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Tag Archives: poetry
Native American
Magical Thinking
We came together
on a Wednesday night
to beat the ape
to death.
It was a warm night.
There were ribbons in the trees
and a firepit, wine and song,
and baseball bats.
The ape was strangely calm.
One by one she looked into our circled faces.
We do this out of compassion,
she is doomed already, the preacher intoned
as we raised the bats high. None of us
wanted to strike the first blow. Urged on
by our love, we swung all at once, she fell,
and then we finished the job.
Our arms were swinging, we crooked and twisted
away from each other to avoid being hit.
We threw the body on the fire and the fur
singed and ripped in out nostrils.
This was an ape, after all. This is how
we started on the path. From this
came the human, and from this came the war.
In killing our source, perhaps we could kill
the impulse to kill? It was worth a try,
we had said before we began — and now,
spattered and at peace, we sat and looked into
the bones in the flames, hoping against hope
that this burning might be the future at last.
NOTE: It’s been pointed out how much like a Russell Edson poem (“Killing The Ape”) this is…totally unconscious, I swear. I’m a big Edson fan, and how I blanked on that particular poem, I have no idea. I’ll leave it up, but definitely want to acknowledge the debt.
If Not Now, When?
When we have crossed the line
When we have stopped being unhappy and can see happy
When our teeth stop traveling in search of substance
When we demand
When we no longer beg
When we are imagined fully by another
When the sense of otherness is tamed
When learning is the equivalent of living
When it stops being a big deal
When getting up for work is jazz and not techno
When the lovers blow hot always hot
When the cool is demonstrated by a hand in a fire unburned
When street is asphalt and not adjective
When prairie takes precedence
When river is clean fuel
When ocean slips pregnancy to us through our eyes
When bird and snake combine to make historical marker
When tumbledown prisons become flower mounds
When we are heroin to the officer
When we are free of the baggie and are vaporized like old contracts
When the last of the butchers falls meatless into our arms
When the last of the lightning squad sits at our tables
When a mean mumbling is sampled and made to rock
When prettiness is established and common as every face we see
When this means nothing
When this is quaint
When no one understands this at any emotional level
When it is clear to all
Then
Cautionary Tale
A cruel and arrogant
prince once barked his shin
on a myth in his path to conquest —
you would think he’d be angry,
or humbled. No.
“Never mind,” he said, “no matter.
I will take it and put it flush
into the floor of my great hall
where it will be at once foundation
and trampled upon.”
He did. He took the myth for his own.
He trafficked upon it
until he wore a groove into it.
And when inevitably
he tripped over the groove he’d worn
he cracked his crown, and
so he died.
When we see those ruins
of his palace now,
we know that stone at once:
it’s red and smooth and
the stains he left all around it
remain evident
though the stone itself is clean.
Never worry
about conquistadors,
appropriation, those who steal
the myths of others and build upon them
and hold them
as their own. They fall,
always; eventually,
the stones they’ve stolen
catch them up and they fall.
Zombie Vampire Alien Poem
Zombie, vampires, and
aliens, all of them sticking
something into our business —
terrifying, yes,
but at least they aren’t flying
into our buildings, right?
If they show up,
we know how to kill them.
There are prescribed methods:
germs for the aliens,
a blow to the head for the zombies,
and vampires get the cross and the thrust to the heart —
if we could find the guys we really fear
we could try all of those.
Of course, there are also those dreaded
unknown enemies who might not
easily succumb to such things:
we’ll have to make another movie or two
for self-defense
if they show up.
Hippies
A woman with long gray hair,
clad in silk, glowing green
and free,
meets her grizzled, shaggy friends
at a concert in a park
with her younger boyfriend in tow,
and the friends look askance at him,
and he looks askance at the friends,
and he reaches an arm around her,
and she clasps his hand behind her back.
Someone intending to honor me
once called me a hippie. I was
not insulted but thought to correct him
and he said, “Oh, anyone countercultural
is a hippie.”
I beg to differ —
I know I’m way too sour
to truly be a hippie. Whatever it means
now is not what it once meant, but
I was there, as these people apparently were…
the only hippies I see here, maybe,
not going by dress but by small clues to attitude
and approach, are the woman and her boyfriend
( who is, by the way, close-cropped and crisp
in polo shirt and clean jeans and cross-trainers)
who are loving each other in the face of disapproval.
Back when I still picked up
hitchhikers
I picked up a hippie
headed for a Rainbow Gathering
somewhere west of where I found him.
On the ride we listened to a bootleg tape
of a Dead show in Nassau
and smoked schwag from a pipe
disguised as a belt buckle,
found out we had mutual friends
and when we stopped at my destination
we drank some of the best lemonade
either of us had ever had.
He said, “Hey, friend, why don’t you
just come along? Let’s just go!”
and when I said no he nodded and understood
with no rancor at all, waved and headed back out
on his thumb
while I bent to the errand I’d come for
and then turned around and went home
to house and wife
because regardless of what I’d consumed
by ear and mouth,
I was not a hippie
and he was
and that was the score.
