polanegri on my friends’ list has just discovered BPAL.
I know a lot of you here are into it. I’m not, personally, but I love reading about what you’re doing with it.
Go to her, Indoctrinate, and Inoculate.
That is all.
(For the uninitiated: http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/ )
Not fishing for compliments…I’m trying to wrap my head around a comment I received elsewhere.
Go read the poem “The Footman” that I posted earlier today, and tell me, if you can, what poem the reference to the footman in the title is from.
I have articles to write, but before I begin:
Various friends of mine are trying to convert me to the charms of the graphic novel right now…and I just finished reading “V for Vendetta.”
I saw the movie and enjoyed it. I loved the novel. So much deeper than the movie, and so literate…it takes its place next to the Sandman things I’ve read. I enjoyed the “Preacher” series, but this went so much further.
Now…on to the construction and maintenance of the canals of Venice, the Notre Dame Basilica, and the joys of eco-tourism in the Amazon Rainforest. Been to Venice, never been to the other two…it’s like a vacation on my screen.
Ta for now.
When I first learned
that I was to be the Footman,
forever holding the coat open
for the next one to wear, I was afraid.
I only snickered to cover the air
hissing through my rattling teeth.
It’s been a long time
since then. Since then
I’ve held so many coats, sometimes
several thousand coats at once, sometimes
one at a time, standing in bedrooms
before desperate men clutching
their sharp little heads, waiting on curbs
for tender children to step into traffic,
hovering in hospital corridors, avoiding
the fists of angry husbands as they beat
their wives into my arms.
I have almost
stopped talking altogether, even when I am
ready to say something good and true, because really,
what would it matter? I am
unremarkable in the scheme of things, commonplace,
not worthy of being heard
beyond “your coat sir…your coat, madam…
your coat, young gentleman, young lady.” No one
gives a damn what the Footman says
until it’s too late.
You wonder why
I snicker. It’s not at anyone
waiting for their coat —
it’s that in all that time I’ve been doing this,
I’ve never understood why I was the one chosen to do it.
Maybe it was these arms, lean enough to seem burdened
by the weight. Maybe it was this face, my brown bagged eyes,
round chin, simple jowls that shake when I move. Maybe
I just look good in the uniform —
but I think, just maybe, it was the snicker
that got me here; the twitch born of fear
that made me seem the Perfect Bastard.
If I’d kept quiet that first time,
I might not have worked out so well.
I might have been fired.
I might not have had to do this.
Pity.
I have to go. There’s a coat needs holding
in a room across town, where some young writer
who imagines himself old and tired
thinks he’s ready to put it on.
I do not think he will this time,
but I will be there just in case.
Writers, by the way,
are the worst: they keep you guessing.
Will this be their time at last, or is it
just a ploy to wring more material out of
the misery they so seem to enjoy? Sometimes,
just for laughs,
I want to wrestle them into the coat
before they’re really ready.
Sometimes I do just that.
what I love about you
is your hands.
no need for concern
on my part about being held.
they move and
sound off. I understand that.
it’s a way of using hands
that I have grown to love.
there is the striking,
but it’s not a striking
to worry about. sometimes
you make a noise without
using your hands. I can enjoy that
from here, all the lights keep me
from seeing your mouths.
seeing you bend the ear
of the person next to you
might tweak me a little, but
the hands fluttering and snapping
take my mind off that.
afterward I wait and you will
come to me and try to talk to me.
that is the best part because I find out
how well I hid the fear.
after that is the night
and the way home. there’s the desk
and the guitar and the bills and the way
back to the crowd.
you can follow me home
if you promise
to bring those wonderful hands with you
and never let me see your mouth.
it is the last day of the world
and everyone moves
to the extremes.
crowds die on the slopes
of the hindu kush. bengal
drops into the ocean.
bodies float like floes for miles.
a teacher from Blaine, Minnesota
goes mad in a parking lot
and scribbles lines from Blake
onto her children’s eyes
before taking her life
with a sharpened book.
it all goes. white, black, brown,
all go. male energy, female energy,
go. pissing conservatives go
as swiftly as disparaging liberals.
the money changer leaves his table
and the communist hands over
his party card before
running to the outskirts and drowning
in a vat of francs.
but in my back yard
I’ve buried a steamer
full of rice. I dig it up
and eat it with a spoonful
of champagne.
give me a clean planet
and I will soon be
as smug as I ever was.
Walking him
to the edge of the roof
I can tell so much: his
childhood scent, his
stumble at a whisper
of street noise below,
his eyes wide at the view —
whether he was born to be
dragon or lion, leaper or flyer,
he’s nothing but stone now.
When he falls,
the wind in his ears
explains how he will soon be
relaxed. He will
rest, the hint of a smile
leaving last thought guessed
but unsaid.
We took every step
from first toddle to last drop
together. I loved him once.
