Dark Matter

Coulda predicted this.

Your CD collection is almost as big as your ego,
and you can most likely play an instrument or
three. You’re a real hit at parties, but you’re
SO above karaoke.
What people love: You’re instant entertainment.
Unless you play the obo.
What people hate: Your tendency to sing louder than
the radio and compare everything to a freaking
song.

What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

really really well.

Profoundly well.

I am glad I went, glad I read what I read, and glad beyond hope that they are doing this.

More later.

I’ll be preparing three poems for tonight.

One, “Dispatch from the Home Front, Halloween 2001”, I wrote shortly after the attacks, in early November of 2001. It’s in the About.com online anthology of poems about 9/11 if anyone’s desperate to read it.

The second one will be a poem by Susan McMaster from the 100 Poets Against the War Anthology. You can find it, if you’re so inclined, at http://www.nthposition.com in the online version of the anthology.

I’d provide links, but I’m pressed for time.

This is the third one…amazing what a deadline will do.

Thank you again, LJ Posse, for helping me think. Love you guys…

GIFT: for the Stonewalkers

We have always
wanted our gifts to come to us
tied off neatly

with tidy bows.
This isn’t one of those. Unraveled
ends trail off this one like ripcords,

just waiting for one strong tug
to open up and set it free.
It may wait for years, and

even when pulled long and hard,
it may never unwrap completely
in one lifetime. Still, every gift needs

to be opened. Everyone
needs to see what may be inside –
despite the fear that it may

rise, or burst, or be so
unlike what was expected that
everything around it will have to change.

This is the hope contained in anything before it is unwrapped:
that everything will change
once someone reaches out, takes hope in hand,

and pulls.

Can I tell you, I’m scared to death to be reading tonight at this event?

Here I am, speaking, reading allegedly meaningful poetry to a group of September 11 family members united for peace.

And I can’t even read a Sept. 11 poem in NYC, three years after the event, because it makes me so insanely upset.

What do I choose? The pieces written in the year following, that speak to the pain and anger? I don’t think so.

Yet the more recent stuff seems wrong for this event.

And the political stuff is just flat out wrong, as they want the event to be decidedly non-partisan.

It’s not just about material choice — it’s also about my state of mind.

I’m not worthy to be there, is the main thing I’m thinking.

Who would be, is the answer I keep getting back.

in the night garden, a bird
is calling.
my pulse sifts
in and out of my ears. it is not enough.
if there were coyotes here they would cry
and it would not be enough to keep me
from running

toward the far off light in a stranger’s house,
if there was one to see; where
if i pounded on the door, i would surely be
rejected, falling to the stoop
smelling of jasmine and
flop sweat: beauty tinged
with despair.

i once hoped for this
solitude, but am losing faith
in its value: if i am this alone,
how will i recognize the presence
of truth? i may become too eager
to accept anything
that might speak to me,
simply to escape the empty sound of
no voice at all.

a still, small voice, they said.
they put me here and told me there were ways
to find god in the silence. listen for the still,
small voice.

i am listening and all i hear is my own.

art isn’t worth it. god isn’t
worth it. nothing is enough
except the fullness of
another person — woman, man —

nearby.

i am trying to remember that language
is an exchange.

faith and face poem…

It’s a pretty radical shift, but headed now somewhere I’m more comfortable with…still a way to go.

It’s always interesting to me how the poem changes as I change.

WHO WE ARE

there is
a greed that knows nothing of god.

there is a farce and there is applause.
there are always the same
damned people
saying the same
damned things.
there are
forever more bullets than prayers, more
fallen robes in the closet no one
ever hangs up, smooths out, cleans off.
there was honor in the rubble,
but the flag was so brilliant
honor was forgotten and left behind.

if ever there was a reason for an angel
to give up,
it sits before us like a star chart of judgment day.
if ever there was a reason for a human face
to melt away and expose its faith, skeletal and frail behind it,

this is it:

an age of blue and slippery causes,
chewed ethics and faded bloodstains,
inconvenient skins and trees.

this is it.

in spite of which, we
don’t. can’t.

we are that order
who will
not.

just hibernating.

