Steve Brooks (Abhaya) – Poetry, Prose & Art

Personal Images. Once you’ve seen something, what isn’t a personal image?

I originally set up this page to include images that were discovered in the organization of the framed and unframed work in my studio. The plan for this page was to include images I found interesting enough to accumulate, but it seems to be changing into a grab-bag page.

The photo at your left was sent to me by an old friend. It was taken in SF in the 70s. I don’t remember the occasion, and I don’t know who the woman is.

Here’s a poem I wrote about my hometown in Illinois. This poem used to be very popular at readings in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 70s. I don’t know why it was so popular. Maybe it has to do with the sense we all have of our hometown, wherever it may be.

Moline

I remember Moline

Moon over Moline

Will I ever again see Moline

Moline, Moline, ah, yes, Moline

O Moline

Moline, Moline

Born in Moline

Carry me back to Moline

Old Moline

Moline, Moline, my Moline

A sense of Moline

Over to Moline

Out Moline way

Carry a cross to Moline

I woke screaming

And crying in Moline

I’ll lay me down in Moline

Sweet Moline.

The American Heretic was a one-time humor magazine at Grinnell College, in 1963. Plans for a second edition never materialized. A couple of years later, in Moline, illinois, we opened The American Heretic art gallery. A nice lady from the Alcoholics Anonymous office, next door, asked me if I was going to put an eagle over the door. I knew I was in the wrong town. We lasted six months, but the name American Heretic survives in this timeless relic of college humor, written just before the President was assassinated. Not much funny in that.

American Heretic Humor Magazine