Well, our feature never showed up…but since Maze Forever was in the house, we had an instant backup, and a hell of a backup he was — as was his road partner and fellow poet, Ocean. Terrific set.
We also had a spotlight from Team Providence which also got the room rocking.
A good night.
for Gotpoetry Live , with Rainmaker (from NYC) and a spotlight likely from Maze Forever.
Thought I’d leave you with this — can’t recall if I ever posted it here; it’s older.
My Favorite Native Legends
my favorite native legend starts like this:
i once saw a man at acoma pueblo
replacing a pine post on his adobe porch
while listening to a battery powered radio
and doing noteworthy monty python routines
with a couple of his friends —
and then of course there’s the one that begins:
in a bar one night a friend of mine insisted
that at one time
tonto
was in love with the lone ranger,
and we’re not talking
multicultural brotherly love either;
but every time he tried
to make a move
the big guy said something like
“hiyo, silver”
and eventually tonto realized
he could do so much better
than a tightass frat boy
with a mask fetish.
and everyone howled and
someone bought a round for the house
and there were more stories but
i can’t remember those right now.
yes, children,
those are my favorites.
note the absence of Coyote and Crow
and that there’s nothing in either one about the Great Spirit.
note that the moon doesn’t speak to the hunter
and that no one’s bones call out to the beloved left behind.
if you want those stories
get thee to a barnes and noble.
i will praise instead
the micmaq man who walks the high structural steel
for a paycheck
and doesn’t drink it away.
i’ll tell you the one about
the old guy who looked like my father
who tried to pay me four bucks
to drive him from mescalero to a bar in alamagordo
and shook my hand when i said i was sorry but
i was going the other way.
let’s hear the one about robin chatterbox
and how she became a doctor. or the one
about the casino that paid for a new school.
or the one about the tv show
that pulled a shameful episode, or the one
about the meth lab that was prayed off the rez
by the old folks.
there are some good new stories out there
for you to tell your children if you’re willing to learn them first.
you don’t need to tell the old ones over and over again.
in the spirit of multiculturalism,
we can always borrow an old one if we need one.
for instance:
see the campfire over there,
the one someone left for dead?
see the ashes starting to stir?
goddamn, is that some kind of bird?
Truth is relative Tony, and you don’t speak for all Native American people, do you? Your views are your own. In short, I don’t find this poem spiritual, I find it to be a rant. I also write about the Native American people. I believe my poems draw from the spirituality of your people. And is a kind of automatic writing that summons their very essence. It’s not commercialism as you say, it’s a deep belief in “tradition” of a forgotten people. It’s a deep spiritual connection. And whether your point of view differs from someone elses on these matters, it doesn’t devalue their spiritual awareness or connection.
— from a pained response to my poem “American History” on Gotpoetry.com
The same writer then posted several poems in response to my poem, which were better than a lot I’ve read but which still trafficked in … well, you can guess. Summoning the very essence of “my people” through a kind of automatic writing.
I thought I felt something…
After, she predicted that I’d find her poems stereotyped and offensive, and suggested that was because I’ve been too “Americanized.”
She was right, so I guess I am too Americanized.
ETA: Here’s a link to the debate. Just do me a favor, please — don’t pile on over there, ok? I’m interested as to whether I’m being too harsh, not looking for reinforcements:
Anyone read and know her? Considered by some to be as great a contributor to English literature as Joyce, but I never hear anyone mention her.
some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djuna_Barnes
I can’t find my heavily annotated copy of “Nightwood,” still one of my all time favorite reads — thinking about it tonight made me realize I never run into anyone who even knows who she is.
Anyone?
I may end up shifting the name soon. Not sure to what…but there are time when a major shakeup is needed in a past pattern, and that might be the shakeup I need.
That name’s a persona, after all…
If anyone knows of good, friendly, all ages venues for poetry in Kansas City MO, can you let me know? One of our young’uns at the Hut is moving there to go to college, and it would be nice to send her off with a place to go to once she gets there. Tonight’s her last night in Worcester, so there’s some urgency to this.
Thanks!
do not pretend
you haven’t grown up to be
one of those boys
who sits on the grass
at the highway rest area
counting thongs
and nudging your friends.
you have, because you are,
I’m watching you do it.
do not gloss over your snickering
when you are called on it,
when it is pointed out
that you only began to snicker
when a black couple pulled watermelon
from a picnic basket, especially when
the white couple next to them
did the same five minutes before
and you saw nothing. do not
play that game.
how did this happen?
all the things you should know,
things you should know better than — you’d think
we’d be past this by now — but here we are
and you’re not showing much progress —
so stop with the “dothead” cracks,
the defensive rationale for using the word
“bitchslap,” the “mustache ride” T-shirt.
stop calling everything you dislike “gay.”
and then there’s the predictable comeback,
after all it’s a free country,
you’ve got freedom of expression
all over your ticked off smooth little face
and you’re not afraid to use it. it’s just
talk, you say. you don’t mean it, really, really,
not like that, never hit a woman, just a joke, gay friends,
no racist bones, fuck you, fuck you, PC sumbitch
fuck you.
