Mnemosyne Forgets

The long bowed wood left marks on the hardwood floor,

so we tried to keep the rocker on a rug.

It didn't work and every house would have these streaks

where our rocking had stripped wax off.

Memory is a hesitant thing,

a thing best left on shelves for rainy days.

What troubles me is remembering,

remembering August ninth-

nineteen ninety five.

A boundary day, a before and after day.

He wasn't just a guitar player missing the upper bird digits of his wing-ed finger.

He wasn't just a singer, who often strayed off key.

I struggle to write what he was, and still is,

 some 16 years later as I remember remembering.

That day was long neglected friendship calling just to see how I was holding up,

sorting through dated and venued bootlegs,

listening to over-mixed studio CDs,

holding my two black dogs and rocking and crying,

and rocking and crying.

Once a year we made a trip,

made arrangements for inside.

Locking knowing eyes with others

--he forgot a verse or teased the next song with a chord.

The whirling line of solo dancers in the breezeway

--patched long skirts drawing breath,

the lights synced with every song,

the grilled cheese, sugar cubes and cheap beers

 the after-concert parking lot.

Seeing the Dead live made me feel like I belonged,

like these freaks had some sort place for me.

When Jerry Garcia died in rehab,

I remember a part of me dying too.

Breaking the 4th Wall

I'd been promising myself I'd write a poem every day during my too short two week vacation.  Most years I'm in Colorado dealing with my mom's inability to do anything quietly or the franticness that my sister approaches buying presents for her husband's side of the family.   But, this year, I'm home and really wanting to spend my time writing.  Usually that involves poetry, but this year, the essay seemed to tickle my muse and I've found myself drawn to the form again and again.    So, here I am, Christmas morning and I'm thinking and wanting to get my thoughts down on paper because I don't really know what I'm thinking until I put it down on paper (virtual paper). The pattern this year seems to be to really break down how art works (or at least how I see art working),  so after finding myself talking about my set at the Green Mill and my next morning conversation with Marc I thought I'd get it down and relate it to Louis CK's show at the Beacon Theater.

                When I began thinking about my set for Chicago, I knew I wanted to do work that I connected with.   I also knew that the deadline of the show would force me to memorize work so I included pieces that were haphazardly memorized and pieces that needed to be memorized (for a longer monolog that I want to perform next summer).   Here was the list (with notes that I'll talk about):

Setlist for Chicago:

(change to Chi-town references-casual intro) Answer me that Jack

(first poetry reading and about Chicago) When the Revolution Really

Deja Vu

Dear Tom

Underwater

So...what I've really been interested in is when a performance start and what constitutes performance in a poetry reading.   Now I'm not particularly fond of the "traditional" way poetry sets are arranged.   Most of the time, an experienced reader/performer will have some sort of anecdote/comment and then say something like "This poem is called...." or "My next poem..."   It seems to me to be this is a rather clunky way of letting the audience know when they should focus and when they shouldn't.  I, however, wanted a way to hold the audience for longer chunks of time, to string poems together.   I wanted to take the audience on a longer journey (20 minutes) not just 2-3 minutes, then a short breather, then 2-3 minutes, etc.   So in picking the first poem, I decided I wanted to make the poem conversational, so that the audience wouldn't  know that the reading had started and I'd have to sort of coax them into paying attention instead of metaphorically announcing, "Pay Attention."  So what I did was take the below poem, "Answer Me That," and change the references so it seemed as if it just happened.  Here's the original:

I’m sitting in a coffee shop on Central and I’m a little shocked by what I just saw on the walk over.   A white truck with a black dog in the bed pulled out in front of this green Saturn and was struck by it and spun around ninety degrees.  The dog became a cart wheeling bundle of black fur and twisted and turned in the air for a good twenty feet.   None of the people were harmed, and the cars – good old disposable cars – who cares.  But the dog – he trotted back to the truck and jumped into the bed like nothing happened.

Now I can’t get the image out of my head, this black mass flipping and twisting in the air and I’m almost glad I didn’t see him hit the pavement, and I couldn’t stop and say I was a witness and give my name and address because I kept seeing this bundle of black fur that I didn’t even realize was a dog at first flying through the air in a mass of legs and paws and I’m supposed to write about Kerouac.  I’m supposed to write about the disjointed style and verbal barrage of The Subterraneans when all I see is the black fur flipping and twisting and that image is juxtaposed against an image of my own black dog running out into the street and hitting a car and running back inside and dying on my living room floor.  And I’m supposed to write about Kerouac when I can’t help but shake and freak out. 

Take this image from my mind Jack.   Take it with you on the road and you and Cassidy can mull it over and talk about how grand it is as you plow through the eternal present of 40’s America.  And I wonder if you could write fast enough Jack.  I wonder if the very act of writing is counter to Zen because you have to absorb the world then spit it back out.  Then why write?   Why write Jack?  Answer me that.

Basically my tone was conversational and I changed one reference "Central" to "Broadway," because the Green Mill is on Broadway.   From my perspective, the audience was actually sucked in and it worked.  My anecdotes were simple and short between poems:  going to hear Peter Michaelson as my first poetry reading before a cover of his poem (which is basically set in downtown Chicago), talking a little about part of the reason I was in Chicago (which actually was my nephew's Bar Mitzvah), noting that I still don't have "Deja Vu" memorized, and talking about me and Mindy's sort of "Panel Discussion"/reception with her family to announce our marriage (which was the preface to a love poem that I added to the set right before I went up there).   And it worked.   The crowd listened, laughed, and I got many compliments after the show.

