Half Smile, Squared

 

In the complex simplicity of a half smile

When someone assumes someone’s discussion

 

You plot the course of a narrative

The four winds of the ocean’l find the enigwa

 

That sings mystery and allure

           

To know you take me mulch further, first draw midnite out

 

Promises mutually assured seduction

In and out of the adore that May’ll bumbasheer in obsession

 

Hints at boredom and ennui

           

Buttoned onto a how about it, kind of wheel-wzz got out of what mind to observe it!

 

Foreshadows betrayal

 

It’s rush at, Like a woman the jewel is dying with

 

All in the moment our eyes lock

           

It’s top-dollar-holler high in the hands jewel and factuulum at clutch

 

In a loaded look between us

And say’n, hollow?

 

Without a single word

Cold you take me jewelries handing how its abdomen underlane our rovering hell to who out-bungee I again landing your bicupcyucle!

 

We know

 

            Too adhere at what upper-woods the take further, listen to when, at wait and said comes as me closer to the giving-eye thrust to lot the skins

 

 

David Trudel   and Dave Taylor   © 2013

 

 

Nothing

This is a poem about nothing

Nothing at all

Nothing et al

 

Nothing to go on the page, minute after minute

Hour after hour, nothing

That flatlined, catatonic, burnt-out kind of nothing

Where your nerves have been scoured and your emotions

Have been bled out of your arms

But this isn’t the 18^th century

So there’s no surgeon with scalpel and pan

There’s nothing

Nothing at all

 

Nothing

Is the most common response by teenagers when asked what happened

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Sullen nothings, ironic nothings, repressed and resentful nothings

Angry nothings

Nothings that hold a war inside that armored word

And that word is anything but empty

Because if nothing is supposed to be a big vacuum

I think it’s time to change the bag

Because nothing can be pretty full

Like all those nights of forgotten promise

When nothing is the laconic response to what is there to do

Nothing

Nothing at all

So many unrealized possibilities in so many lives

Filling all those nothings

With something

 

Sometimes something can be a sweet nothing

Think about that

Empty calories is kind of the same thing, usually

But some sweet nothings use charm and wit

To create a thing that certainly isn’t

Nothing

Because sweet nothings lead to something else

 

Nothing doing

You can’t really do nothing

Because you still at least have to be

If you are you

You’re you, which is something not nothing

Not nothing at all

 

Nothing could be further from the truth

Since the truth is that nothing is ever nothing

Nothing is all

Nothing is all

Nothing is all

Not nothing at all

Not nothing

 

 

David Trudel  © 2013

 

 

Poet

He’s really more of a choreographer

More Alvin Ailey than Nureyev in the way he wordplays

Creating ballets of verse that dance and fascinate

Sweet gibberish made magical by its intricate arrangement

He layers words upon words

Throws them across the room

To himself

Using every corner to conjure up more tricks

Riffing off sounds into a labyrinth of meaning and not meaning

Which charms this roomful of conspirators

Because he goes over the edge that they so very rarely touch

Lives a spirit life that isn’t anchored in security

Insecurity isn’t what drives him

In circuitry is where he creates

Security isn’t what he represents

The vicarious thrill of brilliant insanity compels attention

For how often do we witness invention

Or listen to the wellspring of creation

We sit at the same table and share observations

Insightful or oblique as they might be

As safe and solid singers of truth harmonize within the lines

Weighed down by gravity

We, the unruly, understand release

And how to be unhinged enough to transcend normalcy

 

 

David Trudel  ©  2013

 

 

Work In Progress

Some nights are more poetic than others

Like tonight

Because I hadn’t checked with my daughter

To see if she was going to see Buddy Wakefield

As I was

But when I parked a block away and found the end of the line of ticket holders

There she was with a few friends

So I fell in

Like the line I wish I’d written

Watching poets and poet lovers

Crowd the sidewalk like it was a Hollywood opening

When, on cue, up comes a disheveled character

Bleary eyed wanderer

Who picked us to stop beside to cease perambulating

Who started orating a tale of psilocybin topsy

Wearing a crown of pussy willows, feathers and broccoli

There used to be a dandelion

He said when questioned

But I ate it

Do you know how many dandelions you should eat each year

A whole fucking lot he said

He told us he was from New York and babbled on

Then said he’d been in prison just recently released

Seemed plausible to me

Then he claimed to be from Trinidad

Which seemed less so but you never know

Until he said he’d just returned from Egypt

And that was the next place we should go

Taking a swig from a bottle of Mighty Milk

Which wasn’t at all milky but everclear

Shining moonbright against the darkening shadows

So when his shadow became too dark to bear

I sent him on another orbit

Which made our wait a little brighter

Until the doors opened on a night of poetry

Spoken word revelry

With the buzz of creation echoing down through starlight

From eternity to now

The now where I have witnessed the slow motion replay

Of the big bang in reverse

Watched creation unwinding through a mind’s eye

Voiced into our consciousness like stone tablets tumbling down a mountain

Creating shards of truth that shatter reality

One small piece at a time

One small peace

Finding small pieces of peace

Amidst cacophonies of language waterfalling

This is just a little of the mist that settled at the bottom

And though I’d like to represent the torrent

I can’t

Except to say

Oh my God

It was Buddy Fucking Wakefield

On fire with words

Living in the moment and dancing the only dance worth putting on shoes for

And it was never just a dance

But a sure footed display of verbosity

Words pulled into fleshly existence

Words that kissed and slapped us on the ass

Words that went in one ear and out to wonder

Words spoken with a lightness that makes gravity a fiction

Some nights are more than just poetic

Some nights stand vertical time on its head

Like tonight where the truth became words

Words inside

Words outside

Colliding and sliding

Into poetry

 