now I get, of course,
that the nuances of language are in general a mystery to you
and that you don’t know the difference
between “camel jockeys” and “dotheads”
just by the way I heard you use those words
five minutes ago
so I was never expecting much to come of this.
so, then, one favor only:
stop pretending
you aren’t the kind of guy who does this.
do not play the whistle past the lynching tree
game. do not tell me you never
saw a roofie in a friend’s hand
and said nothing. do not tell me
you never kept the awkward boys who didn’t date
away from your high school lunch table,
and don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it again.
do not tell me you aren’t the kind of guy
who flips off a confrontation over this shit
and laughs with his buddies all the way to the car
and does it again as soon as you reach
the next place you mingle with the rest of the world.
just tell me you’ll remember it
when you first hold your own son,
when he grows up and asks you to explain the way things are.
just tell me you understand that first things last.
tell me something
surprising. tell me
it’s gonna end someday.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/07/firefighters_ba_1.html
That link will take you to a story on a mill complex in my hometown of Uxbridge that is burning down as we speak.
Those of you who remember the very first incarnation of Speak, the poetry reading that I ran in my hometown for a while, will recall this as the mill that was next to Woodland Spice and Tea on the other side of the railroad bridge. It was home to various art organizations over the years; I ran a poetry workshop at the old Youth Center there, and there are still a lot of small businesses and artists who make their home there — or rather, made their home there. was deeply involved with things going on there, far more than I was.
The factory whistle at Bernat’s was the soundtrack to the town’s life for my entire childhood. My grandmother worked there. The factory made the dress overcoats for the Navy during WWII, and the color of those coats was known officially as “Uxbridge Blue.”
In my head, I hear:
Homeless…homeless…
moonlight sleeping on the midnight lake.
— Ladysmith Black Mombazo, from Paul Simon’s “Graceland”
There really aren’t any words of my own for how I feel about this.
It took me exactly the same amount of time to drive back from VA to MA as it did for me to drive to VA from MA.
Grrr.
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I’m performing tonight at a benefit for homeless causes down in Middleboro, MA. The event starts at 6:30 and there are poets, musicians, etc…I go on around 8 or so.
This is going to be a weird gig. Faro had to pull out of the show due to a family obligation. Since the specific request of the organizers was to have Duende, and even more specifically for us to do the New Orleans / Katrina piece “Do You Know What It Means,” I offered to pull out if me solo wasn’t what they wanted…I also offered to try and get a_solitaryman to try and fill in on a guitar arrangement of the music, since he helped us produce the track to begin with and knows the music cold (sadly, he was unavailable). Barring those options, I told her I’d do the show solo.
So…instead of all that…the organizer (who, I think, didn’t quite get that I had some definite opinions about the options) went and hired a guy to write out the bass chart for the piece from the CD and learn to play it. (This happened while I was in VA, by the way.)
I spoke to him last night — nice guy, but I’m a little worried, since his first words to me after pleasantries were exchanged were, “So…was he playing a five string bass on this?” And when I said yes he said, “Ohhhh…ok….”
I just got off the phone with Faro (who thinks, as I do, that the whole situation is pretty funny) and learned that he doesn’t even use all five strings on the piece.
I don’t have high hopes here, but professionals soldier on…We’re getting together around 5 or so to go through it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I need a break and some money and some hope and some answers and a quick and painless death followed by paradise and tea cosies on my head as a sort of reward for going through some of the pain I’ve been going through lately.
Either that or a cup of coffee.
Ah well, Icchus is sleeping next to me on the couch and that helps.
Continue readingTwenty-five years ago
when we were both still drinking
all the time and the Depot Lounge
was our favorite spot,
Davey was the undisputed king
of the Black Knight table. When Ron
replaced it with Space Invaders, Davey
stopped going to that bar.
“You don’t play a video game,
you learn it. You play
pinball,” Davey always said.
“You don’t learn life,
you play it.” I ran into him
the other day at Shaw’s Market
and he found a way to say it again,
still pissed about it, even as his son
moped around the two of us, these aging men
bitching about time and stupid changes
while he watched the cute blonde in the produce section
stack grapes in neat rows so the customers
could easily pick them off one bunch at a time.
normally, a trip to DC wouldn’t be a big deal…it’s about the limit I’ll drive for a gig and I come down this way fairly often…
but when I average 20 miles an hour through southern CT and NY, and it ends up taking me close to ten hours…
it’s not so much fun.
Heading out now. Will be online later this evening, I hope. If not, will be back Friday night.
I leave tomorrow for McLean, VA for work. Back Friday night.
I’m performing in a benefit for homeless causes in Middleboro, MA on Saturday night, sans Faro, unfortunately, since he had to back out due to a family committment. Details at the Myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown
Next week, I’ll be in Harrisburg PA on Thursday and Friday, also on business.
Duende will be performing at the Cantab as a feature on Sept. 19, and Lizard Lounge as a feature on November 11. Always looking for other bookings…
Continue reading
