Green Panda Press

read Tom Kryss's The Attempt Itself' online now!

2012-01-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

go here to read this poem (stapled half-fold 11 pgs. Green Panda Press 2008).

Bree pome

2011-11-06T07:01:00.001-08:00

and i have on the porch
just smoking an isolated burst of generic joy
which i acknowledge briefly,
and consider

the whole lack of sources—at once, so
that it is without being,
and
it is (just like death) everything.

i think times
of our little talk.
you say, ‘no one is happy’,
me say, ‘i am,’ (knowing you are).

if when joy i think of u then
what more proof do you need, rockstar?
ejaculation? honorariums?
or, worse, death?

get over it and on comes the next,
even tedium, staircase of days spent wiping
tiles clean of our any trace.

until the next good drunk
or fabulous sunset
or night spent with Miller
a bottle of au Francais well worth.

this is happyness, in between things,
me having your goodness
to hold mine up to.

you being, so-to-say in median res
away from me being away from you
in the middle of mine.

hopefully we neither ovus occupied,
free to smile, bend, snake,
agile as runningbacks,
can without feeling pressed
just take
in.

what comes your way, a lined in goldleaf
presed suit of wool
serged to prevent unraveling,
in just your size.

what enters my picture but the
Cadillac of purses, an Eco
filled with ample bills to back
my every bet.

life gives all (we need), at no cost to us
but the time energy and passions
we spend receiving it.

your bad back and jaundice,
my migraines and suspicion are
no thang, baby, when we
don’t make things of them.

summer flowers smile tenfold,
each direction
while we mutter over cold soup.
we are eating our soup!
how is that?

winter flowers screaming drown in
ice of winters gaze,
let us drown, in ecstacy
of each others' wars, and wage.

the rest the year, come spring,
(change), come autumn, change accordingly.
but weep each December! weep
openly in April!
weep!

you’re still here, pretending
happiness is for fools not kings?
your glass is full, and we (all)
are your audience. speak, king!
(or truly weep).

if you will allow a Bree pome

2011-10-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

if you will allow
that life is a
teacher

and a pretty sexy one
then you
will understand
poems

dream about t. moore

2011-08-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

was at a party at thurstons. he walked in just after me but i didnt say hey, i just milled about amidst and amongst furniture and people. the party carried into the basement. i found myself near a cellar door. there was a stack of mags and rags and beat-up LP covers in a box next to a bin of recyclables, bottles and cans. something about the two pieces on top of the paper stack appealed to me strongly. i began to cut photos and shapes from the papers perhaps to make a collage. a kid walked in past me to a couch i hadnt before noticed, sat eight people, at least. just then my eye went to the box of paper and i saw that it read "do not cut."

The Rainbow Sweater & My Mother

2011-08-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

The Rainbow Sweater & My Mother has arrived via US Mail. u can order a copy here which has a secure checkout for credit cards, or thru paypal to greenpandapress@gmail.com, or mail a check made out to Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Rd. Cleveland Hts., OH 44118.

the book is two memoirs in a single volume dealing with sex, LSD, chronic pain, marriage, Buddhism & daughterhood. an excerpt is available here.

pomes

2011-08-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a Stoner

There are people who
buy beautiful plants
& forget to water them;

end up with a lot of pot.

Touring Chapel Hill

The ant moves quickly
wherever he goes.

Unlike my husband.

Unlike any shopper at
the Southern Season where
everything you don't
need is on sale and
you still don't want it.

Hot (Painted)

sounds crazy but i like yore heat
Channel 5 calls oppressive, FOX News
says it is 'dangerous'
but i sit in you, get hot
as hot
can and
wait (ever)still
for yore breeze which comes
on and coats, evens me.

An Eternity at Target

I know how to find my husband.

Listen for his cough, unlike
another's.

Look for the first slow gait,
up the aisles
be damned, but if it ain't
him already, looking for me
(and proud) of his one-off
find,

me checking out
those same old begs a pardon,

but has he been holding on
to them smile the whole
time there eyes.

10 Yrs Green Panda Press 10 Yrs

2011-08-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

to wash my so-called panda hands of the first 10 yrs printing poets and rot i am archiving titles made with guesses at or factual dates and runs.

http://greenpandacatalog.blogspot.com/

missing titles include The Rain Poet (Daniel Thompson), What Grows Glass (R.A. Washington), No Spring Cleve. (50orso poets), The Wolf of Winter (Kenneth Patchen). and more...i need help. if u have a title and dont see it listed, please send a photo or scan of the cover to greenpandapress@gmail.com

yet another moniker

2011-08-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

guess im 'Bree Zlee' just now, as the last hand of reads and mentions have said as much. whoze fault is it? the facespaces and myfaces who require both a first and last name.

on www.wubbit.com where The Rainbow Sweater & My Mother is (soon to be) an on-demand title, and which also requires both first- and sur-names, i went with Bree Cleveland Poet.

but i suppose a rose is yet another name for rose.

Foe Memory

2011-07-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

Foe Memory

all day my face had this stink. was it
from the heat? when i touched my nose
and pulled my fingers back over
my lips it stank.
a stink impossible
to put a finger on.

meanwhile i tried
to place it.
only one or two
times had i smelled this.
impossible to place
now that i've washed
my face, thinking
myself clever
for having remembered
to bring my little foaming soap.

Caught up in the moment

2011-07-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

Caught up in the moment

and the hanging plant
above where i sat was
not in relief of the field and thicket
across from the house (wearing the Japanese
maple blouse)so that the whole scene lay
completely
flat before me,
but impendingly so that it were implied
there was
to be no turning back.

There is no Them

2011-05-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

There Is No Them

There’s them and there’s us,
and you, my friend, are us,
he said,

and I thot,
he is both right and wrong.

It is simpler to live believing everybody
comes from a place filled with good intentions.
I am an innocent convicted. Within my
constraints I try and sight slights, injustices, as what might make friendships between guards
and inmates, the guilty and the guilty, innocents and guards.

The days and months tick by, I stick to a single
truth:

there is no them.

2 Hurried Poems

2011-04-21T15:41:00.001-07:00

Where u freom?

That way you leave fouod on your plate
I’m thinking solme place from the
herd youw ain’t so starving
artist.

U Gotta Do Your Paret

The man withoet shades on
aske d me for my box
(our precious lobster was in)
and I gave him Vibrio vulnificus.

(a hurried poem is 20 words written in such a hurry that the fingers bumble and peculiar mispellings occur.)

little pomes

2011-03-17T09:41:00.001-07:00

nettle searching

nothing cute, nothing fancy
but hella way yet from the park
i and my hands stroll touristlike
through your tresses

sand combing

u look for shark teeth
some ways down
from where
i look for shark teeth
watching you

en gulf

pissing kings

i pissed kings!

in the bathroom
at the deal, i
was folded blind,
then watched what id
have won
speechless.

Bree pome

2011-03-06T15:00:00.001-08:00

That Night

That was called the king queen respect
Hand, actually, the what led to a fold
Before I saw my straight.
Before I see mine a purr comes
On the wind recedes and it is still cool (out).

Before I see mine the radiator leaks.
I sit upon a one night store of
Leakage, for lets call it that, that sit
uponeth store.

And with as much mirth as that,
I won for a while.

-Bree 2011 March

Bree poem

2010-11-06T16:48:00.001-07:00

a change to the handbook: in median res

you would go somewhere private to sat.
eat your lunch,
maybe to sat on the edge of Lake Garda, a pond
which in the middle of the school buildings sat.

you moved Sal Monella in to the pond when you
didnt want him as a pet anymore.

your dad went with you
to let him meet the other
snappers. you
two stood on the edge of the pond together
until Sal swam down deep and was gone. you
thot at the time maybe the turtles in Garda
looked more like the box turtles you
remembered
from Ranger Rick, than any snapper. but you
didnt let on to your dad about it. you
spent a few minutes feeling the separation
together and went home for toasted tunafish.

since you
have been on your own you
have not
toasted the bread even once,
when and if you
actually eat a tunafish. you
would go there to Garda or find some other
place private on the campus to eat and sat and
be able to sing or enjoy the silence in median res.

once you
went to the bridge
strictly-speaking off-campus,
and you
brought
the Holden Cauffield book,
and finished it
without checking the time. you
knew you
were likely late, but you
didnt
wear a watch and had to finish. so you
stumbled in to the end of English but
your teacher let you off, tickled you
were
reading and maybe moreso by what youd read,
and so she warned you,
and laughed.

and you
laughed and were heady from the read
and felt superstrong.

the following year there was a change in the
handbook. all students were to consume their
lunch in designated areas of the campus.
and then they used the rest of the page to
designate the areas of the campus
where you
could eat.

once you
ate in the courtyard with
your bosom buddy and the two of you
danced and you
faked it on the
harmonica in the rain. you
played a Blind Melon song called 'No Rain,'
or something like 'no rain.'

they took your harmonica and told you
never to play one again,
in the courtyard like that, with nobody
around, and during a free period,
with a friend, like you
had.

but that was before the designation of areas.

Bree poem

2010-11-03T12:28:00.001-07:00

love comes clean

we are in this john together.

i am your sink undermounted.

u go with your own lighting
inter-connecting in lines
where they r.

crusted in plaque, you are
also rusty in places.

yet u (&the mildew)
collect in th folds
of th Mat of Absorbency.

u are my john.

in quote marks,
you floor to
ceiling me
more than ever Before the
Porcelain, before u and i lain

th towels together
on th table we bought
for that

we standing in th tub
drip seeing us
see us in th Fog of Mirror.

