After I explained Haiku while slurping Ballantine at the Prosperity Social Club, man about town, John Corral, quickly jotted this three line gem on a cocktail napkin. You never can tell where or when you run into talent, lubricated by alcohol or not.

In front of mirror,
I want to tongue bathe my balls.
I look amazing.

Genius!

It just doesn't seem natural unless I'm at the Literary Cafe on a Thursday night. This time I'm guest bartending from 8:30 to around 10:00 or whenever Linda and Andy get back from whatever they're doing. Joining me will be Neve Black, erotic writer extraordinaire. I'll try to get her to dance on the bar and you can stuff bills in her garter. I hope to give her the basis for a new story. Come see me spill beer and belch loudly. I'll be the one with the beret.

If there is anything I can't stand is no-shows for events that I sweat my ass off organizing. I don't mean attendees, but features, the stars of the party the show. I used to get disappointed, then miffed, then got angry, then went fucking bonkers (See the on-line rants about David (last minute apology for lazy shit) Hassler.)

So for the final poetry night, I had another no show. The biggest night we would ever have and this prick doesn't call, email, or anything. I had to respond. Worse off, I thought he was a friend. I should be more choosy. From Facebook wall exchange:

Steve Goldberg
You how I feel about no-shows, mutherfucker!
Sat at 6:31pm

Michael Grover
My bad Steve the weather was really bad and I was sick.
Sat at 6:34pm

Steve Goldberg
weather was fine and you seem well enough for Oliver House, asshole.
Sun at 9:30pm

Michael Grover
Alright Steve, you obviousely don't understand what's been wrong with me, and I don't need to explain it to you. Think whatever you want to think.
Yesterday at 9:06am

Steve Goldberg
I know what's wrong with you. You're a fraud. You claim to be a professional poet, but no-shows is NOT professional. You think you were the only one unable to come. The difference is they called, wrote, sent a message to cancel and not hang me out to dry. You fucked me, asswipe. NO excuse, nothing to explain except admission that you're a lazy, whiny pussy. Definitely not a friend. You did it to me before with Blue and your "guarantee." You have no credibility at all and your word is isn't worth the puke I spilled into the toilet all week. BTW I still made it to the reading. That's what I think and until you prove otherwise, that is it.
Schmuck.
2 seconds ago

Find him on FB and send him your opinion. Bottom line: DON'T FUCK WITH ME.

It’s hard to imagine that after four years of throwing poets together to get their versigroove on every month, every second Thursday, that Nick and I are throwing in the towel (albeit not a very clean towel). Yes, Friends, the institution of the Poetry Night at the Literary Café will be over this Thursday December 10 starting at 9:30pm. It has been a great dance, a tango in fact, that had us dipping and twirling with you, our local poets, poet lovers, and poetry lovers. We say thank you for all the love and support. And that relationship, like a marriage or a good regular booty call, is why I look at this like an amiable divorce, instead of a funeral.

For one, a funeral denotes finality, a brick wall that nothing passes except memories of the past. Like the sudden appearance of the Tremont Chicken, the surprising realization that both hosts wear boxers instead of briefs because they showed you, or a spontaneous opera concert. We have had poets drink their poems from a blender, wear trash bags for dresses, create sound tapestries of phone messages. We pulled poets from California, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, Kansas City, and even Toledo. We have had hip-hop, haiku, confessional, slam, strict form, objective, lyric, surreal, and just about every other genre of poetry. Yes memories that we kept record with video, and were probably the first to that in the country. Requests for how came from everywhere and help establish us as a national venue. Not bad for a couple drunks looking for a good time.

It was just too hard for us all to keep it going, to keep it at a level of excellence that was only due to the serendipitous meeting of so many factors. Time, responsibility, and creative resources change and so with a hug and a smile we finish the regular series like a divorce that has love intact, an occasional dinner or telephone call to stay in touch like good friends. And so is the Literary Café Poetry Night, a regular series no more, but the special dinners will happen. New poets come out of the woodwork all the time and many deserve the honor of being a Literary Café feature reader. Books are written and the authors should get a chance to show their work. The Lit Café is still there for them.

