Roy Street Coffee Phone Poem

 

I hate it when I start to compose
and the pen runs dry.
It makes me wonder, sometimes
if this universe speaks
in conspiratorial metaphors,
but I could just be paranoid.
You see, I was just trying to write a sestina.
The title was going to be Mr. Happy's Fly Swatter.
It was going to utilize six prompt words
I scavenged out of my favorite Big Poppa E poem.
The girl, she had a big nose.
She was engrossed in a conversation
with a kinky haired guy at the bar.
They were drinking red wine
from fat snooty glasses.
Coke bottle lenses covered her eyes.
Her smiles were magnified across the room.
He said that there was no normal.
She agreed.
I was just standing there eavesdropping
while I waited for my coffee to finish its drip.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I broke in like an unwanted car fart.
I said, “I was the icon of normalcy in America.”
My name is Mr. Happy.
I have a fly swatter.
I love the sound maggots make
when they swim through a tub of honey.
I got a hot water bottle.
I screwed the hose
into to a wet-dry vibrator I found in the laundry room.
It worked great on Ms. Honey’s hole.
She liked it more than the cat did.
So, I dug a shallow grave.
I buried the cat
along with the cat food
I didn’t need anymore
in the back yard.
I threw in the flyswatter
and that empty tub of honey
and smoothed the hole over
with ink that exploded
into my hand from a worthless pen
I bought at super Wal-Mart mega-store.

 

---William James, 12/31/2011

 
 
 
 
 

A Disasterpiece Found Between Pages In A Book II

 

I live

Breathe

Through the we

A single plop drops into the sea

This body lives

Vicariously

Through the we

Liquefy

Illusions of

The day to day grime

Breathe

Through the I

Live

Vividly

Become a single drop of water

Raining into the sea

Experience

The meaning of we

I feel you so intensely

I could swear

You must encounter me

There

Too

---William James 3/30/2008

 
 
 
 
 

A Disasterpiece Found Between Pages In A Book

 

...Odd Bark

Shep sprints---

up hill,

'cross streets,

'round bend,

down again,

---after a bus.

Little legs pump,

feral hair thrashes,

nostrils flare,

breath catches fire

blood ruptures his veins.

Shep,

bites at tires,

howls,

scratches at the door.

Metro number seven halts.

On all two's,

Shep crawls

aboard.

---William James, 3/2/2008

 
 
 
 
 

An Unseen Friendship by Purple Mark

 

“If you’d like, you can start your transmission

after the high-pitched squeal that will be your cue

to make a statement about yourself.”

After this announcement, I was at a loss as to how

I should answer this query. It seemed that an enigmatic

or Surrealistic response was required from me.

Since I had The Song Of Roland on my person, I answered,

“Then comes at speed, Margaris of Seville, who holds his land

as far as Cazmarin, ladies all love him, so beautiful he is.”

“Squeal,” came the message’s endnote. What he would

make of it was hard to know. I had no clue as to what

his work entailed, but I had been told to be bold in my query.

Just when I was about to ring off his equally odd response

came back: “Her skin is white cloth and she’s all sewn apart

and she has many colored pins sticking out of her heart.”

So began our strange friendship with neither of us seen

and it was only our words which we relayed that connected us

in a Stream-of-Consciousness sort of give and take away.

---Purple Mark 122311

 
 

Friday Prompts:                                                                         

1. “If you’d like, you can start your transmission after the high-pitched squeel (sic) that will be your cue to make a statement about yourself...” Antero Alli. The Akashic Record Player. (Falcon Press, 1988) page 40.
2. “Her skin is white cloth, and she’s all sewn apart and she has many colored pins sticking out of her heart.” Tim Burton. Voodoo Girl: The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy And Other Stories (Rob Weisbach Books, 1997) page 51.
3. “Then comes at speed, Margaris of Seville, who holds his land as far as Cazmarin, Ladies all love him, so beautiful he is.” Translated by by Dorothy L. Sayers. The Song Of Roland. (Penguin Classics, 1964) page 89.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Perihelion Blinks (A Video Poem)

Poem For A Christmas Card

 

This has been a year of transition:

       violence,

       poverty,

       hardship,

       destitution,

       hunger.

Who are the wise

       in a place where no one behaves

       like human beings?

Rich Americans

       coveting others’ money,

where is the outrage?

People of opulence—

       the poor and the vagrants

       gather the fallen

       fruit of your vineyards,

       to feed their starving families—

You shall not pick your vineyard bare!

       —Leviticus 19:10a, 9b

Advent,

our hope is not lost—

Jesus’ birth promised:

a voice for grace,

       knowledge,

       peace,

       love,

       community.

—The word for life is always plural.