This morning,
I’m listening to Ween.
I have no idea if these guys are hippies
but their songs are kind of hippie
and I like them. It means nothing at all
to my core being that I like Ween.
It’s just a taste. A flavor in the sunlight
of available options.
In my time
I’ve worn fringe
and moccasins and
beads and yes, twirled
a joint or two, hung out
at a commune and fed my head on shrooms
while blowing shotguns into a cow’s nose
at an all night outdoor party.
I’ve been to more Dead concerts
than Clash concerts
or Springsteen concerts.
I write poetry and play the guitar,
I hang with all kinds of freaks
and think the system stinks,
screwing the Man as often as I can;
yet I say to you
that even in his glory
Wavy Gravy
is not adorned as I am,
no matter how much we may look alike
from time to time.
At five, my friend Will looked out his window
and spied a hippie walking by. “Ma, what’s that?”
he called out. “That’s a hippie,” said Ma. “That’s
what I wanna be when I grow up!” he replied.
Will has long hair and earrings still,
forty-five years later. We run into each other
in the produce section of the store from time to time,
sometimes he has his grandkids with him,
the ones his son left behind when he died in Iraq.
I asked him once if he couldn’t have talked him out of enlisting.
“Oh, I talked him into it. It was after September 11
and someone had to do something. I’m not sorry, either;
yeah, it hurts but he was serving his country
and the kids are sad but it’s OK, they’re proud
of their daddy.”
Ween’s got a song that starts out,
“I’m waving my dick in the wind…I’m waving
my dick in the wind…” I like that song
but this morning it’s making me a little misty.
Someone has to do something
and I’m not a hippie, but I’m glad there are hippies
still out there. Maybe something will come of it;
maybe the old hippies
will keep loving the new ones
and maybe all those road miles
will lead somewhere after all.
Listening To the Recording You Gave Me Of Your Music, I Am Moved To Action
As much as I’d like to believe
otherwise (in all my explorations
prior to this one
I have believed otherwise)
I am evidently in need
of some constant on which to fall back.
Chaos has at times intrigued me
but only for as long
as I can easily turn it off.
Freefall is linear,
it begins and ends, thus
I love everything about it
but mostly that it begins and ends.
And I love free jazz, it’s true,
but only because somewhere in the best of it
there’s always a sense of journey.
Weekend anarchist, armchair surrealist:
a drug like DMT was made for folks like me —
forty five minutes of shamanic journey,
then back to the office to scorn the mundanes.
So when I listen to this unruly sound
of what might be a theremin crossed maybe with saxophone
and processed through a sampled Charles River flood,
set over distorted readings of a Chinese restaurant menu
and the random tick-tock beat of a windup alarm clock
apparently being spun on a monkey’s middle finger,
I am filled with gratitude and awe
that you thought I’d love this,
and a sense of shame at how I did not.
I don’t know what to do
except thank you,
and then resolve to never tell you
that when it was over,
I reached for my acoustic guitar
and played hard rhythm
4/4 open first position chords
for quite a while afterward.
Will Not
I will not spill over.
I will lift my head up
and let my eyes brim.
Will hold still, and see through
to a wet-bright sky.
No matter if moon
or sun above, no matter
if none are here to see
my face if I fail in this;
I will this. That I will not —
will hold my water
and keep my face raised —
will not. And when
I have not, I will
remain fixed on
how clear the air is,
how full of gems
and the sharp arms
of their shine.
Op-Ed
Pointedly
peaceful, they’re still wishing
their enemies dead.
Rejoicing at their misfortunes.
Cheering their illnesses,
their damages. Oh,
I love the Left…how easily
they become what they claim to despise.
On the Right, at least, they claim
no disguises. No sense of irony
when they say
they are afraid and in peril;
they adore the stance of victim
even when a glance around reveals
how far from the bottom they really are.
I love them too: so openly comfortable
to the idea that their own peace of mind
is founded in the unease of others.
Everyone is dangerous right now.
We all believe we’re going to die
if the others come to power,
forgetting the lesson, the Great Teaching:
someone is going to lose
no matter who’s in power.
Power depends on someone losing.
If you want power, you are committing
to someone else not having it.
Well, is all that power itself necessary?
Ask that, and see how quickly you are answered.
My Name Requires Much Of Me
I think you should call me
by some other name.
The one I bear’s too much.
The one I wear is hard to say
in public. I can feel everyone
looking for me when it’s spoken.
I think you should call me
by some other name.
The face I wear doesn’t add up.
The arms and belly are awkward
and sit too far out from my core.
I know I’m taking up too much space.
I think you should call me
far less often.
I hate how often I’m conjured.
I hate the feeling of obligation
it creates. I want to slip into
some floor crack and lie below you.
I think I’m going to disappear
and reappear somewhere else.
The new place will not have heard of me.
I’ll raise bees and never wear a hood
or suit against them. I’ll be stung
so often my face will change and change.
