Sorry I couldn’t make the Invitational Women’s Slam tonight, folks — other duties called and I didn’t get back to Worcester till after 9:00, beat and ready to put my feet up.
Who won? Details are needed!!!
Category Archives: uncategorized
Contract Law
Posted on the doors
of my chest
and the footpaths of my arms
are mottoes
I don’t believe in anymore
but now I’m stuck with them
and I should learn
to live up to them hoping that even if
the act is not backed with faith
at the start, faith will grow with
the results.
There are mountains,
tall for a geological moment
and unconcerned with their eventual erosion,
that know more
about how to be a man
than I do. Butterflies float,
mosquitoes leave marks that sting
and disappear, the next door sparrows
shit on my car without concern for their image
because they know they can fly, and none of them
ever feel the need
for ink to explain these things.
I know I could find some doctor
to do the job, buy long sleeves and double up
on T-shirts until I’m too dead to care —
but none of those are things
I can do myself, and I have sworn to be
the one who does that, my fatty chest
screams for that duty to be fulfilled,
so I will buck up. I’ll do it myself,
make a go of the dooms I’ve claimed
until there’s nothing left to fail,
until the waters wear me down
and wash me into
the next person I will become.
Salesman’s Blues (Misanthropy)
He says, “I think
of individual happiness
as an overpriced commodity.”
Runs a finger around the soft edge
of the tumbler.
Two rocks, single malt, half gone.
Another glass empty on the bar.
His silk tie
has a stain on it,
looks like an old one,
darkened from fingers worrying
the edges.
He says, “If I still had the money
for every tie
I’ve had to buy in a rush
from a hotel gift shop
before a meeting where I had to look my best
or risk losing the account,
I’d be richer than a goddamn pimp
at a convention.”
He says, “Come to think of it,
I am a goddamn pimp at a convention.
We’re all pimps here. Selling whores
we keep back at the office, all lined up
waiting to service people like you.
People like me live off of people like you,
and no thanks to you.”
He strips off the tie faster than
a superhero changing for battle.
Downs the last of the drink, slams
the glass down, gets up to go back to his room —
no one’s heard what he said back there in the corner,
far away from the people laughing at the TV,
the flirtations, the deals wisping in the air:
smoke foretelling fire.
Misogyny
Trying to imagine
why a single spider
working her way from ceiling to floor
would be the only one I’ve seen in here
despite all the cobwebs —
is it possible
she made them all?
I watch her sliding up and down
in front of me,
not three feet from my nose.
I’d say it was a taunt
if I could be sure
she is even aware of me.
Eventually, I’m sure,
I’ll swipe her lines from her
and if she lands upon me
or next to me, I’ll flick her
across the room, muting the music
in the room before doing so
just so I can hear the tiny click
when she hits the far wall.
She’ll be back and we’ll do it again
in a day or so. In the mean time before that,
cobwebs will continue to build up
in the corners,
I will continue to blame her. Every other
spider is safe from me as we go to war,
as I drown in the drapes of silk that
she never made all on her own.
GotPoetry Live, River Walk Journal, and the Celtics…
Three wins to celebrate:
— Ryk McIntyre’s feature at Gotpoetry tonight, which was excellent, moving, and a great start to his upcoming book tour. Thanks to all who came out.
— My poem, “Death of Word,” is in the new issue of River Walk Journal, which is a lovely publication: http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/vol5iss1contents.html
— Got home in time to watch the end of the Celtics-Lakers blowout. That was just FUN. Jeez, at the end they were just playing with the poor Lakers. Kinda like watching Rosie (my ferret) with some of her toys…just chewing them up and spitting them out. I felt bad for them…but I got over it fairly quickly. Like, immediately. 😉
Hi.
Sorry to hear about the Asylum auction last night. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So…weekend music.
Kind of spur of the moment: we were looking for something to do on Saturday night, and happened upon ads for the first Worcester Irish Festival, down at the Hibernian Society/Fiddler’s Green Pub on Temple Street. Turned out that a_solitaryman was coming up to see the headliner, Black 47 from NYC, and we joined forces. I’d heard bits of Black 47 over the years, of course, but wasn’t overly familiar with them. So glad we went!
