Posted on by waxyandpoetic

From the Garage to the Studio–DIY Sculpture Poetry

In an effort to switch things up a bit, the poem for this post,

“Picasso the Sculptor Sculpting Sculptures Scrupulously and Scrappily in his Workshop”

will simply be presented as audio, with a gallery of photos showing some of the works mentioned in the poem. A post at a later date may include the text of the poem.

 

 

Woman with Child, 1961
The Bathers, incl. Woman Diver, Man with Folded Hands, Fountain Man, Child, Woman with Outstretched Arms, Young Man
Crane, 1951-52
Bull, 1958
The Figure in question is on the right.
Little Owl, 1951-52
Bird, 1958
Woman Reading, 1951-53
The Bathers, 1956
Woman with Hat, 1961
Posted on by waxyandpoetic

An Ode to Cognac and an Uncle

 

 

 

For Gerald

I was 12 when my uncle first introduced me to cognac

        a glass poured with enough ice cubes

                to make it look like two fingers

my palate, at that age, already advanced

        told me it tasted of burn, fire, burning fire

                and a hint of honey

this is the same uncle who introduced me

        to the Alabama Theatre Book Stop, the first hit, the gateway

                to my bookstore addiction (the start of shelves & stacks & piles)

and that store is long gone, having succumbed

        to the ravages of the Big C (no, not that one,

                the other one, Capitalism)

but back to cognac (always the impetus for digression)

        in that cozy little living room in that tiny cottage

                just south of downtown

                        I took the first sips of becoming an adult

(not counting grandpas’ beer sips or mom’s margarita sips, too soft

        and too little for initiation)

and my uncle waxed on about brandy,

        cigars (no we didn’t smoke) and after dinner

                conversations.

and initiated I was

        to late night post-rehearsal palaver

                on all things poetry & people & cinema

                        & plays & women & whatever else idly entered

                                young drunk minds

        to first attempts at steak au poivre

                (to impress a young female friend of course)

                        to my beginning steps to understand spirit (in all ways)

and that uncle has, too, been gone some time

        the irresistibility of the big A cowered to the ravages

                of the big C (yeah, that one)

and here I am at, well, a lot older

still going to bookstores

        (I’ve got the shelves & boxes & stacks

                & piles to prove it)

and still drinking cognac but this time

        I have developed the palate

                the notes of nutmeg reminding me of

                        my nana’s carrot cake

and the almond, of those fundraising candy bars

        with the cloying milk chocolate (so unlike the dark

                variety I adore now)

and the vanilla, fond memories of my first

        attempts at spicing up coffee after dinner

                (for friends or a girlfriend I can’t recall which)

and lychee the echo of that bottle of Soho

        consumed in Paris in that apartment near

                Marcadet-Poissonniers in the 18th

the apricot reminding me of

        the tagine at that little Moroccan place in Avignon

 and preserves, confiture slathered on croissants

        (just on top of some butter, overkill to be sure, as the French would never)

there is still the heat

        that kept me warm (too warm) after

                girlfriends & wives & uncles &

                grandmothers & grandfathers left too soon

there is still the little burn in throat

        as if clearing it for utterance or prayer

                or the poem or interruption

I was 12 when my uncle first introduced me to cognac

        and I don’t remember

                        if I ever told him thank you.

 

 

 

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

Your “Yo Momma” Jokes are so old, I wrote an elegy

"Midnight" Plays mid-night in the Middle of the Cacophony of a Bar I Frequent
for Tommy


