L Lounge Inaugural Open Mic

L Lounge Open Mic


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Verse, Prose, Lyrics, Rhymes, and Freestyle Welcome

Tonight 11 December

Sign-up starts at 7.30p

Seven Songs

Don't be sorry*


Don't say no before our time is over

don't let me go if yu don't really want to

the problem is: if yu act, then your actions speak for yu,

and if yu stall, well sometimes there's just no talking to-




but if you're sorry then you're sorry and I already know

if you're sorry then you're sorry, just let it go

if you're sorry then you're sorry, just let it be

if you don't do it for yourself then do it for me




you don't have to be beholden to anyone

noone brings you anything except their gun

and while you're staring at the trigger they're out having fun




if you're sorry, really sorry, baby yu don't have to be

cos all our friends know it's not yu it's me

to all of them I turned my back in their hour of need

the greatest gift I gave them was to become a memory




but the universe is not finite!

Neither was the starlight

reflected in your eyes...




I remember you!

And when I do I'm happy

I hope you know I'm sorry...

Impermanently


Glorious heartbreak


sensory I can't divorce from the meaning that I heard

scared of the sky, I fell short of the bird




No classic sign

I take it to mean you're doing alright without me

to clarify for mother earth: I tend your gardens but I can't unswerve




Iceberg's in the way

cattails no longer sway

milk has no breast from which to spill

impermanent it!




How diligent must cloud seem to gust, whipping, and thrush?

All above

impermanent like us!




Humane instinct

carry me to him in the past I confuse for today

if it happens to me, it just so happens to be unexplainable...




Is there nothing that can't be undecided by or do

you know one who

speaks only what's true?




Is the path to negate all catastropes (impermanent love), sanctuary (desirable fool), memory (many come), dynasty (few go):




You and me all the way

you and me back home

you and me remain there

impermanently!

Wasted breath


Have I been blind?

Have I been unkind?

Have I been lost or absent?

Have I been a waste of time?




Have I been right?

Have I been wrong?

Have I been so far away yu didn't remember my name?




Yu lost memories of my face,

yu could draw in place of me

anybody walking down the street.

This was your living grace:




To move on, all yu had to do was stand up.

To move on, all yu had to do was get up.

To move on...




Yu got right on,

and yu wasted breath when yu turned aroud and yu said, 'Fuck off'.

Yu wasted your breath,

but that's alright.




You'll get along.

Go on and get along.

Yu wasted time,

go on, get along...

Make it right


Carry on

I don't have courage

to stay the night...




Now what's wrong?

I don't want to waste another life!




I don't usually see the point of getting to know

last names, addresses, the inner soul...




If I got another chance to make it right,

I'd take it this time!




I fly solo

so I can know

what's it like

to leave when I

- and only I can -

make it right!

Pretending I'm me


You may not be the master


or meant to meet your demise


in any specific disaster


yet it's to your benefit to realise






you may not be the one


hell, neither may I


please everybody


but what's the hurt in trying?






Try... oh we like to fit into


the machine already constructed


black and blue from ages rotting


body and bowl are plastic


merely here - and that's the point


of loving you






I love me too


love me too






Please just imagine


entertain the possibility


that you were not meant for stardom


darkness doesn't fall so much as gleam






...that it's your response (and everyone's)


fighting, praying, dithering


to bask against the friction of destination


if that's what you mean


to do: then you must and may.






If not: I couldn't agree more


I'm surprised to find


life is and isn't a dream


nothing is first, and come we, then never were -


and that's just fine






...it has to be fine


you're going to be fine!






Lights on, lights off


what you got against yourself?


I won't stand by anymore






purporting to understand...


Like I'm me, you're just pretend -


but there's so much more to see!

A wait


Except for weight of the world, all I hear tonight is your heart


pounding resplendent fisheye lens of blood cells


distress - nothing left of the summer container for our love


tacit misshapen sparks welding doorframe shut


fat betrays on my wide-open belly, dumb-founded mark


of blast and dragon, some unsoon dawn


where has it, who, that


...feeling that something is inside, I'm not alone?


...windows open, a flat to call our home?


I'm no rock, neither flesh nor bone


you're not mine now, you never were -


I wouldn't have it any other way!


If not tomorrow, sea, sky, depth, height, or weight:


forever will have us today.

For a dear friend


Columbine, sweet columbine


in dead of springtime


1999






sweet coloumbine scented the air


on our date I felt so fair


what'd we even do, and where?






