Gotpoetry Live is on for tonight — haven’t heard from LV, so I’m assuming she’s on her way along with Zork.
Bring yerselves down before we’re snowed in!
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Why I slammed last night
This could get wordy, so I’ll keep it brief.
1. I’ve been a notable critic of the state of slam poetry. While I think that’s still my right, it’s been a long time since I slammed regularly. I’m starting to feel like I need to be inside again.
2. I want to try newer work on stage. While I used “Mission Statement” last night in the first round, I did that for me and me alone — sort of a nod to the past. I used “Snakes on a Plane” in the second round — a poem less than a year old, albeit a fairly slammy one — and since we have a no-repeat rule in Wormtown, I can scratch both of those off the list. 🙂
Look for newer stuff in the semis and (if I make it) finals, although I never discount the use of older stuff if it fits the night. I’m not a believer in the stuff about not using your old poems. I wrote them, and I stand by them.
3. I would like, personally, to be part of mixing up the demographic at NPS. Old poets represent.
4. I was nervous going in, was nervous throughout, and am still nervous. That’s a very, very good thing. I’ve been writing hard for so long — between the new work with Duende and this, I want to keep honing the performance of new work. Getting scared is crucial to getting and keeping that edge, at least for me.
That’s it.
Well, so much for retirement.
I won the slam tonight. First serious, for-the-team competition I’ve been in ( I have participated in a couple of demo slams and I won the MC slam at IWPS 2003) since 2001.
I’m in the semi-finals.
I’m playing to win.
Boy…
This place is sleepy this weekend. I would have thought the Dickinson ripoff would have engendered at least one outraged and/or amused comment.
#6.5 Liter ( a la Emily D) + Guitar Geekery, Again
My Escalade — is Noble —
Eight Sparks — it goes at Will
Its doors — the gates of Excess —
Forever roll — the Rims
More room than Heaven’s mansions —
No Hyundai dare approach —
Toyota — under my Wheels —
Honda — left in Smoke —
Fuel tank drawn from Oceans
Of Oil from whitened Sands —
When rolls the Cart Triumphant
No conscience tug demands —
High above — the Masses
Far beyond Critique
All shudder when I Steer her
I am — the One Unique
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In other news, I recently broke three of my nails on my picking hand — badly so.
This means I’m finally learning to flatpick, at least as a temporary measure.
Funny how small a difference in motor skills can be so difficult to master.
Night Moves
Sometimes, I don’t think I’ll ever write anything again because I’m feeling so burned by the reaction to what I’ve written before that I’ll be second guessing myself forever.
This isn’t entirely sparked by the earlier controversy here, though it certainly applies. It’s just another general observation about me and my big goddamn mouth, my inability to breathe before I write, my insistence on being right over being a caring person.
I know who I am, y’know? I know what my intentions are, what I feel. I’ve been in therapy too many years not to be self aware to a fault.
It doesn’t give me the license to be so ruthlessly blunt that I hurt people I care about.
Most of the time, I hate myself. Sometimes, I just find myself bewildering. It leads to the question:
Am I more truthfully depicted in the eyes of others than I am in my own heart?
I hope not. I hope so.
oh, ferchrissakes.
johnnylexicon has deleted his journal.
Someone go get him and tell him to come back, please.
Don’t hate the players…well, ok.
I just fucking hate smart people sometimes, you know? I hate elitism. Sometimes I hate intellectuals and can always completely understand the reasons for the anti-intellectual moods of this country.
I hate smugness and holier than thou. Hate the words “trailer trash” and “flyover states”. Hate the “stock car drivers only can make left turns” attitudes of my artistic brethren. Hate that every stupid person on TV is given a Southern accent.
I’d be kinder about the difference between these people and their attitudes if they were less sure they were right. A pat on the head and a knowing smile and they turn their backs on their fellow citizens, their enthusiasms, their lives.
The feeling that if everyone was just exposed to poetry, art, music the way WE are they’d all be better off, they’d just love it and they’d all be so much better for it and the war would end in Iraq…
Horseshit. Because quite frankly, a lot of people think we’re full of shit. And after thinking about it, a lot of people are right.
We are full of shit — because we pretend to care and we don’t. We like the masses as metaphor and the culture as a backdrop for our ironic musings. And as long as it stays that way, we’re good.
Sometimes, my fellow artists, intellectuals, brilliant thinkers — it all makes me want to puke.
plessy v. ferguson
black here
is evil. unknown.
impure. red is angry,
yellow is cowardice, brown
the shade of shit and dirt.
white is so pure
it stings.
and the light
between colors
is denied.
every attribute’s
been attributed
by someone who does not
own it.
go out and roll around
in the hues of the race.
see if then you can call me out
by the beliefs you’ve been fed.
when you’ve finished
give me a call here
in the dark and i’ll open
the door to my room
to you. i’ll hit the switch
and then you decide what you
want to call me. i know already
what to call you, but i’m willing
to change my mind.
the NASA scandal is far bigger news than it should be on all fronts. it’s barely original enough to be turned into a Law and Order episode.
then again, we do love to scorn those among us who have snapped the mental carrot. nothing like feeling superior to take our minds off our troubles.
in other news, i’m done throwing up for the night if only because i have nothing left in me. ya gotta love migraines — how beautifully they level you.
i can only get about this much time on the laptop before my eyes start to hurt and my stomach begins to quease.
maybe tomorrow i’ll be better. maybe not. life’s like that, y’know — a box of chocolates someone spit into. a crapshoot with real guns. a bowl of cherry bombs.
boom.
brownie writes the letter
dear tony:
i sit inside and watch you. remember
that phrase, it’s always darkest before the dawn?
that’s why they call it night. i sit in that dark
and watch you not acknowledge it.
you stay in the dark and pine for day. you think
it’s a problem to sit in the dark. you imagine
i’m with you on this. i’m not much inclined
to agree with you. i sit in your dark
and watch you sit in the dark and cry. you
ought to sit back and watch how the sky changes
and how the splinters of the city’s sparse life fall out in the street
and people still live though it’s hard to see. tony,
you dark sitting man, you know it’s a passing phase
and still you sit and stare for hours out of the window
and from where i sit you’re surely some kind of fool.
it’s no holocaust out there. it’s no holocaust in here
either and what you think is heat from some imminent oven
is just your own blood rising to the challenge.
it’s always dark somewhere, always light somewhere else,
and i’m always here next to you, the boy nickname, the affectionate
and tough altered ego you won’t admit to ever having known.
dear tony, dear boy, dear man,
it’s dark here i know, but i can still see you.
i’m here all the time. can i get you to read this
before it’s too late? turn the light on and give it a try.
yours,
brownie
Delivery Boy
It doesn’t matter to me what happens to my poems, as long as they live after me and independently of me.
I do not believe that I matter except as the person who got them here. The delivery boy.
What people subsequently do with them is not up to me.
do you know what you like?
do you know it when you see it? do you just get a sense? does it just cry out to you? do you just know?
Dark Matter 