The Last Stop Cafe: Halloween 202555555

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
The Last Stop Cafe: Halloween 202555555
Commanders Aint Commanding Much
 
 
Broadcast LIVE Fridays, 7:30 AM Eastern on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd
Applications for suicide bomber jobs seem to be falling.....
This Episode Recorded Halloween 2025, or thereabouts at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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The Poetry Show: Dawn

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Night was her only Love. She keeps its mystery and its stars, for herself, all the long day.
 
 
Poetry on the theme of Aubade: Song to Dawn. Joy Harjo, Elsa Gitlow, Helen Hunt Jackson, Paul Dunbar.
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded November 12, 2024
Aubade (1937)
by William Empson
 
Hours before dawn we were woken by the quake.My house was on a cliff. The thing could takeBookloads off shelves, break bottles in a row.Then the long pause and then the bigger shake.It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
And far too large for my feet to step by.I hoped that various buildings were brought low.The heart of standing is you cannot fly.
It seemed quite safe till she got up and dressed.The guarded tourist makes the guide the test.Then I said The Garden? Laughing she said No.Taxi for her and for me healthy rest.It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
The language problem but you have to try.Some solid ground for lying could she show?The heart of standing is you cannot fly.
None of these deaths were her point at all.The thing was that being woken he would bawlAnd finding her not in earshot he would know.I tried saying Half an Hour to pay this call.It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
I slept, and blank as that I would yet lie.Till you have seen what a threat holds below,The heart of standing is you cannot fly.
Tell me again about Europe and her pains,Who’s tortured by the drought, who by the rains.Glut me with floods where only the swine can rowWho cuts his throat and let him count his gains.It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
A bedshift flight to a Far Eastern sky.Only the same war on a stronger toe.The heart of standing is you cannot fly.
Tell me more quickly what I lost by this,Or tell me with less drama what they missWho call no die for a god for a throw,Who says after two aliens had one kissIt seemed the best thing to be up and go.
But as to risings, I can tell you why.It is on contradiction that they grow.It seemed the best thing to be up and go.Up was the heartening and the strong reply.The heart of standing is we cannot fly.
 
 
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The Poetry Show: Ghosts

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
Escaping the Marble Forest
 
 
You have seen them. The ones you left behind. The one thats missing. The griefs that keep hanging around. A comfort. A fate. The marble forest: make them be stone. Elizabeth Jennings, Wilfred Owen, Christopher Kennedy, Kiki Petrosina, Gregory Orr, Sylvia Plath, Claribel Allegria, Eric Pankey
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded 10/29/2025
Ghost in the Land of Skeletons
by Christopher Kennedy
 
For Russell Edson
If not for flesh's pretty paint, we're just a bunch of skeletons, working hard to deny the fact of bones. Teeth remind me that we die. That's why I never smile, except when looking at a picture of a ghost, captured by a camera lens, in a book about the paranormal. When someone takes a picture of a spirit, it gives me hope. I admire the ones who refuse to go away. Lovers scorned and criminals burned. I love the dead little girl who plays in her yard, a spectral game of hide and seek. It's the fact they don't know they're dead that appeals to me most. Like a man once said to me, Do you ever feel like you're a ghost? Sure, I answered, every day. He laughed at that and disappeared. All I could think was he beat me to it.
 
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The Poetry Show: Poets Born in October

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Especially When The October Wind ... With fists of turnips punishes the land,
 
 
Janet has found some famous poets born in October, but chosen some lesser known gems -- only one of which whose SUBJECT is 'October'. Sylvia Plath, John Keats, E.E. Cummings, Dylan Thomas, Robert Pinsky. These poems are more difficult than some. So we take our time with them.
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded October 22, 2025
Especially When The October Wind
by Dylan Thomas
Especially when the October wind With frosty fingers punishes my hair, Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds, Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks, My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words. Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark On the horizon walking like the trees The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park. Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches, Some of the oaken voices, from the roots Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.
Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning And tells the windy weather in the cock.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs; The signal grass that tells me all I know Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye. Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.
Especially when the October wind (Some let me make you of autumnal spells, The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales) With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make you of the heartless words. The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury. By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.
 
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The Last Stop Cafe: Will Trump Invade Canada?

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
The Last Stop Cafe: Will Trump Invade Canada?
What Happens If the Blue Jays Win the World Series?
 
 
Thursdays, 10 AM on www.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd
Mike's sports and entertainment review runs headlong into the world war that could result from the Blue Jays winning the World Series. True, the Dodgers look supreme. But, just think how it will unhinge our pouty little emperor.
This Episode Recorded Oct 16, 2025 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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Paris on the Potomac: A Prayer Vigil in Lebanon

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
Paris on the Potomac: A Prayer Vigil in Lebanon
Pastor John Unger - Can the teachings of Jesus help unite rather than divide religions?
 
 
Broadcast LIVE Fridays, 7:30 AM Eastern on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case
Pastor John Unger is ordained as an ELCA Lutheran pastor, and serves the congregations of St. John Lutheran Church, St. John's Episcopal Church, and Bolivar United Methodist Church in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.[6] In addition, he is a chaplain for the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office.[7]He is also a former Democratic leader in the West Virginia Senate. He joins us to  recount his trip to Lebanon during the Gaza War. A prayer gathering of many faiths for peace.
This Episode Recorded October 17, 2025 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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The Poetry Show: Jack Frost

Enlighten Radio Presents
Early Frost, first frost, jack frost. How can your words DO an early winter frost?
 
 
 
...creeping softly underneath The door when all the lights are out, Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe, And knows the things you think about.
 
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded Oct 15, 2025
Jack Frost"famous poet" -- Gabriel SetounThe door was shut, as doors should be, Before you went to bed last night; Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see, And left your window silver white.He must have waited till you slept; And not a single word he spoke, But pencilled o'er the panes and crept Away again before you woke.And now you cannot see the hillsNor fields that stretch beyond the lane; But there are fairer things than these His fingers traced on every pane.
Rocks and castles towering high; Hills and dales, and streams and fields; And knights in armor riding by, With nodding plumes and shining shields.And here are little boats, and there Big ships with sails spread to the breeze; And yonder, palm trees waving fair On islands set in silver seas,And butterflies with gauzy wings; And herds of cows and flocks of sheep; And fruit and flowers and all the things You see when you are sound asleep.For, creeping softly underneath The door when all the lights are out, Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe, And knows the things you think about.He paints them on the window-pane In fairy lines with frozen steam; And when you wake you see again The lovely things you saw in dream.(© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes)
 
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The Poetry Show: October Country

Enlighten Radio Presents
Harvest or Pestilence?
Janet visits October country -- again -- Carl Sandburg, Joy Ladin, William Blake, Omar Khayam, Philip Larkin, Robert Herrick, Lucy Larcom
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded Oct 8, 2025
Time Passes
by Joy Ladin
Time too is afraid of passing, is riddled with holes through which time feels itself leaking. Time sweats in the middle of the night when all the other dimensions are sleeping. Time has lost every picture of itself as a child. Now time is old, leathery and slow. Can’t sneak up on anyone anymore, Can’t hide in the grass, can't run, cant catch. Cant figure out how not to trample what it means to bless.
 
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