Some of those at work forces Are the same that burn crosses –Rage Against the Machine, “Killing in the Name” I was having dinner with my friend Joe the other night at Sherpa’s, a Nepalese restaurant in Boulder. It’s in a big old house on Walnut. Conversation turned inevitably to the Trump administration, and […]
I haven’t posted here in a long time primarily because I’ve been trying to finish this book-length poem, I’ll Begin in the Middle, that I’ve been writing for the past year plus. That’s eaten all my literary time and disposable mental bandwidth. Meanwhile, I have continued to drink my daily cup of poison that is […]
In the mid-80s I worked as an orderly in a Boulder nursing home. I became friends with another orderly (Jewish, gay, and Republican) I shared the graveyard shift with. We had a lot of interesting conversations in the middle of the night. Once I asked him what he was reading then. “A lot of books […]
Hollywood has treated us to a regular stream of comic book movies wherein the hero/heroine/heroes (&LGBTQetc.) save America, or, more often, the entire planet from malevolent actors, homegrown or from outer space…and we sure could use a hero right about now to save us from ourselves. I vote for Wonder Woman, particularly because of her […]
I’ve been writing this long poem (80 plus pages as of this date) about poets and poetry (and anything else that crosses my mind). It’s returned my attention to creating art, the process of it, and what that is or isn’t. While this historical moment has largely obviated any centrality in the greater social consciousness […]
Personally, since the election results rolled in, I’ve made an effort to limit my intake of political news through watching as much sports as possible. There are winners and losers there as well, but it stays confined to the field or the court, and—wonderfully—doesn’t rely on anybody’s ignorance about what’s taking place there to determine […]
There’s a moment of exchange about Bob Dylan and fame I heard one day at the Naropa summer writing program that’s always stuck with me. Marianne Faithful, who’d been a popstar in the mid-sixties, a Mick Jagger and Keith Richards girlfriend, and had revived her career in the 80s, was on a panel with Allen […]
“That is exactly what happens when you have a national leader in one of the realms [of delusion]–the whole nation becomes part of that realm.” –Chogyam Trungpa, Transcending Madness Infamous Roman emperor Caligula (12-41 C.E.) comes to mind when considering Donald Trump—a leader who became a sure sign of power hungry greed over genuine public […]
“Let me put it baldly. The two halves are: the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE the HEART, by way of the BREATH, to the LINE” –Charles Olson, “Projective Verse” It seems extravagant, suddenly, or maybe merely perverse, to concern oneself with the philosophy behind how to write poetry, i.e., a poetics, […]
I wish I could ignore it all and live a life of relative peace. But I can’t look away. Within a few days, an assassination attempt on Donald Trump missed his skull by a half inch, further burnishing his heroic martyrdom with his base; his self-appointed judge threw out his stolen documents case, based on […]
