As I recover from a concussion (please visit my Go Fund Me to learn more) I thought this week was a good time to explore the audio files I have accumulated on my phone over the year. Often inspiration strikes when I am away from a pen and paper and I can’t type the words quick enough into a note. Recording observations as RAW audio free verse poems are satisfying for me. Background sounds are incorporated into the piece which, I think, adds to the impromptu performance. Also, there is a desirable amount of light pressure to form a creative thought in one take.
The fifth poem I offer up for this project is a desolate poem with the working title “The Middle Seat” recorded August 27, 2018, one and a half months before my bike accident. Riding the 1 bus through town it stops at the YWCA, then travels by The Lighthouse Mission before it comes to my stop, the plywood mill off Roeder. Every day there are people in crisis on this bus. It gets to you after a while. At times it scares me. I fear that, if I’m not careful, I could become homeless. Sitting in the middle of the bus one afternoon, I witnessed a rare perspective between the hopeful and the hopeless. I’m stunned.
I recommend listening to the audio file while reading the poem. I open Google links in Music Player for Google Drive.
I take the 1 downtown my nose is bombarded by the scents of the 1 I smell an overwhelming perfume of mental illness, poverty and piss
I hear the voices of hope three women in the front of the bus discuss low-income housing it’s options, what they’re like how much they ask for Two of the ladies are working to get out of the women’s shelter and one has one has gone into low-income housing she’s made that next step out of that poverty and they talk and their voices have hope I hear it also, its riddled with pain but they smile and they share information
Five people behind me reek of vomit and piss and liquor as if they haven’t bathed in weeks or maybe just since yesterday I can’t tell Bad breath Everything they have is dirty everything they touch is dirty their bodies are dirty These are people still on the streets
and there I am in the middle of them It feels like I’m sitting on the edge of a knife
I could be at a moments notice in one incident one health care thing one accident I could be on either side of this fence but I take the 1 to go to my job at the sawmill it’s depressed right now work is slowing we’re building up our stock There are rumors we are building up the stock right now to burn it
I’m drinking coffee and a breakfast cookie sitting by myself in the break room My body bombarded by the sound of the machines pounding wood
As I recover from a concussion (please visit my Go Fund Me to learn more) I thought this week was a good time to explore the audio files I have accumulated on my phone over the year. Often inspiration strikes when I am away from a pen and paper and I can’t type the words quick enough into a note. Recording observations as RAW audio free verse poems are satisfying for me. Background sounds are incorporated into the piece which, I think, adds to the impromptu performance. Also, there is a desirable amount of light pressure to form a creative thought in one take.
The fourth poem in my Spoken Free Verse study is a short poem I have titled “Rejected Draft” recorded Monday, August 27, 2018. It seems I walked into that Monday with a premonition how the week will end. This poem is short, sweet and, in my mind needs little editing. I present it, like the other poems in this series, as raw work in the original form.
I recommend listening to the audio file while reading the poem. I open Google links in Music Player for Google Drive.
photo credit: Dish of Apples by Paul Cézanne,1876–77, Digital Photo File Name: DT1939.tif Online Publications Edited By Steven Paneccasio for TOAH 12-18-2015
As I recover from a concussion (please visit my Go Fund Me to learn more) I thought this week was a good time to explore the audio files I have accumulated on my phone over the year. Often inspiration strikes when I am away from a pen and paper and I can’t type the words quick enough into a note. Recording observations as RAW audio free verse poems are satisfying for me. Background sounds are incorporated into the piece which, I think, adds to the impromptu performance. Also, there is a desirable amount of light pressure to form a creative thought in one take.
The third poem I want to share with you is “Bowl of Epiphany”, recorded June 20, 2018, while walking the interurban. An epiphany is an experience of a sudden and striking realization. June was the month I realized it was time to stop producing radio programs and open myself up to something new. At the time I didn’t know what that was. In August, just two months after recording this poem the answer appeared. Transitions are difficult. Building a new life is scary, but what the hell else are you goin’ to do? If you don’t move, you’re dead.
I recommend listening to the audio file while reading the poem. I open Google links in Music Player for Google Drive.
I think in life it’s not just one big apple I think it’s many apples throughout a lifetime and the apple I’ve been munching on for eight years I’ve reached its core
I could eat the core put the seeds inside of me maybe an apple tree will grow in my stomach I don’t think it will
I’ve reached the core of it and I’ll toss it I’ll toss it out into a field where hopefully time will dig it into the ground and it’ll grow a new tree there and I’ll look for a new piece of fruit that I can eat it doesn’t have to be an apple maybe it will be pear, a nectarine a hybrid
but every fruit has its pit has its seed has its rind and they all end
there’s a cycle it’s the swirl of the universe it’s the way our shells grow on the beach at the bottom of the ocean
and I’ve reached the pit, I think I believed I reached it I’m ready for something new and I’m scared —scared as hell
but everything moves and changes rain falls turns into river turns into ocean turns into mist turns into the sky it turns into a cloud and more clouds until it becomes rain again
everything changes and evolves why wouldn’t people
such an easy concept
I’m going to climb that mountain an easy thing to say doing it is different I’m going to walk across the desert, it will only take a few weeks no its gonna take you forty years you need to learn a lesson you need to change you need to grow parts of you need to die
life is a bowl of cherries it’s a bowl of apples you eat them one by one
photo credit: Shannon Laws, Bellingham Bay, August 2017
As I recover from a concussion (please visit my Go Fund Me to learn more) I thought this week was a good time to explore the audio files I have accumulated on my phone over the year. Often inspiration strikes when I am away from a pen and paper and I can’t type the words quick enough into a note. Recording observations as RAW audio free verse poems are satisfying for me. Background sounds are incorporated into the piece which, I think, adds to the impromptu performance. Also, there is a desirable amount of light pressure to form a creative thought in one take.
