Hello and welcome to Western North Carolina original music episode katochi. I did learn to speak Spanish from Bonnet. It's the poetry episode. The episode you've been waiting for, especially if you're one of the poets that I recorded several weeks ago.
This week's episode comes to you courtesy of Trade and Lore Coffee in downtown Asheville. It's a really nice place with some of the friendliest people there. You'll ever meet both employees and patrons. The ones I met anyway.
We have several pieces for you tonight. I'm going to let the host of the event announce everyone. The host is Alan Robinson, a very well respected poet in Asheville and throughout the country. And he will be hosting a similar event this Saturday at Trade and Lore.
So go to that if you can. Alan actually is going to be the first featured poet on this episode. And I want to mention you're also going to hear cello work by Nicholas Brouwer, a very talented cellist. And he's also going to do a poem later.
And you're going to hear him on quite a few people's works playing in the background and kind of complimenting their sound. Okay, let's get started. And I'm going to open with a poem entitled The Lost Soul. The Lost Soul.
Today is the first day of our life. We have crossed the streams of a forgotten past. The skeleton of angels are at lower depths. The sea of your dreams.
Our life begins now. We see destiny in the mirrors of a lost soul. Music has reached the outer sphere. We are spellbound by the stars.
Spiders web of iniquity. I loved you all more than you will ever know. As we shed our skin from past lives, the illumination of a lost dream is painted into the horizon of forgotten memories. Our life begins today.
We will cross paths with like souls. We will have a new deep connection with our spiritual center. The albatross is sending vibrations to the inner depths of our mind. We are torn between two roads that diverge in a purple haze.
The dichotomy of life's inner chamber. Throb's deep in the heart of wasted time. You have entered a new zone where love will permeate your heart. The sphere of the natural kingdom.
A kingdom so pure that it stands on the mountain top. Himalayas glistening against the sunburned horizon. As we approach the Kentucky horse farms in the distance, we sense our destiny and all living creatures that endure a pain. The trauma.
The loss. We will overcome. We will begin anew. The more perfect self has evolved from the cocoon of life's womb.
You are the star-married silence of the golden error. You are filled with the spirit of the roaring twenties. You are the new lion king. The Leo of perception.
The Leo of charisma. The Leo of poise. Your magnetism draws a million souls to a quiet destiny of lost dreams. Dramatic content of a nightmare.
The lion in you roars. You have conquered the new kingdom. As your day begins, you are a new you. You have left the pain and anguish of past relationships in the stormy sea where the tides have been flown.
Loses the depths of the past. As you regain consciousness, the value of this new day glistens in your mind. Your revelation of kindred souls. You are the most spiritual, divine human on the planet.
Your new day begins. This is the moment. This is the meaning, glancing towards the new soul connection. This is the new higher plateau.
You have overcome tragedy. You now can begin to live. A mesmerizing mirage of dreams has reached deep in your soul. The tsunami of volcanic dreams leads you to a new horizon.
Thank you. I have one more point and then I'm going to get on with the featured poets right after the second point. The thunderbolt of time. I'll let you start the overture for that.
Okay? Thank you. The thunderbolt of time. The symphonies of the sounds of life reverberate in our inner chambers.
With an awakening of new vibrations. The music speaks poetic messages. With waves of thunder. Music is the soul of the universe.
Poetry is the reflection of that soul. Inertrines with every living being from shore to shore. We seek soul expression of soul wonder. Music is the global presence.
From the shores of Dakar's synagogue to Mambasa's dreams, we hold hands. We unite. Our understanding the human condition perplexes the mind. The awakening of the fatality of our dreams.
From the deepest caverns of inner consciousness. Music reaches beyond stellar connections. The universal message sends vibrations to the symphonic sound syndrome. We are alive with the spirit of life.
The synchronicity of being and the absolution of distorted dreams. We are beckoned to the shore of Ithaca. As we see the shoreline at the ending of our journey, we know that we have arrived. We are ready for times by talent, finality and doom.
The ending is now a beginning. Ithaca is in our soul. Throughout our journey. As we prepare for our arrival, our karma is a million vibrations of experiences that electrify the inner imagination of our being and send turbulent waves to the distant shore of no return.
The horns of the beast are turned apart. As we are not trampled by life's inevitable flow, we grasp onto it. We hold on to the tightrope of life. We succumb.
Fate is our destiny. The experience has illuminated our soul. We pass through the souls that circumference the likeness of our being. The unbearable likeness of being magnified through a tunnel of dark love.
We understand the human heart, the importance of love. We have just begun to live. We go onward, forward towards destiny with the greatest spirit of exultation, sending vibrations to the musical spheres of lost centuries. Old civilizations remain alive in our spirit from centuries past.
We know that our soul has evolved. Our life begins every new day. Let the sunshine into your heart love emanates through the chalice door. Love is on the shore of Ithaca.
Love is on the outer premise. We have conquered mortality and we survive eternally. The stars shine. Love is sending a final presence of sun to our heart.
Love conquers the inevitable. We will endure. Thank you so much. And now I want to introduce my first feature poet, Nicholas Brower, who's going to share some of his points with us.
And then I'll be back to introduce our other feature poets. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Nicholas.
That was beautiful. Thank you so much. The next poet I'm introducing to the stage always gives her whole heart and soul and her life experiences. She's performed with a live poet society at the block at the Nobukava.
