Month: April 2003

Edwin Starr (sp?) died yesterday at age 61, of a heart attack, according to Amy Goodman. He was most famous for the song “War”, which Yahoo quoted yesterday in explaining the sudden rally of the stock markets…

RIP Edwin Starr.

A poem from the late 80s by me, read it on my website with groovy graphics if you want.

three for the seesaw

 

 

Crumpling the faces

who live in the folds

they

dare gaze

 

Wood grain

determines a

structure don’t

depend on the

fixative in my

tears. Said the

pitiable but

sympathetic

eponymous hero.

 

(I want the eye

of the public to

see)

 

Two simultaneous

time lines, each

in a different

country, it’s

pointed up like

the rain, but

we’re all lazy

now: dishes

boxes husbands

grey cool sky

messages tricky

raining out

saying “we shall

be released”

 

CIA soviets

siren on down to

the juke box,

pick out some

jingles and

seppuku. Put

them in prism

where they’ll

have time to

refract.

 

By *concrete*

he meant the LCD

display that

kept yelling

Silliman Watten

Hejinian. A curd

sat beside her and

she spotted with

mold.

 

(I want the eyes

of the public disease)

 

Anthony comes

home, drinks a

beer. Claire

calls to say

“I’ve been

putting names in

my writing” Ben

says we’re

desperate, we

put our friends’

names in, we

recognize

something.

 

(I want the eyes of

the puppet to see)

 

Better than the

deliberate rectangles

Herbert Hoover

pretended, or

the reverse type

manifestoes, a hill

of blueberries

threatening to

collapse on those

who dare climb

it, meaning

the sexual threat

of just leaving

the house.

 

(I want the eyes of

the poppet disease)

 

Your name may be

death’s head,

well, mine’s

made up.

 

(I want the eyes

of the puppy to

seal)

 

 

a: confusion is artifice. wipe off that paint.

b: I did and saw bland shapes (I ached to be beheld)

 

An out-of-context [!] quote from an interview with Ron Silliman on Sandra Simonds’ blog:

I never have had an “abstain”-oriented approach to policies, whether political or market oriented. I’ll leave that to those who think wearing a black turtleneck is a political position.

It may not be a political position, but it sure can be a magnet for bohemian chicks. I go WILD for a man in a black turtleneck. If he has a goatee and…and… and a pendant, so much the better. When Gary dons such paraphernalia, believe me, abstaining is the last thing on my mind, especially in regards to… how shall I say, “domestic policy.”

OK, I’m ‘fessing up. I have a warlock fetish.

I’m sure everyone and their sister will post this bit from the latest New Yorker’s article on the Kurdish reponse to the US invasion, but here it is anyway:

It is virtually impossible to find anyone in Kurdistan who is opposed to the war against Saddam’s regime. People on street corners ask for american flags or photographs of George Bush; the appreciation of the United States extends to the intellectual class. sherko Bekas, who was described to me as Kurdistan’s unofficial poet laureate, was particularly upset by the well-publicized efforts of American poets to stop the war. “Saddam is the god of war,” Bekas said, when I saw him at his office at a publishing firn in Sulaimaniya. “He is the killer of poetry.” He went on, “I say to thse poets that if they lived for two weeks under Saddam’s rule they would write verse in reverse. They would write poems asking Bush to attack Saddam sooner.”

As they used to say in Japan, “So many men, so many minds.”

Jordan, when was I proscriptive about the blog form? I’ve said what I like, but I’ve never been proscriptive. And by the way I don’t think it’s fair that your book has been reviewed in Rain Taxi (although, congratulations!) and NOT ONE of mine has despite gentle prods at the Rain Taxi editorial staff from my manager Gary Sullivan. That’s OK, literary establishment, erase me, see if I care. Then I can be unearthed by graduate students 100 years hence — as a “feminist discovery” — and they can lament all the anthologies I was never included in. Not that any of this matters in the least. (sniffing)

Or maybe it’s just that I’ve never had a sense of myself as a “public” writer.

Exhibitionist, but not public.

Maybe that’s why I’m so unpopular.

I think I’ve lost any sense of this – this lilypad, I mean — being public.

Why I am So Obnoxious or A Real Generational Agon

Here is an excerpt from my mother’s Hypnotherapy Newsletter, which she sends out as a mass e-mail. If you are curious, have a look at her website, replete with lotuses and Kwan Yins:

There is a powerful planetary transformation taking place, which is ultimately opening us to greater and more expanded dimensions of understanding. No matter what your persuasion, you can attune to the vibration of compassion, as exemplifed by such great ones as Quan Yin, Mary, Mother Teresa, and other awakened beings.

When we look at events in our world from a spiritual perspective, we can see that great lessons are being learned, karma is being played out, and transformation is taking place on the deepest levels. We feel our deepest emotional responses and take any actions we feel called to take, and we can also move into compassion for all beings who are suffering. We are being shifted and moved; a metamorphosis is taking place. Everything is an opportunity.

As one downhome philosopher once said, “Things have a way of working themselves out.”

As always, we pray for the peace and open- heartedness of all beings on earth.

You see, people, what I have to contend with? The use of the passive voice in the excerpt above is enough to make me retch.

Don’t misunderstand me. I love her, and she’s a very nice woman who helps a lot of people in need… but I can’t deal with this sort of lingo-ideology.