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The 2006 Poetry & Stout will be on March 11.
Save the date, see you then!

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

-- Richard Brautigan

What Would Freud Say?

Wasn't on purpose that I drilled
through my finger or the nurse
laughed. She apologized
three times and gave me a shot
of something that was a lusher
apology. The person
who drove me home
said my smile was a smeared
totem that followed
his body that night as it arced
over a cliff in a dream.
He's always flying
in his dreams and lands
on cruise ships or hovers
over Atlanta with an erection.
He put me to bed and the drugs
wore off and I woke
to cannibals at my extremities.
I woke with a sense
of what nails in the palms
might do to a spirit
temporarily confined to flesh.
That too was an accident
if you believe Judas
merely wanted to be loved.
To be loved by God,
Urban the 8th
had heads cut off
that were inadequately
bowed by dogma. To be loved
by Blondie, Dagwood
gets nothing right
except the hallucinogenic
architecture of sandwiches.
He would have drilled
through a finger too
while making a case for books
on home repair and health.
Drilling through my finger's
not the dumbest thing
I've done. Second place
was approaching
a frozen gas-cap with lighter
in hand while thinking
heat melts ice and not
explosion kills asshole. First
place was passing
through a bedroom door
and removing silk that did not
belong to my wife.
Making a bookcase is not
the extent of my apology.
I've also been beaten up
in a bar for saying huevos
rancheros in a way
insulting to the patrons'
ethnicity. I've also lost
my job because lying
face down on the couch
didn't jibe with my employer's
definition of home
office. I wanted her to come
through the door on Sunday
and see the bookcase
she'd asked me to build
for a year and be impressed
that it didn't lean
or wobble even though
I've only leaned and often
wobbled. Now it's half
done but certainly
a better gift with its map
of my unfaithful blood.

Bob Hicok

Postcard from the Party - Wyn Cooper

You have to be invited, and there's nothing
you can do to be asked. Headlines and bloodlines
don't help. It's a long way from home but I'm
here, the view much better than I'm used to.
How did this happen? Dumb but good luck,
right place and time, the planets aligned.
No contract, no deadline, no risk.
And what did I do to deserve this? Slept with all
the wrong people, gambled too much on friends
of friends with light bulbs over their heads.
Wrote every day no matter what.

Fun - Wyn Cooper

"All I want is to have a little
fun
Before I die," says the man
next to me
Out of nowhere, apropos of
nothing. He says
His name's William but I'm
sure he's Bill
Or Billy, Mac or Buddy; he's
plain ugly to me,
And I wonder if he's ever had
fun in his life.

We are drinking beer at noon
on Tuesday,
In a bar that faces a giant car
wash.
The good people of the world
are washing their cars
On their lunch hours, hosing
and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts and
suits.
They drive their shiny Datsuns
and Buicks
Back to the phone company,
the record store,
The genetic engineering lab,
but not a single one
Appears to be having fun like
Billy and me.


I like a good beer buzz early
in the day,
And Billy likes to peel the
labels
From his bottles of Bud and
shred them on the bar.
Then he lights every match in
an oversized pack,
Letting each one burn down to
his thick fingers
Before blowing and cursing
them out.


A happy couple enters the bar,
dangerously close
To one another, like this is a
motel,
But they clean up their act
when we give them
A look. One quick beer and
they're out,
Down the road and in the next
state
For all I care, smiling like
idiots.
We cover sports and politics
and once,
When Billy burns his thumb
and lets out a yelp,
The bartender looks up from
his want-ads.


Otherwise the bar is ours, and
the day and the night
And the car wash too, the
matches and Buds
And the clean and dirty cars,
the sun and the moon
And every motel on this
highway. It's ours you hear?
And we've got plans, so relax
and let us in -
All we want is to have a little
fun.
Copyright © 1987 Wyn Cooper

The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you? say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply. If they say we should get together.
say why? It's not that you don't love them any more.
You're trying to remember something too important to forget.
Trees.
The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do
with your time.

Danse Russe - William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

This is Just to Say - William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

The Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

The Way a Crow by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree.

