Selections from When the Catfish Are In Bloom: Requiem for John Fahey by Ed Frankel

Born in 1939 in Maryland, John Fahey pioneered the use of traditional country and blues finger picking to showcase the acoustic steel string guitar as a solo instrument that could play a mix of traditional and non-traditional musical genres. He collaged ideas associated with Bartok, Charles Ives, Indian and Gamelan

Chalk It Up To Love by Ed Frankel

And then, hooked up to tubes and oxygen,
She was screaming, catch me Joey, I’m falling!
I picked her up, the heft and weight
Of rabbit bones wrapped in silk,
I’ve got you Rose I’ve got you.

RITUALS by Lynn Bey

1.

Our mother calls me to come and look at her. That is how we begin.

“Say something,” she says. She tries to sound petulant, but her image in the full-length mirror makes her smile.

“A sheath,” I offer, cross-legged on the floor. I hold a pillow on my lap despite the heat.

Bread & Tablecloths by Sergio Ortiz

 

                                                     for Lawrence King, 1992-2007

Teens bully deans, bash

desks like Queens christen ships,

ORBIT by Melissa Mason

And it seemed that, just a little more—and the solution would be found, and then a new, beautiful life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that the end was still far off, and that the most complicated and difficult part was just beginning.

Anton Chekhov

Soul’s Call by Jonathan Emrys

A Poem of Premonition: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The crows collect

in front of my window.

They call for souls

Reversal of Aging by Laurie Barton

My clarinet squeaked
in a chorus of sick geese.

Avoiding Her Art by Eugenie Theall

We celebrate New Year’s Eve in San Salvador, city of

hammocks,