Caffe Lena's Poetry Open Mic
Wednesday, April 7
7pm sign up, 7:30 start, $2
Featured Readers: Dan Wilcox & Rachel Zitomer
Caffe Lena
47 Phila St, Saratoga Springs
Info: 583-0022 www.caffelena.com

Dan Wilcox is the host of the open mic at Lark Street Bookshop in Albany on the third Thursday of each month and is a member of the poetry performance group "3 Guys from Albany". As a photographer, he claims to have the world's largest collection of photos of unknown poets. He has been a featured reader at all the important poetry venues in the Capital District & throughout the Hudson Valley and is an active member of Veterans for Peace.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2001

A low morning
rumble of a distant
plane, the crash
of runaway
trucks lost on
the Interstate
the venting of
old heating
Systems, the collapse
of Towers or just
this Morning’s tired
groan as it
disintegrates
into History  

Rachel Zitomer is a native of Albany. (She ran away for a number of years, but is now proud to be an Albanian.) She is pursing a PhD in English at the University at Albany. She is writing her dissertation on local poetry communities, with a primary focus on Albany.

from "No Line of Shore"

would you constitute this hand
 not consecrate
   or consume

would you press your palm to it
 let linger the necessary darkness
   of flesh to flesh
would you trace the sweat from its creases
 touch it to an unmarked page in your current notebook
   bury the salt, the slight warp with ink

could you write me a poem tonight
 and smile, tomorrow
   when I return it to you in my own pen
could you brush the hair from my face
 call me beautiful
   forget my name, that we had to meet