Preparations
At her father’s bedside
Sarah’s autumn ear, listening
for the northern wind-chime,
catches its first faint stirrings.
Turning to her eldest son,
this last summer thirty-one,
who does not hear the morning,
“Split and stack that far madrone
close to home… I feel October’s chill.”
Against a Stone Bench in St. Michael’s Cemetery
i. solitude
and cold rock cradle
the ache of his absence.
ii. grit swirls
the wind at her ankles,
leaves skitter the gravel path.
iii. a bubble
escapes the pond’s edge
swans glide the pool’s torpor.
iv. eyes closed,
she awaits the scrape
of footsteps coming for her.
Reviewing the Bookstore Massacre
And when I asked where they kept
The Cummings and Pounds?
She pointed lemon lips at me
And spurted primly, “Paperbound
Poets are on the backside of humor.
Aisle thirty-three B!”
And that’s what I found.
Beau Blue (JJ Webb) is the publisher/editor of Blue’s Cruzio Cafe, an online e-zine that presents animated avatars of contemporary poets performing. He was co-editor, with Michael McNeilley, of the online e-zine ZeroCity from 1994 to 1998. A performance poet and storyteller, Blue has performed extensively in California, Oregon and Nevada for the last 35 years.
View a reading of his poem ‘Reviewing The Bookstore Massacre’ here.
Local Poets, Local Inspiration, edited by Robert Sward, appears weekly online and monthly in Santa Cruz Weekly. Selections are by invitation.
