In the late 1990s & into the early part of this century I created and ran a spoken word poetry open mic called THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT at Valentine’s as well as at a few other locations afterwards in Albany, NY. The open mic was always extremely crowded and popular and we did alot of themed nights also such as Beat Generation Night, Poe Halloween Benefits Bukowski Night and some other cool evenings before alot of these ideas took hold in other places. But as all good things my SON had a predecessor. The original group of poets in the time of Marlowe, Raleigh & Shakespeare.
Who knows?
Whenever history needs inspiration it might just return again .
As part of rolling out the new AlbanyPoets.com website, we are inviting the poets on the site to send us some new work that we can post. One of the first poets to take us up on the offer happens to be one of the first poets on the site when Albany Poets began in 2000.
Albany, NY based poet, writer R.M. Engelhardt has published several books over the last decade including Nod~Logos~Alchemy~The Last Cigarette: The Collected Poems of R.M. Engelhardt & others. His current experimental book of poetry & prose is called “Versus-Lexikon” A poet & writer, Engelhardt through his ideas & visions has helped to create a large amount of the Upstate, Albany, NY spoken word~poetry scene and is the host of “SAINT POEM READING SERIES” an Open Forum-Mic For All Poets held every 3rd Monday of each month at The Upstate Artists Guild (UAG).His work has also been published by many journals on the net & in print including Retort, Verve, Industrial Nation, Sure! The Charles Bukowski Newsletter, Thunder Sandwich, Fashion For Collapse, 2nd Avenue, The Angry Poet, Danse Macabre, Full of Crow & many others.
When said the moon to the stars in the sky A small boy was born upon the day his mother died Upon his 30th day did also rise An only son in September.
And when he was young and death did follow Him like a bird and left him hollow At five & twelve & 13 lives A trail of tears & unspoken goodbyes That made him all like quiet
And dead to him-self, inside.
The solitary boy who learned to read big books Who found all the poets, verses & hooks And who lived in a mind of his own.
And the boy got in trouble, the boy he got in fights Stood up for the weak ones And blackened bullies eyes, broke their noses And bloodied their tries at being the toughest kid And he never, lost a fight.
But it was’nt out of cause that the boy became bad And it was’nt cause he had ever had A reason to ever hurt anyone else At all.
It was just all because of the matter, and The Aesthetics Of Anger
And the will to hurt all Those who hurt others, and deserved it as well, To kill, hurt and keep the inevitable its self, The oncoming years from coming To destroy that which one cannot see Something that comes to both you & me unceasing.
Stealing his love, and stealing his friends One day, at a time.
And many years passed And many things changed Many lives left And many hearts came And softly entered into The procession of his life
And the boy, now a man finally Figured out what he was And was finally meant to be,
Not a doctor or a wraith Or a quiet man of hate, the shaman or a slave to all those Who want power over the masses or to be the best
For he was only born to be hardcore troubadour, a poet And a man of words incarnate Using his voice, and words as weapons To fight & to defeat All those who would try to Kill the spirit that dwells within
With versus And sarcasm Truth & history New images & myths
And that’s why he was born.
To be the hand up Mona Lisa’s dress, To be the heart within your chest The voice that beats and holds you close And says the things you want the most That you can’t say yourself.
To become the dark And become the light Tween’ both worlds He’s traveled this night And wrote & brought back Something that Another never could
For you see? It’s not his fault,
For it was just all because of the matter, and The Aesthetics Of Anger
That you & the forces that be Created themselves
The words, now his weapons
And the boy has been beaten, bloodied, Stabbed & Knocked down
To be a boxer, or not to be there at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds? Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare it’s time to start this cultural affair. Half came inside because it started raining, the rest are relatives. O Muse.
The women here would love to rant and rave, but that’s for boxing. Here they must behave. Dante’s Infemo is ringside nowadays. Likewise his Paradise. O Muse.
Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet, one sentenced to hard shelleying for life, for lack of muscles forced to show the world the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists with luck. O Muse, O bobtailed angel, Pegasus.
In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore: he dreams his wife’s alive again. What’s more, she’s making him that tart she used to bake. Aflame, but carefully-don’t burn his cake! we start to read. O Muse.
R.M. ENGELHARDT 