“Sob Stories” by Derek Berry (M.A.D. Studios Performance)

A video of a performance at MAD Studios of “Sob Stories,” a poem about stories and the tales that bring us closer as a species, the need to share mysteries and explore through poetry the nuance of the human heart.

An extra video of my first poem, “Sacred.”

“Starving”

We’re all hungry for something more

And not just enough jumbo-sized pizza

Or calorie-rich milkshake from McDonald’s

Or another side of cheese-and-bacon fries.

 

But instead for the light at the end of the tunnel

That was foreclosed in the recession,

for the fingertips that brush our hair back

When we fall asleep in the passenger’s seat,

and for the words no one ever says

That could disrupt the void of silence

Fill the aching pit our stomachs reveal

When we realize we want something else, something more.

They say the whole country’s obese,

So the question is:

For what are we so desperately starving?

Poem: “Sacred”

I could warn you that this poem contains language

But every poem does.

Don’t be fooled by the peach fuzz:

I swear like a sailor,

Still scarred like a failure.

The sacred won’t always do,

But the profane sounds perfect.

 

Because sometimes life stinks like shiitake mushrooms.

Sometimes, you fudge up.

Guillotine’s pressed against your neck.

Everything’s darned to heck.

Everyone you know is a bloody boat-licker,

Lick-spittled, tarnated butt-kicker.

 

Language shapes thoughts which forms actions

Which reflect reactions, cause gee wiz

Ain’t those rules just Cheez n’ Crackers?

Egad! The moral pressures of Catholic school

Have us screaming in the streets, wondering

What the Dickens we should say

In polite company, in a polite way,

Around the dinner table.

 

Sometimes, we’re not able to express ourselves

But by thundering blasted obscenities

At the top of our lungs.

Confound it, I’m done with the doggone bull-hockey!

Nothing you can say will shock me.

Just tell me your stories and your truth,

And it won’t matter what buggered words you use.

 

“A Savage Yawp” at Easy Bay Meeting House

“A Savage Yawp” happens to be the first poem I ever published (in the 2011 Poetry Matters anthology). After looking through old poems, I decided to rewrite it in my modern style, a more spoken-word-laden piece concerning the public education system and the notion that tests can determine futures. Listen to both versions and give your thoughts below.

I hope this offers some insight into particularly the philosophy of education expounded by South Carolina public schools.

“Sea King”

You are King of the Sea, I said

and I King of the Sky.

Don’t you see me, see my wings?

See how I soar? See how I fly?

See how I launch myself from pedestals,

flapping wings of wax, of ambition and manmade edifice.

See how I can fly?

And he I imagine is an underwater king

though he spends most of the time

gliding across the tide on a battered surfboard.

I imagine him peaceful, innocent, yet fierce

like a sea turtle clutching a trident.

He sits aloft coral reefs, sprints across the backs of Great Whites

and can communicate with sea horses like Aquaman.

It was Sunday, the waves unsure, the sky cold and clear

Later, I could see the stars, and I pretended I could name each one

as if I had named them myself.

He explained, in his childish manner, about the rap industry and then

his theory of art

For a quiet boy from Long Island, a placid surfer dude who wanted to become a doctor,

you do not expect for him to care so deeply for art.

 

But on that Sunday, we reeled him into our nightly chaos

into our vices, into our storytelling.

And he explained, how art should asymptotically close to nature.

That Art should be a reflection of reality, of one’s perception.

Then we pretended to be great artists too, boldly shaping faces

sketching dinosaurs in top hats in the margins of our biology notes.

I drew an illustration of he and I

He the King of the Sea

Me the King of the Sky

See how I fly? I asked

And you’re in the waves, exploring the deep

as if in dreams, in sleep, you’ve been talking

searching for something to say, whether it be just a word or a sentence

See how I fall? I asked. See how I fall?

I don’t see nothing at all, you said, nothing at all.

And I said, keep searching, just keep seeking.

Poem: Sob Stories

Sometimes, I feel my soul forgets its immortality

and I try pouring concrete into my chest to make myself whole again.

I’m afraid my veins will abandon me, that I’ll stop seeking the stars,

that I might stop wondering how many licks it will take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop.

