Just in case you were actually wondering what I look like…Photo credit upon request…
Daily Archives: June 4, 2014
The Facts We Hate
Originally posted 11/24/2013, titled “The Bands We Hate.”
In the Seventies I was
a viciously cool boy
who loved certain bands
and hated others,
who thought music should only be
guitar and Big Noise made
by those who seemed
a lot like me; certainly
there were exceptions;
they were old and honored
mostly for not being dead,
unless they were dead.
We argued endlessly about
what was and what was not
worth our time, then sneered
endlessly at so much…
it was only later that I dimly understood
the sulfurous truth that likely lay behind
the words “Disco Sucks,” and later
the words “Rap Is Not Music.”
It’s become clear to me
that to rant about the bands we hate
is in fact more likely about
the fear of losing primacy;
it’s become clear to me
that some of us are so brainless
we can’t hear a thing through
the sheets that hang over our ears.
You Should Have A Radio In The Bedroom
Originally posted 8/29/2012, titled “Why You Should Have A Clock Radio”
You should have a radio in the bedroom
so that you may wake tomorrow to a song
that has both a violin
and a steady drum
and if you do,
you should not just obey
the dull urge to habit,
too quickly rising from bed
and away from the music
into the day to occupy yourself
with the business of living
instead of the joy of it,
for how often does it happen
that you wake up early
with a sweet fiddle in your ear
and a lover next to you,
the soft insistence of the drum
and that slippery, wicked bow
suggesting something better
you could be doing?
Weeds
Originally posted 12/29/2012. Original title: “Pull It Up”
From the place
I buried them
I shall pull up the cocaine
and the late night breakfasts
that never stayed with me
for longer than it took
to get in the car
and get moving,
drunk and wired,
toward whatever couch
was that morning’s home;
shall pull up
the little empty gun
I got in trade
for all that acid;
shall pull up the skinny tie
and the hospital scrubs,
the songs I wrote
when bored,
the awful poetry
I believed in so hard
even when
there was no evidence
for its quality,
no reason for it
to exist at all;
shall pull up the arrogant
know it all
callous boy
ready to screw
whoever was up for it;
shall pull up that boy,
that still-skinny boy
not yet tending toward heft;
that stupid young man
with a bad car,
a jammed tapedeck,
an inability to love
and be loyal
if there was a road
on which to run
and someone’s words
he could steal.
That past
is a thicket of weeds now;
pull it all up, toss it
onto the hot pavement,
let it dry down to dust
and blow away or wash away
in the next strong storm.
If the child
is father to the man,
let me make myself
an orphan before you
get one inch closer;
don’t call it foolish
don’t call it impossible
or unnecessary. You
didn’t know him;
if I can help it,
you never will,
even if I have to scorch
the earth for miles around
to make that so.
Dark Matter 