Crashbox

I spent this morning at the Ferrier's, singing, smoking, drinking coffee; and later, after a short bookstore stop, ended up at the Underground, a great new(ish) coffee house in Ventura. Sitting there drawing and sipping yet more coffee I couldn't help thinking of Neoteronous and this past summer of far too few excellent conversations...I really miss him.
As open mic night got under way I listened to the loud and contorted cries of a struggling poet---The title was 'Judgment Day', and most of the lines were spent describing the Catholic Church as an innocent, angry, 20-year-old girl who ran away from all of us and whored herself out and was never heard from again except for vague rumors of her getting high in alleys. The rest of the lines were cursing the business world and 'Corporate America'. I was deeply sad when she finished. I was gripped with the desire to run on stage and yell at everyone there for such shameless indulgence in pointless angst, such despicable delighting in vulgar confusion. I wanted to tell them that poetry should be beautiful and inspiring, not filled with hatred. If I had had any of my own poetry with me, I might have really done it, and got up there and read them something that might actually stir up some love, or at least a semblance of order in their souls...but I had nothing to offer. Perhaps next time, though...it seems that just as in our churches, publications, and groups of friends we ought to be championing truth and beauty and real virtue, so in the places we haunt, which are so often filled with wandering souls, much good can and should be done. I did speak with her briefly afterward, but it only small-talk---she was very distracted.
Despite the hefty thoughts however, it was a great place to work and chill, and it may very well become a frequent stop of mine...