Thursday, November 14, 2019

“Poetry, Overnight”



c. 2019 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(11-19)




Being awake in the dark. A challenge and a gift.

Ancient humans may have been bound by the natural cycles of day and night on our planet. But in modern terms, these limitations have been exploded by technology. Still, it is impossible not to speculate that even during primitive times, there must have been a few hardy souls who burned sticks, or pools of animal fat, in their caves to extend the light beyond its limits. Perhaps these were the first beings to climb toward the development of language and a recorded history. Huddled with crude tools and stains for the purpose of illustrating what they could not write with an alphabet.

To their brave experiments I nod in this moment, while sitting at my desk after three o’clock in the morning:

Poetry Slam

Poetry slamming
Keyboard jamming
Cold in the silent hours
My spirit devours
An image of self
Old volumes sat on the shelf
Unread

Poetry slamming
Curse said for damning
Whipped by the wind
The outcast is kin
My coffee mug, empty
Yet full with words in me
Go ahead

Poetry slamming
My channel, programming
Hits on the tube
The product is you
I sit here, uninhibited
I sit here unfed
Fill my head

Poetry slamming
Good citizens, scamming
Fools on the hill
Stuck with the bill
My broke ass is better
No chase for a letter
Face gone red

Poetry slamming
Myself, examine
The need to speak up
Fills my soul and my cup
Cold fingers on keys
Accept if you please
Praise for the godhead

Poetry slamming
E-mail spamming
Spit phrases ruthlessly
A phlegm of insanity
Cracked skull vision
My work here is done
Time for bed

Poetry slamming
P-Bee and jamming
Butter up to the hilt
With a sporran and a kilt
Dance over the keys
Bound head and bare knees
My piece is said

Poetry slamming
Whamming and bamming
Throwing punches in haste
Not a word will I waste
Through the light from my lantern
Slowly, I turn
Newlywed

Poetry slamming
Potato salad and hamming
My meal is the sound
Of a deal going down
A composition of lyric prose
And the tears in my clothes
Colors, bled

Poetry slamming
A salute to the morning
A tribute in clicks
To the author- wordsmith
Huddled over my heater
In the midst of this winter
Not yet dead

Poetry slamming
Academy cramming
A glorious waste
An educational mistake
Now spun like a spool
I run with the fools
In their stead

Poetry slamming
Chipping and chancing
Stone bits in my craw
Too proud of my flaws
Laugh at the flat-screen
Laugh at the daydreams
In my head

Poetry slamming
Lost and remembering
My sire, gone to rest
His guidance, the best
I miss him especially
In lonely hours and memories
Those I dread

Poetry slamming
Overhead camming
Run the motor to redline
Now I’m feelin’ fine
Horsepower to the wheel
Got verses to steal
With my sled

Poetry slamming
In paradise, it’s raining
But here only snow
The routine that I know
Slouched low in my chair
Middle-aged, going nowhere
Words are bred

Poetry slamming
The window is cracking
On visions of night
And the typesetter’s delight
I’ve run out of prose
There are holes in my clothes
At the woodshed

Poetry slamming
Flimming and flamming
Did you expect a game prize?
A reflection of blue eyes
Got the taste of abandon
And a manuscript undone
Groom, unwed

Poetry slamming
Sunrise brings the healing
But I don’t want to be well
Let me stay with myself
To draw out the poison
Will make me a slogan
Unsaid

Poetry slamming
This is the morning
Not ready to wake
Leave me here in the dream state
Evermore at the keys
Evermore on the blowing breeze
Like an arrowhead

Poetry slamming
The patient, programming
Wind in my hair
Chopper chicks at the fair
This rebel is praised
Let’s all ride away
On his thread

With my insomnia sated and my type-trip taken, I fall back I the chair. The hour has reached half past four o’clock. Caffeine still swells my arteries. But the journey has gone far enough for this night. Far enough to bring me close to the hope of daylight.

I remember a fellow in the Davie Allan fan group. Someone I encountered many times in text, through that connection. He seemed to be something of a scribe. A poet, a philosopher. Scatterbrained or gifted? Both, perhaps. Inspired or demented. I reckon both branches grow from the same, sturdy tree. He went by the unlikely tag of ‘Boobie.’ I used to read his posts and marvel at the free association of words. Something I struggled to achieve. Discipline had made me a prisoner of compositional reason. In his babbling brook of prose, I saw an escape. An opportunity to tap invisible energy. To meet the spark of consciousness shared by all, but ignored by most.

My attempts to ‘plug in’ were few. Normally inspired when the guitarist himself, ‘King Fuzz’ Davie Allan, would release a new recording. The first listen would open my brain like a drug of choice. Phrases would fall, spilling like beer or wine into the glass.

In the dark, at my desk, I had found that stream once again.

Comments about ‘Words on the loose’ may be sent to: icewritesforyou@gmail.com
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