Speaking Out Loud... by Marvinlouis Dorsey

 Speaking Out Loud

Without

Writing a damn word

 

A

Bobby John Press

Poetic Libretto

 

Marvinlouis

                                                                             Took

train

ride

 

so

i

could

see

 

what

most

eyes

 

are

a-

fraid

ta look

at

 

my

dear

love

 

who

would

hate me

for

sho-

win

the truth

 

I

took

the

pic-

tures

 

but

didn’t

write

the

words

 

for

those

who

did

 

i

ap-

plaud

you

 

for

taking

the path

into

 

rubber bullets

tear gas

Stop Worrying by Don Kingfisher Campbell

 

I performed my poetic half libretto at the Victory Theatre Center in Burbank last Sunday night. You can watch the video below under it...

DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL

 

STOP WORRYING

 

a poetic half libretto

 

Stop Worrying

 

Major King Kong

rides on top of

the falling bomb

 

And everyone is laughing

as he whoops down

to the doomed city

 

If only nuclear weapons

could be just as gay

we'd all sleep easily

 

Dreaming of daisies

popping up in fields

not representing humans

 

 

With muddy water flowing

through green swamps

bubbling life for tadpoles

 

But what about the streets

laden with belching vehicles

and factories shipping direct

 

Are the cholesterolated beings

worth saving for all that labor

inside stapled cardboard boxes

 

Maybe this design is designed

to fail, be overtaken by breathing

trees and overgrown oceans

 

 

 

Where the Road Ends

 

A metal yellow diamond stands sentinel

Marker to conclusion of asphalt and culture

As fierce clouds shine over dark grassy hill

Walk into abundant wildness and see

Blue sky heat eat away clouds while

Purple thistle joyously overtake hillside

An oak tree cluster is familial brilliant

Green clumps welcoming sun and gravity

To almost reach slopes that roll and stretch

Unhindered by wire or building or car

Only footsteps and eyes should touch this

Grown beauty which still exists before

Civilization's beyond be again encroached

Whereout lie concrete interests of mere men

 

 

 

Human Minds

A world without

the bomb

 

Now wouldn't that

be something

 

Maybe then we'd

get rid of the rockets

and missiles too

 

But it would take

the removal of rifles

and guns

 

To produce

a fundamental return

 

Back to swords

and knives

 

Unless an alien came

to melt it all down

 

Hell, you know

we'd rise up

 

Stones and sticks

in our hands

 

Even sans trees

fists would still

over rule

 

Taking away bodies

would leave only

worlds behind

 

For the universe

to merrily drift

out of existence

 

 

 

In the World War III Museum

 

Piles of melted steel, rubbled bricks, and scattered wood shards to walk around for hours

Shells of ships, planes, trucks, and cars to gaze at from an uncomfortable short distance

Shadows of humans, dogs, cats, even mice to be observed on walls and floors so close you can almost touch them

Videos of world leaders in disagreement, of people segregated in differently named countries and neighborhoods in this bunker

Finally, mounds of cooked hair, scrapings of charred flesh, and chunks of fragmented bones as evidence we were all the same

 

Vietnam 

 

numbers on the TV screen

wounded in the hundreds

sometimes thousand and 

 

dead always double digit

newsman in a simple suit

with frank reynolds hair 

 

small square picture

in the background

of green uniforms 

 

with one hand

clutching chest blood

like ketchup in the movies 

 

and I was young

maybe 8 or 9

when I first noticed 

 

people holding signs at

the federal building

finally making the connection 

 

the suited man giving the news

the soldiers dying on their backs

and me in the living room 

 

with my parents at night

looking at magazines the fan on

shadows saying nothing

 

 

 

Green Bell Apples vs Dreadful Toenail Assholes

 

I want to write a poem about clipping one's toenails

That's my idea: to start with something dreadful

But then I think of what is even worse: assholes

And realize I need a pleasant counterbalance, like apples

A universally loved fruit, historically important, red or green

This contrasts wonderfully, causes my brain to ring like a bell

 

I decide I'll try to get every word to sound like a bell

For example, I dig the noise made by each clip of toenails

It's good to cut them, it's like eating something green

Which results in fine digestion, a subject considerably dreadful

To some, until you remind them that it is grown apples

Chewed and swallowed that help to unplug stopped assholes

 

You definitely want to keep doctors away from assholes

When they get a hold of you, you reverberate inside like a bell

Thus a diet of the good stuff is essential, like mature apples

And bananas and oatmeal and gelatin for your toenails

I hear it comes from animal fat--how nauseatingly dreadful

To contemplate--I've got to shift theme: a tree is green

 

That's better, our world is mostly filled with glorious green

Trees and bushes and grasses and hopefully not just assholes

That would be unpleasant, right? Another notion dreadful

Like oil slicks and car exhaust and stock traders clanging a bell

To signal the start of trading--there's a concept without visible toenails

How do we get back to nature in this concrete land of few apples

 

By focusing some time on what gives us a quality of living like apples

And take an afternoon off to walk in a park or wilderness that's green

A place where one can remove one's shoes, expose them toenails

Maybe even find a lonely spot to excrete onto dirt from assholes

Like design intended, remember we discovered how to cast a bell

Forge furnaces, direct sewage through corrugated pipes so dreadful

And what about us, the modernized people who've become dreadful

With our loud stereos, air conditioning, paper waste, prepackaged apples

Filling landfills and stopping up rivers--we need a real warning bell

To toll in our heads to call us to ponder again the value of green

Instead we drive and fly our cyberspaced opinions like assholes

Everybody's got a justification, but what about freeing those toenails

 

Yes, it's all down to toenails freedom or leather shoes dreadful

When it's the assholes that rule, we diminish the number of apples

So go for the green life and make your own cause a cleansing bell

 

'Twas brillig by Karen Pierce Gonzalez

 

 

‘Twas brillig
a celebration of the nonsensical

Karen Pierce Gonzalez

 

Art work and a five-part poem inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland.

 

 

Jabberwocky

 

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

 

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

 

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

 

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

 

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

 

Sensical Un

 

 

 

 

I

 

This centuries’ old poem

still

rings in my ears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

when not covered by hands

of those

telling me to sit up

and think straight –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II

 

For god’s sake

they lament

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III

 

such language

is

 

un

urban

 

un

bridled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IV

 

un

repentant

 

Lewis Carroll’s

Alice in Wonderland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V

 

I am not

through

the looking glass clear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but sure-foot-edly

 

going

down the rabbit hole

 

of this

head first.