Stan Burfield Blog - London Open Mic Poetry Archive

London Open Mic Poetry Archive

The sound of love

2/28/2016

There was a stretch in my twenties when I would have to play this song every night before I went to sleep. The song expresses perfectly that young desire for pure love, not only in the lyrics, but the piano, and the guitar, the most heavenly guitar imaginable..

Sweet Little Angel by Buddy Guy (Track 7 from "A Man and the Blues" - 1968)

Linda Eva Williams, Cambridge Keenan and Heather Roberts Cadsby
Comments

Al Broudy Didn't know you were such a blues aficionado back then.
Like · Reply · 22 February at 20:04

Stan Burfield Blues and rock, but mostly blues.
Like · Reply · 22 February at 20:04

Al Broudy Just a white boy lost in the blues.
Like · Reply · 22 February at 20:05

Stan Burfield That was me. Blues was rock with the feeling. Rock was blues without it.
Like · Reply · 22 February at 20:06

For the rest of the comments, and there are quite a few, along with some great music video recommendations, click on the "read more" link on the right side. ..................................

The art of art

2/25/2016

I spotted this post in Facebook, by Diane Cluck. She's a singer-songwriter of Intuitive Folk based in Charlottesville, VA:

Diane Cluck
22 February at 16:21 · Today someone wrote to me interested in how to get past creative blocks with regards to writing lyrics, getting caught up in style, and perfectionism. My top-o'-the-mind thoughts, below:

Hi, C,
For me, the thing about songwriting (or drawing, or lovemaking) is that the conscious mind can really interfere with creative potency unless it's kept in check...or put to good use as an archivist/stenographer!

Dry spells come about when I'm disconnected from who I am and what I want...or perhaps trying too hard to be or produce something. Writing songs is great, but usually the end result of other activities. Are you doing enough things in your life that you enjoy? That challenge, inspire, care for you? Anything in these directions seems to benefit creativity.

As charming as styles can be, I would say don't get stuck on style...style grows out of content, not the other way around. If you focus on content...on what you want to say, you may be able to find a way to work that into a style that you like later on.

Don't rush yourself. There's not really a schedule for songs. For every finished song I've made, there are ten that aren't complete...whether it's words, melody, accompaniment, not finding the right meter. The longer I do this, the more I work like a collage artist, saving 'bits' to play with over time, that may come together and form something new or stay in the rag bag for years. If you can collect things you like, without pressuring them too hard to become something complete, and keep record of them, whether through recording, writing down lyrics, etc., you'll have more to play with and get more of a sense of what interests you / what you have to say.

Also, practice. Practice in various aspects. Most importantly, practice 'losing your mind'...which could mean walking in the woods, leaving the cell phone behind, wandering through an unknown neighborhood, pulling over on the side of a road, lying in the grass or on a floor...letting your intuition guide you down paths, letting your interest determine where you go and how long you stay...this is a really important practice in allowing yourself to settle in and trust yourself. Bring a notebook (or, okay, a cell phone) so you can write / record ideas as they come to mind. Songwriters are really songcatchers...writing is only part of it. Honor your senses and what they bring you. Try to catch whiffs of melodies, words, ideas, without judgement. It's a simple practice, but also a commitment.

On the perfecting end of things...some of these skills are useful, too. Practicing an instrument, or singing, or just playing around with rhyming, rhythm, etc. will help keep your toolbox in good order when you need it.

That's what's on the top of my mind. Thank you for the opportunity to reflect on this today. A lot of what I've typed are reminders for myself, too! Life/art are practices. Gentleness and curiosity go a long way.

Her website: http://www.dianecluck.info/

Moon

2/21/2016

Last night I was up late working. Linda had long gone to bed. Finally I rose, stretched, and went around shutting off the lights. In the dark I passed in front of the glass balcony doors, glanced out and was stopped in awe. The moon shone like a floodlight in the middle of that square frame. It seemed little higher than our high balcony, and was nearly full, hovering in the blackness above the scattered blobs of streets lights and the few cars still moving close below. It was so bright its power seemed to be focussed directly on me. I held my breath, heard myself say Ooh, then saw its wash on the walls of the room I stood in, and looked down at its reflection from the roofs of the houses, and its warmth on the trees. It was emanating in every direction, on everything. It felt like a god looking over its creation.
Tomorrow night, it will be full.

