SpokenWord Paris

HIDE AND SEEK

Isabel, Izzy, Michele K, Marty, Michele, Robert, Troy, Claire, Lynn, Alberto, Bruce, Betty, Ida, J.D. Ragan, Yara Tomer, Michele, Bruce&Betty, Hukulhelen, Ramones, David, Alberto, Christian Jalil, Jason, Catullo, Raphael, Konstantin Kavafis, Troy, Isabel, John Seawright, Tia, Misha, Troy.

A very good poet, but la photocopie doesn’t say his name. [Isadore – ed.] Russian poetry by heart. God is good. In the solid company of the stars my stuff sucks. We are never tired of the psichedelic washing machine. And then you are a pile of vomit that the cat vomited on the linoleum. I don’t believe that sand is sand when it can be mud. Daffodils without Wordsworth. Poetry is my jewelry ‘cause diamonds are not a girl’s best friends. Ida hiding in Norway. Somebody put something in my drink. Maybe Michele. Have you ever thought about saving your sperm? Sex is so ordinary now, that my eyes are spying god. We all gonna die. Call or Die. Don’t hang up, let’s hang out. Life is a beautiful experience customized for you. Je veux que tu soy mon amour, mon amie, mon copain, je veux etre ton obsession parce que tu est la mienne. Fuck Face.

And two beautiful things I’ve discovered through Giasone/Jason:

Rafael’s epitaph – Ille hic est Raphael timiut quo sospite vinci / rerum magna parens et moriente mori – “Here lies Raphael, who when he was alive mother nature feared that she would be conquered and when he died she feared that she would die”

Catullus – nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle / quam mihi non si se iupiter ipse petat / dixit sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti / in vento et rapida scribere opportet aqua – “My woman told me that she’d prefer to marry me to anybody, even if Jupiter himself asked her. She said this, but what a woman says to a desirous lover should be written on the wind and on running water.”

See you next week

Bruce and Isabel among the audience:

Robert Cole, published in Ambit & elsewhere, editor of Chimera magazine:

Troy Yorke, taking a break from the manic satanic glee that his poetry brings out in him:

Or commun:

Some highlights: Or commun était abimé par l’espoir. Susie Reynolds was snowballed by a snow priest and a hermaphrodite nun. Rufo is against farmers. He needs a library to burn, time to get even. Troy Yorke likes to stuff a cat in the garbage can & then eat strawberries. He has quite an arsenal of sarcastic and shall we say direct & explicit poems. They went down well.
Robert Cole began ”All my poetry’s junk.” Saw Dali’s brain overrun with chocolate ants. Staggering with the bends. The other Troy read Beckett: Wasps in the jam. Isabel’s grandfather’s business was junk. Used to say people’d pay a dollar for this family. Ukelelelen sang an ode to Junk, the first time I’ve heard The Ramones’ I Wanna Be Sedated played on the ukelele.
Marty burns brighter, burns fiercer. His hair has grown back now.
Yanique wasted time sorting through your junk.
Bruce was, and maybe still is, Aleesha at Lonely Burger.
And finally Isabel just could not enjoy her corn dog, with cotton candy in her hair.

Robert Cole and Susie Reynolds will be seeking submissions in February for the next issue of Chimera Magazine. Stay tuned.

20h30
at the Cabaret Populaire/Culture Rapide
103 rue Julien Lacroix
Metro Belleville/Pyrénées

Qui a décapsulé la coca-cola apocalyptique?
Qui a décapsulé la coca-cola apocalyptique?
Changes.
Substitutions.
Claudine Tauziede for Michele.
Same psychedelicatessen:
Qui a décapsulé la coca-cola apocalyptique?
Qui a décapsulé la coca-cola apocalyptique?
Who the fuck has decapsulaized the apocalyptic coke?
This song will be an hit single in Canada.
This or Locomotion by The Sofia Lorenians.
Who Knows? Times are changing.
The Albatross of Baudelaire is changed.
Three months in Paris and you are changed.
Change.
Being in love with a boy of the east coast.
Change.
Being in love with a boy of the west coast.
Changing Willy.
Changing Will.
Will. Change the title of that poem as your mother likes.
The dealer who stabbed him has changed his mind after listening to his poem.
He’s reading slowly, now, because he’s bleeding a lot.
The dealer who wanted him dead, changes his mind, and takes him to the hospital.
Changes.
This body of mine will darken, whiten, grow cold and dry.
Change.
I’m gonna be a father.
My son will be a king.
Change.
My daughter will be a queen.
Paradoxical theory of change:
Change occurs not
when you try to be what you are not
but when you become what you are.
Further changes are waiting for us
in the next Future.

