GAS Featured Musicians & Poet: BEAT POET SOCIETY by Matthew Bowers

The Creation from Words and Music:

    In the somehow hectic, crazy year, full of surprises and change, singer Anna-Bella Munter approached Bengt O Björklund (Sweden's Beat Poet Laureate-Lifetime) to collaborate on a new musical project. 

     The idea was to create music around Bengt's poetry that would end up almost mystically bringing together elements of classic rock and alternative music. The Beat Poet Societies' debut release is as comforting and familiar, as it is fresh and alive, building a unique bridge for both seasoned and younger generations alike! A veritable musical unicorn, if you will.

     Right from it's genesis, the elements were brought together in place, and set in motion an environment, and voice, that would go on to create pure magicK. Anna-Bella has had a good career as a singer/ vocalist/ songwriter and met Bengt at one of his readings one day several years ago, whereupon they developed a friendship. Such is the beautiful world of the arts. Anna-Bella would later introduce Bengt to their soon to be guitarist, Mats Wennberg, while Bengt had known the coming keyboardist, Olof Andersson, for several years, as he was the piano teacher for his children.

     A Symphony of Alchemy:  

     

     As soon as the Beat Poet Society sits down to write, groove, or improvise songs, a sense of spiritual synchronicity fills the air. The guitar weaves a tapestry of melodic nuances, with  true classic tones that would make a youthful Keith Richards proud. A guitarist's guitar sound, etched from the fabric of the late Sixties and early Seventies when rock and roll, had a fearlessness, mission, and purpose. 

     The spontaneous jam comes to life, as the keyboards find their way alongside the melody, complimenting and counter pointing the guitar in all the right places. With a semblance of musical narrative and craft, Anna-Bella finds, and flows with a vocal foothold, committing instinctually, the most amazing phrasing of musical interpretation I've heard in a long while! Her voice ranges from wise storyteller to strong political activist, with all of the colorful melancholy siren's bliss.

     The Beat Poet Society is located in Sweden, south of Stockholm. They practice in a beautiful, warm studio, that would be any artist's dream. The cozy feel of the studio is reminiscent of a ski lodge in the alps, rather than what seems to be a working environment, it provides a safe haven of escapism and creativity.

     

Salt and Sulfur:

     The recent release is made up of five tracks. Each of the songs stand out in their own way, and on their own merit. There's Wildflowers, Serious Sisters, Fear, Salt and Sulfur, and the song that really got me hooked, There's a Song. All of the songs are masterfully recorded, wonderfully orchestrated, and perfectly performed.

     A complete album from the Beat Poet Society will drop this summer, while I must anxiously bide my time through the coming months until its arrival. The Beat Poet Society is on Spotify, where I have personally been listening to non-stop. These songs speak to me in a way that music hasn't touched me in years. Track after track, candy for your ears, and depth that nourishes your soul. Perhaps through YouTube, or another social media, The Beat Poet Society will be able to touch greater areas of the world. Collaborative artistic videos made from like minds, gathering together in purpose to reach out, and spread the world of art and music! All and All it could be a real… GAS:

You can hear The Beat Poet Society on YouTube.

Find them on Spotify too!

GAS Featured Poet: Donna Snyder

Snyder founded the Tumblewords Project in 1995 and still organizes its free weekly workshops in the El Paso borderlands.  She has poetry collections published by Chimbarazu, Virgogray, and NeoPoiesis presses.  Her work appears in such journals and anthologies as Setu, Red Fez, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, VEXT Magazine, Mezcla, Original Resistance, Miriam’s Well, and Speak the Language of the Land. Snyder has read her work in Alaska, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, and Texas

Twitty Baroque

 

The world beyond the stucco house is a highway, 

trucks roaring by like early summer tornadoes, 

the sound of commerce passing through.

 

Mama’s fear and anger echoes in the silence

of the fields that surround us on all sides, 

cotton fields my daddy doesn’t own.

 

Books on the shelf next to the front door,

a gift of charity. Their pictures magnetize

my eyes and fingers. Giotto’s

 

golden halos. Ruben’s corpulent god of drink

forbidden by Southern Baptists. Dionisio

lavish and flagrant in his lusts.

 

Robes rich as the wine of Carvaggio’s world,

excess, dissolution unthinkable to church folk,

gathered to sing a few miles away.

 

My fingers trace stained glass, baroque cathedrals’

magnificent spires high above art’s communion

so unlike Baptist austerity and fear of beauty. 

 

El Greco’s lush colors seduce me, an agony of faces.

