Select performances from Open Mic Night will be played tonight on WKNC’s weekly public affairs show, Eye On The Triangle. Tune in to WKNC 88.1 at 7pm to hear a sample of last Sunday’s Open Mic Night performances. The selection includes numerous poetry readings, a hammer dulcimer performance, a cross-genre band’s set, and an erotic poetry reading.
Tune in to WKNC 88.1 or listen live at wknc.org.
There wasn’t much to the town of Whitsun. Apart from a few well-traveled country roads, an old house here and there, and a battered metal sign outside of the one non-residential building in the town, a person could pass on through and not realize they’d hit upon some point of civilization. Not much ever happened in the town of Whitsun, either.
On one particularly muggy day in the middle of July, Mrs. Wilkins was making the half-mile walk from her house to the ramshackle general store/drugstore/post office in the middle of town. The only reason to make this walk, of course, was to tell everyone within earshot about her shocking new neighbor.
Nothing to do, not at all like
my grandmother when she was twenty
It is the burden of my class and generation.
She dug for filberts in the dust to make a buck.
My Grandmother when she was twenty
living in a sod house with dirty elbows,
She dug for filberts in the dust to make a buck;
Praying for rain; humbled and gracious.
Living in a sod house with dirty elbows?
Let me fight to stake my claim there!
Praying for rain, humbled and gracious:
Never doubting for a moment that you are alive.
Let me fight to stake my claim there!
Instead I’m rowing nowhere in an air conditioned gym.
Sometimes you almost forget that you are alive.
From a different place it must be easy to envy.
I’m rowing nowhere, burning calories into thin air.
It is my biggest worry, a shameful trifle.
From a different place it is easy to envy
the purposefulness of being penniless.
It is my biggest worry, a shameful trifle:
Nothing to do.
Not at all like
the purposefulness of being penniless.
It is the burden of my class and generation.
weaving in and out through my thoughts
sounds and sights I claim only in dreams
honesty found in the most abrubt of ways
better than lies, I’ve heard
my hope consumes me
hopes of forgetting, hopes of accepting
dreams bestowed in my very soul have built up
you’ll never see
in my eyes there are traces
traces of lust, traces of lies
untold, but not untrue
passions intertwine with bitterness
there is complexity to be had between us all
and still, there are hopes
hopes of knowing, hopes of dreaming
thoughts so private I can’t accept them
I’ll never let go
bottled emotions and repressed honesty
the two things we share
hidden truths nobody will ever see
and the hope that someday,
someone else will notice
notice the repression, the obsession
the very hope we have to be
be accepted, never rejected
and without this hope, what do we become?
cold and guarded
forgotten and unwanted
the things we protect against most diligently
so still, we hope
hopes of success, hopes of love
love so secret, we don’t even feel it anymore
we’ll never know
Corners of pages
Flutter with whispers of wind.
Hands grip the book tighter
As I sink into my coat.
I stare at black ink.
The story replaced with thoughts of us.
Read until I reach the end,
But all I read is you.
Autumn trees hug the pond.
Wind pulls leaf a leaf from its branch.
Dancing in the air,
The pond cuts in.
The orange leaf encircled.
Alone, floating in a ring of serenity.
A duck circles around the leaf,
Pecking at the water.
The water slowly breathes in
And the leaf begins to fade.
The white duck flies away
To join the others.
The bench suddenly so big.
I sit on the end
The other half never filled.
I close my book,
Tuck it away in my bag,
And wait for winter.