I was not yet eighteen years old


thought that's what you'd been waiting for


but we couldn't wait any longer






so I kissed the first man I truly loved


a best friend I didn't need or want


because of what we didn't have in common


I write now to say I love you, Scott Husmann






the kindness you bore out


and eventually into my body, participant


but not apex of pent-up


longing and respect (explanation:






I'm humbled to have met you, and to maintain your friendship


all success and good fortune the universe has


in store - though it does not know you're here


and will not notice when you've gone - is what I wish for you)






then we learned of shots flung by Dylan and Erik


and they shot the black kid because he was black.*




* Please click for link to source.

Lab gams

For Paul Baumann 



What I meant to say all this
time was/what I mean to say
is: Thank you - hardly seems enough
these words are not biting
this covenant from abroad
snows according to gospel writ-
ing is too much folksy and not
enough sentry of cardiac startled
by vocation for all that you worked
my derelictions of duty missiles
absconding at length lynching but in fear
for too long tears stoppered
tremble of soul anxious to be told
again learning, with you implicating self
living to deserve, by error, reserve
of listed forms, mined Latinate origins, and concrete
denotation in dictionary or thesaurus demolish
censored pain I mean does not own me
intoxicates any further with notions
sniffle of speed, sip to scotch
curl up tendrils, clutch of comb
grooming in stable farmhand
just as well brother, mother, personhood vacates
careless in lieu of epiphany
within view of permanent night
plastic porpoise/lucid with faculty on first date
ruing lover and love songs to come-

We hate you

We hate you/we do not exactly feel for you
we miss you/you are not recalled, not
fondly if at all/we are bearing down on you
we did not even notice you there/we will
hold you down if we catch up to you
we would not rape you if
you were the last hymen in horticulture

Something is coming

Something is coming for me
it is in the headlines
screaming get out the way
bomb millers delight in aspiring
feast upon grave plot fiat
of topiary despites - egg
cream whipped of lead pipe
in tibula's bin or crack, ice
rock (AM arrives too soon - heads) to roll

If it is

If it is and if it isn't if it was
if one can by self if one cannot
if alone is all for me if I'm entered
alien is not bitter outlander
are the sweetest of rare meats
black people, black people
reduced to orgiastic phallo-
centric/in concert at
experiential edge of waking
all men lie/all ladies waltz

Taking in all

Taking in all kin and comers
to right the belongs of
dawn senescence - hard staring
but you were born, not aborted
so how can you possibly know
or hope to overstate - undeniably
me is not something to try to be-

Seven songs

These lyrics are dedicated to our dear friends pictured here - may we keep each other safe and hold each other soon.



How does anybody
ever make it through
with tanks firing into face?

 It's the Master Race
they've come for you...
How ya gonna make
it back home?

You never left
I'm not alone
you never left.

How does anybody keep
sixty paces between
armor and skin
none is without sin

but sleep I long for
not night or
in Good's graces
life after life...

How you gonna
make it back home;
in what land do houses
rise up and to Master come?

The very last thing
I hear you say
is: 'Everything's
about to go up in flames!'

Then you slip into smoke
an untamed heart
is just a driverless train.

I know you like
to take a chance
but next thing you know
someone's life is in your hands.

The next thing you hear
is the very last thing you'll hear
an asphalt grave's no
way to stake your claim.

There you were
curled-up on the floor
better a lost cause
than ever to get bored!

The very last thing
I heard you say was:
'Everything's about
to go up in flames!'

You slip into smoke
curl up on the floor
an untamed heart
I'd rather be a lost cause...

I sure don't want
to be afraid
like I am today
I just got to say

(And I hope you're not listening
because if you are
this ain't gonna be pretty)

Let's not stop at the start
I won't be taking part
in no race to prosperity

magnanimity slaughters artistry

Don't pay for artworks!
It's hard work-
HEARTWORK!

Coin and dollar
won't make for hire
Jack the Ripper.

Artists must
not be prosperous.
The whole world can see:
We'll still be doing our thing-

Don't pay for artwork!
It's just too hard work-
HEARTWORK!

Don't pay to see me,
hear me, fuck me
or be me; forget me - just
KEEP THE MUSIC FREE!

Do you remember when
I said, 'Remember when...'?
Let's stop remembering
and make new memories

Be my friend
I don't need
another enemy
come baby please

end life for me
do off strictly
come inside me
H-I-V-E

a brush with life
I once was free
by which I mean
make me your wife

don't die
before your time
how can sacrifice be a crime
when it's the only guarantee

I don't need
another enemy
come baby please
be my friend

success is so...
How can I know?
easy...
I'm dying to be free!

Will I recognise
my name when I
hear excised
from the book of life?

Will I go free
by which I'm
not again me
today or ever?

Life is always strange somehow
it has its ups and downs
it drives you crazy
spinning round and round...

In life there's no knowing why
suicide is no escape from time

Why is there just one, why
not a second more? And no
rewinding? Is it worth it
or Love's no more than rhyme?

I know I can't start living
til I escape from time
has any puppet ever
actually come alive?

