If you lived here, you'd be home by now
"Your name...is a melody. Unfortunately, melodies end. But if you're lucky, the melody will get stuck in someone's head." - Derrick C. Brown
i love the arts & humanities.
i finally went to a slam poetry reading. that was on my life's "to do" list. i really enjoyed it. that was one of the lines from his book that i ended up buying and he signed "Liz, how dare you dump me on the fourth of July. I got your fireworks right here! - Derrick"
other great quotes from his performance include:
he started by getting the audience involved in some rythmic clapping, along with the makeshift sound of a police helicopter whirring; this was the introduction for his first poem about love, because the sound of police helicopters above the buildings reminded him of a great love:
"Hot for Sorrow"
"Night melodies of helicopter switchblades
slice through the sky.
I don't want to be the best lover you've ever had.
i just want to be your favorite...this cross-eyed sniper misses you so much.
The noise tells me there is still crime down there.
5000 air machines cannot stop crime.
I now know that what I feel for you is crime.
This is why I like the sound of polic choppers:
Not because it makes me feel safe and watched over
but rather because it is the music of war
and tonight
they were playing our war."
He then performed a piece about immigration, that just so happened to relate to the current issue of immigration; writings from father to son:
"Border Stealth"
"This is why I had to leave you.
Son, so that your children may not wear their skin out
in someone else's fields...
we die in the trunk of a coyote's abandoned Honda.
we die in the onyx blackness of cargo containers were fear waits
like a tongue on a cutting board.
we die in the barbed wire that surrounds (the United States)
like the thorns of Christ.
Son, I am a hummngbird's wing welded to your heart,
for you may never see me
but know that I am moving within you."
He did love stories again, in the form of paying rent:
"Cheap Rent"
"She, a strange landlord,
pointed to her chest and said
If you lived here
you'd be home by now.
I, the stranger with no deposit,
pointed to my chest and said
If you lived here
you would have to be
very...tiny.
No, you don't look fat in that dress.
Yes, that sentence does assume you look fat in some dresses.
Kapow. Right in the face.
Her eyes are highway fatalities
you can't stop staring at.
Her skin is rehab for sandpaper junkies.
She is my landlord
and she lowers the rent,
points to her chest and says
Man, if you lived here
you'd be home by now."
And he threw in some comedy, of course it has a deeper meaning, think what you want, i guess you had to be there for the big explanation:
"Captain Creams"
"I am a stripper with no arms.
I tried the pole thing and almost waxed myself.
They built me a handicap ramp. I am not sure why.
I can walk just fine.
Happiness is a dollar bill.
I try to point at them to put their happiness in my underwear
but pointing is hard.
People pay alot of happiness for these expensive drinks and dances.
Sometimes, the dollar bills
have retractable strings attached to them.
Man that's funny.
Except for the paper cuts."
the guy was good, after all, he did win 2nd place at a recent nationals competition. They had other amateurs performing there at the Tango Tea Room venue. one of the finalists in the competition was really good & from Austin. i hope to see stuff like this again.
It helped that he looked good with his 5 o'clock shadow & intriguing words that were all very reminiscent of the band Maroon 5's lead signer Adam Levine: "I'm sick of all these wasted years, a rag for someone else's tears...and the emptiness is too much to bear."
i love the arts & humanities.
i finally went to a slam poetry reading. that was on my life's "to do" list. i really enjoyed it. that was one of the lines from his book that i ended up buying and he signed "Liz, how dare you dump me on the fourth of July. I got your fireworks right here! - Derrick"
other great quotes from his performance include:
he started by getting the audience involved in some rythmic clapping, along with the makeshift sound of a police helicopter whirring; this was the introduction for his first poem about love, because the sound of police helicopters above the buildings reminded him of a great love:
"Hot for Sorrow"
"Night melodies of helicopter switchblades
slice through the sky.
I don't want to be the best lover you've ever had.
i just want to be your favorite...this cross-eyed sniper misses you so much.
The noise tells me there is still crime down there.
5000 air machines cannot stop crime.
I now know that what I feel for you is crime.
This is why I like the sound of polic choppers:
Not because it makes me feel safe and watched over
but rather because it is the music of war
and tonight
they were playing our war."
He then performed a piece about immigration, that just so happened to relate to the current issue of immigration; writings from father to son:
"Border Stealth"
"This is why I had to leave you.
Son, so that your children may not wear their skin out
in someone else's fields...
we die in the trunk of a coyote's abandoned Honda.
we die in the onyx blackness of cargo containers were fear waits
like a tongue on a cutting board.
we die in the barbed wire that surrounds (the United States)
like the thorns of Christ.
Son, I am a hummngbird's wing welded to your heart,
for you may never see me
but know that I am moving within you."
He did love stories again, in the form of paying rent:
"Cheap Rent"
"She, a strange landlord,
pointed to her chest and said
If you lived here
you'd be home by now.
I, the stranger with no deposit,
pointed to my chest and said
If you lived here
you would have to be
very...tiny.
No, you don't look fat in that dress.
Yes, that sentence does assume you look fat in some dresses.
Kapow. Right in the face.
Her eyes are highway fatalities
you can't stop staring at.
Her skin is rehab for sandpaper junkies.
She is my landlord
and she lowers the rent,
points to her chest and says
Man, if you lived here
you'd be home by now."
And he threw in some comedy, of course it has a deeper meaning, think what you want, i guess you had to be there for the big explanation:
"Captain Creams"
"I am a stripper with no arms.
I tried the pole thing and almost waxed myself.
They built me a handicap ramp. I am not sure why.
I can walk just fine.
Happiness is a dollar bill.
I try to point at them to put their happiness in my underwear
but pointing is hard.
People pay alot of happiness for these expensive drinks and dances.
Sometimes, the dollar bills
have retractable strings attached to them.
Man that's funny.
Except for the paper cuts."
the guy was good, after all, he did win 2nd place at a recent nationals competition. They had other amateurs performing there at the Tango Tea Room venue. one of the finalists in the competition was really good & from Austin. i hope to see stuff like this again.
It helped that he looked good with his 5 o'clock shadow & intriguing words that were all very reminiscent of the band Maroon 5's lead signer Adam Levine: "I'm sick of all these wasted years, a rag for someone else's tears...and the emptiness is too much to bear."