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And save some part
Of a day I had rued.

The Pasture - Robert Frost

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue
I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

Rainer Maria Rilke - a quote

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that needs our love.

February Penseroso by Kosta Demos

Hard to leave bed, waking to snow
again.

Another season seems improbable when slathered
by this inexhaustible brush of gray
accompanied by the percussion of arthritic tree limbs
in the wind, or viewing yesterday's hope
- a lone bluet on the hillside
hard by my porch that fingered bravely through the slush
at noon, only to wither and curl like a lover
rebuffed by an unkind word at dusk.

Still, there persist hints of a warmer state
unswathed of wool and snot and endless variants
of cabbage. To whit: my daughter, unrestrained,
racing naked, heedless
through the frigid parlour, chortling
at the very notion of clothes, to raise high her hands
to the dawn, a universal letter Y, insistent
as new grass clutching for the sun.

Get This by Jan Heller Levi

I did not get this from any book...

I got this on trust and betrayal, I got this on trust
I got this on trust funds
on loan
with interest
I got this from inhale inhale inhale
exhale exhale exhale

I did not get this from blood, blood
means nothing, I did not get this from nature
or nurture...

I got this from mind that muscles
outmuscles heart...

I did not get this from any book come into my library
said the spider to the fly
open any book
it will tell you that I did not get this from it
even if I burn it I will have this
even if I burn it
even if I burn.

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin...let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead.
Put crepe bows 'round the necks of public doves,
Let traffic policemen wear black, cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East, my West.
My working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour out the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Variations on an Old Standard by A.E. Stallings

Come let us kiss. This cannot last-
Too late is on its way soon-
And we are going nowhere fast.

Already it is after noon,
That momentary palindrome.
The mid-day hours start to swwon-

Around the corner lurks the gloam.
The sun flies at half-mast, and flags.
The color guard of bees heads home,

Whizzing by in zigs and zags,
Weighed down by the dusty gold
They've hoarded in their saddlebags,

All the summer they can hold.
It is too late to be too shy:
The Present tenses, starts to scold-

Tomorrow has no alibi,
And hides its far side like the moon.
The bats inebriate the sky,

And now mosquitoes start to tune
Their tiny violins. I see
Rising like a grey balloon,

The head that does not look at me,
And in its face, the shadow cast,
The Sea they call Tranquility --

Dry and desolate and vast,
Where all passions flow at last.
Come let us kiss. It's after noon,
And we are going nowhere fast.

The Maid on the Shore by Stan Rogers

There is a young maiden, she lives all a-lone
She lived all a-lone on the shore-o
There's nothing she can find to comfort her mind
But to roam all a-lone on the shore, shore, shore
But to roam all a-lone on the shore'

Twas of the young Captain who sailed the salt sea
Let the wind blow high, blow low
I will die, I will die, the young Captain did cry
If I don't have that maid on the shore, shore, shore ...

I have lots of silver, I have lots of gold
I have lots of costly ware-oI'll divide,
I'll divide, with my jolly ship's cres
If they row me that maid on the shore, shore, shore ...

After much persuasion, they got her aboard
Let the wind blow high, blow low
They replaced her away in his cabin below
Here's adieu to all sorrow and care, care, care ...

They replaced her away in his cabin below
Let the wind blow high, blow low
She's so pretty and neat, she's so sweet and complete
She's sung Captain and sailors to sleep, sleep, sleep ...

Then she robbed him of silver, she robbed him of gold
She robbed him of costly ware-o
Then took his broadsword instead of an oar
And paddled her way to the shore, shore, shore ..

Me men must be crazy, me men must be mad
Me men must be deep in despair-o
For to let you away from my cabin so gay
And to paddle your way to the shore, shore, shore ...

Your men was not crazy, your men was not mad
Your men was not deep in despair-o
I deluded your sailors as well as yourself
I'm a maiden again on the shore, shore, shore ...

When You are Old by W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Who Goes with Fergus? by WIlliam Butler Yeats

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.
And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love’s bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,I
n a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)T
hat the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.