Karen Troxler, Kelsey Knight, Barbara Green and 5 others like this.
Comments

Martin Hayter There was poetry there, and here in your words. Great song too. The ultimate campfire song.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Al Broudy http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silver/

Silver Poem by Walter de la Mare - Poem Hunter

POEMHUNTER.COM
Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 1 hr

Stan Burfield Nice. Especially the moveless fish.
Like · Reply · 36 mins

Spring in February

2/20/2016

May it last, but without a lot of killer frosts destroying all the new buds. Photo in London, Ont.

Penn Kemp, Yvonne Maggs and 2 others like this.

Cabbie's choice

2/8/2016

Last night out on Kevin's veranda we were having a winding and very deep conversation. A cab pulled up to load me in -- into the cab but also, my god, into wonderful music. Neil Young's voice was swinging nearly too crisply out of some kind of sub-space transporter system. I said, "You've got good taste in music." The cabbie said, "I have all his albums here, downloaded from the internet." Kevin stood at the door tasting the poetry in the lyrics, then wandered off with feeling as the wheels began to turn. I mentioned Santana. He smiled. "Oye como va". I looked at him. This man drives through these sounds all day every day. He lives them. He works them. And they're all here at the push of a button. We touched on Jeff Beck, Jim Morrison, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, and wondered what's happened to music. Why is it so lost. So dead. Like Colonel Kurtz up the Nung River, this guy's dug in deep and moving fast. He's been working -- he's been picking his way through all that dross. As he talked his hands pleaded with the air. Then, in a soft voice, "Try this. Listen. It sounds like maybe the start of something. Maybe. This guy is working with the best old stuff. He seems to be trying something new too. Maybe he'll evolve from here. Maybe there's hope." He turned it on. The name was unfamiliar. Jonny Lang. We sat in front of my building listening. He turned off the clock. Yes, there it is. Real music.

Jaime R Brenes Reyes, Raven Black, Lynn Tait and 3 others like this.
Comments

Cambridge Keenan 🎹🎲 great tune smile emoticon
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 8 February at 17:04

Stan Burfield I listened to a bunch of them and they're all really good!
Like · Reply · 1 · 8 February at 17:14
Write a reply...

Stan Burfield Okay, rewrote the blurb. I'm too impulsive by far.
Like · Reply · 8 February at 17:36

Lights on

2/7/2016

Meredith Moeckel, Cambridge Keenan, Barbara Green and3 others like this.

Our smile for the day.

2/6/2016

I don't know what I've been eating lately but I seem to be farting inordinately often. It happened once as I walked past Linda's little workroom. She was absorbed in a frame she was painting and said, "What did you say?" I said, "Just mumbling to myself." She laughed, "Yeah, sure." I mulled that over on the way to my room and hollared out, "I should have vocal cords implanted." She said, "Yeah, you could sing." I said, "I could sing a duet."

Like Comment Share
Cambridge Keenan, Meredith Moeckel, Yvonne Maggs and 2 others like this.

Hurricanes Carla and Esther

2/6/2016

When Lightnin Hopkins recorded this piece of very evocative, humorous and sometimes profound blues, about a hurricane comin towards Houston town, I was so young I was hardly even noticing music yet... okay maybe The Serendipity Singers and green green valley and a rocky road, but not real music. Then, seven or eight years later, when Lightnin was winding down his long career, I was lucky to hear this piece, loved it, and him, and his wonderful guitar, and began listening to blues.

Lynn Tait, Cambridge Keenan and Raven Black like this.
Comments

Raven Black King of blues !
Like · Reply · 6 February at 14:17

Stan Burfield Yeah!!
Like · Reply · 6 February at 17:10

Moccasin Bells (updated version)

2/6/2016

(I read this at the open mic last night, to a good response from the audience. It had originally been written as prose, then I turned it into a poem, then back to prose, then a poem, and now I guess it's a prose poem, or at least as close to one as I can come. I posted it here a while ago but it's fairly different now, and I feel okay good about it, so here's the newest version. It's about my experience as a little boy at an Indian rodeo near our farm in Alberta. And thinking about that, I've been mulling over the idea of having an open mic with the feature being, possibly, several Native poets. We'll see.)
.
Moccasin Bells
.
Out at the Hobbema Indian Rodeo, a little white farm boy sits expectantly right down on the front bench of the bleachers, legs nearly touching the fence, while up behind him, his broad mother worries beside her blind husband, a man who can only listen, tightly wrapped in his suit and Western string tie.

