.
Keep away, son, these lakes are salt. These flowers Eat insects. Here private lunatics Yell and skip in a very dry country.
Dish on Market Louisville, KY
Downtown Louisville is far from being a “dry country.” Instead, it is wet, very wet indeed especially on the urban bourbon trail. I know from experience. I took my virgin #urbanbourbon trip last Thursday afternoon with a group of fellow writers. My rating:
I’d would have given it a 5 star but one of the bartenders had an angry air. Fortunately, at every other place, the bartenders were super professional and friendly–especially at our final stop at Dish on Market.
Plaque in Louisville, KY
Or where some haywire monument Some badfaced daddy of fear Commands an unintelligent rite.
In a fuzzy haze, I was walking back to the Brown Hotel and ran into this plaque to Thomas Merton. Had I wondered around a bit more I would have discovered another Thomas Merton plaque, the one that celebrates “a mystical experience — one that happened to the monk Thomas Merton on March 18, 1958:
‘In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers….There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.’
… It is a field of the wild carrot taking the field by force; the grass does not raise above it.
“Daucus carota May 2008-1 edit” by Alvesgaspar – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons –
Saturday in Mano Prieto north of Marfa, TX~
After high winds that were making me nettled and grumpy, a black storm pummeled rain on the south side of my studio. The weather shifted to cool, actually bristly so—yes, bristly, the hairs were sticking up from my skin.
I threw on a flannel shirt and starting chopping carrots. I craved soup!
I pulled out one of my “heritage recipes”—a recipe ripped from a magazine or newspaper years ago for a creamy but not too spicy Carrot and Jalapeño soup. Here’s the recipe by Marilyn Harris online. It’s delicious!
a not—turtle—plus—rat catchat
a plus—dog—plus—rat—pas—chat dog a more—hair—pas—chat—moins chien horse a more—chat—plus—horse—moins—chien—more—rabbit rat
“Chelonia” from Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur, 1904
You can listen to Caroline Bergvall read “More Pets” here.
*From Fig by Caroline Bergvall, Salt Publishing—what can I say about this book? Buy it! Awesome!
Board of Directors*
by Mario Benedetti (1920-2009), as translated by Harry Morales
There is a dry cough like from the cigarettes then a murmured remark, a chair being dragged two yawns the reading of the minutes that foul smell
DIRECTORIO Hay una tos reseca como de cigarrillo después un comentario murmurado
un arrastre de silla dos bostezos la lectura del acta anterior esa peste.
A meeting of a board of directors of the Leipzig–Dresden Railway Company in 1852
If you have ever worked in an office, Benedetti’s office poems are for you. With titles such as “Salary,” “The New Guy”—”the new guy/arrives happily” and “the Christmas Bonus”—don’t we wish?—I wonder: How did he do it? Write about suchmundane things and make the poems sing? Of course, there is more than the ordinary—there always is if the poem is good. With Benedetti, you get a view of Montevideo in the early 1950’s and a whole lot of social/political commentary. His stuff is good. Really good.
It’s time for the “Typist.” (Remember those saints who took care of all those things you have to do for yourself now?)
Montevideo quince de noviembre de mil novecientos cincuenta y cinco Montevideo era verde en mi infancia absolutamente vrede y con travías
Mario Benedetti
In a career of more than 60 years, Mr. Benedetti wrote more than 80 books, addressing subjects that range from love and middle-class frustration in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, to the pain of exile. (NY Times, May 19, 2009)
*From Only in the Meantime & Office Poems by Mario Benedetti, as translated by Harry Morales. Host Publications, 2006.
In a bowl, blind as stones. In their soft-skinned hides, holding seeds.
Carving an avocado makes a C-section, and the meat of the fruit slicks the stone.
I’ve taken to reading poems and poets in alpha order—hence, avocado and Arthur.
The opening of this poem makes me want to dissect some avocados and turn them into guacamole, which is what I thought I’d do as soon as I finished reading “Avocado.” But by the end, I was imagining maple tress and dogs and decided to move on to “Aspirations.”
“Maple between pines” by Remilo – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“Avocado” from Charms Against Lightening by James Arthur, Copper Canyon Press, 2012
Alice-Catherine 