Forum / Cervena Barva Press Publishes A New Chapbook by Charles P. Ries

• 
  Gloria Mindock

  May 18, 07:49am

  Cervena Barva Press Announces a New Chapbook
  "I'd Rather be Mexican"
  by Charles P. Ries
  
  Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory and five books of poetry. Most recently he was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association "Jade Ring" Award for humorous poetry. He is the former poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and a former member of the board at the Woodland Pattern Book Center. Charles is Co-Chairman of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. He will have a book of poetry published in early 2010: Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love that will be published by Alternating Current Pre, Leah Angstman, Editor. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes (www.visitsheboygan.com/dairyland/).
  You may find additional samples of his work by going to: www.literati.net/Ries/

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  El Latino Blanco
  (The White Latin)

  I woke up throughout the night
  as the fleas kept biting my toes.
  Just my toes – the rest of me
  didn t seem to interest them.

  "El Latino Blanco" the bartender called me as
  I ordered double shots of tequila throughout the night,
  one for me and one for my friend the large white rabbit
  called El Conjito Blanco Grande who sat invisibly next to me,
  as he has next to the other drunks who have used him as an
  excuse to order doubles.

  My dreams that night were ones of desolation and consolation.
  Always in that order. I remember because the fleas kept me
  on the edge of real time. Maybe they weren't fleas at all,
  but insect sized psychic miners, biting me to lucidity and
  injecting me with some sort of drunken-poet-dream-sex-venom.
  I'm sure I'm not the first drunken poet to be visited in this way.
  I'm sure I will not be the last.

  As the morning came, the fleas went to sleep and I too drifted away
  into a deep cold river, waking to a pure blue sky, a massive Mexican
  hangover and the smell of black coffee served to me by a mescal worm named Little Rico.
  
  Order online at http://www.thelostbookshelf.com/cervenabooks.html

  I'd Rather be Mexican
  $7.00
  
  Shipping
  $3.00
  
  Total
  $10.00
  
  
  Send check or money order payable to:
  Cervena Barva Press
  P.O. Box 440357,
  W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222
  e-mail: editor@cervenabarvapress.com
  

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