The boy leans forward between two slow-talking Indians, huge and heavy in dark plaid and black hats. He is glad he left his holster and silver six shooter at home this year.

The air is still, its scent of sun-dried farm dirt as light as feathers. Even the harrowed corral is waiting, its dark clumps flattened for the coming of the horses, the spray of their hooves. The only movements are behind the gate, dark faces, arms tight on ropes. He listens for the horn, wanting that surprise again of some local native youth, a guy from the pool hall, one he would never have noticed in town. The gate moves and now here he comes flying from the chute up on the back of a pounding, kicking, whirlwind. The boy is standing, seeing the power of the arm, its hand clenched down, not slipping, forcing the rider upright, other hand flashing above, legs flying in the leaps, all with the same determination and skill as the best Texas cowboys at the big stampede back in Ponoka.

Finally the chuckwagon race, always the ultimate event, but here just three brown wooden wagons, the old-fashioned farm kind with seats and wheels and nothing else, no canvas covers, no fancy logos, slowly rolling out, and in the seats, three native farm boys holding back their horses until that horn sounds, and the earth shudders under hooves like hammers, and the drivers' long arms whip down their reins, lanky legs straining against the boards, black hair flying as they careen tightly around those two barrels, then thunder off together into the straightaway.

Mouth open, adrenaline pumping. That one moment out on that reserve.

Wandering then, as the evening cools his young spirit, he hears the drums begin, and the chanting -- hi ya ya ya hi ya ya ya -- a circle of men and women drumming and chanting together, and he is there standing on the grass between these tall dark people, in the arc of their canvas and skin tents, and as his legs begin to follow the rhythm in the light of the fire a warrior moves from the shadows in beaded buckskin and feathers stepping slowly into a dance, and with each touch and tap of his feet the sudden rhythmic jangle of bells on his moccasins joins the beat of the drums and the chant as it slides into song, its words from another world, but the rhythms make sense to the boy's young ears, and the movements of the dancer, his head down and down, then up, his feet tapping, stomping, tangling through the beat, all this builds a home in the boy's mind, far from his own, yet right there in front of him.

And as the decades pass, as he dodges, back-pedals and leaps his way through stressful white culture, its continual attack and defence, its judgements -- always there is this peaceful place, the jangling moccasins, soft tap of feet, the communal drumming, the communal chant.

Like Comment
Share
Meredith Moeckel, Raven Black, Larry Burfield and 9 others like this.
Comments

Patricia Black Wonderful idea, Stan!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 4 February at 22:39

Magnus Grendel Samson Coleman YOU HAD A GREAT READ WITH IT STAN, AS WELL...
Like · Reply · 5 February at 12:55

Stan Burfield Thanks Magnus. Between you and I we did a very fast transition from Mocassin Bells to Decibels smile emoticon
Like · Reply · 1 · 5 February at 13:07

66: My best birthday ever.

2/5/2016

I had an amazing birthday thanks to my sister. What happened was completely unexpected.

We've had a very difficult relationship all our lives, ever since I was born, I guess, when she was two years old. As with every second birth in every family, our mother then had to switch a lot of her attention to me. This must have been a continual cause of anger and a feeling of injustice, but it was made even more extreme by an early event in my babyhood which my mother no doubt felt very guilty about and tried to make up for every day since it happened by giving me even more attention.

(In passing, it occurs to me that this sort of thing must be a major source of friction between siblings in a lot of families.)

Throughout our lives communication between my sister and me has alternated between long stretches of silence and intense periods of talk, talk which for both of us always had a repressed undercurrent. In me those negative feelings worsened lately, but for her they must have always been there too, unspoken. It all erupted suddenly a couple years ago. We stopped phoning, then carefully began talking again but this time only in the form of staggered letters (the kind that come in envelopes).

