Editor's Note: Koon Woon posted such a good take on the June Reading that I got his permission to repost it here on our website.
Let the snow begin
First of all, credit and kudos to Leopoldo for the eighth year he is running this show – PoetryBridge is alive and well in West Seattle at the C & P Coffee, thanks to the kindness and support of Cameron and Pete. I attended with my friends Lew and Katerine the featured readers. At the C & P let the show begin. But for me, however,
Let the snow begin, you say, let it drift down, downy on farmhouses, let it blanket the inadvertant sounds, so let the snow begin.
As I find hairs of white, one by one, on top of my scalp, as my years and teeth grind down, and so let it snow, let the snow begin.
The earth in her forgetful way will not keep the sounds, neither of spring nor of summer, and after late fall, the snow will begin to fall and so will the disappearance of inadvertant sounds.
No repudiation of the facts nor any blame to go around – it was just the sounds, the inadvertant sounds, sounds that have clashed, years in the past, sounds that will continue to rebound, and so let the sounds go around.
But sound will only go so far before it attenuates, but sound will nevertheless alert us; like snow, it will
blanket us in or from silence. Sounds that will go around, will go around.
Lew and Katherine were the features at the C & P Coffee reading earlier tonight. I nominated Lew from Portland and Katherine from Everett. They were well-received and the Open Mic was good. Sounds of poetry, each a piece of the poet's heart or his or her useless gray matter. I read Goldfish, or rather, I recited it, and it, the goldfish that is, swam in the air and ruddered its tail from left to right, right to left, in this cafe in West Seattle, and so the night was clear, the mood was mellow, and everyone who came sort of drifted down to their humanness.
Meanwhile the sounds go around, in their inadvertantance, they go around. At the C & P Coffee, poetry went around and around...