Open Mic/Mike
microphone: an aural tool,
distant relative to the conch
and megaphone,
capable of catalyzing
tympan rending feedback.
promoter of phobia
in some cases;
in others a cause for
phallocentric mimicries.
primarily a way to bring
the voice of one
to the ear of another;
thus, a promoter of intimacies.
a steely florescence,
the stamen/pistil both,
a flower abuzz, aquiver,
its life's blood
a sub-atomic river,
a fount of unrealized honey
all await for voice.
michael: like god, el,
etymologically speaking.
ostensible warrior for The Source
going toe-to-toe with satan.
(who looks like certain popes
in certain battle-graphic paintings.)
let's put his sword aside,
pry this archangel open,
flay him in a most modern,
forensic manner.
i'm talking scapels
and rib-spreaders...
an intimate innard exploration
toward some anything unlike
old testament vengefulness;
a perhaps thing
of strength-
but petal/vulva soft
and full-bloomed beneath
the battle-riven breastplate.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Sunday, February 13, 2005
At Which My Lover Laughs
Sun/Day/Dream
Winter howled down hard
upon the dreamscape.
A choreography
of horizontal snow,
banshee wind,
gear-gathering bustle
and the premise
of a life endangered,
emergent evacuation.
A mother
left behind by request
found hard upon return
by grievous son
who lifts the piled quilts,
sees the white-haired
old woman dead,
her small hands
raised most childlike
to her slightly smiling,
frozen face-
a moving mimicry
of cozy dozing.
He sobs at this
and writes the poem,
red-inked, immediate
upon her pillow.
Weak words congealed
along the edge of
a cold, closed circle.
Winter howled down hard
upon the dreamscape.
A choreography
of horizontal snow,
banshee wind,
gear-gathering bustle
and the premise
of a life endangered,
emergent evacuation.
A mother
left behind by request
found hard upon return
by grievous son
who lifts the piled quilts,
sees the white-haired
old woman dead,
her small hands
raised most childlike
to her slightly smiling,
frozen face-
a moving mimicry
of cozy dozing.
He sobs at this
and writes the poem,
red-inked, immediate
upon her pillow.
Weak words congealed
along the edge of
a cold, closed circle.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Suenos Dulces
Dreamdeath
in a saffron sari
and a lime-green leotard,
came death;
her great, dark eyes
agleam with terrible passion.
we made
an unearthly tumult
of love.
she laughed easily,
snored and slept
fitfully at my side;
snatches of her disturbed
dream conversation
clawed me regularly.
time and light bent there
in that wet, warm web;
my penchant for exactitude
in recollection
gone impotent.
all in all
a sensate swoon
that endured...
nine months?
ninety-some-odd moons?
a few decades?
the burial blow:
her well turned back
turned to me eternally.
in a saffron sari
and a lime-green leotard,
came death;
her great, dark eyes
agleam with terrible passion.
we made
an unearthly tumult
of love.
she laughed easily,
snored and slept
fitfully at my side;
snatches of her disturbed
dream conversation
clawed me regularly.
time and light bent there
in that wet, warm web;
my penchant for exactitude
in recollection
gone impotent.
all in all
a sensate swoon
that endured...
nine months?
ninety-some-odd moons?
a few decades?
the burial blow:
her well turned back
turned to me eternally.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Vulgarity
Sic Transit Gloria Vulgus
I screech up to the stopped bus sweaty,
(8 miles behind me
and one minute to spare)
lever down the bus' bike rack,
grab the water bottle,
wipe my forehead,
load the bike,
take off the helmet and
hop on the bus
grinning a mile wide.
I flash my monthly pass,
survey the folks,
find a seat that affords
a vantage point of my bike
and settle in for the
45 minute ride to
8 hours work
with human blood.
My recent DUI
has necessitated the
use of mass transit.
But, this is a return.
Pop sold his car when I
was in 1st or 2nd grade.
