Poem: Guide

Don’t panic, never surrender, not once

in your life, can you see the flip side,

grading on the curve and grading the curve, itself in terms

recalling beauty and beautiful justice, seems like a torture

storm everywhere, go to the store

people watching like you used to do

on weekends at the mall, it’s like a hell mirror

for the soul, can be found chicken soup

in the smiles of children, until they’re erased by hypocrisy

incarnate in the birth givers, and stupid wrath

in mockery or downtalk, or straight abuse

like when your dad cackled coughing cigarette smoke in your face.

 

Beer-swilling idiot or whatever, we’ve all got our shit and deal

the cards when they’re asked for, but pulling a few

slight of hand slips from our sleeves, showing the Trump card

goddamnit, he sneaks in sideways

I swear to god, at a white wall

staring black, bright moon eyes block

the sun to nothing, but everything is a dip

of the sin curve, we’re all reading the signs

recording progress in revolutionary violence

of some say too much, making us pause for a recount

atrocity, sealing lips shut, close your eyes

for the love of god, we can’t watch what he’s made of us.

Poem:New Day

To hear summer morning crack

open a storm, joyfully dawning

the new day with symbols mystifying

the senses, interested, like a regard

for the shapeless beauty

of everything, and it’s great, but he still he’s the president

for a long fucking time, not that long

really, but long enough

for me, certainly, Jesus Christ

can you fucking believe it, yes I can

you asshole, because what the fuck

does making sense matter?  And what the fuck

who cares if I’m not

creative with my word choices, it’s completely believable

inevitable and pointless, it’s the imagination that matters

to you, like when you were little.

 

Not that little, in the fancy rich park

with the shapes and colors, when we finally abandoned

the conceit, saying “okay, we’re wizards,”

me and my loser friends, agreeing that beforehand,

I’m a lightning or storm wizard

who lives in the swamp talking to everything

alive, like the fatalist

in those stories you wrote, where he was born

on a rope in the storm, which was the world

for us, I want to go back

inspecting the rubble, real horrorshow.

 

Me and my buddies, standing in a crowd

jaws hanging loose at the sight of the bombs

dropping, all silent subtext is not

in between the lines, wear it as a hat

folded newspaper scraps, make a fire in a trash can

for fun, write with blood

a manifesto, a goodbye speech

for the penitent, seeing the future

written in lipstick on a naked dead body,

just the word sorry, we didn’t know

it is floating away, forever.

Poem: Polaroid Future

I can see the future, a field and a forest

where horror howling hangs from trees

by fibers, like numbers, haunting masks

red-hued and craggy, jagged scars

everywhere on the street, in the street

they breathe a rhythm with the fading heartbeat

of the city, we see the future set

to grow as the world shrinks, exploding

through the picture frame, finding out what is

true human will, seeing the universe

as a coliseum, rather than flags we plant

knives in the backs of brothers

and sisters, I am so scared.

 

The sin curve will break, no doubt

hard as could ever be, I will breathe

blood and sweat, until I’m old and dead

8 times out of ten, I won’t get to see it

when the world is heaven, unbound and borderless

house to a dying breed, knives out of our teeth

at last, so that we can finally grow

truly together, but I’ll be having fun

in the carnage, because I am an artist

of the downfall, flowing over humps and rapids

taking pictures of the trip, I’m pretty sure

hopefully, because there’s always the chance though

I don’t like to think about it, that war is coming..

Movie Review: Sing Street

Sing Street is boundlessly enjoyable and irresistibly euphoric, making it feel like the most worthwhile movie watching experience I’ve had in years.  Directed by John Carney, who achieved fame creating 2007’s surprise musical hit Once, again packs this film with very good original music (Composed by veteran music producer Gary Clark) to effectively enhance the emotional impact of the story.  The film takes the well-worn (i.e overdone) plot line of a troubled youth escaping his depressing home life through music, and while strictly adhering to every cliche of the genre, it elevates the story into something spectacular and life-affirming.

The film’s protagonist is Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), an unassuming frail waif of a teen, who inside carries the heart of a champion.  Whereas in a typical coming of age/band formation story the protagonist would admire his muse from afar, crippled by nerves, Conor walks right up to her and asks if she wants a light for the unlit cigarette hanging from her lips.  Conor’s queen Raphina (Lucy Boynton) is a fascinating character, reacting to her own depressing circumstance with an iron-faced confidence, she stands on the stoop of the girl’s home where she lives across from the all boys school that Conor attends everyday, watching.

