Rendition

Don McIver

1801 Gold Ave. SE

Albuquerque, NM 87106

Rendition

He never didn't address me as sir.

It was always, "Can you stand, sir?"

"Can you step over here, sir?

"Can you lean forward a bit, sir?"

He was short, stocky, built as if every muscle wanted to erupt from skin,

covered by a shirt whose buttons were decoration,

perfectly creased, not straining but sized

perfectly.

"I'm going to undo this, sir."

"Good...sir."

"Can you sign here, sir?'

"Oh...very well sir."

"That's a very strong hand, sir."

"The rest of this will be more worthwhile, sir."

The room seemed more like a grade school:

a plastic, too small, chair

a lone metal lamp with a 75 watt incandescent

that erupted shadows across the room.

"Sit here, sir."

"Can you drape your arms over this, sir?

"Now where were we sir?"

"Did you know him... sir?"

"He must've had that in the works for a while, sir?"

"Will his mother come and claim him, sir?"

"He will indeed be released, buried according to custom, sir."

The gloves were short,  stretched across his wrist by leather that seemed new.

Black leather stretched across his knuckles,

a wedding band pressed up underneath,

a small tattoo hid along his wrist as if whispering lattitude, the longitude by degree,

a marker that made me say,

He was not on speaking terms with his mother.

He wasn't.

Leave her out of this.

Please.

He stopped writing and stood up.

Pulled an oversize smock over his neck,

snapped his hands together like a brief applause,

and stared over the top of his glasses.

"Are those too tight, sir?"

"Can I get you some water, sir?"

"The lights might dim a bit, sir."

"This will feel a little cold, sir."

"The connections must be secure before we proceed, sir."

"This measuring your skin response, sir."

"I feel like I know you, sir."

"So, why would you detonate it there, sir?

September 21, 2011

Poetry & Beer 09072011

Poetry & Beer:   September 7th.

Wednesday marked another PnB, a full year of stirring up the format, trying to add community into the mix.  The format was basically an Open Mike, which we split into a group of 4 poets to kick off the show, and a group of 9 poets to end the show.   Sandwiched between that we had group reading of Dan Propper's "The Fable of the Final Hour" and a feature of David Rowe.   

I'm not sure how I found Dan Propper's poem, but what immediately struck me was how the structure lent itself to a group reading.  Since it basically counts up to 60 with the following, "In the first minute of the final hour..." it was pretty easy to divide the poem up into 60 sections and pass out 2-3 slips of paper to everyone in the audience.   I screened out people who weren't going to stay for the whole time, so probably had 22+ reading the poem.   No one got to see the whole poem.   While it was challenging to hear everyone (especially if people couldn't or didn't project) it was a pretty cool way to remember this poem.  I don't know if we set any sort of record, which I jokingly said we were doing, but I've certainly never been to a reading where the audience interacted in this fashion.   Besides being a neat way to hear the poem, I think it also served a good community function because you had to listen to everyone...the whole reading became something larger (at least for the duration of the poem-my guess was it took about 20 minutes to do it).   

We then welcomed our feature from New Orleans, David Rowe.   David is touring in support of his book "Unsolicited Poems" from Verna Press.  David has a very distinctive reading style..reminding me of the deliberateness of Bukowski mixed with the tonality of Jim Carroll.   For the record, that is a compliment.   His poetry was reminiscent of Bukowski, Kerouac, Burroughs and the delivery was pretty refreshing.  I'm not sure what I expected, but I know I really liked it.  

Next month we'll have an Open Mike, a feature of Adan Baca from Espanola, and Haiku Head-to-Head (yes there is a cash prize), so let me or Eric know if you want to sign-up.