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Off to read at the Brighton Bar tonight. I think I'll read a mix from "The Departed Friend" and some from "Supposing Roses." Of course, if anyone decides that the Christmas "Not So Silent Night" Poetry Show is the perfect place to get pointlessly political, I'll have to pull something from my hoary arsenal in "Black Champagne." Time will tell what fools these mortals be....
UPDATE: Went on second for the evening after Dan Weeks. This precluded any "revenge" political poetry--which was called for by one and all. Only Anthony displayed a spirit of bipartisanship--by casting Bill O'Reilley as the Grinch, but having his heart grow at the end of the tattling tale. Dems and "thems" are instructed to embrace "peace on earth."
12/23/05
"When Don Small encountered God he was dead." Three new poems on Alice B. Talkless' page, including a sibilant sestina.
12/04/05
Lord Dermond has revised the text of his classic "Sacred Blades," and this new version will be put out by BLAST PRESS as a perfect bound iUniverse title. We'll keep you updated on the book's progress.
UPDATE: The proofs have arrived from iUniverse. Below is a sample of what readers have in store. The book's unofficial motto is "Better DEAD than READ." If such snarly utterings slow you down from reading this text, you're not fit to visit this web site.
UPDATE: In conjunction with the upcoming edition of "Sacred Blades," gregglory.com has released, on the website, Lord Dermond's most intense book of poems from his youth, The Mortal Words.
IN THE CUNT TEARS No place other than the skull, angelus dome with the writhing pulse, sunstruck God of heavens blue. Let immortal treasure pour from these wounds my blood has carved in the heavy presence of a soul. The eternal node of glow, fear without end,--no, inherent--no, unneeded now in the moments light: I watch all trepidation die and empty from my eyes, the inevitable and restless drama of mere things... I am the first man, and the awakening world assumes its furious eloquence in tender hues: swirling shapes, shifting densities relentless and tortured intensities burn the ordered orchard of my heart, the first apple unfurled on the gnarled barb! I pour a morning sleep over the sky, the stars, and light anew.... Lord Dermond & Gregg Glory (A Collaboration of Purest Evil)
12/01/05
An updated display of all my poems is available from the Poetry Database here. I should have a live search available within the next few weeks that pulls the lines of poems with any search term highlighted in the line, the line number of the line the term is in, and live links to full versions of the poems. Here's an example of what it will look like:
3 records returned. 20 might have a twisted end. Poem: Art and Theft Book: The Sword Inside 10 His tongue twisted in trance, Poem: In the Night Book: Unimagined Things 14 Beneath the twisted thorn; Poem: The Thorn Tree Book: Burning Byzantium
11/27/05
J Pat's chapbook, "instead," is now available online here. This new chapbook will be back from the printer soon. J Pat is writing a short bio of his experiences for the website version of his chapbook. J Pat has numerous local music events, plays and composes his own folk tunes, and is ubiquitous on the NJ music "scene." (Man, I hate that term!)
11/13/05
Peggy Noon, of the Wall Street Times, had a buzz-worthy, morose column the other day where she mused on the seperation of our nation's elites and our hoi polloi. It has struck many as defeatist, and, at the least, very unReaganesque (remember "It's morning in America"?). She says the the "wheels are coming off the trolly" and that the elites are circling the wagons, making safe-havens for themselves to sweat out the coming storm. And all of this makes her uneasy, very uneasy. She is sensing that the American fabric is becoming unbearably strained, and that something must break. I think she's right about about all of it, right up to the breaking point. And here's why I differ with that woebegone Peggy Noonan:
The trolley is indeed coming off the tracks, and for one simple, overwheling reason. The entire world economy is going through the roof, and America has hitched its wagon to that trolley almost 100%. In the short term, that means a downward pressure on wide-spread personal wealth and income for many Americans, at the same time that global efficiency increases, concentrating more wealth in the hands of fewer (or fewer per thousand) industrial titans; it means changing jobs for no immediately apparent reason. The reasons lie in China or Thailand, now more than ever, and we don't really know, as a people, what's going on over there, not well, not intimately. We don't feel the connection that is already pulling us into the global future. But we will develop those senses; those new senses will even become acute. We will enjoy the new broadness and freedom of a bigger and better world. But it is the whole wide world--and that is too big a puzzle for any mere President or single government. We are flying blind into the future, and we'll just have to get used to it. Our bearings were set long ago when we started this country as an "experiment." If any people are up to the challenges and changed perspectives of a new, wheeless world, it is we Americans.
