Profit

for S.K.

Of what real profit
is it to us to deprive

life of all its dreams
of all its beautiful

mysticism and of
all its lies what

is truth do you
know we move

forward by the
aid of symbols

and we change
those symbols

as we move
forward

Soft outlines
light step

willowy form
ensnaring curls

tiny foot
dainty hand

secret blush
calm sadness

drooping head
prophetic melancholy

deep foreboding
earthly homesickness

mysterious forehead
concealing lashes

roguish glance
beckoning brows

yearning look
merry smile

exuberant spirits
languishing posture

questioning lips
unexplicable sighs

luxuriant bosom
swelling hips

unbaptized movements
God take Heaven

I'll take her

A Ruin I

at Howth I stand
looking to sea
one purple crocus

at my door
a ruin I
have few walls

left to secure
myself from
storm

bold I stand
vines to mortar
stretch

spring
a ruin I
wonder

enthralled
by wind and rain
sun and sea

ships see I
come and go
but I

remain
a ruin

rumination
filling cracks
gaping low and high

windows doors
roof
all gone

only angel song
and sea
a ruin I

you me
all one
we be

^

Biography

Ron Whitehead is Poet, Writer, Editor, Publisher, Organizer, Independent Scholar, Teacher. His newest book, The Declaration of Independence This Time: Selected Poems 1996-2000, has just been released by Hozomeen Press, New London, Connecticut, his third Hozomeen volume. After Heading up the Poetry Division of The New York Underground Music and Poetry Festival (17 venues) and being Advisor for Insomniacathon 2001 (largest Music & Poetry Festival in Kentucky history with 118 poets and 82 bands) Ron is presently working with a British team to produce LIPS: The London International Poetry and Song Festival (October, 2001). Ron has given talks, lectures, readings, workshops, and taught 20th Century European and American Literature, Culture and Writing at numerous colleges, universities, institutions across Europe and the USA including Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), University of Iceland (Reykjavik, Iceland), University of Braga (Braga, Portugal), University of Nijmgen (Nijmgen, The Netherlands), New York University (New York, New York), Hofstra University (New York, New York), University of Louisville (Louisville, Kentucky), University of New Orleans (New Orleans, Louisiana), to name a few. Since 1993 Ron has been Director of the literary renaissance, a culturally diverse non-profit organization which supports a global literary community. tlr's goal is to give a voice, an equal voice, to those who haven't been heard without excluding anyone. tlr's mission is inclusive: to create a place (on page, screen, in texts and out loud at readings, concerts, events, festivals, Insomniacathons, and in galleries, on film, on audio recordings, always open to new without excluding old) where the creative imagination is the vital source and all people stand on and share common ground, a place where known and unknown walk hand in hand. Ron has produced over 500 events in Europe and the USA. He has edited over 300 titles and published nearly 200 which include work by His Holiness The Dalai Lama, President Jimmy Carter, Seamus Heaney, Jack Kerouac, Diane di Prima, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, John Updike, Rita Dove, Thomas Merton, Edvard Munch, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Bono, William S. Burroughs, Lee Ranaldo, John Tytell, Paul Bowles, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Cathal O'Searcaigh, Casey Cyr, Theo Dorgan, Jean Genet, Hunter S. Thompson, Sarah G. Epstein, Anne Waldman, Gregory Corso, Annie Wedekind, James Laughlin, Jan Kerouac, Robert Lax, Ed Sanders, Herbert Huncke, Robert Hunter, Denis Mahoney, Douglas Brinkley, E. Ethelbert Miller, Wendell Berry, Al Aronowitz, Jim Carroll, Eithne Strong, David Amram, Bob Holman, and numerous others. Ron's work has been exhibited round the world from New York City to New Orleans to San Francisco and from India to Czech Republic to Italy to Portugal to Ireland to The Netherlands to Iceland and beyond. Ron has presented over 1,000 readings of his own work. His books include Beaver Dam Rocking Chair Marathon: fragments of a lost text, I Will Not Bow Down: Selected Poems 1990-1995, Blood Filled Vessels Racing To The Heart: Beyond Chaos is The Ocean of Consciousness. CD releases include Tapping My Own Phone: poems and stories. Ron has recently recorded for many new projects. Several book and audio releases are planned for release in the coming year. Ron is Creative Projects Director for Red Iguana. When not traveling he lives in Kentucky. For contact and more detailed bio: Ron Whitehead the literary renaissance 932 Franklin Street Louisville, Kentucky 40206 phone 502-540-5739 (tlr) & 502-500-1319 (Red Iguana) email Tappingmyphone@aol.com