Welcome to Stacie Marinelli!

Photo by Jovica Trajkovski

Tonight I'd like to post some poems by my close friend Stacie Marinelli.  We met in a writers' group that met in Boston years and years ago.  I hope that you will enjoy her poems inspired by musicians born in the 1940s Michael Franks and Mickey Hart.

Breathless – for Michael Franks (born in 1944)

Stacie Marinelli

So now we’re on a beach in Rio

and the saxophones tremble, the flutes trill,

and we’re drinking margaritas,

but it’s so not Jimmy Buffet,

it’s New York cool, Paris chic

And now we’re strolling the Tokyo streets in the rain

and the cookie jar is empty and she has popsicle toes

and Michael dreams he swam with dolphins and

wrestled a live nude girl

Practice makes perfect when it comes to love since

love is a string of pearls, a slow dance, a symphony,

and, as we all know, love is the answer we seek

And Monk’s mixed into the melody

and Miles and Paul Desmond and even Van Gogh

and the cry for freedom echoes

from Red Square to Soweto

but mostly it’s all love love love

He’s a skinny guy with thinning hair,

growing older like I am,

and I’m showing my age just by writing about him.

Christ, this guy hasn’t been big since the 80’s

and now his music’s called “smooth jazz”

which makes all the purists I know cringe.

But I don’t care when I'm inside this musical dream

where jungle parrots scream, jaguar and python fight

to stay alive, and we all roast bananas, drink mate tea

around a fire, and are engulfed by the raging river that is love.

And as the lyrics gradually enter me, I'm no longer in DC,

I’m lounging in a kimono on a breezy Sunday, somewhere

seated on a patio flooded by sunlight, listening to waves

that resound endlessly

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Stacie also provided some music by Michael Franks:

Rainy Night in Tokyo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoBH00oJa2M

When the Cookie Jar is Empty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1uL3xlIUGM

When Sly Calls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1bj-JYOW8k

Down in Brazil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DR7ZpVkIsc

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That moment  - Stacie Marinelli

dedicated to Mickey Hart (born 1943)

and his classic percussion album "Planet Drum"

Island Groove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvKBLIaSyAg

I was writing in my journal and you had that drum CD playing and

it was driving and urgent and

it was all the things I wanted it to be

as I wrote with the rhythms and remembered

a scene from back in college, dancing with a troupe of Puerto Rican men -

and as I was brought back with the music,

I remembered all the living I did back then,

all the living for the moment.

And the CD in your apartment ended

and I was left with the memory and the music.

This was not a transistor moment –

this was the edge of the world -

and you were there and you

were in a completely different moment

but for that moment

that one single solitary moment

it really didn’t matter

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 Stacie's memory in the poem has even more poignancy, given what Puerto Rico has suffered from Hurricane Maria.

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Photo by Juan Tituana

If you'd like to listen to more Mickey Hart, here is his "Umayeyo": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5TVPNUF9xc

Here is his "Elephant Walk": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxyqgdl_Ybo 

I'll add a video of him with Kodo drummers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuLWqw6btw8 

I'll finish with a version of the Grateful Dead's "Fire on the Mountain" that features him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jt-2huWAg

Enjoy!

Welcome to Perry Nicholas

Let's return to the 1940s contest with Perry Nicholas' poems inspired by Bob Dylan, one of the more prominent musicians born in that decade.  The picture above is Dylan in concert in London.   Perry's poems, by the way, are in the wonderful anthology Resurrection of a Sunflower.  Have you bought your copy yet?

THE LAST NIGHT WE HEARD BOB DYLAN PLAY


I hurry home to our sanctuary,
finger a lock of your hair,
stare at the page-white ceiling
at shadows like shadows on a stage,
partial phrases still pinging in my head.

The naked truths are: we are comfortable here,
he should consider reciting his farewells.
You are my sad-eyed lady, and I resist
dislodging my arm from underneath your neck
to find a pencil, let it sing, never one
to risk line breaks in unnatural places.

We are natural here, a bluesy melody
under the radar of electric, garbled lyrics.
He and I need to say our complicated goodbyes.
You and I fit into each other, simply spoon. 

