Poetry & Fiction
Estrellita’s Bio & Bonus Tracks
Carmelita Estrellita has a dozen songs in the new “First of the Year: 2010”. Here’s a snap-shot of her life and times and five bonus tracks.
The Drop Edge of Yonder
Rudolph Wurlitzer’s novels have moved a generation of writers and rockers. He’s carried his themes and dreams along the “celluoid trail,” writing screenplays for memorable movies such as “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” “Little Buddha,” “Walker” and “Candy Mountain.” His latest novel, “The Drop Edge of Yonder,” is a book (as per Patti Smith) “you watch as you read, cast the film as you reread, and create a sequel as you sleep.” Scott Spencer has wondered at “Yonder” too: “I have never read anything like it. Every page transports the reader from the cerebral to the visceral and back again, until you start to feel that in the end there is no difference between the two.” Take the following chapters from Wurlitzer’s soulful trip as an invite to get “Yonder” .
Starlet Letter
Estrellita still ain’t got no band but her new (virtual) album drops the same month as Leonard Cohen’s who’s one of her heroes. She composed about half the lyrics here in a hot rush last New Year’s eve/day, which calls to mind a story Cohen once told about Bob Dylan:
Knee-jerk Heart
Carmelita Estrellita (AKA Natalie Estrellita) is a longtime contributor to First of the Month. Fired up by late stylings of Leonard Cohen (among other personal heroes) ourFirst lyricist has been especially inspired lately. Check these new testaments to Estrellita’s wit and the beat of her “knee-jerk heart.”
The Prose of the World
Roxane Beth Johnson’s first book of poetry, “Jubilee,” won the Philip Levine Award for Poetry and was published by Anhinga Press, 2006. Here’s one of our favorite poems from that collection:
Back in the Day
When we were boys
We called each other “Man”
With a long n
Pronounced as if a promise
We wore felt hats
That took a month to buy
In small installments
Shiny Florsheim or Stacy Adams shoes
Carried our dancing gait
And flashed our challenge
Breathing our aspirations into words
We harmonized our yearnings to the night
And when old folks on porches dared complain
We cussed them out
under our breaths
And walked away
and once a block away
Held learned speculations
About the character of their relations
With their mothers
It’s true
That every now and then
We killed each other
Borrowed a stranger’s car
Burned down a house
But most boys went to jail
For knocking up a girl
He really truly deeply loved
really truly deeply
But was too young
Too stupid, poor, or scared
To marry
Since then I’ve learned
Some things don’t never change:
The breakfast chatter of the newly met
Our disappointment
With the world as given
Today,
News and amusements
Filled with automatic fire
Misspelled alarms
Sullen posturings and bellowed anthems
Our scholars say
Young people doubt tomorrow
This afternoon I watched
A group of young men
Or tall boys
Handsome and shining with the strength of futures
Africa’s stubborn present
To a declining white man’s land
Lamenting
As boys always did and do
Time be moving on
Some things don’t never change
And how
back in the day
Well
things were somehow better
They laughed and jived
Slapped hands
And called each other “Dog”
A Day in the Death
Tune: A Day in the Life (Beatles)
A Tale of Two Cities
A hooker was in trouble,
She twisted on her bed
And when she could, she whispered,
And this is what she said:
‘Go out and find my true love,
the one who did me dirt.
I’m sure he’s with another –
don’t give the lady hurt.
But tell him what transpired,
He ought to know the score,
And tell him that I’m dying –
O Jesus, I’m dying for more.’
While in another city
Inside an I.C.U.
The fellow of her fancy
Was in extremis too.
He cried ‘go find my baby,
The one who gave me this.
Be wary of her welcome,
Be careful of her kiss.
I’m sure she’s with a sailor
(Don’t make the sailor sore)
But tell her that I’m dying –
O Jesus, I’m dying for more.’
The outcome of this story
Is anybody’s guess –
Some say they both recovered,
Some say it was a mess.
They both have loaded lugers
Whatever else they’ve got –
The rule is not to use them,
The trick’s not getting shot.
For when affection falters
And down the tubes goes trust,
We’re right back where we’ve started
With self-destructive lust.
And now that I’m a bastard
And now that you’re a whore,
Our love’s a kind of death, dear –
Though Jesus, I’m dying for more.