The First Poem I've Written Since NYC: Lane's End

Lane's End
***
the lights don't penetrate, here
where grapevines yellowing in the cooling September
cast their kraken-shadows
over a fire-scar.
a femur protrudes from the carpet
of tree-shed tapestry, other
bones no doubt lying deeper.
Micheloeb, Bud Ice, Southpaw, Miller Lite
glitter like cheap armor in the gravel;
Philly Blunts have spilled their guts,
a torrid adolescence read in these remains.
it's haunted, whatever
they said or did still hangs in the air,
the way the smells of cigarettes and sex
are caught in the curtains
of cheap hotels.
spearmint, motherwort, vetch,
yarrow, goldenrod, and rot
of blackberry-vince tangles
work their own magic. something
is caught, snarled
in these brambles
and empty bottles.
it was like this seven years ago;
now, only the names and faces
have changed, hanging
like ghost-mask lanterns.
here at the heron's bend of the creek,
the sleepers wake
to walk in the green dark
and search for what's left here
by those who've gone before
and left their mark
on the soul of this place.

***************************
This is the first poem i've written since i returned from NYC . . . it's about a place down at the end of a gravel side-road here in Bonsack. Not sure what i was getting at here.

How I Became "Grendel"

Grendel, in Beowulf, was a monster of some kind. There are different concepts of what he was . . . some say a dragon-like creature, others say he was more like an ogre or giant, and still others say he was a descendant of the Biblical Cain.
The way i picked up the nickname is kind of humorous. Back in late 1999 and early 2000, there were a group of us--Slam poets--in my hometown of Roanoke, who started going to schools doing exhibitions of Slam poetry. Word got around to several middle and high schools that we were turning kids on to the concept of poetry, giving them a different view than what they'd had from textbooks. Teachers loved getting the kids hooked on something that would have been regarded as "dull"or "boring." We presented in perhaps a dozen middle and high schools, as well as a couple of local colleges. The first school we went to, we were performing for a single classroom (later on, we packed auditoriums!). The current unit that they were studying in English class was "Beowulf." The teacher asked if we could somehow tie that concept into our presentation. That "hook" was given to me, and of course i told the kids that Slam was actually a modern-day descendant of the old oral tradition . . . that the concept of "competition poetry" went back to ancient Greece, and to the Anglo-Saxon bardic tales . . . and then i performed this poem i wrote, called "Sympathy for Grendel," which was a re-telling (albeit much shorter) of the Beowulf story from Grendel's point of view, that Grendel was just a victim of "bad press." Pretty soon, the Slammers occasionally referred to me as "Grendel." When i moved to NJ, i dusted off the moniker, and decided that since Grendel was a predator who trashed the "status quo" of his time, that the new Grendel personna was perfect for my rants and tirades. It also fits with the kind of stage presence i adopt when i'm performing those rants . . . stalking around, glaring at the audience, kind of a "predatory" stance. When i went to the Open Mic in Newark for the first time, i signed in simply as "Grendel." That's how i was known there from that point on. Later, hanging out in NYC, i introduced myself to the Union Square "Park Rats" as Grendel, and that's what most of them still would call me. Ask 'em about Todd, and only a couple would know who you were talking about. Ask 'em about "Grendel," and they'll probably tell you some stories. Some of 'em might even be true. You never know . . . .

Deconstructing Inevitable Discovery

Deconstructing Inevitable Discovery
***
you hear that phrase a lot if you watch
Law & Order. usually, it's the cops
or Jack McCoy with his bushy eyebrow-scowl,
saying, in essence, "Well,we would've found it anyway."
yes, indeedy.
after all the things they don't depict on TV shows go down.
after they bust down the door to your apartment
because of a "sound, suspiciously like
a woman being strangled" (you were
gargling in the bathroom), they charge in
and go tearing around looking for a victim and a criminal,
and in that frenzied search, a cop opens a closet
and your jacket falls out, dislodging
half a blunt that you stashed there
a week ago and forgot about,
and they call it "evidence of criminal activity,"
and since buying drugs supports terrorism(it said so on TV),
it's "aiding and abetting," too,
and then when they come to drag you
out of the bathroom, and you try to grab a bathrobe
because you're stark naked, they call it "resisting arrest"
and throw you down a flight of stairs, and
your face hits the pavement and your teeth get knocked out
and fall into the gutter, and they charge you with "littering."
and that's BEFORE the ATF gets involved,
assuming your apartment building is a drug operation,
possbly a terrorist organization,
or a suspicious gathering of people from other nations,
so they firebomb the whole neighborhood and get a commendation
from the President.
first it's Philly, then it's Waco,
guess who's coming to dinner?
paramilitary exercises in the ghetto!
Newark, you may already be a winner!
it's clearly evident that
the inevitable discovery in this case
is that things like this
have already happened . . . and,
inevitably, somebody will discover an excuse
to make it happen again. Pity there's no
real McCoy to prosecute the real criminals
in THIS drama.

