In view of the recent oil spill, I am reposting a poem I wrote several months ago.
North Chattanooga
Chicken wrap and fries
Six ninety-eight
All the lard you can eat
Fries clogging arteries
Of drivers as they clog
Traffic arteries burning
Oil and gas
Lawyers argue in Washington
Claiming their clients have
Already paid enough for
Letting a drunk run
Hard aground in
Prince William Sound
Oil polluting ocean water
Instead of Chattanooga Air
Where drivers burn oil
To get to Coolidge Park
A dragon kite flies mimicking
Fixed wing vultures though
The wooden slats give it a
Bat like appearance flying
Above pigeons and a gorgeous
Redhead throwing a Frisbee
Over her boyfriend’s Head
Beaning an innocent pigeon
The Park comes alive as lawyers
Prowl the sterile halls of justice
In Washington, stop to wash
And sanitize their hands
But can’t remove the oil
Of Prince William Sound as
It sticks to the money
In their wallets
They argue to limit damages
Paid to Alaskans twenty years
After the ship in the Sound
Ran aground killing herring
Killing the fishing economy
For twenty years as young men
Reach middle age and middle
Aged women reach retirement
But can’t sell their commercial
Fishing license with the economy
Gone to hell and who can tell
Them to switch to tourism
Since the oil killed the whale
Saturday, May 29, 2010
New Voices
New Voices: Where hot improvisational jazz meets the power of the spoken word: Pasha Coffee House, 3914 St. Elmo Avenue, the third Saturday of each month, 6:30 to 8:30 PM.
Meet The Undoctored Originals. They improvise transition music between speakers and continue improvising during the intermission. Their improvisations show changing rhythm patterns, melodic phrases and real time synergy that takes the audience to new realms. The instrumental interplay with spoken words culminates in an astonishing conclusion.
The Undoctored Originals include Dr. Jim Woodford, Keyboards, Dr. Bob Vogt, Saxophone, Billy Lowry, Drums, Ian Kibby, Euphonium, and Jack Gaillard, Congas. The June 19 event will include special guest Dr. Rich Fastiggi on guitar.
Participating Writers from the Chattanooga area have included Bruce Majors, E. Smith Gilbert, Veronique Bergeron, Julie Alexander, Mary Wier, Bob Dombrowski, Ray Zimmerman, N.L. Diwan, Ninian Williams, Mike Bodine, and others.
Meet The Undoctored Originals. They improvise transition music between speakers and continue improvising during the intermission. Their improvisations show changing rhythm patterns, melodic phrases and real time synergy that takes the audience to new realms. The instrumental interplay with spoken words culminates in an astonishing conclusion.
The Undoctored Originals include Dr. Jim Woodford, Keyboards, Dr. Bob Vogt, Saxophone, Billy Lowry, Drums, Ian Kibby, Euphonium, and Jack Gaillard, Congas. The June 19 event will include special guest Dr. Rich Fastiggi on guitar.
Participating Writers from the Chattanooga area have included Bruce Majors, E. Smith Gilbert, Veronique Bergeron, Julie Alexander, Mary Wier, Bob Dombrowski, Ray Zimmerman, N.L. Diwan, Ninian Williams, Mike Bodine, and others.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Rubbyat
Awake, for morning in the bowl of night
Hath flung the stone that puts the stars to flight
and low the Hunter of the Est hath caught
The Sultan's turret in a nose of gloden light
Omar Khayyam of Ancient Persia
This is the first of 88 Stanzas
Hath flung the stone that puts the stars to flight
and low the Hunter of the Est hath caught
The Sultan's turret in a nose of gloden light
Omar Khayyam of Ancient Persia
This is the first of 88 Stanzas
Saturday, May 8, 2010
A special place
A Special Place
Ray Zimmerman
© 2010
There is a special place in Hell
For people who design
Online forms.
The single mother, whose
public terminal shut down,
just before she completed
the unemployment application,
will dance on your fingers
as you dangle from a cliff,
from which you never fall.
If you designed a phone system
to intentionally prevent
the caller from speaking
to a human, you will forever
push buttons, that lead nowhere.
