Dark Matter

the thing is, i think i’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for the whole permanence and messiness of it.

i really like that whole three days in the grave thing. i suppose i could go for a long weekend in haverhill, and that would be similar.

seriously: not happy right now. hope this helps.

1. joined the national bone marrow donor registry today. can’t donate if i’m dead with this one.

2. although rain was predicted, it did not rain. it’s sunny right now.

3. all cats are healthy, and shots are now up to date. they also don’t hate me too much.

4. dug out my old exercise bike and brought it to my dad to use. he just had knee replacement surgery.

5. last few poems did not suck. (edited to reduce qualification)

6. i’m off the most debilitating of my meds, seroquel, for a test period.

7. my mockingbird is back for the fifth year in a row.

8. i’m home alone working on a paper. i’m back in college, and i’m keeping up.

9. i have incense lit and feel like a friggin hippie and don’t care.

10. i don’t feel that naming these things is an invitation to have them disappear. at least, not this minute. i’ll take this minute.

(thanks, d, for the inspiration.)

What his body said
when they picked him up
after he fell
was that he was broken,
not referring to a leg or an arm,
but to a whole man.

I don’t know how we never realized that before.
You could see the cracks
from way off. It’s just that
none of us thought they went all the way through,
and they looked old and almost
watertight anyway.

The only safe place to stand
when looking at guns
is to one side.

When I look into
your eyes, I see gunbarrels,
and I am trying to discover
what it would take
to move that trigger.

If you close your eyes and someone says,
“Imagine you’re looking down a gun barrel,”
which end do you see
when you open your eyes?
I see your face. I see
wonders and dangers. I see
they may kill me,
but that there’s also a chance of resting my head
for a moment, a day, a whole
heaven of smoke and circumstance.

I have no idea what you want.
I’m not sure if I should ask you.
I only know there’s a whiff of black powder in the air.

Black powder guns hang fire far too often,
and blow up in their lovers’ arms.
You might think they’d be obsolete by now,
but there are those
who cannot let things go, and
that’s the way I feel tonight. That’s why
every time you blink, I shiver. Every time you move,
I freeze. Every time our eyes meet,
I pray for the strength to fire back.

last night’s session was rough.

I feel very odd — disassociated.

If I owe you e-mail, etc, you may have to wait a bit. I’m kinda going to settle and think a few days. May stay away from the PC.

Nonetheless, many thanks for the way it feels to be connected to something larger than I am.

Are You A Republican?

to all of you for your observations/experiences re Asperger’s syndrome.

I teach the company’s diversity/inclusion/let’s all play nice classes (yeah, but I teach them my way, he he he…) and this was the first time I ever ran into someone who self-identified this right off the bat.

Interesting guy — smart as hell, huge head for numbers and statistics, lives on his own two hours away from work. In the first activity, introduced himself as “from a lower socioeconomic stratum, holder of a master’s degree in sociology with a concentration in statistics and surveys, and I have a neurocognitive disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome, which includes my having trouble with nonverbal social cues.”

Most people, of course, simply mention their new puppies, but I digress.

Contributed a lot during the session. Afterwards, approached me to find out if there were any social support networks at work for people with disabilities. (There aren’t. I’ve been trying to get someone interested in this idea for years. Figure I’ve found an ally.)

Oh, and where does our master’s degree holding friend work? In the mailroom. I was surprised. Bears looking into, hm? (He likes it, by the way — loves the sorting and categorizing.) He says he has understandable trouble getting through interviews.

Anyway, thank you again…will keep you posted if I turn up anything interesting or distressing…

In other news…don’t forget SPEAK tomorrow night (Wednesday). I’ll actually be there! The theme is “blue.”

Spent some time today talking with a guy at work who has it.

Fascinating conversation.

Anyone got any experience with it who wouldn’t mind sharing about it?

as in, here’s what’s been up over the weekend.

1. Finished the paper.
2. Did the Mother’s Day things.
3. Installed DSL on my uncle’s computer.
4. Went to the slam on Sunday. Observations:

a. There is still great poetry in Worcester.
b. There is still great poetry in the slam.
c. There are still way too many people younger than I am in there for me to feel comfortable.
d. I thought the results fell out just about right.
e. This is not to say that I thought any one was bad. Not at all.
f. Shira Erlichmann? Great stuff.
g. Gary, April? Best I’ve ever heard them.
h. Bobby’s grown so much over the years.
i. Dave, you were great. ‘Nuff said.
j. Jen was pretty darn good too, and her last poem tore me up. I do not think it was her best poem, but emotionally wrenching.
k. Judges were judges, and overall were consistent within their own scoring. Can’t ask for more than that.