You haven't started until you've left behind
you got to make peace with time

and all the crying
fighting lying biting
slighting of every caste
by every other

so fled to Mary Mother
'May I please have a moment of your time?'
no time for breaking-down
I'm flung and settle as dust in sky-

Don't worry about where I am
I'm gone as far as your concerned
and even if we'll see each other again
it's gonna be a long time from now

every graceless thing will run its course
at the end of it all come a-crashing
toxic memory his name in acrostic
recollection's grey snow by lightning flashed

inside your heart you know it's easy
to say goodbye if not to mean it
as small a foothold as your love gained
I condemned by saying, 'We are one'

without fear of reprisal; Don't worry, don't hold in mind
I'm gone as far as you're concerned
and if we should see each other again,
it'll be years from now - Will you
even know my face, much less my name?

It's hard when you're
not really live
to feel for sure
know you are loved

But you're not really live, not present
listen to the words I say
look at who I pray to be

No medicine or psychology
can take my place, walking so fine wire
no other can posit or see
from eyes of this gyre

You're not really live, not present
are you listening, hearing
or trying to talk over me?

if you're trying, you're absent
with no objective advice
outside of the moment
what sets you free

if you're crying or impatient
who do you love outside self
outside of time, a living shadow
can you ever love me?

You're not really live, not present
show me that I'm seen and heard
and don't you dare talk over me!

Fowl and sin

You can't control who wants you
any more than I
can unmake desirable to rooster every hen

love me
what's the use
in trying to forget the truth
or say it ain't so?

you know you do
so say you will
love me forever

what's clear to me
what sets me free
is not to have to say 'I do'

not one more season,
if consummation ekes out in camouflage
your well-earned revenge,
of departure from viridian-

140-character poems, 2

These series are all screenshots from my mobile devices, upon which collaborator and I exploit SMS technology's limited byte allowances.

 

140-character poems, 1

 These series are all screenshots from my mobile devices, upon which I exploit SMS technology's limited byte allowances. 

 

  

 

Exquisite Corpse at the Merryweather's, 2

Conclusion to the collaborative night with Rebecca Mark, Kay Merryweather, and Jesse Newman.

 

Exquisite Corpse at the Merryweather's,1

An evening with Rebecca Mark, Kay Merryweather, and Jesse Newman.

We matter

Does it even matter?
it do
does it even matter?
of course

do we even matter?
we do
we have no choice

we're here
we matter

does anything matter
to yu?
thats another string
i've yet to undo

is anything history?
it matters
get over forever
which happens to be

the only way is matter
yu b yu + ill b me
bring about the future -
its free

Against wasting

Is procrastination a viable destiny
alternately bawling in fear of go
then missing out on everything after seldom
prediction cycle's what-ifs fail as fantasy
in their doing then they are
kinda like if squatter-on-log
perched to share agog
assembles script parchment and zig-zaggery
stuffing pockets aching to be relieved
as it were: I didn't do it, did I?
What I came to be all about then
doing the ripped freed template
a light-year length of deploying
is what is (or was it, is?) necessary-just I be stammering
help me out her mind is will speak for her
recalled transistor still managed to broadcast
razzle-dazzle irony Velcro unzipping
sequence of creative delivery resolved to arrive
at least this far in timeline trusted to accord heathen glory
stowed currently away from binary
absent from the dominating starry
messenger that be dot matrix printouts
of observation circled and highlited and surrounded by
five-points - astronomers' data beknighted
mystery, fallacy, or misrecording
either way it's free as are
lightning rods. I fully expect to be returning fantastically
working merchandise to George's Star along with all the other shit
pouring out my slackened, yellow, jonesing maw
and recognise ferried behind conspicuously-
near and extra-menacing people-less craft, scarred from
inferno of waves flooring buds unindestructible
Captain and all the others terrified of death
- and not life, but living - went down with her
all except these velvet shimmering pomegranate seeds unnecessarily
crystals of pure cane juice my wife as current
clutching mama be lima bean y'all come join
my celibate craft scoured and singed by bile acids
someday I'll treat all humanity to thanksgiving
in my anal cavity, escorting assassin who done did it,
one who didn't did it, and also one other - some fag dressed like me.

I am for real

I don't know who I am
I don't know how life began
but I know: Love begins with me!

We be all about the humours
don't let the rumours take hold of your hand
your writing hand your fighting hand
make making-love your name brand

I don't deal with no 'what what'
I don't deal with no 'wish wish'
I don't deal with no 'want want'
I deal with what is, is
I deal with that real shit

I don't consume without research
girl you tryin to get hurt?
you tryin to hurt your kids?
take a look before you buy that shirt!

look before you buy, before you assert
your individuality-it ain't what you own
or how high up or down
those clowns/visionaries say they'll take your town

to the world stage-property, sanctity
consumability, criminality:
might be the downfall of our society
You hear that B.P.?
Catch that Morgan Stanley?
Feel me ancestors in Eternity?