11/01/05
Dear Saintsters: Here's the ballot that counts. See you Wednesday. Sincerely, Gregg G. Brown Award Nominees 2005 Top Young Band (Under 21): P.R.Y.D.E. Top Male Solo: Tommy Anton Top Jam Band: No Vote Top Male Vocalist: No Vote Top Blues Band: No Vote Top Garage Band: Rib Eye Brothers Top Female Solo: Mimi Cross Top Avant Garde Act: Zelda Pinwheel Top Indie Rock Band: The Milwaukees Top Female Vocalist: April Smith, without a doubt! Top Heavy Rock Act: No Vote Top Ska Band: Hub City Stompers Top Funk 'n' Groove Band: TM Stevens Poet Laureate: Jessie Smith Top Punk Band: The Graveyard School Top Live Performance: Zelda Pinwheel Top Roots: No Vote Top Rock Band: Frankenstein 3000 Top Pop Band: The Wag Top Local Release: Grip Weeds-"Giant On The Beach" Top Keyboard Player: Tony Amato (Boccigalupe & The Bad Boys) Top Bassist: No Vote Top Drummer: Clint Gascoyne(Frankenstein 3000) Top Guitarist: No Vote Top Radio Station: WMCX 88.9 Monmouth University (W. Long Branch) Song of the Year: "Damage Control" (Mimi Cross), then "Come Back To The Jersey Shore" (Jpat) Top Journalist in Support of Live Music: Chris Barry Top News Publication in Support of Live Music: The Rag Best Thing to Happen in 2003/2004: Asbury Lanes Emerges As a Original Music Venue Top Music Website To Support Live Original Music: Njcoast.com (Best Reviews)
10/31/05
Lilies and roses, the death of love hard-garnered from the wasteful earth that fulfills summer's glory with autumn's kiss to blacken buds once white with hope
The ideal of perfect Love, even if never actually or fully manifested remains a part of the human potential. Ever since the notion was first formulated near the end of the Middle Ages, drawing together so many threads of he human fabric--instinct, desire, altruism, reproduction, spiritual aspirations--Love has become one of the permanent recurring goals of the human condition. It is different from socialism's ideal of the Perfect Man in this: it does not require that perfect Love ever actually exist here on Earth. It is enough that it remain and ideal or goal to have its shaping effect on current events. This is not the case with socialism's Perfect Man ideal; with the Perfect Man, it is the end that justifies the means; its ethical content is empty. Love, even when "achieved" remains a goal, an object to strive toward, since no one can ever love another perfectly. And love itself retains the character of a motivator, an internalized ideal driving action as well as an outward goal or destination. In terms of social concepts, Islam's "jihad" also apparently shares these same characteristics. But only when Jihad is understood with its mystical connotations intact can it remain full of ethical import, for it is an expression of what we might call "love of God." The difficulty comes because this love has a communal social aspect where "perfect justice" is to eventually be made manifest in the community, or "Umma." But Jihad also has the connotation of an inner "struggle for truth." And such an inner struggle can have no obvious end; at best, a series of plateaus described by previous explorers of the inner landscape. Romantic Love gains its practical value as a shared ideal that helps to shape and strengthen individual bonds; by achieving this modest goal on a regular basis, Love helps to provide, or sketch out, meaning in the lives dedicated to its ideal. Each participant is part of that larger world. It has no final, static destinaton, such as "Justice for all," but simply maintains itself as a goal, like Plato's "The Good." One can never love too much, or have too much love. In a very different way, one can never have too much Justice; for once "justice" has been achieved, no more justice can be applied. Its character as a goal or an ideal disappears, and it simply becomes reality. And Reality, as we all are too sharply aware, is not the destinaton of romantic Love.
