Poetry and Discussion
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. (Robert Frost)
Countup
1 thing
2 tell you.
3 strikes you’re out,
4 not answering to me.
5 reasons why this week sucks:
6 days ago I asked you something.
7 minutes before you responded, each minute hurt.
8 um’s later I walked out the door forever.
9 at night pitch black, freezing cold and lonely out.
10 times you called me. Stop. It’s over. Leave me alone.
What You Need to Understand and Preferably Also Not Understand
I realized two days after the end before the beginning and upon subsequent completion the end was the beginning is the end. Words man, words say things, they open up a world of indefinite reality set upon vinyl to a record player of life. A side, B side, each has its qualities and each has its way of being. Can the tortoise shell glasses redeem the sacrificial lamb from its wrongs upon the hill of judgment? Can a semi-religious statement be made to seem like one come from the mouth of a non-believer? Mark off the prices of idiosyncratic Black Friday stores, raid them for their wares, for their solutions to ancient living. Turn statements and maxims on their heads and understand than going forth, that moving is preferable to standing still. Relativity doesn't apply here Einstein, understand this kind of statement too is funny because it confronts an expression. Understand wordplay might be more important than understanding, that the Black Forest contains secrets of mythological understanding set upon a pedestal of nothingness and lies. Understand that saying you are mighty fine and being mighty fine are one in the same. There is no lie at play here. The cliché goes that people always lie when they say “I'm fine” but in this case you should speak it truly. You are fine. You are alive. You are fine. You breathe. You are fine. You can eat a calzone and send that motherfucker down your throat, through your digestive tract and enjoy the crap out of it.
Some Occu-Thoughts
I.
tents searched
i slept with two blankets
no necesito
and prince slept with none
on some
laid by
kevin with one eye
the space for us has walls of air
and privacy is a favor done by not looking
'
the same white man
with a white beard
and carrying like a fisherman says
that common sense is expedient of tradition
and i hear him to my back left
by the benches where drummers stalk
you cannot
drink the same liquor
twice
there is a ripple of beautiful heads
shaved balding oily chunks floral swipes
of brown torquiose golden hair
all flashing the sky's reflection
as they are
nodding
together
nodding at a call for politeness
nodding to the call of "it just is"
and the hair burns
that smell of eyebrows
the nicotine-stained curling of eyelashes
melting away from fire catching
the excess paper of a badly rolled cigarette
climbing above my nose
their heads burn in my eyes
as they call for cleanliness
as a well-slept Ms. whatever
with the latest running shoes
implores our people to fight against crack
and violence
and the red eyes of the affected are red
either with phallic righteousness
or chemicals
and none of us speak to the toxins
rising from our styrofoam plates
from the trucks painted by missionaries
and the air walls tell me he is looking for me
the radio tells me with suicidal poetry that he is looking
and my justification my love of solitude battles
my justification my love of humanity
and my love of humanity is torn by the loyalty of nature
now when skateboards smack down their wheels
i hear guns
and my nerves pick up
Enough Is Enough Creative Prompt
Here's an opporunity to create. Saint Anselm is currently involved in Enough Is Enough, a campaign against bullying, violence, and abuse. As a collective effort, we were asked to produce some sort of artistic, literary or musical response to the mission this campaign has set forth.
Enough Is Enough has provided us with some information they'd like to convey. The boundaries are grey and the space is unlimited; do with this as you will. I'm excited to see what comes out of this!
Guy Fawkes Day
Guy Fawkes Day
Blow up my heart
and leave its pieces
coalescing
slowly gathering in bits
protoplasmic slithers
crawling back across the
floor.
Reform the shrapnel shards
to unforseen configurations
captured by the phantom pull
of a gravity you do
not know you have.
Hope is dynamite
explodes the past
to ever branching, flowing outward,
starry fingered, curling trails.
Hope is a whisper
to the flying pieces
to settle softly
along the gradient
lines of force
that point in silence
to the future.
Hope is a bomb.
Blow up my heart.
Where no light reaches
Where no light reaches
Where no words come
Where reasons unravel
And thoughts crash one to the other
Faster than memory collects them
I will be madness
Abandon the light
Spill out my life
On the floor along your passing shadow.
And I can't say why.
Pulitzer Prize Recipient and Poet Laurean Maxine Kumin
Wednesday, October 12, 7 p.m., NHIOP Auditorium
Lucubrations Campfire
Poetry and stargazing around the campfire.
