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.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"I've Been To Auschwitz" by Stefan S. Sencerz



I
When I was 16, still in high-school, I took a trip to Auschwitz. It was a hot sunny Summer day when I hit the road. I hitchhiked up the Vistula river the ancient city of Krakow, then further into the mountains, Auschwitz on the way.

The buildings of the main camp are made of red bricks, still look solid. The iron gate welcomes with the Inscription: ARBEIT MACHT FREI -- WORK LIBERATES.

Inside, several huge rooms, each filled with hair, combs, toothbrushes, eyeglasses, razors, belts, prosthetics, shoes, many of them children's shoes. . .

I could not speak
for several days.


II
Years passed. My mother gives me a tour of Auschwitz and the sister-camp of Brzezinka -- Birkenau, Birch Forest. The forest of chimneys spread for miles along the railway tracks welcomes us. Most barracks were burned to cover the crimes. Only a few survived and the dead forest of chimneys.

Gas chambers at the end of the tracks, crematoria-furnaces right behind. All is neat and efficient. 3 million people were killed here.

My mother stops by the crematorium, says: "Sometimes we heard the screams as if people were thrown alive into the furnace." I want to embrace her, tell her I know. But she's already taken off, marches, measures her steps like someone who knows exactly where she is going. I follow her into one of the barracks.

She stops by an alcove 2 by 2 yards, three shelves of wooden planks inside, points to the top one, says: "Tutaj spalam. Here's where I slept." "Alone?" I ask. "No, 10-12 women shared the bunk. One blanket, sometimes two. It wasn't all bad. We cuddled when it was cold."

She leads to a central place where the roll-call was taken, twice a day. "We would stand for hours in cold, wind, snow, rain, especially when anyone had tried to escape. Sometimes the guards would bring them back and torture them in front of us," she says.

We walk to the parking lot. My mother stops by the Wall of Dead, kneels down, pulls out her cherry wood rosary worn thin by the touch of generations: "Swiêta Marjo! Matko Boga! Módl siê za nami grzesznymi, teraz i w gozinê naszej smierci," she whispers and I join her with Zen chant: "Namu Dai Bosa! Homage to the Great Compassionate One!"
Holy Maria!
Namu Dai Bosa!
Mother of God!
Namu Dai Bosa!
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death!

I raise my eyes. Calm mountaintops loom on the horizon.


III
My mother and I watch "The Trial in Nuremberg" in her tiny apartment overlooking the Vistula river. Hermann Goering, second in the Reich only to Hitler, claims to be oblivious to what happened in the camps.

My mother says, "Let's take a walk along the river. Wild geese may need food."



I typically post videos of poems before the poems, but I felt that the written poem was stronger than the performance simply because of the unbearable lightness of being in Part III, which is omitted from the video, in part, I believe, because it is very difficult to convey that sensation in a poetry slam opposed to a featured performance or a page read.

This poem was performed as a group piece with Stefan S. Sencerz and Amalia Ortiz, from the National Poetry Slam in Chicago 2003, where I first heard it.





Stefan S. Sencerz is professor of philosophy at Texas A&M in Corpus Cristi. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Rochester in 1992. He teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Foundations of Professional Ethics, Issues in Philosophy of Religion, Environmental Ethics, Eastern Spirituality and Western Thought, War, Terrorism & Ethics, Zen: Culture and Art and Philosophy & Science Fiction.

His published papers cover ethics and moral philosophy.

He published his first poem, "Writing a Poem," in ByLine magazine, issue 224, July/August 1999, and has since been published in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Freedom to Speak: National Poetry Slam 2002, and From Page to Stage and Back Again: The 2003 National Poetry Slam, di-verse-city; Anthology of Austin International Poetry Festival, 2004 (ed. Vicki Goldsberry ); a runner-up in the competition for The Christina Sergeyevna Award.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

"Where am I from?" by Stefan S. Sencerz


An earlier draft appeared in From Page to Stage and Back Again: The 2003 National Poetry Slam, ed. by Michael Salinger, Lucy Anderton and Regie Gibson (Wordsmith Press, 2004), pp. 20-21.

I first heard this moving poem at Southwest Shootout in Austin, Texas. To begin the poem, Stefan Sencerz instructed the crowd to phonetically pronounce the Polish tongue twister "Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie," and after we terribly repeated the finally assembled phrase, he said, "see how easy that was?" then proceeded to launch into the poem. It is best read while imagining it performed with an incredibly thick Polish accent.