So it was late one night in a sports bar &
	restaurant, the kind where the TVs are shiny black &
		hi-def & numerous, hanging on walls like finished
	framed tableaux in an artist’s studio, displayed
for the visiting curator who may or may not buy any of these
	finished pieces, but they’re showing all the highlights of our modern-
		day mass entertainments with the red & white team
	gunning past the blue- & white-striped lads playing the foot
ball you play with your feet & another screen
	with the blue & red guys smashing the black &
		silver fellows while they battle for the football you handle
	with your hands & on another screen the orange ball is stuffed in a hoop
& on another the stick hits the white ball & you can almost
	hear on another screen the grunts & racket of shuffling ladies from one
		side of the clay court to the other & there’s
	no sound from any of these screens, the aforementioned
sports bar opting to pump popular hits through the speakers
	& I’m sitting there, flanked by friends,
		fringed by friends of those friends & on the speakers
	I hear A Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight” & everything
around me stops & I’m suddenly whisked back over 20 years
	to that night in my car where the CD player kept
		playing track after track on that album & our heads
	were nodding in unison & in synch we both bust out with
"Intensity, most rappers don’t see it / Spirit wise,
	musically you gotta be it!"  & I reach to turn down the volume
		& we both look at each other to agree that even then we
	felt a crisis in hip hop coming on & that our favorite
emcees & DJs weren’t getting the attention & accolades
	they deserved because lesser cats with weaker raps were easier to play
		on the radio & thank goodness we could hit the
	track back button & hear “Midnight” again or turn
to “Award Tour” as an apt send off as we leave the parking lot
	behind the theatre & turn north to take you
		home.
& it’s late in this sports bar & I think
		how long you’ve been gone & I try to remember our
	last conversation as I replay in my mind the montage
sequence of how we lost touch after leaving junior college
	& phone calls every couple of months changed to a couple
		calls a year & how we used to see each
	other every day & had lunch together often &
how we used to play the dozens between classes &
	before rehearsals & never worrying for one second that
		your your momma jokes or my momma jokes would cut
	to the quick & I think now that subconsciously
I carry on these quick quips with my sister & friends &
	co-workers in a nod to your absence though no one
		ever has the comebacks you did & some lack the good sense to
	remember it’s all in jest & just as “Midnight” starts
its second verse here in this sports bar with the blonde bombshell bartender
	whose bright white smile reminds me of yours I think about
		how great it’d be for you to be in the chair beside me
	egging me on to flirt with said bartender inflating the
courage & the ego in me the way my tall beer wouldn’t &
	I wonder if you’d be surprised at the intro-
		vert I’ve become & my tendency to sit quietly &
	observe & be Q-tip’s nocturnal animal & I think if
you were here we’d think about putting some poetry to a
	beat & then I remember that time listening to
		Guru rap about it being “Mostly Tha Voice” & you looking at
	me to say I had the voice & laughing & pumping
your fist before giving me a high five & that night is on
my mind, the night is on my mind, the sun’ll still
	shine.
		& I remember I’m stuck in this sports bar late
	on a Sunday night & I’m two beers & two shots in, but
no one knows I’m back in that godforsaken East Texas
city pulling my own CL Smooth reminiscing over you because
	A Tribe Called Quest called you back from
		the past & here I am in that sports bar thinking
	how Boyz II Men told us how hard it would be
& how hard it is now to think that I never
	really told you & despite all these TVs &
		the eye-catching blonde pouring another pint, the night
	makes the aura, the sports bar the soundtrack & outside
the way the moon dangles in the midnight sky
and the stars dance around, hey yo I think it’s fly
	& I think the memory has that intensity, & I nod my head, still
		in unison to yours, thinking you’ll see it,
	knowing you’ll see it, & then I slow down as
the song fades into some more current obnoxious hit
and that night's on my mind
the sun will still shine
but that night's on my mind
& you still shine
and that night is on my mind
the night is on my mind
the night
This poem contains a line, and plays with other lines, from the song "Midnight" by 
A Tribe Called Quest.
Posted on by waxyandpoetic

“It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you”

After a much too lengthy hiatus from the Waxy&Poetic blog, I’m back to continue with regular posts. Since I was AWOL during National Poetry Month, feast your eyes on the collected haiku that were daily posted on Twitter during April.

 

Until next week, enjoy!

 

*****

 

After one drink, I’m
honest with others. After
a few, with myself.

 

*

my original:

Au bord de la Seine:
bouteilles de rouge vides,
trop de lumières.

 

and my own translation:

On the banks of the
Seine: empty bottles of red
and too many lights.

 

*

I know for whom the
Bell tolls: Zack, Kelly, Jessie,
Screech, Slater, Belding.

