Remember me?

Been crazy busy with three days’ worth of classes I’ve been teaching…so today is catch up.

Two things:

1. SPEAK on Wednesday was great. A small turnout but some of the best poetry I’ve heard there, all on the theme of “perspective” — and mad profusion of great covers, too. Thanks to all…more on this later.

2. The new Zero Point Zero column is up — an odd one on one of the spiritual dimensions of being a poet. Love to hear your thoughts — and if you want to comment there, help stimulate some action on the site, that’d be ok too.

I went out and picked up two CDs last night by bands I only knew of by word of mouth.

Modest Mouse, “The Moon and Antarctica”: Damn fine music. Eclectic and intelligent. And yet, another damn car commercial on here! Are car commercials the new medium for musical dissemination? I have never been the same since my beloved Nick Drake showed up on that Volkswagen commercial; you think I’d be used to it by now.

At any rate, think I’ll be going back for the new album in the next day or two.

Sun Kil Moon, “Ghosts of the Great Highway”: I like the Modest Mouse stuff, but I LOVE this album from the guy who was the driving force behind the Red House Painters. Cool, edgy, beautiful — like driving in moonlight, except without the Volkswagen blasting “Pink Moon” in the next lane. Damn.

graduated from high school yesterday and is off to college in the fall.

I met her new boyfriend yesterday for the first time.

He’s a big guy who dresses in black, frequents coffeehouses, and sports a Van Dyke and a ponytail.

I don’t know whether to be proud, amused, or a little creeped out. Probably a little of everything.

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I suspect Reagan died just to give the Republicans a boost.

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SPEAK: on Wednesday, we’ll be working with the theme of “perspective”. I’m very interested to see what comes up.

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Baltimore, Delaware: two weeks till I’m down there!

Ronald Reagan is dead. The first great political nemesis of my personal history…

Although my first political efforts as a teenager were around pushing for Nixon’s resignation and funding the the American Indian Movement, I really have to thank Ronnie for putting me over the edge into a more full on critique of American foreign policy and its incestuous marriage to corporate interests.

It was also under Reagan that I first became truly acquainted with domestic surveillance — first with groups associated with protesting American policy in Central America, then more directly when I was group coordinator for Amnesty International in Worcester and my mail was opened regularly as part of a surveillance campaign aimed at groups working on Eastern European prisoner cases. That bled over into Bush I, too…and eventually led in part to the dissolution of our group and my first breakdown/withdrawal from activism.

I think you are in part what you are because of what you oppose. I suppose I have to thank Ronnie for what I am.

We still live in Reagan’s world, in a lot of ways.

But he’s gone at last. It’s twenty-three years too late, if you ask me.

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Busy as hell today, running about doing errands.

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Jane Cassidy is in Worcester this week! Go see her at the Hut Sunday night. I will be attending my niece’s high school graduation/family dinner, so I won’t be there.

I’d say I was bummed, and I am, but only slightly…I’ve been so looking forward to her graduation, I can’t pretend otherwise.

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I’m struck by the seeming lack of commentary on the race column on the Gotpoetry site this week. Two comments, although a lot of hits. Where is everyone?

It is possible that everyone burned themselves out on the earlier question, I suppose.

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OK…away with me…

I resisted doing one of these because I like to think of myself as older, more mature, less susceptible to trends.

I decided to do one because I’m interested in being part of of new things, experimenting, etc.

I have it on good authority that the kanji characters in the background of this icon render a quote by Barbara Adler in translation: “Fucking sheep.”

This is weird, eh?

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In the country of storytellers,
there is nothing inconceivable
unless it cannot be vocalized.
You are not born until you emerge
from the mouth of another.

In the country of storytellers
love is a pawnshop full
with things cast off by dire necessity
waiting to be redeemed by the next
needy person.

In the country of storytellers
the dissident reflex exists
only for a minute at time
before being re-absorbed like a bubble
in melting chocolate.

In the country of storytellers
we sleep with our hands
over our ears because the air is so full
of lint,
pencaps, tongues.

In the country of storytellers
a ghost is just a story
without a teller and even though
the country is enormous, it is still
lousy with ghosts.

In the country of storytellers
Death is a pair of lips
that kiss you into a box
until you become
pornographic to others.

In the country of storytellers,
there is little room for all of us
around the great tower in the
center of things and
there’s no hope that it will ever fall.

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I think it’ll eventually be weirder.

Synchronicity alert: a co-worker just passed me a brochure about a storytelling workshop.

into yet another meeting:

1. I AM Brody Dalle!

2. If I get time this afternoon, I’m gonna post a big new poem — think I’m close enough for some feedback before continuing.

3. Tenet resigns as head of CIA. I’m a bit surprised at the timing, is all. Who to replace him? Porter Goss? John McLaughlin? Get it done before the election, complete with hearings, or let McLaughlin hold the fort till then?

And — who’s next? Hmmmmmmm…This could be the start of the house cleaning I was talking about a few posts ago.

Onward.

for the Frantic Rabbit feature at the Spacement tonight — Worcester’s own performance space/Indymedia center/Food not Bombs headquarters/anarchist lending library.

Present? cheesy_goodness our excellent host, along with Bob Gill, Ted Blackler, anselm23 , yankeepoet , javabill , androidlustre , and hairy_lamb. Among others, of course.

A good crowd, good response.

Set list? Haven’t got a clue. I know I started with “In A Perfect World, Roy Horn Would Have Saved Himself”, and followed with “Declaration” (the only poem in my repertoire that mentions me fucking a blow up doll), a bunch of the stuff that’s been here on LJ, and a few oldies like “Punk”, “DIY”, “The Radioactive Artist”…I think that about kills it. No covers tonight, for some odd reason.

I’m gonna be crazy busy for the next couple of days, so don’t expect to hear much.

Thanks for responses to the race question…really interesting. I’ll talk more about it when the column’s done (not that I’m going to use the responses in the column, by the way).

If y’all haven’t answered the race question in the previous post, go check it out and drop your thoughts…

Also:

I am FEATURING TONIGHT AT:

The Spacement (Frantic Rabbit reading)
Harding Street, Worcester 7-9

Come on down. Buy a book. Make a new friend. Find a fuckbuddy. Read a goddamn poem, even.