Great band of no-nonsense political traditional Irish folk-ska-punks, with sort of a lighter hearted Pogues vibe, who got a wide range of folks jumping as the night went on — almost none of the local punks were there, but it was a treat to see a crowd of grandmothers and kids pogoing on stage with Irish step dancers and assorted drunken revelers of all types as the band sang about Bagdhad and Bush and all sorts of fun stuff.
Encore: “I Got Laid On James Joyce’s Grave/Gloria/I Fought The Law.” Can’t beat that.
Also caught a bit of the act before them, a Celtic rock act from Vancouver called The Town Pants. Cool stuff, and very funny. If this is a harbinger of the future booking policies for the festival in the coming years, this is gonna be one fun event.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the ragtag fun of community-based revelry to the modern stadium spectacle…Sunday night was RUSH at the Tweeter Center, now the Comcast Center.
I’d never seen them and had an admittedly snobby attitude toward the band in years past, so while I was looking forward to it, I had some teensy reservations.
No more. This was a great concert, with all the trappings: lasers, fog, lights, videos, big screens, etc., etc. All of which would be pointless and cheesy if not for the music, and sweet Jesus, these guys were good — tight, amazingly loud but precise sound, rocking, ferocious guitar from Alex Lifeson, and complex arrangements with amazing musicianship from all three, but especially from Geddy Lee on bass and most especially from Neil Peart, the heart of the band.
My God, can that man play the motherfucking drums.
I mean, I’ve seen great drummers of all stripes over the years, including Max Roach and Keith Moon way back in my misty youth…but Peart was amazing. Two complete kits, one focused on the standard stuff and one on more esoteric pieces and electronic triggers. He did a solo at one point where the kits rotated and he switched thrones to play the “weird kit,” triggering all sorts of stuff that turned into a big band soundtrack — which he then played along with on the standard kit, swinging hard and free while videos of Krupa and Rich played behind him.
If this all sounds a little contrived…trust me, it wasn’t. I have a pretty sharp radar for spectacle that’s being used for its own pretentious sake, and this worked, and worked the way it is supposed to — in service to a larger aim. It was really great.
Funny — I’m not a big fan of the studio stuff, even after hearing some of it live last night (a lot of it, since it was a three hour show). I listened to some last night and it’s just not the same. I’m not a fan in the sense that I want to go out and buy a bunch of their stuff now.
But I will gladly go see them again, because this was a great live show.
(By the way….they know how to poke fun at themselves too. Lifeson’s set up was a row of four Marshall full stacks set up behind him. Lee’s amps weren’t visible on stage; behind him, instead of amps, was a giant case of rotissierie chickens that was the same size as Lifeson’s rig, all the birds merrily turning on their spits, with the word “HENHOUSE” emblazoned on the glass doors in the same script as the Marshall logo. Every once in a while, a guy dressed as a chef came out and basted them…and no one in the band made a single reference to it at any point during the show.)
Weekend musical extremes, both excellent/Some sad news
Saturday night concert: Black 47
Sunday night concert: Rush
More on these later, when I have time after work.
Also: Shannon Leigh, poet and slammer from Atlanta, was seriously injured in a diving accident this weekend and is in critical condition. (That’s all anybody seems to know.) I don’t know Shannon at all, but a member of the slam family is in trouble, and that’s all I need to know. Please send your thoughts, prayers, wishes, however you see them, out to her if you can.
For My Daughters, Martha and Emily
By now, it’s an open secret
that I made you up, worked you
until you were real enough
for what I needed. You were ready
to serve when called upon and
although you never drew
breath in simple daylight,
I could hear you breathing
in my sleep, which is where
we were all three most awake.
Yesterday, wide awake,
I thought I heard you
in the neighbor’s yard.
You were moving in
together, sisters, roommates,
and neither of you thought
to knock on the door
and tell me you were here,
and I tried to speak with you
but you couldn’t hear me.
I tell myself
that’s it’s natural,
the order of things.
I tell myself
there was nothing more
I could have done
for you, or you for me.
I know you’ve moved on
and forgotten me; I know
too much about what I put into you
to believe
it could have been otherwise.
Still, there are nights
when I stand up and read
what I wrote about you
to other people,
and for those minutes
we’re still family
and I realize
there’s a better man in there
than there is out here.
We are slaves to magical thinking
Wolf Blitzer, on CNN, talking about Tim Russert with a Catholic priest/theologian:
“So many people are asking this right now…how could a good man like Tim Russert die at 58? Why did this happen?”