Poetry Reading Sunday Nov 14

2010-11-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday Evening Roast Poetry Series
Location:Arts Collinwood Cafe'
Time:6:00PM Sunday, November 14th

15601 Waterloo Rd (in the Waterloo Arts District
Cleveland, OH)

Reading will be Bree, Bridget Kriner, Elena Tomorowitz & RA Washington

come out (even if it rains) and hear some killas!

i would hold on

2010-10-28T12:09:00.001-07:00

i would hold on

if u were mine id tell you what to do
& which book to read & what hair-do.

i would shake you, maybe tickle you,
then splash water in your face,
id even heave a heavy water balloon
over your heart and
use your own hairpin, to pop it,
if you belonged to me.

i would take you to the best clinic;
look incredibly pleased to wait
out our lives, if it took that, in sterile rooms
for the answer to your biggest question—

“for and with what and whom?”

i would tickle your feet while you
lay blindfolded,
and feed you
popcorn
and even fish the scales
out of your teeth
when youd done,
if you were in my jurisdiction.

if i could grasp you
i would hold on.

bus stop romance

2010-10-28T11:54:00.003-07:00

Bus Stop Romance

your neck is hot, i feel the temperature rising

you look me in the eyes, it feels appetizing

bus stop romance, never had a real chance

you know, i think that im slightly cured,

i want to leave on my pants

absolute restraint—we got it

sinners and we saints—regardless

absolute restraint

we werent churchgoers of the month last month,

still im satisfied with lunch

you been unshy with me im sure,

you know i think that im slightly cured

lunchmeat sitting in the sun,

how long you been in the danger zone?

aw absolute restraint!

your neck is hot i feel the temperature rising

look me in the eyes, it feels appetizing

bus stop romance never had a real chance

have you been riding this line long, babe?

stick a thermometer in the sun

we got good traction on our shoes, i know

why should we ride when we can run

run run into

the sun that is rising?

look me in the eyes it feels appetizing

they say we aint no saints

but we can

leave

our pants on

absolute restraint—we got it

we sinners and we saints—we got us

let Cupid know

2010-10-28T09:59:00.001-07:00

let Cupid know

lets find some grass and lean back
into eachothers mythology
between the streets where
we can see constellations,
Greek gods in our eyes,
make ours a moon
vacation.

lets take one heart into the sky,
& yours will be the sun
i bathe in,
the light i go by
when i want to find the sum,

your numbers will come
up like mega millions
of galaxies
& when i hold the winning ticket
you will also have won.

i’ll be your Psyche, goddess of the soul
and you can be Eros—let Cupid know
we’re done shooting
arrows.

time off from workingmans

2010-10-05T19:44:00.001-07:00

time off from workingmans

i think you should take a night off awhile from the stolid.
the stolid workingmans serious life because, lets face it,
it cant be all work or work will FEEL like work. its fun
when work doesnt feel like WORK. you carry something or boil
something but its all nice little things you are doing, making
neat slices and neat pours. opening a box neatly, with some
song in the back, familiar without being painful to hear, some
thing like Petty, say.

and while you are at it drink lots of wine
and write. smoke cigarettes knowing
how easy it will be to go back to quit.
you already quit, as far as im concerned.
and then watch a hockey game. Antiques Roadshow.
watch something boring to the point of interesting.
fascinate yourself on NORTH AMERICANS.

then go boondocking elsewhere for a change.
like in the dish chamber or laundry corner.
some place where you can tidy something up.

teacher, thing of beauty song

2010-10-05T17:38:00.001-07:00

teacher, thing of beauty

what i hear i cant remember,
what i see i'll soon forget.
when you show me with your hands
like that, you know ill never quit!

because to learn is a thing of beauty.
once you know, it becomes your duty
to do a thing right, every time,
please,do it quick!

oh, do it quick.

because to learn is a genuine diamond,

with a hardness i'm finding

hard to resist!

with my hands in a fist i can't take your
gifts, o teacher, wont you school me?

please, don't be cruel to me,
so much is new to me,

all i know's what i see

i can't remember.
what i hear i might forget.
when you do what you do
with your hands, you might
find i'm not so thick.

because to learn is a thing of beauty,
and you're it it it it it.

the only way

2010-09-07T18:32:00.001-07:00

the only way id do that is if
nothing in my life mattered

like heroin, you only try that
if nothing in yr life matters
u might let somebody ugly
suck yr cock, if nothing
in your life mattered
you could walk out on
the job, wife, comedian
if nothing mattered

you would forgo butter,
tipping the waitress,
why fortify the buttress?
why change the oil on
the Cutlass?

why not fuck over a good one?
an open hearted?
make fun of his comfyest shirt and then
remove it. shake it like a
tablecloth, at a family picnic.
then wrap it round yr own neck
and stomp out.

if nothing in yr life mattered
you might take a hundred
million bucks over ever
lasting life, maybe.

it would be a hundred
million bucks well spent,
knowing you.

two Bree poems

2010-07-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

and slowly

citys only correctional hospital
same as where i got born was
torn down today
and this evenings also
gone allreddy to cornering sheets
whiling time

worlds largest surplus hardware
the one where my old
momma found me
tho i meant to
be lost
mini blinds on her
head/modern medusa
me with paint sticks
whiling time

regionally touted hot bar buffet
just outside my old hometown
steaming outwardly
cooking whats been cooked
allreddy furious
as trains and
slowly
whiling time

999

light/again

is it a wet orange
or breast augmentation
bleeding
sterile
citrus squeeze
is the sun
throb dancing or
am i migraining
dull
jerk
again

999

for the little girl

2010-07-15T14:35:00.000-07:00

the one eye he gave me
made me feel holy

i only looked a while
afraid that he might know me

something about interlopers entwined

i entertained his existential story

me shutting up enough he did not
need to hurry away
but he certainly
could not remain
some figment and neither could
he any more be imaginary

and yet i put him down
pick up a book or a blanket
i put him down and brush my teeth
breathing the whole time at peace
and then i pick him up again
regardless of the brevity of him
the levity of him amusing me

i hardly looked at his eyes
the one best chance for it wasted
and of course in that moment the
two of us were
wasted that is
wasted on or by or for each other
the grammar of it all eludes me

femininity by Beverly J. Wilcox

2010-07-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Femininity

i smell things way stronger than many do, on account i have nonallergic rhinitis, am chemically sensitive, in a perpetual state of nausea.

i also am highly strung, prone to cravings, and move more slowly than my thoughts.

so, basically i am a pregnant woman with no fetus.

"when the nose knows", as they say...

i have a tho minimally animal smell coming from one of my lymph nodes, maybe, under the arm, in the pit i guess.

but u wldnt smell it i bet.

(this has not been a poem).

-BevJWilcox

prisoner versus guard: an early brush with zen

2010-07-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

when i was 19 me and schizo went to see a zen monastery. we went for a 2 week sesshein (retreat). when we got there we had to take our shoes off and put them in one of hundreds of wooden cubbies.

we also were with his older friend, this straight-laced gay guy. it was a long drive to rochester, Ny, from Cleve and the three ovus were excited. we turned from the cubbies and looked around in the foyer. there were three or more giant bodhisattva statues (bodis are living saints with vices). on each statue were enormous, big to put your arms around circular platters. and piled quite high on each were nectarines. like well more than a case of nectarines on each platter. and the gay guy points out, every nectarine is unblemished and perfectly ripe.

i joked to the schizo, we should all take one and eat it. they're just sitting here!

but of course we were reverent and went in to be received. the sesshein is six straight hrs/day meditation, in congress with a combo of visitors and inhouse monks. sitting meditation (everybody sits and breathes in unison in quiet until a bell rings), walking meditation (when that bell rings everybody gets up and walks around the room while the big kids chant), and the sitting meditation again. then listening to some buddhist or other speak...like sermons. then eating as a group.

every time we ate there were bowls of freshly washed nectarines. they were delicious. and always perfect fruit. i think it was the best food ive tasted, although i didnt dress my salad and its basically inixpliccabull for more reasons than that.

the two head roshis were sister and brother! what are the odds, right? two middle americans, both got into the game for presumably different reasons, since they certainly were two different cats! the woman struck me as kind and welcoming and calm and succinct and unjudging. she felt good. when we were sitting, as happens in zen, she would strike my shoulder with a wooden stick when it fell down and was unaligned with my spine. my right sholder creeps up or down on its own mind.

you sit: and lets face it, there is nothing complicated about zen meditation.. its this simple:

you sit in a position where all muscles are set into place to align your spine so the breath is unobstructed (indian style). with your eyes half mast, arms resting on yr knees and thumbs touching, you breathe.
you count each breath, one to ten. thats it. do it as long as u like.

if you get to eleven or thirteen it means your focus is off, right?

so you go back to one, and to ten and to one and the whole purpose, again no ethereal mystery---is to exercise focus and build yr ability to concentrate. its not frilly or new age or deep as depicted in mass media. zen has come to mean 'cool deep mystery' to people, sadly. while in fact its black and white and linear. 'swhy i like it. because the logic of exercising focus to build concentration in life is such hard solid logic like 'lift these barbells and strengthen your beast-of-burden back'.

the brother on the other hand had too-shiny eyes--like too..charismatic. if u've ever see the Tae Bo guy--the workout boxing guy who made a fortune in the early oughts? ecstatic charm fueled by in Tae Bo's case money. and a grin that was far from transparent.
he looked me up and down when i came in-i saw him do it! and not without distaste! and did think it a bit strange because a monk shouldnt be like obviously rude. right then the schizo said to me i think he's a fraud. and since i liked to disagree with him i decided to take the brother as innocent until proven guilty of being a schmuck. we were supposed to be being openminded vacationers, taking in the culture we had hankerings on.

so there was a question answer session after a meditation with the brother. the brother and sister both wore bibs. this signified them as high ups. he was talking in his bib on, and i'll not remember the word, but the word meant a cathartic reaction during meditation-his examples were seeing things, hearing things that were not there. he said we must not react or give audience to such things because they seem cool but are merely distraction from the breath.

i raised my hand and told him and the room about an experience i had where meditating i suddenly was a swarm of bees. my whole body was buzzing, flapping wings, vibration, air from all the wing flapping and it was cool, and i laughed with joy when it happened. i asked him if i should not have given in to the sensation of beeing a swarm of bees.

he looked at me in the eyes the whole time he told the class some people claim to have psychic powers. and you should guard yourself against such people.

i was like o snap.
damn. i didnt think i had psychic powers! this was a direct stab at me and seemed profoundly inappropriate. but i just thot pack that one away for a rainy day.

and we had bagel brunches and mingled with the live ins. some were so cool. one or two were so guarded as to not smile or say hello when we passed them. we thot some of them might be hiding from the world by living in a closed community. but in general some super cool varied background people befriended us.

second last day there was a beginners zen retreat, a one day affair. so rather than sesshein we decided to sit in on the Q&A.

the brother told the story of the life of the buddha. he told the story really well. i felt like a kid in kindergarten, lying on a mat with juice. he got to a point where he explained the buddha sat beneath the bodi tree until he was enlightened.

he said 'of course he sat for a very, very long time. it was alot of hard work'.

i raised my hand, 'i said why did you say of course it was a long time? couldn't you become enlightened in a single moment?'

he laughed at me and the whole room laughed. he made a quip but didnt deign to answer my question.

but i believed sincerely at the time if u were on the right path and by that i mean Right you could be wholly freed at any time.

then a catholic girl raised her hand, 'my friend and i were both raised catholic. how do we reconcile the idea of having one god with buddhism?'

and the teacher actually said, 'you can't'

my god! i was raised catholic and for a time strongly believed in God. but knowing a little about each buddhism and god, god is love, (they tell you all this in school), and god is everywhere, and god is in you. this is the same thing as the buddha! the buddha is love, he is everything and everywhere. means you are the buddha. you are love. you are part of everything and you are everything. and if everything is love it is perfect. and the catholic god is famously a perfect god.

i realize i have a problem with guards being your typical 'prisoner'. but it was a bummer to see a guard in such a place. and to be judged as being insincere or to be accused of claiming psychic powers was such a shame.

i asked one young monk, he was hawaiian, a live in, say where do you guys get those nectarines.
he said they get them from a local farm. he says they have them nine months out of the year.
i dont know much of anything about farming or orchards but that is too much to be believed.
i said, are they always perfect?
he looked to the side like he had to think. he said, 'yeah i guess they always are'.

