Dark Matter

The world’s big insurance companies have indicated that they won’t be adversely affected by the tsunami, because so little of the property involved was insured and the population was generally too poor to have insurance.

Here’s a link to the story.

Whew.

“how about that tsunami?” “the one in indonesia?” “yeah, that one”

All day there’s been a stream of visitors
to the world map on my cubicle wall,
co-workers come to look for the place where it all happened.

Should I be surprised that on at least five occasions
I’ve had to point at the Indian Ocean
and then do a quick finger tour around the rim?

Or should I be heartened that at least
they came by to look? Or that they knew
the map was here? It’s evidence, after all, that

the wave reached beyond Aceh. The wave
hit everything. It’s just that not everything
got wet enough to make a body feel,

and we have money, like paper towels, to
keep the damp out. I wish I knew if I should cry
or just keep going back to the wall to point it out again:

here is Phuket, here Aceh, here Sri Lanka, here Tamil Nadu,
here Pondicherry, here Chennai. Here is Myanmar
which has been silent. Here we are in the United States,

and here is everyone else.

Be it resolved that use of the phrases “primordial chaos” and “rain streaked window,” or any use of the word “soul” that does not involve references to Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Etta James, or Aretha Franklin, will be punishable by subjecting the poet to a term of no less than fifteen and no more than thirty consecutive recitations of the collected works of Matty Furmanek in pig Latin.

By Donald Rumsfeld.

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.

happy xmas, y’all…

if you aren’t celebrating, then happy day to you too.

T

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.)