I Had It Bad

I'm reading tonight at a reading series called I Had It Bad and it's about unrequited love. Most times I just read whatever I want but since this reading is about a specific subject, I kind of freaked out and wrote some new stuff. I haven't decided what I think about it or if I'll use it but here's one of them. And I don't really have an ending for it yet. I'm still working on that.

Great Skate

This is trust
to skate backwards, hands to my shoulders,
a gesture of yes, you are my control,
a mantling, a letting go the periscope,
even though your sixth grade body is taller than my fifth grade,
and I can’t see over you, disco ball blinded,
navigating the under sea swimming of rollerskaters.
This is my first alone in a crowd moment,
for all I know,
you may give the helm to a new boy every Friday.
The intoxication comes from knowing your hands are positioned
to easy slip around my head and lock a kiss
in motion, make a pact of ultimate trust
to close eyes and believe in our course.
But your hands stop brushing my neck somewhere near
the end of Wicked Games or Red, Red Wine.
So my fingers just sweat to hold your hips, the bone jar of your sex
I don’t even ponder now and not for years yet.
But you get it, you swing it back and forth,
feel woman pushing from you like a beak,
your shell stretching in your voice, in the front of your shirt,
which is eye level for me, a mystery
of endless recess discussion.
Maybe is the intimate synchronicity of movement
maybe the aphrodisiac of boiled dogs and nacho cheese,
or the whirring centrifugal tensions of speed
of rounding the same old rink of our parents,
but when my Mom picks me up,
I collapse into the vinyl seat, let the balm of summer vacation
speed through my mouth and my outstretched fingers,
and tell her, “I think I’m in love.”
And then close my eyes. Feel the sunburn of her hands.

Goodnight, Jeff Hanson, You Are Remembered

Jeff Hanson, a singer/songwriter signed to Kill Rock Stars, died at the age of 31 on July 5th from what looks like a fall in his new concrete floored apartment. He had a unique voice, sang in a voice described as "somewhere between Allison Kraus and Art Garfunkel". It was a falsetto, so effeminate that many people couldn't believe it was a man singing. It was almost a contralto in fact.

For me, it felt like losing Jeff Buckley or Elliott Smith all over again. He's always sounded like a chipper Elliott Smith to me actually. They played on the same record label as well. Jeff Hanson was a talented tune slinger playing his heart out wherever they'd let him. The many reviews of his death are a testament to that. You are missed, Jeff. Your songs are immortal.

Here's a few links if you've never listened.

Jeff Hanson - This Time It Will

Jeff Hanson - Hiding Behind the Moon

Awakenings

Here's a few more in the short poem series I've been writing. I usually write each of these in a bout 2 to 3 minutes while standing. And then edit a word or two when I get home. I have two more to post, "Vacation" and "Excuse". I had written two other series but I hated them and I punched the part of my brain that created them.

Awakening #1: Stranger

If you wake next to a beautiful stranger,
stay your hurry.
Especially if they wake and see you
as another beautiful stranger.
You’ll need this for a later tomorrow
when you wake to sallow sunlight,
no impression, no legs in your legs,
and you must retreat back to dreams
to cotton enough beauty for the day.


Awakening#2: Sunrise

If you wake and the sun won’t,
the moon will take your complaints.
Because she always has and will.
This is her plight, the business of third shift.
Her light is on, speak or sigh.
These are the same to her.

Awakening#3: Age

If you wake older by more than a day,
if somehow you’ve kept age on a leash,
it will pile up on you.
One morning, or after a surgery,
or in a mirror, or a wake,
or while lifting an everyday thing,
it’ll rush in on you like a sudden storm,
like bills, like new glasses showing
how much has been hiding.

Awakening#4: Parts

If you wake, or at least, parts of you
wake, maybe a foot but no leg,
every other finger, the lips but not heart,
the ears never start, or your hands
feel cold and strangered against you,
or just the side of the mind that dreams,
and you wander the day without reason,
or maybe just the body wakes enough
to mime it’s way through a full day’s existence.

Awakening#5: Roethke

If you wake to sleep
and take that waking slow,
you are in the wrong poem.
Get out.


Awakening#6: Sleeping In

If you forget to wake,
who will find you?
Hopefully, you live with a family,
or collective of roomies,
but if you’ve become alone
by circumstance or a social withering,
you’ll be lucky to have a nosy neighbor,
or hungry canine.
But if you never wake up
I hope you are stuck in a dream
so pleasant you’ll never mind
unendingness.

Kill Your Radio: An Update

A summer cover by the Local Natives. Xylophone solo? Always tremendous.

So I know I'm preaching to the choir but really, truly, people need to turn that radio off. There is NOT-A-THING good on it anymore. Have you listened to a radio station lately? Blech. The gap between corporate music and indie is so wide now there is nothing that even resembles goodness. If I hear that Kelly Clarkson song one more time, I will throw a rock.

The other thing that I love about indie music is the continued dedication to the music video. The music video is now the realm of the independent artist since MTV gave it up for more Real World and Sweet Sixteen stuff. Here's some music videos for your enjoyment that I like. The first one is just a cover but the other two are pretty great. And there's a little Michael Jackson tribute in one of them.



