Hi All
It'a great day to shine the spotlight on an individual I find very talented. It is an honor, on the Jimmy Broccoli Facebook page and website, to share with you the poetry of Charles (Chuck) John Scott!
Chuck and I (virtually) met only weeks ago. I read one of his poems and immediately wanted to read more - so I did. I was equally impressed with the second poem I read - so I read more. Chuck's poetry is addictive and a pleasure to read - he isn't afraid to tell it like it is. Chuck has become one of my favorite poets.
Here is Chuck (Charles John Scott) in his own words:
Charles John Scott (Chuck) is an artist, trained in nothing. Relying on highly creative neurons, and grey matter, he makes outsider art, silly videos, but mostly just posts on Facebook, and writes every day. Writing is therapy, and it shows in his work. At least he thinks it does. You can catch him on his IG account, Dude, Check This Shit Out (@dctso) or on Facebook under Charles Scott. There you can read what's on his mind, projects he's working on, along with artwork, poetry, and miscellany. He considers himself a renaissance punk.
He also finds it hard and sorta narcissistic to write illeismisticly. But it's fun to make up words.
Here are two poem by Charles John Scott (Chuck) - and I'm certain you'll love them as much as I do! ____ The Killer is Dead
The Killer is dead. True story, the venerated child raping, wife beating, possible wife killing, music thieving, sociopath, Jerry Lee Lewis is dead at eighty-seven.
Funny what we will ignore for entertainment.
“You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” I’m told. “He can’t defend himself.” they cry. We let him do it! He didn’t need to defend himself.
Funny what we will ignore for entertainment.
There’s Bill Cosby. We laughed with him as he told us about spanish fly. He made fun of rape, and we laughed. We honored him with awards. We let him do it. Until we didn’t.
Funny what we will ignore for entertainment.
Don’t forget Harvey, that greasy, self serving, predatory asshat, making and breaking young souls with flab and cellulite, resembling a rotting potato with appendages. A movie mogul who brought us thousands of hours of entertainment. He was a renown predator who hid behind the pain and fear of his victims. We let him do it. Until we didn’t.
Funny what we will ignore for entertainment.
It’s easy to ignore the perversion for a laugh, abuse for a love scene, rape for a good story. We don’t care if the dancing monkeys fling shit, or dry hump lamp posts, as long as they take time to dance. So yeah, the Killer is dead. ____ Meandering Thoughts of My Last Trip to the Nut Factory While Rats Watch Me on TV (or, Guided By Ectoplasm)
The last thing I remember was walking with no particular destination in mind other than looking for a secure place to sleep that night. I was starting to feel my kryptonite, anxiety, creep into my head, comforting itself under a blanket of fears, as all the associations of anxiety opened their fanged mouths, ready at a moments notice to rip and tear at my scarred psyche. It's tough meat, but still no challenge for the razor sharp teeth that cut to the quick in nanoseconds... that's gonna leave a mark.
The voices come out from under their rocks somewhere in my cerebral cortex to add fuel to the fire of confusion. "You piece of shit!" one yells. Another chimes in, "Yeah, a real piece of shit." I've never seen them, but I picture them as New York City sewer rats, sitting in lawn chairs, watching TV along the underground banks of the shit river.
(my meandering insanity the entertainment)
They're fans. They tune into the morbid sitcom of my mind faithfully. Never miss an episode. They can get a little Siskel and Ebert though.
Times like these I retreat to my mind, the body goes on auto pilot, and I lose huge chunks of time that I can't recall. This time I took myself to the VA hospital. I don't remember making that decision, or the trip there. When I crawled out of my head I was being escorted to my room on the psych ward by two very comforting nurses. I was shaking, my body felt like it was vibrating. I was sweating all over my body. All I could manage to say was, "I'm cold." One of the nurses looked at me and told me in a soothingly reassuring voice that I was going to be ok, that I was just having a bad anxiety attack and that the meds should kick in soon. She was right. I felt a calm wash over me as my brain sponged up the medication. I fell asleep. It was the first bed I'd slept in in weeks. It felt good.
I woke up the next morning, surprised I was in the psych ward, wondering how I got there, wondering if I did something stupid that would involve cops waiting to arrest me. I opened the door, and looked down the hall. No cops. A good sign. I walked up to the nurses station. I asked how I got there. She told me I walked into the ER off the street, that I wasn't speaking coherently. I asked what I was saying, but she had no idea because she wasn't there. That's all she knew.
I left the nurses station, still trying to piece together how I ended up there. I sat in front of the caged TV in a daze.
My mind went to that poem, Footsteps in the Sand, mostly because someone left a proselytizing piece of paper folded neatly into quarters with the poem written on it. However in my mind it's not Jesus, but some unknown, ectoplasmic being protecting me because God is too busy protecting idiots and drunks to worry about me.
Talk about projecting daddy issues onto an entity that doesn't exist, amiright?
Thing is, this phantasm isn't some formerly famous specter roaming the earth looking for fellow souls in need of help. Nope, this guy has lived hundreds of lives. Always an average human. I picture them as a him. A motherly Harvey Fierstein yelling in that gravely voice, "Oh my god! You're going to kill yourself. Is that what you want to do, kill yourself? Not on my watch, honey!" As they gently put me back on track.
Legend has it there was the one time they came back as Catherine the Great's horse. They were slaughtered and eaten shortly after and shit into a moat. They're waiting to do it again. Be a human that is. So in the meantime, in this version of purgatory, they go about watching over me, guiding me to safety. It passes time and it's the neighborly thing to do.
"An injury to one is an injury to all." is their mantra as they gently guide me on this Hot Wheel track, keeping me safe in the loop de loop. Just your average empathetic ectoplasmic ghoul. A regular Joe, a Florence Nightingale, a, GASP! guardian angel that chose me to watch over and protect out of the kindness of whatever houses empathy in ectoplasm.
When I die I want to be like Harvey.
Photo: Charles (Chuck) John Scott.