Lisa discovers
her Twitter snub. She reaches
for the bathtub gin.

*

Absence of haikus
does not denote haikus of
absence, but silence.

*

in the pine box: one
hand-scribbled obit, Miles on
vinyl, one corkscrew.

*

Alone in bed and
smelling your pillow. My hand
feels nothing like you.

*

rope hanging above
the desk: dusty. noosed. strong. still.
long stretch, deed long done.

 

*

a tanka:

Elevation: six-
teen hundred nine meters. The
air’s thin and cool, but
not the reason I cannot
breathe. Denver. Pop. minus one.

 

*

Billets doux, sonnets—
stuffed to closet-box-bottom
for want of a match.

 

*

This is a test of
the emergency haiku
system. Don’t panic!

 

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Sound the Bard aloud.

 

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Eat that violin.

 

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Seek out Big Mamma.

 

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Mimic Whitman’s breath.

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Get hysterical.

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Starving minds should feed.

In event of real
poetic emergency:
yawp naked, tromp clothed.

 

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Risk absurdity.

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Address the reader.

In event of real
theatrical emergency:
Shatter the fourth wall.

In event of real
artistic emergency:
Collage with newsprint.

In event of real
poetic emergency:
Read Ferlinghetti.

 

*

[this is not my time]

America, present day

[this is not my place]

 

*

Mountains echo the
wailing; beached sands dry the tears.
Earth is unhappied.

 

*

I’ve cultivated
a discerning palate,
but no taste for your loss.

 

*

Democracy speaks:
Receive your voice when you make
fat contributions.

 

*
I’m not an object
of desire, just an object
not for collecting.

 

*

Hello. Hello. What
do you do for a living?
Read novels & dreams.

& you? What do you do?
Nothing so noble. I
rouse disappointment.

 

*

a final tanka:

 

sitting on bus bench
my eyes alert, Canon in
hand. Kid next to me asks
“What’s with the camera?”
“I write poems the hard way.”

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

Remember when L.L. said “…sometimes I stare at the wall…”?

Traces…Fragments…Figments

or

bedroom as

“…one message…”

and then the voice, honey (?) coated

    It’s…I know you weren’t expecting this call,

    but I thought you should know…”

            I placed the phone on the pillow beside me,

            a catch in my throat

*

on the mattress, closed,

    leather-bound, makara-colored cover beneath my left hand

        in the right, a still-capped pen

    wondering if ever it would write

*

the night stand—one corner balancing books

a tulip-shaped flute, glistening from the rosé

    bubbling inside—I couldn’t yet drink

                —on the nose: raspberry, cherry, a bit of rose?

*

lamp knocked to its side, bulb burning

on the wall hands open and close

unlike the child’s game, their shapes

    unrecognizable

*

it should’ve been your voice caught dripping into my ear

it should’ve been your lips on the tulip, your fragrance weighing the air

it should’ve been your cinnamon skin beneath tipsy fingers,

and then my tongue

 

it should’ve been your shadow on the wall

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

“Tingling like a first kiss, crazier than a death wish…” or just really ekphrastic!

The Kiss

22 February 1930, charcoal & oil on wood panel

painted by Picasso, probably on a cupboard door

“It is awkward, yes, but all the better

to practice

You must first, my dear,

lean your head towards me,

hair falling behind

you like waterfalling just before

    the great maw of tropical cave

your tongue, sharp, isosceles

    must invite

you sir, tilting head slightly back

    your upper lip above hers

    your tongue, too, arrowhead, trying to pierce her

keep your eyes open

it is awkward yes

do not touch tongues

    yet

open-mouthed—imagine devouring the other

        engulf breath and voice and time

do not touch tongues

    yet

open-eyed enter the other

mouth, consume and be consumed

    hold there

        first kiss, first loss

        I will sketch you

        it is awkward yes

        two forms always almost coming

            together

         awkward—to enter

            the other

                in voice & breath

                awkward

                forward

                you will not get this back

except perhaps when you open cupboard door.”

the kiss
With apologies for the size, it refused to get bigger.

