By rights it was too hot in the city to do or hear any poetry last night, but I insisted on going– even to the degree of putting my girlfriend on the shelf in order to go alone. Last night was a night to stand in front of a bar or gallery and smoke and talk– not be on the second floor of a tre-cool art space and watch artists work on a blank canvas amidst a wall of paintings and poetry being read in the background. But i was there anyway, with my notebook on my lap as if waiting for something to be revealed, for something to happen. I guess it happened, but i closed my book and leaned back and listened. I didn’t have a lot of money –earlier, in my free hour before the reading, i sat in a cafe across the street and worked on a poem over a dinner of apple juice and a croissant. The gallery was free admittance, but they had a bar that I ignored; I didn’t even bother with a beer.

Entering the gallery, there was a merchandise table with black t shirts and flyers. The dude sitting there didn’t seem to be working the table as much as holding it for somebody. Next to him was a fully stocked bar. The gallery and reading was upstairs— about 15 paintings by one artist who’s work is a combination of graffiti and brightly colored sci-fi inspired alien landscape patterns. On one side of the room they set up a blank canvas on an easel and three young dudes did a live painting before and during the reading (a psychedelic elephant, and a stonehenge type face on a landscape). A DJ played MF Doom tracks. The place was hot, but I’ll say it was reasonably warm if you didn’t move around too much. Huge silver industrial fans on the floor circulated air which made the place feel better. I sat on a old style but comfy sofa in the back of the room and waited for inspiration to come find me, but apparently inspiration was at the beach, where I should have been. The readers, there were four– frankly, bored me and I left at 10pm, just before the Headliner, a dude who hosts a storytelling podcast I listen to. I knew no one there. The first reader was almost cool; reading rhyming poetry that sounded hip and very 60’s. He was silver haired and surprised me by doing a poem about meeting Bob Kaufman (a man who, once his name was dropped amongst these kids, remained on the floor and unnoticed by even the slightest note of recognition). He read a poem about sex while leaning against the wall between a painting and a sculpture having turned a spraypaint can into a planter. As uncomfortable I feel about writing rhyming poetry, I thought maybe I can write more rhymes if I use 14 syllables per line. His lines sounded solid as an american made car.

The second reader was a ham shaped white dude in a striped red shirt who stood barefoot shouting his poetry. He advertised a reading he participates in that takes place on the street– and he has that aura, not of homelessness but street poet if you acknowledge a difference. The only woman there didn’t read but told stories– how she learned she could hold her breath for two minutes and another about being snubbed by the lead singer of a rock band in a bar. During her rock band story she grabbed two women from the audience to illustrate What Happened to her while at the bar pouring her heart out to this lead singer dude. But what I thought was kinda rude was she (a) didn’t introduce the women she used and (b) once finished, didn’t thank them for using them and just kinda walked off the mic leaving them where they stood, and she sat down. Perhaps she knew them. Perhaps she was drunk.

The young brother who “hosted” was drunk and he read last. He opened with a slam poem I couldn’t keep track of because he kept forgetting his lines. Then he read a story about staying in a hostel which was ok. In it he is on the roof of the building when another dude enters with a blunt they share. This second dude starts telling a story about his life as a drug dealer on the other coast and how he got to Cali, but i found myself getting uncomfortable listening because he used the N word SO MUCH… and here we’re surrounded by white people and listening to the context I couldn’t see the point and necessity of it. Damn, I really am getting old.

He offered a break before the headliner started. It was still hot at 10pm and I got up and walked out.

The neighborhood I walked through wasn’t the kind of neighborhood one should be walking through at 10pm unless you’re out for something Specific. But I strolled through the valley unscathed. Passed the strip club and finding myself wanting to go in, but didn’t. I passed a motel and wanted desperately to peek into every room there to see What The F**k Is Going On, but deep within reckoned it was probably best if I didn’t know.

