Twenty-Eighth Post

REMINDER: I'm reading at the Ear Inn on Saturday Oct. 15th. read about it here: http://www.mbroder.com/ear_inn/index.html

You know, Red China's a great magazine. They aren't afraid not to have all their eggs in one basket. In fact, they're egg stealers, if they like a given egg at a given moment, they up and put it in their basket and if you ask them why they took your egg they just give you this look.

here's a link so you can see what the hell I'm talking about: http://www.redchinamagazine.com/home.htm

Also, Michael Broder put up my pretty little picture on his blog and I thank him for it. It made me feel, if only for a moment, like Greta Garbo. I have no idea why I mention this. I'm coming off a really strong nicotine high.

I'm gonna keep mentioning my reading until the day after. Sorry, Charles.

My friend Cutty (aka Red China editor Alex Smith) and I wrote some oddly religious collaborations last night and you get to take your pick from two of them. And yes, we had been drinking.

Here's OUR poems:

OBJECT THAT OFFERS
Alex Smith and Steve Roberts

An object darkens your glass.
Let us christen merrily
the imperial sands,
‘please’ we pray,
give light, forgive.
You, the alcove
of religious limits,
velveteen scarf.

Roots, remember the trespasses,
our shadowed legacy, our time
allotted. Bend
towards the home object.
When stupefied mumbling
becomes wisened. I
worship at the vineyards.
In deserts.


THE FINISHED
Alex Smith and Steve Roberts

Dead in the trench like an empty blood-coat.
An impossible wake,
an unlit match left stale in the box.

He says, “What the god, the
majestic carnie, said to me in the breaking dawn,
that FUCK is a god,
and I left my hat on the ground and found a church,

a cautious, beauteous place, slept
in the pew, rolled in a pocket of warmth
smelling salts, fresh soil.

I was happy that god hadn’t struck me deaf,
hadn’t smelt the blood in the mineral.
Crawling blind from the mine, I raised my hands.”