Nothing, a One-Man Show, is now available for viewing online at: http://mcooki.es/216521/
“Nothing” consists of a talk with the camera, i.e., whoever is watching, about what I experienced, doing my first two one-man shows, “Keep Talking”, in ’75, and “The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival”, first performed in ’82. “Nothing” was recorded in Seattle in ’03. My son, Jaxon Brooks, made this possible through his diligent effort and the facilities of his wonderful website, MilkandCookies.com, which I highly recommend for its insightful and often hilarious content.
I recently added The Ocean in a Bottle, my poems from the 1975 anthology, “Five on the Western Edge,” a collection put together by Stephen Vincent under his imprint, “Momo’s Press.” The anthology included me, as Steve Brooks, Stephen Vincent, Hilton Obenzinger, Beau Beausoleil, and Larry Felson. If you want their poems, you will have to squeeze them out of these fine poets, individually.
The page 57 Covers, on your right, provides a capsule view of what follows below on several pages. The most recent addition to this site is A Conversation Among Raindrops, now on this page. I have added a new version of Alone, on this page, also. A new drama, Fall Awake, is here, too. All Fall Down is also on this page. Just keep scrolling. Altered Egos, a book of brief, satirical biographies, appears on this site in a updated version, including contemporary characters. Use the Search box to your right to bring it to the front of the pack. Square Roots, a series of small paintings in tribute to big Marc Rothko, is new on this page. I Am is a collection of poems about this elemental life in which we find ourselves. Prose excerpts from Beyond Desire are included in the page to your right.
Below is a list of what can be found on this site; a wide variety of written work and art work, including poetry, prose, humor, journalese, zen consciousness, autobiography, satire, and a children’s book with illustrations. Art Work includes nothing but art. Fearless in Lucknow describes time in India with H.W.L. Poonjaji, also called Papaji, a tough, brilliant, 80 year old man with the eyes of a tiger, the heart of a lion, and the wisdom of unending stillness. The book leading up to that time is also included here, Ordinary Ecstasy, written in the ashram of the notorious guru, Osho Rajneesh, by someone who was not a devotee. Borderwalker is a story of a drunk poet who comes to a crisis of transformation. Mother is the story of taking care of one’s elder in her last year of life. Zenwords is a zenictionary of zensical and zenfound zenguage. Alone is a book of poetry that is also part of the prose poetry of A Prisoner’s Cave in Heaven. Two versions of All Fall Down are available here, one with open spacing, the other more conventional.
Steveabhaya.com makes it possible for these different kinds of work to be gathered in one place. I believe that creative work is completed by becoming the provenance of the reader. Work, that’s found a limited audience, can now be made available to a potentially unlimited audience.
If you don’t care to scroll through these pages, you can go to Search, to your right, and type in the name of the post you are looking for. This page will come up first, because it contains the name of the post, followed by the post itself. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and see the post. Voila!
There’s no absolute order to the postings, so I suggest you look down the list below to see what strikes your interest, or look at 50 Covers, and see what visually attracts your interest.
All artwork is by the author, except for the cover of The Exquisite Poet and The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival Anthology, by Alexandra Benjamin, the cover to The Zen of Housepainting, by Chris Blum, and the paintings that accompany The Lonely Lion, by Christine Schibly. The cover photo for Fearless in Lucknow was taken by Michael Schiesser. The artwork that accompanies Let’s Spend Some Time Together is by Gregory Vose.
Steveabhaya.com now contains these complete posts:
Fearless in Lucknow, 53 pages, prose, up close with a teacher, H.W.L. Poonja (Papaji) Lucknow, India, 1994
A Conversation Among Raindrops, 55 pages, prose poems of awareness, 1993
The Ocean in a Bottle, 26 pages, excerpt from Five on the Western Edge, Momo’s Press, ’75
Alone, 117 pages, poetry, 2007
Fall Awake, 56 pages, drama, 2010
Square Roots, 48 paintings, art, 2005.
I Am, 48 pages, poetry, 2009.
All Fall Down, 55 pages, poetry, 2009 (also 62 pages, open text)
Prepare to Dance, 32 pages, love poetry, 1993.
