POETSWEDNESDAY & More

Joe Salerno reads his work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvsX5wLWkeo

Jon,

Thank you for sharing this with me, so that I could pass it along.

Interesting stuff...

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/index.htm

global warming

Sacrifice by Deborah LaVeglia

Step right up ladies and gentlemen.

Sick?  Failing?  National tragedies got you down?

You can buy your way to success, health and safety.

There’s a pretty plastic card for every issue:

green, gold, platinum, black, blue,

take one, take ‘em all.

See the brilliant array of colors before you,

enough to soothe a savage,

to give a moment of hope,

allow fleeting belief and faith to flash

before your eyes.

We have changed our collective mantra from

do without, to

have it all.

Sugar and fat are bad for you:

Eat ‘em up.

Gas costs are rising:

Fill up.

Ride instead of walk.

Buy more than you need.

Don’t stretch things out.

It’s been backwards day

in this nation for generations.

Where are the ration books of 2008?

Where is the will to give up?

St.  Anthony, where is our strength?

We have misplaced it and want to fill the void

with fear and hate and baubles galore.

Shop for your country.

Don’t sacrifice,

better to gorge

like lost hungry ghosts,

with no end to our appetite in sight.

Laura Boss

Laura Boss  is a 1994 first place winner of the Poetry Society of America's Gordon Barber Memorial Award.  Founder and editor of Lips, she was the sole representative of the USA in 1987 at the XXVI Annual International Struga Poetry Readings in Yugoslavia.  Her awards for her poetry also include Fellowships in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State in 1999, 1992, and 1986 and an American Literary Translator’s Award  (funded through the NEA) for her book On the Edge of the Hudson (Cross-Cultural Communications).Her books of poetry include Stripping(Chantry Press), the prize-winning On the Edge of the Hudson and Reports from the Front (Cross-Cultural Communications, 1995).  Her latest book is Arms: New And Selected Poems (Guernica, Editions, 1999.  Her poems have recently appeared in The New York Times.  In 1998 her manuscript was one of ten finalists in the country in PSA's Di Castagnola Award. Sample poems 

PoetsWednesday At Barron Arts Center

http://www.twp.woodbridge.nj.us/BarronArts/programs.html

[email protected]

Poetry Series

PoetsWednesday at Barron Arts Center

http://www.twp.woodbridge.nj.us/BarronArts/programs.html

Somerset Poetry Group

For information on the Somerset Poetry Group please hit the link below

http://www.libraryinsight.com/calendar.asp?jx=nj

or write to Bob at

[email protected]

Joe Salerno

http://www.italianamericanwriters.com/salerno.html

Joe Salerno's Poem Near Midnight

I let go slowly the weight

Of another day. Leaving my scattered desk,

I open the window for a little air--

A new rain quiets the streets.

There is only the soft, splashing sound

Of a few cars driving past

On the avenue. And below me, suddenly,

A man's voice, so vivid

As I listen to him talking, saying good-bye

In the rainy night, until a car door

Slams shut and I'm alone again.

And I keep on listening, feeling the day

Running out, near midnight,

And the noises from outside coming in--

The whole, restful city

Like a woman's delicate hands

Over my ears; until even a siren, far off,

Thins out into a thread of spiritual

Music. And something is gone from inside me;

A ghost, or the days I have lived out

The wrong way. Something finally lifted.

                                                --from Only Here