Dark Matter

Yup. Seems about right.

Random Comic Generator v2.0 by Delya
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1. I am one of the few people in the world, I think, who enjoys strategic planning.

2. What I dislike is nothing happening as a result of the work we put in.

3. I get away with murder at this company.

4. This is partly because I am their pet freak — a role that suits me well, and which I play for all it is worth.

5. It also has to do with 20 years under my belt here — a certain street credibility attaches itself to you.

6. Everyone believes me when I say a word needs to be changed in a statement for greater clarity or precision — because, hey, poet, you know.

7. I get to say stuff like, “hey, isn’t that what we said last year, and it didn’t work then?”

8. I scare new people.

9. I like scaring new people.

10. All this is true, and I’d still quit this joint tomorrow if I wasn’t finishing school.

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Unrelated thought:

Sorry, folks. I have no problem with W pronoucing “nuclear” as “nukyular.” So does Jimmy Carter. It’s a regionalism. You know, a difference among people? Something we’re all supposed to tolerate?

There’s a touch of elitism in the constant niggling over this thing. Get over it, and pay more attention to the bastard’s actions.

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We now return you to your regularly scheduled memes, indie rock*, and slam gossip.

*By the way, this most recent Nick Cave double album is great.

I’ll be in a “strategic planning” meeting for the next three days, so won’t be around much.

If I owe you an e-mail, you’ll get it.

If you owe me one, please send it and I’ll hit you back at night.

Be well. Hope to see locals on Sunday if my paper’s done.

1. I am listening to Jill Scott.

2. These scheduled feature dates that prove I am planning for a future:

a. June 9: Broken Speech Slam, Orlando, FL.

b. July 25: Bar 13, NYC

c. July 29: Buffalo, NY

The man at the pharmacy counter and I are
picking up our prescriptions.

He notices the names on my slips.

He pulls me aside on the way out the door
and says,

“What does a gun barrel
taste like? Are you suicidal if
you can simply imagine
it? Even if you don’t own a gun? if
you know you’d more likely use
a knife or a rope? if you haven’t
so far and you’re in your thirties?”

I tell him
I wouldn’t know anything
about that. He nods
and waits for me to go

to my car. In the rear view mirror
I see him sit down on the curb
and run his fingers through his hair.

I will drive away, I tell myself,
and I do. I stop looking
in the mirror once I’ve pulled out,
stop thinking about it
until I get home and write this poem.

If you lick the end of a pen
it’s almost the same
is what I should have said.

is writing about loneliness today.

and we are all together.

I’m frightened today for
the ivory-billed woodpecker
because he
is a beautiful affirmation
in the face of
degradation and waste
and as such is
a good excuse for
doing nothing

see, they will say
after every binge
there’s still a half-full bottle
somewhere

I’m frightened
for the ivory billed woodpecker
because it’s no coincidence
to some people
that there may be more
in Cuba

the passenger pigeon
and the Carolina parakeet
sit in a Manhattan loft whispering
that the ivory billed woodpecker’s
sold out

the bison hits his cell hourly
and tells him reemergence
isn’t all it’s cracked up
to be

and the scientists
will argue about his feathers
reclassify him
and make him as real
as the posters they’ve fingered
for years

someone
pinch me
I’m dreaming
says the researcher
that can’t be
it is
it can’t be

meanwhile
the bird
pretends he doesn’t know
he’s been extinct
and knocks on a few more trees

hello I’m back
hello it’s me
I call myself
levorantioreloakackackor
what you call me is irrelevant

I am frightened for the
ivory-billed woodpecker
because
he is no longer as historic or tragic
as we prefer our myths to be

Tonight at QVCC: Where Your Mouth Is

A benefit for the Central Mass. Food Bank

Features Patty Keough, Regie Gibson, Tony Brown

Suggested Donation: 15 bucks / 10 with Student ID

Quinsigamond Valley Community Center is at 16 Greenwood Street, Worcester.

