and waiting for a rescheduled appointment.

just_jeff and rosa_ostrina were talking in their respective journals about this poem of mine, which is several years old and published in a number of places now; I was honored and humbled to find that rosa_ostrina covers it (I wanna hear it!).

Jeff’s got a piece which springs from much the same well over on his journal right now, so I thought it would be fitting to put this up today…

There’s a huge story behind it, but it also speaks for itself.

POLITICAL ART

a print of “ Guernica” hangs on the foyer wall
above the drink table
here are the famous horse and the upraised human face
they’re screaming as the hors d’oeuvres are passed

and on the facing wall
behind the buffet
hang two photographs
carefully chosen for tonight

in this one is a girl we have seen before
running and burning on a road in Vietnam years and years ago
back then she was trying to fly to safety
on the innocent strength rising along her fiery arms

in this one is a man we’ve also seen before
and despite his death in 1890 he also keeps trying
but he’s frozen awkward and insolent in his attempt
to rise from the snow at Wounded Knee

we are making small talk tonight
clicking our tongues at all these pictures
making crestfallen small talk
because we know we should

handing over money
to save Afghani statues from the guns of rapists
handing over fistfuls of green guilt
for the anesthetic of aesthetics

buying permission to posture unflinching
before those who have fallen
permission to shelter in these picturesque memorials
in the hope of receiving from them some kind of prophylactic grace

as we stare at the burning girl
as we sadly regret Wounded Knee and genocide
as we admire the abstraction of that burning Spanish town
we will click our tongues

while marking the skill of the artist at having those faces
seem so stark in their angled black and white
seem so shot through and through
with an undertone of subconscious red

it’s from this we’ve learned how to watch the news
the news that gives us each day our daily dread
a new crop of victims to be cropped and photoshopped
and we know just what to do when we see the faces

we observe
we regret
we remark
we move on

tonight there’s a gallery fundraiser
tomorrow there will be another
we’ll see the burning girl and the rising corpse again
and we’ll make another print of “Guernica”

why
do we need
all these prints
of “Guernica”?

someday we’ll see
that if we had been changed by all this art
at the first hint of genocide we would smash our cameras
hang our paintbrushes back on the wall

stick our checkbooks back in our pockets
lift the paintings from their frames
and carry them through the streets
to the places of power calling why why

if the people inside our work could speak
they would tell us that if witness alone could change the world
the world would be changed by now
and we would have no need to learn

that this picture
of that girl
is not
beautiful

The new column is up — a brief follow-up to last week’s Clear Channel furor. I felt I owed it to the folks who read that column to say something about the developments since then, and to suggest that while this issue’s “cleared up” a bit, the deeper issues that started the whole mess burning still remain.

I don’t like writing about slam stuff in the column, but the last few weeks have proven to be interesting fodder for larger discussions.

No more, though; at least not for a while. Wanna get back to some thoughts about poetry and spirituality; been reading, again, Hirsch’s book on the Demon and the Angel in the poetic imagination, and I’m ready to have a go at that.

I’m taking a week off though, since I’ll be in Cleveland a good part of next week with unknown computer access.

See ya later…

Personality Crisis, indeed.

RIP, Arthur Kane.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3897481.stm

Considering that this claims that my casual sex partner is 16 years old, I think I’m in trouble.

Your LiveJournal Love Life
LJ Username
You are lusted after by:	mstegosaurus
You will be seen naked by:	thomsaplomb
You will have casual sex with:	seracy
You will be loved by:	euqort
You will fall in love with:	loudpoet
You will end up with:	sapienza
This Quiz by butterkitty – Taken 32496 Times.

New! Get Free Daily Horoscopes from Kwiz.Biz

I have
nothing to say,
and plenty of time
to say it.

I want to be whole
again. As if
a broken man
was not natural.

What points I had, I
can’t recall.
There were reasons, excuses, facts —
nothing worth saving.

