The Winter of Sweet Potato Spirits

I waited twenty-five years

For the moment when

The earth stilled its tilt

Waited for an axis pole to shift

Waited for bodies’ ascension drift

Waited for Armageddon encampments

Waited for brothels to serve tea with sugar

The Golden Age arrived

We were alive to witness

Time lines not yet converging

Like a time lapse photo

Forgetting the moment of a camera click

We drank to the Winter of Sweet Potato Spirits. 

Poem for Palen

Betty Lou was behind me driving a hard bargain I could not afford. Forty-five minutes ago, Chew-Bacca roared like a Talking Head.

"What's Vegas say about the game tomorrow?"

Loving your lead balloon & black dog, the one Jimmy owns, howling in the night behind the Marshall speakers, you called me home....bring me home.

Christmas 2012

Santa asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told him a Country Squire Station Wagon with wood panels.....thought it safer than saying I wanted a Woodie.

Sunday Morning

tobacco stained fingers

dipped in red lacquer

paint my matted hair
dark clots of burnt umber

clump us together

molten lava air-dried.

For April

Action
Reaction
Restart
The engine,
Full speed
At half-mast,
I want to take
A bath
Enjoy the salt
In the soak
Draw out
Toxic clutter.
My head is full
of One-
Two praise,
I love
April's
Joy.

Sound Cloud

This is my first try at Sound Cloud for recording poetry from my book, Never Offer a Chair to a Dancing Girl.

I wrote "Shallow Jazz Roots" as a response to a Jazz Poetry class I attended at the Nashville Jazz Workshop in 2002.  The Nashville Scene selected it as one of their winning poems in 2003.

This recording is from December 5, 2012.

  https://soundcloud.com/jamie-zoe-givens/shallow-jazz-roots-at-jamie

More videos from Jamie Zoe Givens (playlist)