The Poetry Show: Evening -- Star or Shroud

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Evening: The Guardian of Dreams Takes Note.
 
A number of 'ties' for first place in the "greatest poet" category compete this week to find out what happens as the sun goes down. Some stumble; some look to the West; some await the stars.
The image is drawn by Gemini from the second verse of Rilke's poem below
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded Dec 17, 2025
Evening
by Rainer Maria Rilke
1875 -- 1926
The bleak fields are asleep, My heart alone wakes; The evening in the harbour Down his red sails takes.
Night, guardian of dreams, Now wanders through the land; The moon, a lily white, Blossoms within her hand.
 
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The Last Stop Cafe: Dec 4, Year of the Bad Santa

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
The Last Stop Cafe: Dec 4, Year of the Bad Santa
Mike and John in Gaza in Rare Footage from pyramid building times.
 
 
 
Thursdays 10 AM
Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd
Mike John and James Converse Upon the Past Before the 'Bottomless Future' Crevasse off the porch at the Last Stop Cafe.
 
"The coffee is free if you're ready to make the trip."
jcase
 
This Episode Recorded Dec 4, 2025 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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The Enlighten Radio Poetry Show: Noon

 
 
Enlighten Radio Presents
 
 Noon Time Gymnastics: Flex yr metaphors!
 
 
The intensity and diversity of poems on the them of Noon will surprise you: Emily Dickinson, Henry Van Dyke, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, Teddy Macker, Daniel Gabriel Rosetti
Broadcast LIVE Wednesdays, 10 AM on https://player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded Dec 3, 2025
 
 
Noon Song
by Henry Van Dyke
 
There are songs for the morning and songs for the night, For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon; But who will give praise to the fulness of light, And sing us a song of the glory of noon?      Oh, the high noon, the clear noon,          The noon with golden crest;     When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns         With his face to the way of the west!
How swiftly he rose in the dawn of his strength; How slowly he crept as the morning wore by; Ah, steep was the climbing that led him at length To the height of his throne in the wide summer sky.     Oh, the long toil, the slow toil,         The toil that may not rest,     Till the sun looks down from his journey's crown,         To the wonderful way of the west!
Then a quietness falls over meadow and hill, The wings of the wind in the forest are furled, The river runs softly, the birds are all still, The workers are resting all over the world.     Oh, the good hour, the kind hour,         The hour that calms the breast!     Little inn half-way on the road of the day,         Where it follows the turn to the west!
There's a plentiful feast in the maple-tree shade, The lilt of a song to an old-fashioned tune, The talk of a friend, or the kiss of a maid, To sweeten the cup that we drink to the noon.     Oh, the deep noon, the full noon,         Of all the day the best!     When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns         To his home by the way of the west.
 
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Paris on the Potomac : The Early Thanksgiving

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
Paris on the Potomac : The Early Thanksgiving
The Fat Pig Holiday -- I ain't shopping there anymore!
 
 
Broadcast LIVE Fridays, 7:30 AM Eastern on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case
Shit is Hitting the Fan: No turkey, only pigs.
Is this a Harvest, or a Pestilence?
Huh?
This Episode Recorded 11/15 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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The Last Stop Cafe: ELDFIBAM!

 
Enlighten Radio Presents
The Last Stop Cafe: ELDFIBAM!
The Nov 6 Show
Forget it. It's Already Gone
 
 
Broadcast Thrusdays 10 AM, unless we are asleep, or dead.
Hosts: Mike Cuccherini, John Case, James Boyd
What does it mean?: Million Dollar Reward For Who Gets It Right. Hint: '69 SDS'
This Episode Recorded Nov. 6 2025 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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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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