Hi, I'm Peggy Morrison, standing in for Stephen Coppell, and this is the San Francisco Open
Mic Poetry Podcast TV show.
Thank you, Steve Arston, for the lovely Chopin Waltz, and our first poet this evening is
Genevieve Yuan.
Oh, I thought that was the third one.
Okay, I'm going to read three very short poems.
This first one is to friendship, to Ellen, pan etched on core of stone, truth of Ruby
heart, a soul touches another soul, tangible as the flesh of trees, a soaring moment passes
through evanescent cloud, a blush of the perishable rose.
The next one is a few lines, it's called notions, and it's dealing basically with injustice,
or political, it's political, I guess.
Opens, poverty animals in ugly cages, magic dreaming their way out, into the wealth of
gold forests, while old men transform into boys, and birds kiss stupidity away, intelligent
trees sleep without fear.
The last one is a kind of a science fiction, fantastical, quasi-political, I guess you
could say, but it's, anyway, I did have Barbara Rella in mind, I can say that because most
of you know who I'm talking about, but it's not just her, but it was a little bit of an
inspiration in the beginning.
It's called communications breakdown, nerve endings blockaded, phantasmagoric, moon strip
landing thwarted, secret x-ray band, x-men, sex at goddess, interference, radio waves,
squiggles, snap, pop, aluminum shantytown founded, bamboozled huts discovered on new hay tea,
lunar golf course with alien, new, republican recourse to non-sentimental forms, newbie
moves, decisional statutes, unlimited, et cetera.
Thank you.
Thank you, Genevieve Huan.
Our next poet is Jane Raddus.
Thank you.
I read this just lately because I've been watching too much television news.
The war on the roses.
The roses are falling as my heart rises and falls, breeding in this new society a rebirth
of chaos not seen for years.
The rose petals fall, scattering in all directions, new paths to follow, too many directions.
I smell the roses as they rot on the ground.
And how will it all look a year from now?
It's all just news, isn't it?
And the earth is flat.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jane Raddus.
And our next poet is Larry Roberts.
I'm going to read a pantoum.
It's called The Desk of State.
The veneer has peeled away and underneath the rotten heart lies, here to fore concealed.
The damages extent has been revealed.
How bad neglect has been beyond belief.
The rotten heart lies, here to fore concealed.
The revelations here and to our grief.
How bad neglect has been beyond belief.
The semblance of decency will yield.
The revelations here and to our grief.
The semblance of decency will yield.
So any progress made will be repealed.
And discord's now the reigning light motif.
The semblance of decency will yield.
Now pestilence has become cause in chief.
And discord's now the reigning light motif.
The rot must be exposed if to be healed.
Now pestilence has become cause in chief.
Without cleansing wounds can't be resealed.
The rot must be exposed if to be healed.
Why disguise decay beneath gold leaf?
Without cleansing wounds can't be resealed.
The veneer has peeled away and underneath.
Why disguise decay beneath gold leaf?
The damages extent has been revealed.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Larry Roberts.
Again, this is San Francisco Open Mic Poetry Podcast TV show.
I'm Peggy Morrison, standing in for Steven Coppell.
And our next poet is Evie Possum and Cheer.
Well done.
OK, I'll be modern and read my poem here on the telephone.
Come on, how'd that happen?
Also, in our time, I'm thinking of 22nd and Mission Street
and what happened there.
And it's called 22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
I will miss you when you go.
22nd and Mission.
How fire that night, how the mother of the children,
the flames.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
I am dying.
22nd and Mission, 22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
You are dying.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
We are curling at our edges, pages in the flames.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
Nighttime scars the site.
We will be fighting.
We will be fighting.
They paint blood lanes for buses that
will run down whatever blocks the way.
Get out of the way, Grandma.
22nd and Mission.
22nd and Mission.
A hole in the mission.
The cavity spews condos overnight.
Thank you.
Thank you, Evie.
Our next poet is Phyllis Holiday.
I have a surprise for you.
You all know Ruth Weiss, don't you?
Well, she gives us, she sends, not
a Christmas card, well, because she's Jewish,
but she uses the new Chinese year.
And this one, which is now the, oh boy, the rooster, the rooster.
And she always sends us a poem about how
this, what's going to happen in the year of the rooster
this time.
Eyes wide open, tongue in check, cheek
to expand what one must know.
All will be restored to its rightful place
as more and more are gathering to be in that space.
Awake to the new dawn, the rooster crows.
Awake to the new dawn, the rooster crows.
All will be restored to its rightful place
as more and more are gathering to be in that space.
To expand what one must know, tongue in check, eyes wide open.
Now we'll hear from David Seltzer.
Thank you, Phyllis.
Thank you.
I wrote this poem sometime last century,
but I didn't know I wrote it to commemorate
our current president-elect.
The martyred bride.
The martyred bride weeps in her mask,
the flesh of the ocean wind rots.
Jesus pulls a bayonet from his iron tongue,
crawls from our dream in a gown of beetle fur,
wet with the tears of a soldier's bride.
Her beating heart, our only God.
She kisses the lips of all beings,
drowned ants, forgotten judges, police
rape cyclops lost in their Hollywood hate,
in the oily smoke of the grinning cowboy's last supper.
The novocaine eyelid of the politician's blinking foreskin
howls through its electric teeth
and shovels another bride into her fascist grave.
Thank you.
Thank you, David Seltzer.
And again, this is the San Francisco Open Mic Poetry
podcast TV show.
I'm Peggy Morrison, just standing in for Stephen Coppell
tonight.
And I'm going to close with a poem by Cuban poet
Nikolas Guillen.
And I'll first read his poem, and then
I'll follow with the translation that I've made.
Que color.
Su piel era negra, pero con el alma purísima,
como la nieve blanca.
El tuchenco, según el cable, ante el asesinato de Lutero
King.
Que alma tan blanca, dicen, la de aquel noble pastor.
Su piel era tan negra, dicen.
Su piel tan negra de color era por dentro nieve.
Azucena, leche fresca, algodón, que candor.
No había ni una mancha en su blanquísimo interior.
En fin, valiente ayasco, el negro que tenía el alma blanca,
aquel novelón.
Pero podría decirse de otro modo que alma tan poderosa negra
la del dulcísimo pastor.
Que alta pasión negra ardía en su ancho corazón.
Que pensamientos puros negros su grávido cerebro alimentó.
Que negro amor tan repartido sin color.
¿Por qué no? Porque no iba a tener el alma negra,
aquel heroico pastor.
Negra, como el carbón.
This is a translation into English that I and Gabriela
Gutiérrez Muse made.
What color?
His skin was black, but his soul was as pure as the driven snow
of Tchenco, according to the telegram,
on the assassination of Martin Luther King.
How white his soul they say of the noble reverend.
How black his skin they say.
His skin so black, but inside he was snow white.
Lily white, fresh melt, clean cotton.
What candor.
There wasn't a single stain on his so white interior.
And in the end, brave findings, the black man
had a pure white soul.
How original.
But couldn't we say it another way?
How powerful the black soul of that sweet pastor.
What high black passion burned in his generous heart.
What pure black thoughts rose from his deep mind.
What black love given freely without color.
Why not?
Why wouldn't he have a black soul, the heroic reverend King.
Black as coal.
Again, thank you for being with us for the San Francisco Open
Mic Poetry Podcast TV show.
Signing off.
Peggy Morrison signing off.