I was introduced to the Spiritualist church years ago by a friend of mine who, like myself, had lost her mother. I don’t remember what we talked about before, how she found it. I remember that the evening was curious– i didn’t totally understand what was happening, but i was cool with it. While a woman stood on the dais speaking to the audience, I remember listening to her, looking, and feeling like she was in the center of a huge spiralling vortex and I felt like I could fall in to wherever she was. I remember going back on my own sometime later. Earlier in the week I’d sprained my ankle and was limping around the office as if I’d been hobbled. I went to the church’s healing service on a wednesday, and that saturday my friend came from out of town to visit and the buzzer to open the front door was broken. When it rang, I jumped and ran down three flights of stairs, barefoot, to answer the door. I’d forgotten about my ankle. It no longer hurt.

I don’t know why I wanted to go back last night. A combination of things; lonesome, missing my mom and family, frustration over my art and how stuck I’ve been feeling.

I want to tell you I meditate daily. And earlier this week, for the first time, I was surprised by a spontaneous image I saw in my session: that of a Native American man in full gear standing in my meditation area looking at me. His presence didn’t scare or bother me, but I thought: what are you doing here? Mark it unusual and leave it alone.

I was early to the service and went to the park across the street to the park to read for a while and burn some time.

The church is a huge quiet mansion- the main room full of 1920’s fold up theater seats. I was handed a pamphlet and directed to the healing room– ostensibly the reason I came. The healing room is a small sitting room just behind the main room. In the corner, an Asian woman played an organ. I could hear the wood machinery of the organ creaking and noted the music… not gospel or spriitual, but rather early 19 century soothing pop music; I heard her play Paper Moon, for example.

At sat in a chair against the wall along side three older white women. The place was full of people but it was so quiet. There were more people across from us on the opposing side. They sat quietly in meditative positions. In the middle of the room, three people stood behind three chairs. The people standing gently touched the people sitting, holding their hands in front of their foreheads. After a few minutes, the person standing would lean down to the seated person and whisper: God Bless You or Thank You and the people would get up and return to the main room and sit and wait for the service to start.

I sat in the healing room and meditated and looked around. There was a glass cabinet of a collection of elephants– all palm sized or smaller– made of varying materials, most with their trunks up. There was a portrait of the woman who founded the church, Rev Florence Baker. And then i saw them, above the dormant fireplace: four and more portraits of single Native American men in full dress standing on hillsides in forested areas, as if they were pointing out the presence of lakes or mountain ranges behind them.

A woman came into the room, took the empty chair next to me, and set it up in the back.

After a few minutes, that woman motioned to me, and I sat before her.

The difference now versus when I was first here was I’ve been studying medtiation, grounding and different things. I actively grounded and relaxed while sitting there, listening to her breathe in short spurts as if she were playing a wind instrument. With one hand she gently touched my back between my shoulder blades then held her other hand before my forehead.

And: Something Happened.

I don’t know what it was, exactly. But I was with it…

She indicated to me she was finished, I stood and went back into the main room. The moment I got up, a woman who’d been standing at the podium in the main hall the entire time, announced that the healing part of services was over and the actual service would start in 10 minutes. I sat and meditated for a while. The room filled gradually with people of which I couldn’t describe because it was such a broad collection of people. A nervous looking young white woman who kept swigging bottles of water and cradles a blue book on her lap titled “After Life” as if it were a bible; a woman with an adult man who looked to be her son who sat in front; a older man in cloud gray dredlocks; a middle aged white woman; a 30something black woman in short locks; a Mexican woman who sat with a young man who translated the services for her. More. The service which turned out to be an all message service. Three people took the dais with another man acting as host.

One at a time, he invited the three to stand at the podium, which they did and chose or pointed out people at random and act as intermediaries between us and whomever they could see or hear who had some kind of message for us, the living. One woman heard from a small child that has remained around her since his early passing. Another heard from some old neighbor who kept watch over him as a child, and is still watching, helping.

