Overheard at Booth 4: Truth and Pain and Light

2024-0419
 

He sang “Start a fucking revolution” to the tune of “Glory Glory Hallelujah” in his car and fed it to his Instagram.  He had driven up from Florida the day before and was now sitting in New York City, a place filled with congestion and people and pamphlets and fences and he could feel the conspiracy crushing him with every breath.
 

He had a box of pamphlets that he’d printed.  The people needed to be told that they are being duped, led, controlled, and ultimately, would be abandoned.  If only the people would listen, but they never seemed to listen.  The people only wandered around in their own worlds, their own little minds, marching back and forth from their jobs to their homes to restaurants and high school football games like ants.  Like mindless ants.
 

They would have to pay attention.  The jury selection for the trial was underway and there were so many media cameras, he would get a perfect shot.  He would light up like a beacon on their cameras.  The media wasn’t good for much anyway, sending out nothing but lies and foam to keep the brains in fog, but at least today they were on a live feed, and they wouldn’t be able to pull away from the light.  
He got out of the car, with his box of pamphlets and the liquid fire.  He was Prometheus.  The bringer of fire the bringer of light the voice crying in the wilderness, “I am come to bring you light, to awake all you who are sleeping in darkness!”
 

He walked to the center of the small square, threw the pamphlets in the air, and doused himself in the liquid fire and lit the spark and suddenly he was light and with light there was pain and such pain it was such exquisite pain and he screamed and in the pain of the scream there was truth, naked truth, and now at last, everyone would awake to the Truth and the Pain and the Light

Overheard at Table 2: The Dead Kandinskys "Buy the Dip"

The Dead Kandinskys say,

"They tell us to buy the Dip but they never tell us how much the Dip costs?

Last time when we bought the Dip, we got the Dip home, and it turned out to be a Doofus.

So, we returned it, but they would only exchange it for a Dork."

Overheard at Table 1: For Jordan Neely

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/jordan-neely-marines-nyc-subway-chokehold-video-b2333006.html

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-subway-chokehold-death-ruled-a-homicide-as-groups-demand-justice/4301660/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/04/us/new-york-subway-chokehold-death/index.html

For Jordan Neely

On the Northbound F,
he often dressed 
like Michael Jackson -
moved like him too,
danced like a madman
escaped from a zoo,
and he entertained the people
and he scared some too,
cuz you never really knew
what he might do,
 
but one day he came on screaming,
didn't know
at what
or at who,
but a couple of guys
restrained him -
a big Marine, too,
put his arm around his neck
and held him down
held him tight,
held him until he 
stopped screamin'
until he stopped
breathin'
until he 
stopped

dancin'

 

 

MR

2023-0504

Overheard at the Counter: A Brief Intro to Haiku

Brief introduction:

Haiku: seventeen syllab

les - five, seven, five

 

Developed in Japan in the 17th Century, to be short, compact, as a reaction to long-winded poems.

Traditionally, the third (last) line is a counterpoint (or even a non-sequitur) to the first two lines, usually eliciting an image of nature.

The first master of Haiku (the man who perfected the art) is Basho.  Below is a link to his more famous haiku.

https://www.masterpiece-of-japanese-culture.com/literatures-and-poems/famous-haiku-poems-matsuo-basho

From what little I understand of Japanese, it's a lot easier to pack a boatload of meaning into seventeen syllables, whereas in English (and other Eurocentric languages) there are many "filler words" (articles, conjunctions, etc) which are essential to convey the subtleties of the poetry.  Thus, many who write Haiku in English tend to ignore the strict syllable rule, but generally keep to the three lines.

For myself, I have committed myself to adhering to the 5/7/5 in my Haiku, but I'm not going to bash others who don't.  It's my attempt to focus myself.  I have tried to keep the naturalist imagery on the last line; but that's really hard to do and I only succeed in about maybe a tenth of all my Haiku.

 One of which I am particularly proud is "Flee" from a horrorprompt, which I also put to "music"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0KgbFZQrog

 

 

 

Overheard at Table 2: Defenestration for the Nation!

 Defenestration for the Nation!