10/20/05
Well, the president has the sole discretion to pick nominees to the Supreme Court. This power to appoint resides solely in the executive. The only other people involved are 100 senators, with their heavily circumscribed commission to "advise and consent." So, the president picks someone he likes, and the Senate approves. End of story. Or is it? This president made many many representations to the general public to induce them to vote for him in 2000 and again in 2004. These "campaign promises" were taken seriously by the voters, and because of them, the president needs to have a transparent enough pick to satisfy the electorate to which he made these representations-- his "conservative base." It is solely on the basis of a broken campaign promise that any legitimate criticism of the nominee can proceed. What, exactly, was the president's promise during the campaign? He seems to think he is holding up his end of the bargain to the best of his ability. Why isn't he in the eyes of others? Basically, Miers is too "stealth" for her own good, a quantity X that gives us no way to independently verify for ourselves if the president is living up to his half of the bargain. An unverifiable promise is no promise at all. The president is in breech of promise, hence the uproar.
10/10/05
"Supposing Roses" is finally done-- each blossom hacked and thorn shellacked. What had grown lovely in my release from loneliness is now packed back into perfected sonnets --raw squares that define and defile. Artifice filled out the feeling a kiss first insisted. I gussied up the ghost with dresses, rhetoric's high fashions, and, after, stripped the pickings at my sex's insistence. Naked and dated she lay there like a final draft. None of her winsome tussle was left in her. Inert and silent, she awaits a reader, the dazzling sequins of approbation, the instructor'™s star or apt remark, tender repeat of touch and tongue. Her backside's bare and brazen as an existentialist. What words she uses are more music than meaning. I lay beside her loosely--mute, inutile.
In other news, working on the mostly political collection "Black Champagne."
10/09/05
I've always had a few thoughts about this matter of why corporations are "right-wing," "conservative," or otherwise associated with "authoritarian" political positions.
In capitalist societies, the corporation is the strongest expression of property rights backed up by the rule of law. The greatest push AGAINST a flat social equality are the masses of capital the corporations accumulate, with the open connivance of police help as troopers enforce the rule of law. A nation of laws, not men, guarantees that there will be winners and losers. Winners want the rules to stay they same as they were when they WON, and so are often "reactionary," "right-wing" or "conservative" in their pro-authority slant. At least as far as keeping the property-accumulation game going. This is why large numbers of unemployed young men, or a citizenry that votes but does not own anything is dangerous to those with the most to lose; such "disenfranchised" citizens have nothing to lose if there is no authority to uphold their own property rights. An inequality of outcomes is one of the facts that we must make peace with to live in a capitalist system.
Non-capitalist societies also have corporations--but in those cases they are often state-run enterprises or the industrialist cronies of strongmen. This was the case in Musssolini's Italy, and in Japan's militarist society of the WWII era. The identification of the corporation with authority is nearly complete in such cases. Even Renaissance Italy had many such structures, in utero. In socialist societies, ironically, although an equality of property distribution is the stated goal, the state simply abrogates ALL of a corporation's capacities unto itself. State-run oil, state-run steel mills, etc. bear witness to this fact. The identification of authority and property is complete. No "level playing field" for individual actors provided by the rule of law intrudes to break up this identity--it is a marriage unto death. And so, socialist societies die since they cannot transform.
Corporations can never be "anti-authoritarian" in purpose, only in pose (7-UP is "the uncola"). Think of all the cops busting up Unions back in the 1920s and 30s when the Unions threatened the "means of production." Authority came to the rescue of property.
A need for authority to uphold an unequal distribution of property is the core reason why corporations are understood to be "right-wing."
9/19/05
Produced a tentative new piece for my on-going "Black Champagne" collection, which takes current events and gives them a twisty twist. Inspired by the continual left-wing drivel emanating from many talented but luckless poets of my acquaintance, I'm considering reading this latest "messterpiece" at The Brighton in West Long Branch on the 21st of August. I just can't let the silence affirm their point of view without offering some sort of rebuttal. I don't particularly enjoy writing political poems, but the level of discourse is so crass, so low, and the drivel so continual, that to say nothing is to be complicit in the degradation of the dialog. A falsity unopposed, given time and silence, becomes a sort of communal truth, or trueness, an unquestioned assumption. I have an obligation not to let that happen while I breathe and feed. "NIMN" is an acronym for the anti-Iraq war group "Not in My Name."