Time to go. I lift myself
off the chair and stand unsteady
before the mirror. I enter it and
find myself stumbling forward.

This rough track
is the only way through. Feel myself
bracing. I am beside myself and
coated in dirt.

The straight way is the only way
to get over the curve of the hill.
I start to climb, the hill keeps growing.
I can’t follow anymore. I will roll myself downhill home.

to get royally messed up on some high end hallucinogenic, for the first time in years.

I think the last thing I tripped on was probably purple microdot acid, eating 3-4 tabs on a Halloween night in 1981.

I still recall the horror of a Burger King commercial —

the way the rubber balls bounced up and down in mid air with no apparent pattern except any I could impose.

there was a mirror and solitude in my room for several hours, dealing with synesthetic hallucinations of all kinds mostly engendered by Mark Lyness’ supercharged Fury III idling outside my window for what seemed like hours.

Why do I miss this? What did I gain that has kept it so fresh for me?

I don’t recall myself before this in a coherent way. It’s as if the memories are sealed away and I’m just seeing them from a distance, you dig?

________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Just for the record, I won’t be doing this. I’m more struck by the simple fact that after 23 years, I’ve got this sudden craving. Why, I wonder?

I did pretty much every drug you can think of as a teenager/young adult; sometimes experimentally (heroin, downers), sometimes more regularly (acid, shrooms, speed, cocaine, pot). Booze didn’t show up till I turned 18.

Over the years, I’ve reduced or eliminated everything except an occasional glass of Scotch or a beer now and again.

So the chances of me heading off on a bender are slim to none. Thanks for looking out for me though.

( I think it’s more a fascination with being out of control, or something…some experience I’m looking to regain or replicate…)

and the theme is “taste”. C’mon down. Please? Thanks.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In other news, “Stacy’s Mom” is stuck in my head. I thought of using a small ball peen hammer to knock it free, but sadly, I have no access to a ball peen hammer at this time.

I am attempting to remove it using Kill Switch Klick instead.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fuck. It’s still there. Only now it’s mixed up with “Sin City.”

I may have to switch over to Genitorturers soon.

A local restaurant that’s been the site of quite a few memorable moments over the years burned down this afternoon.

I was on my way back from a doctor’s appointment when I got stuck in the traffic jam. Looks like a total loss.

realsupergirl — Lowell’s is gone.

again with the out sick goddamit too much to do.

blech.

_________________________________________________________

in other news: the guitar’s already met its reserve of 250 bucks on eBay with 5 days to go and 23 people having it on their “watch” lists. hope to see it hit 500 bucks, all the funds going to my niece’s college fund.

I love most the fact that I got it from someone who sneered at a “Jap guitar.”

I am too fucking sick to be imagined.

Slept most of the day when I wasn’t, um, spending quality time elsewhere…you figure it out.

Argh.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For someone who doesn’t watch a lot of movies, I’ve sure seen a lot of movies.

I am too fucking sick to be imagined.

Slept most of the day when I wasn’t, um, spending quality time elsewhere…you figure it out.

Argh.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For someone who doesn’t watch a lot of movies, I’ve sure seen a lot of movies.

Saturday, I was out doing errands when I spotted a guitar case at a yard sale.

I stopped and found a “Nobility” archtop — probably late 40s, early 50s, birdseye maple back, solid spruce top (pressed, not carved, for you aficionados out there, like Bill Campana), but with a wicked bow in the neck that wasn’t worth repairing.

The guy running the yard sale came over. “$250,” he said.

Needless to say, I thanked him and moved on. He was clearly irritated and jerked his thumb back to another case. “That one’s only 75 bucks,” he said.

I walked over to check it out. Inside was a 1971 Sadao Yairi classical that looked like it hadn’t been played in 30 years.

Sadao Yairi was the cousin of the guy who does the Alvarez-Yairi line of acoustic guitars. (Think Ani, think Bob Weir.) This guitar was one of his — handmade, all solid woods, in pristine condition. Signed and hand-dated label. While not a custom instrument, this was a really, really nice intermediate concert classical.

