Luke Warm Water at Cafe Cultura

Friday night was another moving, energetic, inspiring gathering at Cafe Cultura.

In addition to hosting the talented local poets, Cafe Cultura also welcomed slam champ Luke Warm Water.

Here is how Luke is described in his book of poetry titled 'On Indian Time'

Luke Warm Water is an Oglala Lakota, born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. He writes within the context of contemporary American Indian life, especially within urban communities. Many of his poems contain unsafe topics; they have perspectives of racial issues past and present, poverty and dysfunctional misadventures. But they also have sense of hope and a thread humor; often dark humor. Luke received a 2005 Archibald Bush Foundation artist fellowship, also a 2005 South Dakota Arts Council grant, both in poetry. He has competed and featured at Slam poetry events throughout the U.S. and in Europe

In addition to sharing his words, wisdom and humor, Luke also urged the audience to learn more about American Indian political prisoner, Leonard Peltier. Luke performs at many events on behalf of Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights and we hope to see more of him in the Denver area.

Here is an excerpt from his poem,Are you hungry for Pizza?

Upon our arrival
Teenage white kids were working
A white boy asked us from behind the counter
what we wanted to order
The biggest pizza you have with alot of extra cheese,
Uncle Verlin said
The white kid asked what he wanted for toppings
Uncle Verlin responded
Tiny little white men
The kid behind the counter looked bewildered asking 'what?'
Tiny tiny little white men on my pizza
'Uh sir we don't have that topping do you want a different topping?'
NO! I want only tiny tiny little white men on my pizza
The white boy behind the counter now looked shit scared
After that Uncle Verlin and I lost it
We laughed and laughed all the way home carrying our pizza
with Italian sausage topping

After all
Columbus was Italian
We thought it the next best choice for a pizza topping