Holding poems up to the light, then beating them senseless.

[WickedEve]

Lauren

So, help me: hold my poems up to the light, then beat them senseless.

I just want you to know that you and your poems aren't being ignored. On this particular thread, a poet is chosen to be interviewed. After the interview, he/she picks the next poem/poet to discuss.

 

[Star At Sunrise]

My Bad

Sorry, I should learn to read!

 

[WickedEve]

Star, it's not a big deal. I just wanted to let Lauren know why no one had critiqued her poems on this thread.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

MY bad

Sorry, Eve...

This was one of my first posts and I was mislead my UP's inicial post:

I urge all of you to join and add a poem from any list here that you would like to discuss. Shall we hold them up to the light and then torture them? I say yes!

I later realized I had made a mistake, but the harm was already done! Oh, well, maybe someday...


Star--

Thank you anyway, I really appreciate your critique. Maybe we can continue this elsewhere? I'd really love that...

 

[smithpeter]

Golly U.P.
You have me blushing. I'm going to put those remarks in a scrapbook.
I need to buy a scrapbook. And a new charcoal pencil and another erasure.

 

[WickedEve]

Lauren, star

This thread started so long ago that I had forgotten about UP saying that. Anyway, it turned into a interview thread somewhere along the way.
Hey, star can discuss your poems. Why not. There's plenty of room here.
Do what you want, be happy. I'm feel like an ass for making you both say, "My bad" and using the frowny faces.

My bad, too. But I love being bad, so it doesn't count.

 

[Star At Sunrise]

Does My Bad translate well?

Thanks Lauren! I'd be happy to try and continue the critique somewhere! Maybe here, since Eve says it's okay.

But as a side note, and especially for all our friends outside the USA, does "my bad" translate well? I wonder how it must sound to others. I saw someone angrily post on another thread how much they hated that expression.

And as another side note, I posted a poem on lit and then afterwards got some constructive feedback. I kinda wish I was able to get those critiques and make some changes BEFORE I submitted it. It surely would have been a stronger poem. I know that "Poetry Feedback and Discussion" is here to discuss poems already posted on the site, but is there any room somewhere to paste a poem and then get some feedback and make some changes, kinda like public editing?

Just some random thoughts. It says 'experienced' but I still think like a virgin!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Sorry

OK, bumping the thread for not a good enough reason again...

Star At Sunrise said:
But as a side note, and especially for all our friends outside the USA, does "my bad" translate well? I wonder how it must sound to others. I saw someone angrily post on another thread how much they hated that expression.

I only (consciously) heard this expression for the first time about a week ago in some movie... It definitely didn't sound good, but the situation in which was used was just sooo funny, it kind of stuck in my mind and when I saw you using it, I couldn't resist... But that same day I saw the movie, I commented it with a brit and all I got was some weird what-the-hell-is-that looks...

 

[smithpeter]

"my bad"

ok, i give, what is it?
what movie??
i think "my bad" is negative.
am i correct?

 

[REDWAVE]

"My Bad"

OK, you guys inspired me. Here it is, a brand new poem:

MY BAD

I love my bad
I want to grow and cultivate my bad
I like to sit around at night and stroke my bad
My whole world revolves around my bad

No, I don't want your bad
Or his bad, or her bad
And most certainly not the officially approved bad
Only my bad will do

My and my bad are the best of buddies
We do everything together
I can't bear to be for a single instant without my bad
My bad is my Shepherd
It leadeth me to swirl in frothy waters
Its rod and its staff comfort me (especially its rod)
Surely semen and smegma will cover me till my end of days
I am my bad, and
My bad is me, and
I and my bad are one

--May 9, 2002

 

[WickedEve]

Red

You bad!

Update: smithpeter is coming. Well, his interview is. I'm sending him one question at a time. Today he gets #3. I'm trying to milk him dry... his mind. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about, Red.

My no good

Wicked Eve

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Re: "my bad"

ok, i give, what is it?
what movie??
i think "my bad" is negative.
am i correct?

OK!

Apparently this thread as gone astray once again...

I saw it a movie called "The Breaks" (1999), by Eric Meza, and it was about a white young Irish man living in an all black neighbourhood and getting into the afro-culture. It featured a flashback, from when he was 8 and as still in Northern Ireland, playing in the streets, stealing a policeman's helmet. He runs back home, and peeks through the window with the helmet on, screaming "Freeze!" to his father that was assembling a bomb in the kitchen and his mother, bitching over it... Father gets startled, drops the bomb, the whole house explodes, the kid is projected 30 meters against a wall, nonchalantly raises his arm and says "My bad!"



