Poem-A-Day #356 : Stuffed

Stuffed

i
The bear has a birthday hat on
is sitting calmly - pink chair - is
staring at the ceiling

ii
The eyes are cataract - chipped
glass - they are windows in
a church bombed in a war

iii
Pray at the pew of it - hard - unfeeling
the sort of colors streaming on your face
that make everything seem alive

iv
And the hat came from a night concert
the man who I have obsessed over
placing it on my head - no reason given

v
Pink like grapefruit
faded to bubblegum on your shoe
Grandmother's chair

vi
Addiction to history - ashes on skin
bear that traveled in boxes and bags
- it's too much honestly

vii
Let's pretend that we had kissed
that the chair had been reupholstered
that the fruit had been bruised

Poem-A-Day #341 : Theory Of (Google Poem)

I typed 'theory of' into Google. This is the results.


Theory Of (Google Poem)

relativity evolution

mind everything

a deadman for kids

natural selection

psychology cast songs

time summary

Jean Piaget podcast 2016

Poem-A-Day #330 : When I Am King You Will Be First Against The Wall

When I Am King You Will Be First Against The Wall

I sleep in linen vestments - break
all bread at a bloodwood table - a chair made of silver
in my mind - it is so gleaming -

The crown has thorns - God - does not allow this image room to expand -

Under these robes - a terrier warms my ankles is
a dust mop of a thing - I want to tell you about the letting go -

At some point you have to unhinge
your mind - make it a door - a chest that opens warily
it will only house curtains - a dead moth but it will house
these things well -

But you have to allow it to be emptied - God - the room that is needed
an economy of space - a sort of draining swamp -

Nothing is my own - everything is my own - my Voice
and my Fear are my own - and those things build themselves a castle
that becomes entrenched immediately in vine -

You will plant the seeds - someone
else will eat that bread and be nourished - or poisoned -

That rule is necessary and necessity is rule - well - everyone
loves a fascist until they are the one getting the rod -

Here - I will show you the interior rooms of my mind - gore - all the way down -

Poem-A-Day #315 : Romance #201

Romance #201

                    Blah
     Blah
               Blah

Sound of hearts pretending they're disinterested

The music of an anime getting started

I want to tell you I will hold you until you bleed
and that this will make you take your clothes off

The tongue is stupid
                                      yellow
                                                       a lie in a bath of goo

I will tell you a joke and you will laugh it off
and no one will pretend that it isn't a kind of sex

We fall down a well do we get news papers noticing us

Maybe if we profess in front of the temple

Maybe if the notes rupture like bubbles

Poem-A-Day #276 : SoH je brutus

SoH je brutus

Remember that line from Star Trek:

                    Time is the fire in which we burn

Christopher Plummer says it in bald cap
Klingon ridges making Alps across its surface

wab QoQ ghor HuvHa' chaH rur HIvje'

That's Klingon for "the sound of music breaks on them like glass"

It's funny
because it's about a different Christopher Plummer movie

                    At least we don't live in Ancient Rome:

276 was a leap year
that started itself on a Saturday

In June
               and again in September

                                        an Emperor died

It was all about money
Tacitus devalued the currency
Florianus is assassinated by his own men
Probus returns everything to how it was

But even Probus gets only 6 years before he dies in an October by blades he supposedly leads

SoH je brutus

The Alps on Plummer's face
                    on all of our faces
                                        time draws topography on all of us

The sound of breathing rushes them like canyon walls
it crests and causes weather good and evil

makes us light ourselves on fire and lash outward at the ticking seconds around us

Poem-A-Day #268 : Floor

Floor

We dance like we've seen everything :

                              The light channels the look of venetian blinds - 80s music videos :
                   
                     There is an inexplicable horse :

There is a child walking along the road - she is 6ish - she is alone - there is a baby carriage yards behind her - she is tired of this shit and is heading for the train tracks :

          I am tired of being told everything will be alright :

                    An endless consumption - the lights are on then off and the sound of music is a thrum on your sternum - a broken pen pressed into your trachea - blowing your neck like a balloon - you collapse in the waves of time coming off the 4 on the floor :

There is a need for semicolon :

                              The ability to hinge :

