Video Variety Show and Journal with Interviews, Reviews, Performances, and Readings
Sunday, October 30, 2022
GAS Featured Artist and Poet: Irina Tall (Novikova)
Friday, October 28, 2022
GAS Featured Poet: Terrence Sykes
Terrence Sykes is a GASP …Gay Alcoholic Southern Poet & was born and raised in the rural coal mining area of Virginia. This isolation brings the theme of remembrance to his creations, whether real or imagined ....other interests include cooking, gardening, heirloom vegetable research & foraging wild edibles. His poetry, photography and flash fiction have been published in Bangladesh, Canada, Ireland, India, Mauritius, Pakistan, Scotland, Spain Turkey and the USA.
Thursday, October 20, 2022
GAS Featured Poet: Jimmy Broccoli
Jimmy Broccoli is a Library Branch Manager by day and a published poet by night with a mission to inspire his readers through imaginative poetic storytelling. His work has been featured in several publications and his first collection of poems, “Damaged,” was released on Christmas Day 2021. He is the editor/collector for the poetry anthology, “Spotlight” and will be releasing his next collection of poems, “Rabbits,” on Halloween Day 2022. 2023 will welcome a second anthology, “Encore,” a children’s book, and his third collection of poems, Boy. Jimmy enjoys walks on the beach and playing with puppies.
No Hay Banda (There is No Band)
Inspired by David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” – Club Silencio scene
“Watch out!”, I shout – as the deer leaps in front of the car –
we’re on a road that is near the Interstate (but local) –
We plunge head-on into the deer – I hear the thud – it’s loud –
and unforgettable –
“Stop”, I say! “Why?”, he asks –
“We hit a deer!” - I tell him –
…and he doesn’t seem to be understanding what I am saying
No hay banda – there is no band
I hear the sweet soothing sound of the trumpet –
and soon realize it’s pre-recorded and synthesized –
That’s okay –
It plays on the car radio – and I listen to it play…
it’s beautiful –
and it’s okay that it isn’t real – there is no trumpet
No hay banda – there is no band
“Didn’t you see the deer?”, I ask exasperated –
“There was no deer” –
“How do you explain the blood on the front of the vehicle?”, I ask
“There is no blood – I’ll clean it all up tomorrow” –
the trumpet plays and I can hear it’s sound (real or imagined) –
it plays gently to my ears (whether trumpet or synthesized)
A sudden clap of thunder – “It’s not real”, he tells me –
“What does that even mean?”, I ask –
“it’s not thunder – it is a keyboard stroke imitating thunder” –
I pause
“But, I heard it” – “You heard what you wanted to hear – what you thought you heard”, he says –
“what you’re comfortable in hearing” -
I’m confused -
and I think about us hitting the deer –
No hay banda – there is no band
“I don’t speak Spanish”, I tell him
“The deer was in your imagination”, he tells me –
and I know he is mistaken or wrong –
“there is no blood on my vehicle” he tells me –
(and I think he has cleaned it off)
And my memory conjures thoughts of the deer leaping out in front of the car -
directly in front of us – we hit the deer
No hay banda – there is no band
In his vehicle – he is driving – we come across a stop sign –
In the middle of nowhere -
and he stops – a clarinet plays for us gently and smoothly
through the car speakers and I cannot tell if it is a real clarinet -
A triangle joins the symphony – and I hear it – but he doesn’t
– we continue through the deserted intersection –
as I listen to this symphony that may or may not be real
When there is no band – there is no conductor –
when there is no band – there is no meaning or understanding –
it’s an illusion
“Watch out!”, I shout, as the deer jumps in front of the car –
and there is no deer
…or perhaps there is
I Don’t Want to Go to Heaven
I don’t want to go to Heaven
I want to go where they went
(the time has not yet come, but it will)
“Doctor, I’ve lived an interesting life
And don’t regret a moment of living -
And I’m okay with moving on
I am loved – and, for that, I am thankful!
It is time for me to breathe one last time
and then never take another breath”
Then… (the time has not yet come, but it will)
The lines on the heart monitor flat line and the beeping becomes a solid tone
The nurses come running and my father’s face fills with tears
My sister gasps, turns away and, emotional, leaves the room for anyplace else
My best friend, sitting beside me, as I lay in the hospital bed –
smiles gently, her hand in mine and I, without sound, say goodbye…
Let me go, let me go, let me go
And in a blink – and just like that…
The bridge – it stands before me, magnificent!
It’s multi-colored –
exquisite and almost blinding in its opulence and beauty
Ahead is a land of endless chew toys and treats
With no interruptions to play time and snuggles
I hear barking and laughter beyond, yet near – and I smile,
as I take my first steps across the wooden planks beneath my feet
I then begin running – the reunion cannot happen fast enough!!!!!
In the distance I see them – I see them all!!!!!
Tails wagging, tongues hanging out –
And…and…happiness.
Uninterrupted happiness. Always and forever and ever.