What strange driftwood washed up tonight?
Escher got it right,
bottled and buried at sea
while sailors talk of that Stone Age book
– that absurd old book! –
and Abraham sways onto the stage
where the waves are much less taller

as the moon fishes for some old song that fell from a sailor’s pipe
and a dwarf clings to a 60 year old mermaid
and they go at it like Baudelaire

. and from Senegal
. small boats break off for Europe
. seekers whose dreaming eyes are closed by the ocean

A deep sea diver descends to walk the Paris streets
Poe’s strange city lies alone
Its time eaten towers
the haunted destination of the albatross

Split now between English and French selves,
a woman waits,
wanting to see the ocean

Ukulhelen va seule sur la plage
harvesting Spain

Dogger. German Bight. Tyree.Fastnet. Lundy. Irish Sea. Rockall. Malinhead. North Adsera…

Charlie has been hanging and rhyming around Trieste, Genova, Naples, Verona, Milan, Bologna and Rome. The new accappella trio “Le Gallinelle” affected the world with a requiem for a dead cock: “Le coq est mort” and the experimental ukulelist Ukulelena followed the line with a bewithching song about the banana bird. The theme was not “Birds” actually, but “Anything Italian”, and so Pauline revealed Charles Cros has Italy inside. Michele, made in Italy and made in heaven, raping our childhood with the virtual toys of his poetry, and a wounded, stoic, unstoppable one-legged David walked on stage reporting a dialogue between Kubla Khan and Marco Polo, by Italo Calvino. Michael Levitin from SF, but Berlin based, read from his novel “Disposable Man”. Beth performed “Orchestra” and some other old school hits, completely new for us people of Paris. Alberto issued the “Divine Comedy in 5 minutes” or “Dante’s for Dummies”, Betty rocked the house pushing the folks through a coral clap hands performance and Bruce run away with sudden stage fright. Raoul Mussay (photo, below) tuned us on the french touch of the “grand reveur”. Said was possessed by Shakespeare talking in italian “the winter of nostro scontento” (photo, above) from Richard III, before an an untangled, unavailable, unpluggable, unshakable and uncensored Charlie II. David and Sabrina, aka Kubla Khan and Marco Polo, closed the night assuming that maybe “the audience exists and the poets do not.” “The Sea” is coming to drown us all, in 2012, or next monday.

Charlie was so drastic as to completely dressed in plastic. In Pia(aaa)’s TV series, JJ Rouseau learns American slang fast. Alberto wants plastic surgery – a new pair of naieve eyes still eager to see. Michele is running away from Detroit, dreaming the fig on the pillow. Adam cherished his TV. Pauline read Alexander Dickow, menaced by the horizon; eat crunchy, kiss me big. Theo Edmonds (whose show is at The American Chrutch, sorry, Church) swings in with a Zip!Bop!Bam! What grooves you? Gonna roast you a cool nickel, Jack. Is anything like it seems in your dreams? Plastic John (Kirby Abrahams) shot his Missus into space. Rufo scares the horses into Tupperware weddings. Beth’s silence lingers. Flo est toujours sur la route, with le talisman (le Thalys ment.) Giusy en la luce perfecte. Adam’s special message to the customer: Order your 52cent coffee, and leave me alone! Chris’ father scratched his ivory balls, guards plastic bags filled with light. Tom pines for the moon. Liza tarred her lungs.
But most fun of all this week was filming Bruce’s video for his song, he got 20 people up on stage dancing and waving their arms about to the music.