Sonnet Street Slam: New Orleans

Where does swarthy laughter in its flight flow
when Bridger mountain forms the springtime melt
and Spencer drifts of dreamtime lost in the snow
and Jamie ships out past the orbiting belt

This is when the yawning abyss does form,
above the vaulted, gloried ceiling stars
to shower down light hearts to play the harem
end quick fingers pluck the lines of puckered scars

Alyeska calls! Her song in quilted white
Her corsage the stolen emerald of holly bush
the birds make eyebrows in the morning light
while fish spawn and slump in the water rush

But lately all that beauty fails to spark
half so well as your face swimming in the dark.

-by-Tristan Bennett...freshpoetry.org
-writ.on-12/23/2012


Word of the day:
-complicit- def: culpable of being an accomplice, having partnered with a wrongdoer; playing a part or portion in a wrongdoing

The usefulness of youtube: Lectures

Word of the day:

- nascent - def: coming into being; being born...beginning to form, start, grow, or develop: said of ideas, cultures, etc.

"Your warmth soaks within me as steeping tea"

Your warmth soaks within me as steeping tea

sitting in the sun, bitterly keeping me

up at night for far too long, and my only

Apothecary is song poetry--

Sonnet therapy: and where would I be

Without it? Probably two-faced pleading,

“Let us in!”

                    Living out of a suitcase

needing any food for thought, say fruitcakes.

Even the worst delicacies need eating.

So here you have it, oh please keep reading,

because without your ensconced eyes--thing

is that it’s premature failure singing

the truth back in a looping direction--

because fresh eyes see no lies, inspecting

the thoughts of two minds combined on one page.

Poem by one another, and you know ‘em

as yours truly, whose life is lived on stage.

So um, I guess, where is it we go from

here? How about eternity beyond all age--

from the forest through the prairie until

the land becomes sand bordering the sea.

Word of the day:

- elation - def: a feeling of exultant joy or pride; high spirits

"I got something to say, I have a story to tell"

I got something to say, I have a story to tell

It isn’t that I don’t know how, it’s just that I’ve not thought it out,

So throw me in amongst the lowbrow flavor, not all savors the stout,

but if you’re going to stay then I got a poem to sell.

Now quiet yourselves down ‘cause I’m not going to yell

My verse is rehearsed, but I’ll give it to you raw.

If you’re here to stay then you’ll see what I saw.

You’ll see I got cerebral thoughts sharp as a claw,

you see, because there’s no need to cut up a draft or edit.

It’s in the clause that you must pause if haven’t yet read it.

Some poets cannot commence, the anxiety of influence forbids it.

Although prose flows, rhymes show up like truants who missed it.

Now, I suppose the grade’s too steep for the students,

so if you please, teach with bits, pieces, rudiments,

and utter without stutter or clutter. Tell us it takes time to summit

the climb or into the gutter is where you will plummet.

Word of the day: from a random page in the dictionary...

-  lessor - def: a person who gives a lease; landlord

"Antiques in the Attic"

Below is one of the first "best" sonnets I've written, back when I was new to the art, and now I feel like this is a good time to put it out there. Reason being, down in Texas over Christmas break we did a lot of looking through old stuff, things that have sustained their sentimental value through four (or five depending on the person) city and state relocations.

It’s all in the kin. It’s all out of trust.

Sifting through old trinkets seems pragmatic.

If it’s out with the new, brush off the dust,

get in touch with antiques in the attic.

They’re under attack from blunders and raids.

I’m afraid the best won’t be left for last.

Sporadic accolades act out of aid

and addiction infected from the past blast.

Combine the mind’s confines with the priceless

treasures with measure only to find worth

and value in the small pleasures. I confess,

I’m blessed with this life, this time, this earth.

Something priceless is similar to dirt.

Life isn’t suffering but sure do hurt.

Word of the day:

- ostensible - def: apparent, seeming, professed

"Curiosity: life after art"

Respiration is his enmity.
He sits alone, waiting with several chairs,
aging magazines [empty], full of despair.
His listless physic requires remedy.
The aura's clamor clings to his skin,
lingering as sticky unconditioned
climate air.
                   Suddenly he's mise en scene,
aloft, in the portrait. The ascension;
atop the crag he submits to the gods
that grant him peace [briefly]. Breathing deeply
before being lent patience, discreetly
descending through the clouds, but down he trods
and leaves the frame.
                                   He exclaims, "I don't need 'em!"
and, again, breathes in that thin sense of freedom.
His life before the clime had been weary,
but art became his apothecary.


Word of the day
- vamoose - def: to go away quickly; to leave hurriedly

"Anew Criticism"

It is what it is; nothing more, a frame
and dried paint, by an artist, with a name,
an overzealous yet underwhelmed one.
It is what it is; it is musical
if you see further, it is beautiful
if you read beneath, ever so seldomly,
       the contours, imagery and landscape.
Create a context, its energy, and translate.