Bree poem

2010-06-24T14:05:00.001-07:00

for Brian

i like to get tight with you
for you who are
so light on dark

you manage

to fill my moon baby

nightly by daily

and u know i aint crazy
for falling thirteen times
tripping on the same
spot in the room
you fill

with your funny
like Fridays

like a light

always on for me honey

o i do so like loving u

000

on not parenting

2010-06-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

on not parenting
im a survivor. spending my whole life this time
surviving, with a little flair about it.
maybe next time i come back i wont be as cling to
survival
and i can with ease ensure
the flair of another.

000

from Jim Lang a foto of yore

2010-06-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

Bree and Daniel Thompson, with Barry Zucker (whistling?) in back and Steven B. Smith in the back right corner (taken at a Poetry In the Woods, October 2003).

Tres Versing

2010-06-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

written while the pain pill began its work
i aint got head for
beckoning kitchen and baths

my necks a live wire
scrounging for everlast
batteries, nything wld blast
this pain down lower from
the head, get off the neck
and shollders, bury my heart
in your wounded

i aint got face to go wandering
in your chicken trax, smoldering
some personal fire, wanting
to take your whole farm in
my breast like a kerchief
like a postcard from the past

wanting repast--but no apetite
for just the spread, wanting a picnic
you yourself lay down for all
amm

i aint got time in this life
perforated by pain, why is it
we all have some major pain,
some serious blasting pain
thru the gullet in the face of it
in the face of it all i would bring
your sister down pat, would
make your doctor reconsider shit
especially when he heard you knocking
your own face talking poetry coming in
whether anyone answers the door
is in the fading past

your fanciest outfit is in the past.
i want a fucking headache gone
and blast your poetry, i am so over
that i want the next great poetry.
the next overlord. the ringer of silence
in that grand bell ringing fast.
fingering the light on your mother's
hosiery. your mother's greased
legs shining, propped against the
mast of some sailor's perfumery,
his sweet lies that heaved her chest.

i want to know about the rust bldg
half boarded graffiti left by
what chance to hulk the night
you were driven drunk past.

to mean something like an altar,
trekked towards, incense burned
for, as if ten thousand people
yearned for the painting made
by this unkempt place--

this unkept pace we have no meter
for. no footing on. no truncating.
no grading. not sized up.
not spurned like some
reclaimation. no stakes on.
nothing to regurgitate or even
harp upon. no Larry David
monologue for. no Lord Byron
mourns the pace of man for.
no goddamn 2009 on. nothing
to set your empty glass of wine on.

i want you to take my embrace.
and fleeting strangleholds
will be forgotten fleeting fuck you
mothers and the fleece you think
your sheepish drapes were closed in on.

to be saw through and begot.
to shave my legs and wear a dress
like the magazines taught. to fuck a
headache in the throat and stalk
the halls in glad, everawareness
of Death for.

i applaud the ones in the seats
who schlepped in for to hear
your poem. your puny Hoover Dam poem.
your Aeschylous. Your scrawny Bob
Dylan lyrics line the waking dream
all the time for. your haunting rhymes
which make the soldier die for.
your time slot is seriously limited for.
if you ever go over the saints in the
garden will pine for the next great
poet who howls in Cleveland
better than you panned for,
even the isnt it anyway such good head
you've maybe by now forgot.

simply not into biology

2010-05-29T18:39:00.001-07:00

i am not my presentation
u cant make me out from
the ledging
paragraphs
i am not into
diagrams
polyrhythmic charts
grafting reason
i have none
concerning simple biology
i wont trade body marks
rough draft image blue prints
hyroglyphics fold out
open into an olden pie
graph
im not about archaeology
im not my suitcase baby
just take me

jes culls a poem

2010-05-29T17:49:00.002-07:00

jes culls

wading thru
cocksure traversing
less the rhythm
culls-thru

makes it somehow
stealing long the walls
thru

with one eyes
on and
mirth and how
thru u
my honey one
and only

jes culls

yo call did not
go thru yet
you are still wading
among

the muck that hull
on yr soul does
a doosey on
the shoes i trample
on making me the way
to you

thru who?
jes culls i said so

white waters

2010-05-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

we'll leave the boat alone
no embarrasments
regrets or
reminders at all

just a sail fair on and well

leave the boat alone

dont caption the captain
refrain from using the deck
go alone in the stall

no pockets left
no ink trail whoddunwhat

just a sail fair on and well

Daniel Thompson song

2010-05-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

found this old song looking for a flashlight....written in maybe 2003 for Cleveland's own Danny T.

the browns of his eyes
are whiskey and cola
whites of em bright
as ten old st nick souls

aw a picture cant tell him
to someone aint know him
here's to wishin him on
heres to wishin him on

ringer of silence
pops, the old man of color
sellor of sea shell shaped
stanzas and chorus of beard

cleveland wont have him next year
heres to wishin him on
heres to wishin him on
                                                                      image by Steven B. Smith
speaker of truth
when u know that he's lying
whistles a deuce
when he mays well be cryin
great folders manilla
store up his poems
so he finds the right one
to put someone at home

ringer of silence
the old man of color
sellor of junkyard poems
medicine beard

cleveland wont have him next year
heres to wishing him on
heres to wishing him on

New Book

2010-05-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

Just printed copies of Bree Songs
which collects songs written between 1992-2010. Some are currently in the catalog of The Culls, a Cleveland band made up of chefs, mainly. Sensual, spiritual and bluesy at times.

for a copy tuck a few dollars
into an envelope and mail to

Green Panda Press
3174 Berkshire Rd.
Cleveland Heights
OH 44118

newish book

2010-04-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

WATER ME WELL: poets sound off on the sound of water

made to benefit Isaac's Wells which gets much needed wells in
villages of southern Sudan. given as a door prize for the event
Saturday Nite at the Parthenon: a The Lit on Superior 3.25.10

send a donation made out to Akol Madut (author of Sleeping With
the Sun In His Eyes: A Lost Boy At Home In the World) who will
use the money to get a well in his old village, thru Isaac's Wells.

mail to green panda press 3174 berkshire rd., cleve. hts., oh 44118

new book

2010-04-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

NVALID: 12 Bree poems on the pleasure of living in pain.

for a copy send three dollars to cover postage to
green panda press 3174 berkshire rd., cleve. hts., oh 44118

are you coming to SAT NITE @ TH PARTHENON?

2010-03-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

green panda presents green panda presents green panda presents

WITH MUCHO THNKS TO THE LIT,

POETS
MARY WEEMS
JIM LANG
ADAM BROSKY
RAY MC NEICE
BREE

MUSIC SO ROOTSY

FEATURING AKOL AYII MADUT,
AUTHOR OF SLEEPING
WITH THE SUN IN HIS EYES

HOSTED BY JOHN KISKE

with a raffle of books, art, dry goods & $$$$$
thanks to Bottom Dog Press, Mac's Backs Books on
Coventry, Whole Foods Market & more

to benefit ISAACS WELLS a non-profit which gets
much needed wells in remote Sudanese villages

with cash bar and good company
at the Lit (2570 Superior Avenue Suite 203, Cleveland
www.the-lit.org 216.694.0000)

at 7 pm on SATURDAY MARCH 27

green panda presents green panda presents green panda presents

carryon, of must poems

2010-03-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

carryon

We are all damaged
At birth,

Bruised,
Our blood vessels

Exhausted, onward
We constantly
Seek comfort.

the riser

u are the bartender
salting the rim of the earth.
u are shaking
things up,

yr good company.

u are the hostess
the whole room rounding,
while we straighten our shirts
in the mirror moon easily
makes of yr eyes,

good company.

the salesman on the ready
always, u make
something out of us
like it was no thing,

this us.

and this is us waiting;
we are what we make
of each other’s army.

and u time things right,
ever the doorman, you
of the first infancy
opening into us, u also pull
away from us/ and off
of us rise.

i am yet to return

i have learned to be
ill at work
ill while i am eating
ill when i’m at ease

i have learned to
leave well
enough

so that alone, my
one hand fingers the thingimajig:
pan handle/mouse/blanket/ice bag
/pill bottle while the other massages
something

i have learned to be ill
in the best of company
as well as in the furthest
corner of my bed

i have learned how to
leave well
enough

it is the returning part
i’ve yet to do well

i am lucky
i am not alone

human condition

my life is kind of fucked
up in that i only ever feel
good while i am working and

gotta focus,
get things right and
with no time for
the pain.

when i am off work and at my
leisure, the world is
my own shut-off clam,
pain trumps only
nausea,
and i carry
some of each,
with both hands,

and i don’t know why,
and hardly can guess
for how much longer.

they say what doesn’t
kill you makes you stronger?

i say i am disinclined
to be the case in somebody’s
point. i carryon, is all,
and i don’t mean
vulture meat.

all that i do is to distract
myself/ this way mine
thru the thickets of
sometimes fucked up
and always the same,
and seemingly endless
thing that can only
feasibly end in death.

the same old

you ask why we are here
and i say to do well, of must

you do well
of must

you are here for the asking
as i am here on account of
it, that which begs the question,

why are we here?

of must, i say to put a lid on it,
keep it contained even like it
were fresh,
even like
you were the same
old, begs the difference.

to my friends

2010-02-20T19:38:00.000-08:00

good news on the health front--

i am to receive long-awaited botox injections
in my neck to ward off future migraines on March 25.
they are known to completely stop migraines for
a minimum of one month, and then after the
headaches are known to come on with less
frequency and more mildly, and responding to the
medicine much better. so, less rough months are ahead.

apologies to you know who you are, as
i have been less inclined to be in communique
and uninclined to staple and fold the last year
almost, but i haven't once not missed poetry--
going to reads, mingling with my homies, etc.
i've missed you cleve.

o, and on the roster for 2010 --"a hipster's
guide to your first year of migraines"
by Bree zlee Bodnar.

i've pocketed a trick or two when it comes
to insurance, docs, meds, remedies.

chapter one: no ice for your cold compress?
break up some icicles that hang outside yo house.

put in bag, place on head, say 'thank you amen'.

water pomes thanks water pomes thanks

2010-02-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

i got so many water poems for the benefit of Isaac's Wells
i am actually making two volumes of the book.

so thanks to all who responded, again the book (or now, books)
will be released as a door prize at the March 27th event
"Saturday Night at the Parthenon" which is named after one of
Kenneth Patchen's poems (about entering an other world),
and will take place at The Lit on Superior (in the ArtCraft Bldg)
with among other things rootsy music Cleveland style, Q&A with
the author of Sleeping With the Sun In His Eyes, fab poets,
a fat raffle, and a $7 suggested entry fee.

did i say it starts at 7pm?

