deep cleveland - featured poets & artists

featured poets & artists

richard krech

richard krech was a friend of d.a. levy's, who published his first chapbook of poems, We Are On The Verge Of Ecstacy, in 1967. he lives in san francisco. The poem "Valerie Solanis and Enver Hoxha in real time at the end of the last century" originally appeared in Bathtub Gin.

Mortality

Words like 'summer'

or 'winter'

the days shortening.

This may be the last time

my wife and I do exercises

on the floor facing each other

before we go to bed.

The sound of the water

being turned on

for the hose

to water the garden.

The sense of life's majesty

and impermanence.

Giant stage sets

turning around

into nighttime,

stars twinkle out

and the silence begins.

7/8/05

Valerie Solanis and Enver Hoxha in real time at the end of the last century

Valerie and Enver just

remnants of a fin-de-siecle era.

'We want it now!' we chanted

in Selma in 1965. Still

wanting it now.

We look back

from whatever time it is;

our vantage point by definition

the most current possible.

Its obsolescence pre-ordained

like nothing else.

9/20/03

Lavanderie

Reading material at the laundromat in Avranches in Normandy

is old shopping news and punk/reggae newsletter.

All in French, of course.

It is raining heavily outside. I watch the few other patrons

and realize that I haven't used a laundromat in the states

in over 25 years.

Still Life In Verse

Bright white clouds

out the window,

black bare branches

on Saturday morning

in Winter.

The crowned chimney

of the house

across the fence

like a far-away temple.

[Flat black removing

all depth perception.]

Trompe l'oeil

in realtime.

Jay-walking

across the street

to lunch last week,

tall newer buildings

like giant card board

cut-outs.

That same street captured

in sepia early 20th century

photographs

in our office hallway.

This body carries memories

deep in its core.

Cut thru the backyard

of memory I said,

we need to find out

what's going to happen next.

We press forward,

sitting on the couch

Saturday morning

in Winter.

Bright white clouds

out the window.

Atmosphere

Trees at sunset

tallest above the horizon

rush headlong

over a thousand miles a minute

into the Earth's orbit.

The atmosphere protecting us

from being blown away

brings rain and tornados at times,

calm stillness at others.

Sun now shining through at us

for the last time this cycle.