Dr.E.K. Daufin and Charlie Suhor - Poetry Readings 2006-2007

 

 

E.K. Daufin

 

 

Approval Addiction

 

Addicted to approval,

Looking for a hit,

Your flattery soothes me,

Your criticism - - the pits.

 

Most of us got too little of it,

As we were raised or grew up,

Cut to pieces by the belittling

beast,

Criticism,

Was my family's forte,

Our July 4th,

First through 31st,

through next June's

holiday feast.

 

I pick myself apart nightly,

And all through the day,

So no need to add

your negative opinion,

I'm already working to do things

the impossibly perfect, right

way,

Never get there,

But make a hell of a lot of

headway.

 

Tell me I'm pretty,

Brilliant,

Dazzling and Smart,

Tell me I've got the brains and

beauty,

To match my kind and wise heart,

that crack-quality,

Compliment- high,

Doesn't last long,

"You did all right,"

Is skanky methadone,

Instead of sprinkling me

liberally with Angel Dust

decadent description of high

laurel and sparkly purity.

 

Don't pimp me for a hit,

Just cause you know how

desperate approval addicts can

git.

Bring home and fry up the bacon,

As well as lick the hot, greased

pan.

 

Wish I were cool and clean,

Didn't care one way or d'other,

If you though me worthy,

or just another motha',

 I feel the withdrawal shivers,

When a foot is up my ass,

Giving me shit about,

What I didn't do perfectly last.

 

Know:

 

You're a dirty dealer;

When you up the ante,

Demand some panty,

For some praise,

Or to turn away the critical eye,

Or that harsh gaze.

 

Know:

I'm an approval addict,

Who doesn't know where the next

hit will come from,

I don't want to die,

But don't mistake me for a street

bum,

I do want you to like me,

Without having to lie,

But now,

Barely in recovery,

I don't always still pay

the inflated street price,

For a piece of my sweet jones - -

approval pie slice,

Now say somethin' nice,

To me daddy,

Ooooooh,

Found my insecurity spot,

In my fecund, got-to-have-that-

stroke,

Sweet rice approval patty.

 

 

E. K. Daufin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charlie Suhor

 

 

That Old Feelin'

Sixteen old farts playing 40's charts--

Miller, Basie, the Dorseys, Goodman, Shaw--

strictly recreation,

beenthere/donethat a thousand times,

a bit worn now and not so hot, and yet

nostalgia is not lost on them.

In

walks

chick vocalist,

damn, the niftiest fifty you ever saw,

oozing & bluesing premenopausal charisma,

yeah very hot yet somehow very cool,

and then, a tension arises, attention arises

like an old pecker gone suddenly stiff,

and eyes go flashing, cymbals crashing

hormones kindling harmony,

band swinging out above all clefs,

They find in the music/

the music finds in them

a re-creation,

some new it, or some old feeling

that's never old, and will not ever be--

It's what the music sings about

when music is set free.

Comes the Duke

What do I know of these things?

I'm five years old and working a hand-cranked Victrola

with some brittle records sent over by Nannainne.

What I know is a Ninth Ward shotgun double

and swampy August air that settles on New Orleans

like roux-rich gumbo heaped on rice.

Everything is fresh and baby-bald to me.

Here's “Lombardo” with a languid song of Indian braves and squaws.

Here's a limping something from “Boyd Senter and his Senterpedes”

Here's a Bluebird side that asks, with some appeal,

Why don't we do this more often?

Just what we're doing tonight?

(Nannainne calls that one “zippy.”)

Here's Sharkey Bonano, more like it, with High Society

and on the flipside someone plays a penny-whistle blues.

And then, exotic and luminous a visit from robed royalty

bursting through a louvered door,

comes the Duke: I Can't Give You Anything But Love.

To sort it out in kid-mind isn't easy.

Hey, the saxes there are moving in a different sort of way.

A singer who sounds a lot like Morton Downey

is floating atop a dance-me rhythm.

And then, what's this? It's hard to say--

a muted trumpet, maybe, or gravel-voiced scatman--

some happy guttural thing that wants to jump the grooves, for sure,

and new parts of my body holler, Yes,

You can leap free with this jazz,

This swingout, bounceback man called Duke.

Decades later, stacks of 78s and 45s and LPs and CDs later,

after how many gigs and reads and writes

and all-night jams and conversations later,

after all that and this morning, too, what do I know of these things?

Only that nothing is more true or joyful than lessons learned

with the first coming of the Duke:

Leap free, mes amis, with love and swing,

with the saxes and singers and growling things of jazz.

 

 

Charlie Suhor

 

Published in Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature (Winter 2002)