Well, do you…PUNK?
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In other news, the McKibbens juggernaut was EASILY the best thing about Def Poetry tonight.
Tuesday: fly to Cleveland. Eat dinner, prep for class, sleep.
Wednesday: Run training class. Eat dinner, catch up on e-mail, meet old friend for a drink, sleep.
Thursday: Run training class. Get on plane, sit on tarmac for two hours with weather delay, get home, drive home, watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force, sleep.
Friday: Take Anne to hospital for tests, which went fine (still waiting for biopsy results, but not worried as the gastroscopy ruled out anything major — biopsy was just a formality). Ship guitar to Erie, PA.
Saturday: Depressed all day. Went to anselm23‘s birthday party. Read poem. Got hugged. Went home. Will sleep now.
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I have something really profound to say here about the nature of poetry and its relationship to sound, based on recent reading and thinking; but I can’t recall what it is.
This is the story of my life. When I was about 16, I had a really profound insight into the nature of existence, based on staring at moonlight on ceiling tiles in my room; I fell asleep and lost it forever.
Half of life, I think, is attempted recovery of the forgotten things we once thought profound. The other half is attempted release of bullshit thoughts that aren’t at all profound; somewhere in there is the attempt to sort among the bullshit for the profound thoughts.
Doesn’t leave much time for sex. Or happiness, for that matter.
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There is no time to say everything that needs saying. There is not enough breath saved for it. Life is a giant scam we’re trying to outwit.
Fold.
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I’m going to take a few days off from here.
As I’ll be in Cleveland for a few days anyway, and will have no computer access, I think I won’t go out of my mind trying to find some.
I need to write, to calm down, and to get my hands around the shit in my head. As “functional” as I appear right now, it’s a sham; the masked normalcy of a sick man.
I’m uncomfortably numb, I guess.
So it’s good bye for now, and I will see you on the other side of the week.
Passed out with a headache and woke to discover it was WAY too late to get to the Hut tonight.
My apologies, sapienza. Hope you kicked ass.
Ditto for Buddy Ray.
I did wake up in time to watch the season premiere of Def Poetry Jam.
Eh.
1. The guitar sold for 338.33. Not bad…
2. javabill has an open letter to the slam family up on his LJ — I think it would behoove slammers to check out. It’s being crossposted everywhere — the slam list, SM list, the various forums, gotpoetry.com, etc. — so if you’ve run across it in one of those places, you can disregard this notice.
Tonight at the Hut: Sarah Sapienza and Ray MacNiece…
I’m coming out to Cleveland next week on a business trip. Will be training for two days (the 21 and 22), but evenings are free-ish (social fun/poetry good, drunken wasted craziness bad — gotta be fresh really early both days) on the 20th and 21st.
I get in around 8 or so on the 20th, will have some stuff to do when I get in, but from 10 on should be ok; the evening of the 21st is a better bet.
Anyone? What’s cooking out there?
and waiting for a rescheduled appointment.
just_jeff and rosa_ostrina were talking in their respective journals about this poem of mine, which is several years old and published in a number of places now; I was honored and humbled to find that rosa_ostrina covers it (I wanna hear it!).
Jeff’s got a piece which springs from much the same well over on his journal right now, so I thought it would be fitting to put this up today…
There’s a huge story behind it, but it also speaks for itself.
POLITICAL ART
a print of “ Guernica” hangs on the foyer wall
above the drink table
here are the famous horse and the upraised human face
they’re screaming as the hors d’oeuvres are passed
and on the facing wall
behind the buffet
hang two photographs
carefully chosen for tonight
in this one is a girl we have seen before
running and burning on a road in Vietnam years and years ago
back then she was trying to fly to safety
on the innocent strength rising along her fiery arms
in this one is a man we’ve also seen before
and despite his death in 1890 he also keeps trying
but he’s frozen awkward and insolent in his attempt
to rise from the snow at Wounded Knee
we are making small talk tonight
clicking our tongues at all these pictures
making crestfallen small talk
because we know we should
handing over money
to save Afghani statues from the guns of rapists
handing over fistfuls of green guilt
for the anesthetic of aesthetics
buying permission to posture unflinching
before those who have fallen
permission to shelter in these picturesque memorials
in the hope of receiving from them some kind of prophylactic grace
as we stare at the burning girl
as we sadly regret Wounded Knee and genocide
as we admire the abstraction of that burning Spanish town
we will click our tongues
while marking the skill of the artist at having those faces
seem so stark in their angled black and white
seem so shot through and through
with an undertone of subconscious red
it’s from this we’ve learned how to watch the news
the news that gives us each day our daily dread
a new crop of victims to be cropped and photoshopped
and we know just what to do when we see the faces
we observe
we regret
we remark
we move on
tonight there’s a gallery fundraiser
tomorrow there will be another
we’ll see the burning girl and the rising corpse again
and we’ll make another print of “Guernica”
why
do we need
all these prints
of “Guernica”?
