In 40 minutes, I will officially be a college student again.

Are there keggers for weekend intensive older students?

And are the casual sex and stoned all night conversations about Escher prints still standard behavior?

I can’t wait to penny my roommate into the room, or to mark the food in my pint-sized fridge against depredation.

More likely it’ll be like Animal House if the animal was a three-toed sloth.

Wish me luck.

Ossie Davis, dead at 87.

I recently caught a bit of the Kennedy Center honors, where he and Ruby Dee had to stand and acknowledge the crowd acclaim. You could tell that being in the same box with George Bush was painful for them both, but especially for him.

I will miss him.

how difficult it is for me to not be spending much time at iWPS this year.

I’ll be up on Wednesday after SPEAK, taking Thursday off to play with y’all, MCing a bout on Thursday night, and then I’m gone until Finals night — working Friday, class Friday night, class all day Saturday, and I can’t even play much Saturday night because I have class Sunday AM.

I miss you guys, and I know it’s likely that with school becoming a more intensive part of the next couple years, I won’t tour much or get out around here as much, either.

I’ll be 47 when I get my degree. 3 years from 50. Damn.

Well, we’ll always have LJ.

Think any of us will still be in slam in two years? I know I won’t, though I’ll always be a poet, till the day I die.

But I do wonder where the rough beast is headed. It certainly seems to be slouching these days.

Eight years old. There is
a giant moonlit boot outside my window.
I jump down onto
the instep, climb the laces hand over hand
past the ankle onto the silk stocking, then
discover fine hairs to hang onto as I
move up the leg.

At eight I have no idea
why I’m climbing the giant, or
what I’m climbing toward.

At twelve I get a clue
but it weighs me down so much
I keep slipping back to earth and
I have to begin again.

Tonight another boot sits there tapping.
I want to get past the presumed target.
When I reach the chest, I’ll raise a thumb and lunge
through the skin.

I’ll cling for years under the skin.
I’ll forget how to climb.

When (once again)
she cuts me out and
I fall like blood
splashing onto the toe
of her boot,

I’ll be eight years old
before I climb again.

I’ve run into a person here on LJ who’s looking for info, video clips, etc. on women slammers, rappers, and poets for a paper.

Her LJ name is shockfactor and you can respond in my comments section. I’ll have her friend me and contact you through that.

For the record, I’ve sent her already to bullhorn, livepoets, and gotpoetry.

Thanks!

EDIT: Here’s a followup from the aforementioned researcher:

Good deeds rewarded. Thanks, all.

I skipped the State of the Union address tonight.

I did it deliberately, and I don’t care.

In fact, I have decided that I pretty much don’t care at all, anymore.

I surrender.

I’ve got more important things to do than snicker and froth at the Head Pig.

I know already he’ll piss me off, and that I don’t like him and don’t trust him.

When I say I surrender, I mean just this: the battle has to shift elsewhere. If the things I love are going to ultimately survive, they won’t survive because we elect a Democrat, wrest the Congress from the Republicans, defeat the Christian right, or forge a new relationship with the UN.

So, I surrender that formal battle to others. Enjoy, thrive. Play hard.

I do not intend to speak of “politics” here again. Social observations, certainly. But policy discussions? Personality discussions? No.

I do not intend to speak of activism, or of causes, or specific actions.

No more.

My war is elsewhere, these days; and that’s where my energy will be.

1. i’ve been in a meeting all day. didja miss me?

2. i’m home now working on a paper for school.

3. i’ve got a second poem in the giant series cooking. stay tuned.

4. the CD for iWPS is back on. it had been cancelled but new arrangements have been made. details to follow (when they’re finalized).

over and out till later —

T

The Squared Circle

Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention, please.

In this corner, your giant.
And in this corner, the other giant.

It’s one giant in a mirror.
No, it’s not.

It’s a fake giant and a real one.
Or, no giants but in ourselves.

Here are the rules:

When your giant strikes, cringe and shout praise.
When the other giant falls, dance as if you were on fire.

When the other giant strikes, close your eyes.
When your giant falls, it’s your fault.

If you think there’s just one giant,
speak in tongues until the mirror cracks.

If you think one giant is a fraud,
be sure which one it is before you bet.

If there’s no giant, why are you here?
You must have heard something.

Rounds begin and end when a giant’s boot
stomps a referee into the mat.

Knockouts? Don’t be ridiculous.
A decision’s not official until some of you are killed,

and if during the fight someone next to you says
stop, stop the fight, the giants

are the only ones
who aren’t dying,

you are to smite that person
with a rulebook until nothing more is said.

This is the fight that the rules have made,
let us be glad and rejoice in it;

shake hands, come out swinging,
and quickly forget which giant you are,

or whether you’re a giant or a spectator, and
whether that makes any difference at all.