Location: Observatory
Open Mic Night Our Indian Summer Jam
Acoustic artists, musicians, poets,comedians and people who have too much angst for their own good and wouldn't mind sharing it with us, PLEASE GRACE US WITH YOUR PRESENCE! SIGN UP OR SHOW UP! If your planning on playing more than a song or two please let us know ahead of time so we can manage our slots so everyone gets a chance to play. ALSO...BRING A FRIEND & enjoy a free night of music, poetry, great coffee and good company. SO SHOW UP AND SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ARTISTS!
For more info or to sign up please email us at:
apothecafloral@gmail.com
Lucubrations Creative Tuesday
Recipe for a Box
Must be a genius.
Must have a BIG
loving heart for fuckups.
Wear collared buttondowns, surfshorts
and "slippahs" with shades.
Long gray ponytail. Laugh.
What is it about the late night?
What is it about the late night?
I'm tired, I'm cranky, I'm not focused
yet up I sit and up I stay
staring at a screen, waiting on a wheel
that spins round, and round, and round
internet's slow, everyone online, but I don't mind
it's odd but I'm content to sit, to watch
to ponder, but ponder's too heavy, I'm not doing much
just sitting haunched, squinting with out glasses
excited about this new world, this new place
where I am free, I can be creative, I can express!
me, do I want myself here? putting it on the line
in front of strangers, people I don't know, never met, never saw
I'm scared, but exhilarated, who cares?! I'm here!
I'm free to be, free to think, to hope, to dream
it's late I need sleep, classes to survive
but up I sit and up I stay
What is it about the late night?
Audio from Open Mic at the 2011 Open House
The Quality isn't the best and we missed the beginning (Jeremy Munro's epic introduction). The recording starts in the middle of Justine Johnson's reading, and then in order appear Tyler Lavallee, Prof. Banach, Valerie Stein, Lauren Miller, and Valerie Stein again. Thanks to all the performers. We had a great time!
National Poetry Slam in Boston August 9-13
There is a moment overflowing
there is a moment overflowing
when a passing breeze
fills
the leaves
and the tree sways embracing the air
and it is too big, too good
too much
billowing branches
following, straining, holding, reaching
and
releases
stretching out to the passing air feeling
and quivering rests
remembering
hold and release this world too much for us
everywhere too much
and yet my fingers follow
reaching and grasping
for
memories of moments
beyond me swept
चारिन्
train. bus. almonds and a cool breeze. new hampshire summer air sweetly scented like pine and mountains of oak and musk and fresh flora. so crisp and real and unlike what i came from and what i will eventually go back to. mailing letters past the due date that read of girls drunk on fatigue and insights on howls and Howl and the present effect of alcohol on her social skills. self conscious about the corporation versus the art and how the two are inappropriate toward each other, foreign intruders (of redundancy) who don’t belong in an office mail box. basket? holder?
muscle and muscle and muscle and naps, an ampersand holding them together with fierce shiraz adhesive glue; veins and contours that taper into a form so familiar and missed and sad. gay men married to beautiful women. san francisco 1955. with the steams of and grinds of and maybe a wink of a working eye and the trickery of a phone number. a set up. a scenario of entrapment. roasts & blends.
Suburbia I've Given You Nothing And Now I'm Everything.
Suburbia was never the problem.
The ethical dilemma that faced us as demonic teenagers was
Moving forward in "punk clothes" clutching drum kits and amps tight
Through the washed out backroads of New Hampshire.
Suburbia was never the solution.
The lack of consistency, the omnipresent hypocrisy
Encountered both in school and the venues was
Fighting and arguing for our place
elemental
air
waits formless
expands
contracts
Shatterings
have their own order
and their own
pattern.
as the order that binds them
ceases
slips
expires
magic grabs
the pieces from the darkness
between the spaces where they were
and as if
in loving care
guides and whispers, soft persuasion uses,
to the new born blankness
of shatterings oblivion
calling fragments
to postures new and
trusting
it’s f-o-u-r and i’m humming songs about mariners like the birds outside. i’ve taken my placebo but the stress beat its ass and i’m now i’m just waiting for the sun to rise. in my head. i’m drawn to the water but even more to the fire; seen it been there done that. i’ll let it burnburnburn.
i stumbled and gasped. it felt good, like blood rushing to a scape; stinging and pulsing and alive. a little reminder of who. why. where we are.
(. syntax.)
i’m a native of the sea but i grew close to waterfire.