Words of the day:
- preponderate - def: to surpass others by becoming more influential, powerful, quantitive, important, predominant. OR def: to be heavier; to sink at a downward incline, regarding balance.
- lout - def: person who is ill-mannered, a boor, a flout, or [by treating others as so] contemptible

COMM 110: one fun assignment!

Transcript—Hypocrisy and Firewood

                Good day my fellow classmates, for the next few minutes I’ll be speaking on behalf of the deceased wilderness to inform you all of some illegitimacies of environmentalism on a political scale. In recent years environmental activists (i.e. green advocates) have proposed litigation and passed legislation which claims to help preserve our forests for the future, and do help to an extent, but these new laws are perhaps too encumbering and prohibitive of other, what we’ll call, anti-green businesses such as the logging industry.

                Before continuing I must note that these activists’ ideology in general isn’t invalid, but their agenda can be clouded by passion and subsequent stubbornness. With that said there are flaws in and of these, pardon my colloquial politically incorrect terminology, tree-hugging hippies’ philosophy ironically embedded in their unwavering belief in conservationism. These hippies are delegating too much attention to this one axiom, arguing for the fundamental “right to life” principle, when they should be allocating their research and diversifying their focus to a wider array of issues. However good-natured their perceived advocacy is the overarching political stance of a stereotypical tree-hugger is fallacious because of unincorporated and unforeseen variables.

                There are two variables, which have been unaccounted for in activists’ political activity and seemed to have circumvented their stance, include the proliferations of 1) the infectious mountain pine beetle and 2) fertile destitution from drought. With these two variables coinciding there is palpable risk for environmental cataclysm, most commonly resulting in forest fires. There are two specific examples of such destructive results, which have just come to pass in our country over the 2012 summer season: 1) the Little Bear fire which, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory, burned over 37,000 acres destroying over 200 residences in southeast New Mexico, and 2) the Waldo Canyon fire which burned about half the acreage of the Little Bear but destroyed at least 500 homes in and around Colorado Springs, Colorado.

                The Waldo Canyon inferno was a bigger deal, getting more media play given Colorado’s population density in that area, because of the accrued destruction in the fire’s path, but the New Mexico fire in an equally lethal fashion to the environment physically affected a vaster area. On a personal level it caught my family’s attention because the Little Bear fire came within several miles of our cabin in Ruidoso. These two cases having striking environmental conditions such as similar dry climes, comparable elevations, presence of the pine beetle pestilence in their forests, and government restrictions of deforestation. Thus, the forest fires spark easily [given the drought], spread [given the exorbitance of dead trees that the beetles have inhabited and consumed], sustain [given the legislation in effect and place], and increase the possibility of larger issues in the future. My point is some environmentalist’s political intervention may inadvertently do more harm than good. The trees’ so-called “rights” they advocate are fundamentally flawed because the logging industry does have a positive purpose, which merely seems destructive, because in reality at this day in age deforesting is necessary to remove dead trees in specifically afflicted areas so our environment can be safer.

                Before I take my leave lambasting let me placate the cause I’m arguing against. To all of you listeners, don’t deny the greenies, hippies, tree-huggers, environmentalists, or whatever associative appellation’s well-to-do push for progress, indubitable efficacy, and unyielding passion. I’ll admit a fact that is hardly accrediting to my reputation; those who know me think of me as a novelty hippie. That’s me, so I suppose once I’m done you can know of me as a little hypocrite [hippie-crit] and then think what you want. Nevertheless, for the sake of the living population of people, we have to take action, analyze some legislation and repeal or amend the porous laws, and uproot the trees whose souls are with the gods. Truth is; many forests have countless trees that are dead yet still standing. Trust number two is; these decaying trees aren’t alone, they’re found in families of forests, and these forests are everywhere! Truth number three is; they make great firewood. Sometimes, even if the idea seems counterintuitive, we must rely on our societal axioms, as if embracing the beetles’ sense of survival, by reverting to indulging in and relishing from over-consumption.

Metextempore

Remember that promise? Neither do I.
Reason being the argument I have
On hand against aforementioned hairs halved,
Sanctioned blurbs, a mitigation for my side
Dissembling the prior statement's merits.
Those serene matters, within the stare's eye,
Of affluent discord the ear inherits
Are things with which cannot be compared by
Such suppositions, therefore order is
En via, palpably. You hearing this?
Absolutely, but not buying a bit of
Each terse remark, though the fire they lit up
Will cease to extinguish and kindle out
These platitudes, defined as middle brow.


PS:
word of the day:
exiguous-- [def. or i.e.] scanty, little, small, meager