So come to the final evening, highlighted by the words of our previous features, the best of the best. There will be no time for open mic but maybe for a final free for all. It is a party of our memories, a celebration of Tremont’s creative magic. There will be razors and sledgehammers, so be prepared this Thursday night, December 10 at 9:30pm. The Literary Café is located at 1031 Literary Road in the not quite lugubrious Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland.

Somehow Charlotte Mann got it into her Arkansas mind that I might make a good host for a promotional poetry reading for her book, Hotel Poem: Poets of Cleveland. Suzanne of Mac's Backs the sponsor of the event) should have stopped her. Anyway, I must of have been drinking, gone insane, dropped back into Texas-Arkansas brain with her, or something else when I accepted. In case you have not heard of it yet (sleeping under rocks again) Hotel Poem is a beautiful coffee-table book of portraits and poems of the area's new, old, and amazing poets. Of course, I'm in there (Not the cover, wiseguy. That's the lovely Carmen Tracey) and so will many of the book's subjects at the Barking Spider.

It will be a great chance to see (and buy)the book and since I know what kind of egomaniacs poets are, I'm sure you will be able to get them to sign their picture and/or poem. Think of it, a luxurious book of classy photos of word artists and with their real signatures all in one package! If a meteor falls on the 'Spider just as you pull away in your car and all of us are wiped out, you will make a killing on ebay!

So come on out this Saturday afternoon, December 5 at 3 PM at The Barking Spider 11310 Juniper Rd. (behind Arabica) on Case's campus. Get there early to find parking.

TM Gottl (where the hell is that umlaut key?) just posted a great article in The Examiner about the Literary Cafe poetry night and upcoming finale. Click thru and come to what will probably be a memorable night.

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I'm reading as part of NeoSounds as on of the features in Cincinnati tomorrow night.

That is, if I figure out how to get there. If yr in the area, come on down. It should be a good time.

Like a full solar eclipse or the coronation of a king or the birth of the savior, times like these are rare. Here at the Literary Cafe, this time, this once in a lifetime time, we call WHITE TIME. It is our Poetry Series sometimes extravaganza, some time academy, sometime orgy, sometime bacchanalia, Fourth Anniversary. Amazingly, the two over-drinking, lackluster, irresponsible lechers known as Steve and Nick, managed to not only create, but maintain the premier poetry series in northeast Ohio going for four years. It's like college, but with less beer. Nobody thought we could graduate, but we did.

To commemorate this auspicious event on Thursday November 12 at 9:30pm, we can get no less than two of the best poets in the vast small press country, THE David Smith and Scott (Kid Mingo) Wannberg.

A lifelong resident of the city of angels, Scott Wannberg moved to Florence, Oregon in 2008. A member of the legendary group of traveling poets known as the Carma Bums, Wannberg has read his poetry all over North America. He is the author of a number of books, including Mr. Mumps, Juice The Musical!, Amnesia Motel, Equal Opportunity Sledgehammer and many more. His most recent collection titled Strange Movie Full of Death was published by Viggo Mortensen’s Percival Press Summer 2009. Wannberg’s worked was also included in the wildly popular Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Thundersmouth Press.

In a rare return engagement at the Lit Cafe, David Smith A.K.A. Handsome Duke Deal A.K.A. THE David Smith is Mountain View California’s true king of the jews. In the 1980’s he was the publisher of Ouija Madness Press and Ouija Madness Magazine. He is the author of Closer to Jesus and with Scott Wannberg, Rockets Redglare, Greenpanda Press, 2006. His most recent collection White Time was published by Offbeat Pulp Press Summer 2009. Smith’s work has appeared in a number of respected literary journals both online and in print including Killpoet and Off Beat Pulp.

There can never be a better time to come to the Lit Cafe but on this Fourth Anniversary. Thursday November 12 at 9:30pm promises to be a Time extraordinary. Magic is in the air and it isn't just flatulence. You cannot miss the alchemy that David and Scott bring to a room together. I'm not even asking anymore, I'm demanding it and you'll thank me. The Literary Cafe is located at 1031 Literary Road in the timeless Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland.

