Albany Poets Present!, October 6

This actually happened this month, it wasn't just a couple of us guys sitting around the bar at Valentines drinking beer & talking trash; poets, other poets from elsewhere, actually showed up. So el presidente! (Thom Francis) had to actually be the host & pass around an actual sign-up sheet & all the other stuff you have to do when poets actually show up to read. Damn!

I was the first up & read a couple very old break-up poems, the kind of feelings I don't even worry about anymore -- the Hank Williams pastiche "This Feels So Bad It's Got to be the Blues," & the vindictive "Heartbreaker." Jim Clark & his girlfriend (who read later) were just hanging out at the bar when a poetry open mic broke out so he "read" a couple of his songs, the waking-up drunk song, "My Right Arm," & the sad love-song, "Blue Eyes."

Mike Purcell has been showing up at local readings lately, reading his philosophical/political musings. Tonight he mused on our "-ness" in "What Species are You?" He introduced "Thoughts on Words, Volume 1" as "short" -- not! He brings a certain prosaic philosophical pondering to the stage. R.M. Engelhardt read "Words" which I think is included in one of his books, or at least another poem by the same title, & a poem about looking for the next love.

Dain Brammage was back reading "Smashed" (I mean that was the poem's title) from his iPhone, then "Current" playing on the meanings of the word with images of demons & electric guitars. Primrose Coke (she said that was her name) as another new voice, this one with a British accent, read a couple pieces from her notebook: twisted English images, & a description of a guy she met in the woods.

You never know from where folks are going to show up & tonight we were fortunate that enough showed for a reading -- Yeah! Every first Tuesday at Valentine's near where New Scotland Ave. begins in Albany, about 8PM.