BEATLICK NEWS ONLINE:
A Poetry & Arts Newsletter
LIVE FOR ART
By Beatlick Pamela
And so it goes, we continue without Beatlick Joe. After almost a year of grieving I have decided to continue on with BEATLICK NEWS at least online in order to honor all of his years of hard work.
FEEDBACK
Hi Pamela,
Just wanted to let you know I am thinking of you this Christmas and hoping you are having a safe and happy holiday. I trust that those winter storms have not blown you under huge drifts of whiteness. I'm looking forward to hearing about and reading your publishing ventures in the year ahead. There are great things in store for you.
All the Best,
BARRY ALFONSO
PITTSBURGH, PA
Dear Pamela,
Our 2011 highlight was my Stanford-in-France VII college reunion in Washington, DC, in April. I’d never been there and it was thrilling to visit the gleaming Capitol, the architecturally beautiful Library of Congress, the Senate building, the National Gallery, and the White House. Our tour was planned by Jeep rice, chief organizer of our reunions from the days we were students in Tours, France, (1963-64) and Sharon Percy Rockefeller who gave us a true insiders’ look at Washington.
Sixty of us dined at Sharon and Jay Rockefeller’s (U.S. Senate, West Virginia) home in Washington’s Rock Creek Park. I saw stunning Mary Cassatts and Childe Hassams in gilded frames on the walls. A Rockefeller ancestral portrait by John Singer Sargent overlooked our table, set with replicas of Mary Todd Lincolnd’s eagle plates on which we were served a menu that Mrs. Lincoln might have served in the 1860s. As a vegetarian, I was exquisitely accommodated, and I hope Mrs. Lincoln would have approved!
After this reunion, Dale and I went back to being poet-tourists and balanced our Waswhington orgy with a trip to the Amish country in Lancaster, PA. We stayed in Bird-inpHand and rode down the Philadelphia Turnpike in an Amish buggy behind Old Tom, while cars whizzed by witghoug slowing down for a horse who wanted to mnake a left turn.
We’re both working on new books, mine is a book of proseo-poems, The Glass Ship, and Dale’s is poetry. Stay tuned! We hope everyone is well, had a decent year, considering our economy, and is thriving creatively. Warm holiday wishes!
Judy Wells, Dale Jensen
Berkeley, CA
PS Pamela, your blog is beautiful - great job!
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Telegraph Avenue Relic
I’ve walked down this street so many times
that they’ve set sidewalks over my footprints
even the pavement
is more transient than I am
I remember languages these building used to speak
in the stone ages before this century
hello black cat on the psychedelic poster
your green eyes are still following me in their madness
as old buildings resurrect across your path
and I continue my conversations with you
oh lone earth vaquero earth
student earth for over a century
all these earths would touch the soles of my shoes
if I could step through
the layers of footprints people have put down
beyond the fewer than seventy years
of my own
DALE JENSEN
BERKELEY, CA
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SPEER REVIEWS Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
by Moises Kaufman 2010
The Marques of Queensberry left his calling card at Oscar Wilde’s club inscribed “posing sodomite”. Oscar took umbrage and egged on by his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, brought charges of criminal libel against Queensberry, the irate father of Douglas. When the defense lined up several male prostitutes ready to testify against Oscar, they decided to drop the prosecution against Queensberry. But the celebrated wit of Victorian England had set in motion is own undoing. Before he was arrested friends advised him to depart at once to Dover and try to get a boat to France. He did not flee. Then he aggravated his cause by prevaricating. This play draws from trail documents, newspaper accounts, and later writings of key players. This 2 CD production by the L.A. Theatre Works is like having a front row seat in the court room. Also includes an interview with the playwright. Running time: 139 min. $25.95. For a free catalogue email audiosales@latw.org or call (800) 708-8863. Shadow of the OhshaD: A Collection of Arizona Adventures
by Gary Every 2009.
Stories published in The Oracle newspaper and assembled for this 263 page book. OhshaD is the Hohokam name for jaguar, a wild cat capable of instilling fear in man. When Coronado arrived in Arizona jaguars were found from Utah to Tennessee. Their numbers were decimated by hunters but now they appear to be returning to the region. These stories take us back to a time when there was more of a level playing field between man and nature.
