louderARTS Project

the louderARTS Project

Larry Jaffe

Larry Jaffe is the Poet/Host at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage (autry-museum.org) and the International Readings Coordinator for the United Nations Dialogue among Civilizations through Poetry program. He was recently appointed as the Host/Organizer of Elixir's first Buddha Jam (elixir.net/poets/info.html). He has been featured at numerous readings and poetry festivals throughout the United States and abroad including the Hammer Museum, Japanese American National Museum, Comedy Store, Autry Museum, University of Texas, UC Northridge, UCSB, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles Poetry Festival, Austin International Poetry Festival, San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival, Bristol, Paddington and Birmingham Poetry festivals. Jaffe is the Co-chair of Poets for Peace (poets4peace.com) and has spearheaded organizing poetry hosts around the world through the Poetry Host community group (groups.yahoo.com/group/poetryhosts).

His work can be found in numerous publications and anthologies like Urban Spaghetti, Saturday Afternoon Journal, Staple Gun Press, Poetry Magazine, Sic, Firefly Magazine, Daimler Chrysler's Spirit in the Word, Will Work for Peace, Short Fuse, The World Healing Book, The Book of Hope, etc. Jaffe's books include Jewish Soulfood available from Dead End Street Publications (deadendstreet.com), Unprotected Poetry CD and book from PoetWarrior Press (poetwarrior.com). Pudding House Publications has just released a special book of Jaffe's Greatest Hits along with several other poets. Salmon Publishing in Ireland will be publishing his forthcoming book Lying Half-Naked in the Doorway. In addition, Lummox Press is about to publish his book of poetic noir L. A. Rhapsody. Each month Jaffe writes a poetry column for about.com Museletter and he is an editor for Web del Sol.

unprotected poetry v. 4

I had unprotected poetry last night
it was unexpected you know spontaneous
and we did not use anything
we just went at it to keep the mood.

It was incredible but not safe
now I am worried.

It can be infectious and dangerous
to say things without a condom.

It could be disastrous to speak
without protection

A guy should not have unprotected poetry
he should take more
responsibility than that
not just, leave it up to the girl.

What kind of person goes off
without some sort of protection
what are the consequences
I'm not sure and now I'm scared.

It was so irresponsible of me
to have unprotected poetry
to not even ask or consult
her about any poetry control
methods she might be using or not using.

What if she gets poetically pregnant
and wants to have my poem?

Worse, what if she has some kind
of poetically transmitted disease
you know PTD and we have
to take regular poetry tests
to see if we've got it

But wow, we actually did it last night
we had poetry!

How many people in this day and age
have pure unprotected poetry?

We should be thankful for that
It was good poetry
We both really enjoyed it

We soared like angels without wings
never coming down
just coming
poetically that is

What a high to hit that climax and feel
like you will never ever be mortal again

Now that you have had unprotected poetry
who can protect you?

Now that you have had unsafe poetry
and want to do it again and again and again
because it does not feel the same
with a poetic condom
blocking the feeling and the flow

And the words
the words
are stopped short with safe protected poetry

And I will never write that way again.

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