http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_fe_st/the_church_of_pi
Two things to remember:
— no looking at the sun
— stay away from the power tools
Category Archives: uncategorized
Manifesto
Every breath complete
within itself. Every word set
alone and in concert at once. Every
attempt intended, every accident
considered, every slip of the tongue
revered as oracle until truth itself changes.
Every line the only line
until the next one arrives.
Synesthesia
Paint and ink
mean little to me. I
am not a visual man. Give me
the sound over the image.
Blue is tone not shade, frame
is drum not holder, line is path
through air and not on paper.
Red dog runs by the window
and I don’t see it as much as I
feel its bark, the cheerful
husk deep in the soft throat.
I know the cars on the street
by their songs and couldn’t tell you
their brands if you threatened
to strike me.
At midmorning yesterday I heard
a small child playing in the
neighbor’s backyard, calling to a friend
as she threw snowballs: “Bigger!
Bigger!” and I tensed up, ready to scold,
because I thought I heard a color in the cry.
Facing the yard and seeing the two of them
for the first time, seeing one white and one
black, heard them laughing (both now screaming “Bigger!
Bigger!” as they threw dirty old handfuls of
snow at each other, gathering more each time and
getting louder with every toss),
I looked down at the sidewalk
even as I was learning to trust
that my eyes, sometimes,
could tell me more than my ears would believe.
mercy mercy me (rewrite)
A bird lands outside
but vanishes before I can see
what kind of bird it is.
It’s just gone — no flying, no falling.
All the other birds are gone soon after.
Dawn bleeds up across the East.
All morning I miss hearing the birds.
All morning people talk,
stop talking, start again.
At the library
I hear someone wailing that
words are falling out of the dictionary.
They can’t even say what words they are.
I watched a word I used to love
fall onto the floor and become lost,
wingless and tongueless in the pile.
The ants are picking them up
as if they were birdseed
and taking them
deep into their hills.
It’s better not to know
what they do there.
Welcome to the morning
when we can be afraid
without knowing,
and we dare not learn
enough to mourn.
Ignorance is our sole blessing —
we can’t mourn,
tear our clothes and roll in the ashes,
when we cannot say
what it is we are missing.
Observation
I’ve noticed this before, but…
The danger in writing an associative poem that takes big metaphoric leaps is that you always feel the tug of trying to make the leaps more obvious and smaller, so the audience/reader is less uncomfortable working with the piece.
The need to ALWAYS be immediately accessible cuts across more than poetry in this culture — movies, books, television, even the need to always have a phone on you and to access e-mail at all times. People are forgetting that fifteen years ago few had cell phones and no one had Blackberries.
Everything shouldn’t always be accessible to you, and that includes meaning.
There are times when I want people to struggle to get my work. Not always, but sometimes, and more often than even I always recognize.
Contradictions, Music, and a Reading today
Contradictions
After my recent diatribe about comics, I have become engrossed in “The Preacher.” Got a copy of Volume 1 for my birthday from someone who thought it would be up my alley anyway. He was right, and I’ve plowed through Volumes 1-3 this week. Jonesin’ for #4.
Music
I read Volume 3 before bed last night to the accompaniment of the new Stooges album, “The Weirdness.” Fucking LOVE IT. Not even in a nostalgic, ah-I-remember sorta way — it’s a tough, excellent album of punk-rock-sneery goodness. Plus, Mike Watt on bass.
A Reading
As if to capitalize on all this…I’ll be over at That’s Entertainment, the comics/record store on Park Ave in Worcester, to be part of the “Look! Up In the Sky!” superhero anthology release reading at 2:00. Be there or eat Kryptonite.
Molten Java
Duende had a great feature in Bethel, CT on Wednesday night. After a LONG drive (coming from Coventry RI and the worst directions I’ve ever gotten from an online service), we made it in plenty of time (glad we left a little early).
The set we did included only one Jim’s Fall poem, “Jim Loses His Grip.” In order:
Getting Ahead
Adolesence (aka “Overnight Elroy”)
Do You Know What It Means
Jim Loses His Grip
These all were bass accompaniment. Then:
Faro’s bass solo
Me solo (“Milk Water Sugar Bread”)
Then, a switch to guitar:
I Need A Guitar
Revisiting Roses and Violets
Back to bass for the closing:
Snakes On a Plane
Afterward, we had a nice question and answer session with the audience, which is a regular part of their reading.
The open mike itself was pretty good too…although I’m still mystified by the itsy-bitsy spider poem. (Had to be there.)
Thanks to the yeoman efforts of a_solitaryman we have a live recording of the night. Thanks also to frequegrl for trucking along for support.
Faro and I have been working hard on a variety of pieces, and I think we’re ready to turn the “Jim’s Fall” CD into a full length. We’re likely going to be re-recording it soon and getting ready to add a bunch of new stuff — look for it soon, and certainly while we’re on tour.