RW---
That has got to be one of the funniest poems I ever read! Almost makes me wish I had my own bad to play with...

 

[Honey Dipped]

All this discussion on "my bad" is cool, but what I really want to read is the interview. I've read smithpeter's poems, and I think they're mind blowing.
Smithpeter and Eve, I look forward to it.

Honey Dipped

 

[Star At Sunrise]

Err... ummm....

All this discussion on "my bad" is cool

Honey Dipped

No it's not cool! It's silly! Next, we'll be discussing "whaaaassssaaaaaa?" and "gag me with a spoon" and writing poems called "Hey Dude."

"Hey Dude"

I carve Ozzy's name in the desk
Hey Dude!
Whaaaaasssssssaaaaaaa?
Oh, yeah?
I watch Ozzy's TV show
Word up?
Totally awesome!
I see Ozzy at the Washington Press Club dinner
Gnarly!
C'mere a minute!
Hellacool!
All of a sudden I'm old and I'm sick of Ozzy
Oop.
My bad.


Now, where is the rest of this interview?! (Great poem, redwave!)

 

[Honey Dipped]

Okay, it's not cool! I want the interview! I want to see what Eve picks out of smithpeter's mind. So let's shut up about My Bad. Though, Red's Bad really was cool!

Honey Dipped

 

[JUDO]

Re: Re: "my bad"

OK!

Apparently this thread as gone astray once again...

I saw it a movie called "The Breaks" (1999), by Eric Meza, and it was about a white young Irish man living in an all black neighbourhood and getting into the afro-culture. It featured a flashback, from when he was 8 and as still in Northern Ireland, playing in the streets, stealing a policeman's helmet. He runs back home, and peeks through the window with the helmet on, screaming "Freeze!" to his father that was assembling a bomb in the kitchen and his mother, bitching over it... Father gets startled, drops the bomb, the whole house explodes, the kid is projected 30 meters against a wall, nonchalantly raises his arm and says "My bad!"

Well, no wonder no one has ever heard of it. Talk about obscure references...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Talk about obscure references???

Oh, cool!

Now JUDO is picking on me in a multi-thread platform... I think she's stalking me!

Hey, J...

...time to learn a new word.

Obscurism: The practice of peppering daily life with obscure references (forgotten films, dead TV stars, unpopular books, defunct countries, etc.) as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture.


Star! I stand and correct it! THAT's the funniest poem ever!


But Honey's right! Let's just stop with the stupid remarks and wait for the interview!!!

 

[WickedEve]

Judo, Red, star, Lauren!

I wish you imps would behave! Do I need to beat you all with Red's leopard print thongs?

As soon as I get the rest of smithpeter's answers, I'll post the interview.

 

[smithpeter]

Dear Mrs. Lauren.Hynde

Please,
Would you now define sarcasm

 

[WickedEve]

smithpeter interview

Question one: smithpeter, you have shared so many fabulous, complex poems that I found it nearly impossible to focus on only one. So I'd like to discuss certain groups of poems. The first one is Jazz inspired poetry.

Tell me about the inspiration behind your "Monday" poems?

Monday Night
Just a keyboard, a bass
Some congas and her

The perfect small crowd
Half devotees
The other their guests
For jaw dropping
Long set sessions
Stage lights untiringly still

After this night
We will have power
To plink empty cans
Over with rays from
Our finger tips

monday inspiration
sitting here
feeling so good
rising, stepping about the room
angel falling into my arms
so smart so funny, such a good kisser
soul searching is cliché
soul found is lost art
soul sister, don't wave goodbye yet
stay inside with the ones that
care to keep opening the tin
the skin that cools my touch
nothing is worth throwing away
don't make me afraid again

Those two poems have to do with a singer named Monday Michiru. I first heard her work almost a year ago. She describes herself as bi-racial, born and raised in the US and living in Japan. Her music jumps from moody ballads to electrifying salsa flavored tempos with incredible backup. It’s good played loud and her lyrics often so poetic I have considered stealing them. “Monday Night” is a fantasy of mine to see her in a small club with no frills. The audience is in awe and so inspired that they feel the experience was almost religious. I have always appreciated the work of singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Sara Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Nina Simone. In Monday’s voice I feel the influence of what has come before. They are the spring board and she an Olympic diver twisting in the air. Causing new currents.

