Category Archives: uncategorized

Ambition

They say
the universe is still expanding.
I can’t always be bothered to check.

One of these days
I’ll sit down and say,
"That’s enough.

Let someone else find
the leading edge."
I should have said it by now,

I tell myself.  Something keeps
me watching the stars, trying
to detect their flight from me.

In one second, I think I see it,
in the next, I’m sure I can’t. 
I watch us dying for plots of holy land

real or imagined, for thoughts
triggered from visions of perfection.
I think we’re all beside the point.

We’re all just human, impossibly stupid
under the blown-out dome
of space. It’s improbable that we’re here,

insignificant that I try and tell my story
when it’s exactly like every other story
ever told:  I want love, immortality,

power over my surroundings,
warmth in cold and cold in warmth.
Always on the wrong side of the moment.

If the universe is expanding,
I’m the center.  Farther away from my limits
every time the clock moves.

One of these days, I’ll say,
"enough," and it will be.  It may be enough now
that I know that.  There was never anything

to be created here that hasn’t been created already
in the rush of light and dark toward…
what’s out there, beyond what we know? Oh…

settling down to watch.


Head colds/body aches

suck.  I’m feeling better but slept most of the day…sorry to have missed Cowboy at GPL . Hope it went well tonight.


Corner

There is a corner —
always, there’s a corner,

perhaps with a bed crammed into it,
or perhaps it’s the end cushion of a worn couch. 

Sometimes your back
is pressed against cold walls

while you look out
upon a small room.

Sometimes
there is a window, sometimes

there is a door.
Sometimes,

all there is
is blindness,

your face crushed
into an angle

that lets nothing
in.


No Asylum for me tonight.

I’m honestly just not up to seeing people.

Kick butt, johnnylexicon  . I’m sorry I won’t be there.   Have fun, everyone else.


Because three weeks of bombing and shooting just isn’t enough…

Israel warns Gaza residents: We’ve only just begun…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in an open field
in farmland
among the rocks
of mountains
among the dunes
of a desert
in a boat
on a cove
or out at sea

enemies are small targets
on a background
hard to hit
without someone’s strenuous effort

but in cities
the bodies are packed
so close

it is hard to tell
who exactly has died
until after a city’s fabric is torn
into mourning garments
bandages
flags

so what someone has to do
is drop enough bombs
in enough places
fire enough bullets
into enough walls
cover enough of the street grid
with enough clusters and bursts of flame
to ensure
that the targets
desired will be struck

if the barrage rips off
the heads of children
the arms of anonymous old men
the faces of doppelgangers
for old enemies

they will remain uncounted as anything more
than strings from the ragged hems of war

until a face
found unstitched from its skull
can be identified as a target
after the fact

then someone can declare the garment
finished

and the scraps can be swept away


Having a good week…

Earlier today, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz (twosnoos , of course, or one half, anyway) posted a link to a website that deals in current events related poetry:  The New Verse News .  I submitted something right away as the idea intrigued me — a website that uses poetry as a form of journalism.

They’ve accepted "Matters of Controversy,"  my recent piece on the Gaza disaster.  It’ll be up on Saturday.

So…two poems and a chapbook manuscript accepted this week; also, the Indiefeed feature last Friday. 

That’s it —  I’m taking tomorrow off.

Thanks, Cristin, for looking out for us…

OH — and sorry for missing out on both Storytellers and poker tonight, everyone.  Just couldn’t get out the door…


Just got this email:

"As has been reported, we had staff cuts at LiveJournal Inc. this week. Early media reports seriously exaggerated the impact of the decision on the continued existence of LiveJournal as a company and misrepresented the scope of the staff cuts. The cuts were part of a restructuring that shifted global design and product development to the LiveJournal office in Moscow. Product decisions for the English-language site will still be made in the U.S., and LiveJournal Inc. remains headquartered in San Francisco…

The restructuring is done with an eye to the future to ensure the long-term viability of LiveJournal as a business. As a team, we know that LJ has a great future as it prepares for its second decade. We recently invested a considerable amount on all-new server equipment and a facility in Montana to house it all as part of our commitment to the longevity of LJ. We will be around for years to come and we’re committed to ensuring that your journals, friends pages, and communities will be, too.

As with any of these kinds of decisions, it’s always hardest to lose valued team members. We’re very sad to see our colleagues go and want to acknowledge all the hard work, dedication, and love they’ve given LiveJournal over the years. They will be missed. While they are no longer a part of LiveJournal Inc., they are still a part of the LJ community."

Well, I feel better now.

