Report from 9th April

Photos by Marie de Lutz

Video & words by David Barnes

Hansel and the Candy Crook, by Troy:

Tonight
Troy showed up. He'd threatened to respond to Jason's stripping (and wasn't there a poem involved?) 3 weeks ago. He's still threatening, as Jason didn't show up.
We had disobedience, A.A.Milne style, with cellular sensations all the way down to the double helix.
Then a right hook from a headcase called Sharon, in Prague.
That solidified the experince for David Fishel; he looked for a swarm of words.
There are 3 kinds of mindless violence.
"The easter eggs are hidden in the nettle patch and the timer is running," said Emily, as she ran off to work in marketing. Someone was secreting away hours in cigarette boxes, unlocking spaces in him he'd forgotten he had.
Alberto's twin brothers pretended to be Siamese. It was spring time in Paris and Troy had a poem about Christmas.Georgina towered in Babel.
Edward read Stuart Leonard's Taking Brooklyn Bridge - see here at Occupy The Press
And David F, here on loan to us from his Ginsberg-Gainsbourg night in New York, refused to say the "ch" word, out of respect.


Say cheese!

How many years bad luck is this?

What's so funny?

David Fishel: more Ginsberg or Gainsbourg?

Next SpokenWord: tomorrow, Monday, featuring Rhys Trimble and his stick as star guest.

bits of Monday 26th

Report by David.

Eyelids like wet towels
Wax melting on the skull vault;
a purring razor.

Shane reading from Word Legs: 30 Irish poets under 30
Downloadable ebook for next to nothing here:
http://wordlegs.com/30under30/

Always carry the disease with you - may you never get well!
Songs about drowning
A letter from Henry James: Don't melt too much; Content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own problems.

Marie Baby & Light Leaks previewed their concert Thursday 5th April

Mandoline: the great clock of your life is slowing down, 

and the small clocks are running wild..

Ian collapsed raindrops.

Merve from SpokenWord Istanbul:

THE LEAST COOL KIND OF SLEEPLESS NIGHT

by Pablo Sotinel

The sound your sheets make

as you shift in your sleep

remind me of waves against

the body of a ship.

You are keeping me awake, and I hate you for that

And yes, I am blaming you

Not the lack of alcohol or of orgasm

(which, are also kind of your fault anyway)

But your heat, your barely audible snoring and moaning.

I hope to God you're having that nightmare about Chewbacca that you told me about.

Above me, a mosquito flies in and out of earshot

The fucker's already bitten me twice, on my left big toe, and my right eyelid. I had no idea there was place in insects' brain for cruelty.

I wonder what would happen if I tried to kick you out of my bed at this very moment.

Would you be terrified by my insults, and run down, wearing only one shoe and clutching to your crotch the few clothes you managed to grab on your way out, crouching, lost and ashamed?

Would you tell me to just go back to sleep, knowing I couldn't push you off with all of my strength?

Would you even wake up?

I'm stung for a third time, right inside my belly button. Is there such a thing as mosquitoes with eating disorders? Maybe it's throwing up all my blood somewhere in my bedroom. I hope it's on your face, and it's this kind of thought that makes me realize: I need. To go. To sleep.

When I wake up, you're already gone to work, as we had talked about. Inside my pillowcase, the perfect shape of your face is carved, ephemerally preserved.

Lucile's zine launch:
http://www.facebook.com/events/203832683056145/

***

Béa reads a letter from Henry James

SPOKENWORD 13-6-2011 The goodbyes begin... the ghosts arrive

by David.
Photos by Adele.

Zach & Esmerelda

Nearly the end of the season. Though SpokenWord will continue through the summer, so many new friends who will be gone soon.
Sam brought roses, rewriting the script, raving & ranting, red petalled. Maxime was off to Lebanon, leaving a trail of coffee cups and laughs. Marie went to the wire with a Prince cover. Dheeraj still remembers how you gave him 3 toffees on your birthday when it was just one for everyone else: "Hate is an ugly business for a 9 year old."


Sam

Adele's ghost, without a smile, was no ghost at all. But Trelys says "Though they may be deaf to the key you're singing in, sing to them anyway." Julien tried to buy 30 squid of kunk, in Camden, from a guy's underwear.



Emmanuelle & Suzanne

Emmanuelle & Suzanne told what can happen when you study too much political sociology. "Encore un ejaculateur precoce!" Georgina fell asleep when she should pray. James got lost in a forest, walking with you under a bruised sky. Alberto too was in sombre mood - thinking of his body darkening and growing cold, of how his wriggling dick - that has till now been his ship's rudder - will be flacid in death. Patrick left the stage - and the bar - with the audience still singing his song. A reversal of the usual situation. Troy's God burped back the light and disappeared. Hal woke up to the city lights in his room, while Diana V offered a beer to a ghost - though not Adele's ghost.
Taylor and Danielle brought us a Vagina Monologue. John clouded up his life. But Antoine wrote facing terror, like the line in Howl about cowering in underwear in unshaven rooms to listen to the terror through the wall... Seiphi's poem about the capital of Bangladesh had maps of the city etched on the barefeet of children. Chris's writing ghosts (What is it with all these ghosts this week?) came to torment him, or at least mildly annoy him & advocate buying shares in Mongolian goats. I'm not sure I can read my handwriting here but I think that's what they did.

Patrick, Chris & Hal

Finally Tyler doesn't love us, but he likes us. He was lost in a cubicle maze, calling us on a bad connection. And Ashley organised a multi-author blind poem (Exiquisite Corpse?) to mark the week many of us are leaving FOREVER. Ok, not forever, hopefully you'll still come back and visit. And we'll always have facebook. "If I could climb you," she read, "I'd tie your tired lashes together so we had a place to be."

That's all folks!

Halitosis of the Soul

Thanks to Laure for recording my poem here

Clip - Misha

Clip - Isabel reading John Seawright's Barns of the Suicides. 18th Jan 2010

This dead Southern poet wrote poems to Isabel's mum!

Clip - Rufo's Shelf, Section 15

Julie's words, Betty on the box

Recorded 21st October 09

Clip - Alberto opening SpokenWord.

I don't know what he's talking about either. ;-)

Clip - Maxime plunging into the abyss

Clip - Pauline's In the back of my mind

Clip - Troy's bicycle poem

Clip - me, David Barnes! reading poems by Will Staple and a mysterious other poet

Will Staple's poems Fate and Much More Trouble from his book The One That Got Away

Clip - The Hand 18.5.09

More here:

http://www.myspace.com/thehandand

Clip - Rufo - Invisible Hand Job

from Touch 20.4.09

Clip - Colin Mahar's blue song, 06.04.09

Clip - Jaco's 'Poème du dimanche', écrit le jour de l'élection de Sarkozy

Clip of David Fishel performing his ode to cheese