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I'm a Minnesota Girl, living in the south. I tell my friends I try not to talk and think like a Yankee, but sometimes I slip up!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Slamming


In the last decade, the activists among us have chosen a new format...the poetry slam...where, if you feel strongly about anything at all, it is time to express it; in words and in voices where there are no holds barred. Here's one of the best.


I can't, myself, get comfortable with the heat of the slam format for things such as love and loss. It would, however, become a welcome format if, for example, I wanted to express my emotions on current events. Say, the subject of torture.



Andrea Gibson


Andrea’s billed as “an activist poet”. If you choose to watch her poetry slam in the link below, you’ll see why. It’s a powerful chant for women and mothers everywhere. She makes me stand in awe. I can’t yet find the text for her poem “Say Yes”, but in the meantime, here’s an incredible treatise on lost love.. I give you


PHOTOGRAPHS

I wish I was a photograph

tucked into the corners of your wallet

I wish I was a photograph

you carried like a future in your back pocket

I wish I was that face you show to strangers

when they ask you where you come from

I wish I was that someone that you come from

every time you get there

and when you get there

I wish I was that someone who got phone calls

and postcards saying
wish you were here

I wish you were here

autumn is the hardest season

the leaves are all falling

and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground

and the trees are naked and lonely

I keep trying to tell them

new leaves will come around in the spring

but you can't tell trees those things

they're like me they just stand there

and don't listen

I wish you were here

I've been missing you like crazy

I've been hazy eyed

staring at the bottom of my glass again

thinking of that time when it was so full

it was like we were tapping the moon for moonshine

or sticking straws into the center of the sun

and sipping like icarus would forever kiss

the bullets from our guns

I never meant to fire you know

I know you never meant to fire lover

I know we never meant to hurt each other

now the sky clicks from black to blue

and dusk looks like a bruise

I've been wrapping one night stands

around my body like wedding bands

but none of them fit in the morning

they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door

and all that lingers is the scent of you


I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well

all the wishes in the world would come true

do you remember

do you remember the night I told you

I've never seen anything more perfect than

than snow falling in the glow of a street light

electricity bowing to nature

mind bowing to heartbeat

this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you

I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around

like children love recess bells

I still hear the sound of you

and think of playgrounds

where outcasts who stutter

beneath braces and bruises and acne

are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies

are never gonna grow up to be happy

I think of happy when I think of you

so wherever you are I hope you're happy

I really do

I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight

I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking

I hope your lungs are open and breathing your life

I hope there's a kite in your hand

that's flying all the way up to orion

and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out

I hope you're smiling

like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth

cause I might be naked and lonely

shaking branches for bones

but I'm still time zones away

from who I was the day before we met

you were the first mile

where my heart broke a sweat

and I wish you were here

I wish you'd never left

but mostly I wish you well

2 comments:

Pam said...

They have poetry slams here in the Dallas area quite frequently. I've ejoyed some of the fruits of these slams but it's not my thing do actually do.

Kelly said...

Believe it or not, we had a poetry slam in our little community not that long ago.

Didn't go and I'm not sure it's something I would enjoy.