Zoom Workshop: Storytelling and Slam Poetry with Beth Murch – TONIGHT!

Snowing on West Broadway

My phone tells me that it is snowing on West Broadway.
Even though I haven’t been to Winnipeg in eight months,
the app never fails to alert me to weather conditions on your street.

I still think about your shithole apartment,
and I wonder if you ever cleaned the wax off the mattress from that time we played with the Shabbat candles,
and if there is piss still on the bathroom floor,
and if the food-encrusted dishes are still piled high in the sink.
I can recall the smell of cheap weed and dirty laundry that hung in the air like an unanswered question,
the sound of sirens, honking cars, and breaking beer bottles that accompanied our conversations in your bed
– the only available free space in your whole home-
and the way the cobwebs of your depression glimmered in the sunlight that shone through the dirty windows over our heads…
in the corners, but always present.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I still wheeze and limp my way up the huge flights of stairs in your building,
looking for the apartment with the giant grease stain in front of the door.
I knock, but I always wake up before I hear any signs of life within.
Would you answer? Would you let me into your messy space once more?

It’s snowing on West Broadway again.

I hope that you are warm.

Photograph by Winnipeg Transit

 

 
This work, “Snowing on West Broadway” by Beth Murch, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Oh, Right! I Have A Blog!

Hello, my Precious Blueberries!

I come to you from the land of social isolation, during these times of Covid – 19.  It’s April  1st today, the first day of National Poetry Writing Month, and although I always fail to make it through the entire challenge, I am giving it the old college try once again, because I  need something creative and constructive to help me occupy my time.

I haven’t really written anything since the fall. I have still been busy performing and doing workshops, but I didn’t feel the urge to write. In fact, I felt the opposite. But recently, I am starting to feel the urge once more, which is good, because now that I am quarantined, I need something to do. 

A few months ago, someone told me that love poems are cliche, and that they don’t offer anything “new” in terms of contributing to the zeitgeist. Perhaps that is true, but I am a romantic at heart, and I happen to enjoy a good love poem…and this is MY blog, so phooey on them. Enjoy this love poem.

He Asks What I Want to Talk About

“I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.
I choose to kiss you in the wind, because the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end.” – Rumi 

When my eyes are tributaries
tears leaping like spawning silver, pink-bellied salmon
I want to tell you that I need you like beech trees rely on each other for survival
but my voice always cracks like wood splitting in a fire
and smoke builds up in my lungs causing me to choke.

You ask me what I am afraid of
I don’t know how to tell you that the space between each of your breaths is the loneliest silence
and I want to wail mournfully at the top of my lungs like a loon paddling a glassy lake at dusk
calling for her mate to sing back to her, to tell her that she’s not alone
I don’t know how to tell you that I want you to sing back to my calls songs older than words
I want you to reassure me that you will return like dawn
inhalations and exhalations painting the indigo sky flaming orange.

I want us intertwined like gnarled old roots
I want you to wash over me like ripples of water on cattails
I want to be as near to you as resin on bark.

I would like to say that I can resist my feelings for you
that I can form an invisible line indicating the separation between protected wetlands and urban sprawl
but the truth is that you permeate me like minerals in rock
even though I am as inarticulate as lichen.

You ask me what I want to say
What I want to say is that I love you
but my berry-stained lips cannot form the words
out of fear that you will turn cold like summer fades to autumn
out of fear that you will leave me like geese migrating south.
So many others have left before.

But to not speak a thing doesn’t mean it isn’t true
falling cedars snap like lightening even when no one is there to hear them
I am trying to graft words to my tongue
trying to sprout courage from last season’s pine cones.

In the meantime, I weep like a flooded creek in spring
soaking the land around me while my heart melts like the snow
Some day, I will be oak-like
standing tall in my truth and ancient in wisdom
impervious to rejection
Until then, I write a world of forests to obscure my vulnerability
much like a doe lays her fawn down in an overgrown thicket.

Until then, accept these wildflower words that I picked from the meadow of my mind.
May they allude to the beauty that comes after  rainfall.

Stock photo.

