a random number
of my thoughts
will escape me
tonight and run

off to the
skateboard park where
they’ll beat their
little asses raw

on concrete and
it’ll be the
best thing, really
because I haven’t

kept up enough
with my end
of the bargain
to toughen them

enough to be
warriors as needed
for battle or
love or even

planning strategy with
my neighbors over
stopping the skateboard
park from ruining

our property values.
you’d think I
was their father
or something the

way they expect
to be punished
for being free
enough to play

on their own
in the very
source of my
misery, skating with

the freakish kids
who play there —
cracking jokes at
my expense, probably;

roughneck kids going
where they aren’t
supposed to be;
my thoughts, exactly.

Felt well enough tonight after a long day working on various projects to hit the Asylum. I was in Providence at the Post Office at 6:05 and was in the Hut by 6:40….not bad, eh?

(By the way, local folks: if you weren’t aware of it, the Providence PO is open 7AM-9PM weekdays, 10AM to 6PM Saturdays and Sundays. Handy for last minute mailings.)

Jon Wolf’s doing an excellent job keeping the joint moving — 24 open mikers without rushing too much in an hour and a half. He’s really coming into his own as a host.

We’re getting some EXCELLENT quality stuff in the open. And only a minority portion of it is “slam stuff” — by which I mean the — well, you know. I don’t even need to describe it.

I think one of the things I love about Worcester is that we’re SO not dependent on the slam around here to keep things moving. We slam only once a month, bring in slam and non-slam features, and still have a packed house, usually SRO, almost every week.

I read “the abandoned orchard” (which I have revised and I think I’ll repost it — it’s the one that references testicular cancer) and “Radioactive Artist”. I do love that poem, no matter how old it is. Sometimes you’ve got to go back to them and learn how to make them breathe again. That way, they don’t grow stale.

After, it was feature time — mskittieface and edzeppelin came in and did a very tight tradeoff set of good work. I’m having a brainfart at the moment or I’d go into more detail on more of their pieces; will say I enjoyed Kat’s pro-choice piece and Eirean’s closer about the power of a given poem.

We then sat and gossiped with thisrabbit about the unsavory habits of certain touring poets (tonight’s features not among the list). I name no names, and you can’t drag it out of me. Take comfort — if you’re reading this (and it’s a public post), you’re probably not on the list.

And so to bed. I’ve got a longish day tomorrow and much to do — still working on the paper and such.

Have fun, or whatever you kids do nowadays.

I have to say, the value and pleasure of clear breathing is often overlooked.

I have a newfound respect for it now.

Felt more active — repaired plumbing today, worked on a paper for school, hung out, went out for Thai food and brought it home, then dozed off in front of Forensic Files.

I’m still snuffly, but ought to be ok by tomorrow. Need to make it to the Asylum for the feature by Kat Sanford and Ed Zeppelin — got a debt of sorts to repay.

Sleepy time; of course, still have to finish restringing the archtop. Some things you just can’t leave undone.

Now that I’m home today, I am SO going back to bed.

Sick Still Sucks.

I am SO not going to work tomorrow.

Sick sucks.

By now, a lot of you will have heard about the controversy surrounding the Hot 97 crew on NY morning radio, who have been suspended indefinitely after playing an atrociously offensive “We Are The World” parody related to the tsunami tragedy.

Here’s a link to an article I picked up from Google News regarding the situation.

http://www.thuglifearmy.com/news/articles/50775/

Read through the thing and tell me if the conclusion is as fucked as I think it is.

I am sick.

I have a fever. I’m stuffy, drippy, and pissy.

I’m also awake — because one of the joys of this is that I can’t use my equipment to sleep.

In addition to the Bipolar stuff, I also have severe obstructive sleep apnea. I stop breathing 1-2 times per minute while I sleep.

Anyone who’s had the joy of sleeping in a room with me while on tour or at Nats knows something about this — I have (or had) the Snore of Great Power and Terror as I choke, over and over again, in my sleep. I’d toss myself up against the worst of ’em, including Danny Solis.

That is, up until 2001, when I was put on a CPAP (constant positive air pressure) machine. The condition was starting to affect my heart — it can be fatal if not treated. So this thing blows 14 lbs. psi of air thru my nose and down my throat all night, every night. Keeps the passage open.