Saddam's boys, fed lion's hearts And bad philosophy, are sent into the rape room Under P.S. 106, Baghdad, Same ground that saw a Ninevah arise Same wide-eyed folks that made A few of civilization's unending things, Set golden bird upon a ruby bough to sing. "Not in my name" shall we set, we The people of Hamilton and Adams Not for such names, nor for our own, Forgotten since our civics' texts Have gone to rot as assuredly as Rome's poems Burned by Visigoths to watch "Vandal Idols" on a commandeered TV in the fumbled coliseum. "Not in my name" shall these be set free. Not by us, the people of Lincoln and Paine, Not with our bullets of inalienable rights, Nor our hatred of tyrants, Not by our strength, our success, Not by our sure hand in a selfish world, Not by our open palm shall these be set free. These same who crouched in a shit pit Or were shot for sheer sport. Power plus a few roaring lies And arabist France is your firm friend, Scoring oil off of marsh arabs' misery, Breathing grievance and flattering tyrants alone in their ego-lovely palaces of misapplied plaster, walls caulked with exquisite fear, real memories of friends, father or sister suddenly dragged out at 1 AM and shoved into the State's Mercedes and returned in ribbons, eyeless, legless, earless, hymenless, or not at all.... The fear of faces too used to fear, Same faces Stalin made in Russian clay Holding his neighbors' feet to the fire Or cinching raw hands in unforgiving wire. "Not in my name" shall these be made free. Same Saddam, god-damn, Who put a hit out on a retired president And called Kuwait his "13th Province," Shattering desert quietude with lies, Living detached as a NYT op-ed writer From the eternal verities. Same Saddam, god-damn, Who paid suicide bombers' families to live on quince And retire to palm-shaded villas After sending Sonny on to see Allah; Same suiciders who put a two-fer hole In New York's presumptuous skyline: Front teeth fell out square with 3,000 lives As jerks in Jersey City cheered And Palestinians rah-rahed in parade, Making Gaza glamorous once again, full of light, full of hope, full of song, As know-nothing Americans knew, just knew It was all our fault anyway; Not even giving gashed Jihadis credit for their kill, not really. Same Saddam, god-damn, .... I can't go on without respite, without tonic, A cool cloth for my lips, hot cotton Laid on my ears, much abused, Carbon darkness for my eyes, my eyes That see in seemless verity One nation, under God, Riddled with raconteurs of the Apocalypse Who never missed a payment on their Saab. Allah, Allah, Allah, Forgive these few, these free, These blind men holding diamonds Who think they're weighted with bricks; Forgive these few their compassionate disaster Who see sorrow in a tyrant's swat, How sad his up-bringing must have been; Forgive these few their huddled asses Who buy the pap and propaganda of the feckless press. Allah, Allah, Allah, Sear me with second-sight enough to see What comes of free people with no will to be free; Who shrinky-dink and containerize the globe After pacifying panzered fascists, Who set the Technicolor sights of Hollywood in every human eye And take air-conditioned flights To the winds' four corners And hear half-good English spoken there From some kid wearing Adidas And yet do not believe Fallujah's on their subway stop or Kabul is come to Washington. Forgive these few, O Allah. Allah, Allah, Allah, Walla walla walla Washington 8/15/2005
Dear Reader:
Let me elaborate (without belaboring) my point in print. Let's say one questions the status quo: Hey Quo, what's up with that, yo? The question, by its very nature, throws doubt upon the validity and durance of the status quo, or things as they are. Maybe things should be arranged otherwise, maybe other arrangements or interpretations would be more penetrating and correct, or would open avenues of action that would be grander or more satisfying. Questions, in this respect, are like headlights that can help us sketch out the dimensions and "give" in the fog that surrounds us.