This work, “He Asks What I Want To Talk About” by Beth Murch, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

There’s A Country & Western Song In Here Somewhere

They say that when someone’s been stabbed
it’s safest to leave the knife blade in the wound.
The weapon acts as a plug to keep blood in the body,
and additional organ damage can be caused by pulling out the sharp edge.

In the movies, the hero pours whisky on his own pierced flesh,
grimacing as the alcohol stings his slash marks –
makeshift antibiotics for his barely-there medical care.
Hypovolemic shock never sets in before the bad guys are brought to justice.

I’ve been staggering around with a knife stuck inside my body.
Even though my muscles have stopped trying to force the foreign object out,
and my skin has grown over the place where the blade entered me,
I can never forget the feeling of being punctured.

There’s a tourniquet around my heart, Baby,
But I’m still bleeding out over you.
I pour bourbon down my throat but it doesn’t heal the nerve damage.
I think this time the bad guys just might win.

 Stock Photo.

This work, “There’s A Country & Western Song in Here Somewhere” by Beth Murch, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Shiver For Me…

It’s cold! Every winter, I ask myself why I haven’t left frigid Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario for the balmy climate of Vancouver, British Columbia…and then I remember that I’m a poet, and I have no money. A gal can dream, though, and those dreams taste mighty sweet since I can remember my trip to Vancouver so clearly.

 

I may have had an erotic moment with this tree.

Commercial Drive with hippies, communists, mountains, and poets!

While I struggle through the season of chillblains (not just for Dickension characters, apparently!), let me catch you up to what I have been busy doing!

In October, the Kitchener-Waterloo Slam Team of 2015 went to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and we placed 5th in the country at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word! Yeah! We came hard and we beat big name teams like Toronto and Guelph. I’m proud of our team’s work!

Queen B was very impressed with the bee theme on a Saskatoon street corner!

This poem earned me a standing ovation from the audience and some mixed reactions from my colleagues.

 In December, I performed at a fundraiser for Plan B Co-operative KW, a not-for-profit providing queer community spaces and resources for folx in Waterloo Region. It was called “Homo For the Holidays” and featured some amazing hiphop from 8th Iotomic.

In January, I performed at one of my favourite annual events – Cliterature! The show, put on by Shelley Secrett of Secrett Events, is a celebration of wimmin’s sexuality through song, dance, storytelling, poetry, and pretty much anything you can think of. Yes, there are vulva cookies. Anyway, it was a rocking good time with lots of laughter, some tears, a whole lot of kombucha, and a very generous audience.

Pre-show selfie!

It’s showtime! Photo courtesy of Carolina Miranda.

Next up will be a feature in Brantford, Ontario on February 5th, 2016 (it’s an anti-Valentine’s Day slam!) and my super awesome FUNdraiser, Step Up, Speak Out: A Celebration of Resistance, which is happening on February 20th! Come out! Come out and play with me!

Step Up, Speak Out: A Celebration of Resistance

Legal fees? More like BEAGLE FLEAS! hyuck, hyuck, hyuck!

Other than some wicked writer’s block, that’s about all that’s new with me! I’ll leave you with a writing exercise I did today trying to inspire a poem. The task was to create a list of nouns. Here is my list:

figs, dates, earth, brown, calendula, bees, sunflowers, rose petals, bee hives, honey, alchemy, sand glass, robin’s eggs, twigs, marsh, cemetery, wildfire, smoke, barn, nettle, clover, dew drop, bluegrass, socks, trees, paint, clay, rope, anchor, salt, amber, candle, incense, lighter, crystals, ice, snow, apples, coffee, cigars, apothecary jars, beeswax, maps, books, and sextant.

I couldn’t come up with a poem out of all that, but maybe you can! Share and give me some inspiration!

Trees, Bees, and Babies!

Peace and Blessings,

Bethy ❤

It’s Not THAT Corny. Shut Up.

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “I heard that song on the radio again and it reminded me of that line you get on the left hand side of your mouth when you are thinking really hard”.

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “I smoked too much weed and now I am feeling nostalgic over 1980’s breakfast cereals”.

When I say, “I miss you,”
what I really mean is, “I like how you hug me with your full body like you have nothing to hide”.