                                                            Trains run on time - half the time they clack until they hit the bends - the other half they wonder why the sound dropped out - there is a sense that everything is conscious - that the world is not a cold dead thing - but the yet that hangs on the end of that is where the beat drops and the room goes dark :

Poem-A-Day #111 : Typographic Music 1

Typographic Music 1

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Poem-A-Day #82 : There Is

There Is

The rapid transit of us into us
there is a word for it :

The trees are :

They point their tiny fists of spring
they have opened their fingers have gone yellow
then turn toward chlorophyll :

If it goes quick then let that go
the word is is :

Pose the mannequin like it is a painter
staring into a mirror
painting a self-portrait :

Trumpets blare and they are only car horns :

The public transport of us engages the turn lane
there is a word that is is and is not :

We are searching for prose like Gershwin
that conveys a man carrying packages on a busy Thursday
on a Manhattan street :

Dropping seeds like ribbons :

Windsocks popping brass :

Is not the word also rapid in its sphere :

Poem-A-Day #71 : Drunk Poem

Drunk Poem

The dog is slobbering again - and the night is cold
it's May why is the night cold

I am an adult I feel like I'm 16 - I have never felt older

I recount the story of going to the concert
of the mosh pit and the elbows and how I retreated to the balcony

And there are nods - someone says 'but your hair is purple'
and there are more nods

And I remember the article about purple-haired poets
ow they were an example of the pseudo-liberal
not really woke white person - and - I - am unsure -

And the cat drags the baby bunny into the living room
and does not devour it

It fucks with the thing - until it is saved or dead
either way the night will repeat - because martinis

Poem-A-Day #53 : Thoughts on the Death of Prince

Thoughts on the Death of Prince

Every time someone famous dies you post that picture of Kanye West
where the reporter is disappointed to find him still alive -

And I get it

                    But I don't really

Tonight at the bar this guy made a joke about Queen Elizabeth's birthday
and why did Prince have to die when this 90 year old white woman is still going

And I mean

                    Sure - Imperialism sucks - but really -

I think about the first time I became aware of sexuality - watching
this man in butt-less pants sing about getting off on MTV

And the moment - expanded

                    And being a boy became less of a box

I know he became homophobic later in life - I know he moved into
a strange brew of anti-sex and religion that was definitely a contradiction
with his music -

And I get all of that

                    But I don't really

Because I want to say that people die - that they do - that they go
and we have no control and if anything threaded from Lovesexy to HitNRun

                    It was that we don't live forever

That we should - just possibly - enjoy these bodies while we have them

Poem-A-Day #32 : The Sinking of the Titanic

The Sinking of the Titanic

: why so many questions :
          : ice becomes blue after it salts and confronts itself at night :

     : these are just the things
you can carry :                    : here is an X on a map it has no emotions :

                                : underneath the waves :
                      : the sound of one lone viola in the largest theater on earth is the sound a conch hears when it holds a human skull to its ear :

Poem-A-Day #26 : Sous le Feu de la Guerre

Sous le Feu de la Guerre

The sun was in my eyes - that is the first thing

The song on the radio was about war - but not this current one

I was thinking about an essay on sudden horrific intrusion and about how easy it would be to just drive the car into oncoming traffic - that moment when you're standing on a balcony and want to jump

Sunsets do that weird lens flare thing like sci fi movies - I've never seen a green flash but I know it's out there

What about driving a car into the Grand Canyon

There's mountains within mountains somewhere - they might even be ancient - you would be forgiven if you begin to suspect that one climbs Everest to try to die

There's a second thing you should know -

Poem-A-Day #19 : Unweaving the Rainbow (Keats Erased)

Unweaving the Rainbow (Keats Erased)

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

       Of deities or mortals, or of both,

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

         For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

                For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

The Only Thing I Have To Declare Is...

Last night I went to the opera. The show was the new opera 'Oscar' that had its premier at the Santa Fe Opera this summer. It moves to Philadelphia in 2015.

It is a good thing that the show has over a year before its next performance because it was not good. The worst I've ever seen.

It managed to be outdated, dull, poorly directed, drama free, and generally awful. How does a new show feel like it's 30 years old?

