I think most of the poems I hear at open mics and slams can be summed up in three words: “Where’s the love?”

This goes for political poems, love poems, and pretty much anything else I can think of.

Any other candidates for a good three word literary theory?

I kinda hate Radiohead, with the exception of “Idiotheque.”

The older I get, the more my listening tastes devolve to:

— three chords and great lyrics whether acoustic or electric

— cool beats, preferably not electronic

— outrageous free jazz and other experimental music — again, not typically electronic

There are individual exceptions, of course.

— bed around 3 AM, helped by Rozarem and Ambien plus second Lithium dose

— wake up at 1:15 pm, said time helped by Rozarem and Ambien

— take Prozac, Lamictal, first Lithium dose

— eat something

— play guitar

— watch a little Law and Order

— work on a poem that’s probably a piece of shit

— check e-mails and answer a couple

— check Myspace and LJ

And that’s about it.

Ever wonder about the life of a part-time consultant/full time writer with mental illness? Ever wonder why I’m sometimes suicidal? There you go. Boredom is a dangerous thing.

Home safe. Very tired. If I owe you an email, I’ll get to it tomorrow. G’night.

I’ve just uploaded my first recording of a poem onto Myspace. Insomnia is occasionally productive.

I love Garageband! It makes it so easy to do this stuff, even with just the internal microphone on the laptop.

The poem is “DIY” which will be familiar to most of you who know my stuff. For the rest — enjoy or not as you will. At least you’ll get to hear my voice.

http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown

Next step: get one with me and Faro up there, and then a song.

I’m in Orlando, waiting for my 30 dollar crabcakes from room service. So glad I get reimbursed for this shit.

Even a burger is 15 bucks, and fries are another 4.50.

This better be served on a gold plate by Wayne Newton.

Quick update before I bug out. ( I know I said I didn’t want to post daily trivia, but different people asked for different pieces of this info so this is an easy way to get it out.)

The new drug seems to have had some effect. I went to sleep quickly, although I woke up an hour later and took Ambien so it’s hard to tell. Will try to go without Ambien tonight in FL. Hope it works, as Ambien gives me a hangover. Phttttt.

My phone is intermittently fucked, so if you call and I don’t answer, that’s why.

Bobby Gibbs is the feature at GotPoetry tonight…John Powers will be hosting. GO!

Will be in Orlando tonight but no time to be social (sorry guys). Back home tomorrow night, then more work in Hartford on Friday. Yay!

C-YA.

I just started taking a new medication for insomnia. It’s called Rozarem, and it’s supposed to work by regulating sleep cycles as opposed to working as a sedative.

It’s supposed to take 3-5 days to begin working. It’s definitely not working tonight.

So I just took an Ambien to knock myself down for the evening.

Before drifting off, I think I’ll hit the guitar briefly. I’ve hung the big blonde dreadnought on the wall above the bed for easy access and it’s made me play more often. I’m working on playing much more extensively up the neck in second and third positions and also working on alternate voicings for various chords. It’s making a difference — so many ideas for songs in my head, and I find myself humming tunes during the day that aren’t tunes from existing songs on the radio or anything. Trying to replicate those songs has been a source of short term frustration and longer term satisfaction.

Interesting — lyrics, which you’d think I’d have an easy time with, aren’t coming as quickly. Almost as if I’m so tied to the free-verse and customized forms I use in my poetry that I can’t switch up to more rigid lyrical forms (I know I don’t have to restrict myself to those forms in songs, of course, but I want to at least try as an exercise). I also don’t want to set any of the existing poems to music. Creating backups and tunes with Faro is one thing; I find I’m very reluctant to do it myself, although I have written a couple of Garageband electronic backing tracks I may use sometime.

Off to play. Tomorrow I fly to Orlando for a job, back on Wednesday night — no time to socialize this trip.

Can one of you folks who has a Myspace and hasn’t friended me yet please make a request? I think I’m having problems with notifications and such.

