Guess who just found and friended me on Facebook?
Chris Pirello, AKA Christos.
He’s in Boston for the winter. I’m going to try and get him out to say hi or something at some point…
Talk about blast from the past!
Monthly Archives: January 2009
Praise Poem Against The Grain
There are people who think
we should all write more,
one poem a day,
one thousand poems a day,
five hundred fifty five thousand poems a day,
one for every thought
that slips along our nerves,
excepting only the poems about poetry;
the belly full of meaning
poetry offers
should be exorcised;
the places it lives should be cut out of us;
we should never write of it or speak of it.
Well, today
I’m ill informed and half asleep.
I haven’t watched the news for a week.
I’m alone for the night
with no one but the cat curled next to me
on the fleece blanket
while a documentary on Crohn’s Disease
plays unwatched in the next room.
I could get up,
or I could stay here until spring.
All I have tonight
is the poetry of poetry itself,
a right whale inside me,
dangerous, endangered, rising island
within my body reminding me of marvels
that could slip away and never return.
There may be something else to write about someday
and the poem I write then may be fibrous, luminous, may hold together
on its own and pass from me without pain,
but until then, I’ll write one poem about poetry,
write it over and over again,
one poem for the blessing of knowing
that poetry
still exists in me,
even if it’s hanging by a thread.
Even if it hurts.
Inauguration Day
I have hope today and look forward to a moment of celebration.
I have little hope, beyond that, for the future of the world. May I be proven wrong. But I doubt that I will.
Poetry readings:
–Tonight: Premiere of The Dirty Gerund, Ralph’s, Worcester, at 8:30.
— Tomorrow: Mike McGee features at GotPoetry Live, Blue State Coffee, Providence, RI. 8-10.
I will be at both.
Observations
I listen to poetry with my eyes closed. I even judge slams with my eyes closed.
I don’t watch poets, I listen to poems.
I’d like to attend a reading where the poets read from behind a screen. I’d like to do a feature that way, too. At least once.
Most three minute poems would sound better as longer poems with at least ten-twenty seconds of silence built in to them.
Most poets I see at slam-influenced readings don’t understand how to use silence.
We fear silence more than anything else. I could lose my eyesight and eventually be OK.
But I would die if I were to lose my hearing.
I’ve said all this before.
There are 3,000+ poems in my archives, dating back to 1974. That may be enough for one lifetime.
What?
A CNN Poll says that King’s vision is fulfilled, in the eyes of many.
No idea what to make of this, on any level…from sample validity to what it may say about people’s perceptions to the racial divide in the numbers…just across the board, I find it odd. Thoughts?
Been reading old chapbooks and posts…
mine, others, people I know, people I don’t know or knew once and don’t remember…
We all write too many poems, with too many words, we repeat ourselves, spoonfeed our readers/audiences, are too literal, explain too much, work too hard to make sure we’re understood…
Stop.
Stop.
Just stop.
We don’t know shit and yet we keep teaching and preaching.
STOP.
Lousy Poet
I’m a lousy poet.
I don’t leak emotion.
I don’t fall into easy fits of anything.
Sometimes I sneer at those who do.
It’s mostly because I’m jealous.
Jealousy is my tiger pit.
There are spikes in it.
I wiggle them loose.
Maybe I can build a ladder.
Maybe I can dig a ramp and walk out.
I think up a lot of strategies for escape.
I think all the time.
All I do with all this spare time is think.
Nothing I’ve done so far has worked.
I am a bad engineer.
It is alleged that being trapped is frustrating.
I do not know if that is what I’m feeling.
I do know that there are times I want to cry.
I want to cry because I’m trapped.
It is forbidden to cry over being trapped.
I don’t know who forbade that.
I know I can hear his voice down here.
I try to get that down in words now and then.
Sometimes it is useful.
Then I recall that I am in a tiger pit.
I recall that my words are unheard.
I go back to thinking:
Bad engineer!
Lousy poet!
The Stream
No boatman
No bridge
No hopping
Leap
Air and water below you
Cold fast spray reminding you
that there is something at stake
Hesitation
won’t work here
(You might even want to close your eyes)
No hopping on one foot
No testing for footing
No poking to see what shakes under your weight
No stopping
No time to think — thinking
is the death of leap
Leap
The worst that can happen
is that you’ll drown
but
oh in that moment
before you strike
you’ll know
I’ve had a severe head cold all week. So what did I do today?
Went snow tubing for the first time at Ward Hill, of course.
My first run was terrifying — lost control of the tube and ended up going down backwards, which scared the shit out of me and for some reason reactivated my old fear of heights. I hate hurtling down a hill and feeling completely out of control. It’s clearly the lack of control, too…not speed, fear of injury, or even the height really. It’s not like Ward Hill is all that high, fer Chrissakes…
However, I recovered, and we ended up having a good time.
Right now, I’m getting warm, watching the Barrett-Jackson collectible car auction, and fantasy bidding in an attempt to win an iPod Touch. Simple pleasures. Currently, I’ve got a bid of $190,000 bucks in on a 1966 Shelby Mustang GT500 — all original with heavy provenance (documentation, for the uninitiated among you).
I wish. But like I said, simple pleasures…
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