Energy

I love extremes: bright to blinding darkness, calm to crazy, sad to ecstatically happy. I like observing going from one extreme to the next. This is a poem that I've been wanting to write for a while now. The other day I think I finally got that spark I needed because of something that was said. So here ya go! Let me know what you think! Thanks!!

Energy

My favorite time to get tattooed

is late Tuesday morning.

At first, it’s just Mike and I.

The quiet hum of his machine

fills the calm space.

The other artists and their clients

trickle into the shop around noon.

The humming is overtaken

by a buzz of new energies.

We all talk and laugh

and the owner inevitably

turns up the volume when his and my

favorite band plays over the stereo.

A friend planted an image

in my thoughts the other day

of him, alone in his rehearsal space,

quietly replacing his guitar strings,

sitting in the calm energy

until his band mates arrive.

They talk expressively in Swedish

(which I imagine to be faster

and way cooler sounding than English).

The band starts rehearsing,

transforming calm energy into power.

In college I loved to sit

onstage in our theater

writing, doing homework, memorizing lines,

enjoying the quiet and calm.

My friends would trickle in

striking up conversation, hanging out, waiting for rehearsal,

until the space was filled

with voices, laughter, and electricity.

Words from the Streets

I've been listening to Louise Distras, Mark Lind and Frank Turner lately. Musicians who have come from working class backgrounds. So I'm sure that having their music pumping into my ears lately sparked this poem. Two quotes that I read recently that have been floating in my brain also prompted this poem.

"The words of prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sounds of silence." - Paul Simon

"I like people with depth, I like people with emotion, I like people with a strong mind, an interesting mind, a twisted mind, and also someone that can make me smile." - Anon

The title was inspired by the Casualties song "Sounds of the Streets" which is also about the working class.

I hope you like it! Let me know what you think! Thanks!!

Words From The Streets

Running on a treadmill,

between songs on my iPod

the music playing in the gym

sneaks its way into my head.

Some new 15 year old pop sensation

sings about “the big Gs”

and “the honeys all around.”

I walk through the streets of my town.

Two musicians play reggae

on the corner

and my feel naturally move

in time to their rhythm.

I stop and listen,

smile, snap a picture with my phone,

wave at them and move on.

Out on the trails in the city

music from working class musicians,

singing about their struggles and hardships

feed into my head.

I sing along,

throw my head side-to-side

violently while I jog,

not caring, actually kind of hoping,

that others could be listening.

I stop under the highway bridge

to read the spray-painted-on poetry,

You have to struggle

You have to fight

You have to win!

I smile, nod my head,

re-energized I run

with a renewed passion

to take on the world.

Observations

One thing that I think punk rock does so well, especially Celtic Punk, is to bring out the beauty in the less-than-pretty aspects of our world. The punk world lost a legend today, Phil Chevron of the first Celtic Punk band the Pogues passed away from cancer. This poem, if I can, I would like to dedicate to him and the music he left with us.

Song lyrics are from "Fork in the Road" by Brutally Frank.

Observations

It’s almost a cliché scene:

bright blue cloudless sky,

perfect green grass,

flowing water bouncing off rocks,

a girl laying on a bench,

notebook open, pen scrawling away.

What’s less cliché

are the sounds streaming through my headphones—

a 3-piece, fast paced punkabilly band screaming

Get me out of this fucking hell—

and the thoughts running through my head.

These thoughts are of the less pretty,

yet more intriguing sights,

on my way to this pristine park.

The plate with the stubbed out cigarette butt

abandoned in the alleyway behind a restaurant.

The seemingly hastily drawn face

on a peeling orange post

which I stopped and contemplated for 3 minutes.

Dancing water jets spew out of concrete

and draw me back to the here and now and

to the eternal question I face

as a poet, an artist, a human:

How do I rectify the beautiful and the not too pretty,

and fit them into one?

The white caps in the river, their power,

catch my attention,

they compliment the pounding drum beats,

marrying my auditory and my visual.

I’m reminded again that sometimes

I need to stop searching

and just observe,

and write down the experience.

Silence

Silence

I’m the girl whose acoustic playlist

consists of others’ ‘get-up-and-go’ music.

