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Poetry readings:
–Tonight: Premiere of The Dirty Gerund, Ralph’s, Worcester, at 8:30.
— Tomorrow: Mike McGee features at GotPoetry Live, Blue State Coffee, Providence, RI. 8-10.
I will be at both.
Observations
I listen to poetry with my eyes closed. I even judge slams with my eyes closed.
I don’t watch poets, I listen to poems.
I’d like to attend a reading where the poets read from behind a screen. I’d like to do a feature that way, too. At least once.
Most three minute poems would sound better as longer poems with at least ten-twenty seconds of silence built in to them.
Most poets I see at slam-influenced readings don’t understand how to use silence.
We fear silence more than anything else. I could lose my eyesight and eventually be OK.
But I would die if I were to lose my hearing.
I’ve said all this before.
There are 3,000+ poems in my archives, dating back to 1974. That may be enough for one lifetime.
What?
A CNN Poll says that King’s vision is fulfilled, in the eyes of many.
No idea what to make of this, on any level…from sample validity to what it may say about people’s perceptions to the racial divide in the numbers…just across the board, I find it odd. Thoughts?
Been reading old chapbooks and posts…
mine, others, people I know, people I don’t know or knew once and don’t remember…
We all write too many poems, with too many words, we repeat ourselves, spoonfeed our readers/audiences, are too literal, explain too much, work too hard to make sure we’re understood…
Stop.
Stop.
Just stop.
We don’t know shit and yet we keep teaching and preaching.
STOP.
Lousy Poet
I’m a lousy poet.
I don’t leak emotion.
I don’t fall into easy fits of anything.
Sometimes I sneer at those who do.
It’s mostly because I’m jealous.
Jealousy is my tiger pit.
There are spikes in it.
I wiggle them loose.
Maybe I can build a ladder.
Maybe I can dig a ramp and walk out.
I think up a lot of strategies for escape.
I think all the time.
All I do with all this spare time is think.
Nothing I’ve done so far has worked.
I am a bad engineer.
It is alleged that being trapped is frustrating.
I do not know if that is what I’m feeling.
I do know that there are times I want to cry.
I want to cry because I’m trapped.
It is forbidden to cry over being trapped.
I don’t know who forbade that.
I know I can hear his voice down here.
I try to get that down in words now and then.
Sometimes it is useful.
Then I recall that I am in a tiger pit.
I recall that my words are unheard.
I go back to thinking:
Bad engineer!
Lousy poet!
The Stream
No boatman
No bridge
No hopping
Leap
Air and water below you
Cold fast spray reminding you
that there is something at stake
Hesitation
won’t work here
(You might even want to close your eyes)
No hopping on one foot
No testing for footing
No poking to see what shakes under your weight
No stopping
No time to think — thinking
is the death of leap
Leap
The worst that can happen
is that you’ll drown
but
oh in that moment
before you strike
you’ll know
I’ve had a severe head cold all week. So what did I do today?
Went snow tubing for the first time at Ward Hill, of course.
My first run was terrifying — lost control of the tube and ended up going down backwards, which scared the shit out of me and for some reason reactivated my old fear of heights. I hate hurtling down a hill and feeling completely out of control. It’s clearly the lack of control, too…not speed, fear of injury, or even the height really. It’s not like Ward Hill is all that high, fer Chrissakes…
However, I recovered, and we ended up having a good time.
Right now, I’m getting warm, watching the Barrett-Jackson collectible car auction, and fantasy bidding in an attempt to win an iPod Touch. Simple pleasures. Currently, I’ve got a bid of $190,000 bucks in on a 1966 Shelby Mustang GT500 — all original with heavy provenance (documentation, for the uninitiated among you).
I wish. But like I said, simple pleasures…
I Kissed A Goat
Sometimes, you fight doggerel with more doggerel…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I Kissed A Goat
Katie Perry kissed a girl
Then alerted all the world
Half the planet sang along
I think that she got it wrong
When she stopped to think about
What he’d say if he found out
She should have told him to fuck off
And find a boy to kiss himself
All this over one small kiss
From cherry-coated chapsticked lips
Do us a favor and write a new one
And this time, get your freak flag on
Write one called "I Kissed A Goat"
Or "Did It With Oprah On A Boat"
Or "I Never Liked Boys Anyway
And I Kissed Her ‘Cuz It Felt OK"
Transgressing stale old boundaries
Might make some coin from wannabes
Or rile a Fundamentalist
(Who wishes that he’d seen that kiss)
But most of us around these parts
Believe in kissing from the heart
And whether your boyfriend minds or not
Is totally beside the point
Islanders (last draft for a while — not feeling it anymore)
sanctuary
is often disguised
as lava
boiling out of the sea
in poisonous fog
where hell breaks
the waves
surtsey
rose like this
the galapagos
the azores and canaries
and all of hawai’i
paradise found
rising wreathed in toxins
from the gaping seams
of tattered old
pangea
we barely waited for them to cool
before we landed
the old world had
its dangers too
Weird…
Both Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan, actors who played characters associated with mysterious islands, died today.
And here I sit working on the poem I posted yesterday called "Islanders…"
Bohemian Rhapsody
The dishes in the sink are growing weeds
so I’m blogging about Gaza
The money’s falling out of my wallet
so here’s a little news about actors
The trees are full of longhorn beetles
and I swear I love the smell of my old socks
The smoke eater’s out of commission
and my head’s wearing headphones without me
The ferret needs to come out and play
so I’m sitting with a book near the window
and contemplating jazz as God-metaphor
I stick freeware in my ears
so I don’t hear the doorbell
There’s a lottery ticket lungfish crawling on the dirty kitchen floor
looking for the next pool to enter
There are a lot of global evils to vanquish today
They’re making me hungry for a perfect cheese
served with a microbrew
on an overdone gas bill
I’ll eat it with relish
while nodding off to classic rock
in an assuredly postmodern sort of way
while wading in shallows
deep enough to drown in
Murder Ballad: The Zipper (2nd revision)
When you die
you are given a choice
on how you will be reincarnated:
not
"animal or human,"
but
"animate or inanimate."
I chose the latter and
bang,
I’m smiling tonight,
every chrome tooth showing
all the time whether my mouth is closed
or open. It’s satisfying
to be protecting this,
concealing this awful wrecked face
from his wailing next of kin,
so they don’t have to confront
how useless their son of a bitch relative
was and still is.
It’s going to be a long cold ride
from here to the morgue.
I’m perfect
for the job: I was this cold in life,
and dark as the stiff plastic
I’m clutching now. My burden
is leaking blood and I’m uncaring,
knowing it’ll all be over soon.
I wanted to be a guitar
but at least I get
to play one exquisite note
three times.
How many guitars
get to say they’ve played a man
from death to forgetting?
I’m a rockstar
at last, if only a one hit wonder:
when they’re done with me,
I know they’ll burn me up.
Next time, I’ll be a fly.
Once you’ve found your calling,
you stick with it.
Dark Matter 