She's also performed Jack of the Wood Pub. She's an amazing poet. Yes. And I welcome Abby Young to the stage.
Thank you so much. Thank you guys for being here and sharing poetry and like absorbing different things and emotions. Like Justin just took me on a roller coaster. It was great.
Thank you. So here goes my roller coaster, I suppose. So the first one is called my own. Oh, to the person that reported my new Instagram picture of my friends and me.
So here's that one. I was with Hannah and one of our other good friends. And yeah, we posted a nude picture and it got reported because that's what happens on Instagram. So I shouldn't know.
But here's my response to that. Oh, to the person who reported my nude Instagram picture of my friends and me. Here's to you. When you stumbled upon that bear-ass naked picture, you might have been thinking, oh, wow, those are some boobs.
Or maybe you prefer to use the term breasts and said, oh, wow, those are some breasts. And the internet is no place for your bare breasts. And then you hit the report button. What you probably were not thinking was, wow, these women were taught to hate themselves.
They were taught to compare their bodies to each other. It is a wonder that even they'll comfortable enough taking a sock off around each other. You probably were not thinking about how I grew a female body. A body riddled with messages about how to be beautiful.
A riddle not meant to be answered in a society that profits from our insecurities. A body like a Rubik's Cube trying to be put back together, a puzzle pulled apart, parts of me sold separately in a society, theming of factors, art insecurities, slaps them with a price tag, and then sets them on a shelf. Like here, make your cheekbones higher, lashes longer, lips fuller, stomachs smaller, like maybe then like you. Like your character even matters anyway.
Like here, pay 1999 to cover up the parts of you that you were taught to hate about yourself. While we photoshop thighs, as if to say it's not normal, for a human body to have cellulite, airbrush, stomachs, erase stretch marks, as if to say it's not an injustice to boil the body down to its physical appearance. I don't think you understand that for so long I tried to photoshop worthy over top of everything that I did, sucked my stomach in eight water for dinner, where sweaters for years did not expose my breasts that I would never be confused for asking for it. To me, double D's is just an acronym for damn dude, these things really weigh on me.
When you hit that report button, you might have been thinking, ha titties, you probably were not thinking that the same body I was taught to be so ashamed of, was the same when I also learned 101 ways how not to be assaulted with the way my body looks. When I was nine, I was told that I was no longer allowed to take my shirt off around the boys, because my nipples were now asking for it. 24 years of inhabiting a body, my nipples I've never once asked a single question. From a very early age, I have been made brutally aware of the kind of body I am inhabiting.
Pray that I could exchange my breasts for pecs as a defense mechanism, but instead I was armed with an arsenal of lookdowns cover up here, don't walk alone, I don't think you know. The 10 years prior, we were writing lists of the things we hate about ourselves while staring in a mirror. Seven years prior, I would turn the lights off before going into the shower so I would not have to see my own body naked. Three years prior, we confused pretty for starving, sounded like a growling stomach, so the idea that a woman needs to make herself smaller, so I made myself smaller and smaller and smaller until I finally disappeared inside of myself the irony of this whole thing is, is that I used to report my pictures that my friends tagged me in on the internet because I was so offended by my own body.
Frankly, I cannot care what you think about it, find me when there was a report button for being unkind to yourself. Do not talk to me about a group of women unlearning the ways we've been taught to hate ourselves and re-learning the language of loving ourselves. Alan's favorite poem, I think, it's my human poem. It's one of my first poems that I have written in regards to like spoken word and that I memorized and it's a little bit longer, but it, I mean this poem means a lot to me.
It was kind of like my middle finger up to the idea of like, there's this quote that says that a human being is the only creature that tries to not be what it is and so this is kind of like, like, I think my testament to that, but anyway, tell me, feel free to like snap or like hold your heart or hand or like latch pinkies with someone or like, I don't know, like I'm giving up ourselves enough physical touch or something like that, yeah, okay, I'm gonna hold my own hand. Tell me, when do you feel most human? Is it when you're standing bare-ass naked with the lights on in front of someone for the very first time? Are the times that you just feel naked?
Raw, like my lips the next morning after spending a night with you. After I asked could you if it would be all right if I could kiss you because I was so tired of only speaking one language with you. I tend to get kind of awkward about those kinds of things, but I'm not sorry. It's the human in me.
I spill my coffee on myself every fucking morning. I like to say the word fuck a lot and I really despise being asked the question, where is it that you see yourself in five years? Because I guarantee that the very people asking us those kinds of things have no idea what the fuck it is they're doing here either, but we sure can pretend can't we, huh? Tell me when do you feel most human, huh?
Is it when the heartbreak comes consuming and hungry or the moments that you feel hungry, stomach growling so you choose to eat I trip over my two feet walking on flat pavement. I get bruises in places people will never see. I told you baby my body is covered in band-aids because this life has always felt like the rain to me falling in love and just falling. So kiss my bruised knee caps 10 times over.
I will kiss you on your forehead just to prove to you that sometimes our words can go so stale or soggy like my body that day that I spent an entire 24 hours sobbing. What feels more humanizing than crying? Crumpled up on the floor like I was at night that you could feel my heartbeat right through my clothing. Without having to place a single fingertip on me this heart beats so loudly inside of this body there was an entire symphony happening in here and you I love it when you laugh with your entire body.
