Magpie 105: Collision

image: epic mahoney

The future and history crash

in a flat lined hub of fiber optic nowhere.

The long gone party-lines,

core black telephones decried

 iconic -pink princes phones

that came to link transient families,

translucent friends, truncated business

associates and cordial customers

in a national dialogue.

Colorful language went silent—

we pause to reflect

we pause to listen to what has become

a chorus of tapping finger tips

chipping finger nails

but void of human voice

of human color.

Our mind is left to add warmth

and pictures to text

and try to find the humanity

in the middle of everywhere.

Michael A. Wells

Magpie 105

A few gems from Tom Leonard ‘100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose’

among my favorite:

·       poetry is the subliminal history of linguistic shape

·       poetry has four wheels, two wings and a pair of false teeth

·       whoever heard of war & peace having the line as a unit of semantic yield

·       the square root of poetry is an ever-evolving quark

·       poetry is all the juicy bits in the juiciest order

·       you can talk about prose without mentioning school

The Poetry Brain

"Poetry is a different area if the brain [from prose] - much closer to music and mathematics." Margaret Atwood, BBC Radio 3, June 1995

Crossroads Coffeehouse Reading Last Night

Great readings last night at the Crossroads Coffeehouse- 310 Southwest Blvd, Kansas City, Mo 64108.  First time I've read in a while - but the crowd was great and seemed appreciative to all the readers.  Several readers on hand that I know but  some new ones too. 

A thanks to the owners of the Crossroads Coffeehouse for
sponsoring the event. They plan to do it every third Friday.



Pat Burge on the left reading.

 Shawn Pavey lower left reading

Magpie 104: To Be

She finds it exasperating

she has the duty

to be—

the plastic clown

the elastic  cheerleader

the Wal-Mart greeter

picking up the slack

the life coach

the mom

the wife

spiritual guru

on the scrapheap of life

Michael A. Wells

Magpie Tales 104

Finally Friday

It's finally Friday. Yeah!

A bit of an oddity to report - I went nearly two weeks without a Diet Coke but alas I had one last night. That's a really long time for me to abstain. It is a legitimate food group in my book.

Lot of ups and downs this week, and there is nothing metaphorical about that comment. Some grueling work days and some good stuff too. There was Valenine's Day.  That evening - well, after midnight our time we got a call from our youngest daughter Meghan. To set the stage you need to realize that clear back to her high school days Meghan would always stop if she reallized it was 11:11  be it AM or PM and say, "11:11 Make a Wish."   So a 11:11PM (her time) she is awaken by Brandon who tells her it's 11:11 and to make a wish.  (I picture her as perhaps a we bit foggy as she is waking up...  anyway, I'm sure her eyes popped wide open as he presented her with an engagement ring. How freek'n romantic is that! The guy has class.

I'm reading tonight at an open mic. I have no read in a while. I used to read publicly fairly frequently but not so much these days. Having been under the weather off and on these past three months - at times with incessent coughing, I'm a little nervous about tonight.  I've been beter these past few days but even yesterday as I was ingagued in a lenthly meeting with a cliant my throat became a little horse and I was fighting back coughing sperts.

A mail bag note for the week:  On Wednesday I received a cool Valentine from Kelli Agodon...  The poet Pablo Neruda on the front... it was a cool picture and of course what poet would better represent the best of Valentine's day. Thank you Kell!

That's it for this morning... wish me good luck tonight!

Friday Night Open Mic Locally

Feb 17h -  Reading at

CROSSROADS COFFEE HOUSE 

OPEN MIC  7PM
                  310 Southwest Blvd. K.C., MO 64108