It was witless. Artless. My jaw dropped and I held my sweater in front of my mouth so bugs wouldn't fly in there.

It was not about overcoming adversity. It wasn't about love. It wasn't about politics. It wasn't about Oscar Wilde. I don't even know what it was about because it was so so so broken.

The lyrics were laughable. The prison was played for comedy then discussed as a hellish place. It was all telling and zero showing. Walt Whitman was the narrator? Bosie was a mute dancer......

I have no real words to describe it beyond this. Because it was that bad. There was a song about ABSINTHE.

When I see bad art I have to think it out. I joked last night that I would need to go to therapy to process the night. It was a joke, but kinda true. Bad art is depressing, sad, etc. But gigantic failures have lessons hidden in them. Lessons about process and editing. Lessons about huge corporations pumping money into the creative process. Lessons about people not telling other people no.

It makes me want to scream. Scream then write a better version.

As we were clapping for the cast at the end you could feel the sadness in the room. A sort of 'sorry guys' vibe. I clapped for the fact that the cast was trying their best. The score was interesting. The set was really good.

But every time the show would get to something good it would do something absolutely mind-numbingly dumb. Like end with Walt Whitman ushering Oscar Wilde into heaven...where a pantheon of classic writers dressed in white angel costumes welcome him into 'immortality'. And his response? He makes a joke about wanting to make a good sauce and says 'thanks'...

I don't even know what more to say right now. That is how weird the experience was. It is hard to be coherent about incoherence. Hard to form a center about a non-held object.

Will someone in Philadelphia go see this hot mess in 2015 and tell me if it is good? Better yet, someone let me stay with them so I can watch it again and see what's different. Because it will ALL be different.

Harlem Shake

In November 2011 I posted a bunch of poems based on songs that were #1 on my birthday. Then I posted my 2011 and 2012 songs in May of last year.

This year Harlem Shake was #1 on my birthday. The week before it was Macklemore's Thrift Shop. Then after only another week Thrift Shop was #1 again.

That is the Backstreet Boys.

The song is inoffensive - though annoying as hell - but inoffensive. The weird viral-video crap of white people acting foolish...just NO.

This happened because Billboard changed the rules of how they calculate the #1 on the Hot 100. They have added in views on YouTube and other social media platforms. Harlem Shake would have NEVER been #1 otherwise.

I went to college with Macklemore. I wanted his song to be my birthday #1. It would have been right.

But...I made the rules and must live by them. So. Here is my 2013 birthday poem.


Harlem Shake

Con los terroristas

with those 9-5s - making dollars

do the Harlem Shake

Walk yourself to the 2 train

take yourself to that dead-end job

con los terroristas

History in the concrete

history in the basements

Do the Harlem Shake

This city forgets itself - breaks bread

with whomever has the dollars

con los terroristas

Dance your ass off

for the man? - or yourself

and do the Harlem Shake

Eventually everything blends

every block looks the same -

con los terroristas

and do the Harlem Shake

THIS! 9/14/12

THIS! on September 14th, 2012

1) Murp

2) The Donkey Sanctuary

This is a great organization that rescues abused and elderly donkeys. They give them a place to rest and recover from their lives. They have an amazing store where you can buy cute donkey things or give money towards improving working conditions for these animals.


3) Farren's Dream Dog

Farren is a special lady. She is a talented writer/editor and an amazing person. Earlier this summer she lost her cat very suddenly. Her dog was diagnosed with a terminal illness almost at the same time. She's finishing grad school and facing bills bills bills and no one should do that alone. Give a dollar or two to help her get a French Bulldog!


4) Ampullae of Lorenzini

Sharks and a few other marine animals have gel-filled spots on their noses that allow them to sense electric fields. This is awesome.

Review : Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue
Author: Michael Chabon
Publisher: Harper (9/11/12)
480 pages

It says a lot that Michael Chabon's publisher, Harper, has pumped more than $250,000 into marketing his new book. Some of those marketing dollars are going to open a pop-up record store in Oakland themed after the one he writes about. A lot of the rest seems to have gone to the special e-book edition:

"an interactive map of Oakland, eight videos of Mr. Chabon, a playlist created by Mr. Chabon, an animated cover, audiobook clips performed by actor Clarke Peters from "The Wire," and a "Telegraph Avenue" theme song composed by Peter Lerman."

