Y’all better come down to GotPoetry Live at Reflections Cafe in Providence tonight for the open mike and feature by Ryk McIntyre.
Or else I’ll be forced to come to your house and read you my pig Latin translation of “Howl.”
At 3:14 AM.
With a megaphone.
Naked.
With a jug band backing me up.
And a cropduster pulling a banner reading, “Olochmay! Olochmay!” flying overhead while Mandy Moore and Diamanda Galas do cartwheels on the wing.
I left the radio on
and who knows
what songs I missed
while I was in the shower?
What songs
does the President sing
when he sings
in the shower?
What things
did the soldier think of
before dying in the evening’s
rocket shower?
What did last night’s groupie
do when she got home
and washed off the evening
with a long, bitter shower?
And who knows
what fell from the Douglas fir
when the lightning struck it
during the thundershower?
There is so much
in this world that happens
without remark, remarkable things
sloughed off like dirt in a shower.
from NYC, where I came out of retirement for a single night to slam at Bar 13 as part of the Worcester Slam Team, along with Bobby Gibbs, badgary, and urbanitus. I replaced morthsha who couldn’t make it.
I kept it quiet because I wanted it to be a surprise. It was the first time in 5 years I’d slammed in anything resembling a team slam.
We placed third in a tough contest of four teams: Brooklyn, louderARTS, Worcester, and New Jersey (that was the order of finish).
Went up fourth in the first round, did “Conspiracy” a bit differently than usual, and got a respectable 26.5 after the half-point time penalty.
Star of the night was badgary, proving once again that he is criminally underrated by getting the high score of the bout with a 29.5, and incidentally prompting Rachel McKibbens and Emily Kagan to dance vigorously to a crowd singalong of “Darling Nikki” after he was done proclaiming the patriotic virtues of listening to Prince.
After, Mr. Urban and I went out for Oxycontin and pizza before driving home. (You had to be there.)
It was fun. I’m going back into retirement now. Good night.
a woman i know
once told me about
hatefucking
rolling and tumbling
in toothsome anger
with a richly despised partner
i am not sure
i could do that
i have never hated a partner enough
to want to lay hands upon them
once their poison
took effect
all this is to say
i’m the wrong man for that job
if you want to make love again
you’re going to have
to treat me
much much worse
Last night was another punk show in Providence. This one was cut short by a crazy artist who lives in the building illegally; he came up during the last band with a FIRE EXTINGUISHER and sprayed the whole hall outside the practice space where the show was to drive everyone out. I looked up at one point and saw nothing but what looked like smoke in the hall, so we bolted out to get out — and I realized it was some sort of chemical which scared me even more.
I did have the presence of mind to grab the beer, though.
Tonight is the annual Poets’ Asylum auction at the Java Hut. I’m putting my old, battered yet serviceable twelve string into the pool of available items. There will be many others. C’mon down.
Tomorrow I’m busy all day, so likely won’t update until tomorrow night late or Tuesday morning.
See ya ’round…
Tonight’s entertainment will consist of steaks on the grill followed by beer and punk rock in a warehouse.
Flight and room are booked for Austin. I’m getting in late Monday night so I’ll be around on Tuesday.
Yay!
I’m behind on my political poetry of late.
I’m assuming Bush is still President because I can still smell brimstone, so I’m also assuming that all those poems we’ve written about him still haven’t succeeded in getting him out of office.
How about the revolution? Is it still not being televised? I bet A & E would pay big bucks for the rights to that if the revolution ever changes its mind.
I’ve officially licensed the poetry on this blog under a Creative Commons license as described below:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.<!–
–>
He hates his dreams,
not because they are horrible
but because they are exotic.
He sees his dreams as creatures
from endangered species
who can’t be killed
because the punishment for hunting them
far outweighs the reward.
He wants to let the gate to the dream pasture
stand open all night so the wolves can get in.
He tries to lure out the dreams
by placing salt licks under
his tight-closed eyes so that the dreams may be
drawn into the open and driven away.
He builds a blind, sets traps,
and one night snares one still alive.
He offers the yowling dream upon
a smoking altar.
He wakes up and wonders
if even that was a dream.
He asks his neighbors next morning
if they heard
strange howls
last night.
He is amused when they shun him,
turning away
with blood still fresh on their own hands.
the gargoyles in notre dame’s niches
were put there to keep away demons.
the church of santa maria formosa in venice
has a monster’s face over the side entry.
dragons bring luck
in china and japan.
in my sleep i kill dragons.
i keep gargoyles in my garden as curiosities,
bring out the monster mask
once a year, and then only in the dark.
i am pretending when i say
i do not understand
why i will have to
die someday.
Good news: Internet access has returned to the Vortex.
Bad news: They replaced a bunch of stuff but there’s one old line in the basement they can’t get at. Probable failure looms in the future…
I’m going to be writing an article for Gotpoetry.com regarding the whole perpetual discussion of whether or not it’s a good idea to post your work online for fear of plagiarism, loss of copyright and money, inability to publish, etc.
My thinking on this issue has evolved to the point of deciding that I no longer care about these issues in regard to my own work — I’m content to let the work be out there and seen by more people than worrying about whether or not I’m losing out on potential royalties or whether someone’s taking credit for my work. I’ve pretty much decided not to copyright my work in the future at all.
But I’m interested in your points of view. Thoughts?
ETA:
geminipoet pointed me to the Creative Commons site for more info on something that works very nicely for the type of thing I’m talking about. I was familiar with Creative Commons, but not with the details of how it worked.
Anyone else out there using this?
my memories
screw me out of peace
more often than not.
they bring me back to such odd times.
every morning reminds me
of childhood cocoa at night.
every night reminds me
of warm college beers in the morning,
but i never recall much of anything at noontime
and that’s likely for the best. it’s a merciless hour.
anything that comes up then could be immediately fatal,
unlike the slow toxins of dark and dawn,
and if i died in the light of day
i would be forgotten at once.
noontime creates
such small shadows.
no, give me the dark hour memories,
bastard children unwanted but accepted
strictly because they’re so obscure. waking memory
is so hard to endure
because there
is so little
shade there
to shelter in.
Dark Matter 