I keep swearing that I’m gonna take a break from this for a bit. I never do.

I need to.

I am in need of repair. My social skills suck. All I can think of is how much I hate the way this country is, the way the world is…the way I am.

I hate and I love and I fight past lonely toward even keeled on a sea of medication and none of the land up ahead ever looks any different.

And you know what’s really, really funny about all this?

All I ever have to do is slap the words “first draft” in the subject, and no one will ever know.

Not completely appropriate across the board for the place I’m in, but I’m really feeling this poem right now. That whole need to let the crap go. That whole need to admit failure and move on, and give up the passions you substitute for the passions you need to feed.

This has echoed through my head all day.

Have I mentioned how much I love Etheridge Knight?

Feeling Fucked Up

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs–

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcom fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing

Some of you may recall that I used to teach an ongoing class at Dorchester High School, an inner-city school in Boston (the actual model for the show “Boston Public”), to sophomores there on life and success in Corporate America.

On at least one occasion I know I must have mentioned Ed Noonan, the no-nonsense, gruff and tough and tender teacher who put the program together.

I just learned that he died of leukemia last night.

I’m ready to burn something today. To smash something, or hurt someone.

I forgot to take my pills this AM. Knowing this shouldn’t affect me dramatically doesn’t make me less pissed about it.

I hate work right now.

I hate everything right now.

I hate, I hater, I hatest.

Give me time to not be this, and I won’t be; but today I am.

The Congregational bell downtown
strikes ten. I’m surprised though
I know it does this every hour of the day;

there are whole weeks
when I don’t hear it because
I’ve lived here so long.

Rushing to the store
late before it closes
is something I do

that most folks around here
never need to do because they’re
done and locked and asleep by nine

at the latest. Walking the aisles
in a pea coat and earrings, ponytail
hanging to my shoulder blades,

I barely draw a look anymore
from anyone — renowned small town
eccentric, pausing

in the cat food aisle,
loading up to head home before
the next bell rings,

still hoping something will happen.

1. I edited the previous poem a bit. Thanks for suggestions…

2. Robbie Q. and Joel Chmara made me laugh harder than I’ve laughed in ages.

3. Anti-Semitism sounds just as ugly in a foreign language. (I’d explain, but I’m too pissed to be coherent about it. Let another Worcesterite dig in on this.)

4. I was offpage for a new poem tonight for the first time in ages. Can’t imagine why…

5. I want a new way to categorize what I do, creating a place for some of us who sit in my place to hang our hats.

We’re:

— poets first, performers second
— post slam, for the most part –we came of age in it but don’t find it too interesting anymore
— want less speed, fewer words, and more space for audience thought and interpretation
— are more comfortable with ambiguity than the average slammer
— less interested in face time now and more interested in legacy later. Universality.

“Post-slam” is too obvious. “New Category”? NOT “spoken word artists” — I loathe that term.

there is no reason
for this.

nothing matters. if it were easier to
make things happen, perhaps things would matter
because they would be possible.
they are not.

there are whole countries
where the mention of possibility
evokes laughter.

families stumble on their way home
and cry out: it’s impossible.
the way is long, the night is dark
and we are too small to reach the shore, even if we
hold onto one another.

the man and the woman, the man and the man,
the woman and the woman
are all impossible.
merger defaults to clash.
faces that were kissing
soon strike each other, bruising lips, leaving
cheekbones aching; they begin to turn away.

two people step into a city crowd at the same time.
they never meet, walk parallel
to the same dock, step on and then off the ferry
separately. the next day, one leaps from the ferry
and a cosmos is lost.
the other goes home as calm as a tomb,
knowing nothing of what has passed by him.

this is the way it is: impossible.
we are not equipped to make it happen. ever.

if it happens, once and then rarely again,
it happens in spite of us.

pray for the ability
to witness, take hold,
and hang on.

I’ve been looking at a bunch of poetry slam sites that advertise their upcoming features.

A couple of thoughts:

— I noticed a lot of comparisons to musicians to describe the performance style of the features;

— I noticed a lot of comparisons to other slam poets’s work to describe their poetry.

Certainly, it’s about knowing your audience…but it’s also lazy and a little too self-referential.

I know many if not most venues use the bios they’re given. I can’t really blame them as much as I do the artists themselves.

Such an insular group…it’s like we only understand our art in reference to each other’s work.

I don’t have a profound thought about it; just an observation.

I am on vast amounts of psychiatric medications.

I know crazy when I see it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/06/jealous.husband.ap/index.html

Add the Andrea Yates decision into the mix and I have to say it’s been an interesting day for jurisprudence in TX.

There’s a woman in town
who used to live in a treehouse
screaming as if in ecstasy
over the least thing:

green leaves, TV Guide
hologram covers, ecstasy itself.
She woke the whole neighborhood
once a night at least.

Finally,
cops were sent
to take her down.
She surrendered at once.

As she was led away she was asked
for some reason for what she’d done. She said,
“I was lonely, and I knew
someone would come sooner or later.”

All over town it’s the same:
people living like bulls, pent up
and chock-a-block
with fertility and anger.

Look past the keno screens
and poker runs. Past the turkey shoots
and meat raffles. Past the single cruiser on
a weeknight, the cop crying from boredom.

See that woman leap past it
from the treehouse
into the waiting arms
of someone to talk to.

See the red cape fall.
See everyone paying attention.
See the earth smoke underfoot.
See the way they chase their long-denied joy.

One:

it’s snowing, but not sticking. limited visibility past the parking lot. ink, meet paper; screen, meet font.

Two:

choosing your life is like flipping a foreign coin, seeing the result, then walking away. you know what you got, but you never learn what was on the other side.

Three:

if you turn a guitar amplifier’s gain control all the way up you’ll hear the air crackle in front of the grille. the guitar itself won’t bark till it’s stroked. stroke it; you’ll hear the air grate fuzz and shatter itself solid. a life is like that; built of broken symphonics that are lovely because they are broken.

Four:

on the edge of the parking lot is a path. no footsteps in it. slick as a flatwound string. frost’s kind of trail. stay off it; no amount of silver will buy your way back out again, and there’s more than enough literature out there about such roads.

when do you leave?

money water electricity and time

you can take all
the money in my wallet
there’s not enough there
to pay attention

as for water i’ve
had enough in my life
to drown a coastline
wet my whistle
and put my fire out

electricity’s just another word
for how a fire starts
before it’s drowned

so now
it’s all up
to you:

give me one thing that truly lasts
one thing that stays strong forever
one immutable element to build on

if you’ve got nothing
then
all the money in your wallet
all the water over your head
all the current in your currency

won’t buy enough reach
to match my grasp

My old friend Paul David Mena has a column about haiku on gotpoetry.com that I thought many of you might like to check out.

It’s a particularly interesting column on his process this week.

There are also some associated links on the site that you might find interesting.

Haiku have always been one poetic form I have never enjoyed writing (and only marginally enjoyed reading), but I know many of you do, so here’s to it.

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

I’m gonna stay away from here for a few days. Hit me backchannel if you need me.

Train Poem

I’m pulling away
from the platform.
Can’t say who’s
waving back there.

Freight today is antiques
and stopped watches. Can’t say
who’s getting them
at the end of the run.

The passengers sit in the second car
and play cards because they’ve seen all the movies
that said they should. Can’t say
who’s winning.

I’m smoking like a devil in hell
and missing every switch.
Forget what I left.
Can’t let a hand hold me.

Everyone’s hanging on for dear life
except the driver, the fireman, and the conductor.
They jumped off miles back. Can’t see anything
but straight on to where the view disappears.