*bring beer money to support your local literary center.

seeking poems seeking poems seeking

2010-02-08T06:46:00.001-08:00

Green Panda Press is seeking poems about water.

they may be political, or nature poems, spiritual, seasonal,
personal or global. they must not exceed 25 lines, and
should be submitted no later than Feb. 21 2010.
they will be published in a book to raise money for
Isaacs Wells, thru which Lost Boys of Sudan travel to
Africa to get water and wells into villages where people
often die because of a lack of clean water. a handful
of poems will be selected. thoughtful, straightforward
poems are most desired. ok, they can make ya laugh too.

submit as a word document to greenpandapress@gmail.com

for Al Eleven

2010-01-30T13:09:00.000-08:00

one word /no custer

'custer' is not a word on facebook's prolific (boggle) game.
as in 'custer up the muster' (i caint)
and come in pulling rank
like colonel mustard (i aint).

'mimeo' was only recently okayd
by word's spell checker
the goddamn automatic caps--
those peckers!

i am wording round like christopher
franchestler /inside my neck a wrestler climbs
as i try to make one word at a time.

one word with perfect posture.
no showboater words or perfumed words.
no meek hoveling words.

i mean fuck all these sentences.

one.
one.
one (not three).

Bree .10

checkout new mag STAYS with a Bree true short

2010-01-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

from 'ATOMIC FIREBALLS OR THE TASTE' by Bree

"i was familiar enough with the taste to hate it double on its return. i’d figure out a way to kill the taste and it would cost 1200 dollars, and help me keep a better track of when my periods happened. .."

click below
STAYSmagazine

reading and booksigning

2010-01-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

come out to Mac's
Backs~ Books on
Coventry to hear
Akol talk about
his life before and
after war-torn Sudan.

Akol and i will read
and sign copies of
Sleeping With the Sun
In His Eyes
at 7pm
January 14th

(itsa Thursday, y'all)

1820 Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights
or call 216-321-BOOK for details.

poetry reading January 12

2010-01-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

i will be a guest poet
at the Nia Coffeehouse
series reading
on January 12th
at Karamu, located at
the Corner of 89th
and Quincy.

Directions i got were :
From the East drive
down any street
(Carnegie or Cedar),
across 105th st
to 89th and turn left,
drive down to it.
It's on the left side.
From West side take
Carnegie to 89th and
turn right.

reading's from 6-8pm

i'm sharpening my razor edge for...

Sleeping With The Sun Released Before Xmas

2009-12-31T16:09:00.000-08:00

a great early xmas present for Akol and i was the early
arrival of our book Sleeping With the Sun In His Eyes:
A Lost Boy At Home In the World.

tomorrow is Akol's birthday. it also rings in the new year.
what will 2010 bring? nobody can say.

but many people are already saying things about this book,
in which we tried to relate the story of one Lost Boy so
that people could know something about a whole people.

here are some fine comments, and feel free to leave one of
your own. if you have not read the book, why not??
email greenpandapress@mail.com to get a copy.
here is a whole lot of beautifully exhaled smoke:::::

Kirk Bolden, of Cleveland writes:

“I just received the book today and I could not put it down. I read the entire book in one sitting. The book flowed effortlessly and captured the feelings of Akol and the events of his life in a fascinating way. Thank you for believing in this new author, Bree, and making her book a reality.”

(he clearly does not know i am Green Panda Press!)

Tom Kryss, Cleveland Poet writes:

“Sometimes I just have to partially close your and Akol's book, with my finger holding the place, and sit there and ruminate.”

Then he goes on to really make Akol and i blush,
“your collaboration with Akol Ayii Madut really addresses, blows out of the water,the matters of what poetry might and should be, and IS in your very capable hands. Make no mistake, it is a long poem you and Akol have written.”

Mary E. Weems, Cleveland Poet and Teacher read an advanced proof of the book and sent word that:

“While reading Sleeping with the Sun In His Eyes the line from ‘Amazing Grace’ kept repeating, a gospel refrain connecting brother Akol Ayii Madut and Bree and me together, “I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." Fine work--flows, feels, is tight--no fat, not to be missed.”

Nina Freedlander Gibans, Cleveland Cultural Consultant writes of the same uncorrected proof:

“This story of the life of (one of) the Lost Boys of Sudan, his escapades in his native country, a training camp, and in Cleveland illuminates the almost insurmountable challenges the Lost Boys face wherever they are. With incredible fortitude they face life together and become role models for each other. Self-realizations are brought to life as the authors detail his colorful journeys to fulfillment and jobs. A fascinating read for all ages.”

the incomprehensible blank

2009-11-21T13:31:00.001-08:00

I can’t ever fill in the blank

Theres no creative bone in my body

A thin white woman’s
Bones after thirty resort to
Emptying themselves of
And then some
Offshoot of
Milk calcium is given

Theres no hair raised
I’ve waxed and waned
In this shower no hilarity just
Every so often skin like acetate

Every day you floss and it
Still stinks
Every other you wash droplets off
And whole sinks
Are stopped

From inside this our shed
Ive no lasting reflection to make
I am everchangingly fill in the blank

Update Sleeping With the Sun In His Eyes Update

2009-11-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

Sleeping With the Sun In His Eyes: A Lost Boy At Home In the Worldby Akol Ayii Madut & Bree is ready for the printer and only thanks to you. Many people preordered the book, and a good number donated $35 dollars or more as special patrons, so almost half of the printing fees were raised together. Yahoo! And now but for a few hitches the book can be made and in hand by sometime January. The goal was to release the book, a tale woven of Sudanese history, the personal story of the Sudanese Lost Boy Akol, and my own ramblings as he and I worked this project to fruition, by January 1st because that is the birthday so many Lost Boys were assigned when they came to live as citizens in America. I don't know that this release date is possible, but I am happy to say its "in the works".

so I'll say it again It's in the Works!!!

While it is too late to be a special patron and land your name on the acknowledgements page, we are still taking preorders. If you want a copy they are 15 dollars each and three additional dollars to ship (covers up to three books). All forms of payment are accepted so send a check, cash or credit card number (with expiry) to Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Road Cleveland Heights OH 44118 or email greenpandapress@gmail.com with any inquiry.
Include shipping address and email with your order.

thanks thanks thanks

This poem is called we are all orange

2009-11-13T11:53:00.000-08:00

for you, Gearity

This poem is called we are all orange

They asked me to speak to you
About poetry, diversity
To say we are the same would
Cause scandal, controversy
To say whether we are sisters
Or brothers, adults or coming up

We’re all corrupt and are corrupted
To say we start out right, even
If we are interrupted, to say we
Start out downright perfect,
o Say, somewhere someone loves us,
Even if it's just one person who isn’t nuts
To say we start out fresh and gather
Dust, to say we have the world in the
Palm that grows outside our huts
In the hassles happening outside
Our castles, to suggest the streets we
Walk to stand in line for the bus
Or limo, tractor, compact, Hummer, trailer, SUV
To suggest those streets are any less than
What makes us us

So so we grow every day we listen up
To the traffic, (o say can we?)

Beats in tires squeal ling
Drums in the weathermen flying
In the copters, songs in the ivy
And the pattern that it makes
On buildings, sweet and ill feelings
Climb up
What climbs on us? What jive shucks?
Black yellow brown red and white
Fingers grip a pen or punch a pad to write
Man woman child and in between
Copy down to share what they’ve seen
Whether voices carry on with fictions
Or speak personal truths to say we
Are the same is contra(diction)

Diction means to speak
Make us proud
Make it from the heart
So we can see we
So we can see what’s we
So you can see that you
And i are me
Yeah right, you and what army?

The power of the pen the sword
Cuts down the might of
Buildings, businesses, mayors
Contracts, cancers, districts

Color blinds venetian opening
Consciousness like traffic widens
Power of the pen so much stronger
Than living in one

Opening consciousness
Doles out beats
Could walk or could be walking beats
Could strum or drum or try’n compete
With the sounds outside and ivy growing
Patterns round the style you all
Are just now knowing
That you that makes you you
And me you too you

Yoo hoo –did you say diversity?
To say you’re me would cause a scandal
Differences is who it is that just loves us
Cause they give the boost so you
And I can know just what is what
Is that’s what
Blue green violet and orange

In sixth grade the joke was ‘nothing rhymes with
Orange’, but I’m not listening
When fruit is just been washed its glistening
When I speak my rhymes whole hoards are
Listening, so when they say cant you rhyme
You spit o-range

Ohio’s in the foothills of mountain o ranges
We climb and descend
o Cleveland we can’t rhyme with us
In the sunset we are orange, all of us
When the sun sets another day makes history
o We start out right, we climb we.

Sleeping With the Sun In His Eyes

2009-10-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

Green Panda Press announces the forthcoming title merging the life-story of Akol Ayii with history of Southern Sudan and the American experience:
Sleeping with the Sun in His Eyes:A Lost Boy at Home In the World by Akol Ayii Madut & Bree

(Scroll down for an excerpt from the book!)

