Saturday, I was out doing errands when I spotted a guitar case at a yard sale.

I stopped and found a “Nobility” archtop — probably late 40s, early 50s, birdseye maple back, solid spruce top (pressed, not carved, for you aficionados out there, like Bill Campana), but with a wicked bow in the neck that wasn’t worth repairing.

The guy running the yard sale came over. “$250,” he said.

Needless to say, I thanked him and moved on. He was clearly irritated and jerked his thumb back to another case. “That one’s only 75 bucks,” he said.

I walked over to check it out. Inside was a 1971 Sadao Yairi classical that looked like it hadn’t been played in 30 years.

Sadao Yairi was the cousin of the guy who does the Alvarez-Yairi line of acoustic guitars. (Think Ani, think Bob Weir.) This guitar was one of his — handmade, all solid woods, in pristine condition. Signed and hand-dated label. While not a custom instrument, this was a really, really nice intermediate concert classical.

I talked him down to 65 bucks and took off with it.

Once I got it home and cleaned the dust off of it, I tuned it up to concert pitch and began to play…and realized that this was far more classical guitar than I was used to; I own a low-end but decent student Yamaha what I fool around with, but this was another animal entirely.

A good steel string instrument makes you sound better than you are. A good classical makes you sound worse, because it demands that you actually have classical technique; it makes you a better player because if you have any pride, it forces you to straighten up and fly right.

I am selling the instrument on eBay, hoping it goes to a serious student of the instrument, turning the money I hope to make from it over to my niece’s college fund; but I did get one thing out of it…

THE NEW GUITAR

This new guitar is stern
and lovely, shape less hourglass than pear,
broad in the neck and careful in tone.

It is unforgiving of
my sloppy technique, burns and buzzes
under my fat fingers like a trapped bee.

The small murders of each stunted chord and
dropped arpeggio fill the room
like a mass grave.

This is a determined massacre
born of desire: these hours working
to make it sing

the way it cries to sing
make me a singer too. Every easy guitar
led me to this one, as surely as a fire leads to ash.

Long ago, the receding Flood
brought dryness back to the
earth. The trees grew again, were felled,

quartersawn and planed into shapes
and stories. Someone made this guitar
for the tale of the struggle for the covenant.

I stretch my hand again, shake the cramp off,
raise the neck to play and play. I am terrible at this.
We are all terrible at this. We do it anyway.

The new Zero Point Zero is up.

One guess what it’s about.

But I surprised myself; I think I did something far better than the polemic I would have expected me to write.

Who woulda thunk it, right?

Dig in, go read it, comment there, here, repost it, trash it…rock out with your bad selves.

I’m actually, sincerely, truly NOT tempted to sign on to the slam list to watch the mess I know must be happening there. I think I’m getting over it.

Y’know, I have less trouble with the tobacco company sponsorship than I do with Clear Channel. At least there are smoking poets in our ranks…

But ClearChannel? CLEARFUCKINGCHANNEL?

Who banned the Dixie Chicks from their airwaves? Who decided that John Lennon’s “Imagine” was an inappropriate song for airplay following 9/11? Who routinely dumb down and buy out local outlets to replace them with lowest common denominator CRAP?

Does anybody have a fucking clue?

Does anybody understand that the NPS has struck a deal with an organization that stands in opposition to what we claim to stand for?

(I know you do. This is rhetoric.)

Fuck fuck fuck.

It’s easy enough to be outraged — but who will take the first step to walk away?

Let’s see you do it, big bad revolutionaries…

Nothing like getting into a soft, comfortable bed.

From the gotpoetry forum, reposted from the slamlist by Sage Francis:

“I am pleased to announce that St. Louis has forged a partnership with Clearchannel Communications. This deal is a great opportunity to grow the NPS from year to year. Clearchannel has suggested that they possibly would be interested in a national partnership from year to year.

The deal breaks down with three radio stations like this;

Z107 Fm, The Beat and Magic will each run three ads per day for three weeks…. with 63 ads per station which gives us 189 produced spots. Each spot will be sixty seconds.

Each station will also provide one live remote during the event.

