He shuddered and said,
“I don’t think I could even
look at a dead body, never mind
touch one.”
She jacked up her eyebrow
and said, “Do you never
look in the mirror, then? And how
do you wash yourself?”
Category Archives: uncategorized
Cultural Differences
News and silliness
Let’s get the news out first:
1.
Andrew Watt ( anselm23 ) will be the feature at Gotpoetry Live tonight. Andrew’s doing an all-improv set and has challenged the open mike readers to improv at least one of their two pieces tonight. You up for it? Come down — this promises to be a very good night, and our last show until January 9.
2.
Faro and I are scheduled to perform at the Community Voices reading in Westfield, MA on January 8. It’s their 5th anniversary and a number of features will be showcased, no doubt ably hosted as always by dkeali_i. Again, this promises to be a good show — come out and celebrate.
3.
I’ll be putting a new MP3 up on the Myspace later today. Think it’ll be a new poem for a change — probably “The Hole.” That’s http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown .
Silliness:
The iTunes shuffle meme that’s going around.
Jack Johnson — “Where’d All The Good People Go?”
Stiff Little Fingers — “Suspect Device”
Billie Holiday — “Lover Man”
Charlie Parker — “Sippin’ at Bell’s”
A Silver Mt Zion — “Long March Rocket”
LL Cool J — “Big Ol’ Butt”
Daddy Yankee — “Gasolina”
Jeff Foucault — “Ghost Repeater”
Exhaust — “This Is Our Borrowed Equipment”
Damien Dempsey — “Party On”
Weird set. Irish folk, postrock, rap, reggaeton, punk, jazz, and whatever you call Jack Johnson.
The Hole
After a cigarette
smoked so quickly
on the cold porch
that I can feel the cells
in my lungs dying,
I come back to my room
and shut the door
and think about the hole
in my words.
There’s a place
in my speech
that is void.
I know I must fill it
but the words that will be required
terrify me.
They’re hiding in my room with me.
In the closet, on the bottom
shelf, under the bed —
shards of language waiting
to be pieced together,
and I can’t face them.
I find myself thinking
not that, not that
whenever I open my mouth.
It’s not that I don’t know
what I should be saying —
it’s that what I should be saying
scares the breath out of me.
Picture my daily sentences
swerving around the hole. Words
whir like cars around a traffic circle,
entering pre-designated roads,
leaving the big space in the middle
untouched.
This is not about art
or science. The hole in my language
is thousands of miles deep
and if I fall in I’ll never get out.
No magic applies, no physics,
there’s no masterwork waiting in the pit
for me to climb upon.
Not that, not that. I know
I’ve got to go there but I can’t
face the dark of the familiar places.
This is why I suck down smoke
knowing what it will do to me.
Some fears are so distant
they mask the closer terror.
When I sleep tonight
I’ll not bother to dream. The words
I won’t use steer me every night
to the singularity, and until
I can wrestle with them and make them
into a bridge instead of a ladder, something
I can cross and look down from, until then
every day will be more of the same:
not that, not that;
certainly not now,
surely not tonight
when the mere thought of breathing
steals my breath.
Sharpie
Daphne Martinez,
star of one segment of a TV show,
tonight plays a dead prostitute
with a killer’s letter to God
written on her back
in black Sharpie.
Jeremey Raine, not far away,
practicing his handwriting
with one eye on the news,
leans forward to hide
the pistol in his belt.
On screen the neighbors chime in
just as he wanted: good kid until
she got into drugs, the creeps
on the streets, city’s gone to hell…
it’s a wrap.
Next up, tragic
bus accident.
They’re selling
classical music favorites
by the time Jeremey makes it
out the door.
He leaves
the Sharpie behind.
Bartender picks it up
and uses it to make up
a sign: No Drinks Made
With More Than Two Kinds
Of Liquor. That’ll teach
the damn college kids.
He changes the TV.
Daphne Martinez is not saying anything
about the way she’s twisted around
on the sidewalk. The detective rubs
his eyes: what looked like a ramble
to God is changed now to some message
about liquor. No one here is talking sense,
not even the corpse.
Jeremey’s no fool. He dumped
the murder weapon back at the bar.
The gun’s just for show.
He knows the medium makes the message.
He’s already plotting the next show.
Light matters
I was forced to rearrange my room after an unfortunate shelf collapse.
I moved the desk over to face the window and rebuilt the shelves more strongly and with a different weight bearing configuration.
The desk facing the window is neat. Having natural light to write by is comforting.
I don’t seem to have SAD (thank God — that would suck on top of everything else) but natural light is soothing and gives a different perspective. Granted, my view is of the next house, but still.
What a small change it can take to make a difference.
O Come All Ye Faithful
If you’re looking for a new Holiday celebration, look no farther!
Even if it doesn’t help, it’ll be fun!
I especially like the line about “as much privacy as you choose.”