Um, Wolf? I think it happened because he had some kind of cardiac arrest.
I think it happened because as far as I can tell, 100% of people die at some point regardless of their goodness or badness, and sometimes it comes at a moment that seems to make no sense. Death serenely comes and takes each of us regardless of our readiness, and you’d think we’d have figured that out by now and stopped asking such a ridiculous question.
I think we all ought to stop acting like there’s some kind of magic formula, ethical system, medication, religion, lifestyle change, or secret key that will keep it from happening. Questions like that one are part of the idiocy that feeds the Western obsession with immortality.
Stop saying, “…if I die.” You will. I will. We all will.
Tim Russert died today. I don’t know what killed him, but I bet it had nothing to do with his inherent goodness or badness; he died because his body stopped. End of story. Be sad, be upset, but stop being surprised, and stop acting like something unfair or extraordinary has taken place.
Duende’s show at the Ship
Was a good one, if I do say so myself. We dug out some obscure pieces — “Julie,” “Celia,” the closing section of the “Jim’s Fall” suite — and stayed away from “Americanized” with the exceptions of “Classic Rock” and “Where Do You Live?”
We also took a risk and Faro improvised along to “The Last Word” (better known as “Let’s Fuck”). This was HOT. He was in particularly fine form tonight, ripping up a blistering version of “Coda” — the last section of “Jim’s Fall.” But the bass line he laid down for “Last Word” was smoking, yea verily. I think we acquitted ourselves well enough on the piece that it may become part of the permanent repertoire.
Thanks to all who came out; I hope we did you proud.
Microburst in Worcester?
Think we just had one. Branches everywhere, one missed my car by three feet. Next door, a tree or most of one came down and tore down powerlines and crushed the neighbor’s tool shed. Sparks everywhere, although no apparent loss of power to anything except their house. I called 911; they said they were inundated with over a hundred calls — my first two attempts got busy signals.
I was outside putting out trash when all of this hit — huge wind, sudden horizontal rain, big trees blown level in the wind. I’ve stood outside in hurricanes before and this was scarier. Was going in when the branch/tree fell on the shed.
Everyone OK?
veteran
what he did when he young
was a secret to everyone.
he refused the trees’ offer
of consolation and stayed close
to the asphalt instead.
foot followed foot from here to
the next breakfast and he still
didn’t talk much about anything
even to strangers. his childhood was
forgotten. he made up stories
to spit out like an insect
that had flown into his mouth
and never been internalized.
he told people he’d been
born so salty his mother exploded
like an ant and his father ran
from the delivery room never to be seen
again. he recalled astonishing details
of fights and concerts so stunning
the listeners could hear the bands.
he fooled everyone, no one
bothered to check on anything
and he became successful. he was notorious
for blunt honesty. he learned to wear
suits on weekdays and plaid shorts on weekends.
he got bald and laid and stepped up.
he was a standup guy, a regular mensch,
a buddy and a pal. he filled in gaps.
stayed away from cliffs, kept a few close confidences
better than anyone the tellers knew. when he died
he left a headstone and a secret about a body
in the weeds somewhere faraway, casualty
of war or love he never said, never said a word
to anyone, no need to talk about it
since he’d become what the other guy
could have been and dead men tell no tales.
Two items for your agenda…
1.
Jane Cassady and Shanny Jean didn’t get to do their show at the Q on Sunday night, so you are honor bound to come to GotPoetry Live tonight to see them do their set and buy their stuff and help make up for the missed gig. That’s an order.
GotPoetry Live tonight, 7:30, 8 Governor Street, Reflections Cafe, Providence RI. 2.00 cover/1 Food or Drink Item minimum.
2.
Duende makes the scene as the feature at the Ship, Hotel Vernon, Kelley Square, Worcester, MA, on Thursday. Come for the poetry, the cheap ass ice cold beers, the bass antics, the general anarchy. 8:00 PM, loosely. Hat pass for the performers.
It’s official:
I am currently watching “NASCAR Now” for an analysis of the race I watched yesterday and which I have on my DVR for future viewing; I just checked the points on my fantasy race team and I’m actually thinking about making a comment on a NASCAR related forum in regard to another comment I take issue with.
Somehow, at the age of 48, I’ve become a Fan with a capital “F.”
Dark Matter 