So I guess that placeholder "Dark Matter" blog I set up in case I have to migrate was all for naught, eh?  (WordPress, for those who care.  Nothing there now; don’t bother looking.  Just set up the account when I was paranoid about the potential for an LJ shutdown. All that work getting ready to migrate just in case — no reason to be worried!  Whew!  Glad THAT’s not gonna happen.)


Waiting For The Next One

Around here, we learn at a small age
how to look for pink glow on the lowering sky,
the sign of the shadow waiting to fall.
We’ll never stop it from coming, and we know
we’ll be digging out of it soon enough
if we don’t drop from a heart attack in the driveway
or slip and fall to freeze to death, only to be discovered
weeks later.  Every storm is a lesson in precarious
living, no matter how comfortable we are inside.


Skiers, boarders, etc.,love this. I am not a skier. It follows, therefore, that I don’t love this.

Another storm coming in this weekend…we’re having a heck of a winter so far, oh boy…


Seeking a gig…something specific.

OK, here’s the deal.

Duende has a gig on April 25 in Richmond, VA.  I’ll be doing a workshop in the afternoon, we’re performing at the slam that night, a Saturday.

I’d love to find us a gig for Friday night, somewhere very roughly halfway between Worcester and Richmond, so we don’t have to do the marathon drive with equipment from here to there at a godawful hour of the AM for one show.  It would be good to maximize earnings against expense, y’know?

Anyone got any thoughts or contacts in the general area of South Jersey, Delaware, Philly, etc., for a Friday night gig?  It would be most appreciated.  Even NYC would be OK as an outside possibility…anything to cut a long drive down a bit.

Thanks!


Some things never change…

Woman burned to death in Papua New Guinea on suspicion of being a witch.

Thank God nothing like that happens here, right?  Only in those benighted countries overseas…and in Florida…

Teacher accused of wizardry let go from job.  I remembered seeing the story when it came out and looked it up.

I especially love the last line of the story…"Wizardry was only one of the reasons he was let go."  There was that pesky rumor about necromancy, too.  I bet he was also a terrorist…maybe even one of those homosexuals.

I know, I know — old news, right?  I mean, it was back in May…we’re much more enlightened now. 


History

History
is
the sneaky itch
on your instep
that promises
it will feel good
to scratch it
and that it will be over quickly
allowing you
to get back to sleep

but which instead
just keeps itching
and breeding more itch elsewhere
which you believe
is all branching out
from the first itch
but that makes no sense because
they’re all on
different parts
of the body so there’s no way
one irritation could pop up in so
many places driving you crazy
and making you suspect
against all conventional wisdom
that you’re filthy
and complicit somehow
in causing the itch

and you lie there
wondering
what you ever did
to deserve
this and
why has it fallen to you
to take care of something
that should be
over by now and
when exactly
will you have scratched enough
for one lifetime and lastly
are you ever
going to be able
to get back to sleep?


Three things worth knowing:

1.
Tonight at GotPoetry Live, Morris Stegosaurus (who is sitting on my couch as we speak) will be our feature!  Come down and bask in the poetic goodness at Blue State Coffee, 300 Thayer Street, Providence, RI from 7:30 (sign up) to 10.

2.
My poem "Carve" will be appearing in the Winter 2009 issue of Ballard Street Poetry Journal.  Yay!

3.
And, in the "the irony is not lost on me" category…this guy, this one, the one who proclaims the death of traditional publishing on a regular basis, has had a poetry manuscript accepted for publication from Pudding House Press. 

Yup. 

Over and out.


Cold Feet

January 3:
cold feet.
A year ahead,
and it starts like this?
Whose idea was it
to start the year
before the first green shows
through the snow?
I’m going to find that man
and make him stand
barefoot, outside, on ice.
If we’ve gotta put up with this,
he should have to as well.
I don’t care how dead he is:
there must be things he never got around
to doing, and he ought to know
how much hesitation hurts
when you know
you should be up and at it.


Head on over to Indiefeed…

where my poem “Chrysler” is the current featured podcast, along with some wonderful words from our favorite pusher of the soundfiles, mongobear. Thanks, man.

It’s here: http://www.indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=416834

In addition, the article I posted on Gotpoetry.com regarding the current state of slam is mentioned in the podcast, and there’s some good discussion going on right now regarding the whole issue of persona and personal testimony in poems. Jeff Stumpo, in particular, has some great thought on it all, and also has some thoughts on the topic in his own Indiefeed podcast, which you can access here:

http://www.indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=346455

Love to have you check it all out. The article, again, is here:

http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=23988.html