When you smile it is so goddamn sexy. Can I get a hallelujah if you sometimes feel fucked up too? But we are not the people who don't love us well and while I've not been very good at pickup lines I don't think that I want to be good. I just want to be human and maybe stand outside with the sign that says, huh I don't give you have trust issues too but trusting you was the only way that I know how to love and loving is the only way that I want to live because I know that I will not live here for very long.
I will not be a human here for very long especially compared to the tortoises tree trunks and mountaintops. I knew this even when I was nine years old I would sob into the womb of mother's elbow crease and mama. I'm so afraid of dying lying and probably one of the safest bets in America. What kinds of thoughts keep you up at night?
I was so scared of hurricane sharks and tsunamis while living in the middle of Ohio. My mother promised me it was just a phase while the moon continued to cycle in the sky. My lover says he's most afraid of spiders and I suffocating I said honestly I am so terrified of spending this entire life alive but never feeling it. You'll want to feel it.
Being a human being can feel like a lot of things. A human being, a human being. Being a human being. The phones are ringing, lines are blinking begging you to pick up please and answer me.
What does it mean? Maybe our answers are found in our incessant questioning. Maybe our lifelines are found in the spaces that don't really exist between you and me. I am holding onto you for dear life.
The same way he clings to his sobriety, clothing on a clothing line. I know you can feel so lonely too sometimes even with all of the stars in the sky. My mother used to rock me to sleep every night saying, you are sky stuffed in the body. The entire galaxy.
No wonder you feel so many different things. A human being is made up of 7 billion, billion, billion atoms. You were never meant to be just one thing. Tell me when do you feel most human?
I scream this is my body. This is my life. This is my existence. I will scream it until I believe it.
Until capitalism could no longer sell me back to myself. I'll say no thanks. I already bought it. I've been covered in price tags, labels and clothing.
Take them off of me. They get so heavy. Instead, press your head to the honey of my heart and take a taste. It is so sweet.
I swear our hearts are the sweetest things about us. That is why our body is insisted on building it a rib cage to keep it safe because it knows that at any moment our lives can be taken away as quickly as a swipe of a thumb on a phone screen. Tell me when do you feel most human and we will tell them about the long hard road to wisdom, about how we could have let this life make us harder but we didn't. Instead, we said we are tough as nails.
That's why we have to stay so soft. Tell me when do you feel most human? If you know what I mean, then welcome home. Welcome to your human existence.
You are not going to want to miss this. I know that we will miss this. And now I want to introduce Nicholas Brower who is going to share some of his points with us and then I will be back to introduce our other feature points. Thank you so much.
So I'm happy to be here. Thanks, Alan, for inviting me to perform. I've been writing poetry for not very long but I always just do it in my free time for just for me but I've never performed for anybody so this is like a new experience for me and I'm excited. So all right, this poem is kind of I have this picture of a lizard man who's he was a villain and spider man and I drew a picture of him and I was like looking at him in my room while writing this and it like I guess I guess I was like relating to him a little bit.
So my eyes feel like they've been rolling around in front of a fan. I pick at my lip and use my wrist to slap my hand down against my thigh, grip it like a football and exit regularity into a pinball machine of irrational silent howls at the moon and the sun. My volcanic feelings have been really unaddressed. I sputter to the worst in people because there's something inside fighting for release.
Yeah, a girl keeps me lovingly occupied and coddled into a state of blissful imaginary valleys living in between my ears until I kiss her goodbye eight in the morning. To step foot into a chaotic and reptilian afterlife everyone is calling Tuesday. I looked over at my spider man villain drawing of the lizard man still in his clothes ready to pounce and turning light blue and I empathize with it and feel myself wearing those scales standing in a red haze of regret standing on a red stage of female lips every reaction is calling up my clothes. Thanks.
A lot of these aren't quite finished. I'm like working on them still but I just given them a shot. So this one was written like a day ago. I think it was written like two days ago.
So it's really new but it was just really stream of consciousness just kind of came out one late night like really fast. We're in like like 10 minutes probably. I really like it. All right.
Last on the interstate maple and oak sway back some serving as doors or as firewood giving warmth and light to the music being played around it. The blades of grass grow tall and scary in the moving gusts of air. Alongside turns into a deep sob. The energy beneath the face can go undetected under a cover or as blind shelving the impending night.
A cast that loves its broken arm and the shoelaces below are dragging against the dirt singing and dancing with the soil. Airplane engines ripple the clouds as an insect zips towards the drifting log. Her silky brown hair drapes below glasses that light up every tooth. Saddled by her lips which glisten against the twinkles of her silver necklace.
Translating an overhead light they look in and look out as light comes in and flushes out hopeless and in resistance of the threads of forever of tomorrow and yesterday. The diamonds of conversation caress the burning coals of a locomotive running circles around the volcano anchoring all of our hearts. She says to me all right I'll see you later as I tap the surface of a lake swimming with experiences knowledge happiness and sadness embrace my right hand with my left against an absent umbilical cord and dusty recognition that the plates are not quite dry in the back not forgetting to that the plain tans do not get riper by sitting in the fridge and that trembling is really refreshing. My love and my expression in my eyes are frozen as the clock halts at the tin.