TV Died

Scanning through the available shows on the TV Guide channel is infuriating. Not just because, regardless of the number of channels, there's nothing that i really want to watch; what's worse is Hollywood 411, which is probably the most mind-numbing jackhammer of media drivel in existence. Just recently, it's been worse, because--even after the guy's been BURIED--they're still talking about Michael Jackson, or how the rest of the Jackson family is handling the situation . . . SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY! Of course, there's something suspicious about his death . . . the guy was completely messed up and, in latter years, had started to look decidedly creepy. And, anytime somebody "important" dies, well of COURSE there's got to be something suspicious going on, and if there isn't, by golly, Hollywood will MAKE it look suspicious, just to milk every last dollar out of a decaying corpse.

Having not seen anything i wanted to watch, i shut off the TV and decided to vent in my blog. I suppose i could create a good "rant" poem out of it, but i actually began to think about articulating my rage in prose. Reason being, the whole concept of Celebrities. Now, most of America somehow seems to believe that Celebrities (capital C added for ironic purposes) are different from "normal" people (i.e., people who don't have anyone chasing them down the streets with cameras or shoving those phallic-looking microphones in their face), and therefore should somehow rate more highly than the rest of us. People watch them play their dramas out in public scrutiny, and then try to ape their fashions, parrot their one-liners, or engage in other utterfly futile attempts to make believe that they're one of them. In other words, it's not only phony, it's faking somebody else's phoniness. I mean, honestly, do you REALLY give a shit what product thus-and-so is pimping on TV, just because somebody paid them an amount of money that makes what most of us make look like chump change (and, for most of us, that's exactly what we do make)? Do you actually think that those people are any DIFFERENT than you? Why are their flaws, foibles, quirks, mistakes, and failures any less a quagmire than the ones you're snared in, or somehow more INTERESTING than yours? Think about it this way: how would YOUR life look if it were scrutinized daily, if all the skeletons in your closet were dragged out, the bones gnawed by hyenas with camcorder-lenses for eyes, if you were nagged and hounded and picked apart constantly by pundits and media whores who get paid to do just that?

Personally, i'm tired of people who get paid so much just to parade around in somebody else's fashion lines, to advertise this brand of lipstick or motor oil or non-stick cooking spray (all probably made from the same petrochemicals), to trot across stage and display their talent so they can be elevated to some demigod-like status . . . oh, phaugh, run-on sentence. Whatever. No, i don't think it's wrong for talented people to get paid for their talents. I'm sure that performing a string of concerts or filming the same scene 50 times a day just because the director's got a bug up his ass that particular day--or any of the other things that Celebrities do that put them in that particular category--is tiresome, exhausting, and just as much a "job" as any other. But there's a limit to the amount of information or speculation about one particular person that should demand our attention. I'm reminded in particular of the shooting incident i heard--actually HEARD HAPPENING--at the end of the street i lived on while in the Bronx. A kid, couldn't have been more than 15 judging by the photos of him at the little "shrine" set up at the bodega up the street, was killed. I searched the papers the next day, and not one mention of this incident. It was as if the life of this child meant nothing. NOTHING. But on the front page of the papers was some Hollywood scandal (something so inane i can't even remember what it was now), about someone who--if they were shot--would have rated the same kind of Media Zombification that Michael Jackson is currently undergoing.

To regard Celebrities--regardless of their status or level of talent--as anything more or greater than the rest of us, is to devalue human life itself. After all, it doesn't take much to become a "media sensation;" if all else fails, grab an automatic weapon or a power tool and go on a rampage, or call a politician a liar to his face when he's making a speech, or what have you. Anybody who can do anything with a higher degree of skill than most is probably going to have the same experience as so many have: be all the rage for a certain length of time, then be vilified and hated and ultimately fed upon. And then after they die, everybody will be crying about how much this person is missed, and have gaudy tombs or shrines built in their name. And there will always be Media Hyenas around to suck as much marrow out of their bones as possible, people whose only "claim to fame" is how much profit they can generate off a corpse. Kennedy, Elvis, Reagan, MJ . . . people who were put on a pedestal and promptly fell off, only to be stuck up there again after they died. LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR OWN DEAD.

And shut up already!

