Night Beach (After Walt Whitman)

Beach, bright water, moonstreaked clouds

A triadic configuration of the summer night

Standing on the cliff above the beach

The Overcoat

Since you’ve been gone...

I am left here all alone, with no one to talk to on the phone

With only the overcoat to keep me warm

Poetry & ProseChavisa WoodsDecember 18, 2018overcoat, steve cannon, poetry, a gathering of the tribes

NATIVITY (“NO MATTER . . . ")

No matter what surrounded them and
what the blizzard wailed at the sand,
that their shepherd’s den was close, nor
that they had no place else anywhere:

Poetry & ProseLarissa ShmailoDecember 17, 2018Joseph Brodsky, Larissa Shmailo, nativity, poetry

Internal

Fought to escape my own existence

I drifted in the void of empty promises

Left my soul in the catacombs of my mind

Poetry & ProseKevin JosephDecember 11, 2018Kevin Joseph, Internal, Poetry, Steve Cannon, a gathering of the tribes

Dark Days

My heart aches

It breaks and breaks

My thoughts run at the speed of light

My head hurts from pure fright

Poetry & ProseCherish Pierre-LouisDecember 11, 2018Cherish Pierre-Louis, Dark Days, Poetry, mother earth, fire, light

History Becomes Her Story (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins Joe Crowley’s 14th district)

If history repeats itself then the story of conquering Hernan Cortes is on the shelf while pol, Joe Crowley‘s hunkering down. She’d said she wouldn’t back the candidate if she should entertain defeat, but campaigned like a potentate, as capable as she seemed sweet.

WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?

to set a trap

catch air

A CRISIS OR A BORING CHANGE

7pm in April

and i hate everything

Windows of Madrid

I remember when we woke together in the ancient streets of Spain

I remember I felt a strong shiver which could heal any pain

when the fantastic windows whispered in my ears " hello "

I couldn't dare to reply

I thought that voice came from my fellow

so I began to spy

Poetry & ProseTribesNovember 26, 2018poetry, madrid, spain, architecture

On a stairway beneath the eyes, a star ascended

You can see/feel/experience this work by LaMont Hamilton at The Drawing Center in SoHo.

On our minds, Poetry & ProseLaMont HamiltonNovember 15, 2018LaMont Hamilton, Steve Cannon, Braille, poetry, art, installation

Ntozake Shange - Poet Woman, in Admiration

How do you tread on a Tiger’s tail ?

Baby.. we are jealous, her exciting voice and outcry

Gave us new understandings for sharp color, real color

Poetry & ProseNina KuoNovember 15, 2018Ntozake Shange, Poetry, Nina Kuo, Steve Cannon, a gathering of the tribes

For Frank Martin

"Heylo hello hey hi hiya my love"

I had a Brother once

And maybe I lost him

In Hallways of your Soul

Sociopath

XYK repeating, replicating the shattered bits of his refracted nullity, the shadow of his elemental hatred sombresaulting up from the endless slurry of his hatchery, where he fluffs the nearly hairless balls of his projective fantasies, cross breeds a sickly effluent with it's cousins, lies and slander, takes the broken offspring of this noxious union and remates it

Poetry & ProseMelanie BestNovember 6, 2018Melanie Best, Steve Cannon, Sopciopath, A Gathering of the Tribes, poetry

As An African Child

As an African child

I crawled on mama arm

Searching for an imaginary house

Which bear me with a fancy view

Of the coming clouds upon my head

Poetry & ProseTribesOctober 29, 2018as an african child, Amirah Al Wassif, poetry, Steve Cannon

Lotus Root

She was made of water

And in and out of water

Wanting, wishing, withering

Down to Bone

What would it be like to edit down

a poem into its brittle bones

down to the last ash

on a burning log

down to thin veins

on a frozen leaf

twigs on an icy night

shivering in the dark gray

solstice sky

down to breath

or the last

kiss

before sleep?

Poetry & ProseTribesOctober 25, 2018Carla Schick, Down to Bone, Steve Cannon, A Gathering of the Tribes, poem, poetry

An urgent call in the second life

red rays of the unknown sun came down to my new window
warmly shiver touched me, made me laugh as a fresh baby
I decided to think about the source of these unknown rays
but, suddenly a kind of musical sound covered my ears
the sound did not seem like any earthen sound I ever heard
it was a mix of waves dancers and creation of colorful bird
it was like a smell of honey and the secrets of gold

For Laura Isabel Feldman

I want to carry in my womb

The bodies of the dead women

Killed by the dictatorship

My womb

Full of old pictures with their serrated sides

Full of vaporous language

Full of gardens in child’s mind

My womb will grow like a giant piñata

So full of communists

And you'll fear them all

Poetry & ProseTribesOctober 16, 2018Laura Isabel Feldman, poem, Eline Marx, a gathering of the tribes, Steve Cannon

ON WITH THE SHOW

for J.D. Rage

I pick up a Xeroxed flyer
for a show by someone I know slightly.
Her photo shows her in leather, chains, sunglasses,
with a mass of black hair.
And I think, This is where
I want to take a woman for a date.

MECCA CONFUSA: THE T-SHIRT POEM

Allen Ginsberg, I have worn you on my back

in cafe's, on the flatlands, in a threesome

with a half-stranger, whose pregnant pause stretched out

across the microcosmic corn flake of America's crooked twaddle,

your fellatious weight wigged on the temporary