I loved him when we chose this.
I love him now most of all
as he is lifted to the back
of the ambulance with no urgency,
sheets tucked in, riding with the sirens on
as he always wanted when he was a child,
racing through the streets like a lion, engine
roaring like a dragon,
and I will be the wind as I go.
62 million people voted for George Bush in 2004.
59 million voted for John Kerry.
500,000 Furbies were sold in two months.
The “developer” of the Pet Rock sold 5 million of them in six months. He made a dollar per rock.
“American Idol” has increased in popularity almost every year since its inception. In its fifth year of broadcast, 2006, ratings were up 15% over the previous year.
All of the above have spawned imitators, many of which have had nearly equivalent success.
I wrote this many years ago, updated it just now for my age. It’ll be in the new chapbook, its first time in print.
Peppermint Schnapps
August 16, 1977:
it was pissing rain the night
Elvis Presley died
I want the night back anyway
the way I want the switchblade back I threw in Thompson Pond that night
that German switchblade with the brass shoulders and ebony scales
I want it clean I want it shiny and I want the tip to be back to the way it was
before Henry Gifford snapped it off trying to work it out of the floor
after we’d played drunken chicken for an hour or so
I tossed it in anger as far out into the water as I could
and then I hit Henry Gifford in the mouth when he called me a stupid fuck
for tossing such a beautiful knife so far away
and even after he apologized I hit him again and again
until I saw his sister watching me
I want to take it all back so Henry Gifford’s sister Diana
can see me again the way she used to see me
and furthermore I want to kiss her right this time
I want to kiss her the way I can kiss her now
not like the sloppy teenage drunk I was that night
all on fire with weed and schnapps and inexperience
I want her to not turn away from me
without knowing that I had just tossed my beloved knife out into the nighttime lake
I want her to know what passion can do to me
I want my passion back
because I think I lost it that night I tossed the knife into the lake
then let Diana run from me when she saw me beat her little brother bloody
without having a chance to make her understand why it was all so
necessary
and though I have had many knives since then
even another German switchblade just like that one
and though I have kissed so many people since then
in love and friendship and lust and grief
and though I‘m so much better at all of this stuff now
because control is everything
and control is all I have at 47
still there are times – rainy summer nights – when I get up late to use the bathroom
and while I’m standing there I look out my window across the manicured grass
I can just taste a ghost of peppermint schnapps on my lips
then I fumble for the light
I pick up a pen
and I write myself back toward August of 1977
when the radio played the songs of a dead man
while I nursed my bruised and tender fists
and cried like a baby for the very last time
I’m currently doing some freelance writing in a desperate attempt to make extra cash.
I spent a lot of today researching the real estate market in Blaine, Minnesota.
Y’know…it was kinda fun. It’s not super high pay, but it’s something to do…and always a challenge to figure out what to say about something I know next to nothing about.
Last week, I wrote short travel articles on Vermont, Rhode Island, and New York State. Weird facts:
— In Vermont, public nudity is legal but public disrobing is not.
— New York State is the home of the oldest working cattle ranch in the US. It’s on Long Island.
— Rhode Island (this shouldn’t be a surprise to the locals, esp. the goth crew) has the grave of Mercy Brown, who was dug up and staked as a vampire in 1892. Her story may have inspired the character of Lucy Westerna in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.
Gotta love it.
Because I’m feeling guitar geek-like. I’m playing more guitar than doing poetry right now anyway, what with the Bell’s Palsy and all (it’s coming along although the nerve regeneration is PAINFUL).
Anyway, here are the two electrics I’ve been prattling on about: The Regal archtop and the new-to-me Fender Duo Sonic.
The archtop was a flea market purchase — I think I paid 100 bucks for it. I’ve been doing extensive research, as it’s unlabeled. It seems to be a Harmony made but not Harmony branded guitar, probably made for either Regal or Gretsch sometime in the late 30s or prewar 40s. Shares certain characteristics with the Monterey and Cremona lines (campana take note).
Construction details, especially the tuners, the bindings, the f-hole shape, and the metal tailpiece, suggest a date of 1938 at the closest, as it matches instrumentsfrom that year I’ve found online.
The shape of the headstock is a Harmony tipoff, but a label stain on the headstock (currently covered by the oh-so-ironic skull and crossbones decals I added) looks like the label that Regal used, so I usually call it a Regal. The headstock was also used by Gretsch on guitars Harmony made for them in that period, but I’m not so pretentious as to call it a Gretsch.
The pickup is a late 40s/early 50s DeArmond I bought for 40 bucks off eBay and had installed. The weird wiring and the pickguard-mounted controls were done that way deliberately to reduce invasive procedures on the instrument; not elegant, but also not entirely inauthentic for the period and it works just fine. It’s got a wide tonal range through my small Vox amp, and the pickup is HOT (feeds back fairly easily so I’ve got to be careful how close to the amp I stand when I play). Big-ass vintage V-profile neck is another age tipoff. Great blues/jazz instrument. I use it mostly through a clean channel as an acoustic/electric, and from there it then offers lots of tonal variation if I want it.