Merry Christmas.

 
 
 
 
 

Five Bottles Along Side The Road

 

      As I passed the debris of Occupy Seattle, I saw five bottles lined up on a ledge and considered the problems of being homeless.

      Besides the cold and hunger,

      Besides being wet or frozen,

      Is what to do with that bottle of pee.

      How do you keep clean when your hands get splashed and the bottle isn't clean. How do you keep from smelling of urine all the time?

      Cologne and perfume is a prized commodity among the homeless still trying, it will mask some of the smell.

      And how much can you carry, all the time? It's cheaper to buy big bottles of shampoo and soap, sure, but how can you carry those around with you?

      Where can you get rest?

      Hit the road, Jack, is a constant song heard by the homeless.

      Get a job is another.

      How?

      How do you get computer time to do it?

      How do you get clean clothes to wear or the money to get there?

      It can be cheaper to buy new clothes at a thrift store than wash what you have.

      How do you get to the interview?

      How do they make contact with you?

      For most homeless, if they are lucky enough to have some income, their cell phone is the only home they have, and they are often scorned for having that.

      But the homeless have friends

                  and family,

                  and pride.

      When their social credit has been used up or their pride forbids asking for more they still need to keep in touch,

            with family, friends, agencies that can help,

            their lawyers.

      To be homeless in most communities makes you a criminal. To sit in the street, to beg, to sleep on someone's property can all land you in jail.

      We, the comfortable, protect ourselves by saying its their fault. If only, we say, they weren't...they hadn't...

      And why are we helping them? If they weren't...if they hadn't...they wouldn't need our help.

      And I, the good person, the one who has followed society's rules should get the reward, should get it all.

      If only...

            If only they hadn't gotten sick

                  and lost their jobs and their benefits

            If only they hadn't been abused as child

                  they wouldn't have landed in juvey and been a criminal

            If only they were strong enough to never reach for relief from life's problems

                  never drink

                        or drug

                              or have sex with strangers

      If only they were perfect, like me.

      And didn't waste their resources on dinners and drinks and casinos, like me.

      If only the never quarreled with their family over things past or get fired, like me.

      They wouldn't have any problems, just like me

      So why should I be told to care?

---By Carla Blaschka, 12/10/11
     Written at Richard Hugo House alongside PurpleMark Wirth and Zoe Omega.

 
 

Write By The Park Prompts:                                                                         

1. Things seen on the street
2. Songs being played

 
 
 
 
 
 

6-Words Randomized Into... Something

 

In the war

of good and evil,

angels compete

for diamonds

of crack cocaine.

Demons flex

their beautiful wings

while positioning

and repositioning

the players

on a chess board.

In the fray,

an abundance

of cunning

waits

to be unleashed

against

an innocent

pawn.

 

On 12/8/2011 Andre submitted to me 6 Words: Competition, Abundance, Good, Evil, Angels, Demons. Andre found this website through me. I met him at a Thanksgiving feast at my aunts house in Salem. I hope you like what your six words became.

 
 
 
 

An Alchemical Exchange Gone Astray by Purple Mark

 

“We are as Gods, We have to get good at it,”
the man said as a preamble to his actual intent.

The woman was unconvinced as to where
this discussion, this meeting was headed.

“How about some sex?” he tried another tact.
“I will gnaw gently on your thighs,”

“I will fuck you until your God is dead.” These words
no more swayed her than his previous ones had.

She did not need sex, though it was apparent
that he did, to fulfill some Alchemical experiment.

At the heart of the Granulation process is the individual’s
ability to judge the moment and the duration of when

these conditions obtain usually a period of only three
or four seconds. His gambit had failed within that brief time.

He was either too direct, too crude
or else he was too abstract, too obtuse for her.

No Alchemical Wedding was going to happen here.
Nor would there be any sex, not today,

maybe not even in the foreseeable future
because he had blown it in a big way.

He went about these things the wrong way,
his approach was simply wrong for this age.

 

They parted, both of them disappointed
at the result of their rendezvous:

She had wanted what exactly?
A cuddle? A friend? A sympathetic ear?

He had needed a lover for whatever reason.
She was still not sure why he had chosen her.

However, it was not to be or maybe it could never be,
it was an Alchemical exchange that had gone astray.

---Purple Mark 121711

 
 

Prompts:                                                                         

1. “We are as Gods, we have to get good at it.” Caleb Klaces. Getting Good At Being Gods: Writing Poetry After Nature And Before The Very End. "Rain Taxi." Vol. 16 No. 3, Fall 2011. Words from Stewart Brand piece. page 18.
2. “How about some sex? I will gnaw gently on your thighs, I will fuck you until your God is dead.” Michael Crossley. French Letters. Seattle. (A spoken word piece).
3. "At the heart of the successful conclusion of the granulation process is the individual’s ability to judge the moment and the duration of when these conditions obtain, usually covering a period of only three or four seconds." Oppi Untracht. Jewelry: Concepts And Technology. (Doubleday Press, 1982). page 357.