Defenestration for the new nation
Release the population from their isolation

Defenestration for the transformation
Fresh configuration for civilization

Defenestration for the new nation
It’s a declaration of our liberation

Defenestration for democratization
Our reclamation of normalization

Heave ‘em out
Heave ‘em out
Heave ‘em out the window

Heave ‘em out
Heave ‘em out
Look at them go!

And we’ll watch them

flyyyyyyyy away
(and we’ll watch them)
flyyy, flyyy away

And we’ll watch them 
diiiiiieee today

and
then we’ll
all
be 
free

MR

2022-1003

Overheard at Booth 1: Medicine Train

Heard a song today and this Blues song came into my head.

It's about drug addiction.  It's not that subtle.  But then, while the Blues is metaphorical, it ain't subtle!

MEDICINE TRAIN

One thing I tell you mama 
tell you what we gotta do
One thing I tell you mama
tell you what we gotta do
We gotta get off this Medicine Train
This ain’t good for me or you.

Well this Medicine Train
it’s roaring on down the track
Well this Medicine Train
It’s racing on down the track.
We stay on this train, mama,
You know we ain’t never coming back

When we bought our ticket
Medicine train looked so fine
When we bought two tickets mama
Medicine train looked so fine.
But we getting sicker, mama,
the further we go down that line.

One thing I tell you mama 
tell you what we gotta do
One thing I tell you mama
tell you what we gotta do
We gotta get off this Medicine Train
It’s gonna kill both me and you.

Gotta get off this Medicine Train
Gonna kill me and it’s gonna kill you.

MR

2022-1010

Overheard at Table 2: Three Women (song idea)

The Dead Kandinskys have had this running through their tiny brain.


*singing* Philosophy ... is a walk on the slippery rocks, Religion ...
is the smile on a dog.

*cut to* I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
got my paper and I was free

*cut to* You gotta make a decision
we can leave tonight or live and die this way.

..

These can be sampled and cut/spliced together.

Would be a good story to show the points of view and intersecting lives of three different women, living in the late 1980s.

Or ... it might be the same women, at three different points in her life ... teenage/college/20s

Overheard at Table 1: Poem of the Day - Womb

Womb (a Poem from the Dad Who Didn't Meet You Until After You Were Born)

 

I would have liked to have met you
then,
my lips placed against the walls
of your room,
hoping that you could
hear my voice, telling you
that,

when it comes time to leave,
even though it may be cold
where you are going,

you will always have my arms
to keep you warm.

MR

2022-0223

NOTE: This is the second write of the poem, because I couldn't find the first write, so I jotted this one down to be used as the poem at the end of the Dead Kandinskys song "Everbody's Favrite Place"

Upon thinking about the upcoming birthday of one of my children, I realized that I had not been there for the development of any of the three of them while they were in utero, neither the two children I raised from grade school, nor my biological son.

Overheard at Table 2: DC Breach by Dead Kandinskys

Last year, MR wrote the poem "DC Breach" in response to the January 6 insurrection.

This year, the Dead Kandinskys set the poem to music ("The discordant chords of riot" as they call it).  

NOTE: the video was found on YouTube and the original link is referenced in the description.  While the length is perfect, the images do not track exactly with the poem.  MR recalls that, on the evening of Jan 6, after the sun had set, several news outlets showed live feeds of quiet streets of Washington DC.  An eerie calm.  Why were the insurrectionists allowed to walk around?  Wander about?  Strangely though, as the Dead Kandsinsky went to make this video, they could not locate footage of those media outlets from that night.  Perhaps they didn't look hard enough, but hey, everything is supposed to be at your fingertips with Google, right?

Overheard at Table 3: Shoegazing

Shoegazing

My baby
My baby
My baby
My baby
My baby started shoegaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
-zing

She said
She said
She said
She said
She said that it's so amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
-zing

Shoegaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-zing

NOTE: I thought of this song today.... Shoegaze is one of those subclasses of alternative/electronica that no one can agree on the definition, but best that I can tell, it's all about the "drone"

... which is super cool.   I imagine these lyrics being sung by a monotone, deep, almost metallic voice, with a drone and an electronic drum beat in the back ground.   And even that little dubstep "trill" to the vocals.