SongBu®st

POETRY BOOKS BY STEPHEN BETT

Broken Glosa: an alphabet book of post-avant glosa

Lift Off: a journey of future tense
Shall We Dance That One Around Again?
Back Principles: a book of spiritual fatigue
though we are incredibly small
Our Own Stunned Heads
Un/Wired
The Gross & Fine Geography: New & Selected Poems
Those Godawful Streets of Man: a book of raw wire in the city
Breathing Arizona: A Journal
Penny-Ante Poems: a book of break down
Sound Off: a book of jazz
Re-Positioning
Track This: a book of relationship
S PLIT
Extreme Positions
Sass ’n Pass
Three Women
Nota Bene Poems: A Journey
High-Maintenance
Trader Poets
High Design Refit
Cruise Control
Lucy Kent and other poems

MEMOIR BY STEPHEN BETT

So Got Schooled: in the tower, on the field (three memoirs)

SongBu®st

STEPHEN BETT

BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York
SongBu®st
by Stephen Bett
Copyright © 2024

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

Cover Art: LeStudio

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-476-5
Library of Congress Control Number: incoming

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217
Editor@blazevox.org

publisher of weird little books

BlazeVOX [ books ]
blazevox.org

23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
BlazeVOX
Table of Contents

That Micropoetics Buddy............................................................................ 13

Everly’d Out ................................................................................................ 14
Improv By Four ........................................................................................... 15
Speaking Of Eyes ........................................................................................ 16
Infra Dignitatem.......................................................................................... 17
Couple Quickies .......................................................................................... 18
Hey, Third Rail Infrathining ....................................................................... 19
The Thin Diff Of Walk ’N Come............................................................... 20
That Magic Sailor........................................................................................ 22
Four Tops For Youse All............................................................................. 24
Bookin’ It For You ...................................................................................... 26
Stand By At Sea .......................................................................................... 27
Bully For A Fool ......................................................................................... 28
Mishearing, Like Paddy O’lantern .............................................................. 29
Sheltering .................................................................................................... 31
Leftovers ...................................................................................................... 33
Slow, Brief Song Of The Transgressive Careerist ....................................... 35
Infrathin Hall Of Mirrors Effect (Or, Calling Out The Joneses) ............... 36
The Dig Of Infra Dig.................................................................................. 38
The Creeley / Spicer Outtakes .................................................................... 40
You Put A Spell On… You ........................................................................ 42
What They Said .......................................................................................... 44
British Invasion Ii ........................................................................................ 45
Tell Me No.................................................................................................. 46
Hush, Hush… ............................................................................................. 47
Traveling With Ken Norris Travelling With The Wilburys ....................... 49
Big O ........................................................................................................... 51
Little O........................................................................................................ 52
Cubed & Walleyed Leftover ....................................................................... 53
Corduroy Walking....................................................................................... 54
Dreams Of A Tao Butterfly At Hugo Ball’s Cabaret .................................. 56
Not In The Margins, But (Snugly) In The Kerning ................................... 58
Too Raunchy For Radio .............................................................................. 60
Love Me (Dyb Dyb) .................................................................................... 62
The Great Contender .................................................................................. 64
Inhabiting The Sound Gaps ........................................................................ 65
Insta Surfing ................................................................................................ 67
Infra Lasting ................................................................................................ 69
M Lettered Ready For Use .......................................................................... 71
Musing ......................................................................................................... 72
E-Loco-Motion ........................................................................................... 74
Poetry In Commotion .................................................................................. 76
Nickel & Diming All The Way To Maga Boogaloo ................................... 78
Dining In Or Out? ....................................................................................... 80
Ooh La La ................................................................................................... 83
Infra Dig Dug Done .................................................................................... 85
Ringing The Muse ....................................................................................... 87
Private Eye Report ....................................................................................... 89
Oh Eh Muse Me, Tatty ............................................................................... 91
Slowly Detrained.......................................................................................... 93
Runnin’ In The Gaps ................................................................................... 94
Ba Ba Ba (Rockin’ & A-Rollin’) .................................................................. 96
What You Do To Me .................................................................................. 98
Infra-Sync Compleat ................................................................................. 100
Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgement to the editors of the following

journals and special editions, where many of these poems first
appeared:

a neon garden, The Argotist, BlazeVOX Journal, The Café Review,

Die Leere Mitte, e·ratio, Frog Pond Review, Lothlorien Poetry
Journal, Misfit Magazine, Moss Trill, Mudlark, New Mystics,
Offcourse, Oleada, Otoliths, Poetry Pause, Ranger, Var (2X), White
Wall Review, Word For/Word
 That Micropoetics Buddy

Stop the tape

it aint Peggy Sue

— cool at the loo

(ah hey, fountains R us)

Every day it’s a gettin’ vaster

’til some mutt says go ahead ’n ask her

A hey, a hey hey

that infrathin delay

Blast of gun shot,

bullet hole in target

Gorgeous cover, & ah’m stumped

PS: Love like this will suRly come their way

(a hey, the hay hay)1

1
Marjorie Perloff’s new book on micropoetics, Infrathin, gets after Duchamp’s
notion of “infrathin”: there is a difference, however miniscule, between two seemingly
identical things—eg.,looking at an object (hearing a sound, etc.) now, and then one
second later; or Duchamp himself noting, the “infrathin separation between
the detonation noise of a gun (very close) and the apparition of the bullet hole in the
target.” Then there’s Duchamp’s urinal, titled Fountain & signed R. MUTT. And
Patrick Stump (originally Stumph—rimes with Donald Drumpf, hey?) did a truly
gorgeous cover of this Buddy Holly song, “Every Day.”

