Dark Matter

Failure

I always wanted to write the one
definitive poem that
defined me well enough that I
could just sit back afterward and
watch the truth roll in.

Twenty years later and I keep trying,
no matter how little I have changed.
You’d think I’d have done it by now,
but no; still, I keep at it as if the next one
will really do the trick.

There’s a point coming where I will
have to admit that every new poem is
a failure, a testament
to the ineffectiveness of
the previous one.

Still, it’s like biting on tinfoil
sometimes to write a poem over and over again,
as if I might be able to get past it this time —
the blinding, the surprise that
there is still something to feel.

anymore, anyway.

Lately, some folks have found me a little tough to take — being in a blood mood has made me unpopular, and somewhat suspect, to some folks. I want to explain that a bit.

I don’t talk about this a lot, but I used to be a lot more violent than I am now.

Been in my share of schoolyard and barroom fights, was actually a bit of a bully in my one year of prep school (easy to do as I was a townie day student, and we had it ALL over the preps in terms of cred), and (when I was selling dope) familiar with all sorts of concealable weapons. Most folks who know me know that I typically carry at least one knife to this day; a habit I can’t seem to break without feeling totally vulnerable. (My doctor calls it hypervigilance, if that helps.)

In my early twenties, I worked a part time job as concert security at a couple of large local venues at least in part because it gave me a license to hit people. While doing that job at a Motley Crue concert, I got into a fight with a 15 year old kid and won (of course — I outweighed him by 100 lbs or so and beat the snot out of him) and promptly got sick to my stomach because I realized how much I enjoyed it.

Spectaguard, the agency who ran security, covered up the incident as they always did — these were the same guys whose guard killed a kid at a Dead concert in the Meadowlands, and that was never resolved, as far as I know.

All this was going on precisely while I was involved with groups like Amnesty International, CISPES, and the Green Party charter drive in MA. Such a paradox: all that non violence, all that peace, all that understanding in the face of calculated injustice. Maybe it fed my rage; I’m not sure.

Anyway: it was that incident that made me first go into therapy; first got me started on a course of understanding myself enough to try and ease that rage that I never even knew I had.

I’m not like I used to be; but sometimes, the rage gives me a tinge of red when I’m pressed.

This week has pressed me a lot. And I know I’ve come out swinging.

I don’t know that it won’t happen again; I’m not yet even sure there’s not a place for it in the resistance. (Just being honest here.)

But I do apologize for the tinge so far.

A man has killed himself at Ground Zero, apparently in protest of Bush’s re-election.

An angry mob in North Carolina has vandalized and set fires at GOP headquarters.

These are probably sad coincidences, isolated incidents, random acts of despair.

Of course they are.

Y’all should answer this meme if you haven’t already.
I’ll start off by putting my answers up in the comments section.

1. Tell me something obvious about yourself.
2. Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.
3. What is your biggest fear?
4. Do you normally take the safe route or the shortcut?
5. What is the one thing you want the most that you can’t buy with money?
6. What is your most treasured possession?
7. What is the one thing you hate most about yourself that you do the most often?
8. Tell me something about you sexually that I don’t know.
9. Tell me something about you sexually that everybody knows.
10. What is your favorite lie to tell?
11. Name something you have done once that you can’t wait to do again.
12. Are you the jealous type?
13. What is the 1 person, place or thing that you can never say no to?
14. What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
15. If you could do something crazy right now, what would it be?
16. When was the last time you cried?
17. When was the last time you felt so good that nothing else mattered?
18. Do you feel comfortable in public with no shirt on?
19. Name something embarassing you did while drunk.
20. If you post this in your journal, do you want me to answer it?

I was at a funeral for most of today and at a wake last night, so I was behind on it. It just got posted.

I find myself getting sentimental about this as the time winds down to the last column, but I suppose I’m entitled.