"Where am I from?
By Stefan S. Sencerz

Over and over and over again
I great people with the usual "How are you?"
and hear "What's up? Where are you from?"

"Detroit," I say, for I spent four great years in Motown,
I left my heart in that town I found sunshine
on a cloudy day, I still root for the Pistons.

"I knew you were not from here,"
I heard in Texas where I live now
most of the time I meet with an incredulous stare
"Yeah! Right! Detroit?! Where are you really from??"

I ponder this question for the matter is serious,
feel like a beginner about to meet the Zen mind --

Where am I from, really, Who am I?
What was my face before my parents were born?
What is the sound of one hand?

I don't know. So I say, "I was born in Warsaw, Poland."
"Say something in Polish!" I hear and oblige
"Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie."

This sounds so weird that one can doubt it means anything, but it does:
Chrzaszcz is a scarab, a kind of beetle, "brzmi" means "resounds,"
"w" stands for "in" or "amongst," trzcina is a kind of reed,
and "Strzebrzeszyn" a name for a village.
A scarab resounds amongst reeds, in the village of Strzebrzeszyn.
Easy to say, if you are native,
some claim impossible, if Polish is your second language..

Whichg leads me to my father
it's Warsaw, 1943, the midst of the war
my father, an officer of Polish underground receives an order
to meet someone whom he had never seen before.
So they must identify each other, they exchange the password
greed each other with the usual

"Jak sie masz?"
"How are you?"
"Where are you from?"

"I am from Warsaw," my father says.
"Great," the guy continues, "I need to get some tobacco?"
"The best tobacconist is right here, right across the park,"
my father completes the password for now he knows
this is the right guy
the guy he was supposed to meet
and kill
a suspected Nazi spy.

They walk through the park.
My father pulls out a pistol, points at the guy
"You've been tried for treason , sentenced to death.
In the name of the Polskiej Rzezcpospolitej . . . "
And the guy says, "It's is some kind of mistake."
So my father says, it's no mistake, we have surveillance photos of you.
And the guy pulls out a photo of his young children
bursts into tears and swears upon their heads and the love of the virgin Mary
that he is innocent.
So, my father says, "Who are you, really? I need some proof!"
And the guy says, "Jestem Polakiem. I'm Polish."
"Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie,"
fluently without any mistakes.
And my father
had mercy for him, and let him go.

Sometimes I wonder how could he trust him
burdened by his orders
burdened by the trust of his friends
what would I've done had I been there?
I don't know.
I never had to kill someone who looked straight into my eyes and cried.
I still do not know where I am really from.



Stefan S. Sencerz is professor of philosophy at Texas A&M in Corpus Cristi. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Rochester in 1992. He teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Foundations of Professional Ethics, Issues in Philosophy of Religion, Environmental Ethics, Eastern Spirituality and Western Thought, War, Terrorism & Ethics, Zen: Culture and Art and Philosophy & Science Fiction.

His published papers cover ethics and moral philosophy.

He published his first poem, "Writing a Poem," in ByLine magazine, issue 224, July/August 1999, and has since been published in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Freedom to Speak: National Poetry Slam 2002, and From Page to Stage and Back Again: The 2003 National Poetry Slam, di-verse-city; Anthology of Austin International Poetry Festival, 2004 (ed. Vicki Goldsberry ); a runner-up in the competition for The Christina Sergeyevna Award.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Despite misquotation, Jared Lee Loughner is no 'slam poet'