What was said to others, I’ll keep to myself. What was said to me surprised me. I felt that I knew who it was and the message felt appropriate yet unexpected. There was a reason for me to return here, the healing certainly, but something else too that I can’t explicitly say. I did feel better afterwards… a weight of somekind had been removed. And the word I was given from the other side was a bouquet of flowers. A curious place, a unique method of worship (was this worship exactly, or just exercising acknowledgment of spirit? or… is there a difference?) and a nice place to check in every so often (at my rate, make that once every four to five years).

i found the cafe in north beach easily enough. I’d been here before, years ago. Back then I lived in the city and came just to get out of the house and write. Tonight though I was meeting my mentor, Steve, who’d called earlier in the morning inviting me to come see the featured reader here tonight– a writer from The Old Days, now living out of town. I hadn’t seen Steve in a while and during our chat he reminded me this week is anniversary to a road trip we once made up the oregon coast many years ago. This after my mother died, This while I was most lost and alone. And it is for those reasons I went to the North Beach and the to cafe he directed me. He was in the neighboring cafe with his girlfriend and another woman. I met with them breifly, turning down a chair preferring to go back to the cafe where the reading was to be and take some time to write.

I couldn’t write anything original. I edited and rewrote poems I hadn’t had time to look at since writing them. The environment felt good to me. I see why the writers from the old school loved these blocks. City Lights was two blocks down. And this cafe felt like I’d assume a Parisian cafe would. I found a table in the corner, anchored myself with chocolate breadpudding and a glass of water. I recognized voices drifting in for the reading which would be held in the adjoining area, but I didn’t look up. They found someone else to sit with and talk. I looked up and noted the gray haired men I knew distantly and gray haired men I didn’t know at all. None of the women were remarkable. I kept my head down and formed letters. There was a young couple at a table across from me I became peculiarly nosy about; a young beautiful asain woman and a young brother who looked student young, younger than her. As if his body were aging and stretching faster than his young face did. I kept my head down, even as the cafe filled and even as the reading next door started. I remained where I was and wasn’t even compelled to find a seat. I didn’t want to be in that room. But steve came up behind me and said he was saving a seat. Respectfully I got up midpen stroke and followed him.

The room was full; everyone here older, grayed and appeared Ex-everything; Ex-hippie Ex-commie Ex-junkie Ex-ex.

There was a poem I remember by one of the several features, but that isnt to say it was good; just distinctive enough to be remembered.

The man, his second poem in, bravely got down on all fours to do a poem about frogs. It was a sound poem and he took the sound of frogs at the creek and subtitled words into those sounds; all hard vowels so that it sounded like a conversation. But the conversation was all about sex; the frogs croaked “is it wet” and more, like frogs would. People from the next room, one of the barristas, leaned into the doorway to Look at this big, tall, older man on his knees croaking like a horny frog. This wasn’t funny to me. Though I gave him great credit for being brave enough and giving that little of a shit. Bravo.

The feature I came to see was good. The poem about his son, his dying father appearing in dreams, both solid works and i see why he would fill a room with so many devoted. The rest; ummm… Well, yeah there were others.

It wasn’t until the open mic and the first person to get up that I felt like Something was Happening. The woman was Cat a small framed waif who came off as a street performer if not homeless. She wore a hoodie backwards so that the hood hung beneath her chin like a bib. Her hair long and narrow. She opened her mouth wide arching widely over the words to her poems– about riding the bus, about being. She recited while another fellow in a fatigue jacket stood behind her plucking a guitar. He wasn’t good. He kept going over the same cords, so gently it was like he were stimulating a clit. But if the woman felt it in the wood of the guitar she kept it secret and quiet as a whisper. She was good; reciting from memory, effortless. Well constructed. As much as I wanted to leave when I saw her get up to the mic I was glad I stayed.