The second offering is a moment of humble thought, recorded July 31, 2017. Nature and man-made transportation seem to torture me as I take a break from work at the shore of Squalicum Beach Park. Of course, science tells us exactly how bids and planes fly, regardless, I’m dumbfounded taking in their magnificence. The sneaky looking two-person boat crew weaving around the inlet with a quiet motor at sunset, hang something to the pier perched on the opposite side of the inlet is an understandable event, although I do not know their intentions.
I recommend listening to the audio file while reading the poem. I open Google links in Music Player for Google Drive.
I don’t know how birds fly I sit at the water’s edge I watch them land onto the water float on the water I watch them easily hop around I don’t know how they fly
I have no idea
Just flapping of the wings, tucking back the tail and feet nose pointed out The motion must be repetitive in their mind
without any thought Except maybe an instinct when the air changes when the wind gusts from the side or the heat vent comes up from behind them up and lifts them suddenly, ten twenty feet in the air It’s probably no surprise anymore if they even feel surprise
and I watch them and I still just don’t know how they do it
The seagulls near the airport are just as much a mystery as the airplane themselves How do we get inside a tube and just fly We just sit still and move hundreds of miles an hour I don’t understand it
A boat goes by with a motor attached to the back a little dingy It’s expecting some sort of package
It’s hanging from a pier log It could be drugs maybe a crab pot, illegal Maybe they just found a cool looking barnacle or some muscles thought they’d take a chance
That I understand I understand a boat and I understand a train
there’s a track there’s water there’s a motor
but flying I don’t understand it
I don’t understand why the sun doesn’t just fall on us or why we don’t get sucked into it why were not drawn to the heat of it and the moon… it just sits there and stares at me just half of it anyways the other half winks
It’s eight o clock at night and the moon is up it’s the last day of July there’s no snow on the mountains
As I recover from a concussion (please visit my Go Fund Me to learn more) I thought this week was a good time to explore the audio files I have accumulated on my phone over the year. Often inspiration strikes when I am away from a pen and paper and I can’t type the words quick enough into a note. Recording observations as RAW audio free verse poems are satisfying for me. Background sounds are incorporated into the piece which, I think, adds to the impromptu performance. Also, there is a desirable amount of light pressure to form a creative thought in one take.
The first one I present, “Late for Overtime”, was recorded September 16, 2017. I was working a double shift with a six-hour layover. That looks like a swing shift 2:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. then work the morning shift, 5:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. I was waiting for a carpool to pick me up 4:30 a.m. at the same place they dropped me off the day before. However, my ride was running late, so, I am late for overtime. It was that warm September morning, on the corner of Larrabee and somewhere, when inspiration hit me upside the head.
BTW, I open the Google links in Music Player for Google Drive. you can listen as you read if you want. Please let me know what you think.
I’m sitting on the curb on the corner of Larrabee
and some street I can’t see the sign for
It’s almost 5:30 in the morning and the sun
is just coming up over the cascades
Its paint brush is changing the sky from
a charcoal gray to a very, very dark blue
Fingernail moon is just misty just fuzzy,
right almost out of sight behind a thin layer of clouds
Cold rushes up over the hill
hits my back
It’s the evening
running
running west
Afraid of the light
afraid of the warmth
afraid of the sun
It’s always running
its always running west
away from the sun
The air was so still just a moment ago and now
after seeing that sliver of light over the hills
it picked up and it
rushes itself down the
ravine, towards the water
towards Bellingham Bay
It flosses the town in a silent scream
There’s sprinklers in the background and I’m wondering…
I’m wondering why I never sat on
a street corner
in my neighborhood
at 5;30 in the morning before
The sounds and the smells of the air
the change in the air—is refreshing!
It’s life!
It’s better than any season
because it happens every morning
The tall cedars dropping down with
their question mark branches
Look like a golden retriever’s tail
I know they’re hiding owls in there
Maybe they’re looking at me
watching me
wondering if I’ll scurry
across the street
turn in a mouse
At any moment the birds will wake up
The first bit of light will just hit the lids
of the sleeping birds
They’ll be the first to announce it—
“You can sign-up to read or sing your words on peace at worldpeacepoets@gmail.com …We are very excited about this year’s line-up of international readers, but there’s still lots of room. Please send us an e-mail or call me so we can give you a time. I will send out the schedule on October 1, 2016.” -Carla Shafer
I am proud to be a Fisherpoet for my third year. Currently, I’m scheduled to read on the Honeymoon stage at 8:30 p.m. Here is the full schedule:
FisherPoets-on-Bellingham Bay
Presented by Whatcom Community Foundation and Village Books
Friday, Sept. 21, 6:30-11 p.m.| $5 | Downtown Bellingham
FisherPoet entry button required: $5, available at Village Books through Sept. 19, or on-site at each venue. Space limited; seating first-come, first-served. Buttons not required for children under 12.
Celebrate Bellingham’s maritime sector through FisherPoet music, stories, poetry, artwork, and film at downtown venues on Friday, Sept. 21:
6:30 – 9 p.m. FisherPoets at Sylvia Center, Lucas Hicks Theatre – New 150-seat theater; refreshments available.
6:30-8:45 p.m. FisherPoets at Sylvia Center, Studio – New 65-seat theater; refreshments available.
6:30-11 p.m. FisherPoets at Boundary Bay Brewing – Brew room turns venue; beers on tap.
7-10:30 FisherPoets at Honey Moon Mead & Cider – Cozy small meadery; food available. Please note that this venue is now 21+.