...Forever, if ever: don't want my baby mama
dropping kids like I drop beats-to 'da feet'
misogynist bullshit
just cos you say she do

just cos you say it's true
now I don't wanna make you mad at me
but just cos you say it's true
that don't make it true you see

Just cos you say I do
be bowin down to sweep the street
then kiss your feet cos I like feeling meek
I'm happy knowing my place in stricture society

Sorry Mas'suh but that's some outdated dogma
your slingin on 42nd Street

Now I don't want no man mad at me
but you ain't no kind of father – be
hanging around with girls their daughters
hate – I know all about prosperity and shit...

You can count on me
forever to be mendicant

but just cos you say that's true
that don't make it true – I'd be
happier with almost anyone besides you
with their finger on the button

Won't have my baby boy my brother's little girl
my sister my mother my cousin her lover
my next of kin or stranger in a strange land

getting rolled on a globe powered by
hateful white man's hypocrisies
or their finger's on the button!

Call and response

I've seen the walls and heard the walls I listen to the walls and I've heard the pipes contained within the walls the water coursing through the pipes and pipes jangling within the walls I've heard and seen the metal measuring cups on a metal loop strung on a nail on the wall behind which are the pipes and the water racing through the pipes as someone showers in flat above

I've lit the high performance front the rear the high performance rear the front sent the gas sparking aflame as the stove went rumbling below the apartment I pose my head a-palm my forehead frozen in sky I hear the rumble I hear the sky rumble from an airplane it's the lowest allowable height I'm sure the measures enforced so strictly the measuring so strict the sky so full of air

not like before before the sky was burnt behind the sky and burning and the burning sky and the lover telling the lover a lover's lie a kind lie a lie meant to raise the wishes so high because the false consort always aims too high atop the nearest the highest or the lowest atop a hill is no place to cavort, lovers

I've heard yu cry yu lovers don't yu be bothered by the lovers on the other side the lovers on the inside of yr bodies as the residue of love leaves in long streams don't be hidden by yu lovers don't be hidden by each other

I have seen the taptaptapping of the wall the rapraprapping of the men clearly discernible in the navy yard and just beyond its fences one can see and hear the sky in it is booming the sounds of lovers leaping

I heard the disinterestedness in a voice and I heard the man saying he wasn't interested but not in so many words as to be boring but I'd rather be boring than be bored for I've known the man is there before merely by hearing the words he says and the sensation of being kept under his thumb

I've heard behind the sensations G-d the unfathomable attendence of men to the living tho the living don't want anything to do with the deity and it matters not to him or them if I'm here doing whatever the hell it is I'm doing

Reduction of zero

I'm not gonna be there
spying on yu kiss the ground
I'm not even here right now
so don't be scared
- or be afraid, cos I don't even care -
hey wait I do kinda dig restraint
but I'm so far gone
I'm over convenient kisses
let's seal the deal
Will I feel anything?
Hel' to the fire -
feet, hands, and such
truncated effigy
I'm body for hire
come to, come to Love's retiring
which ain't no kind of circumstance
to be whirled frenzily into penultimate
not at all like desire...
All I need is love!

Urbanists

If'n yu wish to extoll surprise or
dissent today, present yr grocery bill
at this time. Fissure in conciseness - I belch, ground
heron's nest into palimpsest of
toast, grits, and two scrambled eggs.
If in-kind donations must prove
rousingly-combustible artist's bum is seduce-able: Pay
the near-sighted man already, strap-on his desperate
lampooning/pleading to be gay-bashed, raped, true-blue to kin.
Harpooning and rapt, Saint Vitus' is no dance - self-diagnosers
trudge pridefully thru forest and glen.
Hade's legion was sated with just one mother
unmourned-by or out-living her kids, which
may cause future ancestors or selves to expire first
of an always-already-dying love again.

Gravity sucks

Success is a lathe
 I feel contempt within lust
gravely at peace, consume Eros
speech scissors incantatory
ego, lush and alight encumbrance
of particulate essence/artifacts lifted from scene
asterisk parentheses - make liturgical caveats
(for what is abuse, where else but in
deforestation: commandment for psychology
laureates: books remind sometimes of webworld
tho not as durable or utilitarian
especially poem-books and artist's journals
chronicles of attended/yet-unfulfilled wishes?)
grandly approximating Love's assault upon self
and seizure as of mastery
even daring condescend to lordly pulse
in concept if not in grain.
So it is for anyone in grips of
possessing - too-cursive free will insinuating as-faint/exact
as gravity sucks til all is plunder.