Can’t say that for the rest of the night. Everyone on the mic had several chapbooks they’d published, all shoved under their arms and from the work they shared, none worth reading. One man kept reading and I kept losing him. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak my mind went elsewhere and he’d finish and I’d think loudly, What? And sit up straight and focus only to fall off track again. Was it his voice? No one who read actually read like they liked words, as if they liked the way pronouncing something feels Inside The Mouth. No one approached their work as if it meant anything more than a recitation of a shopping list. I did force myself to follow the man and the poem he wrote about light I visualized in my mind; turned out it was beautiful. Perhaps he was killing his own work just by reading it so flatly and cold.

After Cat, I turned to Steve and told him I was leaving. I pushed through the crowd and stood by the door a few more minutes while Steve performed on the open mic with his girlfriend. I’ll want to say more than I will. I’ll say that I waited and listened and got what I wanted and walked out.

****

The walk home now. Or rather– to the train station to get me home.

I’m bored, creatively. I want something but I don’t know what it is. This is a horrible feeling. I felt better being at that table, peacefully and alone, than I did in that room listening to words without weight. I wished I had time to draw or even work out my assumptions about the young couple at the table across from me.

One of the things I thought about was performance art. At work earlier I was reading about the work of Marina Abromovic whom I didn’t know until her name was dropped in an interview I’d read on Laurie Anderson, whom I did know and loved. I was thinking about performance art because I was pushing myself to think about what’s next. What I can do to engage my creative voice again. What can I do to push. I’ve experimented before with performance art. I’d say: three times I’ve touched the stage before an audience to do something Different. I don’t know what’s next, but I do feel something dawning. Respect to the dude who did the explicit frog-ologue, but that’s not enough for me. Respect to Vito Acconci who’s Seedbed I’d also read about… But dude, Performing doesnt make me that excited.

And it may or may not be important to mention here… but on my way home I received a couple of messages and finally talked to a woman who wanted me to sub for a missing team member in a poetry slam this thursday. I said yes because I need Something and I respect the woman who asked and her timing was perfect. I have a good idea what isn’t working: stand and delivering in front of a room of old school writers, even listening sometimes doesn’t cover admission. On the other hand, poetry slams are a poetic form thats not engaging me and is an anethema to my ear. So that leaves the question only I can find an answer for…

My new excuse for not attending m/any open mics lately has been having a girlfriend– especially considering I don’t push her very hard to attend any poetry readings. Last night was a rare night when I had nothing to do, she and i were off duty and I had spare energy to burn so I strolled down the hill to sit in on an open mic/slam just to see what was what.

The host was outside T.C.B’ing on his cell. Inside, people were corralled to one corner of the coffee house leaving the main seats in the center of the room empty. I shyly didn’t push inside, regretful i left the house without any writing material– no backpack, a couple of poems in my pocket and one on my cell phone. This kept me from taking the opportunity to Work while waiting for the reading to start. I stood outside for a while and waited for the host to get off the phone.

I was scheduled to do a reading in Sacramento this past weekend with the host and didn’t go. I chickened out of the trip came to my senses since it was a ‘fundraiser’ and would cost me more money to get there than it seemed worth it to go. The organizer wasn’t paying squat. I asked him how it went and his report was so godawful I’d do better to never to to Sacramento again…for Anything. I’m assuming here, but he implied he agreed to go because he heard my name attached to it. My bad. Was glad he hustled gas money for the trip, (which he said the organizer game him with Stank Attitude attached, but she did pay) but still…

Pardon the Disgression. The host called all the people in the room to fill up the center audience chairs and he sat on a stool and took questions from the audience, comprised of a lot of kids there for the slam. There was a brief open mic, a brother just in from Missouri with an acoustic guitar opened the night. He was cool; good enough to get laid but not a contract. When he took out his cd titled ‘Singing In The Shower’ i busted out laughing. I could have sworn I’d seen this moment before several times over.

