Triple Poetry Feature

Faldwin J. Bard, 

Frank O'Brien and 

Christopher Fox Graham

Sunday, Nov. 20, 6 to 8 p.m. at

Sundara Boutique & Gallery
22 East Route 66, Flagstaff, AZ 86001


These three poets won the high stakes slam 2 weeks ago, for the right to perform in their own show.
This is that show.
For just $2 you can't NOT show up to hear some of Flagstaff and Northern Arizona's best voices, doing their best work.

Faldwin J. Bard

Faldwin J. Bard is a 21-year-old student who does poetry about everything from garden gnomes, to the trials and joys of being queer.
There are probably other interesting things about Faldwin, but you'll have to talk to him to find out. Or go to this show. Preferably both.

Christopher Fox Graham

Christopher Fox Graham is a Montana-born boy raised in Arizona. A slam poet since 2001 and newspaper editor since 2004, he currently hosts the Sedona Poetry Slam and Sedona Poetry open mic.
A member of the first FlagSlam poetry team in 2001, he toured the United States for three months in 2002, won the 2004 Northern Arizona Poetry Grand Slam, the 2005 Arizona All-Star Poetry Slam, and was a member of the 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2010 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Teams, which competed around the Southwest and at Nationals. He was also a National Poetry Slam bout manager in 2003 and a venue manager in 2011. He has performed for MTV, on The Travel Channel, published four books of poetry, appeared in 10 spoken word anthologies and on 3 DVDs.
Graham also runs FoxThePoet, a poetry blog.

Frank O'Brien

Frank O'Brien discovered slam poetry in Flagstaff in 2007, and has been a member of the ever growing FlagSlam family since. 
He represented the town at the 2008, 2009 and 2010 National Poetry Slams, and even remembers most of what happened. 
His favorite pastimes are epic fantasy novels, video games, playing with blind dogs and discussing the intricate workings of the universe with his nemesis, Ryan Brown.

I Already Know You

Azami and I wrote this poem together based on a poem she started writing about me. We performed it for kids at Mohave High School in Bullhead City.

I Already Know You a duo poem written by Azami and Christopher Fox Graham
Azami	CFG
Maybe I should have warned him	Maybe I should have warned her
that I’ve been through this before
	that this is unfamiliar territory
because I knew from that first moment	but I knew from that first moment
everything about him	everything about her
without having to know anything about him
“I already know you”	“I already know you”
is what slipped from my lips
	I felt it in her hips
but those four simple words
	the way she looked at me
can’t begin to gauge the familiarity	can’t begin to gauge the familiarity
so I stayed	so she stayed
parting with old friends
and being welcomed by new ones
as has become so routine
	moving in within days
	like she belonged here
	and I was the stranger
of my solitary lifestyle	of my solitary lifestyle
to know that I was in love with her mind	to know that I was in love with his mind
it also took one look at the Star Wars painting
	mounted above the bed
and lightsaber adoring his wall
	I bought her one, too
to know that he was a geek
	and she loved it
I don’t have to catch him saying “frak”
to know he’s seen every episode
of Battlestar Galactica
	limited edition box set with deleted scenes
	and director’s commentary
	worth every penny
I had chosen loneliness	I had chosen loneliness
	one-night stands to pass the years
constantly falling in love
knowing that wanderlust
would eventually steal me away
	but she wanted to stay
	wrap her arms around me
	and sleep like tangled vines
so while
I was familiar with the heartache	I was familiar with the heartache
of love lost and found
	of love found, then lost
by the fourth day
I woke up in his arms listening
to the comedic ramblings
of Billy Collins
	Sushi Haiku:
	“Midsummer evening
	alone at the sushi bar
	just me and this eel”
and while we laughed together	and while we laughed together
I silently counted the minutes
wondering how long it would take him
to realize that which
I already knew	I already knew
but I think he figured it out
I think he figured it out	I think I figured it out
when I jokingly asked him to
“please regale me tales of ‘Star Wars’”
and while I rolled my eyes	OK, Han shot first, Jar-Jar is a racial stereotype
and while we cuddled skin to skin	and they didn’t show it, but Luke and Leia were conceived
on some lazy Saturday morning	on some lazy Saturday morning
I don’t have to believe in prophesies
	I believe in prophesies
to understand my human nature	to understand my human nature
so I begin my relationships	so I begin my relationships
with apologies and explanations these days
hoping that if I cover my tracks
it will soften the blow for later
so I begin my relationships	so I begin my relationships
	with coffee and a countdown
	hoping that if she leaves by sunrise
	I prevent the blow from ever landing
realizing that if you live in the moment	realizing that if you live in the moment
you’ve got nothing to fear	you’ve got nothing to fear
besides, I hear broken hearts
make for great poetic inspiration anyways
	my poems about broken hearts
	could fill libraries
so maybe I should have warned him	so maybe I should have warned her
that I fall in love often
	that I never fall in love
and that I’ve seen Battlestar Galactica, too
in the arms of a boy who reminds me of you
I’ve been through this before
	I’ve seen this before
and that same force that brought me
into your life like a hurricane
	breaking all of my rules
will someday bring me to the doorstep of
someone new
	someone new
	will one day fill your shoes
	we can only last so long
	before time parts our paths
	onto diverging roads
the time we share	the time we share
is to learn and teach each other	is to learn and teach each other
learn to love and live in the moment	learn to love and live in the moment
all of this has happened before	all of this has happened before
and all of this will happen again	and all of this will happen again