What questions, in and of themselves, cannot do in these circumstances is prove anything about the validity of the status quo one way or another. Because one can formulate a question about the status quo does not, in itself, undermine things as they are in any way. Hey Quo, are you sure that the ground is under my feet? This question does nothing to remove the ground from under your feet--it is simply a question--a question that can start a process of discovery that itself should be questioned and not simply assented to because it undermines current understanding. This is what I meant about "questioning the questions."
A question is simply the first step on a path that may eventually lead to the heady heights, and vast new perspectives, of disproof of the status quo; but the question is not the map, the donkey, the traveler, the sweat and the path all in one. The ground under your feet is solid until physics comes to eventually prove--through assertions and demonstrations (the sweat and donkey, etc.)--that in fact the ground is mostly made up of empty space between those tiny head-spinners, atoms.
Questions start the discovery, but the doubts are only worth paying attention to when evidence begins to solidify their guesswork with a bridge to a new reality, a new solidity. This goes on forever and ever, and even our views of bridges past begin to be swallowed up in the present fog and our next new journey can be to re-tread the paths of discoveries "past."
But then, what is Time, really?
7/29/2005
Messing around with sonnets this week, and headed over to http://www.gizoogle.com/ to see what Gizoogle would make of the classic Wordsworth poem "the world is too much with us." For those who haven't heard about Gizoogle.com yet, it translates any web page or submitted text into Gansta-style Eubonics.
THE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. * * * The world is too much wit us; late n soon, gett'n n pimpin' we lay waste our powa: little we see in nature that is ours; we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! the sea thizzat bares her bosom ta tha moon; the winds that wizzy be howl'n at all hours, and is up-gathered now like frontin' flowa; for this, fo' everyth'n, we is outta tune; it moves us not.--great god! Id ratha be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn; so might I, stand'n on this pleasant lea, have glimpses thizzat would makes me less forlorn; have sight of Proteus ris'n frizzay tha sea; or hizzy old Triton bizzle his wreathed horn. 7/20/2005
Had a grand time reading poems on the Hadrian's Wall in Mahesh and Brandi's backyard last week. Each guest was requested to bring some poem or mischevious creation. This was mine, written in "first person Brandi." For some inexplicable reason, I was not immeadiately exiled to Tomis, where I could at least have brushed up on my Ovid.
Three times was I a fool for love:
For a boy, a man, and a teen.
As a girl, as a woman, and in-between
A fool, a fool, a fool I was for love.
Three times blessed, three times cursed,
All before my thirty-first.
First a lad with an open face
Bade me love, and my heart did race;
His heart like a cloud that shifts and strays
Blew me about, and then blew me away.
I was a fool, and I would not see
A boy is a boy, and ever shall be.
Then a teen, or two, or ten
Bade me love them as I was then,
Young and lovely, but my heart was fickle:
Love was a game of slap and tickle.
I was a fool who played gaily
Thinking my heart would ever be free.
At last a man, made dark and tall,
Stalked straight to my soul
And bade me stand by both altar and cradle,
And stoop and stir my heart with a ladle.
And I a fool, a fool, a fool so free
Gave love, and give, most solemnly.
7/04/2005
Seems from the public expressions of Islam that it is particularly fecund as a source of, or susceptible to, a culture of grievance. Why else would Afghans, who have just survived a tough winter, overthrown their religious overlords, and are within spitball distance of becoming a narco-state, be having huge demonstrations about the (now known to be incorrect) story of a copy of the Koran being flushed down a toilet? This "culture of grievance" is an echo of all the things I dislike about the current US culture--from its pie-eyed victim-sainthood to its badges of past hurts gone by, all are little cults made up of what ghetto songs call "disrespect." Its this aspect of Christianity that I dislike as well-- a cult about what Lord Dermond so compellingly called their "little suffering man on a stick." Even Bhudda's denial of all temporary reality as an escape from suffering gives these painful pinnacles of consciousness the whole castle and the flag to boot; grievance is magnified with each mantra-moan that wants to do away with the whole world that could allow such suffering to exist within it. The holiness of hurt, and the engines of resentment--people are wishing for unassailable sources of moral high-ground--instead of being willing to compete and convince for their wishes and decisions with the common herd of humanity. It is motivated by what Dan Weeks always termed "resentment;" no good can come from such a source; it must be moved away from and refused. As Nietzsche has it, let the less unwell help the wholly unwell lest the healthy become infected too. Everyone feels the temptation to wallow in this cesspit; it was one of my favorite things about hanging out with one old pal of mine that whenever I would say something mopey, she would stop me cold by calling me on it--and we could get back to enjoying some classic aspect of the present circumstances without the weight of feeling aggrieved. No more "poor me." Another writer I know has got a ruler to whack the lax with too; and how brave it seems coming from someone so intimate with sadness.
