On Tuesday, February 15th, I performed poetry with my friend Bruce Bracken at the Duet Slam. I met Bruce seven years ago at the Through Traffic Molly and or at the Homeland open mic which met biweekly, sharing the same place and time-slot, at Onthe House. Onthe House (now an ice cream shop called Bluebird) is no longer extant, but it was a community living room in the evenings, a photographic studio during the day, and a church on Sunday's. It was operated by a Nazarene couple who happened to have the same Alma Mater as my mother.
Through Traffic Molly was emceed by Martin Martin Marriott and some lady I can't remember (maybe some nice person out there in cyberland can help me out) and Tom Ring emceed Homeland. Both of these open mics do not presently exist. However, Tom Ring is still emceeing an open mic, in the same space, at the Blue Bird with Chase Evans every Monday except for the first Monday of the month at 7:30 / 8:00 pm.
We did two poems last night (all ten teams did two each). We didn't win. First place was 250 dollars and second place was a used DVD. At the end of the first round, we ranked six (with 26.7 points) and by the end of round two we fell to 9th place (24.9 points), which consequently, is the place we finished at with a combined score of 51.6 points. All in all, I was pleased with my performance. I didn't think I'd be able to do as well as I did and connect to the word, because I've been on the dee-el for several weeks feeling like an old man.
The top place scorer was team Amber Flame & Roma Ray with a whopping combined score of 59.8. In case you didn't know, the maximum score in slam is thirty points. Thusly, with two rounds the max possible score one could achieve is sixty. Team Daemond & Roberto and team Oscar & Rachael tied for second place with a combined score of 57.1. They respectively won the used movies Serenity and Clone Wars.
Morris Stegosaurus, who is my second favorite performance poet just happened to be the featured poet at this event. Morris is an absurdest poet. And he was the one to prime the judges. This gave me hope for a higher score, because today's contemporary slam style is very much so hip-hop-ish. And I don't understand how to construct this mode of poetry. The material that Bruce and I cobbled together (less than two weeks ago), was more in line with traditional form poetry.
The first poem was a sestina; where we transformed six innocent words into pure absurdest debauchery. I composed stanzas one, three, five plus the envoy and Bruce wrote the rest. On stage, I read his stanzas and he read mine. It was fun. Each of us acted out what the other was reading. However, in the second poem, Bruce's pen seemed to channel Morris and (another of my favorites) David Christopher la Terre. The prompt we redacted material out from was a magazine on early childhood education that I found a few weeks back (at the joint I go contra dancing at) called Seattle's Child (the 1/11 edition). Bruce skimmed through an article, page 11, regarding organic farming and I pulled catch phrases (the bold faced print in an Ode to Morris la Terre Bracken bellow) out of an article on how to stretch the dollar to it's nth degree page 18.
What I wanted to do that didn't happen was to assemble a cross-out poem where we would utilize the exact same article and combine whatever words/phrases our eyes deemed as relevant. I'll have to try this exercise out on Ahmed before we begin teaching our workshop Item 6579 at SCCC this spring (If you want to sign up for it, it's only seventy bucks)!
Mango Foodmart Fudge on Noodles with Table Olives
The porn star ate a blue mango
purchased at the king city food-mart.
It was so juicy, he imagined it was gooey brown fudge
dribbled over a heaping bowl of Kimchi flavored noodles.
He devoured his dinner on a dusty table
in his ol’ lady’s garage with a handful of green olives.
He sued Johnny and Jane Q Public after biting the olive
pit; then he had a farmer killed over a bad mango.
He adorned his head with foil at the kitchen table,
that he brought at the local food-mart
to keep talk radio from boiling his noodle.
He says that aliens communicate through the fudge.
Packed into little boxes moving down the belt, fudge
is cheaper to manufacture than are jars of olives;
however, gluten free rice-paste extruded into noodles
is far les exciting than sugar coated mangos
hanging in (those) little plastic packages at the Easy Access Food Mart
a mile down Kimchi Drive on Flathead Table.
We drove a mile down Kimchi Drive on Flathead Table,
when she told me that she adulterated the fudge
with Everclear, in the alley behind the food-mart.
This turned me on, so I fucked her under the olive
tree; her delicious vagina was (warm) like an overripe mango.
She had her own name for her snatch: noodles!
Named after the warts she got from a porn-star named noodles.
He laid his big slab of meat on the table.
She ate it like a juicy mango.
He packed into her like a heavy pan (or tin) of fudge.
She sucked into her mouth one of his big olives.
He said she was better than the attendant at the food-mart.
Who counted his genital warts behind the food-mart
by two and fours, by outdated chicken noodle
soup left in boxes next to cans of olives.
The alley was the examination table.
He cursed him, then wept into the fudge.
Regret turned in his gut like a rotten mango.
The porn star failed to get olives on sale at the (back alley) food-mart
He purchased the last mango next to a package of dry ramen noodles
His ol’ lady sat the table waiting, her fingers smeared brown with sticky fudge.
Celebrate The Cows!
The People are looking
See if they'll celebrate you back!
Organic farmers will own the planet,
Working you over
You organic farm fiend, you!
The People are looking
Today! Physical!
Occupational!
Speech!
Language!
Behavioral!!
Throw it out
All will be mulched, consumed
No alternative!
No Communication!
Destroyed by the Loud!
All will go away in the AM!
The Bringer speaks!
The Power
The Seventh Sign The gun will attack
The Luxury
The work and the money! Throw it out
Father gun speaks the revolution!
The Power
His defining is irrefutable! The Luxury
Father gun is the source! Throw it out
He will punish you for your work!
The Rich Get Richer
For identity!Yoke to his course!
Break the Bank
See if he'll yoke back!The old ways,
The Rich Get Richer
The years will be injured!Throw it out
Bow to disability!See if it bows back!
The People are looking
The Rich Get Richer
The house,The furniture!
The Luxury
Father gun will de-fact the material!
The Power
Father gun will de-fact the man!
The Power
They will be worked!
The Rich Get Richer
They will be the cow!The Power
They will not sense! The Power
They will not purpose! The Luxury
The Power
The Power
Throw them to the mulch pile!
Throw them out
Love will be organic!The People are looking
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