Village Poets Features Judith Pacht and Joe DeCenzo on June 28

                                                                        

Our next Village Poets reading at Bolton Hall Museum will be on Sunday, June 28th at 4:30 p.m when we will feature Judith Pacht and Joe DeCenzo. 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 91042. Bolton Hall is a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. Our reading starts at 4:30 pm and goes till 6:30 pm. Light 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. 

                                                            JUDITH PACHT

Judith Pacht's book Summer Hunger won the PEN Southwest Book Award for Poetry.  Her third book, Precarious, New & Selected Poems (Giant Claw Press), was published in the fall of 2025.  A three-time Pushcart nominee, Pacht was first place winner in the Georgia Poetry Society's Edgar Bowers competition.  Her poetry appears in journals that include Ploughshares, Runes, Nimrod and Phoebe, and has been translated into Russian where it was published in Foreign Literature (Moscow, Russia).  Her work is in numerous anthologies.  Pacht reads at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, at Charleston's Piccolo Spoleto Festival and has read and taught Political Poetry at Denver's annual LitFest at the Lighthouse. 

                                           Three Poems by Judith Pacht

 Alloy

 My wrist

never wore this

band he gave me, buried

in Emma's scarf with mementos

of times

before

and after him.

Jewelry like this is made

to look old.  Two Hellenic figures

posed,

etched

on an alloy

pretending silver.  The stone,

bezzeled lapis, rust-veined like

his eyes:

deep set

blue, flashing with

a cheap beauty.  Pretenders to

the genuine and a trick

of the eye.

Published Persimmon Tree Journal (summer 2026)

The Poet at Four

The chalk, the sidewalk, her unsteady hand

scratched a line, looped a loop with hair,

drew wobbly Js & later vowels (unplanned)

turned into names with consonants to spare.

          

No one really noticed, did they,

 

when fresh images & words surprised, see-

                                                             sawed

            inside her head: landscapes, a tree, a curse,

                                                                  a verse

 in Hochdeutsch, Grandfather’s language.

 

She wet her finger to the wind

    leaned into disconnect

                            fancied insight, depth,

                            & played with shock, her newest toy,

    

cut the slightest slant, forbade the tonal fugue,

                           declined to rhyme.                

 Published in Precarious, (Giant Claw Press)

 Untied

scraps collected

saved & shaped to stanzas

or laid out with care on paper

like starched & ironed organza

                                         crushed

            oh those crumpled hours

            torn & tossed away

                          (something might be there)

              & then    once when I was three

I tried to tie my shoe    hurled it flying

                       fury against the flowered wall paper

                       making bruises of purple-petaled flowers

 not so much later

I came to know

the shoe’s lace better

its loop-the-loop   

its up-round-down

& then the lace & I

became a bow

 Published in Precarious (Giant Claw Press)

©  2026  Judith Pacht

                                                        JOE DECENZO

                           

Joe DeCenzo is an L.A. native and graduate of the Los Angeles City College Theater Academy. His education in music built the foundation for his appreciation of the poetry of lyrics.  He was elected Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga and served from 2004-06.  While Laureate, he produced the “Shouting Coyote” Performing Arts Festival and was a Department of Cultural Affairs grant recipient.  It was renowned for drawing local writers, musicians, dancers and artists together in prominent festivals that celebrated the creativity of the foothills.  His published works include The Ballad of Alley and Hawk and the Study Guide and Poetry Primer for the same. Since 2004, both are being taught and performed annually at Vineyard Junior High in Rancho Cucamonga by his collaborator, Jenna Vandegrift.  He has been published in several anthologies: Meditation on Devine Names (Moonrise Press 2012), We Are Here, the Village Poets Anthology (Moonrise Press 2018),  and Crystal Fire (Moonrise Press 2022). The latter earned him a Pushcart nomination.  He was inspired to pursue creative writing as a child after hearing a recitation of Rudyard Kipling’s “If.”  His greatest influences were the playwrights he studied and performed e.g. Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter. For 10 years he served as the chair of the Sunland-Tujunga Arts Recreation and Culture Committee helping artists and organizations connect with funding, venues and volunteers.  He regularly emcees the Village Poets monthly reading at Bolton Hall Museum. His proudest achievements are the connections he’s made with the foothills communities and the programs he’s worked to build and maintain.

                                                

                                           Three Poems by Joe DeCenzo

                                                                Just an Old Guitar

 It nestled at my feet when I lived out of a duffle

Surfing from one couch to another.

It followed me on buses, trains and subways

When seeds were being sown and passions kindled.

It cried when the city burned and students struggled to be heard

Giving purchase to their voices telling all “We stand as one.”

 

Her chords resounded loudly when the razor wire snapped;

Mangled heaps of chain link fence trampled under flurried feet.

Churning rotor blades of “frequent wind” repeating through the night.

Brothers carried home to safety on the last flight from Saigon.