The memory is hypnotized in a kitchen full of sand as the world flips around up to shake the tiny rocks the tiny tears of a fearful heart hardened by the patterns and puzzles of the lines that I pushed between spinning a basketball in my middle finger a simple shadow I lean against inside of an hourglass in circular opening and closing of a cabinet the shadow that kisses the light is the person I'm trying to learn from. Okay I have one more thanks for listening and glad to be here. Hey this one this one was written like a month ago. All right it's hard to count when it is always washing away so why bother studying every drop each moment bleeds out of me from memory.
My fingertips tremble at the thought which comes like air to my lungs sound to my ear and an ache to my bones a thought that confuses the meaning of words obstructs the ability to form sentences and coherently express thoughts of deeper meaning a meaning that I can run through the grass with climb trees with and swim oceans with a meaning that becomes a boost of speed in a field of dirt but then one or two particular thoughts set up tripwire and take my mind away from the world and away from love and away from me letting them do as they please it's like a wash and scrub to find a breath that releases them from the treasure chest in the basement there's time to do anything if in the moment of nothing you cease the ability to constantly remember so that's it. Thank you. I'm honored to have in the house the next featured poet he's been a part of the poetry cabaret for many years he's published poet he's been a part of the poetry jam in Washington DC he's performed in many cities I'm really excited to have him here and I welcome to the stage Justin Blackburn let's give a big applause for Justin thank you this first poem is called You are not a normal human being you are not a normal human being I know you you know you you have beautiful dreams you are fulfilling you wake up every day on the ceiling and inspire your desires to radiate your feelings you are not afraid to be yourself despite anyone else you know who you are you are not a normal human being you are not the cheesy cliche character in the corner of the bar telling horror stories about how marriage is a dead dark dishcloths cemetery you can get married love your spouse forever and still be free you can get a job make lots of money and not be a selfish egotistical prick no matter what happens to you you can be happy you are here to remember not forget you are not a normal human being you do not suffer from the chaos of your own delusions you are not ruled by the desolate confusion of other people's illusions you are not brainwashed by the mediocre mass media you are the real heartfelt bloody soul-filled essence of life you are not a walking talking robotic encyclopedia you are a tender burning gentle loving light you are not a television set glued to a graveyard you transcend middle America like a dark sky overflowing with bright scars you are not a normal human being you do not come to planet earth to work for green paper and die you came to satisfy your soul to search your self-hold to serve this beautiful world you came to feel the joy of why you are not a normal human being you do not sit around all day gossiping the gospel from one tragic play to the next you do not live your life for the sake of regret you do not put your fellow brothers and sisters down you do not waste your time your voice is a gentle relaxing indigo sound that enhances the space within everyone's mind you are not a normal human being you are not afraid of your creator you are not going to die and spontaneously begin an eternal burning you are not waiting on a savior you are here now and you are aware and you are learning you condemn no one to hell instead you invite everyone into heaven you understand and you are understood you forgive and you are forgiven you are not a normal human being you touch angels you scare demons you inspire the sun you have no one to blame you are not a normal human being why because there's no such thing as one i think i had a better ending for it you know all right this is called um you just keep playing i want to follow you this is called how to transcend a human struggle that's really great how to transcend the human struggle don't be a dick if someone is a dick to you don't be a bitch about it i'm not talking about a woman don't get too pissed reading in reading into other people's bullshit if you expect an idiot to not be an idiot who's the idiot instead of talking so much god damn shit clean your own asshole it'll stink but the quicker you do it the less time you'll spend walking around and shit the more time you'll spend in emotional control the voice saying you're not good enough is a liar call it out tell it to fuck off set it on fire the voice telling you to meditate is worth listening to that's great thank you not trying to be rude to you either sorry you know what to do you know you know what to do the bible is a road map to a cultusack in georgia learn from your own heart create your own art be your own fortune your father gave his dreams to you you're awake now your mother did her best you are not the judge but the evidence if you blame them for the pain take the gift the pain gave you give them that blame too the outside world is a symbol for what's happening within you your life changes when you change what you give your belief to meaning your thoughts create your reality know it so powerfully you make your horoscope tremble you are 99.99999% soul an ocean inside a thimble while suffering feels like a really big deal it's just a part of your human self your soul has yet to assemble i'm not trying to invalidate anybody with that line just so you know it's just me saying shit life is bound to blow your mind that's how the universe expands be so thankful to be so frustrated you smile and yell god damn it's so fucking simple that's why it seems so complicated so relax nothing is ever fucked even death is a second chance if you're scared dance or take a nap do what you feel feel what you do if you don't know how pet a cat if you don't know what to do don't do that change is hard not changing way harder the story is always the author the garden is only the gardener don't separate yourself from your own genius a heart beats for you like it did jesus when things aren't going your way ask yourself what are you believing our dreams have their own dna our dreams desire us to bring them into being most importantly don't let people fool you all they want is love don't fool yourself all you want is love too your only mission is to figure out what the fuck love is and embody it so how do you transcend the human struggle you can't so stop trying to appreciate it enjoy it destroy it let it love you i'm gonna do two more let's see if we can get this one together this is called uh love fuck goddess god soul sex this is from my book i forgot to promote myself i apologize uh the first poem is in my book it's