All publishing costs will be raised thru pre-sales and donations. A portion of the sales will go towards getting much-needed water to Southern Sudan. For more information email greenpandapress@gmail.com

To pre-order, fill out the attached form and mail to Green Panda Press
3174 Berkshire Rd. Cleve. Hts., OH 44118 --Be sure to include an email address to be notified as the book is sent to the printer, released to the public, and to learn of all pertaining events!

The book is $15.00 If you would like it shipped an additional $3.00 charge will apply. Cash/checks/credit cards are acceptable forms of payment, however to pay by credit card, you will need to opt for shipping, or pick up your book at Mac's Backs Books on Coventry, located in Cleveland Heights at 1820 Coventry Road, OH 44118. Your credit card will be charged when the book goes to print. All checks will be deposited within five days of receipt.

**If all monies are raised in time, the book will be out January 1, 2010 (The birthday given to Akol and other Lost Boys of Sudan when they came to America).

**If you would like to be listed as a Patron on the Acknowledgments page in the book please make a donation of $35.00 or more, for which you will receive a signed copy shipped immediately upon arrival from the printer. Presales/Patron Deadline 10/25/09

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please print clearly

I want to buy a book!
Name_____________________________
email_____________________________
mailing address____________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
payment enclosed yes__ no__
Credit card number with expiry:
__________________________________
I want my book shipped _____
I will pick up my book at Mac's Backs____
I know the author(s) and will get my book
from Akol/Bree____

Make checks payable to Green Panda Press
3174 Berkshire, Cleveland Hts., OH 44118

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Akol first arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, and stepped off the plane what he saw was everywhere wheat flour. He knew before he came here most American people had plenty to eat. Still he was truly amazed to discover such surplus. Here, he marveled, people left their wheat flour to just sit in great piles everywhere on the ground.

Akol wondered if they had run out of the sacks used for holding the flour.

A white woman was nearby working for the airport. He went to her and leant in, to conspire in English somewhat wanting:

“I have never seen so much flour. We have people who are starve in my home country. Why don’t somebody send some wheat flour back to there?”

“Welcome to America,” the woman smiled her brightest at him.

Akol couldn’t wait to get outside. Immediately he knelt down to take some of the wheat flour in his hands. The flour was freezing cold! It began to melt away down through his very grip, making everything wet and cold. His hands, even his knees were wet.

Brrrr! He dropped the melting flour to the ground. This place was unreal. Here in this new city, as it was in a desert mirage, the hulking piles of food disappeared at the touch.

I will be getting used to this and more, he told himself.

He went to join up with his entourage: the local director of Catholic Charities, a case-worker, and a native-speaker—a woman who turned out to be his sister were among those who escorted the second Sudanese Lost Boy into cold Cleveland.

999

Poem for Certain Lost Boys
by Bree

at home our mothers
ground the food for everybody
to eat

here we are dishwashers
we grind the food
in great disposals

*

Poem by A Boy Soldier

2009-08-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

i am writing the story down of a Sudanese Lost Boy who works with me. he is a poet but doesnt have the poems down in English yet, and i am attempting to transcribe--meaning these are his words and my line spacing, etc. i think he is an amazing poet!

Why is it me? By Akol Ayii Madut

I was born welcome
to the world
To the womb I was
innocent and welcome

The sun rises up
black with blood
The same blood flows
down into the ground

Once, the villages burned
Nobody is going back now
I look to the sky and see black
raindrops of blood
Why is it me?

I see East Africa—the blood flows
I look from the North and the blood
is flowing, same as the East
No one can speak to one another
Why me?

I look from the South and
it is same as the East
I look from the West,
it is the same blood flowing

I was born welcome
to the world
Our families were ready
to bring us to the world

I don’t have much love
I carried the gun and
missed my family
Every day I am smelling blood
What are you going to do? (Sleep)

in lieu of anything else i write on pain

2009-07-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

ive thot all this while my further experiences in the saga of my headaches and the health care system would make a fine sequel to 'was chicken trax', but am finding irony and wit are scarce while one is in the midst of a health-crisis.
'was chicken trax' ended on an optimistic note--i had found a doc who gave me relief and things were looking sunny and bright. meanwhile, my health issues returned, with a vengeance and were no longer assuaged by the old regimen.
i certainly have encountered absurdities the last months. tales worth telling.
and one day i can laff it up. meanwhile, i hardly pick up a pen, or set to type a poem or story, and i have not put a single sheet of paper thru my inkjet since the first week of May. so, bare with me as it seems most times i do write it is from the perspective of one experiencing moderate to severe pain.
certainly poets and authors write to work thru suffering, and ive been tinkering with just that, even allowing the subject of my writing to linger on inane bodily pain.
in high school i wrote thru depression and anger at our lot--as men and women in a world riddled with injustice and often devoid of meaning. i eked out my own meaning, and have much to smile about. my whole adult life i've marveled at my recovery. i think myself lucky, and deserving of the many great things i've come into. this is why i dont chop off my own head to end my pain. this is why i persist in a seemingly endless maze towards that Castle--where i will supposedly find relief.
three solid months now of pain around the clock--dashed with a cple days here or there where i woke and remained pain free--i now enter month four of migraine 2009.
i hope u accompany me further on my trek! and understand i am not being hyperbolic if i write of pain. even those who experience pain daily and nightly never are used to the pain. they adapt, they cope and they even go about their business, but the pain never loses its impact. the pain is pain is pain, and blows. i am cool in the mind and thriving yet, but in pain and quite out of the proverbial closet of it now. which does feel....kind of good!

yr loving editor, Bree

again to my friends

2009-07-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

again i recede into my hairline
rapture is a two hour refrain
from the song i call my little grain

two husked skulls/ rinsed and drained
energies rightly do me in and nightly
i wonder why trigeminal nerves
fractal leaves what dance in the peripheral
even the fence moves as i hold my own face

bitty progress and i'm milking the landline
calling all but the local piss rags
then its a few Shaq-sized steps
back not moon-walking babe

i am like a cup of rice
bloating in the stopped up sink
i am mainly extraneous and
bound like by coffee grounds
i lose my nutritious value
and gather at the bottom again

the drug which works to a point
has me losing hair and swells my joints
its predecessor made my guts queasy
and woke me like my elders to piss nights

fifteen minutes forgetting
in the car say or walking
movements maketh the pain
peripheral and intermittent

slaving with great pots at work
makes pain seem in-existant

maybe i shld carry my couldron
some blocks and write u again

New Book Laying Pans

2009-06-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

Ecstatic Peace Journal #8 is a collection of poems written mostly in one evening. the title of the book is 'laying pans', which is what i do for a living, as a grocery chef:

"A special edition of Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal where we dedicate this issue to one writer. And that would be BREE, a young woman from Cleveland who’s poemz have always touched our ear-to-mind zone with distinct alacrity and genuine word love."

it is ten dollars, cheap! Ecstatic Peace produces indy cool tapes, vinyl, books and ephemera. why not lay down some supporting cash?

i eat the apathetic-- an e (Bree) book

2009-06-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

this is an e version of a book i'd make if i cld

I eat the apathetic for breakfast

I take a pitchfork to the eye
Of the apathetic.
I pretend it was an accident when
I turn and meet a four hundred degree
Pan against the prone forearm
Of the apathetic,
But it isn’t.
I take the apathetic’s mother out
For e coli breakfast
But this is only after fondling
The apathetic’s mother’s
Bible, in the corpse seat of
Her husband’s hearse.

I am all about the pathetic.

I prefer apes.

Synthetic garments, I stick my
Arms in the holes of now.

A path so worn there are arm-holes in the lining wood,
The would-tic, of the clock, all seconding what
Zeal and zest good
Worker bees have
Got,
I sting the apathetic; leave no honey for.

I have about had it with apathy. I have barely
Been acquainted with telepathy,
But still I know the future’s wrought with
Scenes of me giving it to the apathetic.

And I would, might, even. After this cigarette.

what is the name of that dylan song?
i don’t wanna cut you down, or boil
you down or pare
you down,
i just wanna smile and thank ya, pour
some sanka in your grappa.
i just wanna let you
grow, and watch
you grow, and
know you grow.
all i really wanna do is
(maybe) be friends with you,
i don’t wanna fuck you up, or
cut you up, or trip
you up.
an’ i don’t wanna fake you out, or
take you out, or
let you out.
all i really wanna do is baby be friends
with you.
i don’t want to say farewell,
or kneel a while at your turnsyle.
i’d just like to turn you ‘round
& set you down & make your
rounds.
i don’t wanna be your
boss or foot the bill or be your shill.
i don’t wanna brush and floss ya,
flush & toss & spit and wash ya.
& i don’t wanna
clean your room
or see ya too soon
or fail to
swoon ya.
i don’t wanna act yr nurse
fall under yr curse,
or immerse ya.
i’d just like to to make some plans
that end up well
and dry like hell,
all i really wanna dooo
is love you.

if i cld a body slam

if i was a body-slammer, i’d slam it
in the morning. i’d slam it in
the evening, all over this town.

i’d slam it in may-time, and it
would produce a slamming sound.

i’d pull on adhering trousers,
fashion a cummerbund, and gain 100 pounds.

no need for goggles, squint-menace
about the eyes would suffice. i wld grow
my ego large as a
cape,
one i wld wear
sauntering at night, inviting slamees,
nowhere in particular
bound.

if i was a body-slammer, i wld
body-slam danger.

i wld slam out a warning, slam in love

an answer: slam it my brothers!
slam it my sisters!
slam it !

if i cld a body slam
if i cld a body slam
if i cld a body slam

Knitting

Thank you all for the lint,
You sweetened the sweater
With your talk cadence,

The hair suit you sent clings
To me, just like singing
To a brick -alley way
does;

So syrupy the way this
Fray does,
What it is told and
On time,
too.

I think my last words
The way out will ring
Something
good,

Said thru a thick assed
Scarf yo’ momma made.

Unflappable 2/09

i figure i am seven levels of hell above skid row
and nine miles below unflappable.

having hid out for several yrs from
the cultural revolution that is
on here, big usa,

i am nine months back in with it, now:

a lower-level poet fitted with a company, on
an unstoppable high,
sighting crimes and having things recited me.

i am not paid enough to wear my own poker face
in the face of whats most shocking
ovall, really,
gaping open humanity.

we take in what comes, even swiftly
process, but each time a wicked thing
our way comes,
we are taken
if mildly,
aback.

i want to be taken aback
over and again, until i become
unflappable,

or, am ready to don an
award-winning poker face.

