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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 27, 2015)
Street Roots • March 27-April 2, 2015 Street Poetry Portland Write Around Train Wreck By Mr. Man By Ron Sanford Nestled between love and hate is where you will find my soul. Love a four-letter word used to sell flowers and a false sense of worth. Hate the overwhelming rage that occupies my mind. Teetering between the two, will the hate consume me like a shopper’s greed on Black Friday Or does love conquer all like the fairy tales lead us to believe. I’ve stared into the abyss so long it started staring back. “Do you see that,” I exclaim. “You are always in my heart. I just can’t let you in my soul.” My heart belongs to the darkness but my soul belongs to someone else. When the sun shines I feel queasy about why I am writing Everything under the sun - it’s all been done, it seems - But you know nothing idle will profit So you resolve to keep the pen moving Off-color and irreverent, just make it work! Yet, you are cool with guidelines, honor codes, rules of conduct. There’s no negativity as you are in a public place. The conscience’s angels are not needed. No thought police can tell you what you missed in a book. No right etiquette to learn. Someone once told me: er, uh, today I saw the light! No, the protocol is within your heart — you know what to do. When the sun shines, I feel much better about why I am here. No template can explain the current weather patterns. Turgid, dark and technical words can take a break. In case you didn’t know, we call this creative writing. We are adults. We know right from wrong. We are Portland, growing weirder every day. Oh, God help us, we were once deceitful and desperately wicked. It has been said, nobody’s perfect. Some things are better left unsaid. Trivial tidbits aside, we couldn’t have planned a better day. Welcome, Portlanders — weird and diverse — Come out and get some vitamin D, eat snacks, play games As you skadoodle into the sunset. We are Portland Write Around - a respectful writing community. We don’t follow the rules, we make them. So relax as you scrub your psyche for every morsel of truth. Tune In By Abraham Vinzant Tune into a positive, healing, Freeing, creative, Loving frequency I know your true heart. We want your feedback! TriMet is considering a 25-cent increase to the Honored Citizen fare Please jo in us fo r a discussion. Wednesday, April 8 Uïban League Senior Center 5325 NE MLK, Portland 1:30 p.m —2:30 p.m. Served by Lines 6 and 72 Alternative formats, sign language interpretation and com munication aids are available. Call 503-962-2455 (7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p .m , weekdays) or TTY 7-1-1 at least 48 hours before the meeting. To leam more about the proposal and subm it your feedback, visit trimet.org/hcfare. T R I© M E T Page 7
