The Goddess Dances In, Within

Baby Bop,

Burning Bright

Let's begin with an adventure in prose by Steve Mansour that demonstrates that I am not alone. That's right - there are others who share my artistic sensibilities. Steve is, by the way, an artist/writer who sometimes works at the Street Life Gallery at 2nd and Bell, and not an imaginary person I invented in an effort to fill space. If he had been an imaginary person on this occasion his name would have been Cindy.

Steve writes, "... for me, a true artist thinks and draws, draws and thinks; a true artist thinks and draws, then draws some more and thinks, and draws, and then he thinks some more. A true artist dreams, then draws, then dreams again, and draws, then he/she thinks and again draws, and dreams, and dreams of drawing and draws the dreaming, and thinks less." Can you dig it? I can!

Speaking of digging, I was just talking to my good friend Cindy about the huge blank space at the bottom of this page and she said to me, "You know what you should do? You should write something there. That's what I would do. Then you should lie down, © Dr., `cause you're really looking beat." Just then I thought and dreamed and dreamed the thinking and thought yeah! I am going to have my Beat period. My main influences this morning - now that the bars have closed - will be Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Krebs. Yeah. It's coming to me I'm feeling the beat it's crazy man it's everywhere it's in everything DIG it - dig IT - don't let the Bomb get you down let the Beat do it. Yeah. IT.

I'm outta tea. I send Cindy to the store for more. She comes back. I'm ready:

Sixteenth Hymmnn

to/of the Dumbsainted

or Opus 16, My First Beat Poem

Hey Jack!

I AM a Character in the Bleak

inhuman Loneliness

As I sing the intergalactic song of a

species couchless

Yeah: no couch for me tonight

Pad me on a pad - no hipster pad -

The hipsters pad in their cells tonight -

While I pad the streets of my share

of inhuman loneliness

With: Cindy / she-who-is-not-real

And while I pad this poem of bleak couchlessness

With the aid of: Cindy / she-who-is

Jack: I AM a Genius all the time

As long as Cindy blows through and out my mind.

My First Sonnet

Since I have embarked on these Adventures a number of you have asked "Why?" A poet in the full grip of his Muse, when asked this least poetic of questions, might answer "Why not?" But as my Muse has stepped out for a smoke, I say "Why indeed?"

Is it boredom? A neurological imbalance? Poor nutrition? Revenge against high school English teachers?

Yes, it is.

Let's talk about the poet's craft! Occasionally, an admirer of my Art will ask "© Dr., where do you get your ideas?" and usually I answer "I steal them" or "go away" or "what ideas?" So instead of talking about where I get my ideas - let's talk about the poet's craft!

OK. Once you have a poetry idea you still need:

1) A vocabulary

2) A mold to put it in.

Such a mold is called a "form." Forms come in many forms. Today I'll consider the so-called "sonnet" form. As you'll see, I won't need to know what this means.

To illustrate what we've learned so far, let's "craft" a "sonnet" right now! We'll begin with the idea "sidewalks are hard".Then we'll take someone else's sonnet to be our mold. We'll then change the words - here's where the vocabulary comes in - until they express our idea instead of the other guy's. The sonnet I'll use is Shakespeare's #1 - which by the way being his first, was not one of his best.

And here's what we get!

My First Sonnet or Opus 10, We're Into Two Digits!

© Dr. Wes Browning

Of city benches we desire increase

That THERE our weary ends might ever lie.

Though as the benches may by time surcease

Our childish rears might share their memor-EYE.

But SIDEWALKS 'tached to thine own thick thighs

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel*

Making a sore butt where fatness lies;

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet ass too cruel.

As that art now your prize, best ornament

(Though - Hardly - Herald - To - The - Gaudy - Spring!)

Upon thy own butt forsaketh thy conTENT

Your tender tush made waste by your sitting.

Pity the world, for lest these benches stay

Our precious ends will end as puree.

(*: I didn't understand this line so I didn't change it.)

Isn't that great? Try it yourself! Start from this sonnet or any other poem, use your own "idea" and you'll have your own brilliant poem in minutes. Or wait until next month and I'll you an even easier way to write poems! Until then, happy poesing!