Not long after I moved to Denver, I discovered the Mercury Café and its Friday night poetry open mic. Since then, I’ve grown immensely as a poet, a writer, and a person. I’ve also made countless friends and had the privilege to enjoy the works of some incredibly talented individuals. Now, I’m starting work on a project to do what I can to help showcase their talents.

Visit thepoets.co to hear episode 1 of The Poets Podcast featuring Julian Thomas, who I’ve come to consider a good friend. Many more episodes to come shortly.

I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do!

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I plan to continue updating this blog as I write my own poetry. The following piece is a tribute I read at the Mercury Café to celebrate the woman who first opened it, Marilyn Megenity, to whom I and many others owe a great deal more than we can repay.

Coming out of the West, your first thought is how quickly the trees thin and the mountains descend into hills of grass and dry rock, and cattle in the fields and through it all the highway like a nerve. The world rolls away before you and sometimes you can see for miles ahead into blue haze and when the sun sets the night opens its heart to you, shows you the stillness of your time spent driving, driving into the dark unknown.

I came out of the north to the Queen City on the Plains, soon enclosed by its arms outstretched into the grasslands silent under a moonless night. I wanted to know what lived here, in homes that have known centuries, winter’s embrace come again and again as starlight reflected off snow washed mountains. I found what I sought amid stone and iron bones reaching to the sky, in a place where music lives, poetry and prayer whispered as the wind howls, and inside we gather.

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there is a feeling here
like the feeling you get passing by a window lit with candles
with darkness beyond and dim shapes moving
you can't see what they're doing inside
but the whole scene is so obviously soaked in magic
that you can't help but press your eyes to the glass and try to see, to know
to touch even a dream of the same ritual
but here the doors stand open
brightly lit and overflowing with 
music and laughter, the spells cast here
and if you let it
the magic will take hold of you
bone deep
like a reminder of home
and a question of
where have you been?
what took you so long?
didn't you know you were welcome here?

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Photo by Raivis Razgals on Unsplash