To Wait Upon the Lord

Had another good evening with Lewis tonight. It began as most of them do, with a coffeehouse stop and several bouts of MTG; later on, though, our talk--as it often does--turned to the Christian walk and our individual experiences and opinions of late. Lewis spoke of a talk he'd had with the Lord regarding me, and said that my current feelings of being "held back" weren't off the beam . . . what he'd heard from God was that my plan of spending 9 months here in the valley before "moving on" was a good one.

Thinking this over, i think i understood a little more about a phrase that appears in the Bible at several points: "wait upon the Lord." Because God doesn't do things according to a human schedule, we often become impatient and frustrated. It's as if, as i said in one of my many poems, we feel like we have a hotline to God so we can complain about the "slow service." I've done quite a bit of that lately . . . and now i see where i've gone wrong. "Waiting upon the Lord" can be interpreted literally! God is patient, and never does anything in a rush! As addicted as we are to "convenience," we often fail to grasp this. But waiting on the Lord doesn't just mean muddling along, expecting God to intervene at some future point. There are several things that need to be done . . . particularly in my personal case. First, it means to be in a mode of prayer and watchfulness. It's too easy for me now to lapse into a sense of complacency, to view this point of my life as a sort of lull. That's the wrong way to look at it. True, the opportunity for a rest, a "fall-back," was part of what He meant for me. But now, i need to be more vigilant, and to actively pray and pursue a course of life that will honor Him. I've been encountering a lot of negativity with old habits and old modes of thought reappearing. I'm committing, here and now, to banishing those old demons again . . . rebuking them, binding them in the Spirit. And i know i'll have to struggle with it, and if i don't depend on the Spirit, i will fail. It's nothing but the Spirit that's kept me from drinking again . . . it's easy to fall back into sin, easy to give up. But i can't give up now.

Another meaning of "to wait upon" implies service. If you're "waiting on someone," it can also mean that you are acting as a faithful steward, keeping things ready, and watching hopefully for your Master's return. Most of us can easily fall prey to complacency, or laxity, especially when things are going well . . . and then we wonder what's wrong when things fall apart! They fall apart for a number of reasons: first and foremost, because as Yeats said, "things fall apart, the center does not hold." No plan or organization of human design is ever permanent or dependable. Second, things fall apart BECAUSE we become complacent, let things run pretty much as they have since the dawn of time . . . and the Enemy uses those times to lull us into a false sense of security. Third, God often allows the difficulties that come when things DO fall apart to sharpen us, to test us with fire . . . not as punishment or wrath, but as a Father would patiently train a child. I need to remain alert, to perform my daily duties but not see them as humdrum or tedious, but as part of God's plan for me at this time. I'm going to have to accomplish a lot during the upcoming months . . . and i need to be really blessed to do this. I'm going to need the full strength and support of God's Holy Spirit in every task i undertake, and to remain patient when things don't go the way i think they should (and, with my anger issues and the thought-processes that a lot of people--my family notable among them--would regard as paranoid, things seldom seem to be going the way i think they should). It really doesn't matter in the long run what the government, the establishment, the system, the bureaucracy, or whatever other phrase i use to sum up "the way of the world," does . . . because, ultimately, God will prevail, in HIS time, according to HIS schedule, and not the short-sighted expectations of man. In every sense of the word, i need to wait upon the Lord.

http://www.postpoems.com/cgi-bin/displaypoem.cgi?pid=134769

Vocation Destinations

I had a long talk with an old friend of mine, Leslie, the other night via Facebook. To boil it all down and summarize, the topic itself was something about what i wanted to "do" now, i.e., a job. Now, in the past 10 or so years of my life, my job was only something to do to support me while i continued to work out what i saw as my vocation, calling, craft . . . poetry. As Taalam Acey pointed out, "Poems don't buy big homes, and poems don't light up wrists . . . " Or, as my old mentor Dan Leidig once said, "Poetry bakes no bread." Of all the creative arts, poets are on the rock bottom of the hit list . . . maybe because a lot of poets understand that part of their duty is to say things that a lot of people would rather not hear (and, in particular, people who have money would rather not hear). Blah, blah, blah . . . I'll leave that for another rant. Anyway, Leslie asked me about what inspired my poems, what made me write. I responded back, "Everything. My life." She said, "Too general. I'm looking for specifics." That kind of rocked me back on my heels, and i had to actually think about it.

