We're branching out and things are happening:
Jim Keller ("Jim K" and "J.Mayard" are some performing noms de plume) is now a member of the Salt City Slam '06 Team, representing Utah at the 2006 National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas from August 8 - 12.
You can visit SaltCitySlam's new Website for more info, poems, news, podcasts, video clips, spoken word calendars for the state of Utah, etc.
And.....
If you want to see some of our personal pages click to go to:
Patricia Smith's Live Journal
Jim Keller's LiveJournal
Susan Schefflein's LiveJournal
This post will be updated as other TPG members set up pages.......
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Shut Up and Talk! (Jim)
What is this open mic crap?
I wanna be like open mic??
Wait.
I feel an opening.
And thank god
it’s not my fly –
‘n dunno why
‘n sometimes drowned out
by the coffee house poet’s pest,
the espresso machine,
but I am opening
I am opening windows in doors
in new places in my head
I never knew were there.
I am opening conduit to vibes
that rattle and shake
the timbers of what
I think I think I feel
what I used to think I feel
I think.
Am I more alive with a mic in my hand
and people in front of me?
Or is it that I’m more than me
when I’m with you
and you’re open and miccing
and we’re opening to each other.
Are you my poet sister,
my writer brother?
Does reciting make us family
or just a mob
incited by recited verse?
We all got here through a narrow passageway
and we’ll all mostly leave in a hearse,
but we’re here for now,
we’re sharing about what we’re caring
about whom we care and share
and rant about what’s fair
and what turns us on
before we’re gone,
the losses we’ve endured –
and it’s live it’s open
it’s here,
it’s the livin’, breathin’,
butt-puckered
gut twistin’
clammy armpits
sweaty palms
hands shakin’
knees-knockin’
tremolo in your voice
spoken goddamn word.
So come on up
this party’s never done –
I know you got a voice too –
know there’s things
lodged deep in you
that beg release,
so get your ass up here with us
and be (effing) heard.
–Jim Keller
December 29, 2005
Draft © J. Keller 2006 All rights reserved.
I wanna be like open mic??
Wait.
I feel an opening.
And thank god
it’s not my fly –
‘n dunno why
‘n sometimes drowned out
by the coffee house poet’s pest,
the espresso machine,
but I am opening
I am opening windows in doors
in new places in my head
I never knew were there.
I am opening conduit to vibes
that rattle and shake
the timbers of what
I think I think I feel
what I used to think I feel
I think.
Am I more alive with a mic in my hand
and people in front of me?
Or is it that I’m more than me
when I’m with you
and you’re open and miccing
and we’re opening to each other.
Are you my poet sister,
my writer brother?
Does reciting make us family
or just a mob
incited by recited verse?
We all got here through a narrow passageway
and we’ll all mostly leave in a hearse,
but we’re here for now,
we’re sharing about what we’re caring
about whom we care and share
and rant about what’s fair
and what turns us on
before we’re gone,
the losses we’ve endured –
and it’s live it’s open
it’s here,
it’s the livin’, breathin’,
butt-puckered
gut twistin’
clammy armpits
sweaty palms
hands shakin’
knees-knockin’
tremolo in your voice
spoken goddamn word.
So come on up
this party’s never done –
I know you got a voice too –
know there’s things
lodged deep in you
that beg release,
so get your ass up here with us
and be (effing) heard.
–Jim Keller
December 29, 2005
Draft © J. Keller 2006 All rights reserved.
First Lessons (Susan)
After supper my father and Uncle John
Sit in the living room
Smoke cigars, speak of crops.
We kids play tag on the porch,
Name the living room window
Home base.
First back, I win,
Rush with laughter
Toward my surprise.
It opens wide for me,
Translucent, gleaming mouth.
I enter the room
Swaddled in the sound of shattered glass.
The astonished men rush
To lift my body
From splintered light.
I might imagine how it looked to them,
My human arrow pointing toward their hearts,
But I am already beyond their reach,
Have entered the world of reality
Where pain is possible
And death,
Where everything
Shimmers
Silver and silent as the stars.
–Susan Schefflein
Draft © S. Schefflein 2006 All rights reserved.
Sit in the living room
Smoke cigars, speak of crops.
We kids play tag on the porch,
Name the living room window
Home base.
First back, I win,
Rush with laughter
Toward my surprise.
It opens wide for me,
Translucent, gleaming mouth.
I enter the room
Swaddled in the sound of shattered glass.
The astonished men rush
To lift my body
From splintered light.
I might imagine how it looked to them,
My human arrow pointing toward their hearts,
But I am already beyond their reach,
Have entered the world of reality
Where pain is possible
And death,
Where everything
Shimmers
Silver and silent as the stars.
–Susan Schefflein
Draft © S. Schefflein 2006 All rights reserved.
Orchard in Stow, 4 October 03
For my Son
Your boy cheeks, elongating to a young man's face,
bones rising from roundness, mimicking the curves
of the ocean of apples, people bobbing among them
returning wet-footed with halfpecks of fruit.
''Tricking the ladder" read the poet Cervone
and my floodgates creaked open to enter the day
when with hurt hearts benumbed we picked apples in rain
and so marked the passing of Walter, your dad.
We noted with pleasure the farmyard display,
the cinnamon doughnuts, the sticks full of honey
when the day just before we had driven north fast
to outpace the moment that had already passed.
From the highway we phoned and embraced our dismay.
You had sat by his bedside, quietly weaving
small rings into chain maille of galvanized steel.
Few words passed---the odd joke, the sly story,
..............move this pillow---
till fatigue overtook him and nurses claimed his time
their efficient poetics of coming and leaving
–Deborah Maier
Draft © D. Maier 2006 All rights reserved.
Your boy cheeks, elongating to a young man's face,
bones rising from roundness, mimicking the curves
of the ocean of apples, people bobbing among them
returning wet-footed with halfpecks of fruit.
''Tricking the ladder" read the poet Cervone
and my floodgates creaked open to enter the day
when with hurt hearts benumbed we picked apples in rain
and so marked the passing of Walter, your dad.
We noted with pleasure the farmyard display,
the cinnamon doughnuts, the sticks full of honey
when the day just before we had driven north fast
to outpace the moment that had already passed.
From the highway we phoned and embraced our dismay.
You had sat by his bedside, quietly weaving
small rings into chain maille of galvanized steel.
Few words passed---the odd joke, the sly story,
..............move this pillow---
till fatigue overtook him and nurses claimed his time
their efficient poetics of coming and leaving
–Deborah Maier
Draft © D. Maier 2006 All rights reserved.
Loving Ferns (Susan)
I would like to be a lover of ferns
In a place somewhere dark and cool
The sweet scent of spores
Riding through the thick air
Landing willy-nilly upon
Expectant mouths
I would like to lie down
Among fronds turning to me
With the melancholy call
Of mourning doves sliding above my face
I would cover myself with leaves woven of lace
More delicate than that of Irish spinners
I would raise my dry mouth
To be quenched
In the musky, flowing shade
–Susan Schefflein
Draft © S. Schefflein 2006 All rights reserved.
In a place somewhere dark and cool
The sweet scent of spores
Riding through the thick air
Landing willy-nilly upon
Expectant mouths
I would like to lie down
Among fronds turning to me
With the melancholy call
Of mourning doves sliding above my face
I would cover myself with leaves woven of lace
More delicate than that of Irish spinners
I would raise my dry mouth
To be quenched
In the musky, flowing shade
–Susan Schefflein
Draft © S. Schefflein 2006 All rights reserved.
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