Anyway, it’s short and actually sweet this week…a diversion from the week’s events. It includes the poem from my last entry and some thoughts on the place of a poet in dark times.

If you must read it, and of course you must, head over here.

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I’m about done with blurbs for the book. Thanks to all who sent something along; hoping we go to print this week.

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I think, sometimes, that social change is one of the most difficult things we do not because of the big battles, but because of the small ones — the individual conversations in which you try to make a difference.

When it works, it’s empowering.

When it doesn’t, it can leave us heartsick.

We should do it anyway, of course. Who else will?

I just hate the pain that sometimes comes from it; the breaking relationships, the cold stares, the bafflement and the anger.

It sometimes seems not to be worth it. Better, I sometimes think, to keep silent.

But I know I do that too often. So…

I recommit myself to enduring immediate pain in the pursuit of eventual joy.

The edge
of my seat
is bent from me sitting here.

Stand up, I tell myself.
A poem can’t save the world. Get
to it.

When I step away from the poem
for a moment,
a world builds itself upon the paper.

When I come back, the room’s underwater
and the poem rises above it,
a white seaport, everything sails toward it.

I go and sit on its docks. What was it
I was thinking before, before the new world
rose in the heart of the poem?

For everyone saying that this election was so close:

I went back and did a little research.

There were elections that were monster margins of victory — 1956 (13%), 1972(23% — that was McGovern/Nixon), 1980(10%), 1984(18% — ah, Dukakis), etc.

But the margin of victory overall frequently isn’t nearly that big.

1976: 2%
1988: 7%
1992: 6%
1996: 8% (this, by the way, was Clinton/Dole, usually described as a blowout)

2000 we all know about.

The roughly 2% margin here was definitely close, but not razor thin.

Stop looking for fraud, conspiracy, and intimidation to explain the margin of victory. While they may indeed have happened, they were not enough of a factor to make the difference.

The Dems got beat because they didn’t have people voting for them.

Remember:

Conspiracy theories let you off the hook for your own responsibility for change.

They want a culture war?

Let’s give it to them.

Not to Middle America; that’s too easy and not truly what it’s about. In fact, if the left in this country is to survive and thrive, we’re going to have to be a little more sympathetic to these folks — or at least start treating them with less contempt.

It’s really about subverting the mechanisms that cynically use cultural divisions to divide and conquer.

I truly do not believe that the corporate behemoths give a shit about a lot of the cultural conflict zones. I do think they know that they sell easy and hit hard, and that works to keep the public distracted from real stuff like, oh, I don’t know…the world warming up into complete meltdown, the loss of critical biodiversity — you know, the stuff that is going to kill us more surely and more thoroughly than any terrorist.

If anyone can wake the world up, it’s us — because we can. We must.

I want to be clear: I don’t know how to do this. There are people here who do, though, and I want to hear from you.

We have got to start talking in coordinated language if this is going to work. We’ve got to have intelligent, multipart strategies that work from the same principles but use diverse methods to make their progress.

It’s art, it’s culture work, it’s independent media, media sabotage/co-optation, protest, political action, running for office — hell, maybe more. I daresay, more.

But it’s got to be joined in united purpose. I think that’s something to do with self-determination coupled to local and global responsibility, but there’s more.

I don’t really think I know, completely, what I’m saying here, but I know this: if I have to be here, I’ll not be swayed from, at the very least, speaking truth to power.

One more thing: I’m not all that interested in healing, unity, or cooperation today. I may be tomorrow, or the next day — but not today.

I slogged off to my job today, for instance; but the Withdrawal from anything more than what it takes to stay there until I figure out next steps has begun.

Twenty years is a long time to compromise myself.

This is war, isn’t it?

Karen Ethier’s mom passed away Monday. Here is the info on arrangments. The funeral home address is in Woonsocket; Nasonville is in Burrillville.