This package is valued at $106,000.00. I cannot tell you how important this deal is for the national movement. I hope you will embrace the need for media partners as you grow this event forward.

I can understand the reluctance to have certain sponsors branded to this event, however, there is no bigger media partner than Clearchannel out there…and they were the only media company that could offer this package.

Additionally we have purchased radio spots to solely promote finals night. This again was partly in-kind. We will pay $1500.00 cash for the extra radio coverage for finals night. $106,000.00 coverage for only $1500.00 is a great and awesome deal folks. Clearchannel has been most gracious and one of the best contacts to date.”

Not sure how to react? Some other stuff about ClearChannel to think about:

http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/cc.php

This is one of those words that can’t be understood until you have lived through it.

And then, you simply say, “I’m heartbroken,” and those who have been heartbroken understand and fall silent while the others make sympathetic noises. They make sounds with you, in concert with you, in response to you.

What they do not realize is that what you need most is silence.

There are some memories that can only be grasped in the left hand and held to your ear in dead silence.

There are some voices that can only be conjured up when you are so quiet you could hear a pin crack.

There are some rooms that only return to existence when the space around you is sucked clear of anything like a sound, a word.

This is why poetry is useless for heartbreak’s balm. All a poem can do is move along beside you. It can never move inside you until after you are healed.

This is one of those words that can’t be understood until you have lived through it.

And then, you simply say, “I’m heartbroken,” and those who have been heartbroken understand and fall silent while the others make sympathetic noises. They make sounds with you, in concert with you, in response to you.

What they do not realize is that what you need most is silence.

There are some memories that can only be grasped in the left hand and held to your ear in dead silence.

There are some voices that can only be conjured up when you are so quiet you could hear a pin crack.

There are some rooms that only return to existence when the space around you is sucked clear of anything like a sound, a word.

This is why poetry is useless for heartbreak’s balm. All a poem can do is move along beside you. It can never move inside you until after you are healed.

Here you go, Sou: “Geoffry” by Christopher Smart.

Continue reading

We appear to be in the middle of a hot debate over on gotpoetry.com concerning the role, future, etc., of slam…at least in part occasioned by my most recent column, at least in part by other considerations not worth going into here.

If you’re that interested in the details of this debate, go check em out. I’m not commenting specifically on it here. All I really feel like saying about it is: the best thing you can do when you’re done with something is fold your tents and retreat.

I’m actually good at that, usually. I think my constant fiddling about with this topic is telling me something…that I’m not really done with slam.

I think something’s got to give, and give big, for the slamiverse to move forward. It’s become a festival of the New, and tradition is secondary, so the whole’s become incessantly self referential — people are speaking to each other almost exclusively in real time, with no eye back to the past and the future limited to next week.

Who’s writing for tomorrow?

When I was growing up as a poet, I thought of myself as being in competition not with the folks around me, but with folks like Neruda and Whitman.

I really feel if you’re not gunning for Shakespeare, you’re a hobbyist at this — and maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m too fucking much of a purist. I ought to settle down and have fun with my poetry; but fun is secondary to transcendence in my world. Fun, in fact, is secondary to almost everything. And maybe, just maybe, I am losing out by being so committed to the primacy of Art in my life.

ADAM AND EVE ON A RAFT, WRECK ‘EM

The cup’s on the counter.
Your lipstick’s on the rim.
The whole day’s shot to hell.
My job and your tumbled papers
swept aside, I sit down
on the corner stool. I used to kiss you
here, and there. We used to make each other
hungry. After us I was not intact
but I was complete as long as
the lipstick stayed in my head
and wasn’t smeared all over.

I take a drink, get
lipstick on the rim of my teeth.
You never used your teeth but
you always let me know
they were there, and now
they are not. I’m left with tears
and left hooks.
I’m counter
help in hell — short order joint, learning to wash the
dishes, make sure all the
stains are gone.

Boss, I’m not up to the job
of dealing with this.
Fire me. I’ll collect
thoughts
for a while.

I’ll never be able to hold this job.
I’m too numb to quit. Boss,
tell me I’m fired.
Tell me to make like an egg and
scramble. Tell me
I’m gone.