Para Español, marke el dos.
Lo siento mucho,
no habla español.
To obtain credit
for time spent in Purgatory,
press three.
If you have lost
your travel visa for Heaven,
press four.
Your call is very important to us.
Please be patient.
All demons are busy assisting
other Hell bound customers.
Ray Zimmerman
© 2010
There is a special place in Hell
For people who design
Online forms.
The single mother, whose
public terminal shut down,
just before she completed
the unemployment application,
will dance on your fingers
as you dangle from a cliff,
from which you never fall.
If you designed a phone system
to intentionally prevent
the caller from speaking
to a human, you will forever
push buttons, that lead nowhere.
Para Español, marke el dos.
Lo siento mucho,
no habla español.
To obtain credit
for time spent in Purgatory,
press three.
If you have lost
your travel visa for Heaven,
press four.
Your call is very important to us.
Please be patient.
All demons are busy assisting
other Hell bound customers.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Bumper Sticker
I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, "Socialism: a good idea until you run out of other people's money." By this definition, most financial endeavors in our society are socialist enterprises. Think of it, banking, finance, insurance, and the stock market all involve generating profits or loss (mostly loss these days) by taking unwarrented risks with other people's money.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
quotation
When Facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
- Sinclair Lewis
- Sinclair Lewis
Monday, April 5, 2010
read around Tennessee
Read Around Tennessee
Saturday, April 17, 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Winder Binder Gallery and Book Store
40 Frazier Avenue
Chattanooga’s North Shore
Sponsored by
Tennessee Writers Alliance
Chattanooga Writers Guild
Check Winder Binder on Facebook
Join us at Winder Binder for readings by area authors. Thanks to Winder Binder Gallery and Book Store for hosting us. Faux Bridge Festival by Winder Binder takes place the same day. Contact Ray Zimmerman, znaturalist@yahoo.com or 423-315-0721 for additional information about Read Around Tennessee, Chattanooga venue, or New Voices Poetry Readings.
Confirmed Participants in Read Around Tennessee – Reading in this order
Sybil Baker’s linked short story collection, Talismans, will be published by C & R Press in Fall 2010. She teaches literature and writing and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and will be reading from her novel The Life Plan http://www.sybilbaker.com/home.html
Penny Dyer is the recipient of the 2007 Oberon Poetry Prize, and the 2006 Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry. Her work also appears in Original Sin: The Seven Deadlies Come Home to Roost, SouthernReader, Poems Niederngasse, SouthLit, Arsenic Lobster, Dogwood, Oberon, and Narrative. Penny writes in several genres, and is at work on a poetry collection, Awaiting the Fall of Babylon, and a novel, How Sweet the Sound. Her poem “Summer Storm, 1963” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Bruce Majors grew up in East Tennessee, graduated from Tennessee Technological University, and is retired from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). He has published poems in Arts and Letters, Homespun Magazine, The Distillery, NCPS Pinesong, River Poets Journal, Number One, and other literary journals. His book, The Fields of Owl Roost, is an autobiographical collection of loosely related poems that has been said to capture the eccentricity of our imperfect world. It was named first finalist in the 2005 Indie Excellence Book Awards.
Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s first chapbook, Weed Over Flower, was chosen for publication by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in: Wicked Alice, can we have our ball back?, Literary Mama, Poetry Midwest, Boxcar Poetry Review, slant, Caesura, Gargoyle, ouroboros review, H_NGM_N, and other fine journals. Sadre-Orafai’s prose has appeared in Rock Salt Plum, in the Seal Press anthology, Waking Up American, and in the All Things That Matter Press anthology Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages. She currently serves as poetry editor for JMWW and is Assistant Professor of English at Kennesaw State University. : www.jennysadre-orafai.com
Rebecca Cook writes poetry and prose and has published in many literary journals including New England Review, Northwest Review, New Orleans Review, Wicked Alice, Midwest Quarterly, Story South, and Quarter After Eight. A two-time Pushcart nominee, she was awarded a writer’s residency at Dairy Hollow Writers’ Colony in 2005, and she was a Margaret Bridgman Scholar in fiction at the 2009 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her chapbook of poems, The Terrible Baby, is available from Dancing Girl Press. Poems from The Terrible Baby have been translated into Romanian and will appear in several Romanian literary journals in 2010. She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
E. Smith Gilbert has published in the United States and Great Brittan. His works appear regularly in Poetica and in TPQ Online.
