portrait of the artist as a young drunk

Here I am reading from my series 'the broken jaw gang: dagger.' Camera work by Matt Savage; drunkeness by me.



Also: hey, again with Matt Winters. He is a local artist and he is doing a large installation piece at Co-Lab. He' drawing all over the walls and wants some poems there too. If anyone is so inclined, I'll be there Thursday (and Matt Will be there all week), so stop by and say high and trace your hand on a wall or something. Ahh, sweet dada.

Here's the words to the video:
the broken jaw gang: dagger


they down at the church yard
used
to chase me through the winding
cemetery
just
behind,

but I didn’t care. I was a rebel,
you know?

I used to get little kids to tie ropes
through bike wheels
and

lock them to chrome bars.
I used to go
out to the piers and drop old computer
monitors into the drink.

I was that guy – yeah – that used
to
play with laser pens in
old alleyways and trace
words on brick walls.
Yeah – that was me.

oh, also:

the broken jaw gang was not something
easily
come upon. I used to
beat myself up nightly
trying to come up with some name
that described
the old rolly polly feeling
of
the non-jump life.

of course, that doesn’t make all that much sense, but,
c’mon, what type of criminal
do you take me for?

so, like I was saying: it’s
not the chasing that matters
anyway,

it’s the thrill and the thrush of the fall –
if you do fall –
and the snap of the ankle when
falling occurs.

simple, really. well,
okay.

go get yourself a good old dagger and place it in your mouth,
sweetheart.