______________
(the time has not yet come, but it will)
So, when I die, I ask the gods to kindly look away
and to pay me no mind
Let me go my own way
And allow me to continue to where I am meant to be
I don’t want to go to Heaven
I want to go where they went
Thursday, October 13, 2022
GAS Featured Poet: Joseph Somoza
"27 years ago I used to teach English at NMSU and write poetry when I had time. Since retiring, I get to write every day in my back yard and, afterwards, go get coffee with Jill, who’s been painting in her studio. That’s the sweet life we somehow lucked on to."
Self-expression
My sinus is raspy so I try scratching it
with the back of my tongue.
There’s a slight breeze in the leaves
that might be the culprit,
though who can blame a breeze
for blowing?
It’s like expecting a dog
not to bark.
Everything has to express itself
or how would you know
what or who they are?
There’s this poem, for instance,
trying to express whatever
may come to mind—nothing much
that I know of so far this Saturday morning
sitting out here under a tree,
but maybe the tree will help draw me out
with his generous “ululation,” a word
that popped up just now,
though I’ll have to look it up.
Here in the back yard, under the sun, a breeze
blowing through the leaves, sounds
of the town all around, you feel
you’re at the center
of life, your own life included.
The mysterious Life-Source, the identity
of which, or whom, people debate,
must, ages ago, have expressed itself
by creating what slowly turned
into the world.
To The Source Of Energy
Daily am I permitted to come out
to the back yard
where the familiar locust trees wave
welcoming leafy fingers at me
and make restful shade pools to enter,
dwell in, and allow the mind to extend
through the senses and word-thoughts,
pass through the permeable air and
out to the blue infinity
some mornings marred only by rag-bits
floating seemingly close enough
to grab hold of—
and let the life-moments pass
before me slowly enough that I may
consider, appreciate, and shape them
one by one to the contours
of the body and mind gifted me
by ancestors eighty-one years ago
in a hillside farmhouse across the Atlantic,
a body and mind since developed
to a full person, here expressing
his gratitude.
—inspired by Robert Duncan’s
“Often I Am Permitted
To Return To A Meadow”
Thursday, October 6, 2022
GAS Featured Poet: Toti O’Brien
Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022).
HEROIN
And the closet where she would be shut to be
in total darkness and—like Galileo in the tower
—meditate on her sins.
And the sin that caused the punishment
was the same, each time—daring rebellion
against some perceived abuse.
The result was the closet—a radical form of
reclusion meant to weaken her hubris by sensorial
starving. So to speak. Soon, the darkness
that first, paradoxically, had blinded her, filled
itself with glare like will o’ wisps in a swamp,
like the halos of wandering ghosts.
In the closet, she didn’t repent. She calmed
down, her rage like a motor that—unplugged
from her counterpart, her opponent—slowly,
slowly, lost speed. The engine that had put her
on fire hushed itself, melting with the very
beat of her heart.
And her brain, which had wound itself into
tiny loops of obsession, chewing onto the meager
bone of some right and wrong, some vague claim
of justice, finally went numb, lulled by its own
bitter song. Time vanished in the closet,
as space did.
Only her aching body, only her bruised soul
remained. Of release, she recalled nothing.
When was the door unlocked. If she heard
the key turn. If she dared trying the knob. If
the light outside made her blink, if she first
had to pee or looked for a kerchief, for water.
If she smelled dinner, and the smell suddenly
comforted her. If food made her forget.
SHADOWS OF FIRE
Venus rose from the sea, they said. Of course, naked.
Long, curled hair, echoing the rippling of waves.
Perhaps, she had a mermaid tail (mythologies melt).
Like the Lady of Guadalupe, she stood on a crescent
(hers was abalone). Like that Mary, she niched in a
sort of vulva lined with mother of pearl, and was
haloed by cool layers of blue.
Athena rose dressed from the head (the brain) of her
father, Jupiter, king of gods. Dressed means with spear,
shield, armor—and clothes, underneath. Shoes were
on her feet. She looks marble in sculptures, but she
was splattered in blood, at least from the ax blow
that split open her father’s skull. She did not wash.
No need. She was bound to war.
When she stepped out of the mess of gray matter,
she marched on. She didn’t turn back, oblivious
already of the place she had come from. Soon
she was on horseback, and they called her Joan
the Maid. She donned a red tunic under the chain
mail, waved a red flag, her mount was harnessed
red—all preluding to her firing farewell.
She was seen afterwards, still in scarlet tunic,
playing Malinche. She spoke many tongues, and
too well. She went on, always marching westward
like a sun vainly looking for its resting place,
fated to constantly resurrect. They say she never
met her half-sister, the azure goddess,
or the pious mother of Christ.
She was not invited to family parties. Fairies missed
her baptism. No aunt demonstrated how to make
apple pie. She knew not the flavor of milk. At night,
she drank straight from the bottle as she leaned against
the iron rail of some bridge, listening to the roar of
water smashing on stone, catching (out of the corner
of her wide open eye) a meteor falling.