Writer (author-journalist-poet-blogger)
1. FRI May 26, 2017 (7-9pm) Criminal Records Little 5 Points Atlanta, with Tom Cheshire of Silver Stone Press.
2. Memorial Day (all morning) 2017 Hidden Lantern Bookstore Rosemary Beach, Florida. Next to Amavida Coffee; setting up outside.
3. A3C Festival Oct 4, 2017 (opening act) Union EAV East Atlanta Village.
I am an American culture reporter based in Atlanta.
Up On Ponce:
Mammas Are Chocolate Milk
Cheap American Swill
Is The High Life
And Thomas Cheshire
Will Always Be A Hero
Races, Classes, Demographics
Whites, Blacks, Hispanics
Neon-Lit Classics
Against An Old Marquis
And Just Me, See
Boozers, Cruisers And Stone Cold Losers
Atlanta, Georgia ~ Deep South
Plus, That Damn 2 Bus
Where They Ripped The Pioneer Heart
Out Of Our Fair City
Divided We Ain’t, Y’all
Summer-Winter-Spring-Fall
We All Do, Hear-I
Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
And A Revolution
Watch Wheels Spin Round
I Skyscrape Devotion
Center Of Town
Spoken Word feature performance in Rosemary Beach, FL:
Kudos CFPP and Atlanta INtown paper. What a great event! Mind blowing poetry by Collin Kelley and FOCUS (and me). ATL’s very own dooGallery is my favorite almost-famous spot. American Spirit Whiskey and Asahi Beer and Sandwich Buddha ~ delicious. June’s ATL ART STARS were bright: Jackie Ducros, Ted Murphy, Charity Lindop, Travis Smith, Jolene Wheeler, Frances Byrd, Stephanie Anderson, Suzanne Bobo, Dan Curran, Jen de Plour, Linda Costa, PaperFrank Dunson, William “KING POP” Floyd, Kendrick “GREATeclectic” Daye of Art Nouveau magazine, and the incomparable Ashley Norfleet:
What The BeltLine
Brings To Mind
Is Integration
Segregation In ATL
Is History, Ancient
And Reality, Present
The Interconnection
Of Distinct Urban Neighborhoods
Makes A Good
City, A Great City
The Perimeter Highway
285, Created The Hive
The Boom Of Growth
That Equated To My Atlanta
Once Being Dubbed:
The Fastest Growing
Civilization In
The History Of Mankind
A Wall Exists, Un-great
OTP/ITP
Outside The Perimeter Versus
Inside The Perimeter. State Versus City
Everything Out Is Suburb, Exurb
Everything In Is In-town
Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead
Remain Three Jewels
Running Up Peachtree
Peachtree Intersects
With Ponce, Representing
Another Wall
Dividing Blacks And Whites
Refuse Flows Downstream
So As In Many Cities
Landlocked Old Atlanta
Was Divided, Still Is Some
Whites North Of Ponce
Blacks South Of Ponce
Streets Change Names
There, Socioeconomics
Here Sits The Quagmire
The City Too Busy To Hate
Has Poor Infrastructure
And Some Of The Most
Stagnating Traffic
In This Great Nation
End The Racial Division
Women And Men In Full
Great Atlantans All
Must Lead Us Out Together
Of This Heart Of Darkness
Rise To The Greatest Greatness
We Can Be A Paris
A Vancouver, An NYC
Or A Birmingham
The Choice Is Obvious
Drop What Divides Us
Build The Beautiful BeltLine
Connect The Conscious Citizenry
Educate The Less Conscious
We Are Better Than
Our Current State
That’s What’s So Great
And Always Was
About Atlanta
A City Built On An Idea
That Idea Being
Movement Of The People
As Those Rocket Ship Buildings
Suggest – Striving, Ascending
Being All We Can Be
The BeltLine Is Our Destiny
(Photo by: Han Vance)
(Photo from “Hanny Does NYC” – circa 2011)
Ode To The Chrysler (C) 2010:
The Extreme Silver Gorgeousity
Of The Chrysler
Immaculate Tall Spire Ascending
Eyelits Twinkling
Who Doth Love Her More Than I
I Fairly Say, Loving Her So Much
Loving Her More Intensely And Accurately
Perhaps Than Any Southern Man, Ever
She, My Lady, Fair By Day
Of Night, We Speaketh Later
She, My Lady, So Fair By Day
Volcano (Park) (C) 2010:
A:
Almost canyon-like,
the great crater we
walked through under a blazing
Hawaiian sun, after the rain
forest. After the volcano, another
stretch of rainforest, a lava
tube. Songbirds don’t live in resort
areas or near cities, and
neither have we – we – have been
Holualoa-Inn and the lodge named
for the volcano, in the
Village of Volcano.
And the jacuzzi
is set to
104
(Photo by: Han Vance)
B:
Next up is old downtown
Hilo, more dark sand. On the
drive to Volcano, from
Holualoa, we stopped at the
black sand beach & a few
observation points: Hawaii
is everything. Big. Life.
When I see a color, that
color tends to be vivid; when
I taste a fruit, that fruit
tends to be succulent and
sweet. And the fish is good,
the people are very good and
my travel companion is great
Happily Floating In Big Blue America,
Han
(Hanish inside Anish Kapoor piece at High Museum of Art in Atlanta)
Atop The 17th Bridge
Facing South On
A Rush Hour Friday
Urbanism-Urbanism
And I Just Counted
Twenty Lanes Of Traffic
Below Me
I’m Up Above It
Walking In Rockports
With Sneaker Inserts
Never Tell Me This
City Can’t Or Ain’t
Because I Will And Do
And So Does This
Butterfly Becoming
More Than A Rap Song
About Getting Money
More Than A Punchline
For Soft-Thought Yankees
To Spew
This Town Has As Much
Energy, Almost As Much
Energy…As Me
(Photo by: Jami Buck-Vance)
