Noted on Talking Points Memo
John L. Perry, writing on Newsmax, opines that our military leadership may be contemplating a coup. His words:
Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention’
Sep 29, 2009
There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic. If a [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
A golden doorknob from the Revolutionary War,
Seriously shown, touched ….
A four-page menu updated weekly,
Seriously discussed, pondered ….
The babies, babies to kids,
Their behavior,
Seriously discussed ….
And the sun on choppy waves
Before a southwest wind and storm,
The same sun reversing the green trees,
Sending them puzzle-like into the waves ….
Overlooked, gone, ignored, blindfolded ….

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By Gene Novogrodsky
The customers drop,
Daily and weekly.
The paper thins,
Thins some more,
Threatens to close.
All over North America,
And the paper ladies,
Those sleepless drivers of dawn,
Lose customers, and their arms,
Tired in the past from backhanded tosses and flips and throws,
Rest, rest with a cost …as the paper ladies still need gas
And the routes are the same, just shrunken [...]

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A reminder
The Writers Group will meet next Tuesday, July 7th, at 7 pm as the full moon rises at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center, 225 E. Stenger St., in San Benito.
The Writers Group at NMCAC is in its ninth year and is still going strong. Founding members Gene Novogrodsky, Beto Conde, Joe Premont and [...]

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Night Walk
Through Matamoros, close to midnight,
I walk …past bricks of a hundred-plus years …
And the bricks speak to me for I tell them to ….
Away from the bricks and back streets and dim lights,
I enter sharp yellow light and cars, cars for a mile, up and down one
Lit main street, cars of parents-given-to-wealthy young men [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
Cardiologist, listens, feels: ears, fingers.
Pharmacist, shoots pills into plastic.
Walkers and canes drag, are pushed.
Adult care, day and overnight.
Appointments, one helped in-out: respite.
Obituaries, life in black and white on a quarter page.
Elections, 2012, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, projected, demographics.
World Cups, 2010, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, new nations.
World Series, 2009 and every [...]

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by Gene Novogrodsky
With gloves and a metal poker,
He goes deep into the day’s
Trash cans, grabbing and stabbing
Aluminum cans from weekend parties
Buried under pizza boxes and store-bag plastic.
Earth Day?
Earth Day 39?
What’s that?
A recycler he is,
Doing what he knows on
Earth Day, while unknowing as
The trash can fillers of the day’s shaky promise ….
He hopes their parties expand,
Longer [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
…and even if locked inside, my mind would race, but outdoors, it’s faster ….
- Woman wins eight dollars with scratch cards, while a Vietnam vet, in line, is patient, and shakes his head as she hopes and wishes ….
- The two youngest farmers left in South Texas tell me about onions, and then [...]

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by Gene Novogrodsky
Hardly the bunny and egg people. Hardly the backyard grillers. Hardly the cars backed up to beaches, bridges, restaurants. Four people on the road.
Three first. A woman and two men stand next to their two thousand-dollar touring bikes, saddle bags heavy. They just came down to the border, getting an SUV lift from [...]

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A reminder
The Writers Group at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center meets Tuesday night at 7 pm. The Narciso is located at 225 E. Stenger St., in San Benito.
The meetings are open to anyone interested in writing. Participants have ten minutes each to read whatever they choose. Some regularly bring guitars and perform original music [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky
…a lot of failed state talk these days, all directed at and about Mexico. Fair? Maybe. But what if Mexicans started to use “failed state” about the US  … questioning how its border partner dug itself into two wars, slid into a no-healthcare-for-all system and managed to stick about two million people [...]

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by Gene Novogrodsky
“Just think, if you hadn’t met her, you would have not had the happiness.”
I know all the arguments.
“For scrambled eggs, you have to break eggs.”
“No pain, no gain.”
“Come home on a shield, or with one.”
Fine sentiments, for brave folk.
Cowards flee.
They’re safe.

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from Virginia Gause

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From Virginia Gause
The public is invited to hear Sandra Cisneros speak at UTPA Student Union Theater on Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 4 pm. This will be a highlight of the 2009 FESTIBA Community Day http://coah.utpa.edu/festiba/Saturday.htm
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear one of the foremost contemporary authors. Cisneros’ first book “The House on Mango [...]

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A poem by John Goggin
When they came, they came as friends
Blessed by the king, with new learning to impart.
We all prospered, it is true; grew fat, built new houses,
Mortgaged our futures, became blind.
Wondrous, wasn’t it?
When the wind shifted and a storm blew up,
In just a big city moment we were not so smart.
They pillaged to [...]

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from Gene’s Notebook
…the pesera starts off, and he tells both sides of the aisle that he was a trucker for 15 years out of central Florida, and slept in his truck for those years; he saved his money, and when the years were up, he came to Matamoros, where for six months he is a [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook
“Look, more and more peach blossoms,” I say, “very pink.”
“Yes, daily,” she says.
A fine break, porch sandwiches and peach blossoms, and I look at her, and see a small woman in an Upper Plains’ state apartment who invited me for dinner, which had some wobbly jello – whipped cream atop – and I [...]

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A reminder from Virginia Gause
Valley Byliners Hands-On Workshop -
Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop for Writers
Saturday, February 14th, 2009, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Engineering Technology Center (Bldg. S), Texas State Technical College (TSTC)
1902 North Loop 499, Harlingen.

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A reminder
The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center Writers Forum is nearing its eighth anniversary; it meets each first Tuesday at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center, 220 Stenger Street, San Benito 7 – 9 p.m. February’s forum is February 3rd.
Participants get 10 minutes to read, sing, tell or perform in Spanish or English. Non-participants are [...]

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by John Goggin
Cooking time: 1 hr, and then several more.
Total time: depends, doesn’t it?
Caveat: Don’t start this after 6PM
Ingredients:

1 roasting chicken, 4-5 lbs.

A fine roasting chicken. Not some skinny fryer, but something with big breasts and strong thighs. Something you’re excited about bringing home. Something you’re not ashamed to let your neighbors see you bring [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook
…and after three sour faces, all within my wanderings, I recall …. The bluebonnets, star-petals, silvery drops of misty rain trapped in tiny coves, white the drops, diamonds … blue nearing

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From Gene’s Notebook
…I usually do not explain where my ideas begin – do we ever really know …? But concerning “The Wall” and West Loop Toll Road, there are several explanations; Ruth Wagner, friend, wife, companion, confidant and more, was in front of me on her bike in Hope Park, and I saw her trembling, [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook
…with the New Year here in Asia and Oceania, there are some hours before it is here in the humidity and sun ….
…Border Patrol helicopter cruises over the riverbanks in the hazy sky, and a motorcyclist on the flat ground slams on his brakes, fishtails, keeps his balance (no helmet) and does not [...]

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A remembrance
Hewing wood, fetching tamales mid December, getting drunk by the garage fire with the in-laws as the Norther rages at all that was and is warm. And the women cook, and talk and watch TV inside. Men by common agreement and innate concordance converge apart from the split tails free of female censoriousness and [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook
…and when the mind drifts, easily induced on a walk in drizzle and cold, walking stick striking the sidewalk and pavement ….
- The Matamoros roofer, just back from roofing in Corpus Christi, tells me that Mexico is mi tierra, and the United States mi trabajo. I joke with him and tell him to [...]

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