The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Hey Mark -- I love your voice and the way you read this poem.  You bring it back to life!  Bravo!!

Thanks guys - I seem to be owning this thread but whatever...

The one deep breath challenge.

https://soundcloud.com/user-324037476/poem-3

where the tangents of character and destiny intersect amidst the vanishing and reappearing contour in the breathing aether as patterns cast by the shifting stars’ chaotic symmetry within chiaroscuro shadows stamped upon fallow fields forsaken by random gods, there he stumbles upon glass days of confusion and crystallized silence ringing from iron statues frozen in midway violence

"Thanks guys - I seem to be owning this thread but whatever..."


...speak for yourself but I do like your stuff.

Thanks Tim - sorry didn't quite mean it like that.

Last one...

I wrote this in two parts, the first three short stanzas were about 15 months after Lee died, and I had stabilized enough to be getting ready to leave the farm in the mountains. Charmaigne the yogi had played a big part in keeping me alive that first year, so to speak. I had met Keri by then; I quit my job, gave away just about all the household stuff Lee and I had accumulated over the years, and then caught a plane to Cape Town with a suitcase and my computer. I had had the most amazing luck with writing a corporate coffee table book for Phillips and for a few dizzy weeks was easily the highest paid freelance writer in the country, so I had some bucks to get started again but it's never really been about money for me. I've worked hard here on the West Coast but have also been quite fortunate, with some ridiculous coincidences. I sort of came to the conclusion that Lee was somehow taking an interest in my well-being from the afterlife but I couldn't tell, the dead don't answer, do they? I wrote the rest of the poem around then. But this was confirmed later (after the poem) when I spoke to Lynda the (real-deal) medium. Anyway, a little background, to make some sense of the piece. 
       

https://soundcloud.com/user-324037476/westward

 

Excellent poem Mark. Some wonderful lines, and the heads up assists.
IMO you need to slow the pace and vary your pauses, you're losing impact.  

Thanks comrade drabski     strictly amateur hour here, I'm afraid .
 

Absolutely nothing amateurish about any of your (or Tim's) posts.
There's gravel in your voice...I like that.
Life is all about attitude. I think that's why I love this site so much; there's so much 
life experience here, and fresh new attitudes springing up.
I hope TTB will continue to live and grow...it's a happy place, and often a refuge. 

Here are a few links to a fab and very talented  Mexican singer you will love
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dntgsqK ... LhyV7GX-SA 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=410cZw2 ... A&index=10

Nice and smooth... I think the next festival should have a music board. I must say I prefer the sound of Portuguese to Spanish,  Mozambique Portuguese are well represented here, I love the lyrical sound of Portuguese women speaking.  

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eyu8i8Jt8I

 

I love the sound of the Portuguese in Brazilian Jazz, but prefer Spanish. I suppose I'm more familiar the language, and have learned to speak a little (very little). Spoken Portuguese is (to me) a very strange language, more like Russian. It doesn't seem to belong to Western Europe. 
Spotify and YouTube have opened up the world of music to me; there's so much great music out there waiting to be discovered.
OK, it's not poetry, and the sound quality (filmed on my GoPro) ain't great, but it is me, speaking in a Toastmasters contest. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ncMTNm9024