I talked him down to 65 bucks and took off with it.

Once I got it home and cleaned the dust off of it, I tuned it up to concert pitch and began to play…and realized that this was far more classical guitar than I was used to; I own a low-end but decent student Yamaha what I fool around with, but this was another animal entirely.

A good steel string instrument makes you sound better than you are. A good classical makes you sound worse, because it demands that you actually have classical technique; it makes you a better player because if you have any pride, it forces you to straighten up and fly right.

I am selling the instrument on eBay, hoping it goes to a serious student of the instrument, turning the money I hope to make from it over to my niece’s college fund; but I did get one thing out of it…

THE NEW GUITAR

This new guitar is stern
and lovely, shape less hourglass than pear,
broad in the neck and careful in tone.

It is unforgiving of
my sloppy technique, burns and buzzes
under my fat fingers like a trapped bee.

The small murders of each stunted chord and
dropped arpeggio fill the room
like a mass grave.

This is a determined massacre
born of desire: these hours working
to make it sing

the way it cries to sing
make me a singer too. Every easy guitar
led me to this one, as surely as a fire leads to ash.

Long ago, the receding Flood
brought dryness back to the
earth. The trees grew again, were felled,

quartersawn and planed into shapes
and stories. Someone made this guitar
for the tale of the struggle for the covenant.

I stretch my hand again, shake the cramp off,
raise the neck to play and play. I am terrible at this.
We are all terrible at this. We do it anyway.

The new Zero Point Zero is up.

One guess what it’s about.

But I surprised myself; I think I did something far better than the polemic I would have expected me to write.

Who woulda thunk it, right?

Dig in, go read it, comment there, here, repost it, trash it…rock out with your bad selves.

I’m actually, sincerely, truly NOT tempted to sign on to the slam list to watch the mess I know must be happening there. I think I’m getting over it.

Y’know, I have less trouble with the tobacco company sponsorship than I do with Clear Channel. At least there are smoking poets in our ranks…

But ClearChannel? CLEARFUCKINGCHANNEL?

Who banned the Dixie Chicks from their airwaves? Who decided that John Lennon’s “Imagine” was an inappropriate song for airplay following 9/11? Who routinely dumb down and buy out local outlets to replace them with lowest common denominator CRAP?

Does anybody have a fucking clue?

Does anybody understand that the NPS has struck a deal with an organization that stands in opposition to what we claim to stand for?

(I know you do. This is rhetoric.)

Fuck fuck fuck.

It’s easy enough to be outraged — but who will take the first step to walk away?

Let’s see you do it, big bad revolutionaries…

Nothing like getting into a soft, comfortable bed.

From the gotpoetry forum, reposted from the slamlist by Sage Francis:

“I am pleased to announce that St. Louis has forged a partnership with Clearchannel Communications. This deal is a great opportunity to grow the NPS from year to year. Clearchannel has suggested that they possibly would be interested in a national partnership from year to year.

The deal breaks down with three radio stations like this;

Z107 Fm, The Beat and Magic will each run three ads per day for three weeks…. with 63 ads per station which gives us 189 produced spots. Each spot will be sixty seconds.

Each station will also provide one live remote during the event.

This package is valued at $106,000.00. I cannot tell you how important this deal is for the national movement. I hope you will embrace the need for media partners as you grow this event forward.

I can understand the reluctance to have certain sponsors branded to this event, however, there is no bigger media partner than Clearchannel out there…and they were the only media company that could offer this package.

Additionally we have purchased radio spots to solely promote finals night. This again was partly in-kind. We will pay $1500.00 cash for the extra radio coverage for finals night. $106,000.00 coverage for only $1500.00 is a great and awesome deal folks. Clearchannel has been most gracious and one of the best contacts to date.”

Not sure how to react? Some other stuff about ClearChannel to think about:

http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/cc.php