The author, Dane F. Baylis |
LET'S JUST SAY THIS IS A MIXED BAG
OR
THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVEN'T GOT A FAST IDEA
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I find myself being quickly drawn back into the fold, as it were. At last Thursday's reading in the Topping Room at the Foster library in downtown Ventura, I was asked if I'd be willing to be a stand-by host for the venue. Hell, it's far less work than most other things I do. Open the door, put out some chairs, set up a simple PA system and play MC for about an hour and a half. So, sure. Why not?
In the meantime, I find myself the recipient of an absolute torrent of correspondence on Facebook these days. Again, not too hard to take. Most of it is informing me of this, that, or the other event or venue and, in my own self-interest, and the interest of supporting a re-awakening literary scene in Southern and Central California, again, why not? As I've quipped any number of times, I'll show up for the opening...of a can of beer. I guess I can chalk it up to the network thing.
Then, throw on top of this the added fuel of several short fiction and poetry submissions in the U.S. and beyond, and an attempt to find a publisher for a chapbook or, dare I dream, a full volume of poetry, and things are even busier. (Anybody know of a decent, and tolerant, publisher or small press looking for new talent?)
What else could you cram in there? How about a new commitment to at least one fairly polished poem a week, along with my short fiction? Top it off with this blogging challenge, my studies through the Center for Buddhist Education in Berkeley, CA, a full time job that isn't in the arts or letters but does pay my bills, and there you have it.
Oh, except one other small thing (literally). I have discovered I have a gopher invading my gardens. Mind you, I can tolerate a lot of things, but I'm afraid this fellow has become a real nuisance - and a threat to my Bonsai! So I spent a fair amount of time flooding his burrow system in hopes of flushing him out. Who am I kidding, right? Ah, well, I needed something to channel my occasional angst towards. Sorry little guy - it will be you or me!
So, onward and upward. If I don't collapse somewhere along the way. I think I need a nap!
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ICONOGRAPHY
by
Dane F. Baylis
In her dark
In her convent
cell
Novice Mary Michael lies
on her pallet
A hand full of
Bible
Open to all the steam and
corruption
Those tawdry pre-Galilean
carpenter chapters
Ageless
testimony
Brimming with begatters
begetting and innocent loss
Condemned by the prude
Leviticus
Pushed to the desperate
Guilty hours
She shoves her other hand
against her habit
Filling it with
Herself
Riding a digital ticket to
wide eyed dreams of
Sinewy snake muscle
Beneath sweat sheen
Swarthy skin
Long lean Moses daddy
legs
Holding up a tiny -
Marched all the way from Pharaoh’s Egypt - Monkey butt
With Charlton Heston’s,
‘You’ve been a naughty girl’, baritone
Crooning
in the background
To her fantasy straddle,
back and forth gallop
Upon a golden
calf
Bearing her to the
altar
Where she can be scourged
like the wayward wanton
In De Sade’s agony to
freedom
She wants to kneel before
a Messiah
Wash his feet
Calves
Those delirious iron band
thighs
Flirting her hands across
his loin cloth
Yearning to be the
chalice
That takes the second
coming
And the bible tumbles to
the bed
As her hand strains to
heaven
In a hallelujah
moment
Before covering her face
to muffle
Sobs of guilty
elation.
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Meanwhile...live, love, write.
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