Strange and lavish glory, adulation too close to idolatry

to be found in a country church.

 

Our austere gathering of convicted souls. Nude walls

devoid of icons yet filled with the hubris of certitude.

The giver of those books escapes my memory.

 

But the incandescent flesh and vivid colors vibrate still

through time. There were also gifts of heavy records,

handed down to this family.

 

Its genial war hero, a beautiful and brilliant young mother,

three daughters so pretty and bookish. Mama played the music

for me while we were home alone.

 

Daddy at work. The big girls at school. A hand-me-down hi-fi.

The relentless ecstasy of Ravel, the subliminal messages

of Rigoletto, Puccini, Tchaikovsky.

 

Thrilling trills shiver the tin roof of a stucco house

owned by the Boss down at the cotton gin, who

owned everything there in the Twitty flats,

 

even the one room store and post office. Outside,

trucks shift gears, maximize profit, minimizing

transport time. Cotton bolls dance

 

tripolets in dirt blown fields. Dust storms steal my air,

leave me breathless as the beauty of imperfect pearls,

a beauty instilled within me

 

an inchoate reverence for sin.

Glossalalia

 

Born of American blues and Yoruban ways

A whole new art form wails from a reed

Fingers pull tripolets from the upright bass 

Wood and hands ricochet off drumheads 

A mad man gurgles wordless song

A jazzman howls a whole new language

 

Between something foreign yet homegrown

language creates itself, a mad excitement

Fire burns through nerves. The jazzman

hurls prayers outside Pentecostal temples 

on the Street of the Crosses, the City of Angels

A gurgle of impenetrable language shouted

 

Fronterizo jazzman channels a love supreme

Touched by holy fire he speaks in tongues 

The laws stop at the border of his lips

Ecstatic utterances scream a tongue’s secrets

Serpents twine flesh/a Lilith born of the desert

flees a cultivated garden/runs for the frenzied border

 

Serpent tongues tattoo lightning across green sky

Meaning flickers from tongue to sax to God’s ear

A Goddess serpent twines around sunbright flesh

The gift of tongues unknown below sin’s heaven

La frontera a bridge between meaning and Babel

The tongue's secrets transmuted into frenzied sound

 

 

 

Heidi Blakeslee’s interview of Thasia Anne Lunger, Producer of the WOMEN OF WORD: WITH A FEW MAN-MADE WORDS, Poetry, Dance, and Music Show

In March 2021, Thasia and her gang of faithful WOW-iers took the stage for year ten at Erie, Pa’s Blasco Library.

Heidi: Where did you get the inspiration for WOW?

Thasia:  It was autumn of 2009.  I was recovering from my fall and subsequent brain injury and had begun hanging out on Friday nights at a local book store. Such a cool atmosphere with a fireplace and welcoming poets.  I had produced a chapbook about domestic violence in the early nineties and used it to help heal other survivors. I was sitting in the bookstore and a tall warrior type gorgeous red haired woman went to the mic and read a poem on domestic violence. I was immediately struck with how her poem spoke to one of mine. 

A couple weeks later someone read a poem on the loss of a child. I have an unpublished collection of poems about the loss of my 26 year old son. Again I was struck with the thought her poem spoke to mine. That was the seed of using poetry to talk about difficult situations. Over the years we have tackled many difficult and upsetting subjects in a calm respectful way that allows the audience to contemplate both sides.  Subjects included: domestic violence, rape, incest, PTSD, death and loss, human trafficking, abortion, poverty, addiction, gun violence and many others.

Heidi: What are some differences between year one and year ten? 

Thasia: Year one was virginal in this whole aspect. I called it Women of Word, and it was only female participants of varying ages. Heidi, you are one of my original Wow-iers.  The event was held in Smith Chapel at Penn State Behrend.   We always start the show with each poet stating a negative word on our yearly theme, and end the show on a positive word. The first year it was feelings about women and our 80-something wonder woman, Marge Wonner, yelled “Slut” in the Chapel!  I knew immediately we needed a more progressive space! By year two, I already felt the need to add some phenomenal male voices to the mix. We have since been known as Women of Word featuring a few Man Made Words. WOW.

Heidi: How many people have been involved over the years?

Thasia: We have showcased close to 40 voices of nearly all ages.  Heidi you have been in all but one. There are two of you with that distinction, you and Marjorie Wonner. I am so proud to include 5 professors, 2 world class dancers, 5 social workers, 1 Poet Laureate, and an adjunct instructor/ teacher. WOW was previously held at 2 Universities, Penn State Behrend and Edinboro University. All of it in a one of a kind show that started right here in Erie County, PA.