One of my favorite stories is “Santa Cruz Sandtrout”. I remember visiting Tucson and seeing the Santa Cruz River on the map. We were parked west of the University of AZ and walking distance from the river. I hiked there and was disappointed to find only a dry sandy stretch of arroyo. This anecdote describes the sandtrout “burrowing deep beneath the sand and only rise to the surface to spawn, eat, and breathe.” The best bait for sandtrout is the horned toad. The Arizona angler ties his little reptilian to the line and casts him atop the arroyo floor. Eyestalks rise above the sand, periscope style, as the sandtrout eyes its prey, and swallows the reptile in a single gulp. The barbed head sets itself like a hook. The fisherman reels it in. On a summer day with a 100 and teens temperature, a fish reeled in fast enough will cook itself from the friction. There is a Sonoran style recipe that includes 17 parts tequila, 2 parts lime, and 1 part chili peppers. Mix the ingredients into a marinade. Throw the fish to the dog and drink marinade all night long. Reading this book is like joining Gary on an extended hike into the Arizona back country. He will entertain you with the geology, flora and fauna, lost treasures and ancient Native American civilizations. $20.00 Published by The Oracle, HC1 Box 2361 Oracle, AZ, 85623. Fifth Estate
A cooperative, not-for-profit, antiauthoritarian project published since 1965 by a volunteer collective of friends and comrades. No ads. No copyright.
“Beliefs can either chain us to repressive ideas or free us with visions that go beyond dominant paradigms. The entire modern era has been one of contestation as to which belief systems will rule in societies-ones that link us to submission and acquiescence to hierarchal authority, or those which rebel against them and eliminate the categories of rulers and ruled.” Subscriptions for one year: $14. Make check/money order to Fifth Estate PO Box 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220. Back issues available from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. The Fifth Estate has been supporting revolution everywhere since 1965. HAIKU HOEDOWN
JUDY WELLS
Haiku Review 2011
January
Faux fur coat on girl –
leopard skin and grown up shoes
golden, well-loved child.
February
Purple and crimson
tulips, bright yellow stamens.
Holland bursting forth!
March
Devastating quake
and tsunami in Japan.
We tremble with them.
April
Poppies in each fist
Purple bonnet, bright red shirt
Toddler on the loose!
May
Black clouds fill night sky.
Imagine! It’s nearly June.
Storm must be brewing.
June
Opray, girlfriend lost.
Miss you at your TV slot –
O at 4 o’clock.
July
I sinned and ate big
bowl of chocolate ice cream –
Insomniac night!
August
Used to call it “fog” –
Now it’s called “marine layer”
My term: “depressing.”
September
Golden leaves on ground.
Carpet of brown pine needkes,
We enter darkness
October
The birds go crazy
eating juniper berries –
Such drunken song-songs!
November
Students erect tent
in Bank of America -
defy bankers’ greed.
December
Bright, cold winter days
My room – wild animal smell
Who’s in here but me?
JUDY WELLS
BERKELEY, CA
CAROL MOSCRIP
The Guest Has Settled In
Like having someone you really don’t like move in for a season,
violating every territory
a house could have,
crossing the thresh-
hold
for every room,
sills crumbling at her touch
window latches
weathered shut
stuck to all but a sledge hammer
the glass so smudged
the sun peers in with
a giant beetle’s beet purple eye
The resented guest
takes roots
8 bed pillows piled high
on the perfectly new, so-far unstained
southwestern couch –
all 3 TVs
echoing in the hallways –
upturned chip bags
pouring salty crumbs
into the rugs’ wounds –
belching,
vomiting,
vodka bottles
plug the hearth
the cigarette & bong smoke
fill each room w/ gloomy haze
the room’s décor is kaput,
now there are several quilts,
patches and florals,
draped over several chairs
shoved close to the shredded sofa–
a living room tent as if made by children
to fortify themselves
against the still, indoor air,
walls any bad wolf,
(that boorish lout who always shows up uninvited)
w/ his big, wide-scattering winds!
could blow down
the lair’s knife-toothed snout –
the uninvited
moves right in again
& again
as if by blood right, until
shrunken into an awkward corpse,
slumped over its last breath,
now swaddled in those quilts
vodka-soaked, it
will not leave a stain…
¿Verdad?
¡Verdad!
the pink elephants pack up
their pink champagne,
all leave by the front door
as I prop it open
w/ an iron dog,
painted black with white spots,
wearing a red bow tie of real ribbon
CAROL MOSCRIP
ALBUQUERQUE, NM
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PAGE 11 Thought-Free I can’t think any more. I’m thought-free. Nothing to add
to my disgusted disgruntled journal. I’m exhausted to the point of
I’m out of it. My I-don’t-knows have become so deafening
I don’t hear them any more. My “help me’s” have joined the trash heap
of tomorrows. Tomorrow will never end today
where there is no thought. No thought no action nothing is escape
from the vacuum present. This little knob that is now
has no thought. In that I’m relieved.
It’s nice to be tired out. To simply go blank. To return to your original
blank state, blank stare, blank everywhere.
If that won’t promote sleep nothing will. And my dreams will be blank
or will they. Let’s see, or rather, why bother. I have no thoughts left. LARRY GOODELL
PLACITAS, NM
Melodrama
The road touches my spirit.
Smoothness wears like a badge.
Footsteps disturb dust.
