Sorry for being among the missing — Annie’s still sick but somewhat better, and we’re dealing with her grandmother dying — funeral’s tomorrow — not a huge deal (she was 98, Alzheimer’s patient for years — we all said goodbye to her years ago), except for the physical stresses on Anne at funeral, etc.
Hope VDay was good for all; especially my Worcester thespian friends…
Hang on, Isaac. Be strong.
More tomorrow, I hope…
I.
I feel sometimes as if the need to update an online journal is a primal urge displaced — a marking of territory, a way of signaling presence or continued well being to the tribe.
The urge to update grows wings and circles the world. The urge to connect eats brain tissue, goes mad with foreign thoughts, opens borders to strange flags and music.
I watch the urge to update my journal slip past my buttons and wrestle itself into a place of primacy, next to my skin. I think if I let it, it will burrow in like some parasite until it is just there, an organ, a need like breathing…
II.
The urge to update was born the night the first spark from a human hearth lit a grassland on fire and torn across the savanna like thunder, the flames like a mob, individual red feathers as thick as spilled salt on a table — you never get them all, they end up everywhere, underfoot…the blogs are like that.
The blogs of my friends are like that.
The blogs of people I’ve never met are like that too, but cooler; they don’t burn me as much, although I think that’s about my fireproofing, and not about their heat.
III.
Sometimes a blogger steps away from the key board, and that world disappears.
IV.
I lost my urge to update to the sexy blog, the angry blog, the smart blog that ran rings around me logically, the cute blog with the dimple, the blog with the knife, the gun, the unformulated rejection letter, the hand
the size
of pain.
V.
This is the update of the moment before I turn to ash. What will that smell like, the burning of this pixilated storybook?
VI.
I am certain heaven has no room for the urge to update…
Wow. You never know where your next profound moment will come from.
That silly post I made about needing a stage name…edzeppelin posted a comment in the thread leading from it that said, well, this:
…in chicago in ’99. you poem you did second night about the artist really changed the way I look at writing.
I have to say something about this, and about that poem and that night.
The first night in ’99, Worcester kicked butt in their first bout. I came out of the night with the 2 (DJ Renegade took the 1), and felt pretty darn good about it.
The next morning, at around 7:30, I received a phone call from home that my oldest friend’s 16 year old daughter (one of a pair of twins) had been killed in a car wreck the night before.
I was shattered, ready to go home — and Skip (my friend) wouldn’t let me; he told me that if Shawna’s death meant anything, it meant that one should seize life while it was in front of you, and not turn aside from destiny. He wanted me to stay and perform.
So I did. I told my teammates that I wasn’t sure how it would be for me that night, but that I wanted to compete. And because they are wonderful people, they agreed.
That night, we faced Green Mill and Champaign-Urbana. We expected to have a tough time, especially with Regie Gibson and Maria McCray and Ken Green and Sheila Donahue on the hometown team. But we thought we might win, and we knew we had the goods to come in second and score highly enough to make semis.
I went up, and did the poem edzeppelin is talking about, a piece called “The Radioactive Artist”. It’s not a poem I slammed with often; it’s a poem about a sculptor (true story) who builds work from the remains and debris left over from building nuclear weapons; despite the risks inherent in such work, he does it because he feels that someone has to make beauty from such horror. It’s a poem about risking everything to make your life worthwhile.
I dedicated the piece to Shawna, and collapsed in my seat when I was done.
The judges were not kind (although I think I did the best performance I’ve ever done of the piece that night). I recall, I think, outcry from the audience, but hey, that’s slam.
Green Mill won; we missed the semis by 1.5 points.
My recent ruminations about “what if” have included some thoughts about that moment, but not many.
I don’t think I’ll have them ever again.
Thank you, sir…
anselm23 posted this challenge in his LJ:
1. A friend of mine writes roleplaying games for a living, and I earn some extra cash that way myself. What would you write for a living, or what do you write for a living?
2. A friend of mine just pushed me into reading the Count of Monte Cristo by telling me that my education would be complete after I read it. What book do you recommend as the book that will complete anyone’s education?
3. What three books are on the list of things you want to read but haven’t yet, and why do you want to read them?
4. What city, fictional or genuine, do you most want to visit, and why?
5. If you could switch bodies with someone for twenty-four hours, whose body would you want to inhabit?
He also offered bonus points if it was done in the form of a poem.
I may have taken a liberty or two with the strict truth, but here you go:
THE PERFECT WORLD REVISITED
In a perfect world I will live in someday
gold will be handed to me just for
inscribing my three names
in a blank book, illuminating the first letters of each
word with gilt and indigo flourishes, then
setting fire to the pages. As they flame out
I will walk
away from the bookstand
chanting the praises of monasteries. I will pretend
to take the vow of silence
just long enough to get all my crazy relatives
to stop talking to me – and then, I’ll run, baby,
I’ll run – and
I’m gonna go get my education then, you bet:
read the phone book so that I may appreciate
the nine million names of God, from Aaron Aachen
to Zyrtan Zyrrva; plot
takeovers of donut havens and
broth canneries, scheming for the sole control of
America’s comfort food industry (which I will treat as
a sacred trust until something better comes along);
and then, I’ll travel: go to Venice for the water,
Prague for the clarity, Istanbul for the hell of it –
I’ll screw my way through the royal families of Eurasia —
after assuming the secret identities of every hero I’ve ever read about.
