well we have a wonderful line up for you this evening and starting out that line up is rachel russell rachel is originally from perth western australia she travelled to the us in twenty sixteen to work as part cultural exchange program she enjoys playing open mic nights in her spare time rachael studies courses at berklee college of music and currently lives right in new jersey so welcome rachel thank you so much thank you very much say this one is code love is back he has been here at our program a couple of times for he is a writer of poems and stories nine collections of his fiction and poetry have been published and if i'm not mistaken you have some one out on the table there treat this evening so go ahead tell me they're ready gentlem  also today is saturday and i'm very pleased about that because i still have my health insurance  held in the leafless hands of a tree just under the moon where their sewer outlet meets the creek a splintered glaze across the gully and not a group held in hands of leafless lambs creek bed is full rumbling like a witches cauldron a lone raccoon slides along the muddy hill deer huddle between trees as the sky sparks and rumbles crawfish cling to under sides of rocks not far away along the mighty river a large trash heap sits dominates the landscape as a mountain where one sparks an arx coke ovens rolling mills blast furnace is an open hearts rumbled where truckers train ships barges travelled just downstream where the soap factory tea factory and the sweet sickening smell of the chemical plant all gone and so now the air is good in river water cleaner and so there were thousands of jobs and union halls but the bars are all that remain under different names even the churches are closing and now a trash mountain sits by the river and then there's that knotted rope in the g mangled in the hands of the dead black oak the last kids go across decades ago and like the jobs they never came back knowing cleared the tree no one who knew rope forgotten it simply rots so a lot of people used to go down the shore or new york the beach and my neighborhood a lot of us couldn't go down so we used to do tree surfing you climb to the top of the white pine in the neighbor's yard raised your arms as if you were icarus without wax on your wings atop the tree you spread out your arms and jumped limbs bending needles flying cones scattering along the ground and down you came from seventy feet above as a surfer on a wave gone bad sliding bump and never holding on and when you reached the bottom you were laughing climbed back up raised arms in triumph jumped again some twenty years later lightning struck split the pine down the middle as a knife through soft butter i thought of you as they cut up the tree of your great triumph of how years later in a different place you looped the rope tied the knot and slip that all want to weigh at certain times this is called oranges my mother peeled oranges with her teeth not for anyone just herself i remember as a young child in a grown man watching her with the light in her eyes as she tore away the skin piece by piece now you may not think much of this but i know this woman could oranges with a knife for other people and made us eat at the dinner table elbows down when cutting food and she had a kid forgot it all when she tore into the skin of an orange with her teeth like a lion is tears at a caribou that same look in so my daughter just had a baby she's just five months old and this is a pun called memories i dragged the wooden toy box out of the shed placed the bins of memories back in with the stuffed creatures from the toy box on top of this wooden toybox has sat in the basement for nine years and before that another seven at your grandmother's house i wiped nine years of dust from the box loaded into my car and make my way to your home and today you have this toy box of your childhood to pass on to isabella i remind you of the other memories you can go through when you desire i have them because i cannot dispose of them i carried them from place to place taking care of them awaiting your decision of what they keep and what to dispose of these memories of your childhood that i hold dear and this poems for the next poet that's coming up to read how it's called of knowing i have never believed in the big things that bring two people together but rather the small things the things that in dear  enlighten those small openings that reveal who you are such as the time in a backyard when in the middle of a conversation you stood up and ran the yard with magically with a fluttering blue jay as a young child would in that moment you in the j danced i thought you would take flight on a dreary weekday evening in the midst of thunderclaps and drenching rain in the darkness of it all i hear your voice rise up aka pella in the kitchen the home is suddenly bright buoyant watches the dog dances about the room and there are times we sit by the water along the delaware the atlantic or a simple lake there is a tenderness about you as we relax in the sun take in the sights the tranquility that transcends all that is around us and then there are the poems you share with me not words but words painted of images of reflections of both the light and the dark of tolerant perceptive words of compassion of not just the ability to feel but of the knowing mr president trump and president obama is in total on the rubble i stand on the rubble that is left of the american dream a great society new deal under attack by those who ignore history keyboards and cubicles replace furnace is looms production lines that are all someplace else and in this land of hope and change troubles are common wall street flexes muscles of bubbles and busts money dictates elections as one vote means little as the ruling class funds and controls has it ever been any other way we call the many names as they look alike campaigns drag on and on images flood air waves like brainwashing on steroids i stand on the rubble that is left of the american dream pick up a brick look