Gasoline Fumes by Charly Fasano and Lucero

Gasoline Fumes

 

 

 

I remember laying in the back of a green

Ford Econoline van built in 1975.

Must have been 1983 the first time I smelled gasoline.

There's nothing more American than the smell of gasoline.

We were heading to Tulsa to visit Aunt Daisy.

The sliding door was open

and Dad was filling up the tank

outside of Oklahoma City.

Mom stood outside the bathroom door

telling my brother not to touch anything.

Gas was a dollar and a quarter

and there were always free two-liter bottles

of cola with each fill up.

Truck stops like these were sprinkled along

interstate highways throughout

Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

They were called Stuckey’s and they were famous

for their rubber steak and cheese sandwiches.

They all had gift shops full of t-shirts and knick-knacks

that proved to family and friends

that we had driven through places like Oklahoma.

There's nothing more American than the roar of motorcycle caravans

 

and tractor-trailers burping off in the distance.

Dad slid the van door shut.

Mom made everyone wash their hands, again.

I pretended to drive our van from the back seat

using a roll of duct tape as a steering wheel.

Watching stories blur together at sixty-five miles per hour.

We listened to songs from the 1950s on the radio

and tried to get every trucker we passed to blare their horns.

Looked at houses in the middle of nowhere and wondered

why anyone would want to live so far away.

We counted endless oil wells.

I thought I could listen to conversations

from phone lines if I followed them

on the window with my finger.

We drove almost everywhere.

Rolled across most lower forty-eight states.

Mom and Dad wanted us to see places

most people only get to visit in photographs.

That summer my brother and I were photographed

at a rest area wearing t-shirts that said

we went on vacation to Oklahoma.

Gasoline smells different next to interstate highways.

There's nothing more American than the interstate.

Nothing more American than watching America move.

-Charly Fasano

Finding Zen in Cow Town

 

In Kansas City’s Union Station,

monks gathered to shake

colored sand that would become not sand,

but Mandala.

 

And here – pay attention now –

here is where it gets interesting:

a boy, three, maybe four,

saunters under the cordons

to do a little soft shoe

while monks ate, one assumes,

a simple meal.

 

Intricate designs and sharp, colored lines –

some no wider than a single small grain –

became the dust and scuffle of a child’s abandon.

 

When asked, on the news that night,

what he thought of the security footage

of the child’s sand dancing, of the mother’s

quick grab and fast retreat, a monk replied, smiling,

We swept it up and started over.

We will just have to work faster now.

 

In a few days, in an unveiling ceremony,

attendees marveled

ooh and ahh.

 

After all of the cameras packed away,

monks swept the second attempt

into a sacred vessel and poured it

into the waters of the Missouri

for good fortune.

 

The mandala, you see, is like this poem

we find ourselves in this very moment;

the letters of each word, a grain of colored sand.

Dance in it, kick it around under

the soles of your feet.

Sweep it up.

Pour it in the river.

 

Let it all wash out to sea.

 

 

 

-Shawn Pavey

No Blue Mondays, No Smokey Horns

 
I mourn the loss of those dark, sad clubs
and the blue horns and shiny ebony pianos
that played this river town.

I mourn the passing of those nightspots,
the Playmore, Lucille’s Paradise, Tootie’s
Mayfair, the Antler’s Club and the Century
Club now all gone to un-mowed vacant  lots,
to fading silent memories played out on
scratchy black circles of sound.

I mourn the passing of that lost town,
that once gleaming city on the bluffs
that really lived where now wander
lonely those tuneless streets and ride
the ghostly street cars we’ve paid for twice.

I mourn the death of those clubs, that music,
and the real Kings and Queens of  KC Soul
now  buried deep beneath the HIP-HOPocracy
of the thinly veiled racist facades wholly-owned
subsidiaries of the you-know-who’s–all served up
to us by the phony political hacks that want it all–Family Style!

Yes, I mourn the inevitable ascendancy of the do-gooder,
the bluenose, the prude, the developer and his pal,
the big banker and finally, the glad hand greeter at
the bronze door all knowing so well what’s good for
Our Town..and their bankroll!



-Steve Bridgens

UNTITLED #3


 
So I’m sitting out on the sidewalk
in front of Prospero’s Books
late at night,
watching the traffic go by,
beeping and honking
with lights flashing like
they’re talking while the
people wander in and out
of the bar on the corner:
yuppies and bums,
strippers and poets,
dancing so they don’t get too close,
like they’re magnets or something,
polarized for their own protection
from each other,
each on a course
that’s evasive at best,
doing laundry, getting tattoos,
beer, the daily news with
cigarettes and coffee, eating
and walking, talking and
drinking in little shops.
It’s a last supper out here
and each apostle’s got
his job to do, leaving scorch marks
on the concrete,
bits of paper with old numbers
under empty cups…
This is primordial stuff,
this mulligan’s stew of us;
give it heat and pressure
and some strange green
lightning bolt and 39th street
might sit up, scratch its ass
and mutter…
and what would it say
about you
or me
while we hang on for our lives
like we do every day,
and still are,
sitting on the sidewalk,
drifting down the street
like we’re secret words
written with invisible ink
on ancient tea leaves
that get scattered
by celestial winds
that no one,
no one
ever
reads.




