Rooftop Poetry Club - Florine Melnyk

Florine Melnyk

Bio:
I am currently a student at Buffalo State College pursuing an MA in English. I received a BA degree in Literature & Creative Writing from Medaille College, where I started out as an Elementary Education major. During my first semester at Medaille I took a literature class on the Beat Generation and was inspired to change my major and to begin writing some very bad poetry! I've been reading and writing ever since and like to think that I've improved since those first poems. I am an editorial assistant for ecopoetics and Starcherone Books. I'm married and have two daughters and live in Buffalo.

Poems:

Tomatoes in hand, I take the #2 Bus thru Buffalo

Worm, maggot-rot, fiends of the garden-

                  prevailing red warriors,

Little ones, like Jin Ho and Xan Tan,

                  vibrant song virtuosos. Stop-

You can't stop and listen, I was thinking of worms,

                  beats, the idea of music.

Streets drawn out of their moment - Smith,

                  Jefferson's next,

Name-calls at nightfall, majesty of a bag

                  which I carry, and full at that.

Sestina of a Souse
(who left the envoy at the Bar)

I believe it all commenced with Vodka and tea- unsocial and undemonstrative me wishing to dance.
Feigning fervor I went, but in vain; until the cure became overt. A vision perhaps: a man only in a skirt with olives pointing to the key, a Long Island tea, definitely! That is what

I need! Excuse me, peevish people, what?
No, it's not a Long Island Iced Tea. Just Tea.
Hey, where are the olives? They were here only a second ago. It was that aberrant woman with a key- She took them! After her! Wait, is that The Cure?
It is! I love them! Now it's imperative to dance-

Veritably, it's just like heaven to dance, feeling tempestuously giddy. Then I did what?
The table became my stage? Was I the only one? Don't you know there is no tea in a Long Island Tea? I guess there is no cure for mental darkness. Really, Alonso, the key

to the future is knowledge. Here's the key to my apartment; meet me at three. It's the only one with a tree. I said I shaved what?
I once knew a man with no nails, the cure was green jello instead of red. Oohh, techno-let's dance.
Why can't I have another Long Island Tea?

Now someone wants to smoke tea?
Not me! I really have to pee-where's the key?
Boy, am I pickled beat. I have a yen only for a seat. "Hey," says a zen-like dude, "What about those Beats!?" Not outstanding in dance, but prodigious with a pen. And that jazz'll cure

all. Yeah, I agree, good man, is there a cure for war? Passion for Peace. I said Osama what?
Yikes! I should have had plain old tea
after all; I'm feeling really queasy. The key to the universe is wily. Let's all dance in amalgamation! Wholeness, harmony, if only-