Daily Archives: August 27, 2008

August 27, 2008

American Autumn

By Tony Brown

This time of year, when the good weather
is winding down, swans appear on ponds and lakes
everywhere, their glorious, Art Nouveau necks
slipping through the mirrors
into the brown-green muck below.

They don’t want you to remember
that they rose to this
from their birth as sin-ugly ashy cygnets,
that they rode on their parents’ handsome backs
until they were ready to take their places,

so if you get too close
they will attack, breaking your limbs
with angelic weapons, fervently trying
to cut you open with their cruddy,
razored mouths, working every ounce of their weight

to keep you from thinking of the way
their eyes are black, all black,
with no light shining through from inside;
to keep you from thinking of anything except
the arc of their feeding, their classical poise.

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August 27, 2008

Weekend update, and Shows in the offing…

By Tony Brown

Busy weekend.

Friday night: 

[info]frequegrl

   got free tickets to the Pats/Eagles pre-season game.  This was a disaster:  an accident or something on the Pike led to us eventually taking a grand total of 3.5 hours to get there from Worcester. It’s usually a 50 minute drive, tops.  We caught the third quarter and left about halfway through the fourth, as the Pats were getting their asses handed to them anyway.

Saturday: attended Schemitzun, the big pow-wow/rodeo down at the Foxwoods casino.  I needed that, I learned; it had been a long time since I last attended a pow-wow.  Good times.  I got a T-shirt that has a picture of Geronimo, Victorio, and other fun folks on the front with the caption: “Homeland Security: Defending Against Terrorism Since 1492.” Heh.

Sunday:  Flew to Atlanta for work; met up with

[info]nerak_g

   and we went to the Java Monkey for the reading, which was great and a fun time with some really excellent work in the open and a feature by Yolo.  It rained like a sumbitch, and the poetry continued anyway…can’t beat that. 

Monday:  Trained all day; last session of the August marathon.  After flight delays, got home around 1:30 Tuesday AM.

Tuesday:  Billing, invoices, went out and bought a new washing machine to replace the one that quit for good during pre-trip laundry on Sunday AM (grr), writing, cooking, hanging out, TV, sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for the shows:  Where, you say?

September 7: Nantucket, Massachusetts; Duende co-features with Melissa Guillet at the Nantucket Poetry Slam.

September 30: Solo feature at the Newark Arts Alliance, Newark, Delaware.

November 2: One of an amazing list of folks at the Bowery Poetry Club, NYC, to celebrate the continuing success of the online journal of literary political writing, The November 3rd Club.

The list: readers include Patricia Smith, Alicia Ostriker, Marty McConnell, Tara Betts, Kirpal Gordon, Tony Brown, Skip Shea, Madeline Artenberg, Iris Schwartz, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Michael Cirelli and Lea Deschenes…

To quote Victor, the organizer and editor: “Seriously. That’s not a reading. That’s a god-damned revolution.”

November 12: Kafe Kerouac, Columbus, OH…solo show

Details for all of these events at http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown

And more in the works…stay tuned.

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