 

My bells must forgive their clappers,

and my trees allow mushrooms to feed on their decay.

Sometimes, I stick out like King Kong clinging to the Empire.

I burn like an angel on fire.

 

I could snowball similes until they’re sluiced with slush

Or I could mix metaphors mighty as meteorites missing the Earth by a minute margin

I could sandcastle stanzas and repeat a relentless rhyme

But poetry perpetuates only half of the heliocentric equation

Like we’re missing the bigger picture.

 

My life ain’t just a house to tear down

Give me the hatchet, I’ll cut off all the things holding me down

I’ll strip my walls and paint murals on them with my fingers.

I’ll try wearing my heart around my neck, so I don’t forget it’s there

or that my veins know me better than a lover’s touch.

 

I don’t tell sob stories, just stories. Sometimes, I can’t tell the difference.

The Poet Inside

You wake up, your chest bursting open

your ribcage splayed across your bed, bleeding unto the morning

These words will rip you apart, will climb from your heart

there’s been a poet living there all along

East Bay Meeting House Poetry Open Mic

This is a video of a performance in Charleston at the East Bay Meeting House. Hopefully, you’ll like these poems “Ode to W.W.” and “A Southern Voice,” and soon, I can upload more videos of my performances. I perform nearly weekly at this venue and others. Keep a look out for further videos.

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

This Is Not a Metaphor

Sometimes, you write a poem and publish it. People read it from across the country, even people who don’t like poetry– the common man will rush out to buy that volume to read your inspirational words. Maybe it’s all theatrics or even sappy love sonnets, literary mechanics and overused syllogisms. Then they pay you a lot of money and let you live in the White House.

Or you write a poem, and a goat eats it from out of your hands.

Or as you’re scribbling lines you’ll hope will make sense later, the wind carries the paper away, your aerial poem rising into the atmosphere, spreading its wings, tearing itself into a million tattered pieces, and raining down on the city.

People will have to start carrying umbrellas so thick chunks of poetic manuscript will not conk them on the head midday. Like hail, the words tumble through the sky, bright and white-hot as comets.

People will recycle the poems into trains to cross from Raleigh to San Francisco on the tracks, drinking tea while watching the Americana scenery rush by. They will build helicopters and time machines to fix their mistakes, boats that never sink and schools were the learning is all around you, poems written all over the walls.

Or sometimes you write a poem, and a goat chomps down, digesting half of the poem before noon.

The Poetic Life: Find Meaning in Everything, Anything

Poets tend to have a prodigious talent for producing vaguely philosophical conclusions from the smallest details. Think of the greatest haikus, those crisp images that subtly invoke feelings. Even from the blue jay or the rose bush or the gravy-textured sky, we can derive meaning. At first, this sounds a little crazy, though, doesn’t it?

Your friend comes late to dinner, fixing his hair, clearing his throat—this denotes frustration. When penned down, when life is transcribed into novels, we spend hours analyzing what the text means, what we can learn from what the characters do, from how the author describes the shape of the hills in the distance or the used condoms crumpled by simmering storm drains. During our real-life experiences, however, we rarely analyze actions in such a way.

Pay attention to not just what people do, but what it could mean about them. Don’t boast that you can read minds or understand human interactions, because you can’t—everyone is an amateur philosopher, an amateur theist, an amateur poet. No one can be master in such matters.

Especially if you mean to make art, in my case to write poetry, you must watch how people act, what people say. Try to create poetry that is true to the moment, to life. Sometimes, I will sit among a group of people writing down things they say. Strange things, sometimes profound things. We spend hours hypothesizing in lively debates, changing each others’ minds inexorably, only to forget our enlightenment minutes later, the time it takes for people to leave us.

Alone, however, we should continue to consider our actions and thoughts—why do we think this way? Why do we act this way? Whether you approach this psychologically or religiously or senselessly, it doesn’t much matter, because you perceive things others have never before. Of course learn as much as you can, read as many books as you can read, but remember that only you can decide what is true or untrue for you.

We all hold an immense power to determine truth for ourselves. The only way we avoid being overpowered by the ideas of others is to constantly pay attention—life is a 24-hour lecture. Take notes.