Sorry about the column, just don’t have it in me this week.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I watched the Worcester Slam team send off tonight.

I’ve been on two teams. We did ok.

Worcester’s been to finals once. (I wasn’t on that team.)

We’ve had amazing poets from Jack McCarthy to Seren Divine to Sou MacMillan to Bill MacMillan to Sean Shea to Kyria Abrahams to Lea Deschenes and Dave MacPherson and Corrinna Bain and Dawn Gabriel and Gary Hoare and Lia Klunk and all sorts of other folks you may or may not know over the years…and if I forgot anyone crucial, I’m sorry…

Whatever Worcester’s slam record looks like, it’s always been one of the two or three best poetry teams in the competition every year. Period. Teams that won the whole shebang, that didn’t deserve to be recognized for their poetry (yup, I said it), were nowhere near being as good as we have been, year in and year out.

And yeah, I’ll stake my life on that.

So let me say this, with a sincere nod of the head to all of us from past years and a sincere statement that I mean no disrespect by saying it:

This is the best Worcester Slam Team ever.

Period.

It’s like watching a machine in action with strong, wild, quirky, well written stuff.

I could care less how they do in St. Louis. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do that well, simply because they’re going to be so fucking different no one will know what to do with them.

But I hope they have fun, and I hope you go see them, because they are amazing.

Feature update!!!!!

Tonight — I’m at the Worcester Youth Slam, at Green Hill Park (if it ain’t rainin’) or the Worcester Artists’ Group (if it is). 7ish.

Next Tuesday — very exciting, a little unnerving.

Peaceful Tomorrows is a group of Sept. 11 family members devoted to non-violent solutions to world issues. As part of a demonstration, they have a 1400 lb. stone block called “the Tomb of the Unknown Civilian” that they had on display at the DNC this week; they will be dragging it by hand on a cart to NYC for the RNC next month. They are stopping over in Uxbridge on Tuesday night for a public event — speakers, songs, and a poet — me. Free. At the Court Street Gallery.

Next Wednesday: Cantab — the return. It’s been a couple of years since my last Cantab gig, so this should be fun. My boss and coworkers are coming — come embarrass me!!! 8 till whenever.

Who says all the poets will be in St. Louis?

Here’s the first draft, with huge kudos to ablueeyedboy for providing the catalyst for this piece.

The story he posted about his friend dealing with racist remarks was a key in helping me think about my own experiences of hearing racist remarks about my own background, and thinking through the whole “what do I do now?” decision tree.

Still a first draft — missing the “monk” reference, which may or may not materialize here. And it’s in my usual first draft style of limited punctuation, which will change in the alter drafts for sure.

Thanks, Liam …couldna done it without you…

Casual

with your vinegar-gleam hair

tucked back
behind your ears
with your careful pose and your
neutrality you’ve gone
far
but now
oh now
your face goes to war
with your faith in your makeover

one small tic
of the lip betrays you
as small talk turns
to easy categories and comforting
lies about

those people

you are
one of those people
but that’s been
hidden from these people –

take a step back and dive away for a moment
from the safety
of being inside —

do you make it public?
do you embarrass your lover?
do you play the combat dog?
do you tear the dream from the mouths of babes?

or do you
take another drink
and bite down

hard?

Memory lapses on important details I should not forget.

Not receiving return e-mails about stuff that you thought was crucial.

The feeling I get when I contemplate the possibilities inherent in the word “incurable”.

Fear of losing my mind.

Fear of losing myself.

Fear of fear: the sense that I am ruled in so many ways by fear.

The fact that I do not dream. That my dreams seem inaccessible to me.

Self-pity, and the vicious circle that creates it and sustains it.

My self-image.