TIA

Someone want to tell me how Britney Spears flashing her hoo-ha at a party gets a higher mention on the Google News page than the crowds protesting Sean Bell’s shooting, which was relegated to the lowest “More Top Stories” section?

No, wait. Don’t bother.

For years, I’ve been somewhat skittish about the idea of combining music and poetry. I’ve always thought of poetry as containing its own music, and saw additions as unnecessary bells and whistles.

The project with Faro has changed my mind somewhat. I’m not only hearing my older poems set to music, but I’m hearing music in my newer poems — not necessarily hearing music behind them all, but definitely noticing a more musical influence on the way I stitch sounds together, rhythms, etc.

All this also means that I may make it to the Lizard Lounge soon — finally. I’ve always held out against it because I did not want to perform with the Trio. I’m less concerned about that now, and actually think it might be fun.

There’s also a guy in town — Bob Jordan — who’s been bugging me for years about doing a CD with me. Bob used to work with Eugene Chadbourne playing guitar and doing tape effects on some of his tours. I like what he does, but never took the idea of the project all that seriously. I may revisit this soon.

It’s good to take a road less travelled — especially for someone as old and snobby and set in my ways as I am. While I try to take risks in what I do and vary my style as much as is needed for the poem in question, I also recognize the limits inherent in my approach, and I haven’t been as comfortable lately in what I’ve been writing. There’s always the voice in my head saying “been there, done that — or if you haven’t, someone’s done it better.” I need to break my patterns. This is helping.

they are slaughtering them
5,000 there
22,000 there
238,000 there
slaughtering them

whole families depend on them
they must be slaughtered

they live in low places
they live in dirt
eat there
rest there
breed and shit there
they will be slaughtered

if one has it
all must
it’s viral and impossible to see
without knowing what to look for
slaughter them and save so many

no names
they are commodities
to be spent
these are the ones who will be slaughtered

they do not cry
as far as is known
they were bred for this

250,000 there
5,000 there
and there the toll is not yet counted
they must be slaughtered
for peace of mind here
for assuage of fear
for the safety of those who do not live
there

I found myself
sinking into my mattress
last night. This was not the weight
of my body sinking in.
The molecules and atoms had found
a way to interweave with each other
and I was settling into the mattress
as if it were a bath of milk. I felt
good, almost terrific, figuring the descent
would end at the denser bedframe, but
that did not happen. Instead I continued
to drop down through the bed, through
the floor, down into the downstairs apartment
(into a storage room, nothing there
but old boxes and such I slid right through)
and on into the basement
and the earth. I moved intact through
dirt and stone, imagining the heat of the core
below me, waiting for me, but soon enough
I stopped and found I could breathe and
once I had stopped I realized that I was
newly impossible. What can I say, I thought,
how can I explain to people how I came to be here,
somewhere below the basement floor? Why
do things like this happen? Maybe somewhere
there’s a timeline for miracles and oddities.
Perhaps they happen on some cycle and this
Saturday night in November was the allotted
time and place for this, and I was just
the one who happened to be here. Maybe Jesus
rose from the tomb this way. Maybe Oswald’s
magic bullet spun because it was there at the right time.
And maybe this was why after a time I began to rise
back through all I’d passed through before.
The particles in dirt and cement and wooden floor
grew warm as I ascended. My body
glowed like a torch until I returned to my bed.
I couldn’t sleep. I got up and wrote this out
with the letters as dense as could be on the page
so that I could not sink into it, even though the keys
of the laptop felt soft and I expected at any moment
that my fingers would poke through them.

Until now when I have lived my life I have expected to be its master.
What will happen if one day I am not, if I blend into the world
the way I blended into my bed? Will there be
anything left of me if I allow myself to breathe
from inside the things and places I see?
What will become of love if I cannot tell what loves
and what is beloved? Somewhere among the neutrons,
quarks, and muons, answers are waiting. I will find a way
to sink into them:
staring at the ceiling,
letting go when the miracle is ready for me.