Heidi: Are any past WOW performances available for viewing? 

Thasia: In the past they were all videotaped on one camera, which made for a very amateur looking video. This year I received a grant to hire the local CAM media crew, and with three cameras the results are pretty amazing. I also jumped into live performance in 2021 by live streaming. There were so many new aspects this year. We had a new venue with the Erie County Raymond Blasco Library offering up the Hirt Auditorium that will be our new home. Much bigger and brighter. Also to live stream we all needed to have lavalier mics, which was a complicated first. We joined up for the first time with Sovereign ballet, and went from one dancer to four. Another first was Gisele Littrell with two original songs on guitar that fit beautifully.

Heidi: Where do you see WOW going in the future? 

Thasia: With our new venue with triple the seating capacity that we had on the Edinboro University Campus, so many more folks can experience live poetry in a completely different way than they have in the past. Also with the live streaming in its infancy with WOW, I was able to determine by the comments left for us that we reached NYC, Buffalo, LA., Oregon, Orlando, Winter Haven, and Davenport, Fl., Meadville and Erie, PA.

Heidi: What is your favorite aspect of producing WOW? 

Thasia: Seeing the voices in my head become reality. Hearing a song on the radio, and with no dance experience finding someone who can make that happen. How we have represented Erie and been spoken of in other countries such as India, several African countries, and educated so many on such a varied array of subjects.

Heidi: Thasia, thank you so much for speaking with me today!  Women of Word is still going strong and that makes me so happy.  I can’t wait to see what you think up for us next year!

To view WOW 2021, the ten year celebration, you can go online to CAMErie.PA  The edited version will be aired 4/ 9 @ 7pm and 4/10 @ 5pm. If you have any questions or comments, Thasia can be reached at tannetaf@gmail.com 
The CAM schedule changes monthly and Thasia can let you know when to catch WOW on tv.  

Review of Joshua Michael Stewart’s THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF DHARMA BUMS BY Heidi Blakeslee

This book is delightfully twofold.  The first section is 34 pgs of what Stewart calls “sculpted poems.”  The words from each poem are taken from different chapters of Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums.”  The effort used to extract the beautiful and interesting words from each page is well spent.  The project is a literary experiment that makes me want to try one of my own.  The tone throughout this section is at times disjointed with odd abutments and at other times karmic and smooth.  

8.

Trackless snow along a white farmhouse,

dogs bark through the void.

Li Po getting drunk on God— drinking

a whole new way of living.

I’m sick of civilization.

We can’t drive back home.

Maybe it won’t be so cold tonight.

I’ll light a bonfire by nightfall.

Past adventures bless my boyhood.

Grave eyes cry like birds.

The second part of the work is poetry with subjects pertaining to the hermit life.  Some lines are a mutation of Buddhist nature fantasy; others are lovingly devoted to talking about cats.  Still others speak to a personal history of healing from a difficult childhood.  Each poem is rich, a feast for the mind.

 Something must also be said about the strength of the nature imagery in here.  As a perpetual woods-wanderer growing up in rural western Pa, I can attest to the magic of trees.  To me Stewart’s work came off as an autoethnography of self-isolation and the healing powers of meditation.  Throughout this section Stewart expands upon his style of flash-memoir, (as opposed to flash fiction,) writing paragraphs about his experiences in nature. These paragraphs are juxtaposed next to 3-5 short lines of poetry, some of which are Tanka and haiku.  The combination of those two forms drew me further into the book.  

Above all, every poem is meticulously and tenderly worded.  This isn’t a stream of consciousness writer who goes all willy-nilly in this book.  The Dharma here is the truth of Stewart’s soul laid bare.  Some of the poems, like “To life,” add a layer of depth to the work that feels welcome amidst the other themes.  Hell, if I can spend time reading poems that other people have written about cats, then I will do so.

To Life

To the cat, I’m no more than a stepladder-- a tool for look-

ing out the window. From here on the bed, I see a scribble 

of branches, the occasional flash of bird, and the dusty

underside of drawn-up blinds.  The cat reports on the ground 

activity. His chatters indicate the robin’s return.  His yowls

announce that the calico next-door is all belly and paws in a 

patch of sun. Today, there are no big questions I’ll ask or try 

to answer. Instead, I’ll fold my hands on my chest, and tap a

finger along to my neighbor’s hammer as he pounds some-

thing beautiful and strong to life.

