Overheard at Booth 2: Eagles "The Last Resort"

https://vimeo.com/376002898

Link to a vimeo of the best song from the Hotel California album by Eagles

 

 

Overheard at Table 5: Wicktims (51-55)

WICKTIMS

By this time, I'm wondering how this guy can keep going on.  I mean, he's lost about as much blood as he's taken.

51. Brad Boyle.  Had quit real estate because it was too boring.   This job offered a lot more excitement.

52. Len Fremont.  Has a special needs son at home.  Kid’s mom split last year to move to New Orleans with a guy who runs his own landscaping service.  The kid may or may not even think to call his mom when Len doesn’t come home.

53. Carl Axton.   Likes picking up girls in bars.  The younger they look, the more he likes to pick them up.   Always has a fantasy of putting them over his knee and spanking them.

55. Mickey Lambert.   Three tours in Afghanistan.  Loved that job.  Loves this job.  Loves the training, loves the action.  Even loves all the time spent just standing around, waiting for the action.

Overheard at Table 3: Wicktims (45-50)

WICKTIMS

OK, now we are 1/6th of the way through the list.  Hope you are enjoying these!

 

45. Roland Sanderson.   Had been a truck driver.  It was boring, but at least didn’t end with his neck getting snapped by this insane assassin.

46. Jerry Janeskeiwki.  Plays bass every Thursday night in a bluegrass band that entertains the residents at an Alzheimer’s facility.  He likes to see them enjoying the music.  Even those who don’t even speak, they tap their feet to the beat of the music.  They remember the songs.  It brings something alive inside them.

47. Ivan Petranovich.  He had been a star on his soccer team in high school.  He misses those days.  They were the best days of his life.

48. Connor Floyd.   Kinda sad that now he’ll never get a chance to tell “Big Tom” Robinson that he has a crush on him.

49. Mathieu Le Pen.  Has a maze of model train in his man-cave basement.  Also has a bunch of porn on his computer that his wife will probably find, which will lead her to cancel the memorial service.

50. Gerardo Valenzuela.  Loves karaoke night at a pub near his house.  Always loves taking his wife there and serenading her with all the Alejandro Sanz songs that she likes.

Overheard at Table 1: The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

Elizabeth Alexander, editor

American Poets Project

 

Gwendolyn Brooks, most likely most famous for her short poem "We Real Cool" still should be more renowned than she is.  Her themes are the same as Langston Hughes, and her lines are as varied as William Carlos Williams.  

 

 

The Mother

Abortions will not let you forget.

You remember the children you got that you did not get,   

The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,   

The singers and workers that never handled the air.   

You will never neglect or beat

Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.

You will never wind up the sucking-thumb

Or scuttle off ghosts that come.

You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,   

Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.

I have contracted. I have eased

My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.

I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized

Your luck

And your lives from your unfinished reach,

If I stole your births and your names,

Your straight baby tears and your games,

Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,

If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,

Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.   

Though why should I whine,

Whine that the crime was other than mine?—

Since anyhow you are dead.

Or rather, or instead,

You were never made.

But that too, I am afraid,

Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?   

You were born, you had body, you died.

It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.

Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you

All.

of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery

He was born in Alabama.

He was bred in Illinois.

He was nothing but a

Plain black boy.

Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.

Nothing but a plain black boy.

Drive him past the Pool Hall.

Drive him past the Show.

Blind within his casket,

But maybe he will know.

Down through Forty-seventh Street:

Underneath the L,

And Northwest Corner, Prairie,

That he loved so well.

Don’t forget the Dance Halls—

Warwick and Savoy,

Where he picked his women, where

He drank his liquid joy.

Born in Alabama.

Bred in Illinois.

He was nothing but a

Plain black boy.

Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.

Nothing but a plain black boy.

 

 

Ballad of Pearl May Lee 

https://soundcloud.com/poets-org/gwendolyn-brooks-ballad-of-pearl-may-lee?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

 

 

Overheard at Table 4: Followers

1: I always seem to be losing followers on Twitter.

2: Maybe it's because you're an opinionated asshole.

1: I thought that was called being an "influencer."

2: Yes.  You are influencing people to unfollow you.

Overheard at Table 2: All Things

All Things

All things,
we wish the substance of all things
we spread our metaphoric wings to 
encompass all things
we makes up new songs to sings
to sings about all things
we laugh at all things what each new dawn brings
we wants to experience all things
we want to holds 'em close,

all these things
and we ain't never happy, it seems
that we can only have some
of these things,
but we wants all 
of these things, not just
any 
or 
one or
none 
of these things.

and so, our hands we wrings
wishing to be livin' like kings
but we's like kites with broken strings
flopping on the breeze we swings
into the sky we bein' flings
and oh my oh my that sunlight stings
when it fills us with the real-eye-ZINGS
that we ain't never
gonna get close to
alla these things.

MR

2021-0722

Overheard at Table 2: Haiku for Words and Snow

Haiku for Words and Snow


Words which carry us
Through lonely winters, toward
Apple blossom snow.







MR
2021-0719