DON LEVY
 Don Levy has been published in Tenzone, Smashing Icons, and Think 3 and has read in such venues as The Albany Public Library, The Poets in the Park Series, Arthur's Market, The Albany Art Gallery, Cafe Web, and The Woodstock Poetry Society. His work as also been featured on the Hidden City web site as well as Volume, a CD of 27 Albany area poets. He was one of the editors of OpenMic: The Albany Anthology and was the coordinator of the Gallery Poetry Society reading series at the Albany Art Gallery.
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HOW SMALL WAS MY BIG EDEN
"Welcome to Big Eden, Montana,
out in the middle of God's Country
with our beautiful mountains and streams,
forests and valleys and yet scosmopolitanpolitian
enough to attract
a number of ga...how shall we call them...
very artistic types of men
like Harry, an artist who used to live
unhappily in NYC, not at all like
the girls from Sex And The City,
living all by himself, even though
there is a large population
of equally creative young men
who know how best to use track lighting.
Henry recently moved back to Big Eden
to take care of his Gramps,
who recently had a stroke
and doesn't know his grandson is artistic,
although he hassuspicionng suspision.
Then there's Pike, owner of the General Store,
a man of Native American descent
who can whip up a gourmet meal
like Coq Au Vin or Beef Wellington
before you can say "Julia Child"
or "Martha Stewart, that alleged
insider trading bitch."
Then, finally, there's Dean,
Henry's childhood friend,
a divorced father of two
and who feels the pain
of a straight man that can never
physically return the love
of his artistic friend Henry
until he is comforted out of his pain
by dating the single female mayor of Big Eden.
So all you men of artistic qualitGreenwich of living
in GreFranciscoillage,
San Fransisco, West Hollywood or other
cities where a large population
of artistic men seem to reside,
make Big Eden your home on the range
where never is heard a discouraging word
like fa...fa...fa...
(All right, I can't sayincorectt's so politically
inccorect.)
tendancies, if you have artistic tendances
and don't mind wearing flplentyhirts
and are looking for pleanty of closet space,
Then Big Eden is the place fopansies
then Big Eden is the place for you.
and remember that the only panies we have
grow in our award winning gardens!"
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GET OFF MY DAMN RUNWAY
For Todd
Yes,
I would love to be a Gap model,
swing dancing with all the cute
Gap model boys
and if I looked as good as that man
who dances by himself in a recent ad,
I wouldn't have sex until
they legislate human cloning.
But I wouldn't mind being
an Old Navy TV model
as long as I found some cute sailors
from the new navy to help me
pullover my fleecetheirover
and I get to play Marcia
in thier campy spoof of The Brady Bunch
and get to take Davy Jones to the prom
and become Morgan Fairchild's
new best friend.
And what I wouldn't do
to be a Victoria Secrets model!
Can't you see me on the TV special
walking down the cat wtheir
wearing the white angel wings
while people in thier homes ask themselves,
"Is that Heidi Klum?"
"No, it's that poet Don Levy.
White is his color, don't you think?"
And it would be great to know
that as a Victoria Secrets model
Itheirmhomework countless of teenage boys
all over the world with thier homework,
although I have to wonder what they are
teaching kids in school these days,
The History of the Bustier
with a whole chapter devoted to Madonna?
theirt the phone never rings,
not from Target
to be in one of thier cool ads,
or K-mart to show off
the new line of Martha Stewart
inside trader bed sheets,
or Lane Bryant telling me
that Anna Nicole Smith is now
Kate Moss thin due to the Atkins diet
and there are no plus size models
to show off the fall line but me...
but I really can't fly to NY or LA
at the drop of the hat anyway,
at least not until the next
American Idol is chosen.
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POEM FOR TOM NATTELL
You were the one
I lost my poetry virginity to
Before walking on stage
Of the QE2 for the first time
I only thought that my poetry
Would stay scribbled in my notebooks
And well worn journals,
Never to be read aloud
To the crowd of poets in the backroom,
Never thought I could make
A room laugh through my words.
And I will never forget
That tumultuous reading in Townsend Park,
Where a young homeless man
Wearing a dirty tank top
Wanted to beat the shit out of
Paul Wienman for reading a poem
About burning the American flag
And how the manager of Dunkin Donuts
Called the cops on us while Jil Hanafin
Was reading a poem about AIDS
And how crowded
The Readings Against
The End of the World was every year
Around six or seven o’clock at night,
A stream of humanity
Continuously running the length
Of The 8Th Step,
Stretching from the front door
To the bathrooms
While poets who came
From far as NYC and Boston read.
And I even remember
How every at The Poets In the Park series,
I’d Always hope I’d miss
Your obligatory explanation of why
There was a statue of Robert Burns
In our own Washington Park
But no matter how late I left my house,
I always heard the entire speech...
For these moments and more
We owe a large debt of gratitude to.
And even though I always didn’t
See eye to eye with you on everything,
I always admired your activism,
Your enthusiasm and the way,
As Mary Panza once said,
You turned making announcements
Into an art form.
And I know I am not the only one to say
They lost their poetry virginity too you.
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