il faut se méfier les mots

6th October was our first night at Le Cabaret Populaire, Belleville. A lot more French poets - which was great. The theme was loosely Intoxication. Began with Fanfan, for whom nous sommes des faites divers. I had a 2 a.m. high then got lost. Doudou dreamed of his neighbour. Ellis'champagne sent a big fuck you, a conversation creator & tongue loosener. Jacko did his ''not joy text'' because Paris Hilton a compris le sense de la vie. Leemore wanted to Wake UP! and looked good dancing with a childlike ambition to kiss you. Dana pounded the keyboard and sung some crazy stuff I can't read in my notes, but it looks like ''atrophy unspoken from Parkslope, Brooklyn.'' Thomas was in Calcutta. Dona D. Leter was toxic. Christopher was mad, bad and dangerous to know. Didier produced an Albatros. Amy Ireland wandered round the palace of Kublai Khan. Maxx watches as each moment unfolded. Epiphany in the artifical night.

Apologies to any errors or incompleteness in this, I just can't read my scribbled notes.

We wound down to a few new songs from Erica and headed for the last metros.

Cabaret Populaire - a good atmosphere, cheap beer & crepes. Should also be less hot next time as the air conditioning system should be switched on sooner.

Be back there, 9.30 Monday 20th October from 9.30... theme (optional - off topic stuff welcome) is Apocalypse.

More of Dana's stuff here:

http://www.myspace.com/danaboule

And I finally created my own spoken word myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/bluecat84

at which you can listen to 6 poems, but not these 2:

The 2 a.m. high

This is the 2 a.m. high
when the world is strange

mind fireworking
too luminous with ideas to sleep

afterhours, afteryears
cramped-up in your head
suddenly you’re let out

you’re taking a walk across the grounds
a crazy escaped from the long-stay ward
all electric skin & fire-in-the-head
the cool wet grass under your feet
your hospital pyjamas flapping in the wind
eyes bulging with Now
hands flexing
to caress or strangle

the lover left behind on the bed
you know how it is
(they’ll keep)
while you live the 2 a.m. high
stalk the room

touch the chill of the night through the unshut glass
& the house floods with the dark words and images pouring
out of you like tea through a colander

after the what-are-you-gonna-do-now,
that pressure-cooker prison
when the days were dull as dishwater
and you, closed up, in the motorway café of your soul
to not see how dismal the world was

that was then, this
is how
you’ve learned the location of joy
discovered that that half-dodged despair was not the final Revelation
because this is the 2 a m high, and you

you can tightrope-walk between worlds
side-step time
light the blue touch paper to your life and retire

You’re too alive to sleep tonight!
You’re off again!
through that Alice’s rabbit hole, the 2 a.m. high

let’s get lost

your voice – melting butter & honey on toast

Naked, warm as breakfast

your breasts the sea and your sweat as salty,
and as for the tang of that other taste!

whenever you look at me so young & soft, close up
or with eyes that know & mind ticking
I touch how it could be –

we blur

I come home in you
a book opens like a door at the top of the stairs

I hold you curled up like a cat
purring with warmth or woundedness

Or is it the other way round?