The Fender, as I said in the earlier post, is a 90s reissue of a mid Fifties/early 60s instrument. You can see the difference in scale between the two (that’s neck length, essentially, for those among you uninitiated into this level of guitar geekery). Snarly little fucker with no frills. I was getting a great blues/funk vibe on it last night when I was goofing around on it before bed.
I also mentioned playing the Strumstick, a cool little three stringed instrument by the man who brought us the Martin Backpacker. Kinda like a really, really small walkaround dulcimer. Here’s a link to the man’s site and his instruments:
I tried to get a shot of Icchus with the guitars, but he’s cranky after having his breakfast and wanting to sleep now…as I do. Back to bed for a brief nap then onto the day…lots to do.
Enjoy, and thank you for indulging me…
I recently re-took possession of my Fender Duo-Sonic, which I had picked up a few years ago at a yard sale for about 100 bucks and promptly lent to thisrabbit and then forgot about. I’d never even played the thing! (No harm no foul to Sou — I was pleased it was getting used, and then as I said, I kinda forgot it existed. I’m a fairly focused acoustic player anyway and was just looking to fool around some, so I never missed it.)
Last night my friend a_solitaryman came over and we jammed out for several hours — I don’t play with other people often and it’s always a revelation to see what kind of muscle memory and familiarity I really do have with the instrument when I’m just playing along and following a much better player. Chris got on the electric and I switched back and forth between my big dreadnought and a Strumstick. It was a lot of fun.
I need to do more of this, and I’m thinking that there may be an opportunity to add a little of me on guitar to Duende in spots. Faro’s a much better musician than I am, so I haven’t felt the need — but it might be fun.
For the guitar geeks among you: the Duo-Sonic is bascially a two single coil pickup Mustang without the dive bomb bridge, and is also a small instrument — a 3/4 scale neck or about 22 inches or so. Mine is a Mexican made reissue from the mid 90s; they were originally made from the mid Fifties to the mid Sixties. This one’s in mint condition, and has bite and great action. Best known as the instrument used by both Patti Smith and Dean Ween. Mine is in classic Fender black and white.
I’m going to be playing it more now, I think — branching out a bit from my acoustics and my other electric, the hollowbody 40s era Harmony/Regal (indiscriminate, no label) with the added vintage DeArmond pickup. That’s a great instrument, but more suited to jazz/blues than to snarly punk and rock, which the Fender is perfect for.
1. “What If She Were Your Mom?”
In the picture
the representative Mom is in sleek black
bra and boyshorts, ass
to the camera, face pitched back
over her shoulder. She’s been classically
styled as hot Mom, MILF I suppose,
and the article (I further suppose)
must deal with the problems
a MILF’s daughter must face knowing that
some proportion of the men around her
might be thinking of assuming
some of the duties of her father,
as if having one Dad wasn’t enough trouble
what with him already having a thing for her
cheerleader friends. And who knows
what Mom thinks of all this?
Everything’s always been
a problem when it comes to Mom and Dad,
of course, even before
Mom’s emboldened fashion sense and Dad’s
sudden devotion to “Veronica Mars” reared their
strangely alluring heads. Daughter will have to look
elsewhere for guidance now…
2. “How To Work A Skirt”
You can work a skirt
to say “I love you,” obviously. But did you know
you can work a skirt to say
what a good MILF you’ll be someday?
3. “Tragedy In Dafur”
Read this
so that the next time you’re working that skirt
you can reference it so someone will know
you pay attention to things other than your Mom’s
lingerie and Dad’s lust for the new. You can keep a copy of it
clipped under your hem, just out of sight.
If a hint of it does accidently appear you can laugh it off
and mention all the things no one knows you keep up there.
4. “Hollywood Hookups”
The kiss she laid on him
at the afterparty
was like nothing
seen before by any reporter
and if you had seen it you’d understand
that your Mom’s lingerie is a way of recapturing
a moment from a time before the way to work a skirt
became a glossy prescription.
5. “Where To Buy”
Buy it anywhere fine goods are sold —
one-named stores, multilevel stores,
small stores on Elizabeth Street in NYC,
stores on Fashion Island in Newport Beach, CA,
upside down stores near the back lot of a movie,
stores reconfigured to look like distressed auto plants,
store where you can get a Darfur bracelet, stores
your Mom hasn’t heard of yet, stores Dad can’t hang around.
Buy it here before that skirt works itself out of a job.
note: all section titles taken from a magazine a young woman was reading on the ferry trip from Hyannis to Nantucket. yes, I was reading over her shoulder — the titles, anyway.
Dark Matter 