Posted on by waxyandpoetic · 3 Comments

The Parody’s the thing, wherein I’ll employ humor to make them sing!

Inspired by the image of a coffee mug floating around the social media googlenets, there is great hope (and exciting plans) to make a recording and eventual music video for this little ditty. With both great thanks and apologies to Sir Mix-a-Lot, I bring you

Baby Got Books

Oh my god, Becky, look at her book, it is so big.

She looks like one of those smart guys’ girlfriends.

But you know, who understands those smart guys?

They only talk to her because she looks like a total erudite, ‘kay?

I mean that book is just so big, I can’t believe it’s leather-bound,

it’s like collectable, I mean, gross. Look, she’s just so smart…

I like big books and I cannot lie

You other brothers can’t deny

When a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist

And a bound thing in your face

You get dumb, then I pull up tough

‘Cause I noticed that book was stuffed

Deep with the knowledge I’m seekin’,

I’m hooked and I can’t stop readin’.

Oh baby, I wanna get wit cha, and see a lecture!

My colleagues tried to warn me,

but that book you got makes me so horny!

Ooo, soft- or hard-back, you say you wanna meet in the stacks?

Well choose me, peruse me, ’cause you ain’t that average groupie.

I’ve seen them readin’, to hell with Netflix streamin’

She’s smart, off-chart, got it going in HeadStart.

I’m tired of magazines sayin’ dumb girls are the thing

Take the average scholar and ask him that,

She’s gotta read the stacks!

So fellahs? Yeah! X2

Has your girlfriend got a book? Hell yeah!

Tell her to read it! Read it! X2

Baby got books — “Librarian face with half-price hard-back”

Baby got books! etc

I like ’em bound and thick, and when you read an epic

I just can’t help myself, I’m actin’ like an animal,

Now here’s my scandal:

I want get you home and huh

read out loud huh huh

I’m not talkin’ ’bout Playboy, ’cause literary novels bring the joy

I want ’em real thick and juicy

So read that juicy novel, Reads-a-lot’s in trouble

Beggin’ for a piece of that novel

So I’m lookin’ at youtube videos, lame-brained bimbos, empty heads like O’s

You can have them bimbos, my women will read Calvino.

A word to the thick book readers I wanna get wit cha

I won’t cuss or hit ya

but I gotta be straight when I say I wanna read

Til the break of dawn, this book’s got it going on.

A lot of simps won’t like this song

‘Cause them punks like to skim it and Cliff it

And I’d rather stay and read

‘Cause it’s long and I’m strong and I’m down to get my fiction on

So ladies yeah X2

You wanna read some Bukowski? Yeah!

then turn around, pull it out

Even dumb boys got to shout “BABY GOT BOOKS!”

Yeah, when it comes to females, Cosmo ain’t got nothin’ to do with my selection. Novels, plays, poetry? Haha, yeah, especially from the library.

Baby got books…

So your girlfriend holds a Samsung

Playin’ bootleg tracks from Hanson

But Hanson ain’t got a Kindle in the mix on their Samsung

My smart phone apps don’t want none unless you got books hun!

You can watch TV or Netflix, but please don’t lose those books

Some morons wanna play that hard role

And tell you that the book can go,

so they toss it, and leave it, and I pull up quick to reread it!

So the TV you got is flat, but I ain’t down with that

‘Cause the font is small and the plot gets thickened

And I’m thinkin’ bout readin;

To the eyecandy things flippin through magazines,

You ain’t it miss thing.

Gimme a scholar make me hollah,

Tolstoy and Shakespeare she found ballah!

Some knucklehead tried to diss ’cause his girls read my booklist

He had books but he chose to skim ’em, so I pull up quick to read with ’em

So ladies if the book is bound, and you want a literary throw-down

Dial 1-900-Reads-a-lot and kick them bookish thoughts

Baby got books

“Classics on the Kindle and she got much books” X3

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

When the Freeway of Love zooms to a dead end.