Nearly a year ago, while reading her last letter, I finally realized how far back her hurt and sense of injustice went, all directed at me. I had never seen it clearly before. And now I couldn't imagine, at our advanced ages, that any attempt to change all that would even dent it. So I gave up. No point in even trying. Also, by this time I had felt so deeply hurt for so long that I decided the only way to repair my self esteem, which had never been very high, would be to just end all communication for good. I wouldn't write that one last letter to defend myself that I had been working up to. So for the next few months I tried to forget about it all.

But the hurt kept returning, so eventually I gave in and decided it had to be done. I would write as soon as I was calm enough inside to handle it. And that took another month. But a less anxious day did finally came. It was during our short winter holiday from the open mic. I didn't have to worry about that for a week or two, but I would soon, so I'd better do the letter now. Well, I would the next morning anyway.

I woke up, had breakfast, opened my computer and was just beginning to think about how to go about it when Linda came rushing in with the phone and bright eyes. "It's your sister!"

I was astonished. And then I thought how lucky I was: I wouldn't have to write the letter, maybe. I didn't think till later how very very improbable it was that she would call at the instant I was about to write her. And not just any letter, but this one. Yet, when we were a lot younger this kind of thing happened often enough between us that we even tried to test whether we had telepathic contact with each other, unsuccessfully of course.

Anyway, she was only calling about genealogy. I thought, how strange that, when I'm going through such torment, she would just pick up the phone so casually and talk about ancestors. Well, it turned out to be a much bigger thing to her than I could have imagined. I had not known that genealogy, and family history, had been a huge part of her life since her teen years. I had no idea at all. And now, suddenly, she had been devastated to find mold in all her notes and files. She has a very serious allergy to mold and so had to throw them all out. At her wit's end, she thought maybe she could get me to work on the genealogy in her place (being I'm the only sibling she has) so that the family lines could be carried on, so to speak.

I was happy enough just to talk to her, as she seemed to be as well, so we worked on it. It turned out that I have in one of my boxes of stuff a lot of genealogy papers she had never seen, as well as copies of much of her stuff that some relative had passed on to me. She became increasingly excited, I began enjoying all the positive feedback, and we spent hours on the phone with each other, but always carefully limiting our conversation to genealogy, working out the mysteries, me theorizing all the time, of course, which I will do about anything, laughing, wondering, doing massive internet searches, etc. I had at first gotten into it to keep her happy and talking, but then found myself becoming involved just for myself. It seems we have a lot of Scottish aristocracy in our background, and so there are endless records, with many stories to read and mull over.

Then, on January 30th, the evening before my 66th birthday, for some reason which I've forgotten, I was more reckless and emotional than normal, and our conversation slipped into a deeper mode. I found myself telling her about my real self, which she was already beginning to see in all those phone calls, and impulsively, on a wave of sadness and a desire for true relating, I told her everything, and she me. The whole thing. Our lives as they had seemed and as they really were opened up before both of us. Our tears of sadness turned to tears of happiness. And I couldn't believe how easy it was. It was supposed to have been impossible. We were both there, sharing, open, equal, with each other. And, a few minutes after midnight, just into my birthday, after about four hours talking, we said "I love you" to each other, for the first time in our lives, and we meant it.

And the next day Linda did the driving in our rented car. We slid so easily and calmly through the light rain out in the country. I couldn't remember having been that calm for a very long time. Happy. I was actually happy.

Dave Jarrell, Sharon Wise, Amy Lavender Harris and 18 others like this.
Comments

Stan Burfield Just for you, Barbara
Like · Reply · 2 February at 20:14

Barbara Green Wonderful news, Stan ... it ain't over til it's over, eh?
Like · Reply · 2 February at 20:36

Stan Burfield You got it. When we're young we can't do any of this and we assume the people we are at odds with can't either. Rightly so. But when we get older and more capable, it's a big shock and a big learning experience to find out that they are now capable as well.
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 20:40

Robert Gregory Seaton Wow, what a gift!
Unlike · Reply · 2 · 2 February at 23:30
Write a reply...

Cambridge Keenan That's so inspirational thank you for sharing
Like · Reply · 1 · 3 February at 00:44 · Edited

Lynn Tait What an incredible moment of sharing with your sister.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 3 February at 09:23

Patricia Black A very heartwarming family story Stan. So glad for you and your sister.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 3 February at 23:07

Stan Burfield Thanks, Patricia.
Like · Reply · 3 February at 23:57

Time warp!