hard to get there when you're already there it's ten dollars this book is called love poems that manifest in my soul made it's ten dollars too the deal is online it's fifteen dollars here it's ten so what that's going to do to your brain right there it's you're gonna think oh shit that's a good deal i should buy it now yeah all right this is called uh love fuck goddess god soul sex this might not go well i'm gonna try though you ready you start oh that's beautiful it's perfect i follow tinder burning love lights into a apartment uttering not a sound afraid it'll ruin the magic she takes her clothes off slowly as if dressed in seashells desiring me to hear her ocean in each inch of fabric already i want to come our eyes shine into each other's souls our souls anticipate becoming one i have to fart but i hold it in we lock lips i taste moonlight she sunshine our tongues whisper each other's names swallowing the letters with our minds trust walls rooms buildings disappear everything except us i caress the air bouncing dainty over her damp angel haired pussy her juices rise into my hand i engulf my face in her woodlands my tongue does the freestyle the breaststroke the butterfly i win the gold the silver the bronze sway savoring the sky flying inside her like a swan she orgasms a marching band led by field commander co-in she jerks my hair up rough drinks her juice from my mouth this is how mountains afford their vacation views this is how god can never separate from us i want your dick inside me now she screams out but i can't get my dick up she's too luminous too wonder-filled my dick is a sick bitch i don't want to make her ill i do not feel i deserve love i say like an orphanage full of dead kids inside but you do holy shit she's right i deserve love everyone does from the subway sandwich artists to the woman running next to you at the gymnasium it's that simple einstein didn't come up with that shit but it's way more brilliant than anything he ever did we gaze down dumbstruck at my cock as it grows in slow mo harder thicker bigger than ever three times the size of the grinch's heart she leaps upon my dick hard as if it is her lifeboat in the middle of the ocean the joy of sex pours through our emotions as she drives me like a jet ski off a waterfall digging deeper and deeper into my throbbing veins the fat little grooves our bodies make bangs stop clap call out to us with their own genitals to masturbate to us she fucks me to death and keeps fucking me until resurrection my heart's infinite erection can never go down now all right thank you i got one more this is called again the bisexual christian suburban failure lightning bipolar blues it's um it's a novel i wrote and this is basically the first um the first chapter the sunday school class sings jesus loves the little children all the children of the world brian loves singing brian loves jesus jesus loves us all no matter what it's big church time brian sits with his family as a adult scream beg for jesus to heal them they throw themselves at the altar the preacher puts his hands on their heads they flop and fall over they scare brian brian doesn't want to be like them when he grows up brian wants to be like jesus jesus is beautiful brian says to his father no he's not jesus is lord he's feared and respected women are beautiful son not me in but the feelings i feel when i see a woman i like when i see jesus his father drags brian to the church basement he takes off his belt he beats brian brian screams brian begs brian cries brian six how do you make peace with the past school day miss perkins and yells at marcus to go to the timeout chair marcus insists he wasn't talking he wasn't it was allison marcus is the only black kid in class miss perkins and blames him for everything marcus walks to the corner he puts his head down jesus loves the little children all the children of the world brian walks to marcus he hugs his shoulder he kisses the top of marcus his head zach screams brian's queer the class laughs loud miss perkins and takes brian to the principal's office his father shows up he beats brian with his bible belt he drives brian to a camp called god's choice during the day the christian counselor informs brian that god punishes all gays with aids in hell he leads brian to a room he ties brian to a chair he plays films of men violent raping he tasers brian until brian refuses to close his jesus loves the little children all the children of the world at night he takes brian to the woods and ta ta ta ta ta nope nope nope nope he's nine he can't go back there how do you make peace with the past when it's still jesus did not die for your sins but you will sorry i took too long venturing and shit but thank you very much more poetry in a few minutes i want to mention a few things first is i got a lot of really good material here from this night um so i'm gonna have two episodes gonna have a short episode and a long episode and i'm not gonna make two announcements so you'll decide by however long this episode you're listening to is which it is you'll figure it out second is uh in the episode description make sure to look for uh links to all these guys work i think everyone has somewhere you can find them online uh several of them are published poets so look for them in your bookstores and look for them all around town look for them on social media and find out where they're gonna be appearing next and go see them there it'll be a fun time today's episode is brought to you by there's no such thing as superfood there is really no such thing as superfood we'd know by now people would be leaping tall buildings and there'd be billionaires based solely off their ability to read minds so there's food that's really good for you but there's nothing that's super or magic just like there's food that's bad for you but there's nothing that's evil or deadly i mean there's poison but we'll talk about that so no such thing as superfood come on you kind of already knew hi this is christy lapidus and you are listening to western north carolina original music special poetry episode the next poet is that i'm calling to the stage has been involved with um noble kava and performing there and with the poetry kebiré and many festivals um she's also a published poet and i welcome her to the stage trash chameleon let's give a big hand for trash thank you so hey first of all i just want to share my gratitude to allen robinson and all the poets here and trade and lord and the energy that is here right now is extremely powerful and um i'm almost like overwhelmed because sometimes like i'm surrounded by all this chaos and people focusing on negative things and it's like easier to deal with that than like actual vulnerability and love and positivity so thank you also i took my shoes off i was inspired by your bare feet uh be so thanks for that too um i think i'm just gonna read through all of these so if you just want to listen they're all pretty short but um you can probably tell where some of them