                So, in talking to Marc the next morning, I asked him what he thought of my set--(Seriously.  You're sitting in Marc Smith's apartment and have a chance to get feedback why wouldn't you ask for it?).  He was generally complimentary but actually surprised me because he felt that I "betrayed" the audience with my first poem by starting it that way.   Betrayed?  

                Wow!  I didn't feel that.  My experience was that the audience was with me the whole time.   Marc felt that I lost them but regained them because the rest of my set was authentically me.   Interesting.  So what I'm left with is this:  do poetry audiences have expectations of the performer?   Obviously, a stand-up audience expects to laugh and the lights will dim when the comic comes out on stage (but they also know to pay attention when the comic comes on-more on this in a bit).   And an audience in a movie theater knows the movie is going to start because the lights basically go to black (even beyond the dimming during the previews).    But many poetry shows don't have visual cues, the light don't dim, etc. so the poet has to provide the "roadsigns" so that the audience is in on the act.   

                  When I started my set the way I did, I actually kept the audience out of the act.    They didn't know that my first poem had actually started, but that was what I was trying to do.   So the question really is, "Did it work?" and taking Marc's criticism to heart, I don't think that it did.   He pointed out that for it to "work" I'd have to let the poem be more than it was....it really is a pretty simple poem.  But, I think there's another way to do it and that would be to really change the poem so that there are no markers to it being a poem at all.

                Ironically, Louis CK's new special (downloaded off his website) starts with Louis walking to the Beacon Theater (through the streets of Manhattan-deliberately similar to his intro from FX show) and then into the crowd mulling around the entrance, people handing over their tickets, taking their seats, etc.   Finally as the crowd settles in the camera follows Louis onto the stage and him explaining he's going to do all the necessary announcements (turn off your cells, etc).    And then he's off.   The lights are dimmed (but Louis's already on the stage and initiates it) but there really is no marker that the show has started.   And it works.   I think part of the reason it works is that Louis's whole act is sort of "conversational."  But can it work with a poetry set?

Bond. James Bond

Bond.  James Bond.

I've been on a bit of a Bond binge,

dabbling round the series,

taking stock,

wondering why the series kept me engaged

for all these years.

Now, I'm not one who'd argue that it was some sort of pinnacle cinema,

yet, there is something comforting,

something suburban

about seeing them all again.

Back before the VCR, I'd watch them when they aired on ABC,

and in high school...I'd make sure I saw them when they came out,

and now I'm revisiting them again

and strangely intrigued once again.

What is it about nostalgia?

about the romanticized life that my adulthood has never resembled?

Disposable

I'm not one to advocate,

nor am I much into prescriptive rules,

and really love language and words,

but a thought occurred to me today

and I want to tease it out.

Let's just eliminate the word "disposable"

in the hope that the concept will be rethought.

Cause you see nothing is really disposable.

Disposable plates, napkins, forks, etc. get put in some landfill

where at best they're somehow recycled.

Even plastic, given time, will break down into something,

so its not really disposable.

Perhaps relocated.

Now, this poem would take a possible leftist bent if I pointed out that we really treat people as disposable:  forced labor being discarded, but at their best their bodies are recycled

if the sentience just sort of disappears.

So, planning a picnic, party, or social get together?

Why not just use cleanable dishes as opposed to dishes to just pass on to others

whether that be now or 50,000 years.

August 9, 1995

August 9, 1995

I'm not exactly sure what I was doing, but I know I wasn't happy.

My first long term relationship was winding down and I was restless,

unsure of the promise that it once held,

and ignoring plaintive appeals from my muse to write more,

get involved in something larger than myself

and lonely.

There were moments that held a clarity for me,

that shifted me off whatever path I'd been on,

and hearing the chorus to "Fire on the Mountain" from outside the amphitheater in Kansas

sparked some weird cognizance in my LSD addled brain and I had to get back in.

The security guard did not agree.

After getting pummeled we came to some measure of understanding

and I passed the rest of that concert --July 4th, 1991--on my own.

This was a turning point for me Jerry,

and however clichè it may sound I became a "Deadhead," a hippy,

jumping into some other way of being that I still struggle to define.

What I was melted away as my consciousness slowly returned in Bonner Springs.

Being in Boulder didn't matter and we relocated to Albuquerque a year later,

made one last trip to see the Dead in Colorado

and just got on with our life.

And then you died.

I remember hearing the news in the morning from some friend calling me from Colorado

as we roasted in a small duplex in the War Zone.

The prime spot for listening was somewhere between the floor and the rocking chair

in the middle of the room and I hung out with the dogs on the floor

sorting through my small collection of bootlegs,

and a few studio CDs that just didn't quite capture what I'd experienced.

As day rolled into night, I moved up into the wooden wicker rocker

and just let the music wash over me,

and cried.

We'd already decided we were going to make another show,

no matter how far away,

and I was so terribly sad.

I like to think you'd approve of how my life has unfolded.

I write, perform, think about my impact and how I treat the ones I care about.

I'm just some fan, Jerry, some random guy from Colorado,

who just wanted to understand what all the fuss was about

and just couldn't possibly understand why so many people that I respected

were drawn to your admittedly bad voice, unpolished compositions,

and a catalog that seemed to meander across genres,

never quite fitting in any of them easily.

I still don't get it, but I miss you.

Miss what you said to me, though I'm not exactly sure what that is.