2/4/2016

35 years later, my old Vancouver friend Gord posted the photo (the one in the previous post below) of me wearing the same sweater I was wearing just now as I sat in front of my computer when that earlier me in the same sweater popped up on the screen! I looked down at my sleeves and back at the screen astonished. It was like my young self and I were sitting at the same table in some kind of time warp!

Also, it's weird how long this sweater has lasted. I wear it every winter. I bought it on my 7-month backpacking trip in 1981. I was thumping along into the last cold month of the trip, just inside Northern Ontario (walking from BC) and I was beginning to freeze at night in my tent, trying to sleep shivering. I finally came to a little town, went straight into its clothing store, bought this, and wore it all day and all night until the snows came for good near Thunder Bay. This was 3 years before Gord took the photo in the cafe.

Thirty-five years later, now basking in Linda's decore and company, I'm still wearing my favourite sweater. The tag has long since disappeared, all the buttons have been replaced, but there are no holes, rips, or unravellings and it's just as warm as it ever was.

Violetta Josefina Martinez, Jenny Getsinger, Shirley Lin and14 others like this.
Comments

Linda Eva Williams And stylish! (Seriously: my fashion conscious daughter told me so)
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 19:08 · Edited

Stan Burfield My God. That's a shock. Okay, I guess then I'll have to make this my winter uniform at the open mic! Thank her for the advice.
Like · Reply · 2 February at 19:46 · Edited

Meredith Moeckel You look absolutely marvelous!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 19:52

Al Broudy That's a fine sweater. You know, Stan, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I SAW you on that trip of yours. I was team driving with a real bastard name of Al "Fat" Thompson. We were eastbound somewhere in Manitoba, and there, in the right side...See more
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 19:55

Stan Burfield WOW!!!! Ha ha. You would have been the second person I actually knew whom I met along that hike. I had figured that the chances are I would bump into one person I knew. But it didn't happen until the last day of my THIRD of three trips, hiking, canoeing, and bicycling. It was in St. John's NFLD, in a corner store, one of my old teachers in journalism school!! You would have been one too many, which is the real reason you couldn't pull that truck over and say hi. ....But wow, that's incredible. I remember the walking stick. Somebody had just thrown it out and I found it as I walked, one of those fairly impractical but beautiful ones, with a heavy brass knob at the top so it swings wonderfully. I actually took a photo of it. I stopped for a rest, my back against my sleeping bag, legs out in the grass and flowers, with the walking stick laying there. I'll try to find it after the open mic tomorrow. Wonderful story about you guys in the truck too!
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 20:12 · Edited

Meredith Moeckel Really incredibly coincidental!
Like · Reply · 2 February at 20:41

Stan Burfield You're not kidding. You want an even more incredible coincidence, by far? It's in my new posting, about my big birthday surprise.
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 20:43

Meredith Moeckel I'll be sure to look for it --- if not tonight then tomorrow when I'm on my laptop! HUGS smile emoticon
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 2 February at 21:02

Cambridge Keenan That's amazing ! De ja vu??? Serendipity !! That sweater becomes you
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 00:34

Terry Creamer · Friends with JoJo Nora
Happy Birthday Sir I hope you had an Awesome day, you don't look a day over 40. 🎂
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 07:07

Martin Hayter That is old...hey, isn't that the sweater Caesar was wearing around this time a few hundred years ago, you know, just before the Ides of March.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 13:10

Karen Troxler It proves it's best to buy quality.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · 1 February at 17:37

Stan Burfield I just checked for the label...non-existent! Same with the buttons. All replaced. But it's never had any holes or rips or frays...just keeps on going.
Like · Reply · 1 · 1 February at 17:41 ·Edited
Write a reply...

Stan Burfield 35 years old...I wonder if they would take it for resale at Value Village.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 18:02

Stan Burfield But no. It'll go with me into the grave.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 18:03

Martin Hayter It's important to have some casual wear beyond the grave.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 19:33
Write a reply...

Gord McCaw No, well, look, don't say nothing, uh, Stan, actually, well, how could you put it, it was 32 years ago...
Like · Reply · 1 February at 20:28

Stan Burfield no well don't say nothing but 32 years ago the sweater was 3 years old. wait. gotta finish my coffee.
Like · Reply · 1 February at 21:49

weebly reliable statistics