ALL THAT RIGHTEOUS POETRY

You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way—Bob Dylan

No, I never realized I would be
surrounded by those who couldn’t see,

loving eyes that remain unopened,
never read a book in their lives.

I’ve been through two lifetimes now,
one leaving only scribbles on a page.

You asked me to write down my questions
since I was on my way out,

but I’m still here.
With all this righteous poetry.

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Perry S. Nicholas is an English Professor at Erie Community College North in Buffalo, N.Y. He has published one textbook of poetry prompts, three full-length and five chapbooks of original poetry, and one CD of poetry. He has hosted four poetry venues in the WNY area. You can see his work at perrynicholas.com.

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Karl Berger is a vibraphonist, educator,  and pianist who is based in Woodstock and, with Ornette Coleman, founded the Creative Music Studio.  

Here is his "From Now On, Side A": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVKmSTaYBgY

 He has worked with Dave Holland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BawqDUzssvs,

Don Cherry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSSTgCkbBvk,

and Pharoah Sanders among others.  

I can't find a video of Berger and Sanders together, but here is Sanders' "Astral Traveling": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4nAGtdkU88

Berger leads the Stone Workshop Orchestra in an excerpt from "Ornette" :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N33oIOUnskE 

Welcome to Wayne F. Burke

Tonight I am changing things up with Wayne F. Burke and his poems.  He, too, is a poet from Resurrection of a Sunflower.  I hope that you are enjoying these poems by participants in Catfish McDaris and Dr. Marc Pietryzkowski's anthology.  Perhaps they will encourage you to buy the anthology!

bathroom

I told the girl

sitting beside me

on the bus

that I had to use the bathroom

and as I stood

she said "no thanks"

which

I thought odd,

and as I leaned against the bathroom wall

and pissed down the metal hole

as the bus swayed back & forth,

I realized that she had thought

I had asked her to come with me

to the toilet,

something I had not considered,

ever,

even though

I had been feeling her tits since Denver...

Who or what did she think I was?

Not much, I guessed.

I got off the bus at the station in Rawlins

without asking her name or number.

Max

I got a room in the YWCA

which was immeasurably better than

sleeping outside

on a bench in the park

although the Y was not without problems;

there were roaches who

came out at night

and ran across my face

I tried to sleep with my mouth closed

but woke one night

after a tickling in my throat

and swallowed one

and the roach started to walk around

inside of me

I could feel it

and would punch myself in the belly

and people probably thought me funny

but I never could kill it and

finally

I went to see a doctor

and was given some pills

I took but then

stopped taking after I over-heard some trees

talking about me

I drank some Clorox

to kill the roach

but only made myself ill

and I went to the hospital

and had my stomach pumped

(I hate that)

and still the roach

I could feel it kicking

growing bigger

and I decided to cut it out

and bought a knife

for twenty dollars

but before I cut

the thing came out

suddenly

a healthy seven-pound

boy

with little roach face

and two cute tiny antennae.

Suspect

I returned to the apartment

at midnight

after the last shift of

my work week

and got out

of the car

my sore legs and feet

and the little Shit-Sue dog

upstairs

started to bark from the window

and I bent

picked-up a rock

and threw it

and heard the window glass

crack

and shards fall 

with a sound like chimes

and I ran

around the house,

climbed the stairs to my place

and sat

in the dark,

and listened to excited voices

next door

and watched for cops

who never came,

and when the voices calmed

I went to bed

but just as I started to fall

asleep

that damn dog

began barking

again.

Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been published in a variety of magazines, online and in print. His four published poetry collections, all from Bareback Press, are WORDS THAT BURN, DICKHEAD, KNUCKLE SANDWICHES, and A LARK UP THE NOSE OF TIME. He lives, or tries to anyway, in the central Vermont area.

I don't remember if I've posted anything by Jack Walrath.  The title of this song, "Napoleon Blown Apart," is worth including: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODA2QnvnNsY

Charles Mingus recorded Walrath's "Black Bats and Poles": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wquzmoADROE

Here is Walrath's version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," the one video from his Master of Suspense CD:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSyJl5gY--o

I'll finish with a live version of "Suzy's Knees": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJLEqnAh9Zc: