Something Shifting in the Sky
Another poet with a bled and broken heart –
oh, gag me with both of your silver spoons
Another poet with a jealous ego –
hell, I thought art was designed to be more creative by half
Another poet with a grudge to grind –
here, let me kiss first your chip and then your shoulder
I have yet to see it all
(and surely never will)
but I have seen enough
to start singing thrice
on every Sunday
about the trinity
of God, glory
and holy grace
without fear
of any repercussion
because the light and love offered by life
is not a theory of guilt
I would weep for
or ever wear
as a millstone
instead of this
smile.
The Visions of Verse event this weekend was an absolute joy. It was good to see Cliff Brooks, Holly Holt, Chani Zwibel, and Shane Etter; great friends from the SCE. Just as much a pleasure to watch them all read.
The audio from my set is up now here on SoundCloud.
17Numa 
So much of your work, Scott, as it has developed, seems to me reminiscent of these closing lines from “A Lesson For Today,” by Robert Frost:
“I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.
And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”
Keep up the quarrel, man . . .
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Sorry to just be getting around to replying, my friend. Thanks for the good words, and for sharing that verse. The good quarrel will keep burning.
Great stuff at Midnight Lane recently. Really been enjoying the features!
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Reblogged this on The Salamander Chronicles – Don Beukes and commented:
The word weaving of Scott Thomas Outlar
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Another good poem, Scott, this time skewering the self indulgence and affectation of so many writers.
But not all poets with bled and broken hearts knew silver spoons. Much of my writing relates grief and sorrow and heart break, both on personal and political levels. Yet I grew up in a stucco shot gun shack with a tin roof, surrounded by cotton fields owned by someone else’s daddy. And my first full time job was as a waitress on old Route 66, beginning my work to pay my own way through college and law school that my folks never have afforded.
It’s always something special to read your work, Scott. I’m glad to know you.
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Thank you for your comments, and for sharing your experience, Donna. You are absolutely correct, of course, in what you said. I think in those opening stanzas I conflated a number of different ideas all together. Just a case of my being purposefully provocative to try and rile things up.
It’s a pleasure to know you as well, and I hope things are going well with you and your writing of late. Cheers!
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Reblogged this on loftydreams101's.
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