Resolved:
That any poet who writes a poem based in a wistful and/or romanticized view of suicide as:
— an inevitable step;
— a proper response to a failed love affair or parents who are too strict;
— the true province of art and poetry;
— an idealized state of grace and release from care;
be it, again, hereby resolved that I will smack said poet upside the head with a copy of the Nirvana box set.
And if I write one myself, I give you full license to do the same. Twice.
I’m giving up on the road to Heaven because
it feels like the sky god who they say lives there
is just someone we’ve been stuck with
because the arguments for other ways don’t get heard.
I say: why settle for that distant promise
of an eventual view from those heights
when there’s all this power right here,
ripe and cool with promise?
Maybe I am meant to be
the ocean god’s project. I will learn humility there
in the storms. If I want for Heaven
I could let a wave carry me there.
Maybe there’s an earth god who’ll brew me beer and teach me
more ways to screw than there are beads on a rosary.
I’ll live a life here, dirty and rutty and rich;
and if I want for Heaven, I’ll grub it up myself and grow my own Eden.
If there is a fire worthy of worship,
it’ll come down to me from storm clouds.
If I hear a prophecy on the wind, it’ll be clearer
after blowing through the trees.
As for the Heaven-God — how he fulminates —
ah, well, I think
that is just what comes of sitting
so high above things.
Unless — and this is possible —
the stories we hear about the sky god
were just something dreamed up
by someone with an axe to grind.
In fact, I’d bet on it —
there may be a sky god, but I know my gods,
and what they keep describing
isn’t one.
Looks like I’m gonna make it to iWPS after all…classes start the weekend before.
So if you’re coming in for it…we’ll hang.
is currently listening to Guns N Roses’ “Greatest Hits.”
Specifically, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
I contradict myself; I contain multitudes. (Which I suspect offically makes this the first LJ ever to mention the work of Walt Whitman and W. Axl Rose in the same post.)
Where do we go…where do we go…
I see it
in the dim corner
of the room
strung with
heavy weight
shiny brass
there are scars on the neck
where the choker goes for
giving a song a new voice
the dark wear and slipshod binding on
its ovals and holes and curves
and the head like a bat’s wing opening
this sinister beauty is
enough itself
to stand alone
so what am I to it?
I am no instrument
no mover of air
truly neither singer nor song
neither cheers nor applause
just the rack that holds it up
when it has settled
into silence
I put it down
and lie awake thinking:
I am not music
enough for her
I am positive I am destined for something. No doubt.
I guess I’m the kind of person who could be dangerous, if it’s not channeled correctly.
A question for you, one that may be a bit daunting…
Tell the truth: are you destined for something?
Do you know something’s waiting for you and you alone to do or be? Something the world needs, wants, can’t do without, and only you can deliver it?
Hmmm?
Something for a cold night…heh heh heh…
FIREBOY
The day I was born, the midwife said,
I yelled like kindling crying for a match,
but no one could ever figure out
what fuel I was doomed to spark. Until today.
I have a calling now,
something that’s made
my heart drop its loping drum
into a steady ruffle.
All I need to make it stop
is to get through one unbridled moment.
Right now I’m a
flint — suspended and waiting for it.
If I do it now I’m done.
I’ll never do it again.
The snapping of a lighter always made
the whisper of it go away so
the roar of a big burn ought to
deafen me enough to shut it down
for good so I can get out
and leave the heat behind;
one can of gasoline
away from here
I’m sure there’s a world
that smells like rain all the time.
Snow and ice lead to horrible drive to dentist this AM to fix a broken tooth from which proceed to coat store for gift certificate for Mom to work where I recuperate and discover the nature of pain as Novocaine wears off while eating a sandwich on one side of my mouth then off to a meeting at a remote site which taxes my patience to a meeting with a manager that I actually enjoyed to a series of phone calls some of which I enjoyed to getting ready to sneak out early to do even more Christmas shopping tonight and I hope the Tylenol kicks in before I get to the dreaded mall where I must buy the children’s clothes I am only slightly less qualified to buy than I am my mother in law’s present.
Sometimes, I wish I had pursued my first love and become a mercenary. The routine is boring, but at least the hours are regular.
and happy.
DC rocked in its own quirky way — I’ve had the same experience there twice, that I don’t know during the feature how it’s going because the crowd is relatively quiet, but I do know immediately afterward because I get mobbed by people wanting to talk and buy books. A great time.
The set list was a mix of brand-new never read out loud before poems and some older stuff:
Meta
Getting Ahead
Where Do You Live? (aka “Yumiko’s Hands” or “that origami poem”)
Political Art
Music For Funerals
Revisiting Roses and Violets
From a Chicago Garage
Discovering Fire
Mission Statement (aka “when the hell is he gonna stop doing that one?”)
It was fun. I didn’t tell the room there were three premieres in the mix.
Thanks, DC.
Of course, being as I was in DC I missed the Worcester iWPS finals…Congrats to myainsel for kicking butt and taking names old school style….
Since I’ve been ordered to do this thing by Ms. Lia…I feel I have no choice. 😉
here I come.
Teaism tonight…come play! Probably one of my last features outside of NE/NY for a while since I start school in January.
(Texas, it’s not looking good, but I’ll keep thinking about it…will depend on the schedule.)
Got home late, ate food, did an errand, came back home…
and finished Zero Point Zero, which is now up.
It’s the next to the last column. #99.
I’m starting to feel weird about this…something I started originally as a way of stretching my writing muscles a bit became (and will remain) an important part of my life for two solid years.
I have school coming up, and manuscripts to assemble and submit. A new phase is beginning. I trust I’ll be well enough to complete it and get what I can from it.
But, as the column this week makes clear (I hope), there is a natural tendency to wistfulness that I can’t shake anymore than anyone else can.
It’s right to say good bye, but not easy.
Shame smells like
the memory of disco
on a late Eighties morning when you’re
staring at the ceiling
of an unfamiliar house
and planning the next five minutes
because you can’t think
beyond that.
Shame feels like
a wool blanket wrapped around you
to protect your ass from freezing or discovery
while you’re sitting on the oak floor
of an unfurnished three decker,
late on a Saturday night.
Shame, visible by inches,
rises just enough to draw you in
and sink again, pulling you
after.
Shame is not a silent beast —
is a fart in church, a belch in a seminar,
the death rattle in Central Park
no one hears.
But shame doesn’t taste like much
of anything. You can’t pretend you’re
sustaining yourself on it. You can savor it,
roll it around in your mouth, swallow it even,
but live on it? That’s a laugh, a clown’s
laugh — painted on, and who knows
what it cost?
Realizing you’re so much like everything you never wanted to be.
And very little like what you did want to be.
And wondering how much energy you have to make changes, and thinking that so much pain got you here, and so much more will be asked of you, and it still may never be enough to make it worthwhile.
All I can think of here is Morris’ “Clockwork.” I am that guy, I think, sometimes; and other times I’m not sure I could describe the guy I am at all; I’m too close to see myself.
I’ve got college looming, and I hope more poetry and more living to do; but there are nights like this, when it’s damn cold out and not snowing enough to be interesting, that all you can do is go to bed and hope for a warmer day tomorrow.
That day seems so far away, sometimes.
Dark Matter 