For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.
#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.
If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021. Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
On 21 January 2017, Waxyandpoetic.com embarked on #100Days100Poems of Protest in response to the election and inauguration of an orange menace. Four years later we find ourselves in a position to begin to clean up the disaster and rebuild. In the tradition of those poems, Waxy & Poetic is proud to kick off #100Days100Poems of What’s Next!?
During the first hundred days of the Biden administration, that’s the question. What hopes do you have? What calls to action? What cries to rally the troops to continue the necessary fight? What good trouble should we get in? Where do we need to turn our attention? What’s next in order to continue moving forward?
Our work is only just beginning, and as Salman Rushdie once said, “A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point out frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.” Though we officially start tomorrow, let’s have our fire sale to get rid of the old!
For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!?. These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.
#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.
If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.
Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
On 21 January 2017, Waxyandpoetic.com embarked on #100Days100Poems of Protest in response to the election and inauguration of an orange menace. Four years later we find ourselves in a position to begin to clean up the disaster and rebuild. In the tradition of those poems, Waxy & Poetic is proud to call for submissions for #100Days100Poems of What’s Next!?
During the first hundred days of the Biden administration, that’s the question. What hopes do you have? What calls to action? What cries to rally the troops to continue the necessary fight? What good trouble should we get in? Where do we need to turn our attention? What’s next in order to continue moving forward?
Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like. #100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your short films and animations.
Waxy & Poetic is a vehicle for spreading that art to the four corners, free to all. We cannot offer compensation for your work, but all rights remain with the creators.
Our work is only just beginning, and as Salman Rushdie once said, “A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point out frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”
If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.
This is for the gun gods the My AR-15 weighs a ton gods the doesn’t matter what you did you’ll still get done gods the church mass massacre calling home the nun gods the draw in the raffle see what weapon you’ve won gods the pop the kid with the plastic pistol playground fun gods the if you’re white it’s alright, if you’re black better reach for the sun gods the stop!-I’ll-shoot-you-in-the-back-if-you-run gods the guns got safeties and you got none gods the present is dystopian w/o the future’s set your phasers on stun gods
we have not yet spilled enough blood & there is more to spill we have not yet spilled enough blood & there is more to spill
we beseech you, grant us gats for teachers & straps for preachers toolies for tots & toasters for teens glocks for girls & biscuits for boys we need burners & heaters heat & street sweepers a piece for peace of mind a problem solver for algebra time
grant us the weapons we need for elementaries & junior highs movie theatres & senior highs for night clubs & churches for shopping malls & other houses of worships for concerts & pool parties & county fairs & baseball practice fields
we have not yet spilled enough blood & there is more to spill we have not yet spilled enough blood & there is more to spill
our arms dealer who art in heaven hollow points be your game your amendment come, your will be done in schools as it is in cinemas give us this day our daily clips and forgive us our friendly fire as we forgive those who fire against us and lead us not into gun regulation and deliver us from safety for thine is the gun show and the power and the gory forever and ever bang bang
The Guggenheim Museum here in New York City recently closed a wonderful retrospective of the Swiss artist duo of Peter Fischli and David Weiss. For those unfamiliar with their work (as I was), I suggest reading this from one of the Gallery Guides who posted on the Guggenheim Museum’s blog. Explore the site further to learn more about the exhibit.
One of the things that struck me about the retrospective was the infectious sense of play that clung to the works and also influenced museum goers of all ages. You could hear laughter and sighs of contentment, bursts of Aha! as jokes or visual puns sunk in; the entire space was filled with the buzz of people not just talking and reacting to the art, but feeding off its energy and fun. I’m currently working on a poem that more directly deals with the themes of Suddenly This Overview and some of the popular opposites that emerge there. But this present blog post comes inspired by a completely different piece in the exhibit, the Large Question Pot (1984), an enormous painted polyurethane and cloth vessel, filled with dozens upon dozens of questions on the inner wall, written in German in various colors.
In keeping with the theme of play (and, in some cases, the juxtapositions found in popular opposites), I wrote answers to some selected questions that the curators translated for the exhibit. These answers, at times short poems, or even poetic bits, or simply sharp responses, were written in quick bursts, as the muse struck, with no rhyme or reason necessarily to unite them, other than the poetic exercise itself. At some point I’d like to find translations of all the queries inside Large Question Pot (my German being, well, non-existent), to continue exploring what Fischli and Weiss bring out of me with their work. Until then, you’ll need to be content with these selections.
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.
The Figure in question is on the right.
Woman with Hat, 1961
Crane, 1951-52
Woman with Child, 1961
Woman Reading, 1951-53
The Bathers, 1956
The Bathers, incl. Woman Diver, Man with Folded Hands, Fountain Man, Child, Woman with Outstretched Arms, Young Man
"Midnight" Plays mid-night in the Middle of the Cacophony of a Bar I Frequentfor 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.
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.”
Waxy & Poetic 