D.R. Wagner is the author of over twenty books and chapbooks of poetry and letters. He founded press : today : niagara in Niagara Falls, NY in 1965 and later Runcible Spoon (press) in the late 1960's, and produced over fifty magazines and chapbooks. He co-wrote The Egyptian Stroboscope with d. a. levy in the late 1960's. In a legendary reading at Sacramento State College in 1969, he read with Jim Morrison of The Doors and Michael McClure. He has read with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Al Winans, Viola Weinberg, d.a. levy, E.R. Baxter III, Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman and many other poets over the past 40 years.

His work is much-published and has appeared in numerous translations. He has exhibited visual poetry with William Burroughs, Byron Gysin, Ian Hamilton Finlay, bp Nichol. bill bissett, J. F. Bory, and John Furnival in venues ranging from the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, at the Louvre, to the Smithsonian in Washington D. C.

He is also a visual artist, producing miniature needle-made tapestries that have been exhibited internationally and are included in numerous publications and museum collections. He is, further, a professional musician, working as a singer-songwriter and playing guitar and keyboards.

He taught design at the University of California, Davis, from 1988 to his retirement in 2015. In the honors programs, he conducted classes in Poetry by Design.

His most recent books include 97 Poems (2012), Remembering Eternity (2014), Love Poems (2016), Storm Footed —101 Collected Poems (2017), and The Order of Events (2018), all from Cold River Press.

He currently lives in Locke, CA.

 

Weaving Around The Master

For Kenneth Patchen

A rainbow arcs over a grey lake.
Tired grey boats, boats are drifting
Away from the shore. Bent grey
Figures are hunched over them
But are not directing their motion.

One would think such a place
Was defiled by man but no,
It is not necessary to submit
To any drifting. We are made
For fiery work and the spirit.
We are the cloth of the tempest.

We are the nets of light upon
This grey lake that brings the rainbow
Flying across such a pale landscape.
Bring your bodies dressed in golden
Birds to stand with us on this shore.

We shall batter the doors of these dreams
With the music of our being here on this poor
Earth. We are able to see the dragons,
Hold the answers to all that is unexplained,
Draw the songs from the sullen boatmen.

I awake in a room filled with light and legend.
We lay down near the world and our tears
Bring the flowers of the world to attend us.

  *  *  *

Dave [Bodhi} Boles has worked as an itinerant publisher, writer, and designer since 1981. His most recent publication, Visions of a Merciful Land, was published by his own Cold River Press, and other published works include Offerings (2011), and Homage of a Word (2011) Confessions of a Black Ink Junkie (2013), Alive in America (2020), Coyote Magic (2021), Coyote Visions (2022), 15 Days to Slow the Curve (2021). Boles is the founder of such magazines as Primal Urge: A Journal For Diverse Humans, The Sacramento Free Press, Cruisin’ Magazine, Foothill Focus, and many more. His publications, editorials, writing and artwork have won numerous awards throughout his 30+ year publishing career, and he has published such noted writers as D.R. Wagner, A.D. Winans, and Ben Hiatt.

 

Dreams, Desires & Delusions

i shot a hole
in the sun
drove my car right
through it

no hesitation

came out the other side
tires smoking
my cigarette lit

illuminating

the blonde at the corner
in the black mini-skirt
with white fishnet
stockings

the poor, hungry vet
lost in a war
long since forgotten

illumination appears to
me
in the strangest of times

is there room enough
in a space filled
with such ego

to send a message,
morse code

if you could

i have dreams of desires
dreams of delusions

what is it that you dream?