someday we’ll see
that if we had been changed by all this art
at the first hint of genocide we would smash our cameras
hang our paintbrushes back on the wall
stick our checkbooks back in our pockets
lift the paintings from their frames
and carry them through the streets
to the places of power calling why why
if the people inside our work could speak
they would tell us that if witness alone could change the world
the world would be changed by now
and we would have no need to learn
that this picture
of that girl
is not
beautiful
The new column is up — a brief follow-up to last week’s Clear Channel furor. I felt I owed it to the folks who read that column to say something about the developments since then, and to suggest that while this issue’s “cleared up” a bit, the deeper issues that started the whole mess burning still remain.
I don’t like writing about slam stuff in the column, but the last few weeks have proven to be interesting fodder for larger discussions.
No more, though; at least not for a while. Wanna get back to some thoughts about poetry and spirituality; been reading, again, Hirsch’s book on the Demon and the Angel in the poetic imagination, and I’m ready to have a go at that.
I’m taking a week off though, since I’ll be in Cleveland a good part of next week with unknown computer access.
See ya later…
Considering that this claims that my casual sex partner is 16 years old, I think I’m in trouble.
| Your LiveJournal Love Life | |
| LJ Username | |
| You are lusted after by: | mstegosaurus |
| You will be seen naked by: | thomsaplomb |
| You will have casual sex with: | seracy |
| You will be loved by: | euqort |
| You will fall in love with: | loudpoet |
| You will end up with: | sapienza |
This Quiz by butterkitty – Taken 32496 Times. |
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I have
nothing to say,
and plenty of time
to say it.
I want to be whole
again. As if
a broken man
was not natural.
What points I had, I
can’t recall.
There were reasons, excuses, facts —
nothing worth saving.
Time to go. I lift myself
off the chair and stand unsteady
before the mirror. I enter it and
find myself stumbling forward.
This rough track
is the only way through. Feel myself
bracing. I am beside myself and
coated in dirt.
The straight way is the only way
to get over the curve of the hill.
I start to climb, the hill keeps growing.
I can’t follow anymore. I will roll myself downhill home.
to get royally messed up on some high end hallucinogenic, for the first time in years.
I think the last thing I tripped on was probably purple microdot acid, eating 3-4 tabs on a Halloween night in 1981.
I still recall the horror of a Burger King commercial —
the way the rubber balls bounced up and down in mid air with no apparent pattern except any I could impose.
there was a mirror and solitude in my room for several hours, dealing with synesthetic hallucinations of all kinds mostly engendered by Mark Lyness’ supercharged Fury III idling outside my window for what seemed like hours.
Why do I miss this? What did I gain that has kept it so fresh for me?
I don’t recall myself before this in a coherent way. It’s as if the memories are sealed away and I’m just seeing them from a distance, you dig?
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UPDATE: Just for the record, I won’t be doing this. I’m more struck by the simple fact that after 23 years, I’ve got this sudden craving. Why, I wonder?
I did pretty much every drug you can think of as a teenager/young adult; sometimes experimentally (heroin, downers), sometimes more regularly (acid, shrooms, speed, cocaine, pot). Booze didn’t show up till I turned 18.
Over the years, I’ve reduced or eliminated everything except an occasional glass of Scotch or a beer now and again.
So the chances of me heading off on a bender are slim to none. Thanks for looking out for me though.
( I think it’s more a fascination with being out of control, or something…some experience I’m looking to regain or replicate…)
and the theme is “taste”. C’mon down. Please? Thanks.
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In other news, “Stacy’s Mom” is stuck in my head. I thought of using a small ball peen hammer to knock it free, but sadly, I have no access to a ball peen hammer at this time.
I am attempting to remove it using Kill Switch Klick instead.
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Fuck. It’s still there. Only now it’s mixed up with “Sin City.”
I may have to switch over to Genitorturers soon.
A local restaurant that’s been the site of quite a few memorable moments over the years burned down this afternoon.
I was on my way back from a doctor’s appointment when I got stuck in the traffic jam. Looks like a total loss.
realsupergirl — Lowell’s is gone.
Dark Matter 