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “If my day were a sketchy basement laundromat after sundown, your smile lights it up like one of those buzzing, florescent light bulbs and all those little dryer sheets make me think of your teeth, all square, white, clean, and perfect.”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is “Gawd, love is such a petty bourgeoisie emotion and here you are making me feel like a real lady.”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “Am I being awkward? I’m being too awkward. Why can I be like a normal human being? Why am I so awkward?”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “I’m fucking this up by feeling too much, aren’t I?”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “I want to fall in love with you, but I am scared for you to find out that I sometimes eat ice cream for breakfast, and I might sabotage this relationship so that I can go on eating ice cream for breakfast without fear of judgment.”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “Stop whatever you are doing right now and kiss me. Hard.”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “I hate how lonely I feel when you aren’t around because that means I am vulnerable and vulnerable people get hurt.”

When I say, “I miss you”,
what I really mean is, “That sweater is really ugly, but that’s okay, because you are really cute.”

And sometimes, only sometimes, when I say, “I miss you”,
what I mean is, “I miss you”…
…except for when what I really mean is, “I hope that you miss me too.”

 

Images and trademarks property of General Mills. No copyright infringement intended.

This work, “It’s Not THAT Corny. Shut Up.” by Beth Murch, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Flies

He tells me that the flies are not good for my image.
I want to tell him that the spider webs that hang between my ribs are not for decoration,
That my fingers are locusts and my lips are earthworms.
My skin slides off my bones, soft, putrid, decomposing.
The flies keep the snakes in my hair company and give them something to eat.
Stare deep into my cockroach-coloured eyes, my love,
And kiss me before you realize that I am a corpse who has not yet died.

Hilariously creepy.

This work, “Flies” by Beth Murch, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

What I Did On My Summer Non-Vacation

I still remember the first day of Grade Seven so clearly. I was mature. I was womanly. I was wearing a one piece floral jumpsuit with a massive Peter Pan collar. My hair was permed. My braces were blue. Our assignment was to write about what we did on our summer vacation. I concentrated really hard on making my writing small, neat, feminine, orderly…what I perceived “grown up” writing to look like. I was certain that this would be the year that I would blossom into a beautiful maiden that the Phantom of the Opera would love to kidnap and spend eternity with. Or maybe Queen Marlena from He-Man. What can I say? Twelve was a confusing age.

I’ve neglected you, my poor poetry bloggy-blog. My precious blueberries. In the spirit of my Grade Seven perm, please accept this report on my summer’s activities.

In June, I went to Capturing Fire in Washington, D.C., an international queer spoken word summit. This Ontario, Canada gal met a lot of great people and learned the true meaning of the word “humidity”. Cheeses H. Crackers. At one point, I was performing and I was desperately certain that the audience believed I was literally peeing myself because sweat was pouring down my legs like I was an incontinent granny (not yet, suckas! not yet!).

It’s not urine, it’s liquid genius. Photograph by Dominic Berry.

While in D.C., I met a fabulous person named Brynn Possible, who has a super cool tumblr called A Guide to Dancing Naked. She saw me perform at a little show named La-Ti-Do, and did a little write up on me, saying some kind things considering I was feeling like a hot mess and in dire need of a venti triple vodka valium mocha latte, with extra whip (and chains). Anyway, you should totally learn to dance naked by reading this uplifting and positive tumblr, as well as check out Brynn’s acting and singing: A Guide To Dancing Naked.

There was no rest for the wicked upon my return: I next performed at The Cherry Park Cherry Festival in Kitchener, Ontario. I must have lived in Kitchener for over a decade before I realized cherries and cherry festivals were a thing…and at one point, I lived three blocks from Cherry Park! But truly, the Cherry Park neighbourhood takes cherries and Cherry Festivals seriously, and rightly so, because their festival is a heck of a good time! My friends on the Kitchener-Waterloo Poetry Slam team also celebrated the harvest onstage with me: Taylor Heywood, Bashar Jabbour, and Oracle Whyz…all amazing artists in their own right, and worth your investigating.

But can you *FEEL* it?!

After our performance at The Cherry Park Cherry Festival, the team and I performed at the 10th anniversary of the Latitudes Storytelling Festival, which was held in Victoria Park, in Kitchener.

Emoting, you know, like I do.