But where is the envisioned victory, the savory apotheosis, the curt look at
hurt that then chunters on despite it all? I never laughed at that silly Dan
Rather for signing off his news broadcasts, replete with the very image of
suffering humanity, with that eld word couragio.
6/20/2005
Working on my latest batch of Practical Cats, tentatively entitled "Supposing Roses" or "Suppose A Rose." Let me know which title you like best. If you have any suggestions about the poems themselves, drop me an email. Looks like this will be a sampling of facetious philosophical and political poems. You can read them here. Here's a snippet, a translation from M. Charles Baudelaire:
The Albatross Last Tuesday, for kicks, the cachinnate sea-crew Downed an albatross, a vast sea-bird, The indolent companion of our wake, who lazily traced Our ship's slippage through bitter breakers. Once deposed to the common planks, This king of the wild blue stumbled in shame, Piteously dragging his white infinite wings Like chalky oars unmoored beside him. Winged voyager! Now dementedly frail! O royal one! Now splay and exposed! One sailor crams His Highness' beak with a burning pipe; The next limps and mimics this cripple who soared! The Poet is one with this swift prince of the clouds Who haunts the tempest and mocks swart archers: Exiled to earth's low hoots and threats, His giant wings hobble each inch of his step. --Charles Baudelaire 4/01/2005
UPDATE: These texts were broken into two books, one personal and one political. "Supposing Roses," is a series of love poems, and "Black Champagne" is the political batch.
My basic presumption is to err on the side of life. Physician's take an oath: first, do no harm. There is no written "living will," to guide the participants in Terri's death, no voice from the now voiceless woman. Into this absence, her husband, a proper authority, informs the courts that Terri expressly wished not to continue in such circumstances as have now befallen her. The courts have taken him at his word, and have let the authority that law gives the spouse rest with him. If Terri Schiavo were being kept alive by heroic measures, I might agree that the husband's hearsay evidence (which wouldn't be enough to convict Michael Jackson of fondling boys) might be enough to allow a husband to let his wife slide into eternity. But Terri Schiavo is simply being fed and given water, a very ordinary level of care.
Michael Schiavo also took an oath: to have and to hold, in sickness and in health. I believe that the husband's position should also be to err on the side of life, according to his oath, and despite the informal wishes a then-healthy Terri Schiavo may have confided to him.
As far as the courts go, I do think that state level review is high enough for life-and-death matters.
Prosecutions for murder are resolved at the state level, for instance. But, the federal government,
and the president himself, have a responsibility to protect Terri Schaivo's constitutional and human rights
if these are being abrogated, either directly, or via some deficient or mistaken judicial process.
The Declaration of Independence also errs unalienably in favor of life. "We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
3/15/2005
Grief is in the air these days. I myself lost a dear dear friend last summer, and this poem is a paean of pain I jotted out one lonely night not long thereafter. It serves as the introductory poem of my latest volume, The Departed Friend.
for Marie She walked with me some while beside the wood, Knowing only what we neither understood: The way was dark; the path confused, but good. What'd tumbled down to make the walking trouble Came, at least, from above to have us stumble; At least, though lost, we were paired and doubled. All about us moved what we took as gloom, A dark in darkness beyond the dark of rooms -Unsure if ourselves or wood had bade it come. She sang in fallen night, the moon standing by, Sang of something farther on, past sky And night, past unanswered owl and me. Something settled round her then, some shine; A startlement in branches brought a shadow down; She was not the world's; nor was she mine. 1/01/2005