In this way will pass the days until,
one day, while reading Pilgrim’s Progress,
or Moby Dick, or Valley of the Dolls –
which in fact are all the same book in my perfect world —
I will look up and see something
in the face of the last lover I tossed aside
and the perfect world will crumble,
like dust or old taffy underfoot:
I would give everything to be myself again,
and to have you with me,
as it was
before I ever dreamed of a perfect world.
was lovely…
The theme of our little shindig was “forged”. What struck me about the poems that were read in connection to the theme was that most contained some kind of religious imagery (Pagan and Christian). Odd. I need to think about it more (especially since I was one of the crew who did that, with “Suicide Notes”).
I got a request to read “Do It Yourself” last night, from Melissa G. I always feel weird doing such signature pieces (it’s the piece I closed with at Urbana, for those of you reading this who were there that night) in front of the hometown crowd, as it were; prefer to do more esoteric stuff, or newer stuff I’m still working out the bugs on. I figure folks are tired of the obvious stuff. But I’m learning that the people who hear me all the time still want to hear that stuff now and again…plus it keeps you thinking about how the work stays alive for you, and how you can keep from dialing it in.
The feature, Marj Hahne, was a real revelation: stunning work, focused imagery, beautifully performed, and a genuinely nice person to boot. She has a CD I really can’t wait to hear. Book her if she comes your way.
She made a comment last night about trying not to speak unless she feels she can improve the silence. I know it’s a quote, but can’t recall who said it…at any rate, it’s a great thought.
Don’t you wish everybody thought that way?
Ok, all…I need your help.
I’ve been looking at the current state of my poetic career (an oxymoron if ever there was one) and trying to figure out what I do next.
I’ve been published in numerous magazines and a few anthologies, have performed all over the country, and feel that I do good work as a poet, in addition to my work as a host, performer, slammer, slam MC, and online columnist.
Nonetheless, I feel like something’s lacking. And this morning, I finally figured out what it is.
I need a rockin’ good stage name!
Oh, sure. I know some of the Wormtown crew will say, “But Tony, what about your beloved moniker, MC Rammalammadingdong?”
Feh. It worked once, I know; but I need something more substantial these days. These days, it’s no longer about the bling…it’s about the work, people! The work!!
That, and the LOVE.
So…I’m taking suggestions. What would you offer me as a stage name?
The only restrictions on this: no name I currently go by will be considered. Thus, no “Chryslerpoet”, “Tony”, or “Who’s the fat guy?”
Have at it, you lunatics. Invite your friends! Invite your relatives! Invite my relatives!
Ready, set…
A friend at work commented today that she is trying to figure out her calling…she’s getting involved with a healing practice and is thinking of shifting her responsibilities around to make more time for it.
I wonder, sometimes, if I should do the same thing.
More to the point, if I had continued on the path of full time artist I was on in the late Seventies, early Eighties, where would I be today?
Would I be “self-sufficient”, or “solvent”, or otherwise “successful” in some financial sense?
Or even in some “non-financial” sense? Would I be “better” at my writing?
There really isn’t any point to this regretful rumination, of course. We are where we are at any given time based on our own choices, and I could no more think of myself as the same person in different circumstances as I could consider myself as a snail, or an accountant.
Which is what my friend is, by the way. An accountant. Not a snail.
Poem to follow.
We’ll be fine, I know. It just makes it hard to get out.
I spent much of yesterday buying and setting up a new laptop and a wireless router so she can work without going up stairs to the office (she’s concerned about an attack happening while she’s walking up/down stairs).
Tonight I figure out how to set up a network so she can actually do that…
which reminds me: anyone got a clue on how to do that when one PC is on XP and the other’s on ME? I haven’t actually tried to do it yet, so I may be borrowing trouble — just want to know what I’m in for.
And if you tell me I NEED to upgrade the big desktop to XP to make it easier, I won’t be disappointed. 😉
OK, here’s the other reason I’m becoming a recluse…and why I wasn’t at poetry yet again.
My wife’s got something going on — some sort of neurological condition that’s causing tachycardia, an unreasonable speeding up of her heartbeat at random moments.
She’s had this for a while, and it’s usually controllable with meds; it’s just that over the past two weeks, it’s gotten to be a pretty regular occurrence.
We spent yesterday in an emergency room with a particularly severe attack.
She goes for more medical consults tomorrow, will probably be getting a CAT scan, an upper GI (it’s linked to some serious acid reflux), maybe a gastroscopy.
I’m trying to stick close to home until the crisis is over.
All the doctors are saying it’s troubling but not life-threatening, so we’re not really worried; nonetheless, it’s debilitating when it happens, and is causing a lot of stress — which doesn’t help.
Add my own stuff with the meds and the bipolar into the mix, and it’s not the easiest time here.
So if I’m not around much, not commenting much, etc…that’s why.
