poets hugging trees

my other brother from another mother, lars palm, sez the science tells us that humans need about 5 to 10 hugs a day to stay sane & feel loved

so do other living things

like trees

so palm has started a series Poets Hugging Trees & invites poets to contribute a picture of the poet hugging a tree as well as a text to accompany it

palm started the series with himself

click here to see/read the start of the series & consider contributing a pic of yourself, along with a text, hugging a tree

peace & love

q & a

q: how long does it take you to write a poem?

a: to paraphrase the artist julian schnabel, 52 years + 5 minutes

california troubador

waiting for the movie
to begin
i spy
the legs of
a fly
double-down
& set upon
my sandwich

happy summer solstice

this is the first day of summer.  the longest day of the year.  i admit i love me the fall.  but, i must live in this world & at this time & in these seasons too.  holy shit.  this world can be/is a beautiful place.  i am resolved to enjoy the present as it occurs.  right now, it is summer time.  which means many things.  the pool is open.  anna & i love to spend a couple/few hours in the chlorinated waters.  the days are longer.  the nights are shorter.  & when it is night the ambient temperature is pretty damn warm, this is a mediterranean climate, so it is ripe for night time activities.  what sort of activities?  going to the drive-ins, of course.  we have the sac 6 drive-ins one of the 300 drive-in theaters left in the u.s.  times are changing.  we no longer have the car culture of the mid-20th century that gave birth to the drive-in theater.  & yet, some things old stay gold.  the drive-in experience is one of those golden old things.  so happy summer, brothers & sisters.  enjoy the fuck out of life.  read some books.  go to a museum or two.  take those persons you love in hand & remind them how special they are to you.  & for god's sake, go to a movie.  a theater, if you must, or, better still, if you have a drive-in within driving distance, go!  nothing says summer more than watching a flick under the stars, eating junk food, maybe a beer or two, some soda, too, while you & your honey &/or friends let time stretch into the wee hours of the night as the double-feature on the 100 ft wide screen unrolls itself to the very end.  carpefuckingdiem, brothers & sisters, for tomorrow we die.  but before that time occurs let me leave you with this intermission short that aired at theaters & drive-ins across this nation.  i know it's a commercial for coca-cola, yet i love it.  i hope you do too.

'let it be known: satan was an acid head'

 

BE PUNK AS FUCK

my own kevin killian

i suspect many of us poets, artists, filmmakers, playwrights etc etc, have our own kevin killian stories & memories.  because kevin is that type of person: good, generous & warm.  he was also a massively talented writer whether it be in prose, verse or amazon reviews [really, kevin amassed a great quantity of reviews posted at amazon.com that a goodly selection were gathered up & published as a book].

he was also a man of great taste who cared not a whit for the distinction between high & low art.  kitsch was a prime mover for kevin.  he even harbored a love of horror cinema that birthed the collection of poems, argento series [krupskaya; 2001], based on the films of italian horror maestro dario argento.  kevin studied these films as a way of dealing with the horror of friends succumbing to AIDS.

i don't remember how we found each other or who first reached out to who.  but if you are reading this note then you are well aware that kevin killian had a great talent for friendship.  he created communities of writers & artists by his warmth & generosity.  & i am surprised, not by death, but by something else that eludes a name.  for i thought kevin killian was one of those very rare persons who would always be around.  thus we corresponded as many of us have with kevin.  he sent me his book argento series because of my own love of horror cinema.  he sent me a batch of his zine that he co-edited with his wife of many years, dodie bellamy, mirage period(ical).  i have the honor of being published in their zine with a series of sonnets based on the filmmaker/novelist ed wood.  but we never met even tho we lived only 90 miles apart.  i thought there would always be time to meet.

i am gut-punched that death took another of our precious good ones.  not that i think anyone is immortal.  however, i look across our contemporary landscape of poetry, art, movies & think that a few are so integral to our border-free country of art it is inconceivable that they will not be around & found.  i must console myself by kevin's writings, of course, but most importantly, his gifts of being a good human being.  there are a great many more who knew kevin killian better & more intimately than i did.  we were fellow poets who corresponded about poetry & horror movies.  but even tho we failed to have that drink together i am comforted by the presence of his energy, his love of all things of this world [again, check out his amazon reviews for examples of his vast love], his love of art & writing & reading, & the love of friends.  these are the examples i take from kevin killian who lived an intense good life & who wrote into his life the art of living well.  that is how i shall praise him. 

i love this fucking song
 

speaking of poets' blogs

check out lars palm's cheeky editions 
where palm writes about his  
his adventures in the meridian poltava international festival of poetry
in ukraine w/ photos here

doing shit

today, & for just today, it cooled off considerably.  still pretty damn warm, but very pleasant.  i have the windows open to a soft summer breeze [boy does that sound like a song] as the clock ticks close to midnight.

