Village Poets of Sunland/Tujunga will feature poets Katharine VanDewark & Joe Camhi on the 4th Sunday of October, the 26th, 4:30 pm at Bolton Hall Museum. There will also be an open mic and poets are invited to participate in the open reading segment of the event. The Bolton Hall Museum is located at 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91040. Bolton Hall is a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. Our reading starts at 4:30 pm and goes till 6:30 pm. Refreshments will be served. Free parking is available on the street and also at Elks Lodge 10137 Commerce Ave. Park behind the building and walk a short distance to Bolton Hall Museum across the street and down the block.
Dust from Mongolia
Apparently early spring winds sweep
dust from the Mongolian plains
all the way across China
to and beyond Beijing.
I know this because a friend said so.
Millions of people anticipate the
coming wind and chant,
as with the Indian monsoon,
“When the rains come.”
“When the dust comes.”
This has been happening for centuries.
Or at least for years.
How has the grass been uprooted
that soil is picked up easily and
blown for miles?
Are nomads to blame?
Was it the conquering hordes of
Genghis Khan and his horses
that trampled the carpets to dirt and
started the whole thing?
Did they pulverize the blades
playing polo across the steppes, using the
decapitated heads of prisoners as balls?
When the grass grew back and
dew collected on it,
was it red?
Was it the weight of yurt floors
that compacted it and
caused it to die of asphyxiation?
Published in Dead Calm, Night Heron and Lummox Number Nine
Turning ¼ Million Miles
747s took a perpendicular bead
with the San Diego freeway southbound.
They shared longitude
with a 1/3 full moon.
On a planetary seesaw it
had the higher seat to the sun.
A hyperactive finger painting
of clouds close to the horizon
combined with pollutants
heated to 96 degrees
promised a sunset worth watching.
I had been doing a mile
every 5 minutes
when the odometer numbers rolled.
In my neighborhood
those with balconies
sit on them
clink dinner plates and talk.
Here a window outlined in pumpkin lights
there a witch on a chimney
with broom, nylons and hat.
In the blackberry bramble 3 miles away
the unreachables flaunt themselves
unaware that within days
they will no longer be desirable
will become wrinkled
like salt cured olives
sucked free of their dark juice.
Published in Dead Calm, Night Heron
Phantasmagoric
She lets her teeth show, the teeth
that weep blood on weekday mornings.
The teeth she uses to pull up flowering sagebrush
clearing an entire hillside in the time
it takes black ink to turn green.
She lets her lip curl, wrap itself
around the sparkling legs of suntanned
bathers walking innocent
into the waves.
She lets her hair scream, a gathering
brace of funnel winds that sweep
the plains clean of wrought iron beds
tossed like hot air ping pong balls
in beer soaked poolrooms.
She hides her heart
in neighbors’ kitchen trash cans
the rubber belts of Detroit engines
the slide of a tongue over it.
She lets her eyes blister the night
through holds of cargo ships
bound for questionable places
their metal hides slowly eaten through
by liquid gasses.
©2025 Katharine VanDewark All Rights Reserved
Joe Camhi has published poetry and fiction in various magazines and Web sites including Exquisite Corpse, the Louisiana Review, Street News, the New Press, and Far Gone Magazine. His plays have been produced by College of the Canyons and in West Hollywood with the Urban Theatre Movement; Santa Clarita; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Portland, Oregon. In NY City, Joe was a featured reader at CBGBs, the Knitting Factory, and the Nuyorican Poets Café where he placed second in one of the semifinals of the poetry slam. Joe Camhi currently teaches English at College of the Canyons and Los Angeles Mission College.