Shut Up!

You did not get a migraine
From your neighbor’s record playing
It was not
A migraine
By my tome
Of them

Let us not make migraine
Slang
For the result of a minor, if adamant
Irritant

I know iconic figures who migrained
Until their fifties--I imagine mine
Will migrate
South, to the knees and be
Artheritis by
Then

I got 19 yrs to figure out the best way
To behave on mine,

Noise can be a tonic for
My migraines, Yeats
Wld turn symphonic for

You did not get a migraine
When your sister’s kids used their party favors
Let us not
Be crass when it comes to
Mania
We ought not dumb down sleep-driving, either
There is no reason to infantalize bulemia,
There are
Folks who itch and folks who utter
We all climb out of some gutter

Your husband’s giant prick
Didn’t
Make you see stars

A Song for the Company Underground

Find Succor In The Humility Of
Knowing Full Freshness Is Never
In The Cards.

The Vegetable Boxes,
To Be Broken Down
Near The End.

Manifest Are The Inevitable
Ices Melting Inside Crates,
To Later Drip On Pants.

Soldiering On In The
Kitchen At Last, The Radio
Blasts In!

Playing To A Day-Old
Bread, (May) Melts The Heart
While The Back Gets More Stiff.

When The Melted Heart
Hardens Again It Is Like
A Saran Or Spun Sugar
Clings.

Clangs
The Bells For Sleek And Chic
And How!
Do They Ever Play Meek Well.
They Battle Not,
Wage On.

The Most Likely Reason For That Gondola Accident.
The Reason Women Sometimes Leave A Faucets Sharp Hairs On
Cold Clean PorceLain I Lain I Lain Eye Lane:

It Were The Car Wheels,

Or Brakes Squeaking,
Was It Every Car In The Area
Squeaked The Stops
My Nightwalk?

Squeaking Kept Bringenening Me Back To, And I Waking Still-Walking.

It Was Inferred That Green Moon Ringing Lids Orange A While.
There Had Been The Suggestion Of A Buckling Beneath That
Ladyskirt, Worn For Days.

A Big Green Bus Barrelled Thru Almost Into Me And Thank God
For All The Ice He Didn’t Slide.

There Went The Absence Of Squeaking.

The Stockings Net Unshimmied A Hot Leg While The
Lady Skirted Steaks. A Man Handed Thru His Peppered Locks, & Sat
To Reopen A Moot Letter Instead. There Were Reactions To The
Beat-On, Paralyzed Woman
Who Sued Her Ruscuer,
And Them Were Mixed Like
Coffins In A Dam.

True, We All Walked Once Together, In A Dam
Surrounded By The Buried. The Same Gondola Was Pried Open
I Imagine, The Night I Avoided Helicopter Beams By Running
To The Next Good Shadow, Beside The Next
Big Carved Granite Hunkola.
Memorials.
Someone Fell Out Of A Boat, And Now We Are All
Supposed To Consider The Consequences Before
We Go Fish.

a song of the poor

i don’t eat leavened bread on Easter.
i don’t own a cashmere sweater.
i don’t know a word for luster.

missing from the sailor’s bed
are the maps your rapture’s after,

but i don’t have a plank’s worth
of plundering on my roster.

i don’t forget to genuflect in clover.
i never felt a scarce rain in Oklahoma,
carrying my wife’s bleeding body
fallen off a mountain top in Boulder.

i haven’t shook for days beneath
a blanket heaving on your shoulder.

i haven’t been a drunk just yet,
or a junkie or a whore.

missing from the sailor’s bunk
is a library of mostly Langston.

the impression on the sailor’s bed
was left by the one true, and fair maiden.

i can’t walk a plank they laid
for crooked shoes and bankers.
i don’t have a finger in the dam
what broke in sobs for the
buttes standing in Montana.

i don’t fuss and cuss and soldier.
i don’t muster up the custer.
i don’t use up all the hot water.
i did not steal the way to California.

missing from the sailor’s bed are the
maps your rapture’s after,
in between the isles, in fortune land.

The rich make the rest of us

Accomplice, often gladly enough
So gladly we take pride
In their easy rides up
Our hard knockers,
They slip us mickeys
And we text them g thnks
In the braless morning

about par

normal is blistering.
it gels, as the unreeling
wills of man around
the place divot and swerve,
just as normal times
suggest, and even insist on.

on persists the daily .

mind not any charade,
dance dip and throwback
your resistances, distancing
what-all,

i could be ever seen you spake

the same old at the
threshold.
best you set the net to catch
all in time
for the inspector’s fine tooth,
batting for
i should hope so.

time moves most when you
aren’t still,
(a part in the sand)

but the rippling in.

your pot pour me’s rendring me /spent,
your soup d’jour is my own nickel,
saved/or recouped,
to reward a big man
in some sky

about par

for d.a. levy who waits like
we wait for the roses
that bloom and the roses
that never bloom and
some roses that never don’t
bloom bloom

i see you in your checkered
nikes talking fast, no blackberry
yet navigating in waves, not
having to last .

the people are fading
their faces fading their
repose a fast: fingering
disengagement .

i see you on your purple huffy
baubles on glamour-ring forearms
out of gas from the hill
exhilarated by mtv

i see you working the aisles
moving cans forward, that newer
ones can be got last

we wait for the prophylactics
we swallow exhaustion, do push
ups for admiring, albeit fanning
out customers
we wait for traffic signs

he says she is not into temerity
she says he won’t hold his tongue for any
there are ballbusters, gall bladderers
turners in, and outers

i see you on your cell phone
smiling peripheral, lasting
for months at a time .

we wait for the free line/sail into summer
chains, barracks, and bummers/girls just want
to have fun and boys will be boys will be/
someplace you sumpter .
and the roses still bloom
stilllly

distraction walk the district

Walking Berkshire, walking Cedar
It’s leaves, and it’s barely, and vacant,
A lot like holding for the operator

Nothing Happenstance Here,
this business of playing nice together
is a matter of survive a shift,
and then another

it has nothing to do with family
it is not common camaraderie
or even gentile service
or jewy uprightness
or moslem hospitality

it is not for the team or
success of the company

it is clock in and make a wish

it is turn a cheek and notice
the managers soft shoe aisles
this is moving product

it is i do you so you wont do
me in brothers, and sisters
let me carry your tray of toil

such production is not so we can
share in the fruits collective,
but on account we need to plow
thru another week here

and we are not to speak low in groups
of two or more
and we are not to scrimp on service
and o we are accountable for leaving
our post if it means walking a guest
a while
aisle be damned
departments not mattering
we dont collectively prosper
we hone then out each other, civilly

remember your hat and your pin
this is not for the future savings pool
that we clock out early

The PC Police In The Phillipines
Threaten With Violence Actor Alec Baldwin,
For Prime-Time Cracking On Their
Mail-Order Brides

lightly tossed
in conversation the word migraine
acts a vinegrette
to your pitiful salad act

u say that actress
gave me
a migraine
with her too sparklee dress

what about the clown who
says that bridge traffic
gave my wife
an aneurism?

u think some muther’s wife
didn’t spend three months in
intensive?

fuck your heart attack
brot on by the size
of those pancakes

wanna crack on diabetes?
i bet u gave your daughter
one serious case of the bends
with your tuxedo

you got a headache, alright
woman, and its known around
town as the County Morgue

your hyperboles are fruitless
they barely draw flies
you cldnt get a mail-order bride
to paddywhack yr pinwheel falsies

the sweat of my forehead seals the ‘velope

another day, another ‘graine

i tell my friend,

no news is bad news

one moment pain’s staved, then it rages
no drug or doctor’s advice assuages

i work my mind on menial tasks
i toil, pointedly my focus on what
is at hand i joke i quip i laugh i decide its
hilarious
to be in this boat,
as i leave my house to labor
it is
rhyme of the latent migraineur

i pride after blowing
up my life raft another
fine morning for sailing on airs,

sun sets on your highest regards, thanks

my forehead lights your smoke sailor

Bull Tongue Reviews Was Chicken Trax Amid Sparrows Tread & More

2009-05-17T11:20:00.000-07:00

check out Byron Coley & Thurston Moore's touting of Chicken Trax.

tres versing vascularly

2009-05-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

i did a funny thing a cple days back--
gave a copy of 'was chicken trax' to Allergist Doc.
some of you may have read 'was chicken', wld recall this hero guy in the end of my story, Allergist Doc :

who in a minute flat lifted the stone round earth Atlas holds on the South end of Cleveland Museum of Art's polluted lagoon, and threw it into Euclid Ave.'s heavy traffic, with the women turning day into night watching the while, stoic and unmoved. all of Northeast Ohio flitted a snaps for Allergist Doc.(pg 104).

the dude gave me much relief, this is true. however thursday last, before tres versing fest i was on about the tenth day of a bull migraine. that good doc managed to eradicate all but menstrual migraines from my diet, a rare and hard to treat variety of vascular headache which can last several days(or apparently, two weeks). i went to the ER which seemed extreme, poetry's eve, where they gave me fluids, opiates and something for the nausea. in fact i learned it is quite common for migraine sufferers to seek emergency care. i left with a track mark. and eight hrs later the pain returned, as ever. the weekend of poetry was awesome, and poetry herself pulled me thru, along with various snake oils i use to stave the pain.

sunday morning found me in an impromptu visit with Barbara, George Wallace and Brian to Daniel's grave at Lakeview. a very busy day, Mother's, to visit a grave! i hadn't any meds with me or even water to drink at the sunday readings, and by the time of the open finale i cld barely sit still, so i exited to another poet's well won applause. i dont know what wulda been worse, explaining why i took off, or taking off wordless as i did.

anyway, i had an appt with Allergy Doc and explained i'd gone to the ER since i cldnt have pain during a weekend of poetry i'd planned for months. he told me he was a bit of a poet! had for yrs been a member of some Amrcn doc's poetry association. we forgot we were in an expensive room in a hurry, as we shot names of great writers we liked before the good man sent me on my way with some instructions and hope. i was out the door when i realized i had copies of 'was chicken trax' in my purse, so i sent Brian back in with a copy.
i still have the headache.
i have before gone as many as 15 weeks with a headache. poetry has got me thru once more, and i am not yet totally insane.
one thing i wrote in 'chicken trax' Allergist Doc might not like is my little joke at the end, how a bite of mushroom sure makes that pain gone. i did infact eat a shroom once, to underline the fact aint nothing helps, but it was in order to be ironic. and Allergist is no stranger to irony.