Important essay
If you haven’t yet read ocvictor‘s essay on MFA programs, performance poetry, and assorted other topics, you should. It’s over at GotPoetry.com.
Here, I’ll make it easy for you.
http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=3559.html
In other news, I’ll be at the Zodiac Cafe reading today around noon. Lord Buckley will likely be joining me. See you there.
Band name meme
Before I run off for a while.
stole this from quixote82 and caolinnshouse:
The Band Name Game
Come up with your own names for these styles of bands. Then add a band style to the list, and invent a band name for it…
Slayer-style Metal Band: Ashflesh
Grindcore Band: Faceplant
Alt-Country Indie Band: Hooker’s Ball
Noise/No Wave Band: Blurk
Christian Industrial Band: Empty Tomb Alliance
Female-fronted airy Mazzy Star-style Band: Loch Eyrie
Roadhouse Retro/Blues-Rock Band: Pedaldown
Spent time tonight rehearsing with Faro on new stuff.
We now have four poem/music pieces beyond the “Jim’s Fall” suite:
— Getting Ahead
— Snakes on a Plane (which I’ve grown to actually like with music behind it)
— I Need A Guitar Right Now (Or Something Like It)
— Revisiting Roses and Violets
We’ve also got a couple more in progress — “Lighter” and “Cante Jondo For The Left Side.” Plus, I’ll be trying to write some work to go with his music, a reversal of our usual practice.
We’ll try and get an MP3 of some of this up on one or both of our Myspaces soon.
With the exception of “SOAP” these are all older poems (although certainly “Jim’s Fall” qualifies as recent work). This is cool, but I’d like to get some even newer stuff done as well.
Again, this is the most satisfying work I’ve done in ages.
I should mention three things:
1. Faro plays the last two on classical guitar. Which he learned a month ago. I have no adequate words for this.
2. We’re actively looking for shakedown features in the new year — colleges, venues, etc. Hit me, people.
3. I think this little duo project needs a name. We thought about just calling it “Jim’s Fall” but that seems reductionist. Any thoughts? Serious replies wanted, especially if you’ve seen us; humorous responses will likely be chuckled over and then summarily discarded.
three poetic challenges
I dare you:
1. A twenty line poem without any words of more that one syllable.
2. A twenty line poem without the word “the” in it.
3, A ten line poem that, when read forward and backward, provides two different poems.
Betcha can’t do it. (For the record, I’ve done all three at various points.)
Peer Pressure
Present the same information
twice and you are either crazy
or a gemcutter opening new roads
into a perfect stone. Bother us
with something too often and
you’re either a bore or a prophet,
but don’t try to sell us on the latter
unless we blink when you mention the former.
Grow up, baby. Grow up
and smell the bitter herbs. Stick a hand
out the window and tell yourself that’s not rain.
Anywhere you look there will be someone
who doesn’t care if the flood’s come again,
or who doesn’t believe in water. Let the animals
come to your call and we might scratch our heads
for a few, but then we’ll be back to the daily whirl
and you’ll be all alone to herd the creatures indoors.
Present the same information twice
and you’ll either be a bore or a stonemason
stacking up the cruel bricks. Don’t try to make us
believe that those are different things. Cut the blocks,
cut the diamond, cut and run while there’s time,
while wormwood is on the breeze
and the boat’s begun to float.
I deliberately stayed away from the laptop all day. Didja miss me?
I went to an open mike in Fall River tonight — VERY FOLKIE. Very. A few high points: Faro on solo bass; a 16 year old Dylaneseque kid named Matt Borillo who is already good, not gonna-be-good; the band Low Anthem, who’ll be playing the Java Hut in January. We shall go see them, we shall.
Faro persuaded me to do something, so the two of us did “Getting Ahead” and “Snakes On A Plane.” It went over well enough that I got approached for a feature there afterwards. Cool.
More later, if anything raises its ugly head and wants to be let out.
Strange segues
ITunes just delivered me “Stairway To Heaven” (yes, the Zep version–no cracks) followed by “Pope” by Prince.
Hmmmm.
And it just flipped into “The Immigrant Song.” Is it possible that Shuffle is telling me to get the Led out?
And how does Prince fit into that?
I just had a vision of Prince doing “Stairway.” With that pistolero microphone and the Pegasus guitar.
As if to reinforce the Freakiness Factor…I am now listening to The Pixies’ “There Goes My Gun.”
Hmmmm. Again.
ETA: pinata has posted that Prince is performing at the Super Bowl halftime. Let’s take bets: What songs will he be performing? I suggest we choose three.
I’ll start: “Darling Nikki,” “Housequake,” “Head.” Gotta go with the classics in order to make sure the crowd knows them.
Your turn.
AND, for the record: I took the MBTI test that’s going around as a meme…it said I was an INTP, which is what’s it’s said everytime I’ve taken it in the last 15 years. It also said I’m a “Loser” and they’re wrong…I prefer to think of myself as “success-challenged.”
Dark Matter 