bio

    Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway ( poetrysuperhighway.com ) and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 22 collections of poetry, most recently Beautiful Mistakes and God Wrestler: a Poem for Every Torah Portion and edited the anthologies A Poet’s Siddur, Ekphrastia Gone Wild, A Poet’s Haggadah, and The Night Goes on All Night. He writes the Jewish Poetry Blog “From the Lupertverse” for www.JewishJournal.com, and the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.

http://poetrysuperhighway.com/
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http://www.catandbanana.com/
Poetry Super Highway

The Mississippi Delta is Shining Like a National Guitar

I’ve never woken up in Memphis before and already
there’s a hangover of sorts. I’m going need the day

to flush out Los Angeles. First on the docket is
buying a postcard with a picture of ducks on it.

Second, breakfast at a place that chases the sun.
The amount of humidity is fist fighting with the

available oxygen, and we’re putting on all the
loose clothing. We’re detaching our hair from

our heads. We’ve got biscuits in our future,
Addie just wants to rock and roll all night, which

is a hell of thing to see this early in the morning.
We are going to Graceland.

copyright 2019 Rick Lupert

Exasperated

They’re shooting people again
in nightclubs and restaurants

In synagogues and churches.
They’re shooting people in Pittsburgh

and Thousand Oaks. They’re
shooting people close to home.

Every bullet is close to home.
There are vigils all day.

You can’t move through this
cold civil war without

moving through a vigil.
Soon they’ll come with their

guns to the vigils. Soon
the breaking news will

be the one place, the one minute
where no-one was shot.

Soon the vigils and synagogues
and churches and bullets.

They’re shooting people
with thoughts and prayers.

I’d like to move closer but
I can’t get through the vigil.

The bullets are flying in
all the places with all the names.

I’d like to lighten the mood but
there’s no time, I’ve got to get

to the vigil. I’ve got to shut my
mouth and say something.

No one said it was going to
be like this. No one said

anything after the vigil.
After the shooting

again, again
again.

copyright 2019 Rick Lupert