thank u poets and Ms. Poetry, lady u take us all on and with great tethers, unfolding by word, by bit, in strange pulpits. Banks' studio where Rafeeq read to James Baldwin under chicken hatching lights. at Lincoln Inn where Coley read 'Micheline in Cleveland', and Wallace 'even the letters of the heart spell earth'. Barking Spiders where Potts sang in smile and had us all in clapping hearts. The Lit where Angela's tone tone tone meloded. Bernie Johlson, you have such great fervor! James E. Stanley, you are the quietest neighbor, always improving the condition--you raise the property values here! La Charity spake in tongues, and we sallied thru eleven readers on bills without beaking rumor, all to break toil
for a weekend worth traversing for, my thanks to all and apologies that i darted out before we were thru.

tonight at mac's 1820 coventry 7pm

2009-04-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

The way it grows barely

The only way the asphodel grows
is the way a woman saunters off
a shower when heat is better than towels
makes a man hunger when the grill marks
scald heat on a perfectly ripe sirloin
the squirrel maketh his leap down
from on a higher branch to still watch
the calendar flips at wind’s fancy
near the window facing wisteria
just there a rainbow made by the hose
you hold
just barely there

(...i will read poems and proses but not this)

Bree Poem on Arthur

2009-04-02T15:21:00.001-07:00

check-it:

www.arthurmag.com/2009/03/15/think-fondly-of-eachother/

Review by Hugh Fox: Was Chicken Trax Amid Sparrows Tread

2009-03-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

Was Chicken Trax Amid Sparrows Tread: Poems and One Long Movement
by Bree
2009; 128pp; Pa; The Temple Bookstore.com,
PO Box 1773, Walla Walla, WA 99362.
$10.00.

A fascinating book here, three parts, the first poetry with all sorts of “streetness” about it, including monkeying around with language so it comes right off the concrete/asphalt:

“...Love thine enemies,/My mother usta say./How’d she know to cover/Her tracks that way?//We ain’t no chickenbone souffle./Just a face name////Whatever/We are wakes us.” (“No Need for Alarm,” p.22).

Real, personal-world stuff here, a strange combination of the masses and educated sophistication.
Then we move into the second part, a long essay, almost a little book in itself, about sharp headaches and rectal bleeding, getting taken to the cleaners by the medical profession, and finally (polyps and sinus infection) getting diagnosed and cured. And ironically, the way Bree twists and turns it all, it comes out top-drawer literature. Part three more poetry, and this time more “normal,” I might even say Lifshinesque, with a touch of Bukowskian sharp-edgeness:

“Bacteria grows best when left alone/with no breath/in a dark, closed home.//The moon wants not a container,/but vast darkness.//The monk needs vastness alone./ Vastness of soul,/vastness of breath,/light and dark become one...//Bacteria may know much about peace,/but can’t share any with monk/or with moon/for he lives all alone in a closed off room.” (“Bacteria and the Moon,” p.136).

Lots of irony here, quiet ironic slashing at status quos and what are usually seen as “normalities.” Bree is the incarnation of twisted, punishing rebellion and at the same time a macabre, horrific experimental humorist.

=============================================

Hugh Fox is the author of ten million books, put out by presses like Ghost Dance, Ohio's own Carpenter Press (Box Fox), Zerx Press and Permeable. “Hugh B. Fox is the most distinguished man of alternative letters of our time,” Richard Kostelanetz, in a review of The Book of Ancient Revelations (2004). In Small Press Review, Jan.-Feb.2005. check out his site: http://hughfoxwriter.blogspot.com/

marchpoem

2009-03-16T13:38:00.001-07:00

for d.a. levy who waits like

we wait for the roses
that bloom and the roses
that never bloom and
some roses that never don’t
bloom bloom

i see you in your checkered
nikes talking fast, no blackberry
yet navigating in waves, not
having to last .

the people are fading
their faces fading their
repose a fast: fingering
disengagement .

i see you on your purple huffy
baubles on glamour-ring forearms
out of gas from the hill
exhilarated by mtv

i see you working the aisles
moving cans forward, that newer
ones can be got last

we wait for the prophylactics
we swallow exhaustion, do push
ups for admiring, albeit fanning
out customers
we wait for traffic signs

he says she is not into temerity
she says he won’t hold his tongue for any
there are ballbusters, gall bladderers
turners in, and outers

i see you on your cell phone
smiling peripheral, lasting
for months at a time .

we wait for the free line,
sail into summer: chains,
barracks, and bummers

girls just want to have fun
and boys will be boys will be
someplace you sumpter .
and the roses still bloom

stilllllly

flyer flyer tres versing the panda lineup flyer

2009-03-10T09:41:00.001-07:00

check out the flyer for tres versing

Tres Versing the Panda: Three Days of Poetry Soiree, a multi-media festival in celebration of the community the small press has provided poets across the map, is taking place in Cleveland May 8th,9th & 10th 2009. Presented by Green Panda Press, Temple Inc., filmmaker Robert Banks, Judith Mansour of The Lit, and others, bands, film and live poetry will converge as local Cleveland poets receive those ‘traversing’ to come to Cleve.

Friday Night, May 8 6 pm (++Free)
Travis Catsull & Dirk Michener of the Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band (TX) will perform at The Barking Spider Tavern located on CWRU campus, 11310 Juniper Rd., Cleveland with the poets Ben Gulyas, Jim Lang, Wesley Eisold (PA), Valerie Webber (Montreal), Adam Perry (CO), George Wallace (NYC), Charles Potts (WA), Bree, Maj Ragain, TM Gottl, Eric Paul & Adam Brodsky

Saturday Afternoon, May 9 1 pm (++Free)
Gathering at the Daniel Thompson Memorial Plaque (outside the Lincoln Inn, 75 Public Square, Cleveland)/followed by TBA: readers will include Alex Gildzen (NM), Jack McGuane, Eric Paul, Jim Lang, Kisha foster, Valerie Webber.

Saturday Night, May 9 7 pm (++7 dollar admittance, includes Goodie Bag)
Ray McNeice and Tongue in Groove will play, plus poets Alex Gildzen, Angela Jaeger, Byron Coley (MA), Charles Potts, George Wallace, Jesus Crisis, Emma Young (MA), Mary Weems, Jim Lang, Michael Henson (Cincinatti, OH), Russ Vidrick, Wesley Eisold & Bree will read at The Lit in the ArtCraft Building 2570 Superior Avenue Suite 203, Cleveland 216.694.0000

Sunday Afternoon, May 10 3pm (++Free)
Alex Gildzen, Angela Jaeger (NY), Bree, Michael Salinger, Ben Gulyas, George Wallace, Eric Paul, Phil Metres, Adam Brodsky, Byron Coley & Wendy Shaffer at the Coventry Library, at Coventry Rd. & Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, followed by a dinner break on Coventry Road.

Sunday Evening, May 10 6pm (++Free & Open)
An Open, Round-Robin Style, Read From Where You Sit Soiree Will Take Place At Mac’s Backs~Books On Coventry, At 1820 Coventry Rd., In Cleveland Heights. All Are Invited To Read, As Local Poets Meet Tres Versers. Locals come and join in, one and all.

release of new book! was chicken trax

2009-02-26T18:06:00.000-08:00

i am very excited that my new book "was chicken trax amid sparrows tread" just arrived on my doorstep today. designed by adam brodsky, published by charles potts, the book is a collection of poems coupled with a longish nonfictional piece on getting hemmerroids, and taking a big-girl job.

"i haven't gotten neck deep in such intersting work in a long time..so subtle, and gentle in its bluntness," says Jeremy Gaulke, of Temple Books.

"The layers of meaning often embedded in poetry that might, on a casual first reading, seem abstract are very common and deliberate in Bree's poems," sayd James E. Stanley, Cleveland poet.

well, one can get one's paws on a copy here, or by mailing in an envelope $10 cash/check/money order (or credit card no. with expiry) made out to green panda press, 3174 berkshire rd., cleveland hts., oh 44118

ultra flattery from blogtastic burroughs

2009-02-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

ultraflattery here, from John Burroughs, aka Jesus Crisis.
fills me with envy, actually: his shot of pandas, many of which i don't have, and havn't seen in yrs!

speaking of flattery (i just learned how to insert a link, so i'm inserting two birds with a stone),
i have begun a blog effitsundy which will display facets of so called 'underground', or small press poets who write and publish under the radar.

also, from the cat house rjs, aka god zero has got web-savvy and created this site to share his insights on the economy, over-population, the rapidly depleting ozone and ever-widening gap between classes...in other words, his pets. check-it!

ok, all the links i had up my sleeve. for now.

Unflappable

2009-02-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

i figure i am seven levels of hell above skid row.
and nine miles below unflappable.

hiding out for seven yrs from the cultural revolution
that is going on here, big usa,
& nine months back in with it, now.

a lower-level poet on an unstoppable high.
sighting crimes and having things recited me,
i am not not paid enough to wear my own poker face
in the face
of whats most shocking
ovall, really,
gaping open humanity.

we take in what comes, even swiftly
process,
but each time a wicked thing
our way comes we are taken
if mildly,
aback.

i want to be taken aback over and
again, lest i become unflappable,
or, am ready to don an award-
winning poker face.

New Book Identity Crises

2009-02-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Identity Crises contains a poem each by Doug Manson, Jesus Crisis & Bree, named such because they are rather emotional poems by reasonably young poets. The combination is fast-paced, heavy-hitting.

Doug Manson edits the on again off again tribute mag Celery Flute, on everything Patchen.

Jesus Crisis edits the online mag and blog CrisisChronicles.com, and hosts Tuesday night readings "Lix & Kix" in Cleve.

