evening

the heart at rest.
apostate at large.
stolen images
orthodox priests.

an invitation:
come to the table.

mountain path
view of the sea.
blue on blue
islands below.
what is written
is not what is.

music fading
down the valley
not to be heard
like that again,
echo its bridal train,
distance its veil.

as always,
dear evening,
you save me.

Poetry at the Belmar

good open mic fundraiser reading last night at belmar for mk to go to nationals slam comp ... good luck molly! mk does a great job editing poetry out loud for ragazine, bringing in the big guns... sure she'll be among the 60 when the dust settles.

terri lloyd

check this out: http: // www (dot) terrilloydcompany (dot) com/

an evening out at the reading

you gather in the back room
beers in hand attitudes in check
silent as the damp grass at night
hopeful as the lost child in the woods
that the sun will rise, a lofty note
on the crescendo of an aria
that for the moment it exists
fills an emptiness you live with
without knowing, until the song
of songs plays and the bow rubs
an harmonic and someone turns
up the volume. that’s when you
realize there can never be enough
sound to fill a room, never
enough sense in a moral tale,
never your character in the fable
to show you the way to the door.

Growing without bounds

Can't believe how long it's taken to set up a blog. Not that it takes time to do it.... just time to get around to it. the ragazine.cc web site took a long time to get rolling. Each "new" issue an improvement on the last ... presentation-wise, anyway. We like to get new material; a lot of what we've used comes from friends and acquaintances, and friends of friends, and we hope the circle will keep growing. Without bounds.

A note about imagination. The older one gets, the more "unlikely" one is to realize one's hopes and dreams (if they haven't already). So, a lot of people, it seems, suppressing the desire to take that next step into the unknown, sweep their hopes and dreams under the carpet of tried-and-true. Some say you have to be single-minded. Kobe Bryant dedicating himself to being the best, competing with legends, to become a legend. No doubt Kobe's got other skills he's putting to work off the court, but his personal best is going to be on the boards for the world to see.

For those who don't hold to the tried and true, differences are what count. Something a little different every day. Bill Mungo, an editor at a newspaper I once worked for, suggested taking a different route to or from work each day. Inject yourself with something new. Maybe it'll turn out to be a path you'll never stray from; more likely, it'll be a path with more forks, more choices, more opportunity. Taking the long view, no more of the same.

So, all this b.s. aside, let's get down to business.

Mohammed caricatures. OK. Poor taste. So's a lot of other stuff. Some people tolerate sex jokes better than racial and ethnic slurs; some people don't. But watching days, if not weeks, of mayhem, I've gotta ask, "Don't these people have jobs?"