Every night I hook myself up to a mask that makes me look like an elephant man and I drift off to lovely slumber. Really did change my life.

The only time I can’t use this is when — you guessed it — I have a cold.

OTC cold meds are no help, because they interact weirdly with my OTHER meds.

So — a cold for me causes all sorts of extra misery. And this one’s shaping up to be a doozy.

No one showed up for SPEAK tonight, as I expected, so I sat and sniffled and snorted and read some poems by Mark Jarman for 45 minutes or so, then went home.

The poems were good. The slipping, sliding, and freezing while driving were not.

I was in bed, I think, by 10, and now I’m up.

Love this season.

—
Since I’m only a half-mile away, I will be at the space for SPEAK tonight, just in case some of the folks who aren’t online show up. I doubt much will happen. We’ll reschedule the “hunger” theme for another night.

Drop a comment or a line if you are coming, just so I know.

—
I have a crazy day, so won’t be around much.

—
Snow again. 5-10 inches, depending on where you are.

Baby, we got us a WINTER.

—
This note from the Pharmaceutical Poets’ Society:

Medications, properly prescribed to the right patients, can help. There’s almost no such thing as “always bad” or “always good” when it comes to these meds. (I preclude from this obviously flawed meds like Halcyon.)

Using a drug as a panacea, not having adequate therapy, not monitoring it correctly, not including proper spiritual/dietary/lifestyle guidelines, and (most of all) incorrectly prescribing the drug for mild or even NON EXISTENT issues IS wrong.

I am tired (old story) of losing friends who refused treatment because they were afraid of losing their creativity, their souls, or because of some false notion of not wanting to give in to Big Pharm.

Big Pharm sucks, yes. They push and hype the meds beyond the point of sane usage. But it doesn’t mean that the drugs are automatically of no value.

Save your credibility, by all means; save your creativity, and be skeptical of every claim. Do your research.

But recall, please, that death and catatonia and total dysfunction don’t make you a particularly productive artist, either.

Johnny Auschwitz

Call me what you want, pretending that
cherry rivers and greasy smokestacks
are all mine for which to atone.

It’s true, there are miles of burned skin dangling from
my heels. I’ve dragged that stinking trail behind me for years.

Don’t be so quick to turn from me.
I checked and you’re still at it.

You’re all still sorting — unkempt from neat as a
needle, their dead flags from your live one.
Red over blue, cross over crescent,
dark over light, pyramid over star.

Offer me something
to make me stop laughing at you

and maybe I’ll go away.

A break from the crap I’m doing at the moment.

Steven Colbert is on “Fresh Air.”

They are making a “Strangers With Candy” movie.

It had better be good…

Please for your attention:

This today’s word is:

UVULA!

Please, again and thank you, for to be making each reply here be of sentence containment of the word of today.

Then we will continue this amusement by someone else to have choice of word their journal next day.

Again, to the happy mirthmaking!

Pleasure for all! I begin with short poem of Japan and bastard version:

Thy uvula has
such perfect lineaments!
Ah, lump in my throat!

You of course may be of prose making reply, ha ha!

Thus we start this amusement and pleasure to follow in great amounts of big fun!

Roughly 2 feet of powder.

Roughly 10 degrees out. Wind chill well below zero. Still blowing around and drifting.

Nothing moving: state of emergency declared.

I’m shoveled out, cars moved, driveway plowed. Going out to clean up in a few.

No Hut tonight for this boy…sorry, kids.

Have a ball and stay warm, NE crew.

Four bottles lined up
on the desk in front of the screen.
I keep them in order to make sure
I take them right, though in fact I take them

left to right, in the hope they’ll make me
right, less prone to stupid associations,
puns in place of thought, overripe
feelings.

I visit them three times a day:
once when I rise, before descending to the kitchen;
once in the afternoon;
once before sleep.

At night there’s a cat on the bed
and a night light in the corner:
charms against the void because
the pills are good, but not good enough.

In these early hours the cat and I sit in front of the screen
and he knocks the bottles down like dominoes.
Then I pick them up and put them back in order.
One for stability, another for the same, one to pick me up,

and one to keep me from going out and barking at imaginary cars.
The cat’s pleased, and as usual knocks them down again.
I pick them up again, sick to my stomach
at how long I’ve been playing this game.