Month: February 2018

RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – February 20

Poem of the Week 02/20/18

Cats

Della Rowland

I
A cat followed me one afternoon as I walked across my college campus.
A car hit it as I was coaxing it across a street.
I knew by its glassy eyes it was dead.
I stood looking at it from the curb for a long moment.
I don’t remember the color of its fur.

II
A Manx cat was sitting in the middle of the road one night
as I drove through a wooded suburb near campus,
pure white against the dark road and tree trunks.
I stopped the car and opened the passenger-side door.

The cat hopped in as if he’d been waiting for me to pick him up,
tapping his paw on the blacktop as he watched the clock of the moon
move across the sky,
ticking away the mid-night hours.

I took him home to my youngest sister
who named him Bunny.
He was killed by a big dog who lived down block,
who got out of its yard
and broke the cat’s soft white neck
with one good shake,
then flung him under the next-door neighbor’s car
where we couldn’t reach him.

Bunny pitched and clawed the air for a few long seconds
while I tried to scoot under the car in my good clothes and hose.
Stretching my arm toward him, I saw his eyes turn glassy.
I wrapped him in a towel, put him in the car,
and took him to the vet anyway
because my sister was hysterical.

III
In the year of my madness
I roamed the woods behind my college campus
and spent nights in the graveyard, unafraid of death.

A knoll of sparse grass slopes down to a pond,
and in the still water, my kneeling reflection,
and that of a cat coming over the green ridge toward me,
its eyes growing larger until they are all I see.
The brown or black cat turns lurid colors and disappears,
along with the slope and pond,
behind one looming platter-shaped eye.

I cannot breathe under such scrutiny.

When at last I can,
I scribble down the incident,
and find it is the same as the one the night before.

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GV – Klein, Venette, and the Dulls

MELANIE AND KEN AND JOHN AND MARTIN
IN THE MAGIC CIRCLE

The Magic Circle features a couple of couples on February 26th! Featured musicians will be JOHN AND MARTIN DULL, returning for an encore visit. Featured poets will be MELANIE KLEIN AND KEN VENETTE and we hear Ken has a new chapbook in hand. As always we will have our Bring-Your-A-Game open mic featuring the Red Wheelbarrow Poets.

A $9 cover includes coffee/tea, dessert. 7 PM

GainVille Café,
17 Ames Avenue, Rutherford
201-507-1800

RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – February 13

Poem of the Week 2/13/18

Sometimes At Night

Della Rowland

Sleep is best done on the couch
where I become a baby in the bassinette,
lying on my back, arm thrown up,
a wisp of sleep-wet hair on my forehead,
blissful breath gurgling up little sugar bubbles
at the corners of my mouth.

My mouth is salty now,
the sea rises and falls in my breath.

Sometimes at night I imagine the big rig drivers,
18-wheelers parked on the side of an on-ramp,
curled up in the bunk between the bed and cab,
wearing all their clothes,
sugar bubbles in their coffee breath.

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RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – February 6

Poem of the Week 02/06/2018

On The Pascack Valley Line

Bill Moreland

6797

HILLSDALE

This morning
a gazillion bugs awakened
under a canopy of grass blades holding
a gazillion sunrises reflected
which the dew drops refracted,
so,
endless water balloon suns
were collected.
Good Morning. Good Morning.
Good Morning. Good Morning.
It sure is brilliant today.

WESTWOOD

Rubber wires droop home
to the webbed transformer.

EMERSON

A lot of people at this stop.
Does everybody have to look like a cop?
Did the Tactical Narco FBI short bus break down or what!
Oh, I forgot, this stop hosts a Dunkin Donuts.
So criss cross Kinderkamack
and glide.
A cell tower, taller than the trees
tries to mingle somehow in pathetic imitation
by stabbing itself with giant pine green
pipe cleaners.
A brief respite, a caress of less with lush scenery is short lived,
a golf course…of course.

ORADELL

Palm fronds and an oddly shaped hunk of caved in drain
in early utility mundane
stuck in the mud, part of the terrain,
so, we glide.
Again the rubber wires scoop along
on a wobbly parallel track with the track
past PSE&G, and the Transit Bus Garage
into the brush
hushing into

RIVEREDGE

Leaves are full, still green
and still.
A few more clamor aboard.
So, glide.
The deep green vegetation
holds the shadow, hovers over holly bushes
their backs to the sunrise, they
hide the ugly river.
“Tickets!, Hoboken?…”

NORTH HACKENSACK

The curbs are getting higher.
The litter, deeper.
The tracks more brittle,
sharper at the edges.
Short field weeds run amok
along and behind the mile square graveyard.

ANDERSON ST.

My stop.

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RWB Workshop Poem of the Week – January 30

Poem of the Week 01/30/2018

The Knollwood Inn

Bobbie O’Connor

Full moon crowd. It’s Friday night time.
Start by the bar clock, not the right time.
Push the pool table against the wall
Before you set up your equipment an’ all.

Mingle with the people at the tables an’ stools.
Get requests, compliments an’ rules.
Don’t play so soft. Don’t play so loud.
Rip it up. Slow it down. Please the crowd.

Read their minds, you’ll have it made.
Wait for the place to close before you get paid.
Pack up everything. Don’t leave it here.
Pay up your tab. Don’t slip on the beer.

Learn their favorite song to get work there again,
But the best boss we ever had was Len.
He’d even leave it up to us what time to begin,
An’ it was fun workin” at The Knollwood Inn.

We left for what we thought was a better gig
But we were sorry afterwards — sorry big!
At every gig, after that, again an’ again,
We knew the best boss we ever had was Len.

He was a former entertainer an’ really knew
what it was like an’ what we went through.
Each night he had our pay all ready, no fuss,
an’ the minute we finished, it was handed to us.

We accumulated fans in dribs an’ drabs.
Don’t forget to sing “I Fall to Pieces” for Babs.
Singin’ everybody’s favorite song—
How nice it would’ve been if we had Lennie all along.

Sing this song for Rudy, do that favorite of Jake’s
Dancin’ to the jukebox during the breaks—
“Good to see you, Mary.” – “Pat, how ya been?”
It was fun workin’ at The Knollwood Inn.

It’s strange. Gigs change, but always much gear to pack
An when workin’ far, the awful long drive back.
When workin’ nearby, we’d head for a diner.
Breakfast at 3 a.m. – nothing finer.

Than chattin’ over coffee til the sun comes up.
Too wound up to sleep yet, so have another cup.
Sometimes we’d spend free nights brainstorming for jobs,
occasionally struggling through crowded mobs.

Workin’ bars wasn’t always like I planned,
With drunks fallin’ into my microphone stand.
I’ve been flashed, an I’ve been shoved,
An I’ve been ripped off, but I’ve been loved.

Hey, let’s hear it for a hard-workin’ band!
Come on, everybody, give the guys a big hand!
We had good times. Sometimes we’d win,
An’ it was fun workin’ at The Knollwood Inn.

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