The Transporting Nature of Nostalgia

    I miss the days of being stuck at

stoplights

        that great white stripe, three, four lanes across

     from which we all get to go

        protected left on arrow, protected right on arrow

            red yellow green—safety in

                order, order in

                 chaos

Nowadays we’re all on the great concrete way

    fancy German sports sedans blazing

        on the right

past old American hand-me-downs

    poking and prodding along left lanes left

        for passing

& overpasses, overpassing the common volk & the homeless folk

        the strip mall windows and drive-through hopes

     overpasses over the traffic light democratics

    open lanes for overtaking and overbraking

    I miss the days of underground trains and

        on-the-ground buses, their keep-me-in-touch-

        with    humanity    hanging on to

this black strap, that cross bar

            offering my seat to the blue-haired lady

        or the hunched and forgotten vet, my

    reach to the heavens and hanging strap

                to over stand these passengers

    and this public transport transporting

        to overstanding

                        beyond the Big Budget Expressway, costly toll

            for the         mega-traffic, stock still

            as the         mega-steeple

            and the         mega-cross

            from the     mega-church

                mark time and distance to making it

home

        The Big Concrete Way: the Parking Lot of the Future

            always between exits, never getting to speed

    I miss the days of walking blocks, strolling hat-tips to

            friends, friendly hellos to vendors and

        vagrants and visitors and café-seated voyeurs

    I miss elbow bumps and excuse mes and

        lovely days and walk signals and don’t walk waits

            and pretty dresses and shiny leather shoes

                and setting my own pace and avoiding

        dog droppings and paper crumples and ice patches

            and even the occasional “you dropped this”

            or “no after you”

            or “could you tell me how to get to —”

At what cost the Freeway, with its perpetual deconstruction-construction

    orange cones lining narrow lanes and late-night delays

where speed limits jump and cruise controls shudder

    where parkways are

                from

                5AM to 9AM

                    &

                    3PM to 7PM

    moon day to fried day

            speed on down, speed on down the road

        past these people and these problems

            past these parties and this progress

        speed on down, speed on down the road

            Don’t you carry nothing that might be a load

                what with the exits not clearly marked and all

Posted on by waxyandpoetic · 1 Comment

All poetry is political; some politics are poetical.

Reading the Ranting Rainbow

At the big pink building

in the big red state (the second biggest

until you take into account the

        heights of the hair

    widths of the buckles

            depths of the stupidity

        & lengths gone

                    by the gerrymandered godsquad)

sits-in the pink shirted army, crimson-faced

        because confronted with the blackest of hearts.

    Brown uniforms DPS the public lack of safety,

rose red running from foreheads & noses as

    they wade through the gray of maintaining order.

    Blue jeans & pink shoes run ragged

            the cautions of filibuster yellow.

& still the Red tide rolls, as if the T-party had

    the yellow moons on its side, the sun, orange stars.

        Pink hearts wishing on green clovers.

        Blue diamonds in the rough struggle, willing

    to throw purple horseshoes

            at the white milquetoast men.

“Stop!” they say, red light on their health care;

“Go!” they say, green light to bygone eras and errors,

    the green faces of those in pink, sickened

    by the s-curve in mountainous descent.

“Slow down!” they say, yellow-bellied response to

    the hot pink of progress, of parity, of

        personal choice.

At the big pink building

in the big red state

    pink shirts & crimson faces,

        dirtied by Brown uniforms & White Privilege

    fight to no avail

            against the blues of servitude

                the red of loss

                the gray of history’s clouded precedent

And hundreds of miles east

in the state sun yellowed & bleached blond

        black is still the shaded suspect

        white the night watch ranger

            red the blood on the sidewalk

                silver the bullet in chest

                    black the hoodie, black the gun

        and always, all ways

                the gray of uncertainty

                    blindfolded

        unseen, blinded Justice, whether under shined sun or lone star,

            mourns the loss of hues;

                gone the red of valor

                gone the white of innocence

                gone the blue of justice.

But Wait!

The new fall colors are in

                        GSR gray

                        Protest pink

                        Keltec 9MM black

                        Kevlar blue

                        Fascist brown

dress appropriately, you never know whose path you’ll cross.


Posted on by waxyandpoetic

Oh My! That’s So Ekphrastic!

