Charles Plymell on Charles Plymell–part 4

CURRICULA VITA

Later we moved down to the Bowery and stayed with our friends in a loft. At that time, lofts were restricted spaces for artists to work, but we managed to live there with our daughter. Pam worked downtown and we put our daughter in day care in the Lower Eastside. There were no clinics or doctors in SoHo at the time and when she had crying fits, I would soothe her with wet cloths and watch Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.  Years afterward when we lived in D C area, lo and behold, Lady Aberlin from Mr. Rogers came to visit and stay overnight. She had married the poet, Seaborn Jones, from Georgia and they were on their way there. I commuted to Stamford Connecticut to teach High School. It was a well paying job, but I got an insight into compulsive state profitable monopoly rewarding non-performance enforced by police powers that I never forgot. It was a well-paying job and they waived my certification because of my graduate degree and my on-the-job experience as a printer (and they could find no one else to take such a position). It was a huge high-school complex larger than many colleges. They hired me to teach “Graphic Arts”.

RELAXING WITH THE FIVE SISTERS by Steven Gulvezan

Sunken cheeks, sunken eyes, pale sunless skin—
His portrait was painted upon the wall
And his portrait was blue…
Sprawled across the broken couch
In his basement room
He waited for his shift busing tables
At the Daisy May Diner to begin…
He beat the dough – mindlessly –
(It was the only pleasure he knew)
And gazed through his red-rimmed eyes
At the twilight falling
Through his tiny basement window—
He saw the summer legs of young girls
On the sidewalk outside slowly walking
And he dreamed and wished and prayed
So hard that…
He was with a pretty girl
Strolling along the boulevard
Holding hands and simply talking

Overhead Costs by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Jesus
is nailed
to the side
of the house
and I‘m afraid
to call the home
inspector.

If faulty shingles
and cracked siding
cost this much
to repair,
just imagine
how much it costs

to remove
a martyr.

low blue note by db cox

–— for Eddie Lyons… Feb. 24th, 1952—Sept. 22nd, 2010
…my good friend and fellow guitarist in “Blues You Can Use” for 15 years

there’s a decaying piano
in “the graveyard bar”
that nobody plays

whenever i feel
like i’m starting
to disappear
into the chorus
of gray-faced patrons
mumbling conspiracy claims
into their beer
i wander over
to the keyboard
& bend my ear
toward the strings
i hammer a low blue note
& jam the pedal
to the dusty dance floor
then i close my eyes
& listen
as that solitary
son-of-a-bitch echoes
out its monotone song
& i think about
friday nights
at the “downtown lounge”

i think about
sweet showers
of sound pouring
from the bells of a million
silver saxophones

i think about
a line
of thumping drums
running down the voodoo

i think about
rows of electric
strings ringing
behind a lone voice
singing “nothing left to lose”

i think about
mike & paul & me & eddie

i think about
blues—you—can—use

SMOKE JUMPER by Lucy Hell

Scrambled my mind
all the time
skinned alive
totally fried
acid coke booze sex
with girls
obsessed with self-destruction
went to see the Dead
lost my mind
but head would have rhymed
with false confidence
bad memories; I try to forget
because I’m a good girl now
all sins washed away
with self awareness
and experience …
smoke jumper
lift me high
above the flames
end the pain
of learned life lessons
introspective migraine truth
daily blues
I did not die for you
I could not dream
but still one existed
because of your touch
your offer
redemption
I beg for your forgiveness
and trust
a kiss
too loud
teach me silence
and maybe next time
Heaven will not be
so very far away.

SMOKE JUMPER by Lucy Hell

Scrambled my mind
all the time
skinned alive
totally fried
acid coke booze sex
with girls
obsessed with self-destruction
went to see the Dead
lost my mind
but head would have rhymed
with false confidence
bad memories; I try to forget
because I’m a good girl now
all sins washed away
with self awareness
and experience …
smoke jumper
lift me high
above the flames
end the pain
of learned life lessons
introspective migraine truth
daily blues
I did not die for you
I could not dream
but still one existed
because of your touch
your offer
redemption
I beg for your forgiveness
and trust
a kiss
too loud
teach me silence
and maybe next time
Heaven will not be
so very far away.

WAITING TABLES IN RENO by Doug Draime

40 years ago
she left him
while he was
getting his
leg blown off
in Nam

Now,
here she was
waiting tables
in Reno – not even
recognizing him –
after she almost
fell over his
prosthetic leg

“Keep your leg
under the table, sir,
I could’ve fallen and
broken something.”

Rusty Truck Nominations for Best of the Web

from November 2009-October 31, 2010

Jason Hardung…The Secrets of the Antiquarium

Charles Plymell …They Too May Embrace the Rattlesnake

A.D. Winans… Fourth of July Poem

Taking Notes by Luis Rivas

the smoke leaves their cigarettes
in thick, grey swirls, encircling the
gyrating, sweating, young bodies and
minds of san salvador, as entire
communities are left without political
representation, the poor left to fend for
themselves, as the old keel over from
dehydration and hunger, as skinny and
hungry dogs circle these bodies like
vultures, as relatives are murdered, as
the repression from the police rises and
falls like a wave, they dance to forget
they embrace and kiss and make love
passionately to remember that certain
things, every day growing fewer and
fewer still, are permanent and
untouchable and incorruptible,

and as a girl asks me to write a poem
describing this sentiment, the
contradictions of realities, the dichotomy
as she drinks her suprema and smokes
her delta with passion, but the poem has
already been written;

all i did was take notes.

A Working Man’s Library by RD Armstrong

Long before I ever
Knew I could write
Anything worth a damn
I began my library

Now it’s forty years
Later and I am selling
It off to pay the rent

I thought I would be
Happy to be rid of
The books that I no
Longer read
Their usefulness and
Purpose long since
Forgotten
Just some things I
Drag around out of
Habit

But I feel lost
As if I have sold
My children into slavery

And for what?
A few hundred dollars
And forty inches of
Shelf space