Open doors at 7:30 — show starts at 8:00

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A personal note:

Show the fuck up and put your money where your mouth is! The whole idea of this series to get away from the notion that art is best involved with change and social support strictly as a form of commentary. Here, the work is in service to something specific, once a month.

So come down to the new venue and show your colors.

I couldn’t do it.

I went down, opened up, and went home. I was just too tired and had work to do for school.

And now, it’s bed time. Someday there will be an update of substance, but not tonight.

Please consider coming out to the Where Your Mouth Is benefit tomorrow night!!!! Come see Regie Gibson! Come see Patty Keough! Come talk through Tony Brown while you’re waiting for the other two!

Seriously — would love to see you. Come by.

If a poem’s essential truth can be rendered as a haiku, it should be.

Examples:

1. The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot:

April, etc.
Hurry up please it’s time. Blah,
blah, blah, blah…shantih.

2. The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, also by Eliot:

God, I’m getting old!
It’s so hard to get laid! Plus,
my fashion sense sucks.

3. The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tennyson:

Into the valley, six
hundred rode, cannons, thunder,
blunder — so what’s new?

Yes, it works for slam too!

4. Superheroes, by a bunch of guys from Dallas:

Look! Up in the sky!
Stereotypes! Gay,
black, redneck, baybee!

5. Mission Statement, by Tony Brown:

Our mission is to
string words together until
it sounds like thunder!

6. Like Lily Like Wilson, Taylor Mali:

One mind at a time
gets changed, over and over
and over again.

Now YOU try it!!!! I’ll be in class today all day, so I’ll expect to see your assignments tonight.

There are places
in the world
where we would both be
unremarkable,
as full of unknown potential
as anyone else —
but not here, and not now.
Now is the only place
where we could be
astonishing.
Here and now are danger
and safety;
here and now are they the same thing.

Consider that the difference between
drowning and swimming
is the difference between surrender
and finding faith in Hell.
Consider that this is the moment when
the surface is broken.
Consider this sudden, awful
sense of grace.

How deep is this ocean
we’ve chosen to swim!
Who are we now —
are we above or below the water?
What is this place
where we’ve chosen to be?

For what they offered, though, it’s pretty close.

So: later edit. Thank you, insomnia…

Missed in the quiz:

Jazz: Which would have included high influence from Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Thelonius Monk.

Folk: Also high influence. Ani, John Gorka, Joni, Bill Morrissey, Leo Kottke, John Fahey, Nick Cave. I suppose Richard Thompson might fall here as well.

Old School Blues: Where the hell are the Blues?! Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Freddie King, Hubert Sumlin, Blind Blake.

Also — When I think of my rap influence, I wouldn’t say it was high; I also missed groups like Public Enemy, BDP, Disposable Heroes, etc.

Signing off for the night (again), I remain,

T

and nothing else.

Your brain: 120% interpersonal, 80% visual, 140% verbal, and 60% mathematical!

Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers. Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious: Don’t date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 80%. Don’t be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 100%. Don’t have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 200%.

We attended a friend’s Seder tonight…postponed for a day because some of the family was on the way home from Florida. We do this every year; we’re usually the only non-Jews at the table.

For some strange reason this year, there were more non-Jews than Jews at the table.

By popular demand, I made the matzoh balls again; for some stranger reason than the last reason, they were superb again. Somehow I seemed to have developed the knack for this…Deb’s MOTHER told me they were excellent. That’s what I’m talking about. (Of course, she made the soup, so that had a lot to do with it.)

As always, I got to read the opening part of the Passover story. I treat it like a performance piece, which goes over well.

Drank a little Pinot Noir afterward which I am certain was not kosher…then again, I suspect that neither Maker’s Mark or Don Julio’s 1842 Anejo Tequila are kosher and there was a lot of both floating around.

And that’s why I wasn’t at the reading this week.