Rafina’s a ward of the State whom we’re led to believe may have been taken away from her father because of sexual abuse (this is only ever hinted at), and she has only threadbare dreams of becoming a model in London.  However, she is the catalyst that drives every major step in the creation of this band, and the chemistry she has with Conor quickly becomes the focal point of the movie.  Around this relationship Carney found a cast of extremely charming and talented teenagers, particularly Mark McKenna and Ian Kenny, to pack the rest of the film with hilariously honest moments.

Sing Street is a movie about dreams, and the way they can seem impossible until true passion and heartfelt fervor can put them in reach before you know it.  This brings us to another key character, Conor’s older brother Robert. Robert is a 20-something college dropout who once upon a time had musical dreams of his own, but rather than any type of jealousy, he loves imparting his love of popular music onto Conor.  Robert’s deep love for his little brother is written on his face at every scene.  At one moment in the film, Robert leaps into the air with triumphant joy at Conor’s courage and risk-taking, and watching Sing Street made me want to join along.

Sing Street (2016)

Director: John Carney

Writer: John Carney

Cast: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as Conor

Lucy Boynton as Raphina

Jack Reynor as Robert

Trailer addendum: This trailer, when I first saw it, seemed hokey like a paint-by-numbers coming-of-age story, and in a way that’s what Sing Street is, but having seen the movie, even the trailer is joyously powerful.

 

Poem: Author!

It’s life is our pessimism, flowing from the roots

up, until it makes a river, blood and bile, marrow and semen

flowing its life down

every embankment, in every divot

we planted without forethought, retracting

we are from the consequences

infinitely fracturing, bigger and bigger than bigger

until I can’t breathe, realizing it’s effect was more

in time than I could bear, it was what I marked on the card

at the speed-dating lecture, is what it felt like

reminding me of college like a boner

sitting in a room of your peers, looking at the ground

until you live in the hole you bore with your eyes.

 

Definitely through the day and whatever

hell will come, eventually a shining pegasus

will scorch the air, you’ll be baked and sizzled,

to speak bluntly, but you’re wrong and have been

for some time, that shining is a heaven

sent perfume, a spiritual smog, like a fog

thick and matted, but finally cuts the knowledge

that you’re an idiot,

undoubtedly, to know that the love lies

within, and if you find it in your everyday, you are the one

to survive the cataclysm, just wear a t-shirt and cheer

for nothing.

 

But I suppose I would if I could

is a sentiment that really means something, I would

undoubtedly, but it means nothing

so what would I care?  It is a stupid word

used by the rich, leisured and elite

like the vikings, they realized that truth is better

than poetry, because truth is understood

in your bones and your blood, if you clarify

the word fog, here at the end, for no purpose

do I write like this, because what matters is

what you think, not the author

and his big dick

Poem: The Morning After

The time is now, that much is certain

to everyone, for everyone, too

much is certain, stores running short

of confidence, seeing the past and the future

superimposed, something must and is

happening now in people’s exploding

minds, afire and that’s all it takes

to start a real revolution, the revolt of the revealed

tearing everyone’s blinders off.

 

Or, spit on the ground, cleat it

with steel, make a stomping splash

sound effect, goose-stepping

our discarded hopes, forgetting the ancient

wisdom seeping up again

from the dirt, feasting on death

as flowers eat the sun, every factorial cataclysm

shows that the sky is higher

than ever, before we finally see

god, the devil and a rapturous war.

 

More than likely neither, of course

because whatever happens, the heart beats

like nothing, it lasts forever

as far as you know, in the end

it will come too soon, so justly

we wander on, taking what comes

clean and dusted as best

we can, say yes half-heartedly

again, but not for a while.

Poem: Election Day

Clear we are like like the sound

of singeing blades, through the tapestry

of life’s rich and poor, all are victims

all of us, simply, though there can be others

undoubtedly, steady philosophically, probably

reasonable, but who could tell with Ayn Rand

rousting people, because she grew

in extremes of injustice and horror, which arose because people know

their place, in the scheme of things

considered in wartime, but then they rejoice in joining

humanity’s final war, to join the elite.

 

The end of the world will not be supernatural,

it will take decades

beginning tonight, maybe.

