I'd Know

I’d know

If I felt the mist-ery-ness dry velvet and whispered vvlsdddddmssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’d know

it was time to go

if they showed up on time

what a surprise when

the world’s polarity has shifted

north is south

surprisingly even if north

switched places with the south

east would still be east

west would still be west

unless you stood on your head

and or

of course it could be

part of the job

greeting and

heralding kings

they’re kind of confused

about time if it’s not part of the job.

So who

are they?

and why do we keep

them away from unicorns

reindeer, white rabbits, and department stores?

Just joking – nobody, and I say nobody, no one,

no-how keeps them away

from a person, place, or thing --

but we can see them in beautiful

gardens of roses, laughing at rabbits

with pocket watches. they have great figures

I’d know them – then -- I would --

would you? about a western sky from here.

under luna the big rocky moon ripping tidal pools

The Plebian Rag

I’ve just about completed the transition from Cancer Patient to Hospice client. The consensus is that a cure is not in the cards for me. So rather than waste time and energy on elaborate chemotherapy which prolongs the process of dyeing, the medical team and I have simply decided to make the slide gracefully, I have all the goodies I need to die with dignity and minimal pain.

As some of you who have been following my work are aware, I’ve set up two major projects. One is the interview that is now available online and will be in print early 2010. It is an in depth series of questions concerning me and my poetry. I give away a lot professional secrets and hopefully some helpful advice on what it takes to not only be a Poet, but more importantly, how to write without the blinders of workshop theory. How to use the ability to see and hear those sensory details that make up any moment in time and as a result present these details in ways that allows for a true sharing of senseme. When it works, you have access to my perceptions in a sharing way. We may not always agree, but at least we have a difference based on reality

The Plebian Rag is not afraid to take chances and I’m very pleased with the uncensored freedom that the editors have given me. That is also a wonderful gift to any Artist.

The second major project involves the completion of a book with a dubious title: Jesus in the Refrigerator. That is maybe half way done. The generous contributions by many of you has brought the project to the realm of possibility. Thanks for hanging out with me as I sprint to the finish line..






2:26 PM
To: Stephen Morse (smorsepluggy@myspace.com)

HI Stephen,
Wonderful interview with Si! The interview is now published on the site and will be included in our next print magazine due out 2010!
Thanks again!



The Plebian ...
• posted new blog entries: New Featured Poet of the Week: Sarah Blakely, Interview with Stephen Morse: Chronicles of a Beat Poet and The Bosler Alley: Bloodshed and Pumpkin Pie

80's sound poetry

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"Sometimes Life Is For The Birds"


(sometimes life is for the birds. can you hear them?)


5 billion
A baby born today will be the
5 billionth human alive
Born poor, probably sick
Eat-Drink, Eat-Drink
Buy. Buy.
Eat-Drink, Eat-Drink
Haw,, Haw, Haw. The baby may live
Fast food, Fast Car
Eat-Drink, Eat Drink
Buy, Buy, Buy.
Help it, Help me, Help us

The baby may never work
Turn on the TV. Turn on the TV
Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.
The baby may never read.

The roar in the sky is only a jet

Eat-Drink
The baby may die
Sing, sing, sing. A baby is born
Help it. Help it
we can't, we can't, we can't
Please
Haw, Haw, Haw
Eat. Eat Eat.
My Car, My car.

The hum in the air is made by machines
we call them cars.
The really loud ones
are trucks.

Buy, Buy, Buy
The baby may never see us.
Haw, Haw, Haw.
Brave, Free
work, work
Eat-Drink
The baby may love
Oh please, please, please.
The baby may live

Little baby
Little baby
Eat, Eat, Eat,

Listen to the roar of our machines
they are like oceans that may not be seen
The surf of civilization that you may not feel
we have been to the moon.

Perhaps you would be happier if you were free?
Happy Birthday Baby!
Hallmark sends its very best

This poem and several others were written in the early 80’s shortly after we made the permanent move to Minnesota to help take care of aging parents and grandparents. The early 80’s were financially insecure and I had a difficult time getting and holding a job. Judy was more fortunate since her field was child care and she had very strong credentials for the field.

