Category: Blog

Warning Dark Roads Ahead

I have embarked on a most ambitious piece. It’s going to be painful and it gonna be long. It might scare you or embarrass me. 

I might seem to become bizarre, disorganized, and riddled with mind-numbing pain. Be not concerned, I assure you I will be!

Call it Process or Method, Madness or the First Realm. “Call it shame or being abashed or trying again, for the last time, to return.” Call it Feeling.

If Cummings is to be believed, a poet’s job is to feel, and if I’m gonna feel anyway…I might as well give up and accept the mantle, amn’t l obliged?

So…Poet, it is, then.

A mad poet on a mad quest. And during that trek some bad lands and the messages you receive will seem scary and bizarre and riddled with mind-numbing pain. They will pop in and out of virtual existence, ghosts whispering in wasnever. Poems will flash before your eyes and with every blink you will question if they were even there. Scary things and gloomy things and heart-rendering stop it things will rush by will be distilled and fitted and molded and crafted into a final work which will be something worthwhile if not worth the effort.

Sometimes this is also the way poetry is done.

“but the song carries on…so holy”

Catch Bull at Four is my favorite album. I molded myself on it. My loyalty and love and honor were forged from it. My dismay at injustice and deliberate hurt, too, were formed within. The album swings from brightest optimism to darkest despair; both seemingly stemming from the same unjust universe.

Buy it, or listen below, but if you are susceptible to crying, bring tissues, there’s a high likelihood of tearing up—the second side will sneak up on you.

bad news

For a brief instance I almost convinced myself I had reason to live. But even during that flare up I didn’t really, I wanted to. I did. I did. I dreamed. I hoped. I prayed. I am only reminded again that I don’t haven’t and won’t.

Kitchen Sync

Introduction

So, I mentioned it in passing, but haven't written about the poetry reading.

On March 25, I performed at the Kitchen Sync open mic in Denton, TX. The poets in attendance were very welcoming, kind, and talented. I had a blast, and I was on fire.

I'm planning on going back this month, but I'm in Oklahoma City…yeah, weird. Even weirder, I got cast in a couple small bit roles in a community theatre production of The Laramie Project. I'm very excited, I've always wanted to do theatre and here I go, weee! It's a six-to-eight week obligation and so I may not be able to make it down, but I'll try, there's something special happening in Denton.

Here's an approximation of the introduction I performed (I improvised a lot). I'm not sure if it's through, but I suspect it is. I feel good about it.

Main Content

Hello, I’m Franklyn Monk

The one that disappeared a little after every defeat and

slunk down into that hole
where I turned in and around myself
and popped out the other side

The undoing unbeing before you

as convincing as I am

illusionary. I don’t exist!

Except maybe as a ball of calm in a sea of chaos
or a knot of chaos in a sea of calm.

I can’t tell.

The only thing I know with certitude
is I have a voice,
and I like to use it.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Poetry

…the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted. That, I think, is the job of the poet. And so, the simplicity of the universe … if it doesn’t drive you to poetry, it drives you to bask in the majesty of the cosmos.