I was just thinking about this based on another post…

What books did you read as an adolescent that were life changing for you?

For me, there were three: “The Temple of Gold” by William Goldman, which made me really think about the nature of friendship; “johnny got his gun” by Dalton Trumbo, which began some of my political education; and “Soul On Ice” by Eldridge Cleaver, which continued it.

Anyone?

1. No suit today. I have discovered, pleasantly enough, that my best suit doesn’t look right on me since I lost weight.

2. Also, no cufflinks — all my French cuff shirts are at the dry cleaners.

I am in a conservative starched blue shirt, a really sharp tie, and black tropical weight wool pants.

As of now, six people have asked me why I’m not dressed in denim. Six people got an earful.

Just another day in the corporate mine.

Ok. Help me out here.

The company I work for is designating tomorrow at home office and all weekend in the stores as “dress down day” — to kick off a Tsunami Relief campaign.

Usually, when retailers do this, the method is you pay a certain amount to get a pass to “dress down” — in our case, at Home Office, jeans and sneakers. (We’re the last company in the US not to have gone casual, I swear.)

We’re not doing this. Rather than making anyone feel the peer pressure of donating money for the privilege of dressing down, we’re just letting people fly the denim as a way of signaling our commitment to the relief effort. (Stay with me.)

The company’s donated a fairly sizable chunk of money, there will be voluntary donation opportunities around the building for the month. All well and good.

It’s this denim thing that’s getting to me.

See what’s happened is that there’s this real…festive atmosphere that’s developed around tomorrow. People talking about it, buzzing about it, wondering whether some women will be wearing inappropriate low-rise jeans, etc.

A little too festive for me. It’s offensive to me that the company’s created this “awareness kickoff” with this huge party-type thing. It seems a little bizarre, not entirely well thought out, and strangely out of touch with the scale of the disaster.

Am I overreacting?

ps: I’m wearing a suit tomorrow, by the way. With cuff links.

EDIT: by the way, i just locked this down. it occurred to me that i shouldn’t put it out there for anyone to see — more for the bad taste jokes than for the discussion proper. i know you guys well enough to know where your hearts are at — not everyone does.

In response to a request from ocvictor.

my One is one
i’m unafraid of — while the works
sometimes leave me breathless with
anxiety or awe
i am never so frightened
that i cannot see clearly past to
the new work

for static is not
the name of my One

in my house there are
real doubts and false certainties
that do not change
but the One moves among them and
while nothing disappears
it does diminish

for magic is not
the face of my One

the street exhales despair
when i step off the curb past
the unwanted who are sleeping
off the stale breath of the city
and the One hovers
warm above them with odd grace
dispensing free passes, relief,
hard soothsaying
and there is an explanation
i may not understand now
but believe i’ll
know someday

for deception is not
the face of my One

a woman holds herself strong
because there is a right
not to be simply a waiting vessel
and the pair who love well
love as the One loves
without qualification

and just when it seems that there is no One

when a passion play swallows a nation
a cross falls on a crescent
a crescent draws a bead on a cross
a star smashes a child
or a child bombs a star

the One says,

even as it is
pain or ecstasy,
just and cruel or
love and soft

even as it is, it is also not —
no state of being exists
that is blasphemous

my One
is not a limit

you know what we need?

another meme.

one that gives you a chance to name the five most important breaths you ever took. then post it in another’s mouth and they breathe them with you.

one where the titles of songs by your favorite bands become scars from bad friday nights and you post them in your eyes.

one where you get to ask everyone you know one crucial question and everyone you know answers in a language you don’t speak.

one where people circulate an empty template among themselves and curse its developer for forgetting to include instructions.

one where your name generates a personal deity who is all knowing and drunk with power.

one where you are classified by your hair, your eyes, and the misspelled gospels of your personality.

one where the people who see it go blind by choice.

one you can click past, confused and concerned, praying it’s not contagious. you come back to be sure. you come back to be sure. you come back to be sure.

you know what we need?

another meme.

one that gives you a chance to name the five most important breaths you ever took. then post it in another’s mouth and they breathe them with you.

one where the titles of songs by your favorite bands become scars from bad friday nights and you post them in your eyes.

one where you get to ask everyone you know one crucial question and everyone you know answers in a language you don’t speak.

one where people circulate an empty template among themselves and curse its developer for forgetting to include instructions.

one where your name generates a personal deity who is all knowing and drunk with power.

one where you are classified by your hair, your eyes, and the misspelled gospels of your personality.

one where the people who see it go blind by choice.

one you can click past, confused and concerned, praying it’s not contagious. you come back to be sure. you come back to be sure. you come back to be sure.

under available light that’s been
ladled onto your room like a slip on a cream-ware pot,
transparent across the floor and bed,
sometime after midnight

a once-foggy man
drops to his knees and confesses:
i am weary of the split i’ve fostered.
mend this. help me mend this. let’s mend this.

and so, he again
unveils
himself to you
a moment too soon.

he never has any unexpressed
thoughts. they are always the same.
he is never updated. he is
a discount store vase — thrown by rote, painted off-hand.

you push, once,
and he falls. the shatter
is almost a relief. you half expected
a soft plop.

when you lean to pick up the pieces,
you find him almost admirable now:
sharper edges. more interesting textures.
that yellow he was before

becomes easier to appreciate
when you can see it against
the red of the
original clay.

put him in a box.
close it tight against the sickly moon.
something inside is dead, or is not.
anything could happen now.