I wish people would stop referring to alleged Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner as a "slam poet." That apparently comes from this quote in an Associated Press news story: "'He made a lot of the people really uncomfortable, especially the girls in the class,' said Steven Cates, who attended an advanced poetry writing class with Loughner at Pima Community College last spring. Though he struck up a passing friendship with Loughner, he said a group of other students went to the teacher to complain about Loughner at one point. "Another poetry student, Don Coorough, said Loughner read a poem about bland tasks such as showering, going to the gym and riding the bus in wild 'poetry slam' style - 'grabbing his crotch and jumping around the room.' "When other students, always seated, read their poems, Coorough said Loughner 'would laugh at things that you wouldn't laugh at.' After one woman read a poem about abortion, 'he was turning all shades of red and laughing,' and said, 'Wow, she's just like a terrorist, she killed a baby,' Coorough said. "'He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child,' Coorough said. 'He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.' "Cates said Loughner 'didn't have the social intelligence, but he definitely had the academic intelligence.'" As an Arizona slam poet, one who legally owns several guns and a concealed weapons permit, going on a shooting spree isn't on my list of things to do. Part of the reason poets write poetry is because any frustration with have with the system, society or our personal lives already has a means of release, our words. Be wary of the people who don't write poetry is all I'm saying. Who knows what's bottled up in there. At least with poets, you clearly know what special species of asshole we are by the end of a poem. Being in a poetry class and performing poetry in a crazy fashion does not necessarily make one a slam poet. Going to a poetry slam and competing does. To my knowledge, none of the Tucson poets have said, "shit, we knew that Loughner guy, he slammed once!" As such, we do not claim him. (However, I have met poets to which this applies: "'He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child,' Coorough said. 'He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.'" You know who you are.) Additionally, it seems as though both the Left and Right have jumped on this shooting for their own ends. The Right claims he was a crazed communist lefty nutcase who read The Communist Manifesto while the Left claims it was Sarah Palin's gunsight poster and the Right's "vitriolic" rhetoric. Neither. Motha-fuckin' crazy is motha-fuckin' crazy. To wit: 1) Have you ever know anyone who posts on a social networking site that one of their favorite book is The Communist Manifesto to have actually read The Communist Manifesto (unless they actually live in a commune and regularly attend Communist Party meetings)? No. And you haven't either. 2) Loughner's YouTube videos make no sense. Watch them. They are full of nonsensical, rambling syllogisms. You'll see someone who was not thinking rationally. 3) There's no evidence that Loughner tried to assassinate anyone because of what he saw, heard, or read. He had a lack of connection to the outside world; there's little evidence that what was going on outside would have made it into his skull; if so, he would have been more coherent in his communication in reverse, back toward us through his YouTube videos, a suicide note or manifesto. 4) Assassinations and political attacks are done for reasons, even if just to gain fame. Even Al-Qaida posts videos following suicide bombings. John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Otherwise political attacks have no meaning outside of any random attack on any random person. When the trial is over, if he's even ruled competent to stand trial, I feel we'll see Loughner's motives are more aligned with someone like Mark David Chapman - who shot John Lennon because voices in his head said he was the "Catcher in the Rye" - than because Sarah Palin made a lame poster or because Glenn Beck has a potato for a brain. That being said, all my best to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other survivors. My condolences to the familes of the six victims.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Sedona Poetry Open Mic kicks off 2011 this Thursday

Sedona Poetry Open Mic – open mic poets needed

From 5 to 7 p.m., poets take the stage in Northern Arizona's longest running poetry open mic.

Now more than six years old, the Sedona Poetry Open Mic has regularly hosted amateur, professional, performance, page, published and closet poets. All poets, spoken word artists, lyricists, songwriters, rappers, MCs, comedians and storytellers are welcome. If your art can be spoken, come and speak.

Nearly 1,100 different poets have spoken on stage since the open mic was founded by its host, veteran slam poet Christopher Fox Graham.

As always, the open mic is round robin: one poem per poet, per round, and we cycle through the poets from start to finish. This means if you show up late, need to leave early or don't have too many poems to read, we can easily work you into the cycle seemlessly.

Java Love Café is located at 2155 W. Hwy. 89A, next to Harkins Theatres, Suite 118, West Sedona. To sign up, be at Java Love around 5ish. For more information, call Graham at (928) 517-1400 or e-mail to foxthepoet@yahoo.com.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

If I won $380 million in a lottery

Normal answers seem tame.

If I won $380 million in a lottery, I'd have two arms surgically grafted to my body, just behind my current ones, and then two arms with fleshy wings like a bat grafted in the middle of my back, so 6 hands into total, which would make chores and travel super efficient.

Counting my legs, I'd have eight limbs, so you could call me the Octopoet.

And if you think that's gross, you'd be wrong. For one, I could shower 6 times as fast, and there's always someone who's into freaks. Add that to being a celebrity with $380 million, and getting a g.

What would you do with $380 million?

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Last year's words belong to last year's language

Little Gidding, Part II
By T.S. Eliot
(Written in 1942, during the constant Luftwaffe air raids on London)

Ash on and old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house—
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.

There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
This is the death of earth.