I wanted to read a new poem, called New Monia, about my mothers last days in the hospital. I’ve never read it for a crowd. But I talked myself down when i was called. Here’s the reasons:
1) We were running short on time.
2) The poems before were ‘light’ and this thing, since it was so personal, felt heavy.
3) I had only one poem to read and felt like, for this room, I couldn’t do something dark. Its a choice, to Do You or attempt to do the audience. And inspite of my feeling that a funny poem would be better placed here, there’s no real way to anticipate what would be perfectly appropriate.
The poem I read got some laughs and I did learn something. Even while reading it I thought ‘this doesn’t sound like me.’ a good thing in ways, but i’m still not sure. What I learned was how to read it.
The poem was remembered by the host in his recap as funny and a headscratcher– classic me, he said. When I introduced it I was both serious and silly– when I got to the ‘joke’ i must’ve sold it too honestly where the audience was kinda: huh?? whatdidhejussay? And I was high too, which prolly didn’t help things. but the poem has a momentum i like and I think it had a hard ending. That its not quite like anything else is cool.

Listening to the slam, there were some kids who broke through the metaphors and came up with some intriguing twists, but sonically its boring as fuck. Its hard to listen to when everyone… well, slam is kinda like iambic pentameter– a standard metered rhythm that’s is frustrating when person after person hits their individual writing with the same music. Its like listening to 1000 different lyrics laid over the Funky Drummer. A couple of the kids hit the beats perfectly; even as what they were saying was either empty or shallow. One kid fared well, though physically he moved like a lecturer or a schizophrenic having a conversation with himself. Musically he punched it in the slam rhythm, but lyrically he was nice. I wanted to take their poems and read them aloud for myself. I wanted people to exchange poems and read them uniquely. But I gave in and thought, damn– with all the years under my belt, I really can’t listen to this too much in one setting. The feature, a beautiful sister, was incredible and unique. A pro, confident. But as for the kids, I felt cantankerous; I didn’t know how much of this I could generally take.

my typing, a mouth of dry ice/ the crunch of richards scroll pad across the isle/ the heavy slip of pages in a book/ a desk fan/ a chair on the opposite side of the room squeaks loudly as a body shifts/ the squeak like a boat easing over waves/ a gentle metallic bark/ a sneeze / a throat cleared/ a spoon excavating what remains in a papered vessel / a dry cough like a motor that couldn’t start / footsteps and the jangle of keys, akin to the approach of a cop/ creak/a phone/ a breath/ a sigh/ a throat like distant thunder behind a mountain/ sometimes / in hearing a breath / i wish to be inside the new body making it/ feel the swell of anothers chest/ the weight of wider shoulders/ the breaths flavor/ to be in another pool of warmth/ to feel the need for depth, breath/ to live simulataneously in more than one place/ what would that feel like/ a distant beep/ then, a voice: good morning./ like something opened slowly/ or something dropped at my feet

The previous week, returning from a party, Myron and I passed this church– a christian methodist episcopal church–and I mentioned in passing we should come here some day. The building was a quiet mystery to me; i’d passed it for years upon years as i grew up mere blocks from its door. Come Sunday morning myron send me a text. Today is the day.

The service had started. We went into the lobby, then i jiggered the door getting the attention of the usher. Every usher makes me think of my mom. The woman asked if we’d been there before and handed us a program and a visitors card. Inside, the auditorium (I’m sure there’s a better, more proper word as it applies to a church but I don’t know it) was huge and cavernous. The pews were angled somehow so that even in the back row you get a great view of the dias. As we entered the choir sang; a dozen women in deep red, beautifully harmonizing. One man in the choir, one man leading. Another on piano who later would get up and sing, helping to provide one songs’ bottom. There was a young man on the drums in jeans and a t shirt. How he would slump when he didn’t have to play, his chin hanging down to his chest, his back curved deeply. Another woman at the organ behind him.