5. I feel better about all this than I have in a while.
6. I still don’t feel great.
7. I started rearranging my schedule today — I’m having surgery at the end of June, nothing serious, a little mobility issue afterwards, might be out of work for three weeks or so. Lots to move.
8. Had to go into Cambridge this morning for a bunch of school related stuff. Felt good to be on campus, walking around…
9. I had sushi for lunch. Our cafeteria at work brings in a sushi chef once a week. I’m blushing as I say it.
10. That’s enough, don’t you think?

The most action this LJ has had lately comes from Dave’s squirrel lust poem.

I’m in the wrong business.

Good slam last night, y’all.

Congrats to all who slammed. You made me regain some of my faith in the poetry of the slam scene.

I’m still shaking my head over “Squirrels”, though.

April — you were terrific. Jen M. was too. I was so thrilled to hear you.

I’m glad I came out.

she is done.

A ten page autobiography. To fit into ten pages, I had to leave out what I usually refer to as the “Prison Years.”

I also had to provide historical context on how my life intersected with the cultural events going on around me.

I was able to do this without mentioning either the Grateful Dead or Disco even once. I think I should get the Nobel Prize, or at least a bong.

ETA: Guys, you do realize that there were no actual “Prison Years,” right?

Writing a 10 page autobiography that includes a discussion of historical context bites rocks.

I need at least 150 pages for this, y’know?

Everything I do on stage is a poem unless I say otherwise. Everything I write is a poem unless I say otherwise.

I’m in the Jack McCarthy camp on this one. Once you have your poetic license, you get to decide whether what you write is poetry or not. No one else.

If I decide that I’m going to write a 350 page work with no line breaks and call it a poem, it’s a poem.

(This is not a poem.)

And now that I’ve said this, I realize what I dislike so much about the slam scene. People aren’t even thinking of themselves, empowering themselves, as poets. I consider that stage my church. That’s where I worship God. For me to do anything less is blasphemy.

I don’t want that to sound superior, arrogant, or angry. Seriously, it probably limits me — it’s hard for me to have fun when I’m seeking transcendence, and I’m always bound to be disappointed. I hold other people to impossible standards. I hold MYSELF to impossible standards. But I always want to do magic when I write, and to re-create the world when I perform. I’m sure that’s not where a lot of people are. I’m not sure where I go with this.

I try not to write anything that won’t simultaneously stand up on stage and on page. I don’t really believe in performance poetry — just good poetry performed well, aiming for authenticity, and capable of living past me to the next readers.

I take it back. I don’t write pieces. I don’t perform pieces.

I write poems, unless I say differently, and I almost never do.

I’m a fucking poet, a poet almost to the exclusion of being a functioning human being. No wonder I’m miserable.

I say this now because I’m finding it very hard to continue to call this paper I’m writing a poem — but I’m still trying.

On a thread on dokuritsu‘s LJ there’s a discussion going on regarding the difference between “poems” and “pieces”.

I have to be honest — I have NEVER made such a distinction in referring to my own work, and certainly never thought it was an actual distinction when people used the word. I use them interchangeably.

What I write, mostly, are “poems.” Any given poem is also a “piece” of my overall work. So when I say, “I’m working on a new piece,” I mean “I’m writing something new.” But a column is a piece too, a blog entry is also a piece, and a poem is a piece.

To me.

I’m curious: how do others feel about this? Gotta admit, I’m a little bemused that it’s a subject of debate…am I just out of it?

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Kent State killings — May 4, 1970.

The one and only time I was ever suspended from school was for wearing a black armband on my suit jacket at prep school (yes, prep school; it’s not just for Taylor anymore)on the 5th anniversary. I was one of four who were suspended.

The first time I was ever teargassed was at a 1978 demonstration at Kent State where we were protesting the college administration’s decision to build a new Gym on the site of the killings. They bussed in kids from all over the country — I was part of the UMass contingent.

The incident should always remind us that the politics of confrontation have costs that must be borne, now and then — or even more often.

Kids were shot and died while protesting. There was a draft back then so the struggle seemed more personal…

like the one we’re in now isn’t.