Extracts from Monday 15/03/2010

The Theme was Bread, Pain… aka… Money, Argent…..

Maxime Daer:

Long-questing for the Holy Grail,
Let me now end my search
On knees before you like I've not
Yet ever done in church.

Oh let me bow, and raise my head
Beneath your skirt so pretty;
Pious, I'll kneel between your legs
And exclaim, "Hello, kitty!"

Rufo Quintavalle:

If love of money is the root of all evil
could spending it be a source of good?

Ukulelen:

I've been a moonshiner for many a year
I've spent all me money on whiskey and beer
I'll go to some hollow, I'll set up my still
And I'll make you a gallon for a ten shilling bill

I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler, I'm a long way from home
And if you don't like me, well, leave me alone
I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry
And if the moonshine don't kill me, I'll live til I die

Michael Farrell:

Ktzschz, crsh, chrsssh… breaking hearts on the beach.

Charles Mercier:

When you pull apart some bread
It says so much that is unsaid.

Michele Ferroni:

He sucks the pussy of the rockin horses.

Chris Newens:

FOLD: Lehman Baker’s is going under Jimmy and there ain’t nothing that either of us can do about it

TOMMY: What do you mean?

FOLD: (Wistfully, almost to himself) They said we were too big to fail, that they couldn’t let us go. Hell, maybe that was where I went wrong- believed it myself... I just got back from the bread-roll reserve, they’re no going to bail us out, son... Now, if Starchlays can’t raise the dough by tomorrow morning we’re no more... Then the shit’s really going to hit the fan. Now’s not the time to be going into baking, you oughta run back off to Iowa, hunker down in the family bank.

TOMMY: But... but I don’t understand

FOLD: Where’d you study, son?

TOMMY: Harvard Confectionary College

FOLD: Ah, I see mainly practical there isn’t it. What did you do your thesis on?

TOMMY: Um... Brioche- Cake or Bread, but Mr Fold you were about to explain-

FOLD: Not much preparation for the world of Rye Finance there, eh? Oh sorry, yes, yes I was... Explain the world bread crisis. OK, I’ll try and put this in as simple a way as I can...

Jessica Malcomson:

My then lover, later boyfriend, later ex
Once said to me,
“You reek of cigarettes and cheap gin”.
Sums up my life.

I prop up the bar
To avoid paying sitting-down prices.
I flirt with unattractive men
In the hope they’ll buy me drinks.
I unashamedly stock up on free condoms from the health centre
Prompting concerned looks from the receptionist as she wonders what exactly I’m planning for that night.

Food costs money.
So I eat nothing but porridge.
I can’t afford a belt
So I hold up my trousers with ribbon.
(I think of Zero Mostel
Wearing a cardboard belt.)

I unplug everything
As soon as I’ve finished using it.
(Not to save the environment, but
To save on the bills.)

I wear a fur coat indoors
So I won’t have to put the heating on.
When the electricity meter runs out
I write by candlelight.

I mend the tears in my grandmother’s old jacket
(Still too small for me).
I haven’t been to a hairdresser in eight years –
When I have to, I cut it myself
With kitchen scissors and limited success.

I darn my stockings.
I post-date my cheques.
I wear my mother’s boots –
Even when they start to let the rain in.

Sometimes I think I should marry someone with money.
So I flirt with ex-public-schoolboys with tweed jackets and posh foreheads.
Then I remember, I hate rich people.
Though it might be nice to be one, just for a while.

SpokenWord 8th March... question & answer

Many questions were answered.
Alberto lectured on Aristotlean ethics, or "rules for relations between the sexes according ot interstellar compatibility." Antonia interrogated the moon (see poem posted below.) Megan measured the Biblical workings of plain molecules. Dylan drowsed the dawn light. Monsieur Fauxcul made his omelette. Jason sang the SpokenWord blues. And Bruce drank bourbon with his cornflakes & his one-eyed cat called Dirk. Lira stole the last raspberry tart. I found the cause of that bad smell in your fridge. And Maxx asked stupid questions. Thanks to all the others who also did stuff. Tonight's theme: Bread. See you there? At the Cabaret Populaire 103 rue Julien Lacroix, be there before 9 if you want a seat!
Cheers,
David

Mark is Monsieur Fauxcul.


Marie shook off the dust...


Carlo & Lexi

Interrogation of the Moon

by Antonia Klimenko

Where've you been?
Where're you going?
What are you doing?
Who with?
How long?
What for?

He prunes back your favorite rosebush--
now a miniature bonsai`
This should have been your first clue

He plows through you like pulp fiction--
the next chapter is Poland
This should have been your first clue

He cross-examines your dreams--
some of them escape with only third-degree burns
This should have been your first clue

Later
he will probe holes in your stories
(the size of craters)
They all end badly

He will ask impossible questions
"And what have you done with the stars?"
for which you ponder improbable replies
"I had them for breakfast
when my back was turned"

He will remind you
he is there to remind you
your only safe alibi is death

The first clue is
there is no second clue

I tell him:
A quick strip-search of this poem
and you will find nothing
Even as I speak
I am eating my own words

One by one...
in reverse order--
the rose petals
the stars
the breadcrumbs in the forest.
One by one
they explode on my tongue
they dissolve into the darkness
that stumbles into night

Even as I speak
I am erasing every trace
every feature of my landscape
I am changing my name to Daisy
and I am moving to another town

It's useless to question the moon...
better you interrogate the sun;

Disguises 1.3.2010



“Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise” is written by Whitman (George) on the wall of the Shakespeare & Co.
The theme was not “These guys” as someone thought, was “Disguise” indeed.
Was not about Dylan, was not about James, was not about Charlie.
You're not Juliette
I'm not Roméo
You're not Ophélie
I'm not Hamlet

You're not Cécilia
I'm not Nicolas
You're not Marylin
I'm not JFK

You're not Bonnie
I'm not Clyde
You're not Héloise
I'm not Abélard

love does not lie
love is a truth
love is real
and my love is so…

By Stedy S. Kalam

Therefore I saw a zebra running without stripes, David wearing goggles, Rufo sewing the second-hand dress of the drunken bride, two twins pretending to be joined at the hip, a dragon in the parade with human legs. A belly dancer worried about my future. A newborn Rasputin disguised as night with breeze for his hair. Jean Philip disguised as Wesley Snipes. Chris as shakespearian drag queen.

Everytime I find a disguise, you don’t know I’m wearing you.
Miss Peacock

Mr.Dave’s last haiku:
If you might ask questions
please use
the present tense.

Why the belly dancer is worried about my future?
For this, and many other questions without answers, come back on monday 8.
Theme: “Question… answer.”