                                             sundown

                                             sunrise

                                             a butterfly

                                             opens and closes

                                             its wings”

In short, Joshua Michael Stewart’s The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums from Human Error Publishing is an exquisite read.  I’m really glad I read it during the first week of spring.

Joshua Michael Stewart has had poems published in the Massachusetts Review, Louisville Review, Rattle, Night Train, Evansville Review, Cold Mountain Review, and many others. His first full-length collection of poems, Break Every String, was published by Hedgerow Books in April 2016. He received his BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and lives in Ware, Massachusetts. He’s employed as a Teacher/Counselor, working with individuals with special needs. 

Interview with Poet and Publisher of Shivastan Press, Shiv Mirabito

Be: Shiv, you recently came to my attention through mutual friends. I read in an interview that you are American born. What was your journey to acquire the name “Shiv.”  

Shiv: When I first went to India in 1988 - and almost every winter afterward - I studied with the Naga Babas who worship Shiva the god of transformation, yoga, meditation, and nature. I was initiated into the Anand Akhara of Naga Babas and was given the name Shiv Bharati - this is a more studious and scholarly branch of the Das Nami Shiva Babas and I was told to visualize that Saraswati the goddess of wisdom, poetry, and music is constantly sitting on my tongue constantly guiding my communication.

Many people who don't know me think I may be Indian or Nepali with my dark complexion, big beard and six foot long dreadlocks but this is the influence of 33 years of traveling to these places.

I am actually a 3rd generation Sicilian-American from a middle class background born in a small town in upstate NY.

But I do find it offensive when people say "but what's your REAL name?" It's like asking a transgender person what type of genitals they really have. People should accept whatever name (or gender) anyone wishes to use without scrutiny.

 

 Be: You seem to have a real respect and fascination with India. What drew you to India and ultimately to Kathmandu?  Could you find something there you couldn’t find elsewhere? 

Shiv: I studied and lived in Allen Ginsberg's farm in Upstate NY in Cherry Valley - I was introduced to Hinduism and Buddhism there as a teenager. In 1988 I spent a semester studying in India and Nepal through the State University of NY. I've tried to go back every winter since and usually spend 4 months there studying, writing, and publishing every year January through May - last year I was stuck in Kathmandu until October and this year I am not traveling because of the pandemic. In Woodstock NY I have a small bookshop focusing on poetry, Hindu/Buddhist tantra, the occult, art, history, lgbtq studies, my small press, etc.

    I love India and Nepal because of the ancient culture that is based on more pagan concepts of worshipping nature - rocks, trees, rivers, mountains, etc- and the profound respect for poets, poetry, spirituality, and those who are focused on the sacred in all aspects of life. I continue this sense of ubiquitous sacredness in every waking moment and interaction with myself and others - but I do not consider myself "religious" - I am much more of a hippie than a devotee. I feel everything is an illusion - and at the same time a teaching - so why take life so seriously. Life is to enjoy. I also drink, smoke, experiment with psychedelics, and engage in polyamory and sacred sex - like many of the beat poets did and still do.

 

Be: When did you start your Press and what motivated you to do it?

Shiv: I started publishing in Kathmandu on handmade lokta paper with my small press because I wanted to self publish my own poetry. Someone asked me "you have a vanity press?"  and I hate that term so I started offering to publish books and broadsides for other poets as a service to the greater community. I engaged in a wide correspondence with many poets and have published about 70 publications since I started in 1997. I was also inspired by Ira Cohen, Angus and Hetty Maclise who published poetry on handmade paper in Kathmandu in the 1970s.

 

Be: What type of work does Shivastan Press publish?  How do the find your authors?

Shiv: I open the possibilities to any poets & writers - I prefer unusual "beat" or "alternative" poetry but I don't limit the press to any labels. The main requirement is authors must pay for printing and I facilitate all the rest in Kathmandu. The possibilities are endless.

 

Be: Who are some of the well-known poets you have worked with or published?

Shiv: Here is an abbreviated list of some of the fine poets I’ve published.

Shivastan Press {Woodstock~Kathmandu} Limited Edition Chapbooks, Broadsides and Wildflowers Woodstock mountain anthologies, craft-printed with handmade paper in Kathmandu Nepal:

#1, 2001: Ira Cohen, Andy Clausen, Janince King, Phillip Levine, Paul MacMahon, Shiv Mirabito, Dina Pearlman, Ed Sanders, Marilyn Stablein, Christina Starobin, Palmer Shaw, Janine Pommy Vega, Sue Willens.

#6, 2005: Ira Cohen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Roberta Gould, Hetty Maclise, Robert Kelly, Donald Lev, Richard Livermore, Taylor Mead, Shiv Mirabito, Erik La Prade, Tom Savage, Anne Waldman, Chavisa Woods, Ziska, review of Atlantis Manifesto by Robert Kelly.

Andy Clausen: Festival of Squares, 2002.

Andy Clausen: Songs of Bo Baba, 2004.

Ira Cohen: Whatever You Say May Be Held Against You, 2004.

Enid Dame: Where is the Woman? (Edited by Donald Lev), 2006.

Shiv Mirabito: Transcendental Tyger, 2004.

Ed Sanders: Stanzas for Social Change, 2004.

Janine Pommy Vega: The Walker, 2003.

Anne Waldman: Ceremonies in the Gong World, 2007.

Broadsides:

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Allen Ginsberg Dying, 2005.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Pity the Nation, 2008.

Allen Ginsberg: Why Fuzz, 2017.

Allen Ginsberg: A Mountain Outside, 2018.

Ed Sanders: The Bookstores of New York, 2018.

Anne Waldman: Manatee Humanity, 2008.

Anne Waldman: Vatsala Devi, 2018.

I would like to mention that anyone in the area is welcome to visit my groovy little bookshop The Woodstock Shivastan Poetry Ashram Bookshop - we have many open poetry gatherings with a bonfire & vegetarian potluck in a beautiful secret garden + everyone who comes to visit receives free gifts like prints of my collage artworks, books, seashells from the beach in Goa India, etc.

- and please visit my pages on Facebook for information about the bookshop & my small press Shivastan Press (Woodstock-Kathmandu). Publications from Shivastan Press are available on my Etsy page.

Thank you Belinda - peace & love from Woodstock- Shiv

WILDFLOWER HELL by Tanya Rakh, reviewed by Hex’m J’ai

Alright readers, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to…

“WILDFLOWER HELL”

Feel free to stroll the grounds.  Take in the lush botanicals and verdant greenery.  Breath in the exotic aromatics, feast your eyes upon the plumage of rare birds, behold golden boughs heavy with sensuous fruit, submerge the senses in the wonder……..Hey! Don’t touch……..oh, great….we lost another one.

(Remember, roses have thorns and smiles can kill.)  

“WILDFLOWER HELL: Amalgamated Poems” is Tanya Rakh’s most recent collection of poetry.  This collection is cleverly broken in four sections or chapters that correlate to the seasons and are assigned an appropriate flower.  An allusion to the Victorian language of flowers?  Perhaps.  Visual symbolism with an intended meaning?  Absolutely!

Regardless of the intriguing layout of the collection, the true magic(k) of this book lies within the individual pieces.  Each is a piece of imagery laden fruit reminiscent of the French Symbolists in aesthetic and an active experiment in form.  Yet, these are not simply aesthetically appealing filler or mere decorative language arranged in a pleasing fashion.  Oh, no.  There is a darker, dystopian, undercurrent pulsing through these petals (knowledge comes with the curse of being tainted so the myth implies).  Alluring, razor-sharp petals etched with Tanya’s surrealist filagree cutting doors to the unique dimensions of her mind’s eye.  Through these freshly carved doors we can partake of a sensory engaging buffet where some things are sweet, some succulent, some bitter and some bite back.  And that, my friends, is what makes these pieces truly poetry.  

So, with that, I encourage you explore Tanya’s garden of botanical oddities, I can assure that you will not regret it.

(from Wildflower Hell)

that summer

She grows much older that summer. All amber and chlorophyll, she peels from her roots, lets her branches furl across forest in veins and rivers. Finds tesseract and pearl tooth hiding among willows, amphibious stars crackle for the choke point. 

In summer she evaporates, multiplies in prism, a gallery of refractions. She gazes into train lights and refuses. I’m tired, she tells them, spills out a dusty road instead, swaps her feet for years of windstorms. They say she lives here still, always howling. Until the day no one remembers, she echoes nightingale beneath your trees.

Dim memory lights and fissures in our boneyards. All oceans filled with swollen death, the mermaids left for orchid water long ago. 

Before the sun there was a poem here, verses sunk in soapstone, etched in gold. Each syllable a cut in time. Now the timeworn lines have found a doorway, loosened their ankle ties, but incantations fade and calcify with parallels, an undead choral prophecy.  

It always ends this way—the heavy dragon eats its tail in mired calculations. Always the sun rolling down the same mountain, that same weightless mountain where time and love move together but refuse to make eye contact, sleep rigid on opposite sides of the bed, the sheets soaked in pleading. The same nightmare cycles again.