But lately I’ve been craving,

peace,  stillness, silence.

Crowded city streets,

bumper-to-bumper traffic

flowing at all hours.

The non-stop jabber of interns

gathered right outside of my office.

Two reports in two days

of gunmen rampaging in public.

Home is quiet, calm.

I turn off my computer,

silence my phone,

don’t even bother with the television.

I lay & read on my couch

until I fall into a restless sleep.

Glitter

In October, it will be 3 years since my friend Leigh and her brother Matt were killed in a car crash while coming home from the lake. As the date approaches, I think about them a lot, and usually end up sobbing. Leigh was like a sister to me in my first year, her last year, of high school. She was also a writer. This is for Leigh.

I have written a lot about Leigh and about her & her brother's deaths. Here are the links to the ones that I've put on here: Untitled Poem & True Story

Glitter

I poured glitter

 into my coffee this morning.

I didn’t even notice it

until I had already taken a few sips.

I laughed at myself,

caught up in the moment,

thinking about the glittery flakes

falling down my esophagus

carried by coffee and cream.

An upcoming anniversary is quickly approaching

but instead of crying (again)

that my friend has been gone

for almost 3 years,

I smile

because Leigh would have laughed

at my glitter in my coffee.

Punk Rock Peace

Over at dversepoets.com we were challenged to write a poem for International Day of Peace, which is today. This is a great subject, one of which I would have written about on my own, but I am glad to get to share it with my fellow dverse poets! The song lyrics in the poem are all from Dropkick Murphys - "Don't Tear Us Apart". The photo was taken at the concert mentioned in the poem!! Here is my contribution! I hope you like it! :-) Let me know what you think!

 

Punk Rock Peace

Many people think that punk rock is violent.

They think that punks are a drugged out bunch

that start inane fights whenever possible.

These people have never been

in the middle of a mosh pit,

where this week I witnessed

more compassion in one night alone

than I have in  most weeks

out in the ‘normal’ world.

When someone falls down,

you pick them back up

in a mosh pit,

but that’s not always the case

in the  real world.

Right now I am listening to a punk song

about compassion,

a topic that most mainstream musicians never even touch on.

Will somebody please

Come aid those helpless in need,

And renew our faith in this human race!

It’s funny that on the International Day of Peace

the only thing that I want

is for my fellow humans to learn a little about compassion

from my favorite band:

Will you show some heart

And end this trouble here where it starts

You won’t tear us apart!

This is my anthem for peace.

Don’t tear us apart

You’ve gotta show some heart!

Holograph to the World, or No One

I keep of list of poetry prompts on my iPhone, which I don't think is an uncommon type of practice at all!! I have been itching to write a poem for a good number of days now, and I finally felt the right energy in the air to do so!! I looked through my list and picked some of prompts that had a similar feel to one-another, and out came this!! The lyrics songs are from (in order) The Briggs "Bloody Minds" and Rancid "St. Mary"!! Hope you like it!! Leaving me a comment means a lot to me!! Thanks!! :-)

(Holograph: 1-adjective-wholly written by the person in whose name it appears; 2-noun-a holograph writing, as a deed, will or letter)

(Skank: Verb-to dance a rhythmic dance performed to punk, reggae or ska music, characterized by bending forward, raising the knees, and extending the hands.)

Holograph to the World, or No One

Restless, again.

I wander aimlessly around my house,

punk rock blasting as loudly as possible

from my laptop in the living room;

it’s a good parallel to my seemingly

helter-skelter life.

I pause for a moment,

skank in my kitchen,

yelling lyrics to my empty house,

I fed my common sense to the world years ago!

I laugh, half-run and half-skip

then throw myself on to my couch.

So many disjoined thoughts

float through my head:

my punk-rocker crush’s new picture,

seeing my deceased friend’s Facebook page this afternoon,

an upcoming concert date’s rapid approach,

the guy who has fallen in love with an image he’s made of me.

I shake my head,

shout the lyrics being sung:

Now Mary’s out the door with a loaded 44 in her hands!

Jilting all these thoughts

from my mind, into the night.

I smirk, lean over,

grab my notebook and pen

and write a happy scene.