We biked and bused and walked
to work, school and market.
The first couple years
after college I commuted.
The crude smells come back to me,
men and women just off work,
waitresses, construction workers, maids,
an unstable appearing woman
with a companion dog
weeps loudly on her cell-phone-
people look away,
or reassure her weakly.
My world's gone urban again,
Spanish phrases float and fall,
a profusion of black people,
Walkmen are plugged in,
books are opened,
glances are avoided,
the homeless arrange and rearrange
a stinking assortment of plastic bags.
The world warped ostent
of air brushed boobs,
glossy lips and
super- svelte
cigarette smokers
populates the bus stop ads.
It's Narcissism-
this dopey love
of the reflected,
depth lost on the
shifty surfaces of things,
a debased want of original light.
A perhaps gift-
this glimpse into my origins
via State ordered
punitive inconvenience.
Writing poetry on the bus
feels conspicious,
always made me self-conscious,
a flight, of sorts,
from the immediate.
So, generally, I don't.
After all, there's something to it.
That is, the reflexive recoil
away from a world refined
until cut-off from the
primal urge and wrestle
of its dank roots
in the ripe, dark earth.
The way opera is made fun of
in bars with Schlitz on tap.
Words approach from within,
congeal and seperate themselves,
making unsteady progress
toward a conclusive unknown.
Always this hierarchy,
The delicate built upon
the durability of the lower-
nameless strong backs
shouldering the load,
sound, syllable, sentence-
rungs up and down.
The integration of the simple
into an over-arching,
consuming complexity.
Molecules (made of atoms)
ordered to and fro
by most monarchical DNA.
Someone else
empties the Kings chamberpot,
lances his boils, shoes his horse,
smiths his sword,
carves and crafts his throne,
prepares and serves his meals.
And so familiarity with the origin
has, over time, come to be
considered indelicate.
If one is
in direct contact with life,
one is dirtied, sullied, rendered
unfit as company for those
who've achieved that
most desired,most revered state:
the ability to live
life without effort.
Reality, apparently too real,
we evade the actual.
The bus pulls up to my stop,
I review the situation:
medical technologist,
stigmatized status
as a DUI arrestee,
20 mile midnite bike ride home,
the trebled commute time,
probation, risk pool insurance...
ad absurdum.
I realize that I have come
to contact again with distances.
I know what a mile is.
My legs and lungs know.
I curse because
I come from there;
where people still work
in contact with life,
with the earth, with blood and bodies;
where the sweetness of limbs
is worn lightly brushed
by the ocean's tang;
where advertising is
a known charlatan.
I sing because
I come from there;
where people drown
their sorrows in drink,
shout and fight and
still laugh about it after.
That last, so necessary:
the after-laughter.
I think,
"Mine's the grace that lights
the guttersnipe's grin"
as I dismount and undo my bike.
I smile, say " Fuck it,"
and go to work with life's-blood.
Carlos Conrad Jan 2005
I screech up to the stopped bus sweaty,
(8 miles behind me
and one minute to spare)
lever down the bus' bike rack,
grab the water bottle,
wipe my forehead,
load the bike,
take off the helmet and
hop on the bus
grinning a mile wide.
I flash my monthly pass,
survey the folks,
find a seat that affords
a vantage point of my bike
and settle in for the
45 minute ride to
8 hours work
with human blood.
My recent DUI
has necessitated the
use of mass transit.
But, this is a return.
Pop sold his car when I
was in 1st or 2nd grade.
We biked and bused and walked
to work, school and market.
The first couple years
after college I commuted.
The crude smells come back to me,
men and women just off work,
waitresses, construction workers, maids,
an unstable appearing woman
with a companion dog
weeps loudly on her cell-phone-
people look away,
or reassure her weakly.
My world's gone urban again,
Spanish phrases float and fall,
a profusion of black people,
Walkmen are plugged in,
books are opened,
glances are avoided,
the homeless arrange and rearrange
a stinking assortment of plastic bags.
