POTD - Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley - Read by Bryan Cranston

The Final Episodes premiere Sunday, August 11th at 9|8c followed by Low Winter Sun. For more on Breaking Bad: http://www.amc.com/shows/breaking-bad AMC : http://www.amc.com AMC on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/amc AMC on Twitter : http://twitter.com/AMC_TV Sign Up for the AMC Newsletter : http://www.amctv.com/newsletter-subscription Subscribe to the AMC YouTube Channel : http://www.youtube.com/amc

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away". 

 

This teaser introduced the final season of AMC's Breaking Bad, read by the show's star, Bryan Cranston.  

POTD - Viking Ships in Los Angeles by Brandon Brown from Poesia Para La Gente

Viking Ships in Los Angeles

by Brandon Brown 

The simple have their slogans, and the wise their proverbs. 
A builder has wood, rough and lifeless in piles. 
My eyes, they have your eyes. My breath mixes with your breath.
Once, we drew a map to your house on a brown paper napkin and sailed 
through neighborhood alleys like Viking ships 
until we reached your staircase, its flickering light bulb 
suspended above us like some artist sketched it 
over our heads to show everyone that our brains were full 
of ideas. Really, we were just dreaming of buried treasure 
and our hands on each other’s bodies, 
tracing one another’s mouths with our tongues. Here, 
on these same steps, our fingers now have 
another set of fingers to hold and study like hammers or worn-faced coins. 
And it’s here where I have built for us a tower, 
one that stretches up from the planks of the creaking deck under our feet 
so that when you and I scale it, we can look out 
over all the familiar houses, yapping dogs and divorcees sunbathing in their backyards. 
Each time I cup your face in my hand, I know that I’ll be with you 
as my hair grows longer and my clothes become old. I know 
that if you leave your body before I leave my body, I’ll carry you down 
from our perch like wood from the pile, polish two coins 
with my trembling fingers, and rest them on your eyes as you begin 
to float down the tar-black river on a bed made of flowers and sticks. 

I had the privilege of meeting Brandon (@yourmoneyisours ) during our Poesia Para La Gente on the LA Metro. He read a number of poems, but this one, read at edge of the pond in Macarthur Park just lit us all up. He was gracious enough to let me publish it here on 5 things. 

The links directly to Brandon reading his poem: on Vimeo

Below is the whole video (his poem starts at 22:35) 

On Sunday afternoon, June 30th, several poets met to ride the LA Metro and at each stop and along the way shared their poems and spoken word with fellow Angelenos. There were many poems and tales, but for the sake of expediency I chose just one poem from each poet to include in the video.

Poesia Para La Gente - Poetry on the LA Metro Red Line

On Sunday afternoon, June 30th, several poets met to ride the LA Metro and at each stop and along the way shared their poems and spoken word with fellow Angelenos. There were many poems and tales, but for the sake of expediency I chose just one poem from each poet to include in the video.

Poesia Para La Gente (Poetry for the People) is a program that brings poetry to the people of the community, in non-traditional places. Some of these places have been affected, in one way or another, by economical hardship or various forms of social stigmas. All locations are unique in providing a safe setting for uninhibited artistic expression.

Poesia Para La Gente is a program of the Avenue 50 Studio's monthly La Palabra Poetry. The program has been made possible by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.
______________________________________________

WHY THE LA METRO? 

Our goal is to share poetry with the community, outside of our choir and into the streets in order to encourage, nurture, and stimulate artistic expression every which way we can, and every where we can. By providing a welcoming, and non-traditional public platform for sharing the power of the spoken word, we hope to stimulate cultural understanding within the diverse population of the North East Los Angeles area...and beyond. 
______________________________________________

featuring:
Billy Burgos
Yago Cura
Sean Hill
Karineh Mahdessian (email)
Ryan Nance (me, here)
Conney Williams

Hosted by Jessica Ceballos 

POTD - Rocket Fantastic [excerpt] by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Rocket Fantastic [excerpt]

by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

It's ridiculous what fame
can buy you. Not the beast
but the tiny, frightened
man who brings him
in a cage from Alhambra,
who stands in the doorway
as the three girls finish,
get off the bed and walk down 
to the pool, giggling as they pass.
The Bandleader borrowed
a tiger because we saw it 
in a reel the studio sent over,
some movie about a prince
that played against the wall
of the upstairs bedroom. 
Sometimes a girl would jump 
into the pool and the waves  
shimmered up. In the movie
the prince brings the tiger
to the castle and it rules
alongside him, "That's not 
believable," the Bandleader  
said and then, "Don't stop." 
And then, "Ah. Right there."
The prince would place his hand 
on the tiger's head and grab 
his hair in his fist and move 
it around. I liked to watch 
him start to want things, a wetness
forming in his mind. There were 
three girls squealing in the pool
and the waves  came up to us 
as ripples of light that I passed 
my fingers through, "You're blue 
with gold stripes," the Bandleader 
said, looking up at me 
but imagining the tiger beside him 
already, before he even  
reached for the phone.

