Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Every other week, I host Afternoon Freeform on 89.9 KUNM .  The idea behind the show is to highlight the connections in music across genres.  While I'm not a musicologist and can't tell you why certain songs go together well, but I am a poet, and I approach the show as if I'm setting up a set (in performance) or a chapter (in books). One thing I've been doing is playing a cover tune then a few songs later, playing the original in what I announce as "The cover project."  No judgement one way or the other, not much commentary but to highlight what is the cover project. The rules, as I layed out, is that I announce it as the cover project and play both versions.  I also don't play them back to back.  I usually try to build them into the flow of the set so as not make it seem like it doesn't fit in the show. Here you'll find my take on how the covers rate in comparison. John Denver's "Poems, Prayers, and Promises" covere...

In it's simplest form, the Haiku is explained as a 3 line poem with the first line being 5 syllables, the second line being 7 syllables, and the third line being 5 syllables, or, even simpler, a 17 syllable poem. There is lots of discussion about whether just having the right amount of syllables makes it a haiku, and I'm not going to come down on whether what is going to follow is really creating haiku or not because I'm not trying to create intentional haiku. No, I'm trying to create random haiku but limiting it to 3 words. There are approximately 9,500 (5) syllable words, and 850 (7) syllable words in the English Language.  Knowing that, it is possible to create 76,712,500,000 unique haiku. If you want to see how this works click the below link. 3 Word Haikus From there, I can open the spreadsheet and make it editable.  On the top of column B (the blacked out column) I have my formula for randomizing.  From there I can sort the data and it will popula...

The year was 1998 and I’d recently freed up my schedule so that I could go to this poetry open mike at a place just down the road called Best Price Books & Coffee .  At the time there were a lot poets every week.  We’d meet up before and write or talk and get to know each other and then the host would come in, set up the mike on the patio (during the warm weather) or inside in the back room of the coffee house.  There’d be poets, musicians, comedians, random street people who’d stand up and ramble for a few minutes until the host would sort of shoo them off stage, but everyone got to speak if they wanted to.  The notion of hate speech was a relatively new one, and I didn’t really get all the nuances.  I’m a white, cis-gendered male that comes from a middle class family so I have never experienced discrimination or been the victim of hate speech but I know that the people who I liked to listen to did not look like me or share my background.  The...

When in the course of human civilization, we come to abandoning old habits for the greater good; we take the challenge boldly; we march forward as if our destiny awaits; we stand before the masses and proclaim, “I will do it.  I will sacrifice for the greater good.”  It is from this understanding that I ask us, once again, to bravely venture forth, to suffer the relative indignity, to give up what has been characterized as poor manners for the sake of all; I ask us when ordering a bottle or can of beer to forgo the accompanying glass.  Alas the accompanying glass, even chilled, is not needed as the humble bottle, the lined aluminum can is a perfectly suitable holder of beverage.  Indeed it held the beverage from brewery to truck, from truck to warehouse, from warehouse to truck, from truck to store or restaurant and now occupies the most proud and esteemed location upon the table next to the coffee mug and above the knife and spoon. Surely pouring a beer into ...

Down Route 66 from the student ghetto, through the empty office wasteland and cheap motels of the eastern edge of Edo (East Downtown), Farina Pizzeria holds court in a long, exposed brick wall flat with a slightly elevated patio jutting out from the back of the building with scenic views of a parking lot, a dentist office, the fancy Artichoke Café , and the ever empty Pop-N-Taco like a misplaced Forepeak on a too long ship.  It’s the rugged façade, the slightly seedy ambience of Central Ave, and exposed brick that testifies that the pizza here is special (it better be because you either live in the neighborhood or drove the above gauntlet to get here). Inside, along the west wall and in the middle of the restaurant, a polished wood bar with two sets of black handled taps, fine liquors lined up behind, and slightly tilted wine bottles sets the mood as to what to expect:  casual yet quick service, whispered conversations, and simple, yet tasteful pizza.  Though the...

  It Makes No Difference And the sun don't shine anymore And the rains fall down on my door Now there's no love As true as the love that dies untold But the clouds never hung so low before - It Makes No Difference Robbie Robertson                 Sometimes when I let my imagination rove I picture my dad running across a Montana wheat field, dark brown dirt under his fingernails, hair tousled, and long summer days where the only rule his parents laid out was, “Be home by dark.” In summers, in Montana, darkness came closer to midnight than regular dinner time hours. I imagine as the long day wound down, my dad sitting down next to a small fire, Montana cowboys and sheepherders telling stories, smoking cigarettes, and singing songs.   And I’m sure their voices cracked and sang off tune, and maybe the songs were traditional and passed down from generation to generation and may have sounded not unli...

Overview:   In June, around the Summer Solstice, my wife, my dog, and I set out to hike the Albuquerque Bosque from end to end over two days .  It was well over a hundred degrees and after starting later than expected we didn't make it as far the first day as we hoped.  But we did make it. Now, three months later, around the Autumnal Equinox, we set out to do it again.  Our route was slightly different and, with the weather being a lot more pleasant, broke the day into a thirteen mile day and a five mile day:  eighteen total miles from Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the Alameda Bridge right on the border between Albuquerque and Corrales. The things we wanted to do differently this time were pretty straightforward:  1) don't get lost at the south terminus and get into the bosque sooner, and 2) walk even more on the westside.  So, the route was a follows:  we'd walk on the east side from Valle de Oro to the Rio Bravo Bridge, cro...