“monday inspiration” came about while listening to a cut entitled “Full Bottle Of Soul”

I am listening to your silence
Yesterday was a sigh that escaped
Then tomorrow the dream that waits
Then today is a moment cherished
I’ve got a full bottle of soul over you

One of those poems must have mention of Charles Mingus. If not I will mention him now. He was a big mean jerk of a bass player who could make me cry. He shoved me aside on his way back to the stage with his Holy Cow, (scotch and milk) back in 1974 at the Rainbow Room in Detroit. A brush with greatness.

Question two: I know a few of your poems are inspired by your work. Radon Daughters is one. Also, there is a sassy little poem called Hair Chick.

Hair Chick
Hey, it's Valentine's Day!
I can look at that hair stylist's ass
Walking down the hall dumpster bound
If I want to, after all
It is a perfect heart shape

If she worked for my boss
She wouldn't be wearing
Those tight, high waisted,
Thigh clinging, erection bringing,
Cobalt hued jeans

I asked her to trim my mane
Three years ago, chickened out
-Quite a fuss over a hair cut-

She must be miserable with that
Bubbly baby and husband
Muscled, beaming, smoking in bed
Next to her exhausted smiling body,
His brand: "AfterAll"
His slogan: "After Anything, AfterAll"

Eve? Men think about sex every how many seconds? The often made claim is 8 seconds. It’s called an urban legend by some. The source I used for this research concludes that thinking about sex usually lasts longer than 8 seconds so that blows the whole concept.

I do think about sex. That may be because sex is nice to think about.

Hence “Hair Chick.” It took her longer than eight seconds to walk down the long hallway leading to the dumpsters with that armload of waste from the hair salon.

We recently had a staff meeting where the wearing of jeans in the work place was declared taboo. That has nothing to do with the women of the salon or the women of the tanning spa next in line. Down the long hall.

Hmm, Tanning Chick.

And who or what are the Radon Daughters?

Radon Daughters
I leave the brutal day behind
Submerge to the imagined lure of debauchery
A hotel bar home to hook and nook
Dual nylon liaison peppered with flesh and flex

Looking for someone to fit the frame of fancy
The image and gentle punch of pictorial
For real touch, actual kink for link
Like of lick to teasle lo squeasle

Old saying:
Do unto yourself
As you would have others
Do unto yourself

Faux sisters so in love with love
So in love with spring lovers
Pondering on the lovers coloring
Me outside the lines with spoons
And butter knives slapping sugar packets
Cross table, ashtray as lone player marooned

Introductions, Peter to the Radon Daughters in fishnet
Ready to kiss with vodka gin lips red and blue tint
So lovely in the neon of knight attraction
Attraction so dimly lit that cheekbones rose
Like models of popular distress
Needing rescue, white horse and long lance poised
Tucked at the ready

Soon popcorn greasy hand prints on all our thighs
Through worn jeans mine offer little but commitment
For dawn, for breakfast of the daughters of radon
Drinks and sloppy handling till the full moon
Slips, dragging its sad craters home to the buttside
Of earth,

Student nurses, graduated candy strippers,
Red and White twist studies in counter and clockwise rotation
Shared lubrication, dry winds from puckered lips
They share me and each others private moments
With strangers on the phone
A computer glows, a webcam is moved

About the room, their shared dorm is stainless with hooks
For all occasion, in the floor, walls littered, the toilet is solemn
In its solitary commitment to imprisonment
With cloth cloaked springs of pinching
Capabilities

They squeezed citrus between each others calves
And thighs, soaking the now tattered fishnet
Holes having grown
From finger and tool, organic, Petric and mechanical

Between the breast of faux sisters
I emerged and each converged
Spreading, saluting wet breath
Pleading before I leave to slide
With rapid motion between cheeks four
Slick with sweat from one
Spit from the other while parked
Rear to rear from above

What a wonderful dualism

They point on fours then threes each
Finding a head for their glorious cheeks
Craning to let me kiss as I so want
Each face now the most beautiful
Of any morning

New sun, the moon will remain
As full to our eyes next eve
Unless observed too closely
Usually an hour later
Arched higher
Pancake syrup and my own
Flavor remains between the memory

Radon Daughters are tiny invisible bits that escape from deadly radon gas.

