BEFORE THE DAWN: The Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word / Performance Extravaganza - 2019 Anthology - First Edition. - Volume VI in a series. - 144 pages. - Trade Paperback. - American contemporary poetry anthology. Contact Information / Order Online: http://www.alternativenyd.org/ Rogue Scholars Press http://www.roguescholars.com Design and Layout: C. D. Johnson Publishers: Rogue Scholars Press Cover Art Figure: Marici, Buddhist Goddess Of The Dawn ISBN-10: 0-9840982-8-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-9840982-8-6 Copyright © 2019 by Rogue Scholars Press / ANYDSWPE Imprint All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations for reviewing purposes, this book or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, whether print or electronic, without permission in writing from the publisher and / or author(s). Published by Rogue Scholars Press New York, NY - USA The Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word / Performance Extravaganza! 2019 Anthology http://alternativenyd.org Before The Dawn CONTENTS V Acknoledgements 1 Austin Alexis — Time Travel 2 Joel Allegretti — The Man-Rat 3 Madeline Artenberg — At the Gorilla Forest, Bronx, NY 5 Dorothy Friedman August — Greetings 6 Yael Baron — The Viper Sonnets Part 1. 7 Jennifer Blowdryer — Manhattan Society 9 Ron Blum — Wake No More 11 Patricia Carragon — The End Of The World 13 YZ Chin — Reasons To Not Have Children 15 Lydia Cortes — The Uglier American Terrorist 17 Steve Dalachinsky — The Dance 18 Brana Dane — Surrender 19 Pete Dolack — Redwoods 20 Gabriel Don — Chill Like A Lizard 21 David Elsasser — At My Age 23 Bill Evans — Captains America 25 Bonny Finberg — Boy 26 Bryan C. Fox — Swordz 27 Dan Freeman — The Bully 29 Robert Gibbons — I Had My Own Sassafras (After Ntozake Shange) 31 K Hank — A Man & Festival 32 Jared Harél — Go So You Can Come Back 33 Bob Heman — Evening 34 Judith Lee Herbert — Seeking Enlightenment 35 Roxanne Hoffman — The Little Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoebox 37 David Huberman — Lonely Hearts (2007) 38 C. D. Johnson — Yoganidra - (Or) High, Passed-Out, And Dreaming At Temple 39 Icegayle Johnson — Pipe Bombs Shooting Massacre 41 Ted Jonathan — Dominion 42 Larry Jones — Prayer 43 Meg Kaizu — Drizzling Purple I ANYDSWPE 2019 Anthology CONTENTS Continued... 44 Hillary Keel — Tsunami Tango 45 Ron Kolm — Garbage Run 47 Ptr Kozlowski — [Untitled] 48 Sri Lal — Across Dark Water 49 Annie Rachele Lanzillotto — Zerega Blues 51 Jane LeCroy — Myo Genesis 52 Linda Lerner — Autumnal 53 Toni Mergentime Levi — Berlin Biennale 55 Phillip X Levine — Epitaphs, Orphans, And Oops 57 Piper Levine — Grimm Winter 59 Mindy Levokove — Reprisal (2018) 61 Tsaurah Litzky — Gratitude 62 Veronica Liu — Family Recipes 63 Ellen ‘Windy’ Aug Lytle — The Happy Life 65 Stan Marcus — Recovery Room 67 Peter Marra — Post-Operative Complications In A Honeymoon Motel 69 Nancy Mercado — 1st Curse 71 Yuko Otomo — Tempest 73 Eve Packer — vignette 74 Stella Padnos — Newcomer 75 Puma Perl — Fucking The Antichrist 77 Howard Pflanzer — In An Open Field 78 Su Polo — Secret Dream 79 Justin Reed — When It Rains 81 Marguerite Maria Rivas — Fear Itself 82 Robert Roth — Won’t Write A Great Poem Even If I Could 83 Thaddeus Rutkowski — The Bad Old Days 84 Sarah Sarai — What An Arroyo Can Do 85 Brian Sheffield — I Still Don’t Understand It 86 Danny Shot — Present 87 William Shunn — Tasting Notes 89 John L. Silver — Along The River II 91 Joanna Sit — Lilies 93 Miriam Stanley — The Twenty-Four Hour “Stomach Hurricane” II Before The Dawn CONTENTS Continued... 94 JM Theisen de Gonzalez — Balthazar 95 Claire Van Winkle — Admitting 97 Bruce Weber — Callous Numbers 99 Francine Witte — Fish Story 100 Jeffrey Cyphers Wright — Later Than You Think 101 Allan Yashin — We Used To Live Dangerously APPENDIX a-I Contributor Bios a-XV Alphabetical Index Of Poems a-XIX Colophon a-XXI Addendum Poster Graphics III Before The Dawn Acknowledgments 25 Years! Remarkable! I remember the first Alternative at Cafe Nico on Janu- ary 1st, 1995. Out Cold. Knock Out Punch. Larry Jones. Grace Period. 