New Janis Joplin Mirror Poem

Cycling the Tour de France must be a great way to travel, but hard work. Travelling independently for a long time is the same, but different, in a greenYgrey kind of way. Both can be inspiring, and inspire a feeling of freedom. It can seem an illusion afterwards, but was real at the time. All feelings are transitory illusions between birth and death; probably never based on the whole truth, or actual reality of a situation; not that there is an actual reality, as every event has many angles; to be observed from the inside or outside, left or right, up or down.

Old Mirror Poem Reference

Reflection, Imitation, Experience (Photo credit: Rickydavid)

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, satirical comedy poetry correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by legendary Romantic poet William Wordsworth.

Reflection 19 of Marc Latham’s 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections was Travelling with Janis Joplin. Janis left an unhappy youth in Texas and found fame in the California music scene, but never really found happiness, becoming disillusioned with hippy hypocrisy before dying of a drugs overdose in 1970.

Travelling with Janis Joplin reflected the Folding Mirror poem Art of Humanity, which was posted on fmpoetry.wordpress.com in July, 2011; yes, nearly four years ago. The reflection was:

Existential travel
searching for confirmation
only freedom to lose.

New Folding Mirror Poem

Oiseaux de Franz Marc (Photo credit: dalbera)

It’s only a small reflection, so I thought I’d ask Marc to create something new for all you poetry and philosophy lovers, as you may have been waiting eagerly for new material since my last thrilling appearance on this here lil blog.

Marc duly obliged, writing a poem entirely about Janis Joplin, in a biopic kind of way. It provides some factual information about Janis told through an imaginary meeting.

Janis grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and had a younger sister who attended her wake in San Francisco. Janis started her California career singing in the band Big Brother and the Holding Company.  Somewhere Near Salinas is part of the Me and Bobby McGee song made famous by Janis. Here’s the poem:

Happiness over Horizon, Jiving with Janis

on a memorable day of bopping
round clocking with Janis Joplin
at some Hollywood palace
of debateable excellence
I asked her if she treasures
memories from Port Arthur Texas

why did I ask, you really wanna know

forgetting love Somewhere Near Salinas
I remembered my past without fuss
boredom creates blues
feeling nothing to lose
replied singer in Big Brother
but I cherish Laura little sister

Mirror Poem about Janis Joplin

Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem is a fantasy conversation with Janis Joplin, who tragically died of an overdose at aged 27 in 1970.

Mirror Poem Explanation

There is no anniversary relevance for a poem about Janis Joplin in the wider world, but she was the subject of Reflection 19 in Marc Latham’s 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections, and it is that reflection’s turn to be serialised on Marc’s greenYgrey website.

So, in a first from that book, here’s a new Folding Mirror poem inspired by a reflection. It tells a story of an imaginary meeting with Janis in a biopic kind of way, based on real aspects in her life.

Janis grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and had a younger sister who attended her wake in San Francisco. Janis started her California career singing in the band Big Brother and the Holding Company.  Somewhere Near Salinas is part of the Me and Bobby McGee song made famous by Janis.

New Mirror Poem

Here’s the poem:

Happiness over Horizon, Jiving with Janis

on a memorable day of bopping
round clocking with Janis Joplin
at some Hollywood palace
of debateable excellence
I asked her if she treasures
memories from Port Arthur Texas

why did I ask, you really wanna know

forgetting love Somewhere Near Salinas
I remembered my past without fuss
boredom creates blues
feeling nothing to lose
replied singer in Big Brother
but I cherish Laura little sister

Poetry Reflection Inspires Mind Freedom Search

Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem needs no introduction.
If you follow the tale
to the end of the tail,
you may get the idea
but you might also fail.

Limits of Freedom Poetry Reflection

The above is the introduction to Marc Latham’s Tale of the Weakness Tail Folding Mirror poem posted on fmpoetry in July 2012. I wish its reflection didn’t need an introduction, as I could be out enjoying the delightful spring sunshine, but we believe in doing things properly at the Greenygrey, and time waits for no-one in the fast-paced modern rebranded greenYgrey world… and by the end of writing this post I had found a happy place…

Hi, regular readers and garrulous greenygreyliens might already have guessed that it’s William Wolfsworth, satirical comedy poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey inspired by legendary Romantic poet William Wordsworth.

What is Freedom?

Freedom’s just another word, for nothing left to lose sang legendary songstress Janis Joplin. Having escaped a negative upbringing, she found fame and success, but it helped drive her over the edge. Would she have been happier if she’d sought a normal life? I don’t know.

Legendary travel writer Jack Kerouac found freedom On The Road, but lived long enough to reach its end; ending up disillusioned with the counter-culture’s helter-skelter spiral towards self-destruction at the end of the 1960s.