13
 Everly’d Out

I want you to tell me why

you WALKed out on mE
(right this minute!)

Done a flyer thru the city

them big yakkers

& don’ let that swingin’

blue jeans door smack yr
cheeky lil’ smartass
the way out
(either!)

Oh no, he said, what

else could he say

That walker …
that dumb talker 2

2
Everly Bro’s, “Walk Right Back”; & self-refs to Those Godawful Streets of
Man (pp. 26 & 52) &
Track This (p. 108)

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 Improv By Four

Improv, improv
said catty’s clown

I wanna be hobby’s gurl

I wanna be da lobby churl
… cos we’re not kiddinK anymore

Ey dies each time some teeny death

so here ze comes, zir turn
to cry-cry-cry

But it was hats off to Larry

(that ol’ coal canary)
broke our hearts in two, spirit ’em away
… a-run, run, run, run, runaway

Improv’d zem right before

our wary eyes 3

3
Four songs: “Cathy’s Clown” (Everlys); “Bobby’s Girl” (various); “Hats Off
to Larry” & “Runaway” (Del Shannon)

15
 Speaking of Eyes

Speaking of eyes …
I remember you-HOO
you’re the one made London
pop & simmer

What kind of
inframince’d name is
Eye-Field?

Polis is eyes is comp by field

Aye aye, by twos or threes

a row of roses read
thinner than
infrared

Invisible to
all 4

4
Frank Ifield, “I Remember You”; & a nod to inframince: Duchamp’s term,
en français

16
 Infra Dignitatem

Please please me …
what the diff, thin to in viz.
Mein frau digs red
as all ways pre-read
Defer & roll to you, Rosie

C’mon (c’mon)
get w/ the prog here
Won’t foam a pleasure
(in principle, hey …)

Pleases me about as
much as a Diss
pleases thee

— right old splash

in yr urinal

Whoa yeah, pls 5

5
Beatles, “Please Please Me”; Fred Neil, “Roll On Rosie”

17
 Couple Quickies

1)
Oh please …

please me

2)
Please please me …

No? Oh yeah …

18
 Hey, Third Rail Infrathining

Ooh hey, hey, hey

Sunshine on a kick’d back day
Light me up, grrl …

Talkin ’bout
your livewire jag
lyin’ on yer ol’ third rail

I. guess. you’d. say.

What can make me feel that way?
Sounds like live ’Murican gunfire play

But tell me more …!

glued — like a stamp to a letter
(like birds of a feather)
says you been charged
poli-sci’d out, runaway Sue

Caint make you’m be untrue

Nuttin’ you could

say or do 6

6
The Temptations, “My Girl”; Mary Wells, “My Guy”

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 The Thin Diff of Walk ’n Come

Have I the right to thrill you?

You know that I’ll wait until you …

Super catchy
loosey-goosey
if not (strictly)
ca ching

(Rarrrr) Come right back

I just can’t bear it
(Oh, woah, woah, oh)

In for a thin
— floating —
hookup

Walk right back to me this minute

We’re All the Lord’s Kids

Children Of Mother Earth

Everly right to kid the child (ahoy hoy!)

Give me the right to make you

the M-in-E
bloat my boat, sailor

Eye for an eye

The aye eyes

20
have it 7

7
The Honeycombs, “Have I the Right”; Everly Bro’s, “Walk Right Back”
(reprised)

21
 That Magic Sailor

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean

Magic, magic, magic, magic

Oracle — more nautical

than prodigal
Polis has eyes on da field

“We are a coast people … no-

thing but ocean out beyond us”
Edge of dumb-struck space

Sail on, sail on sailor

Sunshine kick back day

This magic mo-ment …

so different & so new
(nuttin’ you could say or do)

… Brought to us by our
favorite (third rail) multi
model relational database
management system
(oh please… please me)

Support your local Global

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
(New Regions coming soon!)

Sail on, oh magiK Oracle …

22
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh 8

8
The Beach Boys, “Sail On Sailor”; The Drifters, “This Magic Moment”;
Jack Spicer’s “coast people” quote, redux (again); Oracle Corp, Silicon
Valley: yet another term & concept ripped out of Western Civ.

23
 Four Tops for Youse All

Top 1)

And when I see the sign that

points one way …

In medias res (love it, sailor!

crew’s on Left Banke fo’ sure

Top 2)

Say Bernadette!
(You come and you go-oh)
Sugar bye, honey punch
caint help ma self …
Din’t I always treat you right
now, din’t I?

What Smokey calls

“a bang bang record”

Trouble’s coming, and it aint

gonna be smooth sailing
(buon viaggio, surfer…)

Top 3)

Now the same. old. song.

there’s somethin’ about chu
(sweet sweet thing on a
Saturday nite)

24
Touch more R&B, with
a ballsy feel… and a
booting sax solo

You will dance

— chew that boot
(lil’ chefi)

Top 4)

Way you hang your head

— you’re a loner —

Pinnacle of the Motown sound:

adoring, fretful, muscular
(woman was ever
meant to be …

Ma bet’s full on it —
this four will not
be (s)topped 9

9
The Four Tops (medley); a glorious sound that surely lives on; The Left
Banke (the original “Renée”— a cutie song); italicized quotes from
www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/best-four-tops-songs-motown/

25