Placing The Blame - 3 Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To link up with this week's Three Word Wednesday *click here*

This week's words:

Hamper; Pulverize; Taunt

Placing The Blame

There is the proof found
in the clothes hamper, the stain
on my tangled wash -
they said your true name
will pulverize the edges
of the left over
scheme that holds my dreams -
I hear your chief taunt which hangs
in the smoggy light
of the afternoon
drive, how all's come to dead stop -
you force my shame now.

Written June 27, 2012 5:25 AM

I refuse all blame for it. See how those three words darkened my imagination this morning. All is well here in this house. The neighbor cat who sometimes sleeps beside or even on me woke me in time for poesy. He wanted a little something and then release from this warmth and safety. I have no idea what I'm friggen talking about in the poem.

A good thing happened this week. I got access to pictures of the tiny building that housed The Brass Knocker, the coffee house coffee bean store where Paul Zeigler sat on a tall stool under the stairs, playing and singing the songs I learned over the next few years as I mastered his style. My training was deepened by the finger picking of Jorma Kaukonen. Indeed later on Paul provided a place for Jorma to play the summer of 1965, the year The Jefferson Airplane took off in August.

I sat in the audience in that former pizza parlor south of the San Jose State Campus that Paul rented. There I heard Jorma play blues, Paul Kantner play classical guitar, and the joy of Skip Spence whipping up the crowd with his solo rock and roll style. Skip before drugs took his sanity was a terrific showman. Jorma and Paul were original partners in making the Airplane fly. The name was Jorma's, why the Airplane became the Starship later when Jorma and his friend Jack Casady left to form Hot Tuna. Skip figured large in Moby Grape, a short lived San Francisco band.

Look here at this old summer cottage on Big Basin Way in Saratoga, California. Built in the 1890s, the building may be torn down soon. Built on a steep slope dropping away from the street, it has two floors, a street level upper floor and a lower floor down those stairs. In 1964, down the stairs, both inside and outside, was a coffee house that held maybe fifteen paying customers while a solo performer (there were several) sat beneath the inside stairs doing folk, blues and acoustic rock.

This historical structure is typical of the small gabled residences and summer homes built in Saratoga from the 1850s to the late 1890s. A number of local businesses have occupied the home over the last several decades. (Listed at $719,000, but not currently for sale.)

The Brass Knocker Viewed From Big Basin Way

The Upper Floor, A Coffee Store in 1964-65

The Lower Floor, A Coffee House