Barrett Warner Wins the 2nd Annual Chris Toll Memorial Chapbook Contest

http://www.publishinggenius.com/?p=4211

September 6 Release Party for new Artichoke Haircut issue

Very excited about being in the upcoming new issue of this smart young magazine.  These kids know their way around the language and the booze and handle both of them with aplomb, wit and sophistication.

Plus I will be fresh back from the ocean and hopefully rejuvenated from the brutal summer that is on its way out.  The light of mid-August is incredible.  Every year it hits me as if I've never seen it before.  For me it always feels like it holds more promise and excitement than the first breezes and soft light of spring.

Here is the lineup for the Artichoke Haircut reading:


Magazine Release Party
As always, we are featuring some great talent from our brand new magazine:

Lily Herman
Barrett Warner
Carabella Sands
CL Bledsoe
Brooke Carlton
Justin Sirois
Sid Gold
Rupert Wondolowski

and more to be announced.


Doors open at 8:15pm, readings start at around 9.

Taps by Barrett Warner

Barrett Warner is a Baltimore cultural warrior of longstanding.  He served some time in the trenches of the fledgling Shattered Wig Night nights when they were held on Tuesdays, featured four or five poets, 3 or 4 bands and went on until 3am.  But he still speaks to me, as does, surprisingly, Laure Drogoul of the 14 Karat Cabaret where the Wigs are held.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------








Taps



When they ask about the leg
I don't answer, don't open the window,
Never say, there's a kind of darkness.


A black bruise stains the mind,
The good hurt I hope will mean
I've come far and done something big.

Such sweet aches, loves labors,
The harrowed acres inside,
Ditches dug with pick-axe and spit.

I haven't moved in twenty years
Except to clamber on life's unfinished ledge
When the chair limps into the bathroom.

Changing the light bulb, right?
Those damn blue sparks
Wired to a fault.  The truth

Is that I like the view from here,
Two feet above the rest of the world,
A slip, a jostle from the endless

Swing and sway.  Sometimes I put
Rocks in my shoes if my heels
Aren't sore enough.

 Even after I close the window
And nail it shut the red bird
Will not stop pestering the glass.


--------------------------------------------------------------

Barrett Warner's chapbook Til I'm Blue in the Face was published by Tropos Press. His new poems make appearances in Southeast Review, Slipstream and Quarter After Eight.