 
 
 
 
 

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 14

Let God Arise

A soul in white has entered here;
white for all that's pure and fair.
Dipped into a cleansing font,
the spell which brings to end all want
and dissolves torment into air.

Come to rest beneath the sign
composed of intersecting lines;
traced upon the virgin head
brings resurrection from the dead,
a restoration for our kind.

Confession is the blessed soul's aim,
and through renewal of the heart
remission of our sins we claim;
a fire is kindled, clear and bright,
which rises to a sacred flame.

---Don Comfort (formerly from) Newberg Oregon
    (now a monk in a Russian Orthodox order).

The piece was found on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 while sorting and packing.

Words from Works In Progress Rearranged

 

"We just buried my mother, Ariel,"
She enlightened the waiter who didn't ask.
Roger didn't know how to respond
When I told him to, "Throw the shoe into a pit."

She explained how she wanted it to Ariel.
He jotted down her order with intensity
As if he had just ringed a horse shoe against the stake.
He yelled to the cook 'cross the diner.

"Roger scribbled strange symbols on a pad.
It was a voodoo spell he cast long ago," she said.
The cook leaned across the grill to spit
Flem caressed the frying egg like foreplay before a cyber rape.

Roger’s voice sounded like a voodoo spell cast
into a gust of freezing drizzle.
She was fondled in a cyber-room rape.
Richard Hugo was her mother's undoing.

His heart broke in a gust of freezing drizzle.
In Silence, Ariel listened enraptured by her story.
He pondered over the footprints of her mother's demise.
"She's gone," she said, "buried under a glacier of permafrost."

 
 
 
 

Hanging Out At Hugo House

 

4 Cliff bars in Seasonal Pumpkin Pie are in a pile
along with Still-Life vegetables past their prime
from a brochure about Gage Academy of Art.

There is a copy of Jhereg by Steven Brust with a dragon
hatching on the cover and there was the book
On Writing Blocks by Victoria Nelson that lay on the table

“Hit The Road Jack”drifts in from the front room
along with other Jazzy Riffs and the additional tapping
of computer keys as their accompaniment.

The Writers of NaNoWriMo are now gone:
either well-pleased by their Novel endeavors or
thoroughly depressed by their lack of progress.

Novel Writing on a strict schedule with a one month deadline
was not my idea of a good time, though as a discipline
it might work to break the logjam of thoughts.

We write in relative peace of this gray drizzly day
while outside someone “Whoops!”and “Whoops!” again
before his Whooping causes him to cough and curse.

Synthetic-Ice Skating rink set up, but there are no Skaters.
Even Bobby Morris Play-field is bereft of its usual ball-players
though it is not especially wet or cold out.

Hugo House is calm today with none of the usual
comings and goings of groups upstairs and down.
We are the only writers here for this space of time.

At our exercises ending, our readings shared similar themes seemingly picked out of the Gestalt by default or maybe it was
the benefit of being in a building built with words.

---Purple Mark 121011

 
 
 
 

A Watched Pen Watches Itself Write

 

The Rain And The Posterer

The rain spattered on the pavement
an even randomness of drops like lacework
upon the slabs of man-made stone.

The man rose, grasping his umbrella
like a riding whip about to do battle
with the elements, though he would lose.

It was drizzling and everything glistened:
the sidewalk, the cobblestones, the grass
poking between the cracks in eternal war:

Life seeking the upper-hand in a world
which was being paved by the hand of man
though in the end it would indeed triumph.

He grumbled about his livelihood:
the putting up of posters that would soon be
shredded, burnt or papered over for events

which might get a few random people to attend,
but might not: the music scene had changed,
the world wasn’t so affordable anymore.

---by Purple Mark 120311a

 
 

Purple Mark's Prompts:                                                                         

1. "The man rose, grasping his umbrella like a riding whip," Graham Greene. May We Borrow Your Husband: Two Gentle People. (Viking Adult; Limited First edition, 1967).
2. "It was drizzling. Everything glistened: the sidewalk, the cobblestones, the grass poking between the cracks." Mercè Rodoreda. Rain.

 
 
 
 

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 13

An Interpretation of Song of Solomon

LOVE’S DESIRES

Let her kiss me most beautiful among women,
all over my body with kisses from her mouth.

This sensation of being in your hungry embrace
is more delightful than sipping
chocolaty cappuccinos under Zion’s evening sky.