Most of my poems deal with one or more of the following topics: my Faith (and reflections on the Christian walk), Nature, what would loosely be called "Political" poetry (i'd call it more philosophical than anything, because unlike most politicians i don't pretend to come up with any easy answers or recoil with a predictable knee-jerk when i have to wrangle with something that doesn't fit neatly into a political pigeonhole), Poetic Portraits (depictions of people i've come across), and Self-Examination. Then there are those weird little outbursts like "I'll Get You, Squid McGhee!" or "Sandy Duncan is Trying to Kill Me!" I don't know exactly WHAT is going on there, unless they're like a sub-category of what i used to call "Myth Sticks," which were really more conceptual Rorschach blots . . . other people would tell me what they got from the poem, and i'd nod and look wise, but they were actually revealing more about themselves than anything (that was the point). Now, let me tell you, i haven't written ANYTHING poetic since i came back from NYC. NOT ONE THING. This scares me, because in dry times like these i feel like i've "lost the muse," or whatever. And, i'll tell you something ELSE . . . i am also afraid that i'm not where i need to be with God. I know God's been giving me a lot of lee-way since i came back, but now He's pulling in the reins, and i need to be paying attention. My creative energy is always a difficult thing to deal with, because it has a tendency to go running off on its own if i'm not careful . . . and, as always, i find that the process of getting it under control often means that there's gonna be collateral damage. Mostly because whenever my creative impulses run on their own, they always come dragging stuff back like burdocks in their hide.

I'm not sure what this all means as regards Leslie's question . . . but i simply can't think of any other way to frame a response other than to kind of sit here and type it out. I can't climb a corporate ladder . . . that's not IN me, and i honestly don't think that's what God built me for . . . and a lot of what i'm hearing from my family lately seems to deal with "success" in the World's terms, which makes me sick to my stomach. ESPECIALLY as regards my grandmother, who--God bless her--will at one point insist that i could "dress like i was successful" (which, to her, means "like i have money"), and in the next breath say that she believes we're living in the Last Times (and, on that point, i can see some indications of that pretty plainly) . . . but it's the conflict between those two points that's giving me so much grief! YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. And who or what is Mammon? An appropriate modern translation would be Money, the Bank, Profit . . . and, it's true, people tend to go in one direction or the other. Whatever else i can see myself doing, it won't involve building a fortune for myself. My legacy will end up being a bunch of poems which will probably go unread until AFTER i die (and poets are usually only recognized for their vision AFTER they're dead, anyway), and in the actions and deeds that i've done. If anything, i want to pursue a goal that has to do with the ministry, in whatever function God has designed me to perform. I don't know exactly WHAT that is . . . but i understand He knows, and will reveal that to me when i'm ready to receive it. That means focusing a lot more on the skills and gifts He gave me, and being prayerful and watchful. Lewis has been a great help in this time . . . he's one of the few people i know who shares the Christian faith, a lot of similar tastes in music, a powerful creative gift, and a general distrust of the political system as a whole. He and i both agree that we'll end up partnering on something here in the valley while i'm here . . . and now i'm in doubt as to whether or not i'm supposed to go back to NYC long-term.

What do i want to do? I want to stop this state of free-fall and land somewhere for a while. I want to stop wasting my time and my talent. I want--at some point--to get back onstage and rock the Slam mic like i used to, and know i still COULD if i had the ambition and the focus. And most of all, i want to find out what it is God has prepared for me, and grab hold with both hands, and NEVER LET GO.

If i have to have some low-end job just to feed myself and manage my life while i'm doing this, well, so be it. Even Paul, when he was working on seedling churches that couldn't (or wouldn't) pay his upkeep, wasn't too proud to make a few tents.

Okay, Let Me Explain it THIS Way . . . .

Wise Fool
***
God has installed
some pretty effective
equipment in me.
He encoded some things into my DNA
that are perfectly suited
for one who likes to ride the edge
in this realm of poetry . . .you see, bipolar disorder and poetry
come together in me
like this: when i'm manic, i can crank out the poetry.
once i wrote 7 in the space of 3 hours,posted them online, and received
much praise! and, given such an ego boost, i
start to strut a little, and then . . .just when i'm feeling full of myself
. . .CRASH! here comes the depression, the
other side of the hyphen i've come
to know and dread so well,
and now i know what Rimbaud meant
when he talked about a season in Hell.
and people get disappointed with me,
and . . . i . . . get disappointed with me,
and so i drag my scaly hide into my cave
and hide out for a while.
then, manic's back like Rocky Balboa,
ready to step into that ring again!
and, it feels so good to be back, that
the level of my poetic attack
rises each time manic has my back.
so, you see, this thing that provides
the emotional energy and creativity in me,
is also my greatest limitation. and, that inspires humility.
God created me
to walk a razor edge, and He knew
what He was doing, even though,
looking at me, some people would think
God is crazy (and, sometimes, i wonder
about that too)--but, if crazy is the tool
God needs to do this job . . . here am i,
send me . . . i will be God's wise fool.