New happenings thoughts and poems...

Heavens, it was bizarre. I run sound from the back of the room so the artists can read without folks beings distract by my behind the scenes-ness like it should be. In the process of this, and being one who like reading my own work, I implemented a wireless mic and invented the persona of "The phantom poet" (I did this months and months ago and it became popular and stuck).

In the guise of the phantom poet, and in the spirit of Halloween, I wrote and read some very scary poetry, starting with the serious stuff and ending with the funny one I call "star stuff" that ends with my vowing never again to eat at white castle's. Well, second to last, I read one I wrote called, "The poetry of magic" which is a mock incantation evoking the spirits of nature to aid me in my quest to purge evil that threatened to tip the balance of the universe toward darkness. After I read it, Chele, who was more than a little tipsy, came to me and kept saying "That was creepy". I said "thanks, I have more like that, but I'm going to do one more, but this one's funny." She kept repeating, "no, creepy. Damn Creepy." I asked John Kramer to play some whooshy synth stuff and announced that I was about to read the Phantom Poet's signature poem and folks who knew me applauded. John started playing, I had read four or five lines into it and Chele started screaming TIME OUT, TIME OUT! I asked her if she was serious and she turned her back to me and faced the crowd, and there was a crowd, and said, "IF ANYONE HAS ANY 'REAL' POETRY TO READ, PLEASE DO SO, BUT WE'LL HAVE NO MORE OF THAT." and pointed at me! Then she ran and locked herself in the bathroom for the rest of the event. John and I had to threaten to stay until she came out before she came out red and swollen as if she'd been crying.

Needless to say I was obliterated. In front of people I see at Creativa, and any other poetry readings I go to. I am the only person to have ever been shut down at all, let alone like that. This open mic poetry thing has had people cursing at God, saying "Fuck the police!" (which was read right before I went on), talking about gang banging and just about anything else you can imagine and I get shut down. I wrote and explained what happened to Dean Hall. I did so in a very professional manner without mentioning that I had been crushed like that. Poetry is my chosen field! Do you know how hard it is to run damage control on behalf of the person that had just slammed you worse than anyone in recent memory!? The next event, Chele 'confronted' me about the email to the dean and I tried to explain that I was trying to protect her. She didn't want any part of my explanation and apologized as an aside, under her breath, for being out of line. There were guys who came up to me after and said things like "Dude, you got TOLD, by a DRUNK bitch! That's GOTTA hurt!", "you should have backhanded her!", and "How can stand being poned like that with your own shit?" Man, that was probably the most humiliating thing I think has ever happened to me! By the very person who had meant more to me than nearly anyone on a professional level. I don't want to come as sounding over sensitive, but man! I felt so betrayed!

I had no recourse in my mind but to quit and remove myself from the scene. I was obviously causing bad vibes.

I feel horrible about the whole thing.

Here are the poems, and I apologize for the lengthy post, this was just huge for me.

This one I wrote for this class, it's called "The Poetry of Magic" and deals with superstitions and feelings of helplessness and begging the unknown for empowerment. It was the third poem of the four I was going to read.Poetry of magic
Hear me now all ye spirits,
earth and sky
ground and wind
stone and heaven
Hear me now all ye spirits,
sea and flame
ocean and inferno
fire and tide

I call on your essence, your vital energies
the power of creation that dwells deep
and eternal in the core of your being,
heed my words for I am the culmination
of the universal mind,
the realized dream of the everlasting creator
and the opus of the perpetual

I call on you to heed my words in the names
of all spirits holy and pure
every entity beneficent and true
all beings living, non-living, and never ending,
good and kind.

Awake, arise, come to my aid.
dark things walk among us,
we, who balance the universe
with goodness and evil
darkness and light
hatred and love
need thy
aid.

Things whose souls are rent and restless
torn and errant
spoiled and searching
for things they can no longer attain
seek to destroy the harmony of the world
the balance of the universe,
and the essence within my own being.

I ask only that you lend to me
the power to defeat and vanquish
the dark and vile spirit within me
banish the malignant being that curls around my soul
the foul essence that seeks to taint my own
with promises that tempt
secrets that should not be told
and thoughts that bring nothing
but ruin and decay to my life
and everlasting and immortal soul.

Come
Come
Come

Come to me
Come to me
Come to me

Come into me
Come into me
Come into me

Come
Come
Come

In a form fair and comely
until I dismiss you.

Fill me with your power
guide me with your wisdom
teach me with your lore
so that I may restore the balance
that other things, black and vile
have sought to ruin.

In the name of all spirits holy and pure
The eternal lords and ladies of air and heavens
The ancient giants of earth and stone
The everlasting rulers of water and wave
and The undying masters of fire and flame
I beseech, implore, and beg of thee
to hear my words and do my bidding.

so mote it be.
so mote it be.
so mote it be.


This one was the one I had begun reading that was shut down four lines in. It's called "Star Stuff"

Star Stuff

Clouds of irradiating gas
swirl in dense pockets of activity.
Matter clumps together, forced into violent
and hot contact by gravity and undeniable
accretion.
Eddies of particles converge and move
in single file
as the planets align in cosmic convergence.
Clockwork mechanics arrange atoms, molecules.
and large blocks together and move
all along.
They rumble, they crash, the conflict and concur
all in an ordered chaos,
entirely predictable, but never the same twice.
Fierce, terrible, awesome to behold
but nearly impossible to survive,
the material of countless larger bits ground
and digested in the system’s brew, the belly
of the beast that consumes all and from
which there is little hope of escape, rumbles,
thunders, and protests in its way along its inevitable course
toward its next place in the order, down the gravity well.
Solids merge, fuse, and split apart in raw fury with as much
force as nature can muster.
Liquids splash and gurgle, feral as the first oceans, awesome and
evident as the very hand of He himself who both creates and destroys.
Gases boil and morph into primordial mists of vapor, noxious, and
unbreathable.
a fourth, unidentifiable state of matter surrounds it all
like a glue that keeps the occurrence a cohesive entity.
Colors, sounds, and feelings never before experienced
are ejected beyond the rim of the event horizon
at incredible speeds as an irresistible force
that shakes the pillars of heaven with all the power
of the laws of legend and the gods of science.
And this is the last time I will ever eat at White Castle’s.


And finally, THIS one is the one I'm putting to music, it's called "The End"

In the end are we just dreaming?
In the end do we go on?
In the end does something beckon,
Like the coming of the dawn?
In the end are we delivered?
In the end does something call?
Is the end just a beginning?
In the end do we just fall?

What is that twinkling in the corner of your sparkling eye?
Essence incorporeal, or reflections of a lifetime passing by?
Spinning illusions as eternally through space we fly?
Images to be seen if the mind would only open up its eye.

CHORUS

Are we the products of the procreation of our kind?
Or are we each an aspect of the single universal mind?
Utter genetics and experiences intertwined,
Inside a temple bearing one new soul to which it is assigned.

CHORUS

Is that a soul departing as the final breath is through,
Or is it just evaporation of the mornings dying dew?
Cellular degeneration creeping up on me and you
The downy evidence in telling where the fledgeling angels flew.

Again, sorry for the lengthy post.

Jeff