Current Projects

Reading Manuscripts

Organizing Multicultural Children's Arts Festival, May 16, 11-2pm
-- seeking performers, poets, magicians, puppeteers, musicians,
minstrals, madrigals and more.

Facilitate workshop at South Natomas Community Center
Second Saturdays at 10am

Attend Tuesday Night SPC Workshop at the Hart Center, 7:30pm

Assist with SPC info table at Sac State Creative Arts event, March 21

Editor - Poetry Now
-- locate/recruit advertisers, contributors, editorial staff, assistance for projects.

Submissions to Publications

Hosting June 30, 2009 (the big poetry event)

Photographing Literary Events
and posting at SacramentoPoetryCenter.blogspot.com

Completing publication of chapbook: Out On The Reach

Book release party: April 16? in Sacramento

Viewpoint Photographic Gallery Docent

Attend Viewpoint Print Night critiques,
every 1/3 Wednesday night

Placing photographs in galleries

2nd and 4th Saturday SPC Poetry Workshops

Every 2nd and 4th Saturday morning, 10:00-11:00 am
Facilitated by Emmanuel Sigauke and Frank Dixon Graham
at the South Natomas Community Center
next door to the South Natomas Library
2921 Truxel Ave.
Sacramento, CA
between San Juan and West El Camino on Truxel Ave.
Free and open to the public
Bring 5 copies of your one page poem. NO registration required.
Contact GrahamPoet@aol.com

http://sacramentopoetrycenter.org

antique clock

my dancing first moved the clock, the vinyl record album still spinning, headphones on my ears, the arm of the minute sounding the last tock, from the nail hangings, plaster of wall ripped out -- the crash and bang -- so sudden, so final, and the shout from my father, who'd been reading the evening paper, his expression so clear though my ears were still bathing in rock and roll. we stood and witnessed the loss, the family's loss, the circle of window lay unbroken, on the floor, beside my mother's heart, the seth thomases' union of parts: brass cogs, wheel and spring, the infinitely disassembled under carved oak. the fine wood polish finish and a solid cabinet of time. from the uvula of pendulum, black iron spot spat out like a dog's tongue from the mouth of the clock. the eternal motion of my dance kept in a nudge of the shoulder, at 7:04, one sunday evening before a high-school exam, when rocking and rolling i killed the clock, once rescued from a barn, hung at my father's house, my mother's home: the measure of our lives laid out with my happy dance, my love of music and rock and roll .



Published in Out On The Reach

bicycle

your sweat falls like drops dotting the trail on a map, a tour along the river, an aqueduct, beside the farmer's toil, a field of poppies, another of sunflowers. you go on, bicycle through the alleyways as steam lops between the corners, outside the open doors of stir-fry kitchens and pasta eateries. you ride a bike like it is a collection of components, feel the gears shift, the wheels turn with the press of leg. how your lungs knew the burn when you tried to outrace your best friend. by the time you outgrew your first bike you wanted anything that roared. you carried on. how your legs knew a ride you took in college, late nights to the dorms, the twitching cramps you knew in a twin bed. every sinew loosened with her fingertips. you rode for distance and destination, chatted along the lakeside, made friends with a recent graduate. you pushed your body until you felt the good ache, the rest in your heart and gave it your all. it was all work and no show. the pipes on this bike glistened, tires stripped down -- just muscle grit and road. tools, lights and brake calipers collected in your garage. how your heart felt the cool breeze roll off the pelaton. you let your vision blur between the riders, the friction of their passing gave you something you could not describe, something you knew you needed. red devil and rust bucket -- bikes assembled as a family. one was stolen, another lost in a move. there was always grease on your fingers, a flat to fix, an old spoon to slip a tire over the rim.

goodnight iraqi children

listen, ear to pillow, hear them weep,
say something so the children can sleep.

board the windows, the noise of a jeep,
say something so the children can sleep.

survival is nothing, play is a leap,
say something so the children can sleep.

no mother to read to them, soul to keep,
say something so the children can sleep.



Published in Poets Against War online.

cognitive therapy

you say one thing, the therapist another --
shared secrets from a sofa, clock ticking,
you tell only what your heart knows,
your being becomes a childhood;
everything you are.


Published in: Out On The Reach

Night Birds

Bicycling through Midtown
Our voices spill into the empty streets
We found the moon above a palm tree
And the night birds, their easy libretto.
You are leaving.
The gentle wind says so.
You are the night bird,
And the night bird's cooing.


Published in: La Luna's Anthology

out on the reach

out on the reach that binds
the earth to sky to sea,

there is a green beacon,
searching out the drunken ship.

empty vessel brightens,
lessens, torches and speaks --

giving light as the moon spills
tunnels of water, wave over wave,

spray taking spray,
white foam, blue foam passages

cleanse, wash and whistle
the pulled-back beach

like chattering salt-bones.
age reaps calloused rock;

chitonous shell drinks the sea
from the breath of the sea.


Published in: Convergence Literary Journal online