Battlestar Galatica is More Than a Metaphor Haiku

Some days I'm Cylon
other days I feel like the
last civilized man

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Love Like a Scar

Betwixt my eyebrows
a three-second mistake
of my 6-year-old self
dug a pox mark divot
forever into flesh
the reminds me daily
in the reflection of mirror,
glass frame and inverted spoon
how a reckless moment
marked me months and miles
after context collapsed into confusion
and left me with a scar that pulls me back into
that moment with increasing vividness
so that the facts
enrich and embellish themselves
a vibrant fiction
worthy of Vonnegut or Tolstoy or Tolkien

she scars memory in the same fashion
breaking my heart
whenever her image emerges from picture frames
or she slips into my peripheral
to hang on every unsaid word
I refuse to speak
knowing the desperation
with which she longs to hear them
I revel in sadistically parrying
her stabs toward my affections
and hate myself for it
the burning pleasure that lurks in abusing power
seeped beneath skin in shameful celebration
best elucidated in how children kill small animals
then tearfully confess to parents hours later
part of me wants to crush her beneath my boot heel
while the other half of me wants to save her from it
unreconciled, the two factions vie for control
of my unsatisfied electorate
whose ever-changing pulse pollsters calculate

I've longed a decade
for a lover beholden to my whims
whose loyalty could dance on my fingertips
and here, she twirls,
a paper doll
I want the conviction of her sincerity
the fire of her resistance
to burn my palms with any attempt to hold fast
she yearns for a master
but I require no puppet
I left my toys in a box
when I chose to play with words
she finds new boys daily
who seek the newest shiny thing
to touch and prod and jiggle
until it breaks or they get bored
I learned too quick
grew up too fast
calculating the physics of matter
while most boys were adding lips to lips
I solved her equation long before I met her
and now want new math
to entice my interests
she bears potential to spend my head like a top
but refuses to try
misbelieving I am some dull creature
like those she's met before

I want to want to love her
free from scars or fictions
let her slip into my mind
as easily as she slips into bed
when I'm too drunk, too tired
or too uninterested to resist
I won't share the parts of me she wants
because she hasn't earned them
she can't invite the army of fingers or
heavy artillery of tongue
or invasion of cock
if my mind generally refuses
to fall for an ambush
I’ve read Sun Tzu too many times
to acquiesce to her bait
or be drawn into the conflict
from which I know there is no swift retreat

I should erect a Great Wall between us
hold back her barbarian mess
stand guard all along the watchtower
and prevent her flanking maneuvers
something in me
longs for a pitched battle
a contest of wits
strategies, forces, and tactics
the conflict between worthy adversaries
a sparring match
a fencing gambit
a card game with control of an empire on the line
because so few past lovers
offered challenge beyond the moment

I pull back too often
shelter in my warm deceptions
hold back from feeling
the fall of water
the touch of soil
the warmth of fire
the caress of wind
and the shutter when nature shatters shelter
too afraid of the stain
I resist hearing the sound of rain
just grab my gun
and bring in the cat
before she gets close enough to harm me
I stand mome with mimsy sword in hand
against the fabled frumious Jabberwock
with jaws that bite and claws that catch

the men who know me
just want me to get laid
“it’s just one more pussy vacation
to notch on the headboard”
but I’ve been down this road
chipped so beaverly into the wood
that it fears collapse if I orgasm again
and new ports match old harbors
I don’t care where I drop anchor
because no storm yet has sunk me
she’s merely a summer squall
shimmying the jibs and fluttering books on deck
but the crew is sleeping drunk down below
oblivious to the winds stirring the soup outside
she wants to swamp the boat
but her crests fall below the gunwale

I should sleep through her winds and waves
remember her as a crossed-off calendar date
but she scarred me in a moment
somehow, somewhere, some when
so that my fiction-focused protagonist
fills in the potentials of how and why
I’m unable to withdraw my rearguard
trapped Slaughterhouse-style
on her Vietnamese hillocks
Tễt transfigures into Groundhog Day
whenever she walks into my room

this divot forged a new history
once the flesh that filled it
departed my skin for an undiscovered country
but its secession stares back
a perpetual absent passenger reminding me
how adults can be broken
by their own childish naïveté
reminded with every wayward glance
every new “hello”
and every “good to see you again”
how she marked me the same
although the evidence lurks beneath skin
I can still see her with these eyes
and gritted teeth
I yearn for a plastic surgeon who can fix me
restore me to the way I should be
before I met her
made the mistake of loving her for a moment
longer than I should have
but enough to mark me with the reminder
of how the absence of her
will ride shotgun into my last decade
separated only when my final campfire
frees my visage from this flesh frame
and converts Earthbound skin and bone
into the ash of a million gray angels