Does anybody find that tattoos — older ones, not new ones — itch somewhat more than other skin in the heat?
i’m trying to figure out if it’s psychosomatic or a function of the ink under the skin.
Author Archives: Tony Brown
About Tony Brown
Catalyst
Catalyst
comes in
and things happen
Not her fault
Blame her parents
for giving her that name
Those were the days
eh? Hippies thought
a name could change the world
so kids were named
God and Peace and Rainbow
Catalyst
(Cat for short) comes in
on little catalyst feet
and what happens next?
A breach of contract
or an infidelity
Someone gets lost in her fog
and a chipped mind slides to one side
and falls into a dirty heap of shards
after she’s been there
There’s a bubbling wherever she goes
as stability becomes ferment
the substance of what she touches is changed
two become one
one becomes three
Catalyst is the same afterwards
always the same
Agile little Cat
with her hippie name
keeps her motility intact
as she turns her free spirit
to the next reaction
A Worcester enjoyment kinda day
Yesterday, we headed to the Grecian Festival at St. Spyridon’s and then checked out the Worcester Surge, our local Arena Football League, as they took on the Lehigh Vally Outlaws in their final home game of the season.
The festival was fun, folk-dancy, and delicious, and I’ve got enough baklava and other goodies in the fridge to induce diabetes in Lance Armstrong.
The game was also entertaining in a Bad News Bears kinda way. I’d never seen an indoor league game before. It’s…interesting. I think I’d go again, maybe earlier in the season, since several of their starters were on the DL and the bench strength was, um, not strong.
The Surge lost 45-34.
Follow up to previous meme-ish thing:
Are there any connective threads among your choices for favorite artists/bands?
In my case, I see certain threads about a sense of triumph over darkness, personal abandon in pursuit of artistic vision, and better than average musicianship in service to the song and not for its own sake.
Also: are there any genres you want to mention without talking about specific artists? I know for me, flamenco guitarists, qawaali singers, and Indian musicians on a variety of instruments (from sitar to tabla and sarangi) fit that bill.
the original post:
OK…
Meme-ish, but not really.
Your current list (if you’re like me, it changes a bit now and then) of favorite bands/musical artists of all time, no particular order, mixed genres OK, and keep it to a list of 10-15.
Mine:
The Who
Bruce Springsteen
X
The Clash
The Jam
Richard Thompson
Ornette Coleman
Thelonius Monk
Sleater-Kinney
John Fahey
Paco de Lucia
The whole Parliament/Funkadelic universe
The Replacements/Paul Westerberg
Talking Heads
Husker Du/Bob Mould
EDIT TO ABOVE: Of course, since I posted this I’ve realized I left people off who hold equivalent levels of esteem in my pantheon…so a belated shout out to Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, and the Grateful Dead. Sorry, gang.
Your 80s weren’t my 80s.
For a change of pace, I am playing one of the cable TV’s music channels — not like MTV or something, but what amounts to a radio station. I’ve got it on an all 80s station.
It’s interesting to me how much of this music was NOT on my 80s listening menu. The Fixx? Erasure? Never listened to that stuff unless it came up on the radio; I know I don’t own any in the musty depths of my vinyl collection.
But they’re playing Romeo Void right now (“Myself to Myself”) and they just played the Replacements’ “Never Mind.” (The ‘Mats deserve a chapter all their own in the book of my life, probably to be titled “I got Plastered with the Replacements — and lived to tell about it.”) They also played Siouxsie earlier (“Killing Jar”) which was nice.
When people talk about the 80s and their love of the music, they never seem to mention the stuff I recall being into — Husker Du, the ‘Mats, and a whole host of other guitar driven bands. It’s always OMD, Erasure, Yaz…which didn’t register on my radar at all. I can’t tell Depeche Mode from OMD to this day. Was it that fractured and factionalized for everyone?
Well, it’s time for the Smiths now…I suddenly feel an urgent need to shoplift something.
OOH!!! OOH!! The Polecats!!! “Diode Cathode Electrode Overload Generator Oscillator Make a Circuit With Me!!!”
It’s not a bad day.
Wings
When the time comes
for me to ripple off this stage
(tremors
in my hands, eyes fluttering,
my body a mound of organs and tissues
taking their leave
according to their own music),
I fear that all I will recall
is the way the world has sounded
inside me.
I was never a visual man. My eyes
did their job but the sight of things
mattered less to me than their voices.
The stones whistled softly at dawn.
The ocean beat the shore, the trees
howled just below the human ear’s reach
every time the wind called them out
for daring to stand against it.
When I heard these things, they did not sound
the way they were intended to be heard,
I am sure: everything had a song, all the songs
were hymns, God was the subject of every song
and all praise of God was in all songs. Nothing
sang of devil or evil, the lace threads of each tune
were woven into patterns that made the word “beautiful”
a sad attempt at explanation, barely able to hold
a clip of each measure long enough for me
to understand what I was hearing. I only knew
that somewhere under the tide of sound
there was a rush of steel wings. I heard them
in my sleep and when I rose it continued
until every voice, every word from another human,
contained the undertone of the Hymns of the World
and it was a struggle to hear the meaning of the people
who spoke.
When you and I sat at table, or in planes and automobiles,
and I seemed distracted to you, it was because I was
hearing that sweep and thrum that had rolled over any chance I had
of listening to you. Forgive me, I was unhappy
that it became so hard to hear you, and it seemed to me
that nothing had prepared me for the pain of knowing
that human understanding was lost to me as long as I
could only hear the other voices of the world.
