This past Friday, I appeared at an evening of poetry and jazz at the Load of Fun Gallery in Baltimore. As I listened to the jazz trio and the performing poets, my attention was drawn to a plant below the tripod of a video camera.
To a Yucca Dying in an Art Gallery
Poetry & jazz interweave;
words speak to the throb of
bass guitar, keyboard riffs,
drummer's sultry rolls.
Black & white nudes,
graffitied peace symbols
decorate the walls while
a gray painted cat yowls
behind the jazz trio.
A yucca expires by
a bottle of spring water;
spiky leaves turn yellow
while folk sip Shiraz
& Cabernet Sauvignon.
This yucca craves
a desert, longs
to face naked rock,
thirsty sky, not
die among these
metaphors; it lusts
for silent, open sand,
not the shush of high-hat,
the torture-tickle
of wire brushes.
Christopher T. George
As mentioned previously, we will be holding a Loch Raven Review Reading upcoming at 8:00 pm on Friday, May 4 at the Load of Fun Gallery at 120 W. North Ave. in Baltimore. Sponsored by Load of Poetry and Julie Fisher at http://www.poetryinbaltimore.com/news.php. We will feature a number of the fine local and out of town poets we have published. Open mic follows. For more info., call 443-418-4762 or email julie@poetryinbaltimore.com. Driving directions at http://www.loadoffun.net/Directions.html
In May, I will be back "home" in Liverpool for a couple of readings in connection with the publication this month of the anthology Living on Hope Street edited by Liverpool performance poet Jim Bennett. Jim himself has just won the title of best European individual slam poet. I understand the readings will be at the Everyman Theatre on Hope Street on Wednesday, May 16 and at Albert Dock on Saturday, May 20.
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