This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Showing posts with label Seattle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seattle. Show all posts

Sunday, October 8, 2023

"The Distance" by Danny Sherrard

 

"The Distance"

by Danny Sherrard


put me in the distance 
now if you guys don't know
the Distance 
it's out there 

it's kind of like where the truth has this way 
of answering all your questions 
without even having to speak 
like the first time you set eyes on the first love of your life 
as they were just walking down the street 

put me in the distance 
where you can riddle rumors out about my existence
like maybe the mighty Mike McGee will say
"I heard that Danny was kidnapped 
by a renegade Amazon tribe in the Amazon 
and they took him under their wing 
so now his blowgun skills 

phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhwop!
are impeccable"

See when I'm in the distance myth-making it ain't gonna be my job anymore 
it'll be yours 
and I think it would be just what the doctor ordered 

if I was in the distance so long
that there was a band of Danny impersonators 
running the streets of Providence 
like quicksand horses 
that everyone's eyes could just sort of sink into 
and I feel it like our hearts are all in the distance 
pumping vision into our blood and blood back into our vision 
distance is being able to see things from the inside out 
distance is where the future grows 
distance puts the marrow in tomorrow 
distance is what I want to eat for breakfast 
it's the bullseye tattooed the inside of my solar plexus 
and only the sunset can pierce it 
so CR when I'm gone 
I'll be gone 
my back would be turned 
by the time y'all's arrows are drawn 
the distance that I'm all wrapped up in 
will put the potential energy in your quiver 
distance is the backbone in my swagger 
and the twang in my stupid honesty 
see without the distance my gunslingers wrists 
hang lifeless with arthritis at my sides 
and gypsy of my lips forgets how to kiss the sky 

without the distance 
some nights I grind my wisdom teeth into a fine powder 
and I lace my cigarette other nights 
I use it 
to fill the empty hour glasses 
I put them in the world 
where things always get turned upside down 
to feel like I have more time 
I do headstands 
on escalators

I'll hit my spirit with the reflex hammer
just to see if its knee jerks 
I get used to the different-day same T-shirt 
I'll play with symbols and reverse and reverse till I bleed earth 
listen, these words are patchwork nothing 
I left my patchworks right between West 4th and Bleecker
so now I band up the box 
of the past 
with a blindfold on 
I'll keep tomorrow a breath away 
and break dawn like an egg across the home of your hate 
because distance 
is a dynamite psycho static patchwork matchstick stuck on motion 
and I'm a riverstone explosion 
a chiseled whisperin' echo crumbling in on itself 
a clover grown its fourth leaf 
check your kinetics 
check my kinetics 
striking lightning off the Braille of our pulse
put me in the distance and I will go 

I will go to the pawn shop at the end of the universe 
where the pawn shop owner 
keeps his beard in check 
with that razor blade you may have traded in for a second chance 
and he'll look at me 
from behind those elusive crossed arms 
and that wayward smile 
that pawn shop owners often have 
and I'll just take a look around 

I'll see the angel wings slung up on the walls 
and all of our old dreams 
bottled in jars on shelves 
that slant for the weight 
until I realized that this 
is as far as I can go 

I'll move the distance out of the way 
walk up to that pawn shop owner and say:

"listen, I've got a great story
it's about a spirit 
trying to find his way 
back to his bones
and I'm willing to trade it in
just so long as you can give me directions
on how to get back home"

 

Danny Sherrard wows the crowd at the Applesauce Teahouse in Flagstaff in November 2007

Born in Seattle, Washington on August 29, 1985, Sherrand he won the Individual National Poetry Slam competition in 2007, becoming the youngest competitor at that time to win such a title. In 2008 Sherrard won France's Poetry World Cup where he competed against national champions from 15 countries.

Sherrard was on the Seattle poetry slam teams in 2007 and 2008 and the 2009 HawaiiSlam team.

At the beginning of 2009 Danny Sherrard toured with the spoken word group The Spilljoy Ensemble composed of himself, Jon Sands, Shira Erlichman and Ken Arkind.

Sherrard's first book, "Cast Your Eyes like River Stones into the Exquisite Dark," was released in 2009 through Write Bloody Publishing.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

"Manifesto of an Addict" by Christopher Fox Graham

you see I’ve got a problem
I’m addicted to that one thing
that everything that true thing
every moment I’m looking for another fix
wandering from here to there
trying to get just one more hit
you see I'm addicted to humanity
it’s just this power that overwhelms
this power that draws me in
I don’t know what it is
I can’t escape
humanity has me addicted
every time I kiss a girl
talk to a friend
hear the story of a stranger
I get just that much more addicted
and it’s just that much harder to break myself away

when a 75-year-old black man
tells me how he earned a vicious scar on his face
from a near-lynching in 1952
just outside Birmingham, Alabama
I get more addicted
his story
that human story
draws me in

when a mother of two
tells me what it was like
to explain her boys
that daddy is never coming home again
because semi-trucks don’t leave survivors
I get more addicted
her story
that human story
draws me in

when an elderly Jewish matriarch
tells me what was like
to grow up in a Polish concentration camp
to see her family get shot
then rolls up her sleeve to reveal a tattoo of
4
7
3
2
8
carved in the flesh
of her forearm
her story draws me
in every gesture
every feature
every wrinkle crease earned through survival
draws me in
like a moth to a flame,
like a comet to a star

I can’t escape
I tried once
I tried to withdraw once
ever gone through human withdrawal?
I left the world for a day
and it almost killed me
I couldn’t function
I couldn’t act
I couldn’t breathe
I couldn’t walk
I couldn’t talk
do you know what it’s like
for a poet who cannot talk?
a poet who cannot talk
who cannot write
is dead

I had to come back
my addiction keeps me alive
do you know how easy is to get this stuff?
they don’t even sell it
they give it away
I can’t round a corner without getting another hit
and it’s killing me

if I could break his addiction
I could live forever
but what would my life be like without my humanity?
they say we’re all made to die, does that mean we’re all addicted?
are you?
are you?
are you?
I am
I my love my addiction
I want to experience the stories of everyone
because what differs us is just time and space
I want to know what other possibilities my soul had
before it chose this time
this space
this body to occupy
I want to know
I want more and more
I want to do the lines of every human face
I want to walk the features
memorize the names
live the stories that of every human who ever lived and I still want more

I want to feast with Gilgamesh
I want to besiege Troy
I want to drink with Alexander
I want to walk the halls of Camelot
I want to meditate with Buddha
I want to pray with Mohammed
I want to burn with Joan of Arc
I want to ride with Crazy Horse
I want to stand in the streets of Hiroshima with 140,000 other human beings
and feel the skies turn instantly
into the wrath of God
and want to sacrifice myself on Calvary
and become your Messiah
because God
if there is one
was just the first addict

I love being addicted
even if it’s going to kill me
I ask for more
I beg for more
I would sell my soul for more
but what makes this addiction my curse
is that I’m just one man
and I don’t have much time



Christopher Fox Graham © 2000
I guess I never posted this poem online before. Originally just a solo poem, I performed with Nick Fox and Chris Lane as a three-man group poem at the 2001 National Poetry Slam in Seattle.