Success!!

I think, by all accounts, last night's POETRY READING was a success. All of us who read had a great time. The audience and the venue (Okay Mountain) were wonderful. Now we need to plan our next summer poetry event. Thanks again to all of you who read, participated, and attended. I thought I would post one of the poems I read last night. This is the fifth section of a slightly longer poem called Hark! & Holy Shit!. I'm still working on/editing the rest of the poem, but this is the finale shouting cheering send off.

V.

Hark! & Holy shit!
Think about those people you have known for so long
Yr friends, new and old
They're scattered all over the country aren’t they?
Some are alone, some are in love, and some are lost in their own stories
They're too busy to e-mail you right?

Hark! & Holy shit!
Look at the news painful w/such pessimism
Earthquakes, wounded money politicians, tell-all books from White House insiders, playoffs, sex, TMZ insurgents, pirates and more gossip than anyone needs
This is all so much to take
Coming of age in this turmoil, how tragic
Oh, the gas crisis poisonous climate, can we survive more mismanagement?
Can friendships battle their way through this muck?

Hark! & Holy shit!
Look how our gang is growing up!
I’m 25 yrs old soon to be 26…WTF?
Oh, Austin, TX my first adult address
What have you done to me?
Starting out as lonely security guard part time songwriter small time poet on my own slowly gathering a group around me now writing this long love state of the union, how I have changed and seen my friends change too
We’re getting older, going off to work each morning, maybe class, sometimes hung over; other times so fucking unmotivated we wonder what the point of all this is
Living paycheck to paycheck or saving up for graduate school or paying off graduate school
How we got surrounded by weirdoes and peers and those whom we now despise but will never forget and all the strange annoying brilliant pathetic days we’ve had since
All the ugliness in gray and boredom
All the backyard BBQ’s, apt. parties, happy hours, and endless food conversations

Hark! & Holy shit!
Finally, allow me to excavate the traffic strangled city and take a snapshot of those of you who are gone or going while I baby step my way into the next phase

To my three oldest chums, since high school days we grow:

You who wear yourself ragged day after day in Boston shuffling ‘tween your own museum job and teaching freshmen writing courses and studying your own writing Emerson grad student you
How is Harvard Yard? How is Ted Kennedy? How often do you hear the melodies of Galaxie 500?
I’m looking to you for guidance, do you mind answering my questions and critiquing my poetry?
I miss the fun in parent’s house and the disaster club and Yoicks! the failed magazine and the small talk, movie watching, record shopping
How does it feel to be so far from your long distance girlfriend?
Soon I hope you two will come together

You who live in tiny Brooklyn apt. with cat and girlfriend of Baltimore
I don’t know how you do it, full time boring webmaster job and scholarly NYU pursuits in literature
A rose is a rose is a rose
Supreme intellect, I always knew you were going to be the hardest to pin down
You somehow still have time to write great crazy songs here and there and thanks to the Internet I can listen and we can talk now more than ever via gmail chat
Will we create noise spontaneous records again full of odd sounds bizarre lyrics and all produced around your wonderful welcoming spirit?
Never any idea turned away, my brother and I learned a lot about freedom from you

You who are about to leave Austin for the west coast L.A. USC film school
Can you believe you moved down here to be a security guard like me?
Can you believe that insanity?
But then of course you did benefit like I did from the independence and the making of friends and the eventual love connection with your artistic Las Vegas pizza loving best gal ah, golden
And you seem to be as deeply in love with your girl as I am with K
Always together, I keep up with your Myspace page; you’re having fun aren’t you?
I’m a wine drinker and you’re a vegetarian trying new things dressing differently than we did in high school looking good for our ladies and carving out identities anew
We don’t see each other now that I left my security guard job behind for desk work
& we have our lovers who are better than best friends since they are radiant mystics designed just for us
Oh, the times of deep conversation about the horrors of single life, our conflicting feelings about alcohol & cigarettes, and fighting to stave off the humors
I know you and I will not miss the security guard life, but did it not transform us?

Fare thee well my friends

We’ll keep in touch over e-mail, text messages, Facebook, and Myspace

We’ll meet again at weddings I’m sure because that’s what happens to adults isn’t it?

Then...
Children
Home ownership & improvement
Lawn maintenance
Balding
Ageing
Bad clothes
Limp dicks
& dementia!

Hark! & Holy shit! Indeed!


May 23, 27-29, 2008