& it was a day of chores.  after chores i got dinner from Cookie's, our favorite neighborhood drive-in burger joint.  now that i have a phone i am in the habit of listening to podcasts as i do my weekly house cleaning.  neil de grasse tyson's StarTalk is always a favorite.

nick graduated from middle school.  we went to the graduation ceremony on thursday.  weird for his parents for it seemed like yesterday - no joking - that he was just starting kindergarten.  now nick is a teen & moving so quickly into young adulthood.  life is that proverbial rollercoaster ride.  crazy-insane & over pretty damn fast.

which is why i've long adopted our late cat, ernie's, philosophy: stop & eat the fucking flowers!

now that our double anthology is in the world it is time to start new adventures.  i've got a few things cooking in the pot & as soon as they get close to being done i'll say more about them.

i turned 52 last sunday.  i'm heading into geezerville.  how did that happen so quickly?  fucked if i know.  i met a poet last week at his reading.  we've been corresponding & texting for a few months but hadn't yet met in person.  when i introduced myself, he said, you're old!  huh, i replied.  sorry, he said, but you write like a young person.  i expected you to be about 35.

well, i am getting old but i think, as the cliche says, you are only as old as you feel.  i feel like i still have a lot to learn & a lot to live & write.

what else.  i've been rereading the collected blogs of the late poet bill knott.  one thing i love about poets's blogs is how they are poets' electronic diaries & notebooks.  i love reading the notebooks & diaries of poets.  given the choice of buying a slim volume of verse or a fat book of notebooks & verse i'll choose the latter all the time.

it's summertime.  again.  i'm a crepuscular creature who prefers autumn but, hell, i am growing old & i better appreciate every fucking season as i experience them.  so this summer will be spent at the pool.  we will have our annual week at the beach in cayucos next month.  i haven't been to the drive-ins this year, yet.  but the drive-ins are part of my soul.  if everyday is halloween every night is at the drive-ins.

peace brothers & sisters

                 hot!!!

 

a coke by any other name would taste as sweet

poem

i am watching saving private ryan [1998]
on TV on the 75th anniversary of D-Day
that killer landing of industrial killing
& mechanized assault
& defense
of what
come that scene near the very last
battle when the troops have a moment
to relax
before the carnage begins
& they are listening to edit piaf sing
but the troops don't understand french
they hear the sorrow in the singer's voice
so they ask their translator
the young man who so far in the flick
is way too scared to fight
what piaf is saying
she is singing the ancient tale of scorned love
& love lost
so that right now the translator
the one who is the most
cowardly of all the red-blooded
american soldiers
is the center of attention
he has knowledge that the others
would like to possess
like my friend the painter
vic selinsky who served
in the pacific theater
on a supply depot
vic's job was to off load
supplies from the ships in the harbor
& yet every morning
& every evening the ships
& the depot was bombed & strafed
by the japanese
i was at vic's house drinking tea
when he pulled out his sketches
of the japanese raids
were you scared, i asked
& vic gives me this look
scared, he says, hell no
i wasn't scared
i was 18 & thought i'd live forever
it was the other guy who was going to die
as for piaf, vic continued, she was alright

scenes from the heat

i see him dishevelled messy dirty hair
t-shirt torn & jeans needing a belt
eyes spun & talking to himself
clutching close to his chest
a bag of pita chips & a bottle of water

excuse me sir, he says to me,
would you like a few chips & a sip?

* * *

the girl walks her dog
the panting dog flops on the sidewalk 
now the girl carries her dog

* * *

spontaneous combustion?
really?

seriously
it got so hot i swear he burst into flame

* * *

each step to the office is like walking on a bed of lava
& the un-shaded sunlight is a gamma ray burst

exchange with tom beckett

please do check/read this new interview with mr beckett.  fascinating & stimulating tom is always great company.

for the interview click here   

'i want everything this world can give me'

 

if ya gotta say it say it in verse

stephen fry & richard dawkins



this is essentially a monologue by stephen fry & yet fry is a brilliant renaissance man.  & i think evidence of this talk on youtube [it got over 4000,000 views] is a proof that people still want, nay demand, witty repartee & discourse in their lives.  of course 4000,000 people are not the world but when the world appears to get darker & dumber even a minority of peoples who demand an educated stab in the dark is a cause for hope. 

the end of the world

when i say the *world* i mean us

when i say the *earth* i mean everything else

the earth is so much older than us

the earth will be here for a long time after us

unless until we learn to treat our madness

& call humanity to task against our excesses

our brutalities

our cooperative species of destruction