 

Through the turnstiles of the subway to the platform’s oily breeze,

Down to smoke-filled basement clubs and beer-stained microphones

Busking to make rent on the sun-bleached ocean strand

Its reliable pick guard stopping me from sawing it in half

With every blue-collar-blustered freedom anthem rally cry

That poured from its sound hole.

 

It’s just an old guitar with the outline of a woman,

And a fading lacquer finish from its miles on the road.

A blatant indentation where belt buckles rubbed against it.

It’s just a voice to cling to when the body’s left alone.

 

It rested near the bed until a cradle took its place.

It was protected in the closet until linens forced it out.

It’s just an old guitar that rode along as I transposed,

Keeping my world in balance ‘til the family tree took root.

 It’s seen a lot of life, that Martin ’54.

Holding it again, I feel temptation in her strings

Beauty at the Barre

Small cloud of rosin dust

Around a battered wooden box

Rises beauty from hellish pain

A half-used roll of KT tape

Contains the inflamed hamstring

Cracking calluses, the only shield

For a bloody sock

Blisters ripped of skin

Plié - tendu

Plié - tendu

From 5:00 am until the school bell rings

 

Torment to the limbs

Aching, soreness, spasms, cramps

Tedium at the barre building

Strength, alignment, balance, beauty

Relevé - en pointe

Relevé - en pointe

 

Body dysmorphia, eating disorders

Stay thin, stay thin

Keep your fingers from your throat

Need it be this ugly

To reach the height of grace?

 

The x-rays say you’re ready

Determination leads the charge

Bind reptilian feet

In satin covered toe shoes

 

Sauté - en pointe

6 inches of elegance

The added line from hip to toe

16 years of training

For the Black Swan pas de deux

 Sonnet For The Fallen

When innocence retreats, insanity’s

The first to blame. The conversation starts

To find a reason when atrocities

Deprive the fallen of their beating hearts.

 

“My rights above all else,” a selfish myth.

No room for a solution to be found.

There isn’t any point to argue with

Opponents who lie buried underground.

 

All those we loved would want us to erase

The ego at the bottom of our cup.

The problem is the challenge we all face,

The challenge to give in and not give up.

 

Who stands to honor and assist the weak

When for themselves the fallen cannot speak?

 ©  2026 Joe DeCenzo

                                                       

 Photos taken in Descanso Gardens by Lois P. Jones 2026

                                                          

 

 

 

5th Sunday of May 2026 Features Beverly Lafontaine & David W. Parsley

 

Our next Village Poets reading at Bolton Hall Museum will be on Sunday, May 31st at 4:30 p.m when we welcome two excellent Los Angeles poets, Beverly Lafontaine & David W. Parsley. 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 91042. Bolton Hall is a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913. Our reading starts at 4:30 pm and goes till 6:30 pm. Light 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. 

BEVERLY LAFONTAINE

 

Beverly Lafontaine has enjoyed four productions of her plays in the Los Angeles area and has had her poetry published in various online and print poetry journals and anthologies, including Waves, the  anthology published by the AROHO Foundation, MORIA, Poets Reading the News, Blue Satellite, Spillway, the Anthology of the Valley Contemporary Poets, So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets, and Beyond the Lyric Moment. As a collaborative artist she has worked with composer Tom Flaherty to create Scenes from Sarajevo, a prize-winning chamber music piece. Additionally, she was commissioned to create six poems that are incorporated into the sculptural work of Walk a Mile in My Shoes, a public art project dedicated to Martin Luther King sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. As a journalist she has written for publications as wide-ranging as Essence Magazine, Soul Magazine and Caesura: the Journal for the San Jose Center for Poetry and Literature.  

                        Three Poems by Beverly Lafontaine

My Skin Is Not Enough to Keep Me Warm

The sky is thick and heavy with clouds.
A neighbor’s dog barks. A yelp from a cartoon.,
Behind closed eyes I see his body shudder with every bark,

A car roars its presence, eager not to be
ignored. Never complete silence.
In this building, something always whirs,

simpers. Walls moan against the weight
they’ve borne for years. Water’s ceaseless
songs flush through pipes. All the sounds

of the day gather together, a congregation.
The refrigerator hums, reminds me,
You’re a body, just a body. A tongue, eyes,

nose, arms, legs. A body chilled by the cold,
warmed by the sun. A body definite in time and
place, destined one day to be a memory

conjured up by three notes on the piano
or a whiff of baking bread, then laid to rest
among seeds of wild grass.

Copyright © Published in Aroho

Coming Back

The rosemary thirsts. The brown rice is mealy.

A spider spins a universe between a leg of the piano

and a shadowed corner of the living room.

 

Get sick, stay in bed and that’s what happens.

You become a ghost in your own life.

 

Bits of me are floating back like moons to their

mother planet. No one else has this exact memory

of honey on toast or this bitter echo of a child lost.

I water the rosemary, sweep away cobwebs, let light and sound

stitch my wounds, healing across time and space.