I was essentially cut off from my San Francisco Bay Area contacts. The internet was not developed enough to be a good communication tool at that time. The Web really didn’t exist. To make a long story short, I was writing in a vacuum. I began to experiment with sounds, natural sounds, such as bird calls. One of the things I noticed was that around 4:30 AM birds began to make a racket of repetitive calls and songs which with a little anthropomorphic imagination I was able to translate into poems. “Sometimes Life is for the Birds,” was one of my more successful (at least to my mind) attempts at transliterating their sounds in to words that made some sense in English. I have recorded readings of the poem on several occasions to demonstrate what it was that I was hearing. “A Mosquito sings 4:30 Am: Minnesota” was another successful effort. In fact for a time, it was my best known poem.

A MOSQUITO SINGS AT 4:30 A.M., MINNESOTA I,I,I,I,I,I,I . . . I wing my way With precision to animal heat. The viscous, warm Mammalian liquid draws my Probe. The penetration is the ultimate Moment. I gorge, I feed, I Am at greatest risk. I am Legend. My spirit will live in the Great moisture land of the Forever warm. There has Been no other greater. I am A feeder. I live in the land Of the giant mammals. I Survive. I,I,I,I,I,I,I (the sound of a hand slapping)

A Mosquito Sings (audio) volume is a bit low.

This period in the 80’s produced a lot of refrigerator poems, poems that I had no idea where to send for possible publication, so I just stored them in my metaphorical refrigerator hoping that someday they might find a place.

Minnesota took the frenzy out of my work and actually allowed me to experiment with poetry in ways that I had never really used before. Many of the poems from this period were meant to be heard and read, not just read as much of my earlier work was intended.

lovely, dark places of the mad and lonely

We never saw Irwin, we heard him. He was a ghost. He moved things. Spun a crystal plate at dinner one night until it shattered in the middle of the table. Mostly he lurked in the murphy bed in an upstairs room, the one he went mad in during his final throes of cancer. He paced but couldn't stand the squeak of floor boards so he screwed them down at 6 inch intervals; there could be no movement, no squeak, no sound.

He was an inventor, invented what has become to be known as scotch tape, but the patent was stolen and he died upstairs in his squeakless room, gone quite mad. Mustard gas was tried in hopes of killing the bad cells and not too many of the useful ones. But it seems that brain cells are easily disturbed. He went crazy. He didn't know he was dead.

He tolerated us, Judy and me, and our cats, even our first born child, but he hated Joe Ries, a sculptor of neon and collector of punk videos. We had two pieces of Joe’s art.

One was a vest festooned with 45 caliber ammunition, mounted and framed behind glass. It weighed about 50 pounds. I hung it on a spike in a stud on a wall. Irwin lifted it off the spike and dropped it on the floor shattering the glass and scattering shell casings around the hallway. The hanger was intact, and the spike was unbent.

Joe had also given me a piece of neon that spelled two words, a poem, in a bar blue neon. Irwin shattered that. It just shattered. Irwin didn't like Joe's work.

The rest of us he must of have liked. We slept soundly though he'd perform little tricks for company. If we talked about him, he moved something or made a great thumping noise just to prove our points and put energy in our tales.

I often wondered what became of Irwin after we left. I always suspected that he became lonely, that he missed us, but I don’t know.

We do know that he didn't like the gay couple that moved in after us. He was always breaking their things. But these were the strange time of the late 70's, early 80's and Irwin was the least of their worries. They died tragically frightened from the Aids plague. Gentle, dramatic souls haunted by invisible forces from a couple of dimensions it appears.

I saw many strange things on Ygnacio where Irwin lived. There are interdimensional neighborhoods that have souls like that. Lovely, dark places of the mad and lonely who have died. They just need to be talked to and reassured that they are dead and it’s ok to leave.

It begins to feel like

It Begins to Feel a lot like

It begins with a pulsing

right temple

that could be a tooth

or a tumor

The day grows colder
I wear my stocking cap
I am being stalked
There is a sharp pain in my right
elbow
My feet are sand
and cotton

It begins to end

even as I dose

the symptoms with

oxycontin

oxycodin

tylenol

It begins to feel

like dieing

like waiting
to die

like waiting

for my turn

and the room

feels empty
though there are people around me
that wouldn’t like to
read this
The room feels empty
the silence of
next
It begins to feel a lot like next

"NEXT

MR. MORSE"