Becky Wooley knows where the bodies are buried! She is a minister’s wife and former church secretary with journalism experience and writing credits in four states. She and her husband, Bruce, have attended or ministered to seven Universities and fifteen congregations of the Church of Christ and have been affiliated with five Christian schools. She will be reading from her latest murder mystery, "Non-Prophet Murders", a clerical crime novel and satire in which Grit and Grace, two young members of a progressive, Christian fellowship, solve the murders of three ministers.
Ray Zimmerman was the subject of a feature article in the September, 2008 issue of Blush magazine. His poetry chap book Searching for Cranes received a favorable mention from Contributing Editor Jeff Biggers in the November – December issue of Bloomsbury Review. Ray’s nonfiction has appeared in Envirolink magazine, Hellbender Press, and Legacy: The Journal of Interpretation. His photographs have appeared in the Photographic Society of America, PSA Journal, Tennessee Conservationist, and Cappers. He is a former president of the Chattanooga Writers Guild and won Second Place in the 2007 poetry contest of the Tennessee Writers Alliance. He read his winning poem, “Glen Falls Trail” at the Southern Festival of Books at Legislative Plaza, Nashville, Tennessee, ten days after undergoing coronary bypass surgery. He has organized poetry readings at Pasha Coffee House other Chattanooga venues.
N.L Diwan taught 4th grade in Dalton , Georgia and foreign language exploratory in the 6th, 7th, & 8th graders …Spanish, French and Latin respectively at Rossville Middle School .She has traveled to India 7 times each time for several months. She has also traveled to Italy and England. She has the honor of being born in Chattanooga where natives seem to be an endangered species. My dad was born here and so was her daughter and grandson. Her family is listed in the first families of Tennessee.
Ben Fischer grew up in the Northeast, but went to school in Texas and lived in Austin and Houston for ten years before moving to Chattanooga last year. He has published fiction and poetry in places like Black Dog Magazine, The Claremont Review, and Short Stories Bimonthly.
Bob Dombrowski is an artist with a history extending through sound explorations and performances to installation of outdoor sculpture. He is currently focused on writing as well as sculpture. Several of his artist’s books are archived in the Museum of Modern Art, as well as Poet’s House in NYC.
He has performed in venues where he read his poetry, throughout the eastern United States. He has been published in volumes of writings such as “Emerson at Harvard”; “Help Yourself”, and “The Spirit in the Words”. He also currently writes for an online journal, IPSFeatures.com.
Saturday, April 17, 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Winder Binder Gallery and Book Store
40 Frazier Avenue
Chattanooga’s North Shore
Sponsored by
Tennessee Writers Alliance
Chattanooga Writers Guild
Check Winder Binder on Facebook
Join us at Winder Binder for readings by area authors. Thanks to Winder Binder Gallery and Book Store for hosting us. Faux Bridge Festival by Winder Binder takes place the same day. Contact Ray Zimmerman, znaturalist@yahoo.com or 423-315-0721 for additional information about Read Around Tennessee, Chattanooga venue, or New Voices Poetry Readings.
Confirmed Participants in Read Around Tennessee – Reading in this order
Sybil Baker’s linked short story collection, Talismans, will be published by C & R Press in Fall 2010. She teaches literature and writing and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and will be reading from her novel The Life Plan http://www.sybilbaker.com/home.html
Penny Dyer is the recipient of the 2007 Oberon Poetry Prize, and the 2006 Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry. Her work also appears in Original Sin: The Seven Deadlies Come Home to Roost, SouthernReader, Poems Niederngasse, SouthLit, Arsenic Lobster, Dogwood, Oberon, and Narrative. Penny writes in several genres, and is at work on a poetry collection, Awaiting the Fall of Babylon, and a novel, How Sweet the Sound. Her poem “Summer Storm, 1963” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Bruce Majors grew up in East Tennessee, graduated from Tennessee Technological University, and is retired from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). He has published poems in Arts and Letters, Homespun Magazine, The Distillery, NCPS Pinesong, River Poets Journal, Number One, and other literary journals. His book, The Fields of Owl Roost, is an autobiographical collection of loosely related poems that has been said to capture the eccentricity of our imperfect world. It was named first finalist in the 2005 Indie Excellence Book Awards.
Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s first chapbook, Weed Over Flower, was chosen for publication by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in: Wicked Alice, can we have our ball back?, Literary Mama, Poetry Midwest, Boxcar Poetry Review, slant, Caesura, Gargoyle, ouroboros review, H_NGM_N, and other fine journals. Sadre-Orafai’s prose has appeared in Rock Salt Plum, in the Seal Press anthology, Waking Up American, and in the All Things That Matter Press anthology Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages. She currently serves as poetry editor for JMWW and is Assistant Professor of English at Kennesaw State University. : www.jennysadre-orafai.com
Rebecca Cook writes poetry and prose and has published in many literary journals including New England Review, Northwest Review, New Orleans Review, Wicked Alice, Midwest Quarterly, Story South, and Quarter After Eight. A two-time Pushcart nominee, she was awarded a writer’s residency at Dairy Hollow Writers’ Colony in 2005, and she was a Margaret Bridgman Scholar in fiction at the 2009 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her chapbook of poems, The Terrible Baby, is available from Dancing Girl Press. Poems from The Terrible Baby have been translated into Romanian and will appear in several Romanian literary journals in 2010. She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
E. Smith Gilbert has published in the United States and Great Brittan. His works appear regularly in Poetica and in TPQ Online.
Becky Wooley knows where the bodies are buried! She is a minister’s wife and former church secretary with journalism experience and writing credits in four states. She and her husband, Bruce, have attended or ministered to seven Universities and fifteen congregations of the Church of Christ and have been affiliated with five Christian schools. She will be reading from her latest murder mystery, "Non-Prophet Murders", a clerical crime novel and satire in which Grit and Grace, two young members of a progressive, Christian fellowship, solve the murders of three ministers.
Ray Zimmerman was the subject of a feature article in the September, 2008 issue of Blush magazine. His poetry chap book Searching for Cranes received a favorable mention from Contributing Editor Jeff Biggers in the November – December issue of Bloomsbury Review. Ray’s nonfiction has appeared in Envirolink magazine, Hellbender Press, and Legacy: The Journal of Interpretation. His photographs have appeared in the Photographic Society of America, PSA Journal, Tennessee Conservationist, and Cappers. He is a former president of the Chattanooga Writers Guild and won Second Place in the 2007 poetry contest of the Tennessee Writers Alliance. He read his winning poem, “Glen Falls Trail” at the Southern Festival of Books at Legislative Plaza, Nashville, Tennessee, ten days after undergoing coronary bypass surgery. He has organized poetry readings at Pasha Coffee House other Chattanooga venues.
N.L Diwan taught 4th grade in Dalton , Georgia and foreign language exploratory in the 6th, 7th, & 8th graders …Spanish, French and Latin respectively at Rossville Middle School .She has traveled to India 7 times each time for several months. She has also traveled to Italy and England. She has the honor of being born in Chattanooga where natives seem to be an endangered species. My dad was born here and so was her daughter and grandson. Her family is listed in the first families of Tennessee.
Ben Fischer grew up in the Northeast, but went to school in Texas and lived in Austin and Houston for ten years before moving to Chattanooga last year. He has published fiction and poetry in places like Black Dog Magazine, The Claremont Review, and Short Stories Bimonthly.
Bob Dombrowski is an artist with a history extending through sound explorations and performances to installation of outdoor sculpture. He is currently focused on writing as well as sculpture. Several of his artist’s books are archived in the Museum of Modern Art, as well as Poet’s House in NYC.
He has performed in venues where he read his poetry, throughout the eastern United States. He has been published in volumes of writings such as “Emerson at Harvard”; “Help Yourself”, and “The Spirit in the Words”. He also currently writes for an online journal, IPSFeatures.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