drop off or like a new one starts but it's all kind of like chaotic in my brain anyways so i'm just gonna go with it and um it's it's more just a open dialogue with myself um my writing process and how i'm coping with that and being vulnerable like has become such a like the concept continues to grow so i'm very i'm very much like in that process of like opening up again because i tend to like put on a hard shell and then like forget that the most important part of being human is connecting and sharing yourself and doing this kind of thing so thank you mother of burning heartache crying by communes of tea or caution or budding growth, steeping in the isolation i fond on myself affection affecting others fear should not be the cornerstone by which we choose love outweighs still distrust brewing my brimming being fighting all patterns and a struggle for for spawning balance rewrite and switch and see the edges taking everything personally justifying correlation connection the roads of wet pavement i am a leather bound rider more full than thorough of consolation prizes in the summer is the pending stone of illusionary imbalance crusting every inch of skin dead or alive but we can soften the sun kissed with wishes and luck how did i derail myself as such an outsider on callous bare feet cynical rests with fits of positivity bukowski knew this in his second story apartment while the wall is caved in but he met fame in such auspition gathering metaphorical trees for nooses is it a blessing to be so dark and further guided on a path of self-resistance crying self-love in an open tent much of what has come to me has been quilted in recognition of how to be love selfish and how to love thyself says the deirofilia breaking her back to toil to comfort on a bridge love confusion miscommunication the art of war the war of art my age is waning it feels but buckets of youth pour down upon me it is my second birthday a cycle of rain meet me in the iron trees whole and fence body of worm kiss me and remind me you are here to remember my truth and holy detail saving the world in bridging and capabilities on the softer arrival of hope bones weigh more than cartography picking the scab from a swollen feature justifies nothing excruciating just compulsion winning again lifting life from the living indebriated self-declared guru claims that i contact is a way that speaks powerless sour and growling disgust disappointment how far can you leave the truth behind butting by building and shadowing the worth of mesozoic profits maybe warming closer by the scale of the wrecks pumping the split of the chest unknowing the whole story peeking at the root with the bone fractured inside a worm tail of growth direction ombre splits have projected the light to be causing pain of the other burning holes in your clothing until the char c proceeds the fabric in your cold it was nothing compared to your adjustment on the brink of expulsion bleeding rust one night you came to my house where you were in this mud i was running from some dream from another dream into pathways that brim the edge of mares and dust there you were full of hope and i had distrust pounding through my chest now i see the whims take the speed of highway bridges on a spun earth and its careless respite invading your home my school calls out for thumbs and it's hardly the fault of affection to bleed into us sensitive spliced pears protection is deeper motive than any sullen selfish breeze for the good of heart and stone i've been tunneling inside the ideal of your the idea of your souls what brought you to this day what aged you in pozzer phonics what guided your beams to skip naked in the sea of moon rooting for so many lost webs by venous endopography but the grape picks the mouth by surprise sometimes as unwilling raisins mirage in summer life how does this vessel communicate its bony magic and safety trust truth and present waves if only an answer were as simple as a root and not just a pile of dust crowding the surface buttered be wise in the caves of non-existence if to be wide-eyed in the throes of the light beam the center of rectification blesses the dust that you are exerting out of the fourth dimensional poetry wiping crumbs off the couch is healing pressing your thumb on the stone of truth is healing wiping your sweat from your chin healing after all if the summer gives me swollen buds of iris rays i will soak in ten men in every angle stained by my work in memory sometimes the past is soggy drenched in pouring refrain meandering as flooded river pulling some growth underneath sometimes it is soaked as a sun and porous skin vitaminizing efficient destiny pushing the organs to reread their purpose strangers test your vulnerability and mistake to know their intentionless handles of storms they reprieve viable anger is a mesh netting covering deep intangible sadness losing over and over again challenges revivable chance we ache and isolation but when we find each other relatable grain our deepest holes lack enclosure turn the empty space into tiny sacred lakes what you feel and what you burn are much different you'd photographs in the cavern of technologic archives gather binary dust as the nitrates of speech become sour dedicated addictions with no often reveal is the chrome the piles nightmares on a thursday night any human will tell you a different story mass with the same theme dripping conscious unconscious help me is in and out of their legibility some look to ripen validation eat it straight out of the book plump to rotten to bridging fruit fly anomaly see with eyes of compassion see yourself with eyes of compassion six hundred and eighty eight poems and not even the crux of all it's similar to a step in the back of never faded glory but the choices in the perspective of holy eye sockets letting the light shine through flesh red complications heightened amphibian motives breathing liquefied dissatisfaction trying to make better air possibility it wades in seclusion you must treat inspiration as a god preparing yourself for fingerless war any tools a mighty tool in the sands of fleeting mossy breast of nude life shifting the perception of bided excrement poop is a native language we all speak the birds in amoeba the alken fish all lays waste and sometimes is a medicine for another fruit thank you so the next poet is um and drew freeman who i've had experience with at the block and nobel kava he's a poet of great depth i welcome him to the stage to share his poetry with you thank you and for coming thank you so much thank you it's okay this first poem is called sonative sound with art and eyes her reflection is fair she stands at a distance knowing herself in a femoral glance not a grim stare saving her smile for somebody else who sees in her soul without a faint glare that can take a cold heart and make it melt it's beat down the drain all she is aware reflection obscured what she never felt her feet felt like seeds levity like air arms turned to wings hands not thereafter held