The older I get, the more I seek simplicity in everything — in taste, in food, in lifestyle, in relationships with friends and family.
I’ve become a virtual recluse as a result. Never the world’s most social guy, I have developed this shunning of contact that is leading me to odd places, usually alone.
The one exception to this yearning for simplicity seems to be in the subject matter of the poetry that I want to write these days. I am caught in some deep lust for complexity these days — trying to capture in extraordinarily simple language the nuances of human experience.
The key to this is the simple language. I need an instrument that’s easy to play, because the melodies that are coming will be hard to follow.
I don’t know where I’m heading anymore, but I know I can’t turn back
I used to blog here from time to time.
This has been a week from hell in so many ways I can’t begin to describe it. So I won’t.
It was redeemed, however, by an absolutely fun feature last night with Dawn Gabriel( ) at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.
After an absolutely GREAT open mike with some truly outstanding poetry from the kids, Dawn and I did a split set that included TWO duets ( I know, this from the avowed hater of multi-voice work — but hey, you gotta take chances, right?) — we did Dawn’s great “Liturgy” and my ” As Slow As Possible”, and I think they went over well.
Gotta get back out there on Feb 22 to see Daphne G (we talked you up big to everyone, Ms. G).
More later…
i’m ok.
adjusting to ramped up meds, sick with a head cold, wife’s sick, and i’m in a four day training session at work.
blegh.
victor — again, i’m so sorry I missed the feature. i’ll fill in the details when i see you.
dawn — will be in touch tomorrow night once I know my final schedule for thursday.
be well, all.
1.
One could say, such things
just happen; or
one could say
that the way
the boy crumpled
leaking onto the floor of
the stairwell was irrelevant,
or that
the cop’s statement
that he thought he saw
a gun was relevant.
If one could find the CD
the boy was said
to be holding when he was shot,
one could see if the subject matter
of said CD
included guns,
or shooting,
and thus was relevant.
If one could be objective about
shit like this,
one could make up
a simple song
to commemorate the event.
It would have
a short verse and
the chorus would be over
in a heartbeat:
He was alive and
Then he was gone;
Such a smart kid who
Did nothing wrong.
That wasn’t enough.
So he fell down the stairs
With a bullet inside him
While everyone stared.
A gun or a wallet,
A smile or a knife.
What could he have used
To hold on to life?
If one could just get the facts elegantly straight,
if one could just learn
to sing
correctly,
this would be a different world.
2.
Do you recall
Maggie Apple lying in the street
with her eggshell nails
and her skinny legs with
the calves that looked
as if they’d been attached to her bones
as an afterthought;
or old Ronald Wrong
whose house smelled of wine but
looked like a glove full of bees, so when they
banged down the door and a host of trouble flew out
of its ramshackle fingers they
shot him as if he were
a queen, a danger queen;
or any one of those salty throated
boys and girls
who put their breath
in just the wrong place at the wrong
time so that magic stopped working,
and they died ahead of the rest of the pack?
The same lights flashing, the same crowd
gathered, tonight feels the same:
the names must be changed to protect
the names alone, because
the innocent are never saved.
3.
I want these days
to be over. I want sleep
to come back,
the shocked faces to stop staring,
and all the color to drain up from the roof
into the sky again, where it belongs.
4.
If he had known what was going to happen,
he would never have gone up to the roof
at all. It was just a quick way to the next building.
It was never meant to be a destination.
5.
The single worst part of all of this
is that anyone could have told you
this was going to happen.
was interesting.
A small crowd of 6 gathered for “charm” night (we do a theme at every reading). During the course of the night, we got into a discussion about how our work had changed over time.
I’m not sure I told the truth about that when I said that I thought I was being more careful and economical with language.
I know I was telling the truth when I said I had lost a sense of abandon: an ability to just let go and write like a wild fuck, chasing the words where they go and determining the destination after I get there.
I’ve gained control only to lose a measure of freedom.
An even trade in terms of art?
We’ll see.
Can I just say that I hate George Bush?
Not his policies or his actions alone…I hate the man himself.
This is a long standing hatred. It goes back to before he was even running for President…
It goes back to Karla Faye Tucker, a woman put to death in Texas on Bush’s watch.
I’m opposed to capital punishment…but that’s not why I hate George Bush. I can understand someone who believes in the death penalty — I don’t agree with it, but I do understand the conceptual arguments for it, and can see how someone could be in favor.
I can see how a person in the governor’s chair could enforce the law. I can.
What I will never understand, and never forgive, is when said governor, with the power of life and death in his hand, MOCKS the woman he is about to kill.
Mocks her, trivializes her death…acts as if her death was unimportant. I can understand anger at her crimes; I do not understand the barbarian snicker at the meting out of rough justice.
It should never look like fun, George. Get it?
This is evil. Evil.
I do not understand “Bring it on” for one who will not feel the pain his words invite. I do not understand the fawning, simpering, cavalier attitudes of one who holds such power in his hands.
Gravity, ponderous gravity…I want such a man, one in such a position, to feel the weight of his decisions.
George Bush, I am sure, feels nothing of this.
Character issue, indeed.