The service perfectly matched services at the christian church I’d grown up in, with a few exceptions until the end… There were hymnals for the parishioners. Some women wore white kerchiefs over the crowns of their heads. An elder got up for the scripture reading; his voice hoarse with age and patient. I didn’t think it was possible to read something so slow without falling asleep, but he did it. How each word came out of his mouth like a hot boiled egg.

There were announcements. We as visitors were Called Out, though Myron refused everything and sat quietly. For a few minutes people walked around and hugged and greeted each other. I shyly remained in the back and took greetings from a couple of people who came to me, hugged me and smiled.

The songs were beautiful. The choir finished their final song for the morning and a woman refused to sit down. An usher gathered near her. I remembered my mother’s technique– to stand and fan the woman, if she hollered (which was frequent) she would attempt to remove her glasses and contain the urgent energy burning within her and keep her from hurting herself, keep her from thrashing. The pastor got up to speak but then after a minute sat down and the choir went back and repeated the last verse. The woman was never loud. Just stood there, wept and kept her hands up as if waiting for someone to pick her up. I thought of the other times I’ve seen women in church be taken by the spirit, or what they would call in voodoo ‘being mounted’. After a while the woman sat down and the pastor began to speak.

The pastor’s sermon struck me particularly close. He talked about, or should I say: reminded us Jesus paid with his blood our sins. We need not be held back by what oppresses us because god knows everything. He illustrated this beautifully having three parishoners get up and act out the metaphor of his point. One teen stood portraying All Of Us and another hung on his shoulders as oppression, at one point pulling him all the way down to the floor which made me smile. The pastor chose an older brother to portray God– a god who pulled the teen free from the hands of oppression and walked him back to the safety of his pew. The sermon was powerful and good and much of it spoke to my own issues and life. There was a message here for me and I received it.

In my own church, there is no communion; no partaking of the body and the blood. I have a memory so tiny its probably a dream where many years ago I came here ONCE with my mother. In my memory, rewriting facts as it probably has, she was resistant of the taking of wine and the sacraments. I don’t know why. Old school. Superstitious. Comfy on the solid ground of her own faith and beliefs.

Me, now. I saw the room begin to divide and, beginning with officers of the church, then children, people lined up to receive. And though I’m an outsider and Think i understand the symbolism and purpose, I desperately wanted to do it. I felt myself anxious to be called to the table. I watched as they lined up at the wood bar at the dias and the ushers opened the railing of the bar. I watched as people knelt and the pastor talked them through what to do.

I was moved to get in it. Myron stayed in his seat and kept his head down over the bible. Being amongst the people felt warm as a bath. The spot I took was front and center. I knelt next to a small boy and on the other side a boy who may’ve just scratched his 20’s. Many things happened within me. None of them I can talk about, all of them good and all of them about release. There were many things I was expected to do this weekend, other places I could/should’ve been, but where I needed to be– for whatever reason– was here on my knees on this day. And I was was grateful for that.

Myron and I were first to leave. I don’t remember ever feeling so light and good. We were quiet and hungry and as we walked passed a bookstore where months ago we did a book signing and release. Myron passed the open door and threw a wave into the room like a white dude might toss a dime into a homeless persons cup. I was worse, on the outside of him, soaking in the sunlight. But a woman whom I knew years ago and whose name and pseudonym has been lost from my tongue steps out of the building and calls me by name. I go in. There’s her, whom I think is named Loretta, and the woman behind the counter who was very gracious to me when we were here reading. She remained behind the counter, and I reached over and touched her hand. She said Your hand feels good. I gave her the other and we remained like that for a while. Loretta chatted for a minute, then walked out with two paintings under her arm. I asked the store owner how she was and she lowered her head and said Holding on. There was more– Myron and myself at the grocery store, lunching at the bus stop on sushi. Taking a bus that passed the house where I grew up, in fact travelled back through the neighborhood that raised me… More.

