Nice “SPEAK” tonight. Highlights for me (among many) were Dave and Heather’s pair of poems on a painting by Wil Barnet, and Dave I’s second poem.

The whole question about the rapid fire performance delivery that seems to be enforced by slam these days came up several times tonight. Folks who believe they can’t “perform” a piece without being in that mode, so they look for ways to deliver the pieces that way when it’s not the best way to deliver that particular poem. I hate this rigidity.

The older I get, the slower and softer I read, most of the time — can still reach for it if need be, but I find it rarely is needed.

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Then I watched about 45 minutes of the debate.

I think they both looked like idiots most of the time. This is the best we can do?

Edge tonight in my eyes went to Kerry on the minimum wage question alone; other than that, total draw based on what I saw.

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Gotta figure out plans for the NY trip this weekend — without a car now (Anne’s is in the shop over the weekend for sure) so it’s either the train or the bus.

onward…

The theme for tonight at SPEAK is “falls”. Not fall — falls.

The first time I recall
falling was when I very young and
my father fell down the stairs
with me in his arms. I was so young
I do not recall the hurt or the fall
or any fear.

I have always since then
feared a sudden loss of solid ground
below my feet, a drop into air
and a stop at the end.
I wish I could tell you I grew up wanting to fly.
I wanted to burrow underground instead.
I wanted to swim and nearly drown and skid into walls
and I did all those things one by one;

but when I consider all the times I should have fallen
from walls or bridges or face to face meetings
with beautiful strangers in high places, I find the scars
from the lesser dangers ache
a little differently, more urgently; my ears bend back as if
the wind was taking them anyway,
and I wish I had risen, no matter the cost;
I wish I had fallen
for real,
even just once.

The reason I posted the Matthew Shepherd picture specifically in response to specific Red Sox/Yankees trash talk was that I was struck by how simultaneously homophobic AND violent it was.

I am never surprised by such stuff…but that doesn’t mean I can’t comment on it.

If you want the shit to stop flowing, you have to cut off even the tiny rivulets.

That is all.