at the glass ceiling throw it and watch it bounce off i'll be finishing with this poem and it's it's called i am i am born of nobility of noble parents of the streets of highbridge aged in the tract homes of levittown i am their son they could have done better i am of the nobility of kitchens and car washes of factories and mills of rare roads my hands have felt the heat a furnace is dirt packed under nails scars on hands and knees small burn mark on the face i have known great courage and great fear great success and great failure shovels and jackhammers with badges in cuffs and at times with muscle i have been loved and have loved to hate it and have hated rose to the top of the mountain and fell into the valleys i every joist and grieve to know the great beauty have felt the dirt of the earth in their hands built homes in cities worked the long hours of the noble people of the router's help and smiths and ladin's of truck drivers transit workers paper cutters house cleaners cops railway workers soldiers sailors politicians lovers of literature lovers of life i am born of the nobility of the working and middle class i am born of nobility i am their son i have done the best i can in print of the past pommy i leave the past behind me jettison the baggage and hold the loving good near i honor those in my lineage know from where i have come i am born of noble parents i am a writer of poems winograd you are up mary there you go i think i am yes very good so thank you so much so we have arnie baird and arnie is going to be performing this evening and he ha remember i was at that performance when you saying that was just awesome he's got over two thousand views every one of arnie's performances are record breaking yes indeed yes so that was over ten years ago so awesome so come on up i need baird get yourself set up and welcome back to  wonder wh what are you waiting for rush there's a little girl already very good thank you are nice oh we have diane sawyer's going to she is a native philadelphian and she is the author of three full length poetry collections images of being lights battered edge and nights wet which is available on amazon her poems have appeared in numerous online and print publications and she's been awarded a grant in poetry from the foundation and named a winner of the twenty fifteen working people competition by and has served as a poet in residence at the museum and library and as a poetry editor of the fox chase review and now if i remember correctly it was her items that are out on the table then yes ok we've got some things out on the table for so diane welcome to capping thank you cafe improv is on ok for inviting me to rehear again this evening it's always great to be in princeton and i think we should thank the people who host this marian the camera people thank you it's very generous of your time i like to start with the poem chorus of crickets sing one of clay read as if the least particle left held a positive charge knowing i was truly only for a moment breathe the breath of dust in my next poem i mentioned the opera la traviata which ends with a woman who has tb dying in her lover's arms listening listening to act three radio lately resting at saturday nights when strapless back against a dying cough frozen falling flakes a cloud torn asunder like down feathers shaken loose swirling millions of pieces of lonesomeness as violette drops into of credos arms and that was when i thought i heard come you've been stood up and she will die so i've been listening to a lot of classical music in my older age and i love of all days violins so this is inspired by  lie deep deeply cutting their piercing cries through hearts dark dying vibrations as string spanned east and west of life from blighted spring storms then suns returning playfulness inside the long neck of summer's his last full red reverberations wist away into white whiskered wisdom of winner whereby after this final sliding of both pulled taun as the strings of spirit lifting falling lifting out of a hollowed out body with such intense musical passion elevated sounds resounding sounds as cyclical seasonal patterns now may he thank you so i have these little backyard visitors at my feeder and i'm sure you're familiar with that familiar with the dark eyed juncus i really love birds and they've been visiting me the last couple winters so i wrote a poem for them dark junkers they come unannounced to a dozen bursting white breasts out of black feathers these worldlings of winter as if they are a lot wearing long tell tuxedoes they are marvelous they are won from every angle direction infiltrating my small city yard first time i have seen these migratory canadians and believe they carry the light within them under radiant white shields that they wear on dazzled breasts like joy of some sort they have made winter new somehow even magical like today under dole dome of light pale anger a thick as an elephant's hide the way their cotton candy colored beaks take turns packing and unpacking a christmas cake thrown out to them this morning but time branches of dogwood swaying in musical wind where they some drop dive from cliff air onto a snow covered lawn soft as a trampoline several them one and another as miniature magicians seem to make themselves disappear breasts camouflage a snowy branches far and away in morning lights mixture flurries and snow whole of creation in their small steady stare entertaining as live theater i watched this unfold in refold itself for nearly two hours mind filming through the lenses of my eyes as your eyes move across this page as if you were watching a scene now ferguson into the window pane of this page so i decided to read this after my friend read something for me here this evening so this is just a quick poll it's called footprints i felt your footprints leading thr thank you my last poem was inspired by a train ride across pennsylvania where i witnessed desolate shells of mills and factory the fading flag of america's middle class pennsylvania pittsburgh like a pen