Dark Matter

March 26, 2023

About money, etc.

I wanted to take a minute or two — this won’t be a short post, so be forewarned — to explain a lot of my recent “hustling, money- grubbing” tenor here and elsewhere. I am usually pretty embarrassed by talking about this and I’m not a big believer in the reverence people have lately for “hustle culture” or “the grind” so having to do it is really hard for me.

Read on, if you’re interested…

Right now, I’m working a fair amount in my usual “day job” as a freelance trainer/facilitator etc. And it appears — fingers crossed — that there’s for the first time in a while a lot of continued, prospective work ahead.

When it’s good, the money is good but not great. When it’s terrible — and it’s been mostly terrible for a while — it’s terrifying that things get as bad as they do. I did get some recent grant money that helped to pull us out of the hole for the most part, but I am desperate about not getting there again. And if another car emergency or something happened, it would SUCK.

By creating workshops and pushing lately for new Patreon subscribers I’m trying to build some more sustainable side income that will help build a cushion to fall onto.

I’m also trying to find out what works before the next slow season for my contracting work, which is usually a brief stint in mid summer and a more sustained one from the end of November to February/March.
Because of vacations, companies tend not to book sessions in the summer, and the holidays and end of the fiscal year concerns make the second slow season more serious. ( I did no work in that field from mid-November till March this year. It HURT. Still recovering, slowly.)

Add in the increasing amount of time I have to give to family issues. Mom is 95, mobility and hearing are terrible, and has moderate dementia. My sister has moved in with her and has her own health issues; of late I’ve been spending time there 3-5 days a week, sometimes more. I run my training session via Zoom from there as one way of ensuring I’m around pretty often. It’s 20 miles one way so gas has added an expense i’m not used to having since I’ve been working from home for years before this.

I really don’t get much time or energy to go out to readings, and I’m usually “Zoomed-out” by night so even online readings are sometimes too much. Frankly, the stress is killing me. I’ve got other longstanding health issues too, of course, which I’m leaving off of this post beyond saying that.

So…when I post about workshops coming up, ask people to join Patreon, put out Venmo and PayPal requests, etc., to try and raise $, it’s not greed. It’s fear driving that. It’s pain and the like. And it’s a desire to not just ask but to give something back to those who donate or contribute.

I hate doing it. Hate it. I would prefer to just do my job, write, and make music. But…

I think that’s enough.

Leave a comment | tags: Patreon, workshops | posted in Patreon

March 26, 2023

Sixty-Three

By Tony Brown

At sixty-three I ought not to care
as much as I sometimes do
about what people think

I mostly don’t except for
how much fear I carry
about how much I’ve begun to forget
about the past and
what’s back there that people
might not find palatable
or forgivable and here I am

at sixty-three and I’m fretting
about how I shouldn’t care
if I’ve been forgiven for things
I don’t recall doing and offenses
I don’t recall giving

why are the old days considered
the best days when people I know
from the old days won’t
bother with me and here I am

at sixty-three forcing myself
to walk down these old paths
mostly overgrown and invisible
as if something said don’t go there
to everyone including me and
I neither listen nor care except

for the fear that I lost something
down one of them and somewhere
down one of them is a person
I don’t recall having met
who will look at me and say
you dropped this and I’ve
been holding it for you

and at sixty-three
it will not be
a good thing to have
to take and hold

1 Comment | tags: aging, meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 24, 2023

Announcing Workshops…

By Tony Brown

Next month is National Poetry Month, an occasion I usually celebrate by doing the same damn things I always do.
This time, it’s gonna be different.

I will be offering TWO poetry workshops for patrons of my Patreon site who are the at the $10/month level or above…TWO!!

One will be a repeat of “The Poetry Of Place,” and the other (already tentatively scheduled for April 30) will be a sorta-kinda generative session I’m calling “Voice, Craft, and the Line.” Still under construction, but I think you’ll like it.

April is going to be a test case for an ongoing series of these.

I’d like to start offering a workshop a month (that’s the plan anyway) as a perk for higher tiers with a public option. I’m not sure exactly what this will look like yet and I’d welcome your input.

