Sunday, September 30, 2007

None were quite like the #5 JCSH collaboration.

The code cracks among flavors: mixed
via market values, for instance:

do you know what the street value
of this poetry is?

or Jamaican for a plain

I'll cross to Gorrett's
for a late and tigery
piss: al fresco fit for a collar

but I'll be shaking them all tonight.

Your wide sound, yellow
June Bug resturante,
gold bug I talked to all night:

little bug, this advancement
in the limited society is
anttastic. You'll sidewalk

across my etymologi-call.
subversi-call,
conju-call

big predatory cat:


Number 3 from the JP.

with my face pushed in

w / o mine

eyes,see

theGlory o most

in the sofabed

1) I 2) mostly 3) Soaf

uh,

is un cassoulet por

those luxoriously lounging
in our naked living room

oui

luv tois

#2 live collaboration (JCSH live from JP) with cetera.

Her voice is the sound
of piss hitting the ground

and I am cont-uh-rary.
Mind the foreground,
things
loom

across
the room, across the
room
across the

acres of room
Plain as Jamaica
or other geography.

Live Cotter/Hall collaboration from a wooden bunker somewhere above Jamaica Plain.

Wished I'd smashed his face
when I had the chance,

but Australia's epic
had to parachute out of
the end of the end of
this party in Jamaica Plain.

Taquitos cussed,
cull of all,
the thrall of all
those Thriftstore Cowboys
makes for after hours--

and the Glass Slipper girls
especially bake
into the lonely
hangups of laundry. It's morning

and we have "things" here --
garments, laundrettes
and did I say
laundrettes?

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007

September is National Poetry Month!

This poem is not by me at all, but by Ashton Anders with a little help from Jamison Driskill.

The Meliae Nymphs
Sullen bows of earnest
In this ash tree town
Waver not in gail force winds;
Their leaves remain intact,
The shadows cast on open fields
Demanding their return of the land.
No one's fate is certain.
Everyone is subject to castration.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

#9 Brooklyn Country Music Festival: Sestina for Merle Haggard

Merle in the Hole

A single, solitary Merle
spent some hours
in the legendary
San Quentin hole.
I like to think
he emerged haggard.

Haggard beard, haggard
as a tired smoky bear, Merle
had to think
for a few hours
or days in the hole.
More than a living legend,

there are no legends
surrounding Haggard.
He was really in that hole.
Oh thoughtful Merle,
alone for hours
what do you think?

There must've been some thinking
about God, and girls, and legendary
gin, and for hours
about his haggard
mother; it was a different Merle
came out of that hole.

That is the way with holes,
I was thinking
this morning. Merle
is a good man, a legendary
man; haggard
time is hours

in solitary. Hours
make days, and holes
make a Haggard.
I keep thinking
about his legendary
mom. Merle

Haggard, thinking
for hours in the hole,
you are a legendary Merle.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Brooklyn Country Music Festival numbers 3 through 8: Haiku for the Willie Nelson Family

Bee Spears

Helotes, Texas
hailed a bassier Bee,
far less bumbling

(Bee has a grandson named Catfish.)


Mickey Raphael

Second position:
your mouth-horn makes me quiver,
blades of new Spring grass

(Mickey flunked wood shop.)


Paul English

Busted : the Border
was as red as Autumn’s fire,
but so much hotter

(Paul has played with Willie for even longer than Bobbie’s been growing out her hair.)


Bobbie Nelson

Are you older than
you look? Or am I younger?
Let’s meet at Summer.

(Bobbie has been growing her hair out for the last forty years.)


Jody Payne

Joy indeed, Jody
is, at his age, a brand new
season: I’m inspired.

(Jody shares a birthday with Ray Price.)


Willie Nelson

Your voice is a smooth
and pretty rock, and your face
is December stone

Saturday, September 08, 2007

#2 Brooklyn Country Music Festival

#1 Whisky Rebellion Ghazel

From a pickup in a pimpin’ tux, it’s not snake oil he’s sellin,’
but it comes from a jug and a washboard and guitars: the Whisky Rebellion!

Is it me or is Sammo sideways? It’s probably me;
this is the way I get when I get with the Whisky Rebellion!

Ol’ Andrew, ol’ Charlie, ol’ Shaky, ol’ Danny,
enough of an army to start a rebellion.

A rumbling in Brooklyn will start with some strumming,
then de-socking and boot knocking and Alex Battles’ Whisky Rebellion!!!

#1 Pantoum for the Brooklyn Country Music Festival

The Bakersfield Sound

Here’s to the shitkick
from old Bakersfield:
the punctuation changed
out West; the sound

from old Bakersfield
felt funny to Nashville;
back East the sound
wasn’t kicking just yet.

Funny old Nashville,
our Bakersfield sound
will shitkick you yet;
ol’ Buck Owens beats

give Bakersfield’s sound
its back, all wide and pink
as a Buck Owens tuxedo
and glittery as a Telecaster.

In back of a wide pink
Dwight Yoakam Cadillac
glittering like a Telecaster
the music got faster,

but Dwight’s pink Cadillacs
came here to shitkick;
the music got faster
but the punctuation’s the same.