They’ll kill ya! Especially if you smoke. I understand that the daughters can cling to smoke because they are very attractive. Does that make sense?

Sitting in a seminar on household air quality issues I was taking notes and suddenly thought that these babes could be pretty naughty.

But it is really about the fascination/problem of some men to be in bed with two women at the same time and the women are so experienced that the guy can put his life in their hands and experience the ecstasy that only exists in porn and in certain poems and stories at literotica

Or a certain bar home to hook and nook

BTW, if you smoke, the possibilities are endless!

Question three: You've written many erotic poems, smithpeter. Would you say that love, and romance, and the women you've encountered along the way have had the biggest influence on your poetry?

I think that love and romance have had a very significant influence on mine and most everyone’s poetry and lives in general. There is always the blue or gray sky with singing birds and trains wailing mournfully. All along those tracks everyone follows are remains and tokens of past misery, folly and joy. We can’t go back down the track to live them again. That’s why this train has a baggage car.

One of my favorite erotic poems of yours is Mona Spice. Was Mona Spice inspired by a real woman, or by a hot and spicy fantasy?

Mona Spice
She showed me her spice rack
As we cooked
Side by side, hip pressing at times
In her cramped Cajun kitchen
Below the braid of garlic
Beside the hanging basket of dusty
Herbs and dried peppers

We fought for/against the last shrimp
Red sauce stained her bare wooden table
She cursed as loudly as she laughed
I laughed as loud as my mouth allowed
Stinging but thirsting for more hot
So we smoked unfiltered in the dusty kitchen
Her menthol curled up her face like a curtain
She pierced it like a hazy sheet
She exhaled at my chest
She rung loose tobacco off her tongue with her lips

Mona's music is from the window
Beats and bass, chords with moans
A hundred neighbors tastes entered the room
Into ears and nostrils, morsels of twisting lives
So bitter but sweet twists that blend and sticking
Flavoring Mona on her bare back
Her lack of inhibition and ample marinade
Peppered hips pressed with her invitation

Her nipples sucked red
My nipples sucked red
Mona's legs slung over my shoulders
Holding her rear aloft in the middle of our lust
I spanked her particular with the back of two figures
Rapidly while a thumb strays south
Wanting to hear Mona swear again

The character, Mona, is fantasy. Some of the events are based on real fighting for the last shrimp. In part this was written in memory of life in a big city low income apartment building where there were nightly competitions for the loudest/coolest music. There were many cook books with pages stained with chili sauce and trial mustards. Mice would sometimes do us the favor of book marking favorite recipes.

I just read A Romantic In Hell. Are you in love with love? Do you think your poetry shows that?

A Romantic In Hell
At 17 I liked a girl in school
The first to wear hot pants
Olive skinned slender Sicilian Linda
My pal said I was
In love with love

My pal said I was not a eunuch
With fortification and demonstration
I strolled in dapper fashion
To the nearest dictionary

~

No woman ever flung a plate at me
To crash on a wall
The only thing near
Was my typewriter
Discovered mangled

Just one part functioned
A political sticker
Above the keyboard
On Olivetti steel
"STOP THE WAR"
I extracted the bell

The woman in this poem, Linda, really existed. I would drive around in my moms

Type 3 Volkswagen Squarback. Linda gave me a bumper sticker that said, “HONK IF YOU’RE HORNY”. I was so innocent that I actually hung it in the rear window and drove around. To this day I still don’t understand why so many weird, creepy men would pull up behind and beep their horns.

In love with love?

That’s something else I don’t really understand. If I was with my lover and she asked me if I was in love with her or if I was in love with love I would simply say, “I’m not sure I understand.”

The second part of this poem concerns the end of my first marriage. I felt the two poems worked for me as companion chapters. That bell is alive and well.

Question four: smithpeter, how long have you been writing poetry? Do you have any formal training? Classes?

Hey girl, I’ve been writing poetry since before you were born. I still remember that day in 4th grade when Mrs. Hosfeldt made me stand up and recite the poem below.

Edison was his name
He had a lot of fame
He invented the electric light
So we could see at night

That was also my first and only experience of reading a poem in front of an audience.

It was also the last timed I rhymed.

Do you often read poetry? Which poets or poems have made an impact on you?

I have not read much poetry in my life until lately. Of course Billy Collins in recent days and poems from a small book called “No Golden Gate for Us” by Francisco X. Alarcon.