The current plan is to look at weekend afternoons for these as I think that will afford us the most accessible time for anyone. But…Saturday, Sunday? Early PM, mid, early evening? Certainly I can do a mix but I’d like to hear from y’all.

My current thinking is to develop three or four and then rotate them, bringing in new ones now and then, phasing out old ones, etc. Evolving curriculum. That sort of thing.

There will be an option for non-patrons to attend. Keep reading…I’m thinking a $30 charge for non patrons for one workshop. Payable through Venmo, Paypal; send me a message for the details. I’ll start taking them now if you like for the April 30 session and will let everyone know when the other date is set.

Remember, if you join my Patreon at the $10/month level or above you will get FREE ACCESS to anything I do in this vein. Speaking of which…

Here’s the Patreon link…

Leave a comment | tags: Patreon, Patreon news, workshops | posted in Patreon, Patreon news

March 24, 2023

Start/Stop

By Tony Brown

Start
pointing fingers

Stop saying
how is this is happening here

Start saying
this is being done here

Stop saying
this is being done here

Start saying
they are doing this here

Start
pointing fingers

directly
at those who do

Start recalling
this is not the first time

Stop saying
how is this is happening here

Start saying
for some this is how it’s always been

Stop
wringing your hands

Stop pretending any of this
is new or out of character

Stop
gesturing at old paper

Start
reading old paper

Start
pointing at old paper

Stop
saying “But…but…” when you do

Start
pointing fingers

Stop
ignoring your mirror

Leave a comment | tags: poems, poetry, political poems | posted in poetry

March 23, 2023

Three Turns Around The Post

By Tony Brown

I feel best when I take
three turns around the post
to secure the string
to the tuning peg.
I’ve done fewer, I’ve done more,
but three turns feels to me
to be the best. Two
makes me worry
I’ve not done enough and
I can’t play on stage
that way even when I
do the old bend it back
and tuck it under
lock down trick — if you
don’t know what I’m talking about
count yourself lucky
to have never been slapdash
in your insecurity.
Four turns or more and you get
(or I do anyway) what looks more like
an anthill made of bronze
on the peg head — more likely
three or more of them — if you
don’t know what I’m talking about
count yourself lucky
to have never been this sloppy
in your insecurity. Even when
I get it right I fret about it
being too perfect and
I’m sure as hell that I missed something
because doing it well
when everyone can see how it is
is terrifying — more like
a disbelief in my ever being good enough
manifesting as
tying up every loose end perfectly — if you
don’t know what I’m talking about
count yourself lucky
to have never been
a musician, a writer,
a father, a son — count yourself
lucky to have had all the luck
some of us wish we had.

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, music, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 22, 2023

Somewhere Else To Be

By Tony Brown

When the heralds stood
on the mountainside,
waved their hands
and banners over
the masses assembled below
and said:

yes, every one;

that is where they lost me.

I looked around
without malice or even much fear
and realized at that moment
how distant these people
were from each other

even as we
were herded together, touching
shoulders in the throng, breathing
the same clear mountain air,

all of them
choosing to repeat
without concern
for truth or motive
what they were told:

that they liked
each other, even loved each other
like family; were truly united
in the valley there
in the shadow of the high peaks,
none of them thinking
there was anything strange
about being called nation
or congregation
so forcefully,
so insistently.

Yes.
Every one.
A nation, a congregation.

I turned my face away
from the mountain top people
not out of malice or even much fear;

I just had somewhere else to be.

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry, poitical poems | posted in poetry

March 21, 2023

Not A Mistake

By Tony Brown

It’s not a mistake
to reach into
the little you know

of how
a piano
works

to use
a metaphor about
the music

of a felt hammer on a wire
to describe
your own work

How by itself
each sounded note
rings enough for anyone

who hears
to speak of it
as music

but to truly
let it be all
it could be

these words should
have been sung
by someone better

Then it swats you
across the face
You are the only one

who could be the type
of better needed
for your work to be perfect

so sighing
you bend back to it
before sleep and death

hoping one day you sing it
as it should be sung
It’s not a mistake to reach

for perfection past the limit
of your own grasp of the song
It’s not a mistake to try

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, music, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 20, 2023

Warble

By Tony Brown

Your mother handed
her happiness at birdsong
down to you.