The world warped ostent
of air brushed boobs,
glossy lips and
super- svelte
cigarette smokers
populates the bus stop ads.
It's Narcissism-
this dopey love
of the reflected,
depth lost on the
shifty surfaces of things,
a debased want of original light.
A perhaps gift-
this glimpse into my origins
via State ordered
punitive inconvenience.
Writing poetry on the bus
feels conspicious,
always made me self-conscious,
a flight, of sorts,
from the immediate.
So, generally, I don't.
After all, there's something to it.
That is, the reflexive recoil
away from a world refined
until cut-off from the
primal urge and wrestle
of its dank roots
in the ripe, dark earth.
The way opera is made fun of
in bars with Schlitz on tap.
Words approach from within,
congeal and seperate themselves,
making unsteady progress
toward a conclusive unknown.
Always this hierarchy,
The delicate built upon
the durability of the lower-
nameless strong backs
shouldering the load,
sound, syllable, sentence-
rungs up and down.
The integration of the simple
into an over-arching,
consuming complexity.
Molecules (made of atoms)
ordered to and fro
by most monarchical DNA.
Someone else
empties the Kings chamberpot,
lances his boils, shoes his horse,
smiths his sword,
carves and crafts his throne,
prepares and serves his meals.
And so familiarity with the origin
has, over time, come to be
considered indelicate.
If one is
in direct contact with life,
one is dirtied, sullied, rendered
unfit as company for those
who've achieved that
most desired,most revered state:
the ability to live
life without effort.
Reality, apparently too real,
we evade the actual.
The bus pulls up to my stop,
I review the situation:
medical technologist,
stigmatized status
as a DUI arrestee,
20 mile midnite bike ride home,
the trebled commute time,
probation, risk pool insurance...
ad absurdum.
I realize that I have come
to contact again with distances.
I know what a mile is.
My legs and lungs know.
I curse because
I come from there;
where people still work
in contact with life,
with the earth, with blood and bodies;
where the sweetness of limbs
is worn lightly brushed
by the ocean's tang;
where advertising is
a known charlatan.
I sing because
I come from there;
where people drown
their sorrows in drink,
shout and fight and
still laugh about it after.
That last, so necessary:
the after-laughter.
I think,
"Mine's the grace that lights
the guttersnipe's grin"
as I dismount and undo my bike.
I smile, say " Fuck it,"
and go to work with life's-blood.
Carlos Conrad Jan 2005
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Isthmus Time/ Puke on The Aesthetics of the New Encoded Discourse
Encoded Discourse Decoded
this poem
loosed from commitment
a storm tossed hull
rocks without captain.
ruddered, undirected.
a missive embottled
in a non-bottle,
(or the word for bottle
in a new language
which no one
but the author
speaks)
still says
S.O.S.
washed up
on a spit of land
surrounded
by polluted analyses
"postindustrial authorship"?
Industry.
The Latin word industria,
meaning “diligent activity
directed to some purpose,”
our word (first recorded in 1475)
originally meant “skill.”
Post-industry,
post-diligence,
not requiring skill.
"...thick, pliant strands of XML
are girding the wilderness
(and even tying in word processor documents)
-insert ironic gasp of delite-
to enable a new order of knowledge."
Wild- Occurring, growing,
or living in a natural state;
not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed.
We speak, therefore,
of a contained,
electronic wilderness?
A lumpen, digitized cookie dough
for which an electronic frame
(cookie cutter) will, amoeba like,
phagocytize the material
and render up... poetry?
We move farther
from the thing itself.
Bad enough words only signify,
the machinations of the brain
are able only to replicate
subtle relationships
found in nature.
Fuck machines!
Fuck machines?
Fuck machines.
Have you seen the latest porn?
Engines with artificial phalli
designed to thrust, piston-like,
to penetrate live, human, women.
"It's delightful, it's de-lovely..."
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