died today.

I have no real words for this. Not coherent ones.

We had known each other for years, but I lost touch with him after the 2003 NPS.

We had dinner together one night at Earwax and I broke the news to him of Chris Branch’s death. He broke down and sobbed. I broke down again.

He e-mailed me at the start of the war with Iraq to tell me that he’d heard someone read my poem from 100 Poets at a rally.

I saw Sleater-Kinney and the White Stripes for the first time with Bill, Sou, and Ken, where we stood eating hot sticky pizza in a line outside Avalon in Boston. It was right after Pat Storm died.

We were part of the greatest pick up slam team I was ever on: me, Ken, Richard Cambridge, and Sean Shea. We named ourselves “Church of the Big Stone Jesus” and whipped all comers.

We were guitar talking buddies on the SlamAmerica tour.

We sat in the basement of the Chopin Theatre in 1999 and talked for fucking hours.

I fell apart the first time I ever saw him read “OKC.” I’ve got his book, “This Carcass Is A Road Map,” beside me as I speak.

I refuse to become one of those friends you have to bury.

Why did I always know he wouldn’t be able to keep that promise?

I think I’ll send him an e-mail, just to say I don’t hold it against him.

The Ultimate Slam Poem

I
I am
Po-am
I
I am prophet
non-Profit
the eye of the storm
the way past the norm
into the heart of
AmeriKKKa
Words never fail me
Words alone cannot jail me
You cannot see the way I am

Po-Am

Words that slide long liquid light across
the cosmos
Words that probe like the hard dick of Father Time
into the moist center of this our
Mother
Our mother
violated by the cock of the spirit of Man
as so many have been violated by the men themselves
a woman washes down a Prozac with Sunny D
every thirty seconds in America
unable to shake the depression
caused by repression
and the shackles of oppression
enforced by aggression
and this is not who I choose to be
I am you and you are me
and the woman in you makes me ashamed of the man in me

I am

Po-am

Running the ragged raped street
Rolling the the way we roll because
there’s no choice because
in this country it’s illegal to be cause
for alarm

Po-Am

It’s possible to be a rapist
and get away with it
It’s possible to be a killer and
get away with it if you are
standing with your pants full of money
somewhere on a golf course playing in a

Pro-Am

and the Indians are dying
and the children are dying
and the ghetto is still here
and the war still goes on
the way the poem still goes on
how long must this poem go on
before we see it end

I
I am
Poem
I Am
Po-Am

I can stand here all night if need be
I can keep reading all night if need be
And I can tell you’ll be better off if I keep reading all night
because the revolution will not be edited
The revolution will be over there somewhere
just far enough off to keep it in perspective
while I get a new pen

Will the killings at Red Lake end up, a year from now, with similar amounts of air time and column inches as Columbine?

If no, will that be from familiarity and ho-humness?

Will anyone look into the impact of the killings on a 300 person high school and community in a culturally insular place?

I can’t imagine, can you?