You kept it
hidden away but today
pulled it out from
a hidden pocket and
put it on:

a wren locket
on a cardinal chain
and now is that sound
of you crying, or is that
a mockingbird we hear?
It had to have learned
that melody somewhere.

Somewhere
in memory
a young girl
dances madly
in a mirror
to the warble
of your tears.

Leave a comment | tags: meditstions, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 19, 2023

Two new poems

By Tony Brown

And you get to see and hear me, too.

https://youtu.be/CrxivqUiWBA

“Jimmy Loves Mary Anne”

By Tony Brown

Here’s to
the follow-up

The one-hit wonder’s
second release from
the same pocket
that held the first

The one that sounded
enough like the hit
to garner some attention

but not enough
to be called a hit

The one that years later
is recalled by a friend
at a party after the horde
of guests has gone and
only the diehard beloved
remain

No one
knows the title
but when
the friend starts to sing it

someone else goes
OH YEAH — whatever
happened to those guys

You look around a room
where no one knows the answer
but everyone’s grabbing
their phones and pretty soon

you all know the title
and you can move on

It reminds you
that you were seventeen
and knew every song
on the radio from just one
note and you were
you at the utmost
you thought you’d ever be

What happened

You know what happened

Looking around
you think it’s alright

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, music, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 18, 2023

Lessons, Pt. 63

By Tony Brown

Most loyalty will turn out
to have been misplaced.

The edge is always
closer than you thought.

The drop is usually
not as long as you’d feared

although you’ll still
be broken at the bottom.

Aging reveals itself
as a series of once scoffed-at

anticipations coming slowly
to fruition; eventually

you accept that all you feared
will be coming true. Hope

is more or less fleeting,
though no less satisfying

for being fulfilled
only briefly. As for

peace and love and harmony:
save them for a song. Save the song

to be played by others
at your funeral. At least

joy will rise around you
and envelope those left behind.

If you want to do something
right in this life,

don’t let on that I’ve told you
this. Keep such lessons

to yourself and instead
write songs that suggest

I’m wrong and it’s going
to be better for everyone else.

Leave a comment | tags: aging, meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 17, 2023

Gearing up the Patreon site

By Tony Brown

Anyone out there interested in joining my Patreon? I’ve got live performances and a Patron’s only workshop coming up.

Worth your time.

Leave a comment | tags: Patreon news, workshops | posted in Patreon, Patreon news

March 17, 2023

Burst, Bud, Bloom

By Tony Brown

Nearly time to make
a serious mistake. It’s
the only way to move
forward, my teacher
used to say. See what
happens, then choose
a way to go to recover
or move on. It’s never
about success upon
success: it’s more like
how flowers burst up,
bud, bloom, and seem
to die only to come back,
and like them I could
likely come back from
the wreckage I plan
to be buried in soon;
death is after all
uncomfortable,
and as fruitful
as it might prove, the risk
of not coming back
is large enough that
every time a mistake
presents as an opportunity,
I hesitate before
preparing to burst, bud,
and bloom.

1 Comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 17, 2023

Regarding Delivery

By Tony Brown

What kind of bird this is
that won’t fly away when I approach?

It looks uninjured, is unafraid; in fact
I’m sure that
not long ago
I saw it land
exactly where it sits now
on the split rock in the front yard
that protrudes from the mulch
right behind the stone wall
bordering the sidewalk.

I fill the suet cages and it watches me
the way I might watch a delivery truck
unloading bread to the grocery
next door to work.

Maybe the wonderment here should be
about how I’m mostly a delivery truck
lately, unloading what others need
then disappearing. I should be grateful
I am no object of fear to some being
that could, if it so desired, simply fly away.

It’s a sparrow, of course,
but there are so many
varieties of sparrow
here every day
and I still don’t know all their names
or how to speak of them upon sighting;
It seems wrong that I am still so unsure.
It seems wrong that when I turn back
to my life among people, I feel the same.

It is a shock to the spirit
that even within the comfort
of this bird’s current regard,
I do not feel I am at home.

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

March 16, 2023