Invocation of the Muse, January 3

This year is already improving — there is booze at The Fuze Box. Not any more chairs in the big empty, character-less box, no music stand, not even a big podium like in the early days of the QE2, but the poetry was good, new readers, new favorites, old-time favorites, like a metaphor for the turning of the year. The M/C is R.M. Engelhardt. 

When I arrived there were a handful of poets signed up, even for #1, & that poet was Gary Murrow, but I didn’t see him in the half-dozen or so poets hanging out. Gary was around the poetry scene at open mic venues, including Valentines on New Scotland Ave. where Rob ran open mics under various names, but Gary dropped out of the scene, except for submissions to the AlbanyPoets online zine Up the River. I haven’t seen him since long before the pandemic.

Rob introduced the night by reading a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, most of which were pieces imbedded in his much more famous fantasies; apparently this day was Tolkien’s birthday in 1892. Then Rob introduced Gary Murrow but there was no response. I volunteered to read in Gary’s place, having some of his poems in my the morass of poetry in my briefcase. I read Gary’s “Match.com,” “Masters of Fine Arts,” & “Theology Class,” which was dedicated to our host, R.M. Engelhardt, & was written in the style (& theme) of a number of his poems.

The next reader was a first timer here at The Fuze Box, Laura Johnson with a love poem in the form of a Villanelle titled “Skyline,” then another about a female love & drugs & religion. Pat Williams was another 1st timer with a poem about looking into “The Mirror,” another titled “The Meat Grinder” (& guys know what that is).

Joe Krausman has been coming around to open mics here since this place was the punk rock club the QE2 (is it now “post punk”?), read 2 pieces, “Suit Yourself, a Biography” of a doctor escaping to Mexico to die; then his own story in a piece titled “On Being Unemployed in My 40th Year.”

Our host, R.M. Engelhardt read next a couple of poems, for which his reading glasses were tinted, causing him problems later in deciphering the sign-up sheet; his first poem was titled “Poem 113” a grim meandering portrait of John Berryman, then another grim — & preachy — poem “The Blood in Tribulation.”

The featured reader, Brett Petersen, was next, who inexplicably donned an outfit that made him look like the Pepto Bismol Bunny (if there is such a creature). He had copies of his book of short stories, The Parasite from Protospace & Other Stories (CLASH Books, 2020), from which he didn’t read, for sale. Instead, he read a variety of pieces, the first one titled “Mirtazapine” (a common drug used to treat depression), which Brett said “didn’t help,” the piece a series of outrageous images perhaps from a dream or just trying to be outrageous. The piece “Aberrations, Part 2” he said was based on a song his band, Raziel’s Tree, a “sludge rock” group, then one titled “Meme,” & piece he said was from a Twitter post “A Symphony for the Vlad.” He ended with an ad lib that sounded like everything else he had read, random stacks of images strung together, this one, perhaps responding to Rob’s introductory reading of Tolkien, playing on the word “hobbit.” I did buy the book -- support your local poet.

Back to the open mic, the next reader was Matéo, who began with an untitled love poem, then on to long Slam piece (I don’t know if it was only 3 minutes, but it seemed longer) about a relationship argument, “40 Things I Wasn’t Allowed to Say.” Austin Houston considered himself in a mirror, wondered “what is poetry” his answers were the things of life, not literary, then, again a mirror, this time considering why we do the things we do.

Lila Grace was a (poetry) virgin when she walked in, but not when she walked out, read a sexy love poem perhaps titled “If Greed is a Sin…,” then continued with another love poem. Maurice has been lurking here & tonight continued with a poem from his work-in-project “Park Bench Poems,” that he read from last month, poems written for strangers — I'm looking forward to the chapbook.

Next poet Rob introduced was Priya Love, he said he couldn’t read the sign-up sheet, but perhaps that was due to tinted reading glasses. Priya read lyrics for hip hop pieces, the first “Change Free Money” dreaming big & looking for riches with forced rhymes & shouting, then a “free style” with more dopey rhymes, on the same theme of making it big in the hip-hop scene — good luck. The last reader was another regular here, John D. who has a project, he said, of reading his poems here, in random order read “Wait, Panic” & “Invocation.”

Invocation of the Muse has carved out its niche in the poetry month on the 1st Monday of the month at The Fuze Box, 12 Central Ave., Albany, NY, 7:30PM sign-up, 8:00 start, with a featured poet & an open mic for the rest of us. & there's booze for all us drunkard poets.