When your name is spoken, “Jezebel,”
it drips off my tongue like buttery honey
my ear smells it like amber perfume
wafting through the courtyard of your gardens.

That is why all the young men want you, desire you,
“Jezebel,” when they imagine your dance,
their eyes glaze over at the first mention of your name.

Draw me into your sultry embrace
I will eagerly follow you to Zion’s edge.

Bring me into your bed chamber most beautiful of women.
Kiss me all over with kisses from your mouth.

THE LOVER AND HIS GARDEN II

I have come to this garden, my lover, my bride.
I have come to gather your fragrance and your spice.

In my mouth, I savor your taste like I savor honey and chocolate.
I drink my coffee and I eat cherry muffins
Recollecting memories of last night.

HOMECOMING

Who is this coming up from the desert,
leaning so sensuously upon her lover?

Under the apple tree I awakened you;
it was there, under that tree,
that your mother and father conceived you;
it was under that tree,
illumined by the mother’s spring warmth,
that they first consummated their love.

DISCOVERY

Where has your lover gone
most beautiful of women?
Where has your lover gone
That we may seek you without him?

My lover has gone down to the valley where his garden is,
to rest in the beds of your spice,
to browse through the mounds admiring white lilies.

My lover belongs to me and I to her.
She browses, aimlessly, among the lilies.

---written on December 5, 2002. The poem was found (on 8/23/11) in a Journal of other peoples poems I used when I busked poetry at Pike's Market in the Summer & Fall of 2004

A Crossout Poem Is A Story Encapsulated In An Story

 
 

 
 
 
 

Things Found On The Highway

 

A bolt falls out on the ground The car moves on A spring rattles loose Clinks quietly on the highway Black smoke billows out the back The engine sputters to a halt The driver gets out Lifts up the hood Steam rolls out the headers The startled driver jumps back Away from the searing heat     Falls head over heels off the road Breaks his neck against a rock The socket wrench clatters to the ground Without a sound

 
 

Prompt: A bolt, A rusty spring, and a 8mm socket

 
 
 
 

A Watched Pen Watches Itself Write

 

Watched And Watching

I’m being watched by many
and I can’t move or watch them in return
because for most of an hour
I’m their model: a Star of Seattle.
I keep my eyes on the one chair
that no one sits in, high in the corner.
As my rods and cones give out
parts of the chair disappear
its horizontals and verticals fade
and its shadows become more real than it.
While I’m still, the others are in constant
movement; looking at me,
then at their drawings, over and over
with almost birdlike motions.
Others drift in and out of my peripheral
vision in odd displacements of color
becoming purple or blue themselves
though in truth they are mostly black.
One guy cycles through the red orange range
as he walks across the room crowded by easels.
My eyes water, dried out by my need
to keep them focused on that unused chair
and I find that my balance is not so stable
as I try to remain unmoving.
By the time my session is done,
my legs are trembling with fatigue.
I’m handed a drawing of myself done in pastels
for my efforts and the next model
in red is ready to take the stand.

---Purple Mark 120311b

 

Carla's Prompt: To watch or being watched

 
 
 

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 12

We live by the gun
die by the machine of war
nations rise and crumble
armies march scour the earth

Iron fisted rulers take power
anti-christ's resurrections
liberty has perished
the age of freedom is finished

Chaos begets decay
Madness torches the earth
branch and root withers
the seed of the noble perished

The dawn draws neigh
A blazing fire consumes
the proud and doers of evil
will sizzle in wombs of terror

November 2007 seemed to be the month I wrote song lyrics instead of poetry. This was another piece I found will packing up my Apartment on 8/16/2011.

A Watched Pen Never Writes

 

The Watchers

The comfort of the warm light dimmed as thin clouds crossed the sun's face.

I was being watched

I glanced at the watcher and he came over and filled my cup.

A light breeze ruffled the napkins, set one free and a waiter gave chase.

I was being watched

I glanced at the watcher and saw him drool. When he saw my glance he shifted on his hind legs and stared harder and with more hope.

There was a honk, a curse and a whiff of diesel oil as the bike swerved and kept pace.

I was being watched

I glanced at the watcher. He tried to catch my eye and smiled an introduction. I looked away

On the end of my tongue I put the tip, and the flavors of chocolate and strawberry exploded in ecstasy.

I was being watched.

I glanced at watcher and looked past his ragged beard and shuffling feet, making the long trek from nowhere to nothing, and who with eyes dimmed, gazed with longing at my waste.

I was being watched

---By Carla Blaschka 12/3/11
   Written alongside PurpleMark Wirth, Philip Bernier-Smith, and Priya Keefe at the
   Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library.

 

Theme: Being watched, eating food