Live Like You Mean It: Video from the Loch Raven Review Reading

We now have video to share from the Loch Raven Review reading. Below is a small sampling from the readers that we were fortunate enough to capture before the camcorder malfunction.



Christopher T. George



Annie Bien



Jim Doss



Dan Cuddy



Also, here are two poems by the Loch Raven Review editors that capture their impressions of the event.


LIVE -- Like You Mean It

I've climbed up on a stage that's
hung with winking Christmas lights
on the third floor of an old warehouse,
a Bacardi rum ad illuminated behind me
through dusty industrial windowpanes
and lights of cars streaming over
a steel-girdered bridge.
It seems everyone's going
somewhere tonight but not here.
How I wish you could be with me;
a certain emptiness inside
as I read to the masses,
or at least to some friends;
it's good to read these words
I've written and fretted over,
reading live, like I mean it.

© 2006 by Christopher T. George


* * * * * *


The Loch Raven Review Reading at the Load of Fun Gallery, Baltimore, MD


Photographs of candy canes regale
the gallery, every shape, size and color,
as the artsy crowd sips Australian Chardonnay
and California Merlot. Our small group
of tattered poets is ushered upstairs
to the third floor where the old warehouse walls
are still being knocked down
to build private studios for artists.
To the right of the stage bathed in red light
a pair of open-air toilets catch our eye,
the old fashion kind with elevated tanks and pull chains.
A heavy metal band screeches
from the rehearsal studio across the street.
A Bacardi billboard leers through the window
urging us to “live like we mean it.”
Twinkling holiday lights adorn the rafters
above the stage like ice cycles
of different colors and flavors.
“Christmas on earth.” It was the dream
of the adolescent Rimbaud to experience
it even for one day, one hour of his life
like on this 6th of October as the roads
dry out after heavy rains, and traffic
rushes across asphalt with horns honking,
sirens wailing. Then from the gathering quiet
the first clear word is spoken.

© 2006 by Jim Doss