— SPEAK tonight: theme is “water.” penny_player is hosting in my absence.

— I will be absent because of my orientation for re-entry into school tonight.

— I will also most likely be absent from much of iWPS. While classes are supposed to be one weekend a month, they have scheduled two back to back weekends, each class running from 5-10 on Friday, 8-5 on Saturday, and 8-5 on Sunday. I am working on an alternative, but not holding out much hope.

— In general, I’m not holding out much hope. I had a horrendous day yesterday, almost no sleep last night, and I spoke on an emergency basis to my therapist; I fear they’re going to raise my meds again, or perhaps an in-patient visit is in order.

— It’s this scenario I’ve always dreaded: that I would slide further the older I get. For most people, this ends or levels off by the mid-40s. There’s a small minority who don’t get better; they almost invariably get worse.

— I head back to school, keep writing, keep making the attempt because there is nothing else to do, or rather the things there are to do are unacceptable.

But a day may come when that’s not enough reason to keep at it. When the options are ECT, or more hospital time, or more drugs, or stronger drugs, or…

I don’t know how to let go of myself as I’ve built me. I don’t know anymore how to retool for new realities. I am trying.

I am telling you this because I want it somewhere where people can see.

Please don’t offer any platitudes, any offers of help or sympathy or advice or wisdom. I don’t need more. I need me, now.

I need to figure out where I am in all this.

I keep swearing that I’m gonna take a break from this for a bit. I never do.

I need to.

I am in need of repair. My social skills suck. All I can think of is how much I hate the way this country is, the way the world is…the way I am.

I hate and I love and I fight past lonely toward even keeled on a sea of medication and none of the land up ahead ever looks any different.

And you know what’s really, really funny about all this?

All I ever have to do is slap the words “first draft” in the subject, and no one will ever know.

Not completely appropriate across the board for the place I’m in, but I’m really feeling this poem right now. That whole need to let the crap go. That whole need to admit failure and move on, and give up the passions you substitute for the passions you need to feed.

This has echoed through my head all day.

Have I mentioned how much I love Etheridge Knight?

Feeling Fucked Up

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs–

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcom fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing

Some of you may recall that I used to teach an ongoing class at Dorchester High School, an inner-city school in Boston (the actual model for the show “Boston Public”), to sophomores there on life and success in Corporate America.

On at least one occasion I know I must have mentioned Ed Noonan, the no-nonsense, gruff and tough and tender teacher who put the program together.

I just learned that he died of leukemia last night.

I’m ready to burn something today. To smash something, or hurt someone.

I forgot to take my pills this AM. Knowing this shouldn’t affect me dramatically doesn’t make me less pissed about it.

I hate work right now.

I hate everything right now.

I hate, I hater, I hatest.

Give me time to not be this, and I won’t be; but today I am.

The Congregational bell downtown
strikes ten. I’m surprised though
I know it does this every hour of the day;

there are whole weeks
when I don’t hear it because
I’ve lived here so long.

Rushing to the store
late before it closes
is something I do

that most folks around here
never need to do because they’re
done and locked and asleep by nine

at the latest. Walking the aisles
in a pea coat and earrings, ponytail
hanging to my shoulder blades,

I barely draw a look anymore
from anyone — renowned small town
eccentric, pausing

in the cat food aisle,
loading up to head home before
the next bell rings,

still hoping something will happen.

1. I edited the previous poem a bit. Thanks for suggestions…

2. Robbie Q. and Joel Chmara made me laugh harder than I’ve laughed in ages.

3. Anti-Semitism sounds just as ugly in a foreign language. (I’d explain, but I’m too pissed to be coherent about it. Let another Worcesterite dig in on this.)

4. I was offpage for a new poem tonight for the first time in ages. Can’t imagine why…

5. I want a new way to categorize what I do, creating a place for some of us who sit in my place to hang our hats.

We’re:

— poets first, performers second
— post slam, for the most part –we came of age in it but don’t find it too interesting anymore
— want less speed, fewer words, and more space for audience thought and interpretation
— are more comfortable with ambiguity than the average slammer
— less interested in face time now and more interested in legacy later. Universality.

“Post-slam” is too obvious. “New Category”? NOT “spoken word artists” — I loathe that term.

there is no reason
for this.

nothing matters. if it were easier to
make things happen, perhaps things would matter
because they would be possible.
they are not.

there are whole countries
where the mention of possibility
evokes laughter.

families stumble on their way home
and cry out: it’s impossible.
the way is long, the night is dark
and we are too small to reach the shore, even if we
hold onto one another.

the man and the woman, the man and the man,
the woman and the woman
are all impossible.
merger defaults to clash.
faces that were kissing
soon strike each other, bruising lips, leaving
cheekbones aching; they begin to turn away.

two people step into a city crowd at the same time.
they never meet, walk parallel
to the same dock, step on and then off the ferry
separately. the next day, one leaps from the ferry
and a cosmos is lost.
the other goes home as calm as a tomb,
knowing nothing of what has passed by him.

this is the way it is: impossible.
we are not equipped to make it happen. ever.

if it happens, once and then rarely again,
it happens in spite of us.

pray for the ability
to witness, take hold,
and hang on.