the authority cultivator
is possessed
by its almanac fictions
it cannot help you
by design
it will be a reach
to lift your own yoke
to march is not enough
you must stare
all cracker impulse
including your own
down
toss it a grenade’s worth
of humor then
as it fumes
snatch away what you are owed
hurry into risk
rock it till it kneels
spoil it as best you can
hurry
Our previously reliable
front walk daffodils
haven’t yet bloomed.
I’m watching the trees in vain
for the customary signs
of imminent breakout.
It feels a little
like Gaia is holding
her Spring-quickened breath
before a plunge
into an ice-skimmed
drowning pool
and thinking
about diving deep
then taking forever to return.
Although I feel better and was able to complete a couple of pieces and post them in the last few days, I confess that I’m quite mentally and emotionally drained at the moment and need to take a bit of a break from this Work.
It’s not writer’s block I’m dealing with — never had it, never will — but a need to reexamine my path and readjust a bit.
I’ll be back soon. PLEASE take the time to read some of the older work here; there’s lots of it and the focus on the most recent material causes a lot to be lost in the fog. I’ll be doing the same as I figure this out.
Thanks for your understanding. Take care.
Tony
Been sidelined with a load of work AND a nasty head cold, so I apologize for the gap in posting. I’ve either been working or sleeping, to be honest.
Hope to have it remedied in the next few days. Plenty of older stuff to read, of course…
Morning’s here and
I’m ashamed:
I don’t want to work.
Don’t want to get up and
work as I always do. But
work is all I am,
so it would seem that
this morning
I don’t want to be
who I am.
That sounds
so much better.
I want a holiday from my tired name
and my unease, my contentment
at being so settled into routine,
my workout clothes, my uniforms
and rituals. So I guess it’s not that
I don’t want to work.
Will work for chaos.
Will work if it breaks me
of the habit, if it stops me
saying “my” and “mine”
about what gets done
for others
through these hands.
If you’re remotely interested in what I sound like when I read poetry, here’s my recent poem, “Neighborhood Bar,” as a demo recording I did for our band, The Duende Project — that’s me on guitar and vocal. Wide open for feedback…
I close my eyes upon the world
wishing that it could be for good,
but I have things left to do and no one
can do them for me —
I have said that
so many times
I must hold myself to it.
If there’s no world here
when I wake up, I will
stretch my arms out and
take what I find in first grasp
and make a new one with it —
now I’ve said it, I must
hold myself to it; even if
I am unwilling to build
an entire world from
scraps and pieces I am now
obligated.
If there’s a world there,
a different one or one slightly the same
as the old, I reluctantly promise
to come back in —
there, now I’ve said it.
I should
hold my tongue more.
I should. I don’t like this feeling —
promising myself into pain —
but it’s a habit now, this
eyes-open thing, this
reluctant survival.
Imagine a video, grainy, herky-jerk
in the style of the day. There would be music —
ambient cheese,
machine dribbles and drip-drops
behind a voiceover of a poet
intoning something trivial.
The visual would be of a person in a crowded reception hall.
Celebrities honored and infamous slapping them on the back.
Come-ons, sly glances,
hero worship.
The person walks home, accosted by random passers-by
insisting upon artifacts, autographs, posed pictures —
everyone’s got a camera, not a cell phone to be seen —
it’s a tourist town. The person is an attraction.
Gets home, climbs stairs,
sits heavily down amid squalor.
Buries face in hands, or tries to, but the face passes through the hands
and now the person finds they are behind the neck,
as if there were cuffs to be applied
or a bullet is coming to the skull soon.
Outside, a crowd gathers,
looking up at the window, all of them holding candles.
Dissolve to seascape. The person walking, translucent;
the ocean can be seen through their twinkle, the moon above it all.
The person leaps into the surf as the shot dissolves again
to the crowd, the candles, the fade out.
If this were the Eighties we could get away with this:
the music dripping, the poem droning,
the air glimmering, the crowds desperate
for the Touch Of Meaning. The open ending, the after shrug.
And the Person, who exists in the video
for the sole purpose of being a patsy for the Director
who cannot be bothered to explain any of this
in later years when asked about it.
The Director waves an airy hand, says,
“It was the Eighties. We got away with murder.”
Didn’t everyone alive then
feel that way?
Didn’t it seem
like one big crime scene?
Didn’t it feel like
there was a concealed weapon
under every jacket? A body
in every trunk? There was a mystery
to be solved upon waking
every damn day and we all
were trying to solve it,
and we never did. It became
the Nineties and then the Aughts
and now everyone can smell
the bodies left unburied and
everyone left has their hands up,
waiting.
and I’m up to feed the cat before various family events…Just taking a moment to say Happy Christmas to those among my readers who celebrate the day. Hope it’s all you ask for and want, and more.
