This is exciting news. Well, part of this announcement isn’t so exciting – the fact that this is a farewell performance by Ana. Port City Poet (Wilmington, NC) Ana Ribeiro is doing her farewell performance at the Bottega in Wilmington, NC. Ana has been running the Port City Poet’s Blog for some time now, and she is leaving for a scholarship, overseas. You can read more about this event on Ana’s blog here: http://poets.blogs.starnewsonline.com/11634/my-farewell-performances-this-week/… It’s always exciting to witness a good poet sharing her original poetry. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it with various possible job conflicts but as it turned out, I am able to come. So, Ana, being the nice person that she is, suggested that I read with her that night, as co-featured poet, as it were. So, indeed that is the plan. Ana will read from 9:05-9:25pm, with a short break and then I, Bruce Whealton, will read from 9:35 – 9:55pm. It’s always exciting for me to get down there and be part of the poetry scene. It is where I started as a poet and nurtured my poetry, or nurtured my inner poet, as it were (I think I’ve used that phrase, as it were, to many times in one paragraph ).

The above event is a feature of Jean Jones Presents, an offering on the second Thursday of each month. There will be a poetry workshop as well. Further details are at the link above.

Ana will host another poetry reading at the Brown Coat in Wilmington as well.

Maybe some of my readers are in the Wilmington, NC area… if not, I’ll have to share videos when they become available online.

Should be fun!

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This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs

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I’m not sure about the title for this one. I was reading this book called “TranceFormations” about the Hypnotic Patterning of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, produced by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, modeled after the skilled Milton Erickson – father of modern clinical hypnosis. They spoke of hypnotic patterning. This is about love and connection, also. Maybe the title should be “Hypnotic Realities,” instead.

Captivated

You are the river
that flows through me
like relaxation…
the place I go
for comfort…
the dream that inspires me
and reminds me
of those things I had forgotten
and everything
I see
hear
and feel
is some part
of you.
To be in your presence
is to be
in trance.

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This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs

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Watching you…

I look at you
and record image
after image
etched in my memory -
hundreds of stop-action
still-frame images -
so many aspects
of you…
so many expressions…
So much of me
bears your name
and image -
looking at me
is to see
what you do to me.
If you could look
into my mind
you’d find yourself
reflected.

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This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs

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Synchronicity

Like magic
a virtual world
of our creation
comes into being,
shared,
experienced
as only two like us
could imagine,
privately.
Your eyes
looking into mine…
you smile
and instantly
I feel it.

When we touch
we will enter into
touch completely…
I’ll come to you
shaking
craving the intoxication
of your lips
and then
calmed by the
synchronicity
of our naked touch
and of movement.

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This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs

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I had seen a play recently by an organization called “Hidden Voices” (on the web here). The play was called “Home Is Not One Story.” What a powerful performance that was! I was brought to tears more than once by these stories. I think that many of the participants, actors and actresses, were telling their own story. I cannot be sure but that is what I wrote this poem below. I spoke to one of the actors in the play on Saturday night when I ran into him in town at a local restaurant and he said that indeed some of them are still homeless.

I do have a hard time meeting strangers, and approaching strangers. Yet somehow, when I saw this young woman who was in the play, at Weaver Street Market, I found the courage to approach her and tell her how moved by the performance, her performance. That is unusual, very unusual for me to approach a stranger and say something. I usually will comment to someone if they just happen to be standing near by. However, I was very interested… not because she was a woman but because of the nature of the performance, the play, and how moving it was. I thought that when I wrote this, it might read like there was attraction but that wasn’t it, any more than I was curious to learn more about the stories behind the guys that acted in the play. Were they indeed telling their own story?! The guy I met Saturday night, the night after I saw the play, didn’t say if that was his story.

They certainly gave the impression that it might have been their own stories they were telling. That to me, almost felt like being nude before an audience, raw, exposed. I suppose that’s how I’d feel. I do that with poetry, but I suppose even the most honest “confessional” poets, have limits to what private details they will reveal.

Exposure and Courage

I did it, confronted my fear, over came it,
and went up to introduce myself to someone.

I met a star today.
Her name is Rita.

Her play is called “Home is not one story” -
a powerful drama on homelessness,

Filled with personal, painful, honest stories;
She had told HER story to audiences.

I wanted to ask her so many questions -
What motivates a person to reveal

private details of suffering,
I mean where does one find the courage?

Where did I find the courage
to admit that during the performance

I was in tears at times?
Do you want to be left alone?

Was that enough bare exposure on the stage?
You sit alone at the market.

I sit alone writing,
but for a few moments, just moments ago,
I wasn’t alone.

If I got up on a stage,
told a crowd what I wanted,

Would I still sit alone? Be alone?
Probably.

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This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs

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