If u wld like a copy please send four dollars tucked into an envlope to Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Rd., Cleveland Hts., OH 44118

Crater Cleveland Erie: a Poets' Indirectory

2009-02-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

Green Panda Press announces the release of
“Crater Cleveland Erie: a Poets’ Indirectory vol.1 .09”

being the submissions by several poets of phone and or addies, plus a hand of on-goings, for poets to reach poets, and as a resource for hosts of venues. the book is named after the regulation NBA court-sized crater which lived for a time on our Public Square.

while there are not poems in this stapled chap, excerpted are the words of Atkins, Crisis, Lang, & Thompson, on calling out. it is a fairly tongue in cheek produxn, as phone directories are rather passé now; in fact many poets chose to give their email in lieu of the digits.

two dollars gets you this book, unless you need it shipped.
one dollar from each will go to The Lit, as much-needed funds.

the books are available at Mac’s Backs and Visible Voice bookstores for two dollars, or by tucking three dollars into a letter mailed to Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Road Cleve. Hts., OH 44118

if you wish to make a larger donation to The Lit, or want several copies, make out a check to Green Panda Press, and the donation will be made in your name.

thanks, Bree

New Book Who's Handling Your Aubergines by George Wallace

2009-01-22T15:51:00.000-08:00

Green Panda Announces George Wallace's new book: Who's Handling Your Aubergines. Mr. Wallace writes such evocative poetry, i often have physical reactions. my head tics, i shrink against the couch. i smile, i think "yes!" and "yes!" some more. if u are unfamiliar, perhaps u have read Whitman or Ginsberg. these guys wld be inspired, i bet, by reading or hearing George Wallace poems.

Wallace came to Cleveland for Kenneth Patchen Fest in 2007. there he befriended several locals, and had a chance to meet poets Charles Potts, and Tom Kryss; folks he got right along with. Then he performed among others, his Big America poem to a gushing audience at Fest Ecstatique, in Norhtampton, MA later that year. Soon, this late Spring, in fact, he returns to Cleve for "tres versing the panda: 3 days of poetry soiree," may 8, 9, &10.

you can get acquainted with his work by purchasing Who's Handling, and be sure to come and see Wallace and twenty-some other fine pandarizin' poets give it to the man and woman in the fisted form of live words. o, he can style it babies.

get it at abe: http://www.abebooks.com/
or mailing me greenpandapress@gmail.com $6.00, cheap and MAD.

i fire the apathetic (after

2009-01-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

I eat the apathetic for breakfast.
I take a pitchfork to the eye
Of the apathetic.
I pretend it was an accident when
I turn and meet a four hundred degree
Pan against the prone forearm of the
Apathetic, but it
Wasn’t.
I take the apathetic’s mother out
For e coli breakfast.
But this is only after fondling
The apathetic’s mother’s
Bible, in the corpse seat of
Her husband’s hearse.

I am all about the pathetic.

I prefer apes.

Synthetic garments, I stick my
Arms in the holes of now.

A path so worn there are arm-holes in the lining wood.
The would-tic, of the clock, all seconding what
Zeal and zest good
Worker bees have
Got, I sting the apathetic; leave no honey for.

I have about had it with apathy. I have barely
Even been acquainted with telepathy,
But still I know the future’s wrought with
Scenes of me giving it to the apathetic.

And I would, might, even. After this cigarette.

was chicken trax movements

2009-01-17T19:42:00.000-08:00

so this week i made the last chops and flourishes
on the forthcoming book "was chicken trax amid sparrows tread:
poems and one long movement by Bree".

special thanks to Adam Brodsky, who has lain the pages and
designed the look inside. Jim Lang gave great photo to the
front cover of the book, and Brian Bodnar shot me and some
toilet paper rolls for the back cover.

the book is 20 poems on Winter, Cleveland, and the intimation
of nature where man has took over, or weather has blanketed
green life. they are on lifting the blanket, or knowing what's
beneath without fingering.

then you got a fairly long non-fic about my ass bleeding,
and me growing up finally. in it i get health insurance for the
first time in my adult life, and flash back on docs growing up,
and on strange relations with teachers and camp counselors.
auto-bio by the by o there are some correlating poems
to follow.

Temple Books of Walla Walla, WA is the kind folks to put this
baby into hands of readers. they want ten bucks for it, 132 pages,
perfect-bound as your mother in her apron.
stay tuned, not quite sure which month it comes.

Crater Cleveland Poets Directory

2008-12-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

be included in the Greater Cleveland Poets Directory 2009...

since not everybody is web-savvy Michael Gill kindly put a call in the SCENE this week, and mentions the deadline January 15, 2009. why wait?

the book will include poets' contacts, so other poets can reach them, and to give hosts and MCs a reference when seeking poets for gigs and showcases. it also shall list various ongoing events, to be a resource for poets new to the town, or looking to catch a public friendly event.

of course i will make it into a Panda style pub.

if you would like to list your company or venue site or press, this is welcome too.
so send now! this wil be available by Feb. 1, at some local bookstores.
mail me at greenpandapress@gmail.com

Yahoo Offers Some Trifling Headlines, Right?

2008-12-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

The Most Likely Reason For That Gondola Accident.
The Reason Women Sometimes Leave A Faucets Sharp Hairs On
Cold Clean PorceLain
I Lain I Lain Eye Lane:

It Were The Car Wheels,

Or Brakes Squeaking,
Was It Every Car In The Area
Squeaked The Stops
My Nightwalk?

Squeaking Kept Bringenening Me Back To,
And I Waking Still Walking.

It Was Inferred That Green Moon Ringing Lids Orange A While.
There Had Been The Suggestion Of A Buckling Beneath That
Ladyskirt, Worn For Days.

A Big Green Bus Barrelled Thru Almost Into Me And Thank God
For All The Ice He Didn’t Slide.

There Went The Absence Of Sqeaking.

The Stockings Net Unshimmied A Hot Leg While The Lady Skirted Steaks.
A Man Handed Thru His Peppered Locks, & Sat To Reopen A Moot Letter Instead.
There Were Reactions Mixed To The Beat-On, Paralyzed Woman
Who Sued Her Ruscuer,
And Them Were Mixed Like A
Coffin In A Dam.

True I Walked Once In A Dam Surrounded
By The Buried. The Same Gondola Was Pried Open
I Imagine, The Night I Avoided Helicopter Beams
By Running To The Next Good Shadow, Beside The
Next Big Carved Granite Hunkola.
Memorials.
Someone Fell Out Of A Boat, And Now We Are All
Supposed To Consider The Consequences Before
We Go Fish.

New Book Water Said

2008-12-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

an anthology of 8 for o-eight, Water Said starts and ends with eyes, (Scott Tammaro/d.a. levy), and contains poems by Langston Hughes, George Wallace, Hank Beukema, Tom Kryss, Bree & Steve Goldberg. a shot of slickered folks crossing near Niagara Falls shot by Brian Bodnar's on the wraps. stapled chappie, barely legal sized.

the gist of the poem is 'we's Americans'. a generous gist it is.

get a copy!
i will make eighty ovem for eight /o eight o eight is a good number....several available NOW. $5 includes shipping and bitty books inserted fer gratis.
inquire : greenpandapress@gmail.com

Work Joke

2008-12-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

So for our work x-mas party, our managers are renting a dead horse,
so we can all take turns beating it.

That is my joke for 2008.

2008-12-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

Steve Goldberg sent me several poems, several months late, for an anthology i never made. (turned into a serial, really). it was to be called Crater Cleveland Erie: a Cleve. on Cleve. produxion, named after the NBA court sized crater which lived for a time in our Public Square, and formatted after an old La Charity. Goldberg's poem Nothing Else I Can Do (for Terry Provost) was finally printed by Green Panda Press as vol. iv of Cleve. on Cleve. series. i mispelled his name on the title page. sent about 80 of these blundered gate-fold broads into the wider world outside my smokehouse. i have not yet printed a corrected version, as i promised him. but i sure do think about doing so! tonite i began a true attempt at the next compile.
in my searches i found this Goldberg ditty, mentioning me!

Commuting Musing

Refreshed after a rare full night’s rest
no boozing, no porn, no project
to sap the strength needed to battle the mundane.

Settled to Bree poems, set so beautifully
listening to the singing in my head
word and letterplay frolicking thru my eye
the tones chasing the worry of not understanding away
It didn’t matter and sleep slid silkily in.

Awoke thinking of Sparta
How that happens is a delightful mystery
that has me giggling in the shower
and while I make my lunch sandwich.

It carries me as I drive against
the heavy traffic and the two headed
red coin flipping in my mind.
The promise of love and the agony of hate
is left spinning

Then I’m punched in the nose by a skunk’s final volley
in his last stand against a careening car,
the winner oblivious to his victory
and the rest of us
just collateral damage.

SBG 5-17-007

when someone writes on you, it is not immediately clear what lies in them words. it is like looking at yourself on acid in a mirror, alone. when i was 18 i dropped some, and looked, and there was a rather feminine, blue dinosaur blushing back.
this Goldberg (aka Golberg) is a poet--heck, a staple in this his and my city known for poets. i appreciate his forthcomingedness, and candor. you can get his juices flowing with your own damn poems by attending Thursday night readings at the Lit Cafe in Tremont. he is like ta be flowing on grey city sunshine, or beer, depending.

abe linkin

2008-12-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

Green Panda titles are now available for perusal and purchase at www.abeb ooks.com -whether you would like to pick up a copy of Katie Daley's 'Dear You,' (2008) a cple bones, or Michael Ceraolo's 'Cleveland Haiku' (2004) for twenty ballerinas, or simply see what sort of titles are out there, you can go to the abebooks advanced search page, and under publisher put Green Panda Press.

(i saw this dude to th right on Coventry road... the Real Green Panda?)

jupiter, venus, the moon o my

2008-12-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

Green Panda wishes to thank folks involved in Sixteen Floors Above the Ground: a Benefit for the Sudanese Lost Boys of Cleveland, which went down November 22, 2008 at The Lit in my town. poets, artists, businesses and orgs drew together grass-roots to raise awareness about some cats ekeing it out in Browns town, having survived crocs and genocide in their native Sudan. we raised a pretty penny they can throw towards citizenship and education. it may have been some attendees' first poetry sit-down. there was song and response, & Catholic nuns mixing with Buk fans, over art and xmas ales. here was an example of what community means.

i wrote this poem for the occasion,

Think fondly of Eachother
This is what we are
Eachother

Also know we are alone together
And will die the same
Alone

Madness:
in the cooler
of the mind,
the elevators
corridors and yes the
sole stairwalker
even now he whistles
thinking fondly of eachother

A leaf drags along the ground for miles

(eachother)

A cricket intermittently makes an announcement

‘Eachother’

What it is we share
When we mow each our own

When we type for one

When we meet the mailman
At the door it is in unison

Turn madness into roars
Of joking with eachother
Tears paper thin the walls of
Anger at eachother like
Birthday cakes and chicken
With butter for eachother
For this is what we are

-Bree