I competed in a New England Slam League bout.

And I had FUN.

Too cool.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Spent most of the weekend in Mystic CT with friends, came home, jumped in the car and hit Worcester for the first time in a while.

Morris and Corrina asked me to slam for Providence, so I said, “what the hell — it’s a holiday, eh?”

I’m sure Adam and Morris will be publishing their dissections, but the teams were:

Providence Defectors: Corrina Bain androidlustre, Carlos Gomez, Tony Brown (you know…me)

Worcester Wickeds: Alex C hairy_lamb, Urban urbanitus, Ryk McIntyre (allegedly soon to be here), Morris mstegosaurus

Team Snake With Legs: Starthisisstar, Sou MacMillanthisrabbit, Adam Stoneakamuu (who took off too fast afterward — dude! Where’d you go?)

In the final dust, Worcester pulled it out over us, with the Snake slithering in third.

But I had a good time…which makes the new Zero Point Zero (which is now up here ) a bit ironic, since the title is “How Slam Became Irrelevant.”

A bit of a rant…

Very well then; I contradict myself; I contain multitudes. (Some poet said that a while back…)

Zero Point Zero will be up shortly; just an issue with getting on to approve it and post it. Keep checking here for the update. Should be soon. (Update: as of 1:15 am July 3, still nothing. I’ll let you know when it’s up. Sorry.)

It’s a doozy.

Probably won’t be around much this weekend, what with the holiday and all…

Have a good one.

I’m really interested in this meme.

I always find them interesting as phenomena, in general; some are dumber than others, of course. But this one — you know, I’m vainly interested in what people who do and do not know me will ask.

So here goes…

“This is the problem with LJ, we all think we are so close, and we know nothing about each other. I’m going to rectify it. I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don’t know about you.”

Let the healing begin. (I think I heard that in a movie someplace.)

Take the quiz: “Which American City Are You?”

Cleveland
You are blue collar and Rock n Roll. You Work hard and party harder.

Rock on.

In other news: Some of you asked about the short order cooks’ slang that gave me the title of my most recently posted poem.

Here’s a link to some of the common phrases:

http://www.jitterbuzz.com/diners.html

Specifically, “Adam and Eve on a raft, wreck ’em” means two scrambled eggs on toast.

Been working on this for a bit. Just getting to a first post…

ADAM AND EVE ON A RAFT, WRECK EM

The cup’s on the counter with
your lipstick on the rim.
Now the whole day’s shot to hell.
Woe and tumbled eyelashes swept aside, I sit down
at the edge of the counter. I used to kiss you
there, and there. I used to make you
easy there, and there. I was not
intact but I was complete and
the lipstick never stayed in one place on the
rim, it would be smeared over
again and again.

I’m not up to the job
of dealing with this.
Fire me, I’ll collect thoughts
for dole money.

I take a drink,
lipstick on the rim of my teeth,
you never used your teeth,
you always let me know
they were there, and now they are
not. I’m all tears and left hooks.
I’m counter
help in hell — short order joint, learning to wash the
dishes, make sure all the
stains are gone.

I’ll never hold this job.
I’m fired. I’m fired.
I’m history.
I’m gone.

Well, Annie’s been sick, so we haven’t gotten to the movies yet. And I’m likely skipping tonight at the Asylum for the same reason. (Sorry, Shakti.)

In other news, I’m working on a weird poem right now that talks about what happens when anticipation becomes memory. Not sure it’s working, but it’s an interesting concept.

I always find it difficult to get into the poetry-creation mode after releasing a new book. My body and soul cry out for a rest…but I fear rest, I fear it like death. It is death.

One of these days, I fear I may dry up and disappear in the wind that blows through where my poetry used to be. I have an obsessive need to keep the door blocked open until that happens, just to make sure everything that can get out does get out.

I’ve probably written 3,000 poems in my lifetime. (Seriously. Figure an average of 100 per year for 30 years or so.) I like probably 100. The world has heard maybe 75.

Bad statistics? I dunno. They’re mine…I own them.

I just wish they didn’t also own me.