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
Gwendolyn
Oh spirits, beer, and tears, and wine inside a favorite bar of mine,
I used to come and dine with Gwendolyn. I think
sometimes she’s smiling over there still sitting in that empty chair.
So lonely only by myself and a bit to drink.
Low spirits, drinking hard, regretting, doing shots but not forgetting,
when I walk or dream my eyes begin to tear.
I see a car fly off a curve. I hit the brakes. I try to swerve.
We crash through glass! “Please, waitress, pass another beer.”
I cry and sink another drink and sigh and think and think and think.
The bar is crowded, cramped, and loud, but I’m alone.
Oh, just to have her like before, I’d give up everything and more
to have her now, but now she’s gone. I’m on my own.
That’s when this man, so strangely ugly, stood before me smiling smugly.
Though he drank his drink its level stayed the same.
He sat down in the empty chair. The scent of sulfur filled the air.
He bowed his head, said, “Pleased to meet you. Guess my name.”
His suit was red and shining bright, his skin a foul and pallid white.
I said, “I know your name, and I don’t give a damn.”
He stared me down--his eyes were red. The cocktail waitress came and said,
“What can I do for you?” He ordered leg of lamb.
He laughed, “You seem so sad and nervous, pal. Relax. I’m at your service.
So, your girl is gone, and I know where to get her.
Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll resurrect the chick for you.”
He winked. “Although we know God loves us, girls love better.”
And as I had foreseen and feared, a contract, like a dream, appeared
atop the table. He said, “Sign the dotted line.
With just your first name then your last, your hand can write away the past,
and then you sold your soul. It’s yours no more. It’s mine.
This God damned dirty deed then done, so my sole one and only one
now must be waiting in my bed like Satan said.
I’ll touch her silky, milky shoulder, and she’ll turn to me--I’ll hold her,
and make impassioned love with one who once was dead.
Once dead! Cold fear clutched hold of me. Oh, what strange vision will I see?
What ghastly, ghostly, gruesome vision will I greet?
Oh God, a dirty deal was dealt, and dirty feelings were now felt
while walking down a dirty, dark, deserted street.
A half an hour by my door, and then a half an hour more,
just staying, waiting for the fear to just subside.
I thought I never would go in, and then I thought of Gwendolyn.
Then swung the door in wide and quickly rushed inside.
So strange to see her well at first. Oh hell, I thought my body’d burst--
she’s on the bed, her forehead leaning on her hand!
“Are you a figment or a spirit? Speak the truth and let me hear it!
Please speak quickly. Quickly make me understand!”
Her golden, silky hair rolled down her lacy, silky bedroom gown,
rolled down her neck and back and lay across the covers.
“Do you remember when you died? Do you remember me?” I cried.
“Did you forget you were alive, and we were lovers?”
And then I thought my heart was stopping when I noticed teardrops dropping,
dripping, dropping, drying, dropping on the bed.
“Dear, are you sorry to discover you’re alive and near your lover.
Though you’re here, I’m still with fear that you’re still dead.”
My heart was throbbing, madly pounding. She sat sobbing sadly sounding
like we never loved each other once before.
“Are you a figment or a spirit? Speak the truth and let me hear it!
Please speak quick!” I quickly questioned her once more.
She looked up sadly at my face; my heart picked up its pounding pace.
She quivered, cleared her throat, and oh so softly spoke,
“I’m neither figment nor a spirit. We’re together, and I fear it.
We’re the punchline to the devil’s evil joke.”
I cried, “But I don’t understand!” grabbing, gripping, Gwen’s cold hand.
We hugged entwined inside our love now resurrected.
“Stop crying. Wipe away your tears--we’ll be together many years.
My dear, I fear these tears. They’re not what I expected.”
She cried, “You’re absolutely right. We’ll be together for tonight,
and many nights and days and weeks and years and years.
We’ll live together and grow old while we remember what you sold,
and it will haunt us, taunt us, fill our lives with tears.
“See, I was waiting in the sky for you to die, your soul fly by.
I’d greet you, lead you into heaven hand in hand.
We’d live forever paired in death, but, dear, I’m here--you bought me breath.”
That’s when I died inside, I cried, “I understand!”
Now drinking, dreaming every day, I’m paying interest as I pray,
and pray for time, more time, more time for her and me.
You see, I understand too well she’s doomed to heaven, I to hell.
I have her here not there. I sold eternity.
© 2025 Joe Camhi All Rights Reserved
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