UPDATES

I haven't posted in a while. A few things in my life are on the cusp and that is frustrating. It begins to feel like nothing is happening because everything is just on the verge of happening. Sometimes I need to learn to just keep going when I'm waiting on the Big Stuff.

Valerie and I aren't really doing any improv proper right now but we have started a new recorded series of improvved debates called the JV Debate Club. J for James, V for Val. They'll be posted on the American Nobody show website as soon as we start putting up new episodes with Jon. But I'll post some longer versions here.

Other updates:

I still have three poems coming out in Sow's Ear Poetry Review, and The South Carolina Review.

I'm reading at the I Had It Bad reading series next week. I'm reading some poems and essays about unrequited love.

I have a new old desk chair from the abandoned Catholic High School they just gutted across the street. Valerie got it for me. It rules.

I'm back to writing plays and I'm working on some sketch.

I just saw the movie Moon and I highly recommend it. I don't even want to hint at what's going on in the movie.

Your mother and I went on a date.

Handicap 4, 5, 6, and 7

A few more poems from the Handicap series I've been writing at work. I'll fix that video link, too.

Handicap #4: Heart

If my heart fell out like an overripe pear,
or disintegrated or slipped out the backdoor in my ribs
to see new scenery, stop flexing the same old cage
then I could finally have room for my lungs
to swell with breath large enough
to dive to the bottom of Rue Lake
where sank that book I was reading
the one without a cover and no recallable name
about a blind boy coming to love an exiled princess
under a big green star in the sky.


Handicap #5: Sense

If I lose my sense of wonder,
I could replace it with my sense of shame.
Though I would always feel guilty
if I caught a sideways glance at a sunset
or be blushing to think of a rainstorm
with a kiss between thunder.
And if I left my sense of shame
on a bus seat while I read Picnic, Lightning,
my sense of duty might fall in
making me want to protect all rainbows
and bury every broken bird.


Handicap#6: Soul

If I lost my soul,
for the most part I’d be bummed
except if I was in some Ghost scenario.
Because two souls in one body trying to dance
would suck especially if one was Whoopi.

Handicap #7: You

If I lose you,
I won’t replace you.
I’ll adjust.
Like a three legged dog,
a loosed planet,
a bird gone nest,
a broken buddy comedy,
the morning bed,
a blank clock,
a mailbox off the route.

Birthday Video!

So I forgot that my friend Nick taped the birthday candle blow-out and he posted it up on Facebook.

Here's a link: Me Conquering Fire

To all of those who weren't there, you were missed. Not just because you weren't able to participate in the cheese boombox but because you're my friends and I like to keep you close. Like cards. Or because I'm afraid you'll go all Brutus on me.

Huzzah to living!

Handicap #2 and #3

I have like a backlog of poetry now. I'm putting them up because I want to move on to new things. And sometimes a blog is just a forum for me to say, "I finished this." It's like a deadline. Which is what I always need.


Handicap # 2: Ears

If my ears were lopped, or mailed to lovers,
caps would fit better and I’d never worry at the buzz
of clippers though I’d never hear the sneak of mosquitos
My balance would suffer and I’d have to be extra lookful
for cars, thrown items, the ambulance and police
but I would never hear my life closing;
know Death to be silent, as foolish as a mime,
trying to get my last laugh.


Handicap #3: Leg

If I lost my leg,
I could see a peg as replacement.
But as I’m not salty enough,
not menacing or hairy enough,
I’d probably make a go with a mannequin limb.
Except I’d always feel guilty
picturing the dummy in the window
one leg flapping in the AC,
balancing forever in the latest style.

Contingency #7 and Handicap #1

Just some stuff. Val and I are working on a couple projects together right now and I'm excited about them. These poems are kind of a departure from what I'm usually writing but some of them might make the cut. I'm still collecting poems for my first book and I haven't really figured out all what the parameters of this book will be. Especially as I write new stuff and hate old stuff. That's why I have to collect it soon before I hate everything.

Contingency #7: Vanishment

If things begin to disappear,
if you’re sitting and the pepper goes while you’re salting,
then you’re up getting the phone
and you notice the cord is missing
and so is the typewriter and the pushmower
is not rusting in its place against the fence
and beyond the fence a neighbor smiles from a new face.
So you’ve lost the comfort of your favorite chair,
the world is splashed in unfamiliar shadows,
the places you used to go are switched
with places others will someday used to.
And a voice is gone,
even the pain of that is being sifted out
as your vision everyday needs stronger correction
to keep the world from jumping ahead,
spinning into something you can’t even dream.


Handicap #1: Finger

If I lost my finger,
I could finally replace it with something better.
Like a mini flashlight,
or a backscratcher or an unloseable pen
or a gum or candy dispenser,
or healthier, like a daily replaceable carrot.
If I lost two fingers,
I’d have room to attach my cellphone.
If I lost three fingers,
I would always hang loose.
If I lost four fingers,
I would never talk,
only approve or disapprove
like a Roman Emperor.
If I lost five fingers,
I would only be sad during shadow puppets,
when I could shape only a tree,
to give shade to the dogs and birds and gators.