her dreams subsumed by a love she could bear and words turned to songs so she cannot tell she did not know emelities her choice at all attitudes we find our own voice um this next poem is called the affair impetuous fascinations relieve depictions of inertia impressions that hold you still until your hibiscus heart can slow down enough to tell the truth it mutters and judders is the organ full of an amor and separation butters words of delinquency sending particles of love sporadically exploding in a thousand unknown directions the heart's power is complete but not in telekinesleep can i refrain from polarizing pain and pleasure those non-distinct filaments that foretell the same perennial matrix your own consciousness forever my heart utters cursory catch phrases thrusting fear syratic whims into the pockets of all the lovers my heart has vertigo can't stand to see the other side win as if there was another side as if my emotions did not all perish from the same void from which they came as if the fire in my heart were docile enough to transfigure into useful submission as if my heart were to sing in great repose about the nature of mankind as if the heart was hyperkind to man can i claim my heart is just unlike consciousness and partial and honest the heart but guiles and chants it is never promised and its release of excitation it's intractable longing preparing wishing affects a beat into the rhythm of a new horizon pumping blood into that fine line the sun setting is just another sign to slow down the heart relinquishes the crown it's beating so quietly it hardly makes a sound this provisional blessing bestows upon me enough time to desist for matters of the heart wild and unreal and render myself a share of true love sourcing from the everlasting creator the witness is all below and above i didn't plan on doing another one but i guess i'll do it this one's called best friend sitting at a restaurant with you expanding my thought range out to a side order of infinity i still remember your face blood symmetry packed gauze absorbed the crimson red paint that was blood i said it was art you said it was fun that's why we were friends because we saw the selected patterns and a scene of scattered attention again nobody else would look but somehow i saw Fibonacci dripping flawlessly down your chin the numbers i could taste went out of curiosity i licked your dry blood on my fingers later that night nothing tasted so precise it was a pot of gold at the end of a ghastly rainbow i usually don't taste other people's blood but i suppose i made an exception for you not to mention that you already know i'm not skeptical of vampires proclamation they exist i don't know of any genius ones like Fibonacci or that i would want someone tasting my blood when it's spilling everywhere but i'm here to try different things and i feel closer to you for it you are not harmed you were enhanced and the lovely scar to seal the inherent contingencies on your alert ailing massage you'll see i took all your pain and put it where you wouldn't find it you said the room was spinning i slowed it down your mortality is wise to limit its time but me i can modulate the expression of your genes it seems i guess i'm just that good of a friend thank you my next featured poet um came all the way from michigan to be here tonight so i'm really really honored with that um she is part of the live poet society and has performed in many venues i welcome haley glatton to the stage thank you so much for coming so far today thank you so much thank you well i live in ashville now but i did just make a trip up to michigan and i got back like two hours ago three hours ago all right this first one is titled the anti-lafers why must we be the ones laughing in this ridiculous fucking setting we are the anti-lafers while everyone else continue to be so easily amused by the inconsequential the trivial jokes being told or played out we direct our eyes on each other and feel just how strange the public is but we're together we are the same in some ways the urge is burning my flesh to learn you and i think you feel it too and that's right i am melting maybe one day all this mush will grow into a rose for now here i am trying to turn words into a poem artistic license and maybe in part it'll be understood it's all quite the predicament my body is now feeble too stressed or confused to feel comfortable fearful of the nighttime where juvenile actions are often high rising but your bed is so damn cozy such a situation has become sadly humorous i want us all cageless we deserve free flight the anti-lafers we laugh together and it all feels all right thank you this next one is titled fruit glaze i've mostly tasted vanilla but i'm craving a strawberry lady her aura captivating me before our connection was even a baby her interests far exceed basic and this development feel so purely organic and now we're here and it could be so playful she could have me whichever way she pleases we could experiment with the rope time we've pondered on our own and i think this all makes her a cherry bomb blazing over fierce and gentle i'm just trying to learn her mental the emotional depth and the experiences both of us comfortably minimizing our defenses we don't even need to have sex to fall into a deep love spell and explore powerful intimacy when i dance with her i feel like we are the only ones in the room or maybe the focus is just on us too i'm trying not to make it weird by this feeling is really digging through to the surface i'm daydreaming in my caverns of being welcomed into the palace of such agatus yes intimacy okay and this will be my last one you say you are not a poem and that's fine i agree you are certainly more than neat lines but don't you know still i've been writing about you since i was a teenager a fantasy of you and me is stemming from them i thought i'd have met you much sooner and we tramp around from town to town my anarchist lover with a stomach ache sort of attraction from your bunch of freckles on your shoulders slightly breaking until mid by something clustering again to the way you can be so expressive with your speech and use your entire body to communicate with passion with a dizzy head sort of attraction in a constant state of giddiness from your humor like your suggestion of flossing with your laycare to prove my adoration to the way you say my name and pleasure and excel moans without me even placing a fingertip on you my sweet pea my traveling lover i want to never stop learning of you i want to adventure with you or will you please stay a while you are the hex hexagonal cells of the honeycomb i buzz and dance returning to be surrounded by you offering golden sweetness i want to be by your side and support you are the breeze midway up my mountain hike on a hot humid day it is 97 degrees and i'm eating an apple and i feel you as a gentle tease for my hair along my cheek i know we both like the same comforts from each other let us rest ourselves with our limbs intertwined