 

David Trudel    ©  2013

 

 

Feature This

Someday I’ll be the featured poet

Not relegated to cattle calls but given top billing

Even though half the audience will bleed away at the break

Narcissistic preeners who have no interest in anyone who might shatter their self image

So good riddance

The crowd that stays knows quality when they hear it

See it

They’ll table thump and shout out the next line that they’ve learnt from Youtube

Where I’ve gone gangnam viral

I’ll let my words spill over the room like the best orgasm I’ve ever had

There’ll be a roomful of nodding heads

Mouths slackjawed open swallowing every word

While I let the stains soak into sheets of pure white paper

I’ll joke about the last award I never got

Or some festival in an exotic location like Drumheller

Where there was a festschrift to dinosaurs to die for

So I wrote an ode to albertasaurus that reanimated the fossilized remains

Thereby causing the death of a dozen poets and fans

At the point of a sharp toothed grin of a hungry Barney

Who was only penned in by a hundred rhyming couplets

Which refossilized the brute

Then I’d crack open another book and the words will self combust

Singing my lips as they burn ears

Carpet bombing the room with thoughts that might be the child

The child that Rumi would have had with Isadora Duncan

Living  model homed on Tralfamadore

In another parallel universe

The next one over from the one where I’m the featured poet

 

 

David Trudel  © 2013

 

 

Bohemia

In the real Bohemia

Not the Bohemia of drunken poets

White tailed eagles nest

Above the forests and wetlands

In my Bohemia

We play with words and jests

And yes, there’s some tail to be had

Not so much nesting

In the Bohemia of drunken poets

We make early morning returns to forlorn homes

Those not so wet lands

In the real Bohemia

Reed jungles in artful ponds guard predatory worlds

Recovering from excess civilization

In my Bohemia

We indulge our whims

Give in to desires

Naturally

Call me Bohemian

Naturally

 

 

David Trudel     ©  2013

 

 

Naked

My naked thoughts wear these words loosely

These words aren’t haute couture

They’re jeans and a tee shirt

Covering my imperfections and strengths

My thoughts aren’t tourists

But they travel

Boxed by language

I send them away

Stripping down to nothing

Immodest, shameless and proud

Until I remember Eden and try to cover up

Stitching dissimulations into rags

Weaving barriers against your clarity of sight

I clothe my truth to ease my anxious fears

Obscuring the purity of perfection

With imprecision and misdirection

As language turns clean thoughts to soiled words

 

 

David Trudel    ©  2013

 

 

Festival

If I was going to describe Victoria’s spoken word festival

I’d start with Missie’s eyes

Happy proud

Pixie bright eyes that see through today

Into a tomorrow of a possibility

Then I’d move on to talk about words made flesh

Words transcendent into moves and movement

I’d mention Mike McGee and his elemental intensity

I’d talk about the merging of ideas

Synchronicity

Recombinant expeditions into the territory called creation

I’d talk about self-sacrifice

Of giving up to get it in

I’d talk about dancing poets

Who flow their limbs into rhythms

Listening to sounds through heart-filtered beats

Abandoning safety and expected

For impulses and muses

Who move tongues and feet

Into the beat

If I was going to describe the festival

I’d speak rapture of the deep

Following signs into the unknown that warn of danger

Because poets like to go there

I’d unmask motivations and hidden delights

I’d describe impermanently perfect performances

Punctuated by fingersnaps and the approbation of crowds

If I was going to describe the festival

I’d end with applause

 

 

David Trudel       © 2013

 

 

Paper Boats

Float words like paper boats

Made from yesterday’s newspaper

Stories that carried marvelwords carried away

Gutterbound into a new memory

 

 

David Trudel  ©  2013

 

 

Welcome Poems

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival takes place this week and I’m doing some volunteer driving, picking up out-of-town poets at the airport and the ferry and driving them to where they need to go.  I mentioned this to a friend of mine and they asked if I would be writing them welcome poems.  I hadn’t thought of it before but decided to do just that.  I made signs for each one, using paper plates, with the poet’s name on one side and one of the poems on the other.  Most of the festival takes place at the Intrepid Theatre here in Victoria. I was little unsure about how they’d be received but the response has been very good, from everyone involved in the festival.

 

Word Dancer

Word dancer take flight

Grand jete across the stage

Or tango close to explicit

We will follow your lead

Intrepidly

 

Speak

The power of words isn’t fully realized

Until you breathe life into them

Static page bound words are nailed in place

Speak them to set them free

 

Between

Between fear and fearlessness

Are universes of untold stories

In the margins between dark and light

Consciousness carves a trail

 

Paper Boats

Float words like paper boats

Made from yesterday’s newspaper

Stories that carried marvelwords carried away

Gutterbound into a new memory

 

David Trudel  ©  2013