ETHIER

Patricia Ann (Bartlett) Ethier, 66, of Blackstone Street and formerly of Millville, MA and Nasonville. She was the wife of the late Alfred R. Ethier. Her funeral will be held on Friday at 9 a.m. from the Fournier Funeral Home, 463 South Main Street with a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 a.m. in Saint Theresa’s Church, Nasonville. Burial will be in Saint Charles Cemetery, Blackstone, Ma.Calling hours will be held on Thursday from 5-8 p.m. at the Fournier Funeral Home. Relatives and Friends are invited to attend. The Kilcline Funeral Home 304 North Main Street is in charge of the arrangements. Donations may be made to the Westerly Health Center Recreation Dept. 280 High Street Westerly, RI 02891 or the Saint Francis House 167 Blackstone Street Woonsocket, RI 02895. http://www.kilclinefuneralhome.com

For all you Kerry fans out there:

Explain, to me and to yourselves, how you were so wrong in your estimates of the election.

I suspect you will find some clues to the loss there.

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EDIT: This shouldn’t be an exercise in self-flagellation, by the way…more a start at learning from mistakes.

The way it looks right now, all Bush has to do is pick up Ohio and one other state and it’s all over — and he’s holding onto leads in Ohio, New Mexico, and Iowa as of this writing.

I know I predicted this, but I did not think it would hit me so hard.

Canada is no longer an option, so what do I do now?

Come back to the fight, I guess..but what form does it take now? It’s pretty clear the old forms don’t work.

It’s time for bed…and like so many others, I’ll wake up feeling dread-ful.

Let’s hope we find a useful way to translate this into fury…

Earlier tonight, Steven Colbert on the Daily Show suggested that all of the suggestions that people will be making in the days ahead about unity and reconciliation are stupid, that the American body politic works best on rage and anger translated into action.

He was kidding. I’m not sure I am.

14 people.

3 won’t reveal vote.

7 Bush.

3 Kerry.

1 Green.

I left the Youth Slam tonight at the beginning of the second round; which means I never got to see Sage’s feature, although we did speak briefly and I apologized to him before I left.

I did see him last month, so I don’t feel too bad.

I am finding slams more and more difficult to sit through. My heckling, which is usually gentle and fairly and equitably delivered (I think), felt really edgy to me tonight. I knew I had to go. I was on the verge of embarrassing myself.

I am losing my taste for the entire scene.

More and more, I just want to hear good poems read well to a crowd that can appreciate and reward good work as is merited, while still being respectful of the voices of those who need to speak without being great poets.

I don’t feel that in slams anymore.

Maybe I’m just getting old and jaded. Maybe I’m just old.

I know I have moved beyond this. And I hate that, at least for tonight.

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More thought has revealed to me a more succinct description of what I miss in slams, and what I want more of these days: a sense of sacred space.

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As for election news:

— Only vote if you have a clue what you’re doing. I’m not a person who believes you should exercise a privilege you don’t earn by preparing yourself.

— I hope my sense of dread is just indigestion.

— For the record, I voted already as an absentee voter. And I voted Green.

Hmmmm…

There’s a terrorist alert out for Americans in Nordic and Baltic countries, based on “specific, concrete information” according to the Norwegians.

Can’t imagine why or where that came from.

Esepcially not after bin Laden makes a point about not attacking Sweden.

Jesus H.

I just transferred the last batch of poems I’ve written from LJ to Word for safekeeping…

and there were 9 poems since I last updated the file.

Jesus H., yet again.

I had no idea I was doing that much writing here, thinking it was mostly a diversion from the more solitary work I traditionally do.

And I like these better. Maybe I needed the change.

I don’t understand cycles of writing — what prompts them, how they work. Mostly, that’s ok, but there’s part of me that wishes I did understand, and how it connects to my mood swings…I don’t think there’s an easy correlation, but it would be useful to know from a diagnostic standpoint.

Anyway…I printed these out so I’d have stuff to read at Sage’s WAG show tonight. Who else is going?