Copyright © Published in Aroho

My Mother and MLK

It was December 1955, and my mother, always a lady but true to her thoughts, reacted with surprise when America’s newscaster, Gabriel Heatter, spoke the name of the newly-appointed leader of the Montgomery bus boycott. My mother, she of the good manners, the pragmatic mind, the well-laid plan faithfully executed, also valued a starched blouse, thin and impermeable, the silken skirt, fanned from the lap’s throne. Not he, the preacher’s son, 17 years her junior. She remembered too well the little bean-head boy with whom she had to share the car’s rear seat once a month when she was a teenager. He was a jumping jack, a whirligig of comet energy as the car chugged its way through Birmingham to his father’s church, and how she dreaded those Sundays in the back seat. That day in 1955, Heatter’s 15-minute broadcast was loud and clear to the land: Negroes are rising, boycotting the buses of Montgomery, and their leader is young and cunning with a voice so sonorous bells will cease their clanging. His name is Martin Luther King, Jr. “That brat,” my mother muttered through pursed lips, as we all leaned into the radio’s speaker, hope alive.

Did cherry trees bloom
in Montgomery that year?
How long must we wait?

Copyright © Published in Moria

DAVID W. PARSLEY

 Recently retired from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, USA, David W. Parsley now lives part-time in Pasadena and with his family in southwest Utah on the doorstep of Zion National Park, Grand Canyon, and other places of interest.  He is using the newly found free time to write more actively now.  His poems have appeared in Poetry LA, London Grip, Amethyst, Ghost City Review, Tiny Seed, Lothlorien, and other journals and anthologies.  Among his more recent honors, “Kyoto: A Cycle” was a semi-finalist for the Able Muse Award.  He was also an invited poet in the online poetry project, Lament for the Dead. His tribute to the Cassini mission to Saturn, "Paean for a Spacecraft," is a finalist for the Charter Oak Award for historical poetry at Flatiron Foothills Press, slated for publication in the annual journal, Footnote, this coming year.

                       Three Poems by David Parsley

 

As One from the Snowfields

Route to Navajo Mountain,
skitter of tumbleweed - land
and sky merge

like the face of Black God,

shadowy arms

canted to a common side.

 

Sounds of the ceremony

seal over distance 

threading pop and hiss

of the engine with

stars ascending

paths the yeh-be-chai took,

footfalls mute litany

along the galaxy’s ledges.

 

Small beneath the long ruin

of peaks

the road finds

the horizon’s shadow and follows.

Beneath those bodies

a man could walk

to the cliffs’ forgetful darkness,

that omnipotent mask.

 

A car goes by, headlights

soft probes on the highway.

Exhaust spreads

brief invisible fire in its wake.

Killdeer’s voice

starts from sleep at arroyo’s edge

and finds me from far away –

I am here!  Here!

 

Yei-be-chai: a Navajo supernatural (often a yei) represented by a masked dancer in an initiation or curative ceremony.

Copyright © Previously published: Poetry Magnum Opus Editor’s Pick, 6/6/2019.

 

For a Bird Found Dead on My Doorstep

 

We found him after lunch just

out of the snow.

My wife touched the still-warm breast,

one limber claw drawn in an infant curl.

 

Yellow as sun, too exotic for our climate,

he would have come while we were eating,

sent while the season’s first stormfall

and its clouds clung to surrounding hills.

 

We watch those clouds leave our valley today.

Trees and brambles shake down their snow.

 

I remind her we don’t always know

how hunger approaches our door.

We look for it as we can, ignorant

of where it comes from, and when.

 

                                                                          © Previously published: Autumn Sky Poetry, 1/9/2016;

                                                                          Autumn Sky Poetry, From the Archives, 1/8/2017.

 

Dreams of the Search

 

 i.

In this place the trails cross without beginning.

It is where the night fell before it could be found

 

and questioned.  Since, the wilderness has listened

through abandoned nests and dams, frozen streams,

 

to be apprised of our separated arrivals.

Between us the fire throbs a wounded nebula

 

fragments swirling up beyond its glow

into the pine musk, that star-dwelt darkness.

 

Look.  The sparks successively flare, vanish.

Prescient agonies I do not choose, they choose me.

 

ii.

 

It was when I confirmed the others had gone

the white fox bounded from his hole

 

to lope in and out of view.  Though this too

is an injury I stand as mute as sky. 

 

Snow deepens above a deferred

silence.  It is into this silence

 

the last lights were seen to pass.

I sense hardwood, hemlock, a mixed multitude

 

limbs touching branch upon branch to edges

of rivers, clearings without habitation.  If

 

there are voices, if there are roads,

may they lead to a single home.

 

Copyright © Previously published: Tiny Seed Literary Journal, 7/6/2021; Anthology Forest, 2021. 

Photos of Descanso Gardens, La Canada, 

in the spring by Maja Trochimczyk, 2025. Used by permission.

 

 Check the Calendar on this blog for upcoming features!