Reading at Beyond Baroque

I’ll be reading from my new book, Death Obscura at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd, on Nov 5th a Friday night, 7:30. I'm reading with two other wonderful poets, Diane Martin and Millicent Borges Accardi. I think they charge seven bucks to get in, but it's well worth the price . Hope to see you there.

Here's one of the poems I'll be reading

The Silences

for Deborah

She didn’t speak for twenty-four hours.

This was the first silence she insisted on.

Everything she needed to say was stored

in the cupboard with the thin-lipped

wine glasses that we never used.

Though I don’t remember if she did

actually need to say anything.

The second silence was mine,

not a word for twenty-four hours.

I should have mentioned it earlier, this was her idea.

I should also mention this wasn’t meant to suggest

that she was tired of my voice,

at least this was the last thing she said

before saying nothing. I tossed everything

I needed to say in the corner of the bedroom

with the dirty laundry. And like the dirty laundry

it was soon cleaned. The third silence,

this silence, we shared. Remember,

this was her idea, not mine.

Mine was to sing to each other during sex.

Didn’t even have to be the same song.

I was planning on Italian folk songs.

Early rock and roll would have been her choice,

something by her favorite, The Del-Vikings.

The first time I disrobed for her

she sang, “who am I, the voodoo man;
who am I, the voodoo man.” Thus my guess

on what she would have sung.

But she preferred silence.