But where I’ll end is following the sunset to my girlfriends house. And she has a deck that overlooks the lake. I arrived with her in the middle of dinner and talked her into taking her pot stickers and wine out with me to watch the sunset. I talked with her about her religion, which since we’d met we hadn’t talked about much before. She mentioned a huge catholic church, brand new, on the other side of the lake and how they featured a huge, (she called it frightening) stained glass Jesus in this great glass cathedral and she pointed to the sunset and said how He is probably illuminated right now. The jesus of light. I imagined the colors spilling onto the lake like paint. The sun turned orange, grew soft and disappeared behind the downtown buildings. A wind blew. We went inside where it was warm and remained within one anothers arms for the longest time.

*****

New Monia -or- Cognac For Water

Her voice tattered as a blues musician who took cognac for water.
Weeks before tonight, before the prayers, before the flowers & dark car even,
I stood over her watching her choke on the plastic air tube the emergency room
docs funnelled into her throat. I stood above her, just us in the hallway, my hands
asleep and useless. What did she see in my eyes? Happiness! I was happy
this is helping, right? Right? But that was then. Now she’s left with the voice
of a much older man. She sits up in bed, telling everything she overheard
the graveyard nurses do during the late shift last night. Oh, what you could get
for five dollars and a supply closet!: Hermaphrodites. Horny orderlies. Broken
love affairs. These freaks love helping the sick. But they’re sick too,
momma says. Worse than the drug addicts she used to teach
at the beauty school. Briefly, her old friend Theresa showed up. Took her eyes
out and polished them with the napkin she held tight as a microphone wired
to heaven. My mother said, (talking over Theresa’s tears, speaking now
of the man who buried so many of our relatives): Tell Thompson to get ready
for another funeral. I looked outside at the sky, purple black from the storm.
Strobe Lightning. God is too busy playing paparazzi to answer any prayers tonight.
The streets boil with rain. I’d forgotten how my mom had been frightened of thunder.
God is talking, she used to say. Time to get quiet. But compared to this new monia,
to a body closing for business, to husbands feeding roses & earthworms,
to me even, left with what?– this is nothing. Nothing, do you hear? Theresa’s long
since gone. Now, its just us. And God lecturing in the background. Now, momma says:
Where was I at? Them hermaphrodite nurses… Them bad boys they got working here
at night. Let me tell you what happened. Oh God, how we laughed.

I feel like a disgruntled child doing homework. Am continuing to push through this, out of curiosity, sure. Yet I admit hating on using rhyme. I see why i avoided it for so long. Wish I could interview Dr. Seuss. Or better– Maybe MF Doom. The narrative I want keeps leaning towards finding the proper rhyming word and away from my, ahem, point. Writing to form is akin to putting together a puzzle– and that is the perfect metaphor. It indicates the puzzle is something the author is ‘playing with’ not creating. Sigh. More practice I guess. And turns out, this isn’t the most appropriate form! The poem is ‘finished’ –without having an ending. All my writing time wasted. Sigh squared. I’m giving up poetry to paint houses as a day worker.

*****

2) Barkeep of the Apocalypse

a mile outside the garden of eden sits gods final miracle: a bar.
Glowing in a basalt gully under Jupiter’s committed key light
like a partying cruise ship adrift in the dead of night.
Adam strolled in like any fired man and ordered a peignoir
not noticing the bartender was a uniformed monkey, chewing a cigar,
a loaded .38 on his hip. Hadn’t Adam seen it all anyway? Tigers licking
lice off sheep? Blackbirds’ dental flossing aligators? Mice milking
vipers for ice cream? On and on. He drank, fingering the scar
along his side as if playing the blues in his body, and spat, mad: Women!
His annoyance abrupt & loud as a sneeze. They’ll cost a man everything.
He said. Is my goal to find the ideal woman to make me weak?
The lessons learned from weakness are what makes life worth living!
So they say. Adam said ‘Doc, i just want to live without burning
Teach me how to earn my steps on this earth without being meek.