British homes children under the New Labour government thought they had more freedom, but many ended up being enslaved by child grooming gangs. Their social workers believed in them having freedom, so they left them to the mercy of the groomers, who only believed in their own freedom, and cared nothing for anybody else.

Limits of Freedom

When birds have freedom
they don’t fly into the stratosphere
but sometimes bump into windows.

Reflection 11

Yes, the above Limits of Freedom was reflection 11 in 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections, reflecting the mirror poem Tale of the Weakness Tail.

Eagle-eyed readers might be scratching their heads, as they may think that reflection had a totally different meaning to Reflection 10, which wrote about seeking the mind void.

The greenYgrey

They will have forgotten that this is the greenYgrey world, where like in a parallel universe, two ideas and theories can coexist, and sometimes even merge.

Explaining this in human terms, Marc Latham has lived a life of youth, and now crossed the hinterland into middle-age. Crossing from one world into the other doesn’t mean he has left all his youth behind, or forgotten how he felt then, so he is in some ways living two lives; or three if you count the transitional stage.

Is There Anybody Out There?

once sang Pink Floyd. It’s impossible to tell if searching in the void brings any benefits. Although it can seem as if it brought new insights, it’s not really possible to separate them from other factors: such as ageing, life experiences, education, physical changes, world events and exercise.

I remember reading about an enlightened Buddhist monk who thought that recreational drink and drugs in modern society were short-cuts to what he searched for in life. He didn’t regret the time he spent meditating. I guess that’s because he enjoyed it.

I recently read Mark Rowlands in Running With The Pack write about finding and loving that kind of mental place when writing and running.

Now my time in that place must end… but I’m off to get ready for a run in the sun now… the transitional stage spent in the ‘real world’.

I guess that at it’s essence, Reflection 11 is saying that freedom is about having the freedom to choose, and not necessarily choosing the most extreme option.

Werewolf of Oz Escapes Royal Baby Naming Media Frenzy

Link for Amazon book and kindle.

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. As Kate and William decide whether to call the new royal baby boy Prince Greenygrey Aethelwulf Thunderylightning I or something else, we thought it would be a great time to post the first episode of Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps this week. 

We think this book is the perfect souvenir to remember this momentous royal family week.

This episode starts with the classic Italian Job line set up in the last episode, before taking a trip through the 1970s with a Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin street map. The Grunginator’s encounter with poison dart frog barman Croker unfortunately only seems to increase its powers, after its percolator origins are used for comedic effect.

Chapter 88.  Surviving the 1970s with the Help of Jimi and Janis

Charlie Croker bellow-croaked: ‘You were only supposed to blow the Beatles Doors off, I’m quite fond of the Stones!’

Poison Dart Frog Sitting on a Leaf (Photo credit: MoleSon²)

Then he started shooting poison darts at the Grunginator like PDF files printed from a high-range printer. But the Grunginator simply opened its lid and percolated them.

Dizzy shouted to us, ‘We’d better getta bloomin’ move on, it’s time for a bit of self-preservation.’ We legged it out the back.

Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin Help Us Escape the 1970s 

Cover of Gypsy Sun and Rainbows

We had trouble making our way across the Crosstown Traffic until a Wild Thing shouted Hey Joe, and then showed us the way to Freedom, All Along the Watchtower. He was heading to the Valley of Neptune, and wished us luck.

We walked a couple of blocks, and were getting lost again, until A Woman Left Lonely by Bobby McGee picked us up in a Mercedes-Benz.

Cover of Janis Joplin

After telling us her story she asked where we wanted to go. Dizzy asked to be dropped off on the corner of the 1970s and 1980s. We thanked her before she drove off into Summer.

Grunginator is Alive and Well

I was just starting to relax again when I heard a flurry of gunfire. We ducked down while looking around, and saw the Grunginator hopping down the street a couple of blocks away. We looked at each other, and shared a not again! expression.

We started running in the other direction. Dizzy informed us that the Grunginator was programmed to incorporate any new skills it encountered. I had a primary example of that a minute later, when a poison dart whizzed past my left lug.

Dizzy said we’d better skedaddle back to the 1980s pronto, so we did. It was a relief to be back in the eighties, even though our futures were still hanging by a grungy doc marten lace.

Smashwords link for multiple Ereaders.

 

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Notes

Italian Job quote (You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!) and song (Get a Bloomin’ Move On [The Self Preservation Society]).
Jimi Hendrix songs and album: Crosstown Traffic, Wild Thing, Hey Joe, Freedom, All Along the Watchtower, Valley of Neptune.
Janis Joplin songs: A Woman Left Lonely, Bobby McGee, Mercedes-Benz, Summer.
Hanging by a thread is a common idiom describing: chances running out.
Doc marten boots were a part of the grunge fashion that grew out of the music; although the fashion was not usually endorsed by the original grunge musicians.

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