Calvocoressi picked her 5 contemporary books of poems to read for us.

Reading a Poem - B by Sarah Kay - Read by Harper Rose Perez

http://5thingsilearnedtoday.com/read-b-by-sarah-kay-

B

by Sarah Kay

If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.

And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”

But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.

I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.

And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

 ​

POTD - to reverse time by Jessica Ceballos

to reverse time

by Jessica Ceballos

I hardly remember
what 2 a.m. looks like. At 2 a.m.
his delicately hungry hallways
echoed my words. Words woven
onto autumn leaves, held together
by weathered branches.
At 2 a.m. arctic whispers
felt along my spine;
reminders that I loved wrong,
what felt right. Snow too soon melting,
lakes become warm waters
of regret to bathe in.
How I miss being awake at 2 a.m.,
naked with feeling,
chasing the sun...
I'd rather be there
than here, at 9 p.m.
wondering where 2 a.m.
has gone.

Ceballos also is a driving force in the poetry community of Los Angeles, hosting two regular poetry readings a month: 

Bluebird Reading Series
2nd Sundays of the Month
at Avenue 50 Studios in Highland Park

The Great Beyond
3rd Sundays of the Month
in Venice

​More at JessicaCeballos.com

Recordings from the Rapp Saloon Poetry Series

The Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading Series, hosted by Tresha Haefner. I was privileged to read again withBrendan Constantine. ​

Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading Series

Here are the poems I read at last Friday's Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading Series, hosted by Tresha Haefner. I was privileged to read again with Brendan Constantine. ​

Download: Ryan Scott Nance Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading Series

Look for audio recordings and a few videos to come.​

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Earlier Poem Posts

POTD - The Heart of Things by Ralph Angel

The Heart of Things

by Ralph Angel

And so say nothing of the birds 
out back, or how the leaves of trees grow louder 
than the city, how a room 
begins again as though it had been taken away 
only. Whatever now 
that I’m afraid of, but casually, like someone 
sitting crosswise in her chair, her legs 
curved over one side, sipping a glass of wine 
and spying on her neighbors, 
not ill-arranged things really, but that sense 
of realism that takes up a lot more time 
than I or anyone together 
has to give.

And so stayed longer, he said, into the evening 
behind the page and out of the cold, 
even the dead are free again 
to love us as in life a human being 
is singled out and standing there, on the curb, 
shifting the way we do from 
foot to shoeless foot, 

and so broke 
apart the vision I expected 
of myself, confused among those 
dozing on the platform, and at home the air 
is moist again with tea, but 
faintly so, those fragrant several moments 
that sound the most like dream, 
like dreaming aloud the nightmare 
that I alone am still.

I was lucky enough to study with Angel while at the University of Redlands in Southern California.​

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Recordings from the Bluebird Reading Series

Jessica Ceballo organized a great afternoon at the Avenue 50 Studio and the other readers, Mandy Kahn, Chiwan Choi and Brendan Constantine, were all stellar. We were excited to have a full room.​

131294_528228113894194_13720579_o.jpg

​Above are the recordings of my pieces in a soundcloud set. Please have a listen, download if you like and share with friends you think might like it as well.

Available too, here is the pdf of those poems for download:​ Ryan Scott Nance The Bluebird Reading Series

​

Recent Posts

Quotes of the Day

Blog
Quote of the Day - from Osho
Quote of the Day - from Osho
Quotes for the turning of the year – 2016
Quotes for the turning of the year – 2016
QOTD - Zen Aphorism
QOTD - Zen Aphorism
QOTD - Lawrence Durell
QOTD - Lawrence Durell
QOTD - Tom Stoppard

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POTD - Noct by Brendan Constantine

Ochsa Spoken Word Performance January 2012. Noct by Brendan Constantine

Noct

by Brendan Constantine

I was com
You said you would wai

Twelve hundred miles in a day -
I counted houses, then their ligh

Came home to an empt
Not even my shir
my green shir

Are you wearing it now?

It’s hot, the house is hot; the walls,
even the handle on the refr

What the f
What can anyone hope to keep?

If either of us could answer,
wou

​I was lucky enough to read with Constantine yesterday on The Bluebird Reading Series, an amazing series hosted by Poet Jessica Ceballos in Highland Park's Avenue 50 Studio.

Later this month, Constantine and I will be reading together at the Rapp Poetry Saloon (8 p.m. March 22). ​

Recent Posts

Quotes of the Day

Blog
Quote of the Day - from Osho
Quote of the Day - from Osho
Quotes for the turning of the year – 2016
Quotes for the turning of the year – 2016
QOTD - Zen Aphorism
QOTD - Zen Aphorism
QOTD - Lawrence Durell
QOTD - Lawrence Durell
QOTD - Tom Stoppard

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