For those among you who don’t celebrate Christmas, or for whatever reason struggle with the day and the season…well, for you I wish the exact same thing for today and every day. May it be all you ask for, and want, and more.
Tony
If I had the body of an owl
and the head and chest of a woman
and could sing well enough
to make you forget
all you know
and keep you from wanting
to know anything again
you would be unable
to tell anyone
what I’d done due to
the sudden loss
of your tongue
If this were Russia
once upon a time
you might have been believed
for once upon a time
they had a name for me
They called me
Alkonost
a creature of their folklore
counterpart of
Siren
Explicitly named and described
in a land that forgot nothing
no matter how hard
they once legislated erasure
and tried to forget everything
Once they would have known
to call me out for the sweet threat
I was
Here they just claim I do not exist
Body of an owl
Head and chest of a woman
Singing a song so beautiful
it can erase memory and
wipe out the urge to learn more?
When you are used to staring
at a reporter’s polished face
and listening
to their sweet intonation of headlines
you tend to forget
the talons under
the news desk and
what those claws
might be clutching
Sometimes I forget myself
and am nagged by a need
to understand the blood that’s
sticking to me
It passes once I begin to warble
I’ve been busy with a number of projects, so my output’s a little off right now…That said, I did want to let you in on the new Website for my poetry and music band, The Duende Project. Still under construction, but getting there…with links to videos, places to hear and purchase tracks, etc…
Sally prays
every day: “Lord,
make me Sword enough
to carve your path.
Let me be
neither dulled
nor dismayed
when my knees go red
from wading.
Let me suffer
the little children.
Let me suffer
the older children,
the mothers,
the fathers.
Let me be
thy will.
Let me…”
Sally’s pure
Evil. Sally
wouldn’t believe
in her own Evil
if you laid
the skulls
and limbs
you picked
from her trash
in front of her
and raised them into brief life
to accuse her
from beyond death;
wouldn’t admit it
even if they danced,
dripping, sobbing
before her,
singing her name
and pointing;
wouldn’t admit it
or know it even
if she, the Sword,
were to turn
and cut herself
down.
all it takes to end hatred is
to see and smile upon and feel
another person fully.
that’s how
it will happen. try it:
smile and see it begin —
no, i swear
that’s all it will take.
you’ll see. see me smile
at the gun.
it won’t smile back but
it’s not a person. guns
don’t hate people,
don’t feel people. they’re
just steel. just a forged
mistake. they can’t smile.
people will melt them down
once they’ve melted themselves.
no, that’s how it will happen.
that’s how. smile and make
it, make it, make it —
i’m smiling,
can’t you see
i’m smiling, gun-man? oh,
it’s not supposed
to be
such hard work.
I just wanted to thank all of you for signing up to read this blog, whether that be in your reader, in your inbox, or via Facebook. It’s gratifying to know that what I do touches some of you enough that you want to have it in your lives regularly.
Since I made the decision to not make the standard journal/manuscript route for writers my own primary path, but to put more of my time and effort into being read more often by a group of readers who would see my progress and my body of Work on an ongoing basis, I’ve had multiple occasions to question the decision.
Many of my writer friends think I’m nuts, that I’m missing out on more standard acceptance and reward by doing this. Certainly it has made it more difficult to submit to some opportunities and journals in which I DID wish to appear. But overall, I’ve never looked back with anything more than a small twinge of regret. Knowing that the Work will be read is all I’ve ever cared about and I still think this is the best way to do that.
I appreciate your loyalty and your attention and thank you again deeply, with all my gratitude, for your kindness, your comments, and your time.
Tony
Originally published on 11/14/2009. Original title, “Mantra For The Hard Times.”
It’s easy to weep, to be sad —
praise, instead.
Find a purpose to the day.
Praise, instead.
Raise your dead upon your shoulders.
Praise, instead.
If you are cut, paint the gray trees with your blood.
Praise, instead.
If the crow slips into your veins, cackles, and you die a little —
praise, instead.
Flight into the desert, no water, no sign of shade?
Praise, instead.
Open a moth-haven billfold in the presence of a feast.
Praise, instead.
Love splits and draws away from your hard skin.
Praise, instead.
Praise, instead,
the levers that move you,
the gears of your throbbing head,
the dinky children born from your fears,
the light of fires burning the spars of pirates,
the hats of soldiers riddled with flowers in the long battlefield grasses,
the red charlatan’s grin as he slops his hogs with your fortune,
the skulls of ancestors empty of expectations,
the diversion of hunger,
the urging and prodding of want —
all this is brought to you by the machine of living,
you are taut and combat tested,
you are honed to contest and create.
You can lament or
praise, instead,
the pain of painful life.
Lamentation is
the snuffing of
a lone candle —
praise is a fire set
to feed on the joy of
survival.
Praise, instead,
this work called life;
chant for it, burn with it
and
light the way.
Dark Matter 