This is not the place to tell favorites of recent association with Literotica but it’s an inspiring place to hang out. So many powerful minds!

My golden age of reading were those wonderful Golden Books of youth. After that period ended I was caught up in supermarket trash paperbacks about UFO sightings and abduction. Maybe a logical transition. Something scared me about the authors of these humorless and intellectually void accounts that must only exist to milk income from the gullible.

So, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula K. Lequin, Jack Kerouac and H. P. Lovecraft were some that I sucked in to fill the vacuum.

For early inspiration I must admit that J.R.R. Tolkien made a major dent in popular literature but C. S. Lewis most dented my personal reading as a kid.

Oh Eve, I am slightly psychic and figured this would answer your next question:
Lau-tzu and Samuel Clemens stone skipping on the Mississippi because it is closer to my house than the Yangtze.

Question five: I know that you occasionally combine your poetry with your drawings.
Tell me about your love for art? Is it as strong as your desire to write?

I know as much about art as I do about writing. That should be self evident.

The simple fact is that it feels good to create when the result is pleasurable to the creator. If someone else gets a kick out of it then that’s swell. Eve, you know about swelling.

Question six: During the interview smithpeter told me that he has never counted the seconds it would take a naked woman to slide down him if she was stuck to him with molasses. That statement intrigued me enough to ask him what else he has never done.

Eve. You know I am naïve. You thought you could catch me with one of your infernal conundrums. Just so you know, I have perfect recollection of many times in my life that have not happened. For instance, there was the time that Lover and I stayed at our local NoTell Motel. We were having a cocktail in the lounge next to a booth where a couple were speaking French mouth and finger to wrist and forearm. We decided they were so in love and Lover insisted they were speaking Portuguese, “Que você começou a mãe?” she purred. Ooh Lala.

Handsome and Titillated left early to retire in the room next to ours. Headboard to headboard.

Stepping onto the veranda below our rooms I stood waiting for Lover to adjust the drapes in our room from opaque to translucent. My neck got a little sore so I moved further back on the green space so the show of her self dance could be viewed better. Further back I ventured to the center of roadway and was almost killed by an ambulance.

Lover’s show was so so similar to the figure in the neighboring window. I took little notice as the ambulance must have been called because of her contortions.

Later, Lover and I listened to the love pouring through the walls. Titillated was upstaging the television infomercial about steamed food and cutting glass with fishing magic tools in the garage, basement, hallway. Anywhere you need a light just tap it. Clap it. Shout its name.

The morning sky sunk behind billboards. The fascination of last night will never know much more than this meager mention of proof that sometimes, things just never happen.

Question seven: Can you give me some insight into your unusual way of perceiving your world?

That is the toughest question.

everything is there
before and behind
invisible as air
uncork the mind
Burma Shave

Thank you so much for the interview. I feel like I've barely scraped the surface that is smithpeter. I hope everyone enjoys this taste of you.

This was a pleasure indeed. Thank you, Eve, for scraping the surfaces you did. They will never be the same!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

WOW

It was a long wait, but it was one well worth waiting for...

WickedEve, I want to be just like you! Your questions were the best ever, you really did your home work

And smithpeter, if you were one of my favorites before, now that I got to know you a little bit better, I won't be able to stop until I read all of your 197(!!!) submittions. Just wish you can give us further updates on your answer to question six

 

[smithpeter]

Lauren.Hynde

I have a question for you.
What does, "Que você começou a mãe?" actually mean?
I hope it has something to do with Mothers Day.
Damn that babelfish.

 

[Honey Dipped]

Bravo!

That was an excellent interview. Smithpeter is fascinating, and Eve gave him some fantastic questions so he could show us just how complex and talented he really is. I have one question. Why aren't smithpeter's poems all over the top list? He is without question one of the best poets at lit. (and there are few other not getting nearly enough recognition for their awesome words!)
Well, I better stop kissing ass, my lips are getting numb.

Honey Dipped

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Re: Lauren.Hynde

I have a question for you.
What does, "Que você começou a mãe?" actually mean?
I hope it has something to do with Mothers Day.
Damn that babelfish.

Well, actually, either your missing some word or someone was pulling your leg, because that makes little to no sense... Pulled out of the context, it could mean "That (or what) you started (or began) mother"... nope, no sense, sorry...

 

[REDWAVE]

Fascinating

Fascinating, smithpeter. Your mind truly resembles a Klein bottle.