was fine, nothing special. I did a fairly standard set, pleased myself, felt ok, blah, blah, blah.

Most notable for the fact that in the presence of my boss, I suggested that I would fuck a dog as part of my feature.

I didn’t.

In far more important news, the poem I wrote for the Stonewalkers is up on their website: http://www.peacefultomorrows.org .

This pleases me so much.

What a great event.

It was cathartic to read “Dispatch…” last night. I had retired it, partially because of the emotions it brought up —
and doing it last night, it felt right that I had retired it, and that I had brought it out as well.

It turns out that one of the women who spoke last night had lost her husband, who happened to be sitting next to Robin Kaplan, one of my friends, on Flight 11. We hugged, talked, and it was good.

They are going to hang my poem, “Gift”, on the caisson of the stone as they walk.

No, I don’t miss Nationals. Not at all.

If you’re in Boston, come see me tonight at the Cantab, where I’ll be featuring…we’ll talk non-slam stuff and read poetry.

love,
T

Coulda predicted this.

Your CD collection is almost as big as your ego,
and you can most likely play an instrument or
three. You’re a real hit at parties, but you’re
SO above karaoke.
What people love: You’re instant entertainment.
Unless you play the obo.
What people hate: Your tendency to sing louder than
the radio and compare everything to a freaking
song.

What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

really really well.

Profoundly well.

I am glad I went, glad I read what I read, and glad beyond hope that they are doing this.

More later.

I’ll be preparing three poems for tonight.

One, “Dispatch from the Home Front, Halloween 2001”, I wrote shortly after the attacks, in early November of 2001. It’s in the About.com online anthology of poems about 9/11 if anyone’s desperate to read it.

The second one will be a poem by Susan McMaster from the 100 Poets Against the War Anthology. You can find it, if you’re so inclined, at http://www.nthposition.com in the online version of the anthology.

I’d provide links, but I’m pressed for time.

This is the third one…amazing what a deadline will do.

Thank you again, LJ Posse, for helping me think. Love you guys…

GIFT: for the Stonewalkers

We have always
wanted our gifts to come to us
tied off neatly

with tidy bows.
This isn’t one of those. Unraveled
ends trail off this one like ripcords,

just waiting for one strong tug
to open up and set it free.
It may wait for years, and

even when pulled long and hard,
it may never unwrap completely
in one lifetime. Still, every gift needs

to be opened. Everyone
needs to see what may be inside –
despite the fear that it may

rise, or burst, or be so
unlike what was expected that
everything around it will have to change.

This is the hope contained in anything before it is unwrapped:
that everything will change
once someone reaches out, takes hope in hand,

and pulls.

Can I tell you, I’m scared to death to be reading tonight at this event?

Here I am, speaking, reading allegedly meaningful poetry to a group of September 11 family members united for peace.

And I can’t even read a Sept. 11 poem in NYC, three years after the event, because it makes me so insanely upset.

What do I choose? The pieces written in the year following, that speak to the pain and anger? I don’t think so.

Yet the more recent stuff seems wrong for this event.

And the political stuff is just flat out wrong, as they want the event to be decidedly non-partisan.

It’s not just about material choice — it’s also about my state of mind.

I’m not worthy to be there, is the main thing I’m thinking.

Who would be, is the answer I keep getting back.

in the night garden, a bird
is calling.
my pulse sifts
in and out of my ears. it is not enough.
if there were coyotes here they would cry
and it would not be enough to keep me
from running

toward the far off light in a stranger’s house,
if there was one to see; where
if i pounded on the door, i would surely be
rejected, falling to the stoop
smelling of jasmine and
flop sweat: beauty tinged
with despair.

i once hoped for this
solitude, but am losing faith
in its value: if i am this alone,
how will i recognize the presence
of truth? i may become too eager
to accept anything
that might speak to me,
simply to escape the empty sound of
no voice at all.

a still, small voice, they said.
they put me here and told me there were ways
to find god in the silence. listen for the still,
small voice.

i am listening and all i hear is my own.

art isn’t worth it. god isn’t
worth it. nothing is enough
except the fullness of
another person — woman, man —

nearby.

i am trying to remember that language
is an exchange.

faith and face poem…

It’s a pretty radical shift, but headed now somewhere I’m more comfortable with…still a way to go.

It’s always interesting to me how the poem changes as I change.

WHO WE ARE

there is
a greed that knows nothing of god.

there is a farce and there is applause.
there are always the same
damned people
saying the same
damned things.
there are
forever more bullets than prayers, more
fallen robes in the closet no one
ever hangs up, smooths out, cleans off.
there was honor in the rubble,
but the flag was so brilliant
honor was forgotten and left behind.

if ever there was a reason for an angel
to give up,
it sits before us like a star chart of judgment day.
if ever there was a reason for a human face
to melt away and expose its faith, skeletal and frail behind it,

this is it:

an age of blue and slippery causes,
chewed ethics and faded bloodstains,
inconvenient skins and trees.

this is it.

in spite of which, we
don’t. can’t.

we are that order
who will
not.

just hibernating.

Sorry about the column, just don’t have it in me this week.

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

I watched the Worcester Slam team send off tonight.

I’ve been on two teams. We did ok.

Worcester’s been to finals once. (I wasn’t on that team.)

We’ve had amazing poets from Jack McCarthy to Seren Divine to Sou MacMillan to Bill MacMillan to Sean Shea to Kyria Abrahams to Lea Deschenes and Dave MacPherson and Corrinna Bain and Dawn Gabriel and Gary Hoare and Lia Klunk and all sorts of other folks you may or may not know over the years…and if I forgot anyone crucial, I’m sorry…

Whatever Worcester’s slam record looks like, it’s always been one of the two or three best poetry teams in the competition every year. Period. Teams that won the whole shebang, that didn’t deserve to be recognized for their poetry (yup, I said it), were nowhere near being as good as we have been, year in and year out.

And yeah, I’ll stake my life on that.

So let me say this, with a sincere nod of the head to all of us from past years and a sincere statement that I mean no disrespect by saying it:

This is the best Worcester Slam Team ever.

Period.

It’s like watching a machine in action with strong, wild, quirky, well written stuff.

I could care less how they do in St. Louis. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do that well, simply because they’re going to be so fucking different no one will know what to do with them.

But I hope they have fun, and I hope you go see them, because they are amazing.