Form always frustrates me. My mind wants to remain committed to the form more than the story I want to tell. My distraction –form vs. story– dilutes the power of both. But maybe the arguement in my head is over discipline. In previous years i’ve allowed my poems to grow wild as opposed to pruning them into clearly identifiable shapes. (looking over an old poem yesterday, I realized I write empassioned monologues who’s line breaks at the breath. Those older works now read bloated and theatrical) Well, here’s something that occured to me yesterday. I hope it takes root and allows me room to play and experiment. Will consider filling out the rest of the Thirty with these, because I do see this as part of a series– its the spectre of an idea gradually forming in mist. And that’s how it works, right? You feed something and it comes to you shyly at first, then becomes comfortably committed. For me, this is an idea that’s been a long time coming. I think I see where its going from here, but we’ll see. Let’s pray its organic, comfortable, and ready to thrive.

*****

the signifying monkey assumes a new skin

1. blues blood

i am a prophet fluent in broken glass; i know rooms
pollock painted in orgasms of blood; i know shrouds
of morgue-black plastic, & a hammer’s passion; i read clouds
of reefer, the gerrymandering haiku in a junkie’s thought balloon.
i know god’s name at night in the arc’d light of a burning spoon,
the shuffled hustle of myriad days identical in cruel roulette
& the weight of your own corpse pulled like debt
to a family happy to’ve disowned you. How soon
you are pruned from the family tree, left to rewrite your myth
between any warm legs. The hennessey’d crowd calls blues encore
i automatic freestyle from the stigmata mic sparking at my throat–
the easy vessel i am for spirit & memory. i bust open a fifth
of tears and rap to the percussive grace of any moaning whore
her legs in victory to men’s testimony of curdled milk, men hard with hope.

“What is being black? Its’ making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you or you’ll die inside.” John Meyer

*****
Black Babies In Hollywood
in hollywood

black babies are made
without the presence of black men

black men are afraid of any children
that resemble them–

(they only know how to dance
the maury povitch
and make rap albums about brainless bitches
to sell to virgin racists
in the midwest)

in hollywood

black babies swing from arms
like strange designer purses

black babies are made by koreans in sweat shops
on the corner of florance & normandy
& they’re sold like bootleg oranges
along the side of the highway

In hollywood
black babies are offered to divorcees
by their lawyers as parting gifts
— paid for by their ex-husbands
who write off the purchases as donations
or charity

In hollywood
black boys are shipped to L.A. on refurbished prison buses
with ankhs tattooed on their M&M sized balls
so when they grow up they’ll always come correct

in hollywood
no one buys black girls

they cost too much

and the movie Precious
is screened at midnight
with a laugh track

In hollywood

black babies are handed out in gift bags
at award shows
wearing necklaces that represent their heritage

black babies wear diapers
embroidered from the pages
of black enterprise and ebony
because

in hollywood

everybody recycles

races are recycled to other races
wives are recycled to new celebrities
and
wealth grows so pretty from the compost of poverty

in hollywood
a starlet on The View
stands up from the couch and says:

there are no problem children
rather children from problem environments
gimme a baby from a war torn country
with skin softened by generations of oppression

and everyone cheers
holding up their black babies
like keys to a city they’ll never visit

In hollywood

black babies are more manageable
than psychotic chihuahuas
or cheating husbands
and shit– you can only show
off a good purse once.

in hollywood
you don’t need a hood pass
if you have a sable baby
in a Dr. Thug Life t-shirt

in hollywood
scientists have found
the genome for blackness
and patented and copywrited ‘African American’

so if you stand on the corner
shouting
I’m black and I’m proud
with no dope in your pocket
you could be sued

or sent to jail

because in hollywood

that’s the only place
where any black men are left
and they’re the only ones
who know how to keep it real