Are you a centrist?

Not everyone who is protesting is a leftist. Many are simply appalled at the first acts of an out-of-control ego maniac. I think if my mother-law were alive she’d say, “That man swats house flys with a sledge hammer.”

If you are a centrist, I urge you to let your voice be heard, to balance the right wing view that we’re all liberal Commies (or whatever they call us). In any case, and still in the hope of providing some respite, a poem by Danusha Lameris:

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
Continue reading “Are you a centrist?”

Danusha Laméris

lamerisI was so lucky to read with Danusha Laméris at the Poetry World Series last May. This is from her book, The Moons of August. If you don’t know who Temple Grandin is, her book is worth reading, too.

Interview

for Temple Grandin

She said it was because she could think like a cow.
That maybe the autism helped her understand
how to design the curved corrals
so they’d flow more easily through the gates.

The harness that held the dairy cow waiting to be milked
made sense to her. She wanted to be inside it, to feel the world
pressing away, something not a human touch. Continue reading “Danusha Laméris”

Batter up

You may remember I mentioned the Poetry World Series, an annual event at the Mill Valley Library.  This event, organized by Becky Foust and Melissa Stein (below), combines poetry with the structure of a baseball game.

2016-05-06 21.10.36There are two teams of three poets each, an emcee, and judges. This is inning eight, the gracious and funny Matthew Siegel and I were pitched the phrase “zoo animals.” For each inning, the audience “pitches” topics, and one poet from each team “bats” their poem at the topic, no prep beforehand. We even each have walk up music.

Dean Rader was the charming emcee, and I was on the red team (note my borrowed red Diablo’s baseball shirt and cap), Continue reading “Batter up”