there are exceptions to every rule, I would suggest that if you begin your poem with the phrase “there are no words…” you are a big fat liar.
Liar, liar. Pantoum’s on fire!
things i hate v.2 (things i love)
insomnia
lose-lose decisions
loneliness
crowds
overly solicitous people
the empty email box that claims attention although it will not be used again
having one of my poems used as evidence against me
the inability to memorize
not taking responsibility for the things i am and am not
age, infirmity, the dying light in my eyes
my fear of the cold
fear of the cat who will not rest as i try to sleep
this hunger that makes no sense
certainty of death, life, the dawn, the need to move forward
my inability to let things go
my inability to care
my inability to care enough
my evil, my selfish, my ignorance, my lack of empathy
the way my mouth curves down most days
my teeth and their crooked truth telling
hot blood rising in me when faced with evidence of my own incompetence at life
my parents, sister, wife and more
the hate i feel for myself after writing that
the fact that i will not delete it
my unexpressed revolts
all the men i have not been
the things i have done and not done
the way i smell when i breathe
the panic i feel in the face of being loved
love itself: its implacability, its manic charm
bullets being placed in the cylinder, the snap/lock of the loaded cylinder being put in its place
the subsequent sound of that gun revealed in the space between lines of a symphony
that i will not write my “love supreme”, or that i will not know that i have until i worry it to death
my hair and my insistence on believing it makes me different
the refusal of race
the refusal of the whisper that race has not mattered in my life
losing the religion i never had
the satisfaction that i feel when contemplating certain murders
my own face in the dusty mirror
dust itself
things i hate
insomnia
lose-lose decisions
loneliness
crowds
overly solicitous people
having one of my poems used as evidence against me
the inability to memorize
age
fear of the cold
fear of the cat who will not rest as i try to sleep
hunger that makes no sense
certain death
certain life, the dawn, the need to move forward
myself
my inability to let things go
my inability to care
my inability to care enough
my evil, my selfish, my ignorance, my lack of empathy
the way my mouth curves down most days
my teeth and their crooked truth telling
parents, sister, wife and more
my self
me
myself and my unexpressed revolts
memo to self
your words can sound
as if you were
on a plane
with sages
who find spirit
in each breath
no matter how small
or silent
your voice can sound
as if a rock
once rolled away
from your throat
and opened a path to
insurrection
your every line of speech could be such
that one hundred years from today
a condemned prisoner
could recite any of them
and gain clemency
from a hanging judge
knowing this
what of your voice
do you care to waste
steadily slimming big poem v.1.3
On television
a holy man again proclaims
God’s love for vengeance.
He worships the clot and the hurricane.
He is a hosanna in a dark suit.
I thought I recognized him
from a picture
I saw once
but he is not as red
as I remember.
He says what he wants and
believes and I watch it.
Fact is shattered on that end
and reglued on this end.
Light never comes through it
the same way after that.
I turn the channel as casually
as I might spit on a sidewalk
to get something out of my mouth
that didn’t belong there:
millions of agreements,
billions of tacit approvals…
Go farther.
Turn off the TV,
turn off the power,
turn off the lights.
Turn off everything.
The coma patient
bursts into song. The heretics
rise from their fires. The wind
stops blowing.
Count backwards from a trillion,
count by tens, hundreds, thousands.
Count fast, count faster,
past the Gospel
all the way back to the One Word.
We leave our homes and look at each other
standing in the street, our backs
straight, blinking in the sudden bright,
wondering:
what that voice was we just heard
that sounded so little like any we’ve known?
fragments from the Big Poem (highly drafty)
I.
Tonight on television
I watched a holy man again proclaim
God’s love for vengeance.
He was a hosanna in a dark suit.
I thought I recognized him
from a picture
I saw once.
He was not as red
as I remember.
I turned the channel as casually
as I might spit on a sidewalk
to get something out of my mouth
that didn’t belong there.
II.
This is the way
television works:
fact is shattered on their end
and reglued on our end.
Light never comes through it
the same way after that.
III.
The country is holding its head in its hands
and watching television. It hurts to look
and it can’t stop. The country can’t really see
what is different, what has remained
the same, it is no wonder that
the country lashes out, seeing white, no wonder
people yawn at the seething jowls of a bigot
seeing God’s wrath in an old man dying, a hurricane blowing,
no wonder hundreds of years of hate become suspicion and fear,
thousands of miles of body dragging road are broken in the summer sun,
hundreds of thousands of trees are draped in pious warnings,
millions of agreements, billions of agreements, billions and billions
of tacit approvals.
IV.
Turn off the power.
Turn off the lights.
Turn off everything.
In the dark,
count backwards from a trillion.
Count by tens, hundreds, thousands.
Count fast.
Grim (not the big poem mentioned earlier )
when I say “grim”
I mean this day feels like
a last fencepost,
gray and gnawed by wind and sun,
its surface the color of granite
but easily dented by a fingernail,
strands of barbed wire rusted fragile
to its surface, and no fellow posts
anywhere around as it stands in the weather
trying to recall what it used to contain,
and when it falls there will be
a hole that fills in quickly
so that no one will know it was there
until some archaeologist comes by years from now
and uncovers something that explains something else
and the scientist will say
there was a fencepost here that stood a long time
and fell long after its purpose was fulfilled.
so tired i can neither think nor see straight.
there’s a massive poem brewing. a doozy. a monster.
i need sleep to wrestle with this one.
Continue readingfucking,
and all the various and glorious forms of sexual expression, despite the time we spend on them as artists and shills and suckers for the Corporate Media Monstrosity that uses them for its own nefarious purposes…as well as our own pure and untrammeled desire to spread the Great Gospel of Fuck,
despite all that,
fucking and its attendant practices are STILL underrated.
IJS.
goddammit
it’s starting again.
no sleep. no appetite. no energy. the work ahead of me seems insurmountable.
and all at once that familiar voice…the one that assures me i deserve this…
goddammit. i will not let this happen.
Western
the poem
tugs the brim of his hat down,
spits into the dirt,
starts down toward where i’m standing.
as always he’s alone, anonymous,
unshaven, dust-riddled,
equal parts death and tenderness,
never sure himself about which comes next.
outlaws taught me
everything i know, but i pin the star
onto my vest and step into the street.
i feel my arm tighten.
Continue readingSPEAK tonight
Was me and 5 other hardy souls…but we had a good time.
Theme for next meeting, Jan. 25th: Possession.
Will post rest of the themes tomorrow — I feel like crap again and don’t feel like digging out the sheet. But we’re good through May, and I like this round of themes a lot.
ALSO: There is a large warm cat on this bed. He is dreaming, twitching, and making slurping noises. I shall slay him shortly. Anybody want the meat?
But he’s eligible for parole after only 4,000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4603030.stm
Strangely enough, he can only serve 30 years under Spanish law, so I’m trying to figure out the value of the sentence.
Just thinking…
First off — again, there is a SPEAK tonight. Please come.
Second…
Scary thought: Turkey borders on Iraq. Anyone considered the fresh hell that will result if the bird flu outbreak crosses the border?
Regards,
Nostradamus