If that sounds like a lot of gimmick for a novel, I'm with you. Also, eight videos of Chabon!? Doing what?

The basics are thus: Archy and Nat own a long-suffering record store in Oakland. Things are made worse when a superstar football player decides to open a huge record store nearby. At the same time Archy's junky ex-Blaxploitation film star father shows up because he is trying to blackmail a city councilman. Archy's until now unknown 14-year-old son also pops up and starts a friendship/sexual relationship with Nat's son. Archy's wife, Gwen is pregnant, a mid-wife, and has a run-in with a doctor that quickly gets heated.

The plot is a seems more convoluted then it is. Chabon is clearly attempting to write a Quentin Tarantino movie. He even references the director a lot and goes to pains to describe a few scenes from Kill Bill. He's aiming for that feeling of overlapping narrative, of threads weaving a whole, it comes across more like blatant ass-kissing.

The reviews of this book have all spent a lot of time discussing how great an author Chabon is. They wax on and on about his writing ability and the beauty of his prose. They all say they have problems with the book, that it is not 'perfect' but they all also say that they give him a pass because he's just so good!

It just isn't. The writing is sloppy. His attempts at writing in a musical style are irritating. His endless music and film referenced tossed into dialogue are distracting. The 12-page sentence that makes up one chapter is not creative, it's tedious. Car doors have 'lamentable lamentations' that sound like the 'gate on a crypt filled with vengeful dead folks'.

And 'From the lowest limb of a Meyer lemon, a wind chime searched without urgency for a melody to play.' It is overwrought and trying way too hard to sound interesting. It comes across like a dad at a high school party trying to be into the Lady Gaga's and Rihanna's that the kids love so much.

This isn't even discussing the questionable racial politics he plays.

The book is centered on a black family. The husband is cheating on his pregnant wife. He does it twice. The pregnant wife is portrayed in the book in mostly angry ways, she is either shouting or grumpy the whole time. The 14-year-old is having a homosexual relationship that he refuses to acknowledge because he 'isn't gay' he just likes to fuck the white boy.

The minor black characters are; an NFL star, a deadbeat junky, a fading Blaxploitation star, and a hand full of older jazz-heads who talk a lot about Mingus and Davis.

I have no issue with a white man writing black characters, but this is a grab bag of stereotypes. I think, he was trying to play with that. I think he failed.

On page 48 of the book Gwen catches her husband talking to a woman in a restaurant. Flirting. He follows her outside and they argue. She accuses him of cheating. He lies and says he isn't. In broad daylight she shoves her hands into his pants where 'Her fingers found the heavy coil of hose'. This is what follows:

"Her fingertips were briefly snagged by a film of bodily adhesive as weak as the glue on a Post-it. She tugged her sticky fingers loose, brought them to her nose...Market stalls, smoking braziers, panniers of lentils. All the spice and stink of Ethiopia: turmeric, scorched butter, the salt of the Red Sea."

Again. I THINK he is trying to play with the tropes of racism and the language of Blaxploitation and Tarantino. I dare anyone to read that quote, realize that it is a white author talking about black people, and tell me that it works for them. This is just one example, the worst in my opinion. He goes on to describe several black characters in various spice and earthen terms. A white woman is described as smelling like 'rose perfume'. My eyes fall from my face and roll on the floor.

This is before Barak Obama shows up to offer marriage advice and call a jazz trio 'funky'. The novel is set in 2004. In Oakland. The section is from Obama's perspective. It's odd and makes zero sense. You are pulled from the story and slammed into election year 2012.

This passed a cadre of editors, PR men, lawyers, etc...and they decided to throw $250,000 behind it and tart up the ebook. I'm not saying that it was to distract us, but all the reviews mention it. And so far they all say the book is flawed but Chabon is just so damn good it doesn't matter.

Sorry. It may be an attempt at something, but it ain't good. If this works for you, I'm interested in knowing why. And I want to know in terms other than Michael Chabon once wrote a good book so this one also must be good.