that's lost its ink a pervasive loneliness invade your propped up body three rivers bridges connecting the disconnect time to cross over and not look back at who you once were learn what you can move forward parts of you will surely be left behind like the city of steel that has died once its mighty furnace is built this nation now goes sing the lost lives of those no longer here time has passed and it moves on into the future  emerson says to forget regret forget memory the soul must soar toward everlasting yet china builds steel empires to our forgotten gods disturbing as smoke billowing atomic clouds of nuclear power plants june alleghenies thick forest green brown creeks wash our state's wounded feet unemployment deep as a dugout pari rough and quick as rap it's stagnant as a tree did pond muddy rivers running wild in hungary and rhythmic as a train of rocking its way from side to side the hunchback clouds walk the top bridge with slow motion urgency sun beating on their backs like a chain gang philadelphia via rails paoli lancaster elizabeth town harrisburg lewis town huntington tyrone altoona johnstown literally greensburg pittsburgh this is the homelands i know i know none better generations of families have lived here in every room reaching for foothold in rich soil of timelessness of sun bless this land an engine pulls its many cars along  blasted through mountain winding way through far ist where every shadow has a story each tree's testament its wisdom and leafy green prayers to june proud ra prevalence of green all these waterways like veins running secretly through times hidden mountains and valleys coal cars still packed with black dust oh loved ones ancestors to us all hell in philadelphia and pittsburgh i saw a long hard hearted battle hymn your bones laid at strangers feet they ran away from your tombs of shadow close dim blood whose sweat sang iris stay alive who's raised as she is scattered be desk drawing out songs filling the winge chattering teeth the buried banging of your de toll church bell tongues now silenced into the reading room space of a little room in a grand library three hundred miles from home i sang your elegies and after reading your life songs cried as if i had come from each of your funerals i am ashamed of myself i cannot bury the ashes of your smoldering days gone by how can one drink each night from left i am rise the next day forgetting the previous day i have felt to forget you turn to rust and like the steel mills and rail yards of altoona and johnstown i share ashes to the winds of time but they circle back blinding my eyes in acidic tears they burn through forgetfulness all of you rise in front of me and i see and hear you resemblances and become skeletons skulls where i see the blue sky in holes that once where your steel  puppet show which is a puppet version of me and other people is on friday nights at nine thirty p m and then a couple hours later at twelve thirty am also i have a music video on the prince and the philadelphia independent film festival this year  it's called house on fire if you happen to be checking that out then check that out ladies you know when chris kiley started doing standup following a comedy class thank you for the final was a performance that rascal's comedy club his delivery has was supposed to be an extra for the walking dead they told me i was a natural this woman at work candy vendor woman at work i asked her what does she know what happened to defend have a new candy bar and she said no she's from mars it wasn't like i was asking her date or anything but legally least she's in the same galaxy i was breakdancing on the carpet the i actually was a great dancer and i just fell down was trying to g i saw the street trailer homes gone down the road a succession i said to myself well there's a neighborhood you know it so and so you are here but then i think that it could have been somebody you say it's not what you know it's who you know so with the way i'm screwed so the doctor told me i are short term memory loss i said how long is that for with a group of people i sneezed and i said thank you and something else pointed out to be that nobody said anything i said yeah i know has the thought that counts  well i used to be a personal trainer s until a person i was and first to train was informed that i was either going to be their personal trainer the reaction i got told me i was or all i work so here i am this dog was an instruction the history channel seems to be obsessed with the end of the world and went to get in a little it's the history channel eased to be a hobby amount to get across the street before a car hits me no it's a way of life the closest i've come to be unorganized is finding a paper clip in the dryer the other day i went to mount holly but she wasn't home they say you can run but you can't hide what if you can't run the first time or heard their word anti christ i thought it was about the kid down the street with a b b gun and a good aim i guess i was just antichris formed an army i will rise again i should have been my clothes just kept me on the payroll because they found my accidents of mean and sometimes i didn't and he had to be behind the wheel for them to happen so one morning i drove into work and i parked my car and proceeded to walk into work and i heard these tires on gravel and i turned around and my car was follow me into work i was selected in gear and  and i guess i got too preoccupied with how what i'm going to do when i open it so i rented or front of the car and try to stop it with my bird like strength i actually thought that was going to that was working because the car nothing was happening i was just standing there and all of a sudden my life shot out from under me and the car pushed me underneath a parked car so i was underneath both cars and i had to roll out so when i was working there some somebody asked me if i knew or prince the nurse was a located and i said princeton and they said no it was in our own town and i would have been my second guess