Sorry I missed the Women’s reading last night in Worcester — it would have been my fourth reading this week and I was about poetry-d out. I will attend the reading at That’s Entertainment tomorrow, though…
Over and out for now.
Foreign Policy (rewrite)
because
we like our lettuce
crisp, cold,
and white.
because beef
is what’s for dinner.
because we believe
we like Mexican food
because we’ve made tacos.
because we couldn’t tell
an Apache from an accountant
if we heard them but we still think
we could.
because we miss
riding and roping.
because we haven’t
killed a whale in a while.
because caribbean cruises
don’t take us too far from home.
because it’s ten miles
from here to work
and the train is so
dirty.
because
the night time is
the right time to
turn on the lights
and stay up till dawn.
because some of us
will never have
to learn another language.
because grillz, rims,
scooters, nines,
leathers, bedliners, cowboy hats
and headwraps
are so much fun to sell.
because a desert holds
bones and bike tracks
for a long time.
because
lakes look like postcards.
because
we never have to go
anywhere.
because we can sleep
when we want.
because it is always morning
when we awake.
Foreign Policy
because
we like our lettuce
crisp, cold
and white.
because beef
is always what’s for dinner.
because we believe
we like Mexican food
because we’ve made tacos.
because we couldn’t tell
an Apache from an accountant
if we heard them but we still think
we could.
because we miss
riding and roping.
because we haven’t
killed a whale in a while.
because caribbean cruises
don’t take us too far from home.
because it’s ten miles
from here to work
and the train is so
dirty.
because
the night time is
the right time to
turn on the lights
and stay up till dawn.
because some of us
will never have
to learn another language.
because grillz, rims,
scooters, nines,
leathers, bedliners, cowboy hats
and headwraps
are so much fun to sell.
because a desert holds
bones and bike tracks for a long time
without decaying them.
because
lakes look like postcards.
because
we don’t have to go anywhere because
it’s all right here.
because we can sleep when we want.
because
fairytales always say
“…happily ever after”
only after someone’s been
dismembered by red-hot
pincers.
As Long As We Can Make It To the Show Tonight…
We’re an American Band…
well, a duo, anyway.
If you’re in the neighborhood of Bethel, CT, come out and see Duende (the dynamic duo of Tony Brown/Steven Cafaro) at the Molten Java Coffeehouse tonight at 8:00. We’ll be doing a full set including a lot of new material and more of Faro’s incredible music that now includes his nylon-string guitar as well as his bass virtuosity.
Or something like that.
This is something of a tuneup for our spring tour. More on that later.
Love to see you there…
Streamlining at 47
Serving notice.
Going forward, I will neither pretend to care about nor enter into deep discussions of*:
— astrology
— vibrations, auras, lucid dreaming
— yoga ( yeah, I know, I know — but I’ve got my reasons)
— angels
— vampires as lifestyle role models
— pirates as lifestyle role models
— comic books/SF/fantasy (there may be specific instances of exception)
*In conversation, I will be polite but I will not lie about my lack of interest or my disbelief in these subjects.
In addition, I do reserve the right to use any or all of them as examples, images, or subjects in poetry as I see fit, because that’s the way I roll.
Thank you
to everyone who’s been sending me birthday wishes.
I don’t want to sound unappreciative, but you should know I don’t make a big deal of my birthday. It’s not a source of wonderful memories, so I’ve kinda gotten into the mode of mostly ignoring it.
That said, your thoughtfulness is appreciated in spite of how I feel.
Add into this the fact that for the last two days I’ve been pretty incapacitated with a vicious stomach bug and you’ll understand why I’ve been keeping a low profile. Haven’t really eaten for two days and while the frequent trips to the bathroom appear to have stopped/slowed, I still feel like a train hit me.
So while I have been reading all your posts, there hasn’t been much to say and I’ve been under the radar, where I expect to remain for at least another day or so…
Congrats to all on babies, car recoveries, roller derby appearances, successful readings, and more as is appropriate. Have fun. STAY HEALTHY!!!
Poem from Charlotte
Fourth airport
in two days.
Double bourbon
in a concourse bar.
Two Camels
in seven minutes.
My head’s a rose petal
singed at its edges,
last scrap of a full bloom.
Two hours of airtime
still to come.
Then, the drive home —
with one stop
for one kiss.
Every stop’s been
progressively colder
except for this last one:
a life-drop wrapped in an embrace,
softening me
back toward myself.
DFW again
…waiting for my flight home.
I’m in the Varsity Grill. Dr. Phil’s on four TVs and ESPN is on about eight others.
And none of them have the sound up far enough to hear…because Fergie is on the sound system. Which is making for some interesting and disconcerting sensory dysfunction as it seems like Dr. Phil is going on about his London Bridge even as Rome is burning.
There’s probably a trenchant political poem in there somewhere, but I just don’t feel like looking for it.
Dark Matter 