-Brandon Whitehead

Revival

 
There is a place where parched lips
kiss warped reeds and cramped fingers
stroke strings and keys
filling the air with melodies.
And resurrected rhapsodies
capture the cadence of ancient chants
where shackles are removed
and our ancestors dance
in anticipation of liberty
and every note that’s played
is dedicated to their memory.

There is a place where each heartache
and every sharp pain
can be smoothed and soothed
by a medicinal refrain
the story of King David makes it plain:

“And it came to pass,
when the evil spirit from God
was upon Saul that David took a harp,
and played with his hand:
so Saul was refreshed, and was well,
and the evil spirit departed from him.”

You see this divinely inspired requiem
came forth from a glorious past
and though it defies description
we choose to call it Jazz
and ever since this music
emerged from space and time
it has found a permanent residence
on 9 + 9 and Vine.
Someday soon you’ll travel there
to escape from emails,
cell phones and faxes,
from being overworked and underpaid
and paying too many taxes.
This is the place where even Struggle
kicks off his shoes and relaxes
and the only war that will ever take place
is the “battle of the saxes.”
   
This is the place where Jazz
is served up as a sensual delight...
and it smells like grandmother’s chitlins
‘cause she always cooks ‘em just right,
and it tastes like the peach cobbler
she makes that gets better with every bite,
and it feels like love’s very first kiss
shared in the soft moonlight,
and it looks like Susanna Jones
when she wears that red dress,
Lord, what a beautiful sight,
and it sounds like the Jazz Disciples
smooth on a blue Monday night
or like Gabriel’s trump at the Rapture
just before we take flight.

So these ministers of music
are awaiting your arrival
wanting to provide you
with orchestral comfort
as you witness the Revival
because jazz, like matter,
can’t be destroyed
it only changes forms
and the historic intersection
of 18th and Vine
is where jazz will be reborn.

Then we will cherish
this noble noise
and glow in the cool of its heat
as the caramel coated cacophony
creates a sonically hypnotic beat
that can only ever be heard
through the tapping soles of the feet
and as willing slaves to the rhythm
our freedom will be complete. 



-Glenn North

It’s a Food Town

　

She says it has always been a blues town

even when it was a jazz town

but she’s wrong it’s a food town

because I can’t choose between

costillas en chile verde up on Summit

or samosas piping hot on Lexington

scalding pho in the market

dumplings on 39th street

chicken spiedini on fifth

or gyros falafel and pizza at the curb

I don’t want to argue Gates Bryants

Jackstack LC’s Oklahoma Joe’s

or your granddady’s all night long

Italian and Austrian in the freight

peppercorns above the trains

peaches from the tree or double cheese & grilled onions

on Broadway or Baltimore

taquitos on Central or Independence Avenues

greens in Eden’s garden

strutting chickens north and south

pollos ricos shrimp biryani sashimi

roumalade ooh la la mix the bunch and bring me

iced sweet tea and bourbon on the side

-Jose Faus

SUNSHINE (A LOVE LETTER TO KANSAS CITY)

 

 

I love …

love to rise early on Saturn’s morning, feel his rings

feel his rings like hula hoops around my childlike heart

skip! jump in my car, roll down 71

sit giddy geeked in front of Scooters

peering down a pristine 47th Street

into the darkness of Cleaver Blvd

to see her awaken from her slumber

proud sons and daughters skitter about her streets

like well-dressed honeybees

feverishly walking, talking, shopping

from one flower to the next

some call it people watching

but I’m a student!

I’m a student of interaction

so call me a major in humanities

she is alive and radiant

and I am turned on

reminiscent of the right combination of man and cologne

aromatic ecstasy seems to be turning into a lost art form

like fathers, chivalry, and 50th wedding anniversaries

 

too many of us going half on babies

too many of us going 50 percent

50 percent of us don’t have whole-hearted perseverance to love

we can’t reconcile our differences

so we lament over paradise lost while we sip coffee

we all be searching for sunny days

we all be searching for a sunny daze

bring me sunshine!

sushine! smolder over so vines grow wild over 18th Street

sunshine! reflect rays turning broken hearts of glass

into rainbows at 39th

sunshine!

gleam!

sparkle!

KC you are my sunshine!

KC you are my lover!

KC you are my friend!

KC you are burnt ends slathered with Gates!

Hiiiiii May I Help Yooooooouuuu!!

KC you are gizzards packed in red and white boxes!

Go Chicken Goooooo!!!

 

KC you are a maverick Texan turned Chief!

KC you are a Kangaroo suspended in rare air on brick buildings

KC you are Satchel, Buck, Jackie

KC you are a city of Kings not Killaz

KC you are Royal

KC you are Cobras marching down Grand Blvd

KC you are a lyrical legend born on 57th and Highland

KC you are the Bloodstone giving way to LoKey

KC you are Oleta, Ida, Hagenbach and Monae

KC you are trendy like Kate Spade

KC you are blue cool fountains springing

KC you are my native tongue

KC you are beautiful!

KC you are beautiful!

KC you are beautiful!

KC you are home!




-Mz Angela Roux