That time of year…
Just did a massive clean out. Mostly inactive accounts, a few I just don’t read much or enjoy much.
Drop me a line if you’re off and want back on.
Category Archives: uncategorized
GotPoetry.com/Gotpoetry Live
We’re making a concerted effort to push the bar higher for the poems at Gotpoetry.com. If you’re not there or haven’t been for a while, c’mon by and add your voice.
And tonight at Gotpoetry Live we’ve got Christopher Johnson for a feature. Next week, we’ve got the beat stylings of Sympetalous, and Sylvia Bagaglio kicks in for her feature on June 26th.
Hope to see you there.
Those who forget history…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070611/ts_afp/usiraqmilitaryunrest
In case we’ve forgotten, this is how we got Al-Quaeda in the first place.
At the Hut tonight
A good feature by the Youth Slammers — some refreshingly interesting voices.
If the crowd had been a touch more enthusiastic, or less interested in socializing, or more drawn by the work in the open mike, or…who knows…they might have heard something cool.
It’s sad.
Always hard to assess the balance between rampant disinterest because of sheer ignorance or because of sheer boredom. Not sure what to say here about that — but I do think the passion that some of us have for poetry isn’t much of a factor in that reading anymore.
Poetry readings are just another trendy place to be. How odd, considering that when I was young they were decidedly untrendy. I think that was better in some ways — it was a guarantee of sorts that if you were there, being there mattered to you, and it mattered to you more than being anywhere else.
I’m not sure what else to say. Maybe I’m just an idiot to care that much?
Celia
Celia
on the microphone
you tell everyone your pain
hoping the truth
will set you down and keep you
well footed on the planet
Celia
put that thing back on its stand
and breathe a bit
that immense truth of yours is a mountain
and a mountain could care less
about the intonation
you use
when you describe it
Celia
we can hear it
every hair in your lungs
is a whip driving you
to let it out
but that truth you’ve just got to shout
is just another exhalation
waste pushing itself back to be reborn
once you’ve finished your say
Celia
your words are fingers
and you’re face down
on a massage table
staring into the floor
through a comfortable hole
feeling what they’ve got to tell you
but truth is
those words you’re feeling
will stop in a short time and
someone’s going to demand you pay up
Celia
put away the key
and stop tugging on the shut door
that holds back everything you’ve got inside
the truth is
blood’s thicker than a sentence
dancing tongues step soft and wet where they step
and nothing you have to say
will last longer than it needs to
Celia
truth is no God
poetry no savior
while your voice is a pretty thing
a potent thing for as long as it holds up
you’ve got those whips inside you lying about the cure
you’ve got those whips inside you telling you speech is as good as a leech
what you bleed pools in a cup
and it’s no good once it’s gone cold
Celia
you know what’s true?
your truth is bigger than any poem
your truth demands utterance because that’s the first step
but the microphone only looks like an incense burner
the stand only seems a shadow of the True Cross
your truth spoken is not your chains broken
come down off the stage
give a moment to silence
let the poem be and stop imagining you’re free
just because the whips have slowed
and the cracks have temporarily stopped
when the words are done
you’ve only just begun
Fragment: Limo
Limo on the corner
and no one in back. Maybe
there are passengers coming out
of the grey house to get on board
amd go somewhere dreamy
but right now it’s just another car
with a tired driver at the wheel,
working a second job or even a third,
filling in for a drunk cousin
and hating the damn suit and tie.
Casino, strip club, romantic rendezvous for some
means hours of boredom and long chats
on the prepaid cell for another, smoking with another driver
just met as they cool their shiny heels
in the parking lot.
When the privacy screen goes up
and the folks in the back get down to
celebrating, he’ll be all alone up front
and that’s just fine with him: no need to watch
or share or even scold.
After hours
it’s curve upon straightaway as the big ride tools toward
the livery yard; then it’s the Toyota and a blunt
to crush the night into one more
bad tipped, red eyed check mark against the future.
I do not understand how, in spite of years of therapy, meds, and general self-awareness of my faults, foibles, and characteristics, I can still be such a jerk sometimes.
How does one break the habits of a lifetime? When do we truly understand what is habit, what is biology, what is culture and what is ingrained, and how do we ever learn to compensate for what we can and learn to live with what we can’t?
Everytime I get this way I look at myself and see a weak, weak man who has caused more damage to himself and others than can be stomached. I’m not a bad guy, I tell myself, and then I look into myself again and decide that I have no clue about whether I’m a bad guy or not.
People will say that we’re all a mix of things, and I know somehow that’s true; but in the daily course, things seem to play out more often one way or another.
There comes a point when one can no longer hide the fact of one’s own emotional and spiritual decrepitude; but what you do then, I think, is immaterial to the balance of your legacy. In other words, it’s all too little too late.
The truth is out there
but we’ll never know it.
Do we go on if we can’t know it? Or do we just sink into the daily swamp and let hope go?
Paris Hilton, whose sentence for probation violation was reduced to 23 days for good behavior before she ever got behind bars (I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one), has been released after serving three days.
I mention this only because my head exploded when it was covered as breaking news on CNN.
I pasted it back together, typed this, and now video of her release is being shown on CNN labeled as “New Developments.” This has been followed by actual commentary by the anchors.
The tape just let go, and I’m going back to bed while the epoxy cures. To think that they covered this and not the fact that Bono got a haircut before meeting with the G-8 leaders!
ETA: Oh, Christ. Now they’re holding a LIVE NEWS CONFERENCE and telling everyone that her sentence is back up to 40 days on house arrest with the magic anklet.
More jewelry, in other words.
Off to work
In beautiful Corning, NY.
Hey, house prices are INSANE here! You can pick up starter homes and fixer-uppers for around 55-70 grand; decent homes with land are 150-220 grand.
Coming from Massachusetts, where you can’t touch anything at all under 200K, it’s an eye-opener.
I leave for Corning, NY in the AM, leaving behind three funerals and a bad couple of weeks worth of juju for the people around me.
Back Wednesday night. Sorry for missing Gotpoetry again — I may need to surrender my hosting duties if this keeps up.
Little Dogies
An Angus steer
swung its head around the corner
of the door into the bedroom.
It stared at me, black glass eyes
catching spots of tiny white from the window.
I got out of bed and patted it, it
seemed so calm, smooth hide rippling
under my hand.
I could have slaughtered it and eaten like a king
for months but
when it turned and went out into the yard
through a door I’d obviously
forgotten to lock last night, I followed as far as the porch
and from there
watched it join its herdmates grazing
on the meager back lawn.
I’m no cowboy, I decided then and there,
I’ve got no reason to try and control
such a thing as a herd of cattle that know enough
to visit me when I am at my least warlike.
If I had woken up at some point and realized
that a piece of a dream was presenting itself to me, its neck
and veins exposed, I do not know what might have been:
I might have lived longer and fatter on the leavings,
the marbled flesh, the creamy waxen lines in the red muscle;
but I would never have seen where this came from:
the lawn I had neglected allowing sustenance for mouths
I couldn’t understand except as fodder.
The cattle moved off down the driveway into the street, and all I could do
was wave my hat at them. Git along, I said,
git along, it’s all misfortune here,
and none of your own. Go find another lawn to graze.
I’ll keep the door open for you.
Dark Matter 