A leading poet of the Beat Movement, David Meltzer was raised in Brooklyn during the War years; performed on radio & early TV on the Horn & Hardart Children¹s Hour. Was exiled to L.A. at 16 & at 17 enrolled in an ongoing academy w/ artists Wallace Berman, George Herms, Robert Alexander, Cameron; migrated to San Francisco in l957 for higher education w/ peers & maestros like Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Joanne Kyger, Diane DiPrima, Michael McClure, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, Jack Hirschman, a cast of thousands all living extraordinary ordinary lives. Beat Thing [La Alameda Press, 2004] won the Josephine Miles PEN Award, 2005. Was editor and interviewer for San Francisco Beat: Talking With The Poets [City Lights, 2001]. With Steve Dickison, co-edits Shuffle Boil, a magazine devoted to music in all its appearances & disappearances. 2005 saw the publication of David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer by Viking/Penguin, a collection spanning over forty years of work that paints a vivid portrait of Meltzer's life as a poet through poems taken from thirty of his previous books of poetry. With a versatile style and playful tone, Meltzer offers his unique vision of civilization with a range of juxtapositions from Jewish mysticism and everyday life to jazz and pop culture.

Michael Rothenberg is a poet, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge magazine online at www.bigbridge.org. His poetry books include Man/Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger, The Paris Journals (Fish Drum Press), Monk Daddy (Blue Press), and Unhurried Vision (La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press). His poems have been published widely in small press publications including, 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Berkeley Poetry Review, Exquisite Corpse, First Intensity, Fish Drum, Fulcrum, Golden Handcuffs Review, House Organ, Prague Literary Review, Tricycle, Van Gogh's Ear, Vanitas, Zyzzyva, JACK, and Jacket. He is also author of the novel Punk Rockwell. Rothenberg's 2005 CD collaboration with singer Elya Finn, was praised by poet David Meltzer as "fabulous-all [the] songs sound like Weimar Lenya & postwar Nico, lushly affirmative at the same time being edged w/ cosmic weltschmertz. An immensely tasty production." He is also editor for the Penguin Poet series, which includes selected works of Philip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, David Meltzer and Ed Dorn. He has recently completed the Collected Poems of Philip Whalen for Wesleyan University Press.

THE BLACKEST ROSE

I'm afraid of the flowers, she said
 	they move so quietly.

Vines on the bedtable
 	Roses on the dresser
Awaken at night as my breath awaits love
 	to come move my room

The Flowers turn
 	(Breathe as they move)
Towards me, in the dark
 	Large shadows

I'm afraid of the breath the flowers have,
 	she said

Tonight, new moon, I watch without sleep
So quietly do they move upon me

--David Meltzer

ROSEMARY CLOONEY DIED TODAY

I'm in a hurry with no place to go
I'm here, it's here, not there, but here
Burning incense 10:29 am, Sunday
morning, rain, rain, come this way
mind o mind float away.... "krishna lila"
by dj Cheb i Sabbah, put me to sleep
last night when I thought I'd never stop
running the tap, frozen in sleepless
headlights. Everyone should know
I was there for him. I was monkey son
and hope I didn't hurt him
not sitting with him
every remaining departing moment

Separation and exile

He complained about being alone
but knew it was nothing unique
Moment to moment, each breath
and thought breaking apart, the delicacy
of regrouping those thoughts into
a concoction, to consume once again

Agates, buddhas, books and very little else
over 78 years, but tons of friends
Who admired him, never knew
how to talk to him, or ways to take care of him
Protect him in his grand vulnerability
He was after all a cranky guy but so what
if that was his worst aspect
then give me more Philips

Banquets of Philips
Trees of peach Philip fruit
Tomes of Philip
Philip zones
Philip barks and howls and groans
to populate the thickening silence
Philip silence and Philip pause
Philip face distorting
to punctuate the situation
Philip ears and images

What a handsome fatman
Handsome boob
Handsome vegetable
Handsome meat
I picture him and my mother talking
from one hospital bed in Miami to another in San Francisco
Two handsome cranks both sure
how this miserable story would end

--- Michael Rothenberg