My lack of conviction.

This morning, driving in, listening to the Pogues’ “Hell’s Ditch” for the first time in a long while, I misheard a line in a song I once knew well. I thought it said someone had “vinegar hair.”

Vinegar hair.

What would vinegar hair look like? taste like? Under what circumstances would you describe someone as having vinegar hair? Is it necessary to know that before you do describe someone that way?

It’s going in the poem.

I’m off to doctor’s appointments, hope to c’mon back with a first draft before SPEAK… tonight.

I’d love to read it there. Theme is “flight”, by the way.

T

This shows up in just_jeff‘s comments for his assignment to write an unrhymed sonnet. Try it, if you haven’t!

FISH AND CHIPS

The smell of the place was with me before
I ever set eyes on it. “Ron’s Clam Shack,”
read the blistered sign; cars filled the cracked lot,
the line coiled around the yellow porchfront
and stopped under an old oak. I parked, joined
the crowd waiting for clam strips and bellies.
Then I saw you, with your toddler in tow,
walking back to the minivan as you
laughed and licked a softserve cone. Your husband
got out to kiss you. You never saw me.
You got in, you drove off. I closed my eyes:
they’d betrayed me again. I do better
when I don’t trust them. I followed my nose,
got fish and chips, and cried all the way home.

Random writing engendered by the line.

Drove in from my satellite office in Westboro to the home office, depressed, numb, blasting myself out of the depression with Metallica’s “Garage, Inc.” album; blasting their cover of Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy;” sitting in the parking lot staring at the rich folks’ cars.

I pull my badge from above the visor, and head in to work.

I don’t suspect much of this will make it through to the poem. The monk may stick around for a draft or two. You always start somewhere.

I tend to be far less autobiographical than some poets, although there’s always a bit of factual truth in there, usually heavily disguised; it would be a mistake to assume that my poems tell you anything about my life beyond my dreams, my enthusiasms, my fears.

Which of course is everything truly important. Just don’t assume I actually listen to Metallica, ok?

Except, of course, when I do.

When your face is at war with your faith

This has been sitting in the brain pan for a couple of days now…and I don’t know where to start talking about it.

Free association has included everything from the Crusades to Nip/Tuck, which I’ve never seen.

A straight interpretation leads me obviously down the path of someone trying to hide something about themselves and failing to do so.

A more oblique possibility includes folks who don’t appear to be something they actually are — at least, to the uninformed eye; I’m thinking blond haired, blue-eyed Muslims, for instance. Some startling possibilities offer themselves in that case — a poem about racism revealed, or prejudice found in an unexpected place.

If I go that route, the line will likely be catalyst only, then disappear.

I think this is really about how to decide among these possibilities. I’ve never believed in writer’s block, just in periods where the path seems narrower.

And the truth is, talent is not about the craft piece; not really. Craft can be learned to a great extent. Talent, in any art form, is the test of what choices you make as to where you put your technique.

The oblique possibilities are more challenging here than the obvious one. But the true test, of course, is to see if I can make it do double duty; can I bring both threads together in one poem? Hmmmm…

will be a departure from the slam-politics commentary of the last few weeks. Wanna give the folks going to Nats something to think about…poetically, that is.

I’m thinking of actually dissecting the process of how a line leads to a poem, using an actual line I’ve got kicking around right now — talking about how the line may be the first or the last, may be the third or the twenty fifth, may even disappear entirely by the end of the process, but how it poses itself as a starting block from which to leap into the poem.

Rather than dissect an older poem, I’m going to do it with an entirely new one — constructing a meta-poem while the poem is being created; this way, I have no “killing the goose that laid the golden egg” stigma or trauma to deal with, because I will have no real attachment to the poem.

My question is: is this something people will read, or just a giant jerk-off? And: if I go through the motions here on LJ this week, will you jump in and comment, knowing that I may end up bringing your thoughts into the column (with attribution at the end, of course)?

Hm?