Then, it was off to Toronto to perform at The Secret Handshake Poetry Reading Series hosted by David Bateman and bill bissett. The show was really beautiful and everyone was so kind…but my favourite part of the day hands-down was watching the geese swim on Lake Ontario with fellow performer (and a true goddess of love) Honey Novick and bill bissett.

Sweatin’ to the Poetries Volume 6. I actually looked gorgeous before I got on the bus, so cram it with walnuts, Buddy!

August was born, and I shlepped to St. Catherine’s, Ontario, to feature at their slam at a lovely cafe, where I had a delicious $10 grilled cheese sandwich. Only $10? No, freaking $10 for a grilled cheese sandwich. Granted, the cheese was from local cows who lived in green pastures, the bread was artisanal, and the sammerich came with a side of organic tomato jelly (read: ketchup). Definitely a long way from the “grilled cheese” of my youth where my sister and I would microwave no-name process “cheese” slices on white bread (definitely not the artisanal kind, either). I had a grand time at the St. Kit’s slam – the people there were so warm and supportive! I laughed a lot, met some new friends, and heard a wide range of poetry.

After a very brief three hours of sleep, I was at the bus station on my way back to Kitchener to perform at a private house party in honour of someone special’s birthday. Gigs with pop and cupcakes are always the best!

A few weeks later, I facilitated a workshop I created called, “An Appetite for Poetry: Exploring Poetry Through Food”. I thought it sounded really sexy and I was super pumped to give it, but only one person showed up. Apparently, everyone was full of poetry that day!

Cue sad trombone music.

Suddenly, it was September, and I was performing at the Veritas Cafe, housed in Wilfrid Laurier University, as part of their RadWeek (the version of Orientation Week for people who don’t necessarily want to chant silly songs, run relay races, and whatever else the other kids are doing). I personally love the idea of RadWeek, and I wish it existed when I started at Laurier a trillion, billion years ago.

September 13th, I was back to Toronto, this time to feature at Lizzie Violet’s Cabaret Noir. If you are ever in the Toronto, Ontario area, you should really check this monthly show out. The variety of artists and the powerful love of the audience will have you floating in joy. I could not have had a better time, and I hope Lizzie will have me back some day.

Photograph courtesy of Mr. Zed Dulac.

Last, but not least, the slam team and I held our giant fundraiser to help us earn some moolah to get to the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Saskatoon this October. It was a hiphop/poetry mashup called “Words on the Beat, Fire on the Mic: Spoken Word & Song”. I don’t want to seem like I am bragging, but this was one hell of a show! The whole team and I did our poetry thing, while we had dC of nSRk, Chris Golden, Rooster the Computer, and our very own Oracle Whyz rock the mic in the hiphop department. I am pretty sure I fell in love with hiphop all over again, which, for me, is a big thing to say, since hiphop and my cats are the longest relationships I’ve ever had. Hiphop and I are fluid bonded.

Photograph courtesy of my bestie, Stefani.

So, in conclusion, my poetry peeps, if you are indeed out there and somehow still reading this, my summer was busy, but fun. I hope that reading my tales of adventure kept you busy until the commercial break ended.

I leave you with a music video of one of my favourite songs played at “Words on the Beat, Fire on the Mic”, called Hands Up, Don’t Shoot by Chris Golden and Oracle Whyz (formally known as YBS Frack).

It’s the sword.

Want to play with me on Facebook?

Check out my artist page!

 

Black Light Beauty

The important thing is not to leave a trace.

I empty the ashtray,
Clean the pipe,
Rinse out the wine glasses.

We touch, but leave no fingerprints.
Our kisses drift off our lips like stray eyelashes in warm, summer breezes.
You always leave after soaping me off your face and hands because I am the scene of your crime,
Your black light beauty,
The reason you flip the mattress and sleep in a t-shirt.

I burn cedar and sage,
Dump out the trash can,
Push bleach around the floor with a mop.

My apartment is tidy,
If you don’t look too closely.
My heart is pure,
Except for the gun powder burns.

It is as if we are never inside each others’ bodies,
Except for the DNA residue.
It takes forensic serology to place us together.

The important thing is not to leave a trace.

This work, “Black Light Beauty” by Beth  is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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