Writings from Monday's Inspired Word Performers

Big Pink Trees



It's too bad about your short season,
but we'll take what we can get--
a few unusually warm weeks in April
under pale blue cloudless sky.
The buffed-up tributaries off the canal
laugh to see you primping there,
in their gawkward mirrors,
readying yourselves like parade floats.
If only Dr. Seuss could see you now,
buoyant and bouffant,
perfumed up the wazoo,
and saying things like "Darling,
I'm aching to fruit for you."

--Shanna Compton

A Valentine's Day Poem



This is my I can never quite bring myself to write when I'm happy poem.

My I kind of think I'm not that good at being happy poem,

But my I'd really like to say that you make me happy poem.

And it could start with something sexy. About how I always want your hands about me or something sweet about how I've a new relationship with sleep and that I'm convinced there really is no night we just take turns opening and closing, getting warm and waking up inside.

Or it could start with you understanding my current disdain for Dylan and after a moment of serious thought, nodding in agreement that we'll get through it.

I could mention lower east side street corners, but then I’d want to attempt to describe what it feels like to recognize the back of your head in a crowded dark bar after work, so let’s just say that I walk in and I’m floored. With you nothing is work - only a working-toward.

And if there was a verbal equivalent to pinching this would be it. I am not imagining this. You really do exist.

And I would probably want to talk about my calm. My wintry solidarity with the entirety of this city. How it confuses me, my awe. My awareness that this all feels very different than I thought it would. That love has turned out to be something very very different than I spent so many years convincing myself it was. How naturally, there has been zero thinking. No, I know it’s not even spring, and I'm flowering. Opening and bending in directions that are something beyond obvious; they are relentless. With no questions, for there is only one way to do this. I wrap my rattlesnakes for legs around you in public emulating bed. We depart soon thereafter. Because going home is a gift: a reward for a day well lived. And time doesn’t really exist, because we suddenly realize that we have so much of it.
And then I would speak to the ease and the ease and the ease and the whiskeys and the kitchen floor dancing and the cutest morning commuter train rides where we definitely are the loudest and don't mean at all to make others jealous or i could talk all about the fear.

But I'd rather begin and end with the laughter.

Specific, with the moment after you said don't move.

(and I didn't)

But would you look at this view? Look at what I get to look at.

It was a sunny Monday green flannel from my belly down and there were three windows in Brooklyn, each showing a bridge, falling snow, respectively and the avenue.

And I get to look at you, he said.

And I turned my head: it was one of those moments when you recognize that it is the first time you're looking at something that you will look at many many many times again.

Baby, you are like the first time I rode the N train over the bridge to Brooklyn.

--Diana Arnold

Diana's YouTube video from her brilliantly touching performance in Monologues



Song: Prodigal Son
By Marron Cox



Prodigal Son, you been making a wreck of my home
I bring you back in
from those places you been
and you desecrate all that I own
A feckless endeavor
I promised I'd never
forsake you or leave you alone
everyone else is all gone
see who stands with you

Prodigal Son, you been making a curse of my name
but I'll bear the disgrace
of aligning my face
with your record of permanent shame
I knew what I'd be in for
long before me and your
crimes became one in the same
not only taking the blame
but paying the cost

And what has been lost
is just what I gave
to ask me for more...
you've got to be brave

What are you going to do when your summertime ends?
the sun never grew you
no money, no time
and it burned you and all of your friends
and that sound that you heard
the discouraging word
that the winter was coming again
stir up your fire, my friend
it's already here

And all you held dear
is frozen forever
drifting in circles
somewhere in the sky
And all that you loathed
is frozen together
with all that you loved
entwining on high

Well, good morning Sunshine I thirst and my body is sore
I woke up late praising the damned and I crawled to your door
I rolled out on top
but I let it all drop
now I'm lying here broke on the floor
Come on, remind me some more
the fool that I've been

And where to begin?
Oh where to begin...
If this was a righteousness contest, you never could win
But my anger is farther behind me than all of your sins

Home



I am muktuk and Taco Bell,
Fur-lined parkas and Polar Fleece.

I am gas-guzzling SUV’s and Bio-Fuel Hybrids,
Mini hippie communes and suburban sprawl.

I am a Maverick, Joe Six-Pack.
I am Sarah Palin.
I am 20 years of unknown blue governors.

I am true wilderness.
I am the middle of nowhere.

I am grizzly bears,
Dall sheep,
mountain lions,
Roaming the edge of the city,
In the Chugach Foothills,
In the place the Aleuts call The Great Land,
Alyeska.

--Josh Medsker