Dark Matter

1
what makes a penny bad?

2
isn’t it true that some bad pennies are worth more than good ones?

3
how much trouble could it be to find a bad penny, anyway?

4
isn’t a pocketful of bad pennies still worth something?

5
if your bad penny has been beaten by time and trauma, it will pull your fingers to your pocket far faster than a good one will. if your bad penny is made of something other than copper it will be warmer to the touch.

either way, you will worry it and play with it. you will hold it longer than you would any good penny. you’ll keep it, show it off, dream of it, cry if you lose it, die with it on your mind.

it seems there’s a feeling among some folks that i haven’t been writing great poetry lately.

no fucking shit.

but y’know, i’m actively trying NOT to write what i always write. want to be lighter, and more willing to put SHIT out here in order to get better at what i do. need to expand my palette and that means mixing up some mud on occasion.

that means i’m gonna make some mistakes. but y’know…sorry gang. i’ll be better…but at heart, i say, fuck it. yeah, i may not be batting a thousand right now, but i’m out there SWINGING, y’know?

again, fuck it.

just for fun, based on a memory of a comment i heard once in a club.

hiphop and your stocking cap

i listen to hiphop
all night thinking about
your stocking cap.

raise your hands
in the air like you just don’t care.
it may be a cliche

but it makes it easier for me
to lift your shirt over your head
and pull it free.

the beat drills me
deep down, the way
i like it.

you’re a beat all by yourself.
we’re a track mixed at night
booming in the basement

until the neighbors grind with us
the way all lovers do
when they find their groove.

so i keep thinking about your stocking cap
and how your hair looks when i take it off.
you know i want to take it off.

you oughta be a rockstar, live large,
don’t believe the hype,
love by any means necessary,
and any other cliche that works

i’m gonna use because
it ain’t what you bite, it’s when you bite;
it’s who you bite

when you bite, and when all is said and done
i’ll bite you, cause it’s like that,
you’re all that

when the lights are out,
when the cap comes off
and the stereo’s off,

and the phone’s off the hook,
when we both figure it’s time
to put up and shut up.

because it is playing the weirdest Clash cover I’ve ever heard.

It’s by something called “The No-Smoking Orchestra” (I’d dig up a link but I’m lazy).

Picture a Serbian brass band with a slow ska backbeat playing “Lost in The Supermarket” and singing in a mix of Serbian and heavily accented English, with an occasional female voice doing spoken bits in Serbian.

I’m all lost indeed…

Yet another friggin’ guitar poem. FB welcome (pun intended).

When I strap it on I tell myself

Roll back everything.
Dial back the volume knobs,
the gain on the amp,
set the tone to fair to middlin’
and set the switch in the middle
to pick up both pickups.
Clean is what you want here.
Make a play at playing clean.
Pretend you know something beyond fuzz
and act like you know what you’re doing
with something beyond a barre chord or two
and a half-assed hammer-on.
Let go of your cock in favor of a kiss,
and do something less than what everyone expects
because you know the above average rock guitarist
is less competent than the average jazz guitarist
who is less competent than the run of the mill session guitarist
who knows less about sound than children who cannot play at all
but who fall to their knees in the presence of one perfect note,

and you are none of the above.

Do not ask for a blaze every time you play. Make an ember instead
for the ear. Sit a while longer yet in the bedroom,
playing more and more quietly until the sound
is not present for anyone but you, you splendid failure,
you even keeled master of no drama.
You don’t need an instrument any more
than you need a word for God.
Keep moving your fingers. Keep playing, dialed back,
tone down, gain off, volume low,
look for the note that holds everything…

placeholder for the close — what i have sucks.

*This is one of those deals, by the way, where I had to write the first stanza to get to the second. I may salvage some stuff from there, but in general, I hate it.

to the Incredibly Long Day:

9-5 class

5:30-6:30 appointment

6:30 – ? errands/house stuff

At least I got a semi-decent amount of sleep.

Boring, I know…and yet, this is who I am when I’m not scintillating.

the troll said

“i am powerful because
i am ugly”

and tipped his hat cordially
to the shuddering passers-by

Coming into a day that looked quiet enough to actually accomplish something and having it turn into a day of time sucking energy wasting meetings.

Grr.

Hey all —

I’ll be back in the Mid Atlantic region for a gig in November.

Saturday, Nov.19, at “The Sounds of Poetry” — Linda DiFeterici’s gig — at the Crescent Moon Coffeehouse, 177 Bridgeton Pike, Mullica Hill, NJ.

Website: http://www.cavalcadeofpoetry.com

From the map, it looks like it’s fairly close to Delaware. Hint, hint. I’d love to see a turnout — it’s a cool gig with musical instruments and such.

She will be looking to spotlight folks who show up, too.

C’mon down…

to be a surrealist.

the blurb to the CNN.com Offbeat News section just now: “A giant tin man, double vision and a baby elephant.”

i hand that one over. somebody gimme a poem that connects those three things.

the sinus infection seems to be back.

i think i know the source…i think it’s in my CPAP device. seriously.

hoses and mask need a good bleaching, i think. off to do that now.

as much as i love a wide variety of music, i keep coming back to the allure of “three chords tuned to exhaustion.” that’s a quote from my poem “Punk” for those three of you who are unfamiliar with it… 🙂 EDIT: i added a link to both a text version and an MP3 of it for those of you interested. it’s down in the comments.

right now, i’m streaming kexp’s sonic reducer show. just heard nomeansno, go like hell, jesus lizard…gits…

punk broke the first time when i was 16-17. i saw early Ramones, Clash, etc. tours, and had the chance to see all the great Boston punk bands — SS Decontrol, DYS, Willie Alexander, etc.

it’s funny — punk is my nostalgia trip, but i’ve never stopped loving the new stuff as much as the old. granted, there will never be another “Guns on the Roof” but there will always be another great and ultimately disposable hardcore song…

that’s part of the allure of punk for me — the idea that it’s the moment captured; no necessary sense of writing for the ages; anyone with rudimentary guitar knowledge can create a punk song that does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

i’m listening right now to the station hosting a live touring band from Texas called the Urgencies (and are any band names as good as punk band names?) and they’re putting their own live spin on the show’s theme, the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer.”

they aren’t particularly great, or original, but they’re perfect.

i may go plug in and bang out a little “Holiday in Cambodia” or even something of my own in a bit, but for now, I’m just gonna listen.