Hey, I've meant to post about my movie career. What? you say? Yup, I have been been in a couple of indy shorts over the years. The first was done by Dord period. I have the DVD but not online. But here is the most recent. Remember don't blink or may miss me.

Dave Berry's 5th place effort for the "official" Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video. He was ripped off. Should have been at least 3rd. (I'm at the end).

There is a repressive force in our Tremont midst. They are deceptive; wearing the guise of progressiveness, nodding in agreement to our creative ideas. They act our friends, but then it is they that try to slam the BAN! But, poetry lovers, we are not with resources ourselves. this past week was National Banned Book Week, and, if you were like me, I reread sections of some favorites that have been on censorship lists, such as:

• Catcher in the Rye
• Lolita
• Lord of the Flies
• Huckleberry Finn
• The Great Gatsby
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Of Mice and Men
• Slaughterhouse-Five
• Naked Lunch
• Look Homeward, Angel
• The War of the Worlds

I like to have a nice cocktail while reading this "seditious" stuff. Sundays are my best day to sit, relax, read, and sip....but I can't in Tremont! The ancestors of this nefarious group of idea police shackled our public meeting houses, our community gathering, our forums for uninhibited inebriated debate generations ago. So now, in the 21st century, our freedom to enjoy a refreshing drink stronger than a beer is still dictated by fat old white guys that have been dead for ages and buried in mausoleums made of the bones of the oppressed, built with sweat of immigrants, and held together with blood of the minority....the forced sober minority.

Friends, we can do two things to fix these injustices. First celebrate Tremont Time by voting November 3rd for Sunday Liquor Sales in Cleve 3N and Cleve 3O, both on and off premises. Yes, it is now Tremont's Turn for economic growth. Read those yellow signs you see around the neighborhood. Second, come to the Literary Cafe Thursday October 8 at 9:30 pm to see two poets that probably should be banned for good but different reasons, from Kansas City, Kansas Jacob Johanson and Tremont's pride Allisun Hovater.

Jacob Johanson is a whole lotta Mexican with a penchant for bringing the most undesirable, uncouth, disgusting, kind of people fromall over the country to sleepy little midwestern cities. Yes, I am talking about underground small press poets and the city that straddles a river and two states, Kansas City. Twice now he had pulled off Unregulated Word Poetry Festival and the city fathers are still looking for a Swedish kid. He is also the literary editor for Off Beat Press and works nights so he can squeeze the Charmin in peace. He is known to paint, disappear, and get his poems inserted into a ton of zines and anthologies like the Beards, Zygote in My Coffee, and Kill Poet. He has just got a chapbook that has sumtin to do with swallows published by Rose of Sharon Press. It is said that a ride in his car can provide miraculous healings to the digestive tract. As an Anarchist, poetic prophet (not profit), and faith healer, anything he does, says or writes should probably be banned.

Allisun Hovater is an icon of Tremont. You can't miss her as she sashays across the neighborhood. She is sometimes referred to as the Princess of Tremont, which she so deserves. She has studied poetry at through the Lit Cafe Open Mic correspondence course and is our most recognized graduate. She has organized a reading series at the Visible Voice Bookstore, curated art shows at Doubting Thomas Art Gallery, and has been published in Hotel Poems: the Poets of Cleveland by Charlotte Man. Allisun has read in Akron, Lakewood, and Cleveland and was a memorable part of the Tainted Zygote in my City Poetry Festival last fall. She also throws some kickass theme parties and brunches at the Chateau Ghetto. An aristocrat in a working class neighborhood, she bound to find revolutionists trying to ban her existence.

There you have it.Get radical and listen to what some don't want you to hear. Read something that some don't want you to read. Drink something that some don't want you to drink. Two preachers of freedom just trying to share some fun at the Literary Cafe, located at 1031 Literary Road in the Blue Law Hell that is Tremont in Cleveland. Pretend it's Sunday and have a shot of whiskey while giving City Hall the finger.

Vote Yes for Sunday liquor Sales in Tremont. Vote Quickly Vote Often.