Ekphrasis, in Greek, means “description.” I’m a big fan of ekphrastic poetry, that genre that, on the most basic level, is writing something descriptive about a visual representation (a painting, a photo, a sculpture). As the Poetry Foundation defines it, “An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the ‘action’ of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.” The Academy of American Poets offers some fine-tuning that syncs nicely with my own work, saying “[M]odern ekphrastic poems have generally shrugged off antiquity’s obsession with elaborate description, and instead have tried to interpret, inhabit, confront, and speak to their subjects.”

Since my first encounters with the poetry of Ferlinghetti, and my first attempts with the flaming giraffes of Dalì, I have grown quite fond of art as inspiration. Thus is born the first poem inspired by the art of David Sweeney. His work, if you’ll forgive the brief, Cliff Notes-style, non-poetic ekphrasis, reminds me of the dream-like canvases of the Surrealists; his paintings make use of collage, of mixed media, which always summon my attention, reminiscent of the way I gravitate to some of the works of Picasso, Ernst or Braque. I am especially drawn to the appearance of text–newspaper clippings, stenciled quotes, scribbled phrases–in his art; the intersection of image and word begging for the poet’s ekphrasis. Lest I ramble on too much, I leave you to look at his œuvre at your leisure. If you find something you like, snatch it up, it’s hard to find good original art these days.

And now, to the poem.

It was first inspired by David Sweeney’s painting #517.

It can also be found at http://www.davidsweeneyart.com/works/b/david-sweeney,paintings, the second painting from the top.
It can also be found at here, the second painting from the top.

The italics (except for the French), including the title, are taken from some articles in the NYTimes regarding air travel. The thrust of the poem, in language and subject, has changed repeatedly, and the last line was a surprise, unexpected in its return to a minor detail in the painting, as I finished this, draft version 1.5.

Whatever Happened to First Class?

First, let’s get things straight. The euphemism for first caste has got to go, cleared for takeoff–always a misnomer misnaming for misdirection. Even before da Vinci’s device and the Wrights’ winged wonder, the ocean-gliding, wave-riding masted masterpieces kept the dividing line pretty clear, offering free passage to free labor for the not-so-free folks packed in the hold, barely holding on to their humanity, barely holding on to their little-scrap lunch.

So what happened to first caste? Classy became the label rather than the behavior, fancy china replacing fine company, fancy curtain replacing fine linen. And in first caste, room to stretch and kick, lie flat as capital’s whore, 300 channels to choose as you charge IMac and IPad and IPod and IPhone and IBeeper and ISnob, sip champagne, the warm wet sandpaper towel wiping from your face the grime of those in the back of the bus, the tail of the plane, the bottom of the boat. High above, the 1 percent fly first class; the .1 percent fly Netjets; the .01 percent fly their own planes.

Meanwhile, tail-side, knees to chest, elbows tucked with three-pretzel packs and chocolate-chip puck, the chosen few of the 99% lucky to escape the surface, grouped into herds by booking for boarding, one movie on one screen, one position for your one-inch seat, unsettle in for takeoff and turbulence.

And on the ground, far below, the (un)lucky 99%, stick in traffic, hostage to the toll road trolls, opt for one of the 300 $ burgers at the 300 fast food joints for the 300 lbs, the only bubbles from the soda machine–bottom caste transport never felt good.

“You go into first class because it’s less horrible than coach.” No cash to pay outright, CapitalOne card hassled to the max? Then it is perhaps with the free upgrade, high miles in your frequent flier club, without mile high club fornicating to give the bumpy flight some purpose. Which seat do you book? Which level are you?

Platinum Premium or Bronze Business, Elite Economy or Cushy Coach
Poached Ivory or Plated Silver, Gaudy Gold or Dazzling Diamond
these are the new
Fabulous First, Satisfying Second, Thirsty Third, Struggling Steerage which were
Captain and mates and crew and slaves from
King and Court and Lords and Serfs. Plus ça change, the more it stays the same.

And somewhere in the middle, betwixt the heaven and the hell, the poet, drifting in his dirigible, observes them all.