100 Performers. A full house. And now here we are at church. Through the kindness and generosity of the St. John’s Lutheran Church in the heart of the West Village. We come to you for the 25th time. So many performers through the years. So much support from Cafe Nico to the long gone CBGB’s. To the Knitting Factory. To the Bowery Poetry Club. To Dixon Place. To the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. To the here and now. To the now and here. To here and here and here. Thank you all. A verry special thanks to: Madeline Artenberg Lydia Cortes Pete Dolack C. D. Johnson Ptr Kozlowski Ellen Aug Lytle Su Polo Robert Roth Thad Rutkowski and Joanne Pagano Weber - Bruce Weber V Before The Dawn Austin Alexis Time Travel Step into the past; trot into the future. Merry-go-round yourself and jump off where you will, when you want. Grab a few years by the hips, by the nape and trek to a time not meant for you. Defy fate by escaping, by zooming into decades earmarked for someone other than yourself, into intervals percolating with warmth you were denied. You’ve been hoodwinked, dealt a refrigerated life, somehow cheated by the stingy planets, by the stupidity of luck, by the stars. 1 ANYDSWPE 2019 Anthology Joel Allegretti The Man-Rat After Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait with Whip (1978) I’m the spitting image of a king- Size Manhattan rat. Ever wonder If there are queer rats? I mean little Bitch rats that like to take a bull rat’s Hard rat dick in their pinprick rat ass. Rat-fucks on a West 14th St. loading Dock, sharing the meatpacking hours With trash-blond Gansevoort queens Hopping in and out of ‘75 Camaros With Jersey plates. Bottom rats rat- Squeaking in unlubricated-anal-sex Agony/ecstasy when the pumping Rat cocks spurt threads of hot rat Cum in the open-all-night rat holes. Top and bottom rats in post-climax Collapse. The bitch rats running off To pick up other bull rats, chattering In whatever passes for queer-rat code, ”Fuck my rat ass into jelly.” Now, That’s what I call giving a rat’s ass. 2 Before The Dawn Madeline Artenberg At the Gorilla Forest, Bronx, NY Three times I wave my right hand at the female gorilla, standing before me separated by a few inches of impenetrable glass. Each time I wave, she waits, as if deciding were I friend or foe, then picks up her left hand, palm open, folds it closed, brown eyes searching mine, as if she were someone’s grandmother come here from the Old Country, couldn’t speak the language, reaching out to her grandchild. My name and that odd little word OK were all my grandmother could say in English. All along our walks to the live poultry market, neighbors interrupted us— I never knew if she were the mayor or the gossip of our Bensonhurst block. They hugged my grandmother’s lumpy body; she filled their palms with slices of her famous blueberry cheese Danish, saving some for me. She would brush her leathery face across my cheek, kiss me on the forehead for being good, whisper sheine maidele. I didn’t understand, but the look in her eyes was sweet as her pastry. 3 ANYDSWPE 2019 Anthology The female gorilla stands before me, gray hair on her hips, one arm wrapped tight around two young ones, the other hand returning my final wave. I feel her warm brown eyes pulling at me as I walk away leaving her pressed to glass. 4 Before The Dawn Dorothy Friedman August Greetings Without pausing to explain the holocaust, what was brought and what was taken away I send greetings from two positions, your brothers among the robins and wild geese, and from Daddy, for whom you are a constant good girl. Greetings from the birds and the artillery, The birds warbling outside my window. The artillery in deep with nothing to say. 5 ANYDSWPE 2019 Anthology Yael Baron The Viper Sonnets Part 1. Lost alone. There’s no sun. The rain it cries. Unrooted love, a cherished treasure lost. Searching for answers believe me she tries. Belief Abandons, Pain too high a cost. Exposed flames of past hurt eat her inside. Spark’s reaction burn. All common sense dies. Cling to false hope. These chains must be untied. Held on too long illusions full of lies. Buried by the might of expectations. No way to escape this dead relation. Grew up in a house of confrontations. Trouble’s birthed by drama filled elation. Words doused in venom by Angry vipers. Hopes shattered by hurt and Heart’s own snipers. 6 Before The Dawn Jennifer Blowdryer Manhattan Society Quentin Crisp said he took his riches in people. He perfected the art of going to a café or greasy spoon in the UK, as a youth, and lingering for hours, chatting it up. Each person you chat with has value, is value, across the board. There’s no ‘us’ and ‘them’. Though his morning mantra was ‘Other people are a mistake’, he believed that they also represented the opportunity to hone one’s own style and patter. Endurance was a given. Crisperanto is a ‘good fit’ for me. Buddhism, not so much. One of my most painful experiences was when Tom Messmer took me to a Zen Temple in San Francisco. I thought he said it was a 15- minute meditation. How bad could it be? The rest might be an inspiring talk, or punchy verbal self- summations done round robin style.