You would think it would be easy to hear
those same cathedral echoes in your voices, but
it was all failed song to me: I was so enslaved
to what I could hear in the floors below me
that what walked upon them was mute to me.
So when I roll off my bed at the end of my life,
when I shake myself into the last moments, be kind
to me. Lift my head to let me hear something
as lovely as all I’ve heard before, but something
I never understood: come close and whisper in my ear,
so close that nothing else can pass between us
and deafen me to you:
come close enough for me to hear
the hiss of feathers in your voice.
That way, when I am at last still,
it will be all I have to take with me.
Here’s one for you…
Turning from the death of Bo Diddley, we have:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/pringles.burial.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
I’m not sure what flavor he chose. Original, I trust.
Poem for Bo Diddley
rock river flows
up and over
the rough bed
follow the bumps in the surface
and it’s like seeing
“shave and a haircut” mapped
like seeing bo diddley’s sound
down farther along in its progress
the river has slowed
to
mud and crawl
these days
but up here
it’s still
“shave and a haircut”
driving
the stones ahead of it
carving the earth
you will dance to it
dance to it
shout to it
who do you love?
“bo diddley”
how much you love him?
“two bits”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
just a quick homage…
short poems from writing prompts by scott
scottwoods has been posting poem prompts. Here are a few I’ve done.
PROMPT: Write a poem using the following phrase (or derivation of) somewhere in the poem: The shock alone would have killed him.
Samuel watches Rebecca (that was
her name, right?)
leave in the morning
after six months of sleeping
by himself and as he turns back
toward a hasty breakfast pulled together
from the dregs of the fridge before
having to dress for work he succumbs to relief
that it’s over: the dreamless, powerless
comas he’d strived for all those nights
after his wife left have come to an end.
He leans against the wall numb from the shock.
Alone would have killed him if it had gone on
one night longer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROMPT: Write a poem about: A person who owns a collection they love, but that another person hates.
Under the bed in a box designed for Christmas wrap
he keeps the knives he has adored for years:
the ones his father gave him, the ones he’s bought for himself,
the ones whose origins are now lost to him; the switchblades,
the military blades, all the handiwork of those
who wed beauty to death, who love the play
of form fused to function.
Yes, he tells her. He knows how to use them.
Yes, he says. He has used more than one, and some more than once.
No, he says. He will not say more.
They lie there in the company
of all their secrets. (Everyone knows there are secrets
under every bed.) No one speaks of them
because it’s understood that the where and when
of those secrets is not in play anymore,
or at least right now:
still, he pulls them out from time to time
like a snooping child in early December
who can’t leave his presents alone. He pulls them
out of the box, one by one, when she’s not home.
He tests them against his skin, remembering their history,
visualizing their potential.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROMPT: Use the following phrase as the basis for a poem, utilizing as much of its inherent or potential imagery as can be culled from it: world of hurt
We’ve come all the way across the universe
to orbit this planet,
imagining that we will at last be safe here.
When we see that from here it’s as beautiful
as our own world was, the sight
begins to terrify us as we suit up for the landing:
unspoken among us all is the knowledge that
there’s no way to explore other globes
without taking our own
with us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROMPT: First line prompt (or variation thereof): She gives him the finger
She gives him the finger.
He takes it gladly. Some days,
any validation that he is not
invisible
is enough.
Here’s something to consider:
I won’t be attending the Poet’s Asylum auction on June 15. I think this will be the first one I’ve ever missed.
I will donate stuff to it, though. In fact, advance notice: among other things, I’ll donate an opportunity to sit down with someone who’s never put together a chapbook before and help them pull together their first chapbook. (Locals only, please.)
Why will I not be attending, you ask?
Because I’m going to a concert instead…
Which one, you ask?
Well…
We’re going to see Rush.
I’ve never seen Rush. I’m not a huge fan. But strangely, I’m looking forward to it…you gotta stretch your tastes now and then, and I’ve found that my appreciation for proggy stuff has increased exponentially over the last few years, probably in line with hanging out with Faro and my generally getting over the need to be cooler than thou as I get older.
Red Barchetta, here we come!
Strangely, this saddens me greatly…
If you have ever spent time in Boston, especially near the waterfront, you may recall a slightly time worn red building over on Atlantic Avenue. It was always a landmark of mine when I headed into town when I was much younger, especially on trips to the Quincy Market/North End back when it wasn’t as gussied up as it is today.
The James Hook Lobster Company has burned down in a seven alarm fire overnight.
This makes me feel old, for some reason.
Here’s a link to the story:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/05/fire_destroys_l.html
Confession: I’m not much of a fan of the city of Boston. Growing up in the Worcester area gave many of us an automatic chip on our shoulders toward Boston; too often decisions taken in the state capital have hurt the rest of the state (well, more so when I was a kid). A good example was that Worcester, the second largest city in NE until Providence took the title a few years ago, had no direct exit off the Mass Turnpike until 290 was finished some twenty years later and even then it wasn’t all that convenient; that “oversight” was a result of some back room resentments and deals in the Hub back when the Turnpike was first designed.
I always have preferred NYC and when I say to someone “I’m going to the city,” I mean “I’m going to NY.”
(Cambridge ain’t Boston, by the way. Rest easy, Cantab and Lizard colleagues.)
But the James Hook & Co. building? I dunno. It always seemed stubborn, resistant to the waves of change as Boston grew up and around it, a throwback to something that was hard to describe.
I’ll miss it, even if they rebuild it somehow. It’ll never be the same.
Dark Matter 