 

Que sera sera, as they say

Poem: Dread

Paralyzed by fear

I find an itch on my sole, in my spirit

a scratching post, finding the unavoidable

injustices everywhere, swatting at gnats

rendered irksome by its endless,

summit-less kill count, a crushing toll

mounting up in my dreams, cresting the hill

of existence, I hope

but I don’t think it’s enough

necessarily.

Poem: Politics on November 3, 2016

Stare at blank

in a page, haunting reflection failures

stare back, beaming alike

with gods and machines’

waste piles, shining a headlamp sheen

wherefrom we know not, the sun and our ghosts,

in the screen of yesterday, must be

them that make it bright

with their droning, fliers of warwords

turning the cheeck of disdain, at least two

with deaf dumb cronies

alongside, not knowing that it won’t

make a difference, at all.

 

So what?  As in all pursuits

from effort is progress, there are days spent

over the furnace workshop

dank of sweat, to figure out that

some are good and some are bad

now as ever, but how can you tell

from the faces of the faithful

about what they know

and why, does it grow

like a fetus or flower

like a sickness, so that all eyes point

the same direction, the curious balance

humanity strikes is beautiful.

 

The scheme of things is speckled

with outliers wanting more, discipline and comfort

progress and spirit

love and death, they wear all disguises

though we know who they are

in the daylight, which will someday come

I hope, there is the knowledge

that god is a mean, nothing more

than energy, keeping us in a lane

to the abattoir, I feel a hope

is my spirit preserver, through boons and lulls.

 

The point is everything will happen

as it happens, then it will have happened

again and again, so the important thing

is a scoff denoting flippancy, signaling the end

of a long dark tunnel, finding graffiti

where you can and adding

to it a shining pegasus, imprinting

that feeling of triumph

in your dreams, it’s all in the becoming

who you are, the cool mellow dude

who can spin a story

of the 2016 presidential election, and the horror

or the heaven, and who can (know or) remember?

Zen Comedy: Exaggerated Reality

The Zen Comedian often ruminates about how every comedian uses the specifics of his or her own personal life as inspiration for their comedy.  He says that while not all comics reference events in their own lives specifically, all comedy naturally flows from ones own experiences.  “However,” he says, “Never simply describe anything.”  I believe that by this he means that it is a mistake to believe that the events of your life are ever on their own funny enough for a joke, and that the comedy rather comes from each comedian’s interpretation of the world.  Each comedian takes in the detritus of the world as he or she sees it, and regurgitates a skewed interpretation that is artfully hilarious.  One comedian who seems to take this advice and use it to its fullest potential is Patton Oswalt, and he shows the truth of it again and again in his exemplary album “Finest Hour.”

In one particularly hilarious section Patton describes his tendency to “jock rock” out the events of his life; that is, to invent simple sing-song narration to accompany the mundanities of everyday existence, accompanying each tune with a simple unexcited “yeah” at its end.  After a couple of increasingly silly ditties about buying stamps at the post office and eating a sleeve of saltines in his underwear, he ends the bit with a touch of self-recrimination.  “Jackin’ off to internet porn in my office while I should teach my daughter to read, yeah.”  This bit is fantastic in that it finds the humor in the tedious while at the same time including some sharp self criticism, (see “Zen Comedy: Getting Real” for additional examples of this) which imbues the bit with riotous truth.

Personally, I struggle with this principle, especially when attempting to describe things that might be funny on their face, though they can easily slip into simple indecency.  Recently, I suffered from the fact that I had a large, painful boil right next to my anus.  Fearing that it was a hemorrhoid, I did a bit of research, finding that the cause of hemorrhoids is the tendency some people (myself included) have to bear down and force out difficult bowel movements.  Upon discovering this (or so the joke claims) I was instantly dejected, as I have long found difficult and time-consuming bowel movements to be one of the few remaining aspects of my physical existence in which I can claim a consistent victory.

I believe this concept to be very funny and I have found with it some success in my standup, but in order for this bit to become exceptional, The Zen Comedian would tell me that I should try to exaggerate its reality.  Perhaps I should speak of achieving stillness in myself, focusing singularly on the bowel movement as I pass it, perhaps even placing my palms flat against one another as if in prayer.  Maybe I will grit my teeth, growling with faux effort before I describe hearing a single “plop” sound, and leaping into the air raising my fists in victory.  I feel that like Oswalt, I can potentially find in this bit and bits like it the opportunity to make my performance more expressive, hopefully making this into a truly great bit.  Whether or not I continue to perform this joke, the lessons I’ve learned about drawing hilarity from within and bringing it out into the world will be of great help in the future.