Savage Amusement, The Autobiography of a Semi-Unknown, Semi-Genius, a poet’s life in San Francisco, 212 pages, journal prose, 1975
Borderwalker, 55 pages, parable of loss and redemption, 1989
Never Mind Gertrude Stein, 200 drawings with aphorisms, 1982
I Became a Florist to Run for the Roses, 25 pages, humor, 2001
The Boy Who Named Himself, 8 pages, fable, The Carlton Hotel, Lucknow, India, 1992
Spike’s Eye View, 80 Cartoons for children and others, 2000
The True Story of Zenman, 98 drawings with captions, 2001
Music Night, 13 pages, abstract art and poetry, mid-Nineties in the Honey Bear Bakery Café in Seattle.
The Cartoon Kid, 76 cartoons, 2000
Big Head Theatre, 202 satirical drawings, 2001
Café Life, 117 pages, Life in the Owl and Monkey Café, SF, 1991
Café Faces, 60 drawings of café patrons, done at various times
Pardon My French, Illustrations of French Colloquialisms, 1995
Let’s Spend Some Time Together, drama, Intersection Theatre, 1972
Art Work, paintings and drawings, 1990 to the present
I’m Alive, 29 pages, drama, Seattle Playwrights Festival (Honorable Mention) 1990
Joni, 45 pages, biographical prose, 2002
Fleshy Blue Boat, 55 pages, poetry, 1972, light, early poems
Fierce Tranquility, 101 pages, a journal of inner discovery, 1989
Being Itself, 78 pages, prose poems of awareness in being, 1993-2008
Death, 39 pages, poetry, 2000
The Exquisite Poet, 51 pages, poetry, 2008
Regina, 52 pages, biographical prose, 2002
101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books, 11 pages, suggestions, 1996
Philip Blanc in San Francisco, 6 pp, light surreal poems, drawings, Panjandrum Press, 1972
Walking in Ellensburg, 42 pages, poetry on the streets of a small town, Ellensburg, Washingon, 2008
The Zen of Housepainting, 11 pages, prose, from City Miner Magazine, 1982
Half Past Kissing Time, 104 pages, novella, 2000, sequel to SWIMMING
The Cock Poems by Georgio Vesta, 17 pp, poetry, Love Lights Magazine, 1974
Ordinary Ecstasy, 157 pages, journalese, written in and around The Osho International Meditation Center, Pune, India, 1991-1992
The Lost Poems of Jesus, 45 pages, poetry, 1993, Talking Raven Magazine, ’94
Eternal Ruse, 44 pages, poetry, 1985
Minnie the Mermaid, 20 pages, fictional prose, short story, 1990
The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival Anthology, 42 pages, satirical poetry and art, 1978, compiled after the one-man show of the same name, Intersection Theatre, The Precita Park Café, and other venues, 1978-88
The Lonely Lion & All the Animals from A to Z, 26 pages, children’s stories and art, 2001
Mother, 608 pages, prose, taking care of an elder parent, 2004
Zenwords, 141 pages, prose, redefining words in Zenthink, 1999-2008
Dear Nadja, 179 pages, autobiography that parallels the fiction of Borderwalker, 1982
SWIMMING, 145 pages, coming of age fictionalized autobiography, 1989
Altered Egos, 171 pages, prose, invented satiric biographies of the famous, infamous, and legendary, 2007
A Prisoner’s Cave in Heaven, 378 pages, contemporaneous prose combined with the poetry of Alone, 2007
I Spilled Coffee on the Buddha, 58 pages, imaginative poems and art, 1991
In the Garden of Fugitive Souls, 40 pages, surrealist poetry, transliterations of the poetry of Rimbaud, Breton, and Lorca, 1976
The Dancer in the Heart, 89 pages, poetry, 6 paintings, Philos Press, 2001
The Queen of the Rhumba, 50 pages, poetry in the city, 1980
Invisible Lion, 137 pages, autobiographical prose, starting over, 1985
San Francisco Snapshots, 68 pages, short poems, written on the street, 1974
The Roomless Room, 30 pages, poetry, after a heart attack, 2002