I think the name I’ve got
is a bad one.
I think a name does more
than signify your being.
The one I’ve got made me what I am.
I dislike that. I want to hear me called new.
The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good
I can make it work, I swear.
I’ve seen others do it.
There’s no formula.
There’s not a reason in the world for me to fail.
Talent’s just a word for ambition easily realized.
Work is the balm for the wounded ambition.
I can make it happen.
Everyone does something well.
The oak tree makes great acorns.
The octopus is the ink master.
The dimples on the golf ball are its perfect expression.
I can be the best of what I am.
The work will make it stick out.
The blank page is the best prod to capture the fullness.
A single word well placed is smarter than a key.
There are inherent risks in being a master.
Stalling is the crucifixion of the divine nature.
Denial of the passion of the art is blasphemy to the Godhead.
A work of art is the gruff shovel that opens the grave of the revenant.
I can be the digger of movement.
I can sweat the devil’s coat seams.
I can do this.
Talent is a word for the blood of a prophet.
Denial is a misdirected nut fallen on bare stone.
Divinity is just an excuse for the acceptance of failure.
I can’t do this.
There’s no formula.
There’s a reversal spell that could be written.
I can’t imagine the dialect of such a wizard.
I can’t make work of what is best explained through talent.
I have no talent in the face of my demon inkmaster.
I have no answer for why the pen breaks.
I am no master
and no teacher
and no student of the way
and I park the ass that Mirabai refused to ride
in front of my house at night
to await the slog to the failure mines tomorrow.
Tags: poems, poetry, meditations
Punk Ghazal For Malcolm MacLaren
What you played with, Malcolm, was our long-established expectation.
We had believed we understood the game. You changed our imagination.
It was not always pretty, whole, or even moral; you pushed Sid into his grave.
We extracted romance from his shattered sneer and poisoned imagination.
When I heard them first I was transformed. I fell into their distorted arms.
You certainly stood by and cackled at how you’d exceeded your own imagination.
Of course, you did not know me by name, but I’m sure my type was familiar to you.
You counted on the magnet of filth to pull in the starved rock imagination.
You pulled the string, the easy marks danced, we discerned truth from seeing them.
Did selling bondage gear stifle the leap we made past your imagination?
Did you foresee how quickly we’d free ourselves through your grand swindle?
Did you foresee me, or a million Tonys like me, recreating your imagination?
The Promoter Looks Back
Shaved for battle,
they used to say,
those bullet boys
with the rippling ink
and the no-quarter eyes.
Where are they now?
I used to see them at all the shows.
All we wanted was hardcore and metal.
We knew the attendant politics would follow
but we thought we could steer the noise to safety.
We hired a bike gang
to keep the kids safe
from their warfare
and it mostly worked.
One night I ended up
rescuing a scrawny little racist
from the bikers
and drove him home to Clinton
where he and his brothers in arms
rented a farm.
On the way he told me
how it had started in Miami
where he was beaten daily
by Cuban kids
until he found the Hammerskins
and their cradle of white.
I told him I was of mixed race.
And I asked him how he felt about me.
He paused a long time and said,
“I still think it’s wrong.”
And then,
“I know that’s bad, but…yeah.”
Shaved for battle he was,
and his head shone in the moonlight
as he walked from the car to the driveway.
I did not wait to see if he waved,
throwing gravel as I spun out of the driveway
into the quiet road.
And I never saw him at the shows,
ever again.
Awareness
Rocking back
on his heels
the boy watched her
do a split on the rec room floor
and thought about things
he’d never thought before:
in a split second, then,
history he’d been learning
and biology he’d not known
began to kick in, and he manned up
in exactly the manner expected
of a boy his age.
Do you recall
your own split second,
that instant when the switch flipped on
and you were switched on
so that a current flew through you
from someone standing across a room or a yard?
Did it flash upon you as expected
by all around you, or were you suddenly alive
and confused at once because
it didn’t mesh with what you’d been told
would happen? And – how are you now —
is that a good memory? Have you
told anyone? Met anyone who shared it?
Go ahead and speak of it. You weren’t wrong to feel it.
Wrong is a label we apply too easily.
It keeps us from speaking up, looking
for the source. From finding the outlet
that will light us.
Just Another Guitar
It’s the stains under the strings
that make a guitar a guitar.
I’ve always read those stains before I bought one
but this one — a new guitar —
has none. It’s up to me to sully it.
Up to me.
That magic name from Nazareth
on the headstock means nothing
if I can’t make it heard. “Martin”
is just a spell without power
if a magician never learns its secret language;
it’s just another guitar. Another one
in the collection. A trophy
won without having been played for.
A symbol of consumption.
Having isn’t doing, isn’t being.
I play it now while thinking that I own a Martin
and am playing it, but when I am a player,
when that happens at last,
there won’t be any reason to speak of
the name. It will be less a Martin
than a scarred and dirty beast
full up with me and who I am.
Up to me. I bend to it and begin.
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