my sexy lover one night we ditched a typical party to eat trail mix in my car but our bodies scream that we can't wait every time we touch each other in the backseat with your face between my thighs and your hair gripped between my fingers and my palm between the moments of my eyes rolling back i watch fireflies dance in the tree across the street soon my eyes squinshed up like yours when you say do you know what i mean in conversation and i laughed out of pure ecstasy my lover who parties with me at tea houses drinking cups of caffeine who looks me straight in the eyes and tickles my soul who said they were certain we could fall in love and here we are interlacing ourselves thank you i want to welcome another poetist to the stage who i've had experience hearing at the block and she's wonderful and she shared her poetry with such heartfelt natural emotion Rachel if you'd come to the stage please i welcome you and so honored to have you here tonight thank you so much thank you okay first one i'm going to do is called i love my name have i ever told you how much i love my name from a time when my feelings existed without explanation before coalescing into my truth it existed as a tiny sound whispered for a lifetime in the depth of my dreams have i ever told you how much i love my name now fully grown it stands resolute in the face of resistance no longer willing to be kept silent by fears real or imagined it rises slowly at first finally escaping as the full-throated declaration of my being i must have told you how much i love my name it's a joyful sound to my ears breaking free and bursting forth into the world it rolls from my tongue without an instance hesitation a sweet sensation sweeping across the lips fixed in a satisfied smile have i ever told you how much i love my name as my hand hovers momentarily suspended above the page my imagination traces the letters in the air as fingers absent line absent mindedly caress the pen my gaze is drawn to the line on the bottom in language direct and simple it states sign here but silently it also asks profoundly who are you i reply i am Rachel and while i've not always been Rachel to the world i have always been Rachel poor it mattered in my heart and soul this one's called love me love all of me love all of me hold tenderly the place in my heart that needs to be healed it's been so long since i've heard the soft sound of i love you it's been forever without a tender touch since warm lips have brushed my neck kiss me softly the way i dreamed sweet and soft your breath a gentle a warm gentle brush against my eyelids look deeply into my eyes can you see the uncertainty in my soul of love from this new perspective learning a new way without a teacher to accept these new feelings without reservation will the fear fall away with the touch will i be able to release the i love you guarded for so long will the feelings return i dream of the moment the recognition of the truth that i remain alive and that i remain lovable there's another real short one in here someplace if i can get it open there it is do you ever clear out the context on your on your phone i mean i had like a hundred these people it was like who the hell is this but there was one this one was called her name stairs back her name stares back for me that from the depths of the pale electronic glow what began as a simple exercise and housekeeping on my phone has come to an abrupt halt now taking on the significance never intended powerless to break from the memories her name draws forth the gentle ghost of her voice calling my name from that time before the echo over infectious laughter drawing tears from my remembers the desire to speak to her just one more time grips my heart but there is no cure no comfort for this longing there are no letters to recall her words no photos to reconstruct a moment no yellow clipping marks the day of her passing or what small piece of this world might have given her rest all it remains is what i carry in my heart and this name staring back from the screen that i hold thank you marley marley marley did the stage thank you thank so glad you didn't leave hello hey this is um i'll just do this one it's probably the longest poem i've ever written which is not that long bear with me no um but it's called legacy and i hope you enjoy it um i want to leave a legacy leave more than what will be left of me rewrite the patterns families bad manners neglecting how we've only learned to fray to teach my daughters they don't belong to their fathers no one can give you away retrain a society that taught me what's inside of me wasn't good enough for the pearly gates to tell my sons rage does not run in your blood it's soft tears that will heal your pain i want to leave a legacy and the cycles that were taught to me to never rewrite history teach us just how ugly we could be teach us that we are everything that there is nothing that is not we one organism on this p a speck of light in the cosmic sea and when we take more than we need we bite our nails until we bleed i want to leave a legacy something stronger than a memory something deeper than in stone remind the dreamers and out of sleep delivers that are the sheep fitting into common sense never realizing they're in their pins i want to leave a legacy proof piece is not a fantasy how we've been taught to hate ourselves is how we've learned to hate everyone else i want to leave a legacy untangled the lies rooted deep who taught us all that we weren't free that someone is our enemy that we could ever separate the love we give and the love we take we've become the tale inside its snake i want to leave a legacy for the dirt i know i'll surely be for the dust my blood will turn when i no longer breathe for the worms and roots i'll feed i want to leave a legacy for the light i have inside of me light inside all things that will never change it will only be elements reacting to their needs all right that's the poetry episode if you listen to the short version and you liked it make sure to go and listen to the longer version there's more poems more stories a lot more cursing and the same low price i want to say thanks again to trade and lower coffee for hosting the event allen for being the master ceremonies want to thank nik for his musical accompaniment he's a very talented cellist and guitarist want to thank all the poet super anticipated make sure to click on their links in the descriptions and go and read their stuff and listen to their stuff in some cases don't forget to sign up on iTunes and like and follow on facebook and instagrams coming soon probably not twitter because of politics don't forget there's another poetry night this saturday at trade-in-law so go there it's plenty of room it's easy to get to it's actually a lot of parking right next door in the big parking facility all right that's it for now have a good week see you next time thank you ron we feel very honored to have you here tonight making a permanent or record of our potential debacle