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Shots in the Night: The Poetry Show!

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http://www.kkfi.org/program-episodes/shots-night-poetry-show

This is an unusual Shots in the Night show. Tonight’s show is about our city, its people, its feelings, and its life, described through poetry by local artists.  If you think you don’t like poetry, you are in for a pleasant surprise, because many of these poems are more like storytelling.

Featuring: Gregory Cenac, Linda Kay Davis, Patrick Dobson, Sharon Eiker, Kathy Hughes, Silvia Kofler, Will Leatham, Michelle Pond, Jeanette Powers, Jason Preu, Larry Welling, and Brandon Whitehead.

Poems read by Rosena Baumli and Jason Preu.

Shots in the Night: The Poetry Show!

Tonight, Madcap Poetry at Uptown Arts Bar in KC, MO

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https://www.facebook.com/events/1019515224872771/

Join Fountainverse: KC Small Press Poetry Fest organizers Jason Preu, Samantha Slupski, and Brandon Whitehead as they welcome Nathanael William Stolte of Buffalo, NY and Cringe-Worthy Poets Collective Press. Special guests, Chigger Matthews aka Matthew Haines and the one and only #bathtubpoet, New Jersey’s own Damian Rucci!

The return of BDUB 4000, the original robot poet will be the star of the show! Don’t miss this funny and piquant event, which brings some lightheartedness and humor to poetry.

No cover, but LOTS of amazing books will be available! Bring cash for poetry to stir the soul and tickle the heart!

Tonight, Madcap Poetry at Uptown Arts Bar in KC, MO

To That Which We Are Entrusted

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And who was Joshua anyway but a common man come to tell the common man how to get by in a world like this?

This here world built on rich men’s dreams in rich men’s eyes for rich men’s bodies.

You see, a rich man ain’t got to love nothing. Only thing he’s got to do is open his purse and say the word.

Hell, sometimes it’s better if he don’t say any words a’tall, just hush it up all quiet-like so there ain’t no trail, ain’t no truth to the matter.

But a poor man’s got to love everything to get by in a world like this, a world he’s set to inherit.

Got to love that what itint fair.
Got to love that what puts him down.
Got to love that what hates him just for watching the same goddamn blue sky.
Got to love that what hates.

Got to love
that what hates.

Got to love murder by the ruling class, stuck through with a handful of rusty nails, up on some old dirty wood, bleeding out over all creation just so the other poor folk’ll keep in mind: all your days you got to love that what hates you ‘til this here world sets you free at last, free at last.

To That Which We Are Entrusted

The Claims of the Giants

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In mythology, the giants were birthed from the blood of Uranus’s castrated prick wherever it splattered across the womb of Gaia.

The earth sometimes takes issue with the heavens – and can react in most uncontrollable ways.

Still, the Olympians killed the overgrown with the help of the mortal, Heracles.

In economics, continuous growth is a virtue, coupled right alongside a few humans’ endless creativity.

Earthly wealth often forgets the heavenly birthright of the tired and the poor.

Still, money talks and human capital jaywalks with the help of a demographic fighting its long-term survival.

In biology, we call continuous growth a cancer.

A body sometimes rebels against itself to save itself with no awareness that it’s ending itself.

Still, the old gods watch the new giants’ invisible hands; the old gods quietly wait for a new Heracles to nock an ancient, accurate bow.

The Claims of the Giants

Never Interrupt Us When We’re Talking to Ourselves

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Time travel is not what we think it is.
There are no wrinkles, no loops,
no grandfather paradoxes waiting
with cold hands to snuff us out
when we inevitably drink the wrong
A&W Root Beer the night of July 4th, 1992,
causing us to flirt with John instead of Bill,
and, well, we know from there…
or when we stumble upon our past selves
taking a poo with Reader’s Digest at hand
while visiting Grandma’s trailer
the weekend of April 11th, 1987,
so young and constipated we were,
we reach out to our surprised face,
our old face hovers in the door frame,
watching our wrinkled hand reach out
knowing full well we’re violating
The Timecop Principle and how selfish
are we to come back in time to prevent a history
because we’re in an unsatisfactory now
and unwilling to entertain other futures
forgetting that there are no anti-photons,
that light travels forever
and that Jean Claude Van Damme
is neither physicist
nor guidance counselor.

Never Interrupt Us When We’re Talking to Ourselves

Believing, Doing, and Sharing in What Was True

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We can walk around the block
in the time it takes us to listen
to Wang Chung’s ‘Dance Hall Days’,

so I wanted to write a poem
tying the song’s lyrics
to observations made along the way.

For instance, I’d quote,
“And take your baby by the ears”
as we stroll by the police station

while employing certain literary tools
to highlight comparisons between the cops
and now-faded pop stars from the 1980s.

And I’d somehow tie together,
“And you need her and she needs you,”
to urban gentrification

and how pushing away the poor has somehow
escaped potential developers of downtown Kansas City, Kansas
despite wholly reshaping Kansas City, Missouri into something…else.

And then I’d end the poem repeating,
“Dance hall days, love, dance hall days
dance hall days, love, dance hall days.”

But without a smoking sax solo,
the entire affair seemed hopelessly missing
that something wholly necessary for lasting greatness.

Believing, Doing, and Sharing in What Was True