Michael Grosse and Geoffrey Neill
Monday, July 2 at 7:00 PM
Fremont Park, 16th and P in Sacramento
Host: Rebecca Moos
Michael Grosse has performed primarily in venues in Sacramento, as well as Las Vegas, San Francisco and Auburn. He has published three chapbooks including, Monster School Bus Crusader and Banned by Demand. Has read on-air at Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour on KDVS, the Pomo Literati Show on KUSF and on one pirate radio station. Has been involved with Sacramento poetry scene in various capacities since 1992.
SM Fix Me Broken by Michael Grosse
–july 16, 2009 for sean
-utilizing and paraphrasing certain song titles from death in june
She said destroy,
having the whip hand,
I wonder should
I have snapped it
in your direction,
master to your pain.
You sat in utter abject misery
and foothill family restored,
boiling your holy water…
were you thinking of
destruction of long knives
in the night-
cutting deeper into your skin…
boils, cotton fever, chills, puke
self loathing pestulent, festering
spider bite fix….
each beat counted off,
billie jean drowns the rose…
Have you in oblivion come
before christ crowley kingly come kisses…
have you in your self desecration
murdered the love
we feel for you
and we ask ourselves
a litany of curious, stupid
excruciating questions
and now what ends
when the man fixes,
killing all others
inside the shell,
as the symbols of the man
we embrace
all shatter, leaving
us each alone in our
memories dreams
empty social network
chatter….
Geoffrey Neill is a host at the ever popular Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café in Sacramento. He has performed poetry and fiction at venues throughout northern and southern California, and was a founding member of San Diego’s Goat Song Conspiracy. His little m press has published both established and emerging writers in attractive, accessible chapbooks and chap-sized serial novels. He has lived in California his whole life.
Do I Sleep? by Geoffrey Neill
Do I sleep?
I sleep when the waves break.
Do I sleep?
I sleep when the babies cry out for milk.
Do I sleep?
I sleep when the clouds fall over the breathing night.
I sleep when I tire of the habit.
I sleep when the ember fails.
I sleep when the engulfing fog breathes the secret name of morning,
when the stones cry out their suffering.
I sleep when the continents scratch across the molten unknown,
when the stars crack open and spill their promise.
I sleep when the graven idols fall from their niches and their closed eyes shatter against the red clay.
I sleep when the night lilies close against the coming secrecy,
when that which we fear, that which we want most, blinds us to the promises we made in earnest and ignorance.
I sleep when the tequila runs out.
I sleep when some poor devil pounds on the door I have made of my affection.
I sleep when the cocoon breaks
into the song of a bug that flies through every color of rain,
when the bell chimes a hymn to the saints of my father’s enemies,
I sleep when the desperation ends in tragedy.
Do I sleep?
I sleep at the falling of the light. I sleep when the dust on my shoulder turns the red of brick rubble. I sleep when the absolute symmetry of the enlightened mind shatters on the amber emblem of the manifest enigma interred in the unearthed urns of ancient forest ash.
I will sleep
when all the worlds’ tears of love and loneliness collect and puddle
and sweep up my head in the current,
when my breath is spent
and my tongue ties
and my ears are stopped
with the sound of the tide