A moon walking. Mystery of a few things
empty my mind.
Green rawness encompasses me. The devil approaches
spilling gems on the ground.
Its brass eyes ring like bells.
Tulips unfold from its hands.
The smell of its space draws me in. A dampened brown too intimate
for manners.
Its skin glowing like a halo.
In exchange for the dance, a
shared joke, unholy science
begins. Shreds of genius enters my core.
A flow like fung shei pours over
my organs.
Blue gestures emboss on
barreling clouds
Compressing time into soul. KATHAMANN
SANTA FE, NM PAGE 12 Notes for a poem on having sex again after divorce I want to have sex again.
The sex when there is no time
and the only space is the space
that is not between us. I want to have sex again.
But first I want to know your body,
to examine it in the light of day,
to find and feel your blemishes.
I want to see and feel your colors,
trace your shapes with my fingertips,
notice the subtly of your reactions.
I want you to know my body, too. I want to have sex again.
But, before you know my body,
I want to talk about it.
I want to tell you what turns me on...and off.
I want you to do the same.
I want you to hear the spectrum of my experience.
I want to hear yours.
I want us to take ourselves outside it. I want to have sex again.
But before we talk about it,
I want to be sure it’s right.
I want us to lie together
and speak of other things:
our petty likes and dislikes,
our secrets and our pain,
disappointments and ambitions. I want to have sex again.
The sex that expands time
and eliminates space.
But first, we must meet. DANA KEMP
DECATUR, AL Remembering Bob Kaufman He walked the streets of North Beach
An ancient warrior with hollow eyes
That seared the dazzling lights of the
City by the bay
His eyes boring into you like a drill
Carrying decades of heavy sorrow on his back
like a bent-over hunchback
Overcome with the rust of time
Flesh stripped to the marrow
The mirror of his eyes doing a slow dance
Up and down Grant Avenue
A dark shadow riding clouds of “Ancient Rain”
His life measured in hot jazz and verse
A surreal mirage where hip cats
Wailed in precision rhythm
As he walked an imaginary zoo
Looking for tigers to talk to
Runaway poems blaring in his ears
Like a stuck car horn
The Ancient Rain falling
falling
falling
Washing away his wounds Bay Shore Junk Yard What’s left of a classic 1956 Chevy
Lies like a war zone corpse
In a deserted battleground
Hubcaps gone seats gutted
Steering wheel pushed
Into dashboard
Waiting on the auto crusher
To clutch her in its steel claws
To come down on her
Like a serial killer
Mutilated raped ravished
All life squeezed out of her once
Virgin frame
A.D. WINANS
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
PAGE 13 Pinero’s Ashes I coughed them
on the Lower East Side
my blood flowed
on the sidewalk
but I continue to
walk on
the pain in my stomach
aching to part
People avoid me
as tho I have AIDS
and the plague of
junk I don’t savour
but I fill the night
with poetry
and dance
to the Bowery
like him. LEE-ANN AZZOPARDI
NEWMARKET, ONTARIO, CANADA PAGE 14: continued on updates page
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CHRISTOPHER
BARNES
Brain Singe
A shudder that muscles around corners, up walls
Should bear out this insticking image.
Can’t bolt from the life and death blender;
Chunky copper strips rise to spark.
Your murders are hit back at
By a squirm. Volts.
Wardens’ demeanours retain regulations,
A bogeyman’s logic of perseverance.
By Christopher Barnes, UK
(from the Electric Chair poems)
David Beckham
Thanks to a goal mouth headed into
From Mohawk or mullet,
With a pet peeve boot
You wing it, kicking heels for the dodge.
In a bring-something-up shirt, striptease chest
Or tongue-coaxing midriff
To Georgio Armani undies
Sumptuous over golden balls
You perk us beddabley.
An immortal’s contract,
The full nine yards in readies
From your kit’s stockists.
In spite of that…apart they mention
You’ve a lonely unexpected brain cell
Shot through a stadium-empty skull
Tearing into a net.
By Christopher Barnes, UK
Some bio details...
in 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology 'Titles Are Bitches'. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle 's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
On Saturday 16Th August 2003 I read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St .
I also have a BBC web-page www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/gay.2004/05/section_28.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/videonation/stories/gay_history.shtml (if first site does not work click on SECTION 28 on second site.
Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle . This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho. I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University , including a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which I read my poem On Brenkley St . The event was funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bio-science Centre at Newcastle 's Centre for Life. I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children's literature building. In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre why not take a look at their website http://ptag.org.uk/whats_on/gallery/recent_exhbitions.htm
The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had"; I can be heard reading it on www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=18456
REVIEWS: I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called 'A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot' for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem...see www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival On September 4 2010, I read at the Callander Poetry Weekend hosted by Poetry Scotland.
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