Gender

That is a 1992 video by Edson Cordeiro and Cassia Eller. It is a mash-up of The Rolling Stone's Satisfaction and Mozart's Queen of the Night.

Cordeiro is one of the few modern male sopranos. He has a five-octave range and seems to hit the high F6 in Queen easily. Watching the video I started thinking about gender in the arts.

The woman in the song is Cassia Eller. She is a contralto.

Of course she isn't really bending gender, just expectations. She is more in line with Nina Simone. A woman who's voice could be mistaken for a man's without the visual. Victoria Legrand of Beach House falls into this category as well.

Ms. Jones

While these artists are clearly playing with gender norms I have always found artists that play with true androgyny fascinating. Grace Jones, Boy George, even Adam Lambert. They clearly touch on and tread the line of what people find comfortable with strict gender roles.

Watching the videos from the two Brazilian artists led me to a series of videos from other artists working outside their gender roles. Below we have a 70s disco queen, a woman who may have slept with Frieda Khalo, and a woman who lived her life as a man playing jazz.

Quick note on Billy Tipton: No one knew he was a woman until he died.

Sylvester:

Chavela Vargas:

Billy Tipton:

What does this have to do with books? The history of gender twisting exists there as well. Woolf's Orlando, Eugenides Middlesex, Shakespeare practically used it in every comedy. These are only three, the list stretches on.

Why does it matter?

My view of the arts is that they are a place for us to expand the boundaries of what it means to be a human. To ask ourselves questions and to get answers. They aren't mirrors exactly, more dreams of what we could be. And the twisting of strict gender roles is just another way to point out that our arbitrary boundaries can be pushed outward a little.

THIS! 8/24/12

THIS! on August 24, 2012

1) Christopher Lee's Charlemagne

2) Dinosaurs

NASA discovered small dino tracks in their literal backyard. The Christian Science Monitor discusses it here. The feet in question belonged to a nodosaur.

Which was a giant spiked armadillo apparently.

Also, someone buy this blanket for me right this second. It's not my birthday or anything important, but really, I need it.


3) Racism

I really really hate Michael Chabon's new book. Like so much so that I may decide it isn't worth finishing. I really want to write a review but it's like totes not good y'all.

There is a LONG post about this that I am working on in my head about racism, white privilege, and the place of artistic licence in all of it but...it's questionable career-wise considering I have sent a query to his agent to rep my novel...

Yes, I just wrote that and meant it. Oh the pitfalls of the industry! Life is so hard! Le sigh.


4) Kaseem Reed

Dear Democrats, more of this please. Love Michael

The Ten Thousand Things

I've been listening to Azealia Banks' new mixtape Fantasea all day while I vacuum and mop. You can download it for free. There's a link in this MTV article.

All week my headaches have come and gone, so I'm writing very little. I did read The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût.

Dermoût was not published until she was 63. The Ten Thousand Things was released in 1955 and then translated into English in 1958. Time named it one of the best books of the year alongside Breakfast At Tiffany's, Doctor Zhivago, and Lolita. She is still considered one of the great Dutch authors.

She was born in Java and her work could be viewed as a precursor to post-colonial writing. The novel follows a woman as she returns to her ancestral home with her young son. The island is a world of magic and danger. The book reminds me of Gabriel García Márquez, Murakami and specifically of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping.

The worlds of Ten Thousand Things and Housekeeping are of women wrapped in, and dealing with, life. In Robinson's book we have two girls orphaned and descending into a world of water and drifting boundaries of 'home' and 'family'. Dermoût's book gives us a woman coming home after being abandoned by her husband/lover. She comes back to a world of myth, ghosts and superstition.

Both books deal with the world overtaking the main characters. Taking them in then altering them to fit within. And both have similar, swirling voids of an ending. The main character left staring into the abyss, whether the view is negative or not is up to the reader.

What does this have to do with Ms. Banks?

Well. She's part of the supposed resurgence of the female rap star. And she's already come head up against the culture and in response said she wanted to be considered a vocalist, not a rapper. And her new album is themed around water, around the ocean. And she seems interested in creating a world for herself outside the one that people have made for her.

Basically, it's connected by feminism, post-colonialism, and the fact that I have a headache and am mopping. Just go with me, OK? Thanks.