"Poetry" by Regan Lee at No Shame Theater, Eugene

My first time at the No Shame Theater in Eugene, Oregon, reading my stuff. I was very nervous; hadn't read in public for literally decades (when I used to read at Water in L.A. and other places.) Once I got going however it was great. I'll be back in August. Wonderful people too!

Winter haiku

Big Duke

big hat
big man
five pointed star
Oklahoma way
Big Duke
dancer man
Stagecoach sheriff
Buffalo Bill
hat-sweat-band, snake oil man
selling on the bay
mayor's wife
train ride
meeting in the dark,
or maybe a hot afternoon
unannounced stops
carny barker, yep
one-liners
cow-puncher
Montana
Wyoming
rumored heritages
Indian mom; Cherokee, Lennape
unknown father
West Virginia
run-away
illegal soldier
out west
Hollywoodland
orange groves, empty lots
sold!
Tom Mix,
tricks with whips,
knives,
spinning women
spider tattoos
dog-fights
Erroll Flynn, John Ford
on set
drunken history, only murmured
affairs and age, ignored
repeated lore.

my memories, only five
Big Duke, white haired, so very long
cane by chair
annoyed, or a rough laugh
as i climbed up furniture
holding red and yellow,
purple 78s
to the sun through
tiny round windows,
squish green centered mints in
an aqua glass dish

death comes
five year olds hustled away
funerals, adults only
and gone.



regan lee
march 2014
eugene, oregon

i wrote about figs

i wrote about
figs
dates
curry and pomegranate
plums
coconut
limes

heat through the glass

the remains of sweet rice in blue
glazed bowls.

now
a cold fog thumps
unceasingly
while we wait.


regan lee
feb. 2014

Fog folds

her olive face huddled in army-green,
she rapidly paces the gray alley between
the Chinese-red diner and indigo health food store.

a lanky form shivers in tan; he circles, blocks;
disconcerted by his rage.

"I'm really angry," her husky voice travels on fog folds.

i watch them, slowing my steps.
she shouts, and tense jet-sparkles fall from her black eyes,
the half-moons of purple staying in shadow
on her face.




regan lee
oregon, 1980s

Blue Lights

         Blue Lights

photo: regan lee

unexpected, blue lights appear
in this isolation, and through
the thin cracks in the rough wood,
glowing mists invite, even while repelling

a cold silence makes itself known, waiting
we hear its breathing

dreams, night walking, forgetfulness
only slivers of mists and light beams remain

jarring realities intrude, mundane violences, abrupt commands
we don’t understand, we don’t remember
but sense invisible connections anyhow

we believe there’ll be a reveal in the retelling, no matter
how fragmented

memory has a sentience all its own

~ regan lee 

  october 2010

Olive

long and lean, bony really,
Olive arranges herself languidly in the coarse brown chair.

her tied dyed dress made of sheer scarves reveals bare legs, furry armpits and all
 her hair is a dark-massed orchestra wildly out of tune.

she's demanding uppers and coffee and, getting up, heads down the hallway calling out
"Is this your bedroom?" and her best friend Samantha, so damn voluptuous 
in her pink quilted vest, leans over to me, she's whispering assurances:

"It's all right, her mother's an opera singer" but
I don't feel any better.


~ regan lee
 sometime in the 1980s

the black green sea

my mother voluptuous in summer dress,
thick ankle straps,
shoots a man, 
some man there, on the pier

night lights reflecting on black sea water
at eighteen dark, raven haired, 
a hibiscus behind her ear

"Listen, I must tell you
I like to lose control," 
and she falls into the ivy, 
falls into the black-green sea
salt corroding red petals red hibiscus red the red
of blood.

~  regan lee, 198?