Each razor story, every gray, splintered home. Each tall rooftop bent by this deafening momentum, this entropy dance of meat clinging to skeleton, these endless days of wheat and water.

All of this, alive in tapestry. Hungry for bones and hearts and holes through inertia. She grows much older that summer. Eats from fruit trees and falls asleep a stream. An ocean someday, a sun cascading down mountains. The moon rises here in whispers still; bright stars spin awake behind the haze.

Order Wildflower Hell from Amazon.

Tanya Rakh was born on the outskirts of time and space in a cardboard box. After extensive planet-hopping, she currently lives near Houston, Texas where she writes poetry, surrealist prose, and cross-genre amalgamations. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Redshift 4, Literary Orphans, Heroin Love Songs, Yes, Poetry, and The Rye Whiskey Review. Tanya is the author of two books: Hydrogen Sofi (Hammer & Anvil Books 2019) and Wildflower Hell (Rogue Wolf Press 2021).

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA by Christopher Ethan Burton, reviewed by Hex'm J'ai

Mr. Burton has been writing and creating for years.  As well, Christopher has recently been honing his craft on the spoken word stage giving definitive life, flavor and vibrance to his poetic works.  In the last year, with public readings cancelled due to covid-19, Mr. Burton took the opportunity to continue his live spoken word performances via Face Book and You Tube.  That said, Christopher Ethan Burton has finally taken his spoken word darlings and crystalized them, fixed them in his first published collection.  Though his first publication, Mr. Burton has painstakingly edited and re-edited his original manuscript to render the finished product as professional as a larger press, though this text is self-published and available to readers for essentially cost.  

Watch a performance by Christopher on YouTube.

Telling.  Autobiographical.  Honest and unashamed.  Witty, observant and nostalgic.  

Buzz words.  Buzzwords.  I could fill this page with buzzwords to describe the first published work of Christopher Ethan Burton.  They would be accurate, but they would be pale in meaning and be lost in the ocean of milk-toast descriptions.  This slim, self-published work deserves, in my humble opinion, a much closer inspection.

Between the covers of this unassuming volume is a microcosm(s).   Pulsing through these pages are what I call an alchemical blend that is matter-of-fact punk-rock simplicity combined with rich imagery.  Through this medium Mr. Burton creates a vehicle that can transport us to NYC in the 80’s through a child’s eye, dusty Hudson Valley libraries where the literary ‘greats’ reside or to bleak upstate Penitentiaries.  Through this blend, Mr. Burton offers us the opportunity to experience a myriad of emotions.  Righteous indignation, ennui, longing for the bitter-sweet past, the ego debasing and ultimate freedom of the quest for redemption, love, both young and innocent, tainted or that wise perfect love seldom described with accuracy.  All of these are possible destinations within the pages of Once Upon a Time in America.

That said, I encourage anyone who wants to take the trip, to pay the fare and hop aboard.

Gold Rush

Searching for Chinese food 

   in these odd times, 

like panning for gold in California

     after the rush was over

       and so many natives dead.

San Francisco transformed by that fever 

   into a robust city of vice.

      America, today flooded

with toxic politicians, 

      polluting our air waves. 

  It is mind numbing to think

   the populous falls time 

and time again for the old ruse 

  of smoke and mirror tricknology. 

The river alive with speed boats

   and families fishing for catch

hazardous to eat.

    Everywhere we look 

  rubber gloves on the ground, 

   like empty heroin bags

            and used syringes. 

Face masks finding their way 

         out into the ocean. 

   The gold was never in the mountains 

 or streams. 

  It was never in the oceans or rivers. 

The gold is the mountains and streams. 

    The oceans and rivers. 

   The gold is everywhere but our wallets.

   The gold is that piece of ourselves, 

like “Blue Birds trying to get out,

      we fight to keep down.

“Pouring whiskey on

   while inhaling cigarette smoke,

    and the whores and bartenders 

   and grocery store clerks, 

     never know that it is in there.”

Order Once Upon A Time in America on Amazon.

 

C.E. B.

Christopher Ethan Burton is a forty-year-old poet from New York. He began writing at fourteen, shortly after his father was murdered.  Fifteen years of his life were spent incarcerated, over ten of those years in New York’s worst maximum security prisons.  Today he lives a simple life with his girlfriend and her two children in Germantown N.Y.  He is the author of two chap books, “Once Upon a Time in America” and “A Dog’s Life.”