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning
Near the ending of interminable night
At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
Had passed below the horizon of his homing
While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
Between three districts whence the smoke arose
I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
Both one and many; in the brown baked features
The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.
So I assumed a double part, and cried
And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?'
Although we were not. I was still the same,
Knowing myself yet being someone other—
And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed
To compel the recognition they preceded.
And so, compliant to the common wind,
Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,
In concord at this intersection time
Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,
Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
I may not comprehend, may not remember.'
And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse
My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
By others, as I pray you to forgive
Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
In streets I never thought I should revisit
When I left my body on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
To purify the dialect of the tribe
And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
At human folly, and the laceration
Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.'
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
He left me, with a kind of valediction,
And faded on the blowing of the horn.




I am not a fan of T.S. Eliot. I actually think as a poet, he's kind of dick, specifically because of "The Waste Land:" "Let's write a poem you'll need a hundred pages of footnotes to comprehend, because nothing makes language beautiful and elegant like complete obfuscation. In a hundred years, the common man will proudly point to 'The Waste Land,' as proof to say 'see, I told you, poetry sucks.'"

Thanks, T.S., you douche, for ruining poetry promotion for the rest of us.

Although, Eliot's influence on poetry probably indirectly inspired the Beats to make poetry relevant again and also Marc "So What?" Smith to create slam to make it populist.

Poetry should be understandable. As language is meant to convey ideas from author to reader, speaker to listener, thus poetry, being language in its most polished form, should convey ideas in the clearest (William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow") or most elegant (John Milton's "Paradise Lost") or most bluntly straightforward (a slam satire) or most beautiful (Shane Koyczan's "The Crickets Have Arthritis" or Derrick C. Brown's "A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me") or most moving (Andrea Gibson's "Still") means -- depending on the poet, style and voice.

"The Waste Land" is the antithesis of poetry's purpose. It is forcefully convoluted with such obscure allusionary references that only Eliot scholars can sit down and read the thing without a footnoted guidebook to understand it. It also uses Greek, Italian and Sanskrit, none of which have I be fluent in since ... the accident ... and seem to have been added only to show off how wise and worldly, and better than you, Eliot was.

Of course, H.P. Lovecraft (horror author who gave us the ancient evil god Cthulhu), who hated Eliot probably as much I do, wrote a great satire of "The Waste Land," called "Waste Paper: A Poem Of Profound Insignificance," and it's a far more entertaining read. Lovecraft called "The Waste Land," "a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general."

And if you thought Eliot was a dick, you haven't met an Eliot scholar yet.

A Eliot scholar is the guy at the party who'll tell you why the 1998 E. Guigal Cote Rotie Brune et Blonde - which he says he's drinking - is vastly superior to the 1999 Alain Graillot Crozes Hermitage, which you're drinking -- although you just don't care to tell him you just helped the party's host fill those two bottles of expensive-looking wine from the same tap of Almaden box wine and, fuck, you only stopped to talk to this guy so your roommate could make moves on the hot hipster chick this douche-bag brought, and as soon as he gets her number and sets up a date, you're fuckin' out of here and headed to another party where the girl you like is double-fisting a pint of Guinness and a bottle of Jameson, like the kick-ass cool chick you love her for -- fuck, is this guy still talking?

That being said, I actually like some of Eliot's work. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ("In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo," which referencing is ironic, I know, as this is almost like writing "On this blog, readers come and go / talking of T.S. Eliot, whom we claim to know") and "The Hollow Men" ("We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men ... This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.").

The four-part "Little Gidding" series I vaguely remember reading in college, but yesterday, my mother sent me the highlighted passage as a New Year's Eve quote.

Which is why I love my mother.

(Whose married surname, coincidentally but irrelevantly, is Elliott.)

Shantih shantih shantih

Thursday, December 16, 2010

"Burn, Wall Street, Burn" by The Klute

Burn, Wall Street, Burn
By The Klute

I watch CNBC.
I read the Wall Street Journal.
I check stock tickers,
Study insider reports,
Consult my broker on a daily basis.
After careful deliberation,
I have decided to empty my bank account,
Convert it to unmarked twenty-dollar bills,
Go directly to Las Vegas,
Put it all on black.
When the ball drops in my favor,
I could use those liquid assests to diversify my portfolio,
Invest heavily in pencils and apples,
And for once, be on the ground floor -
That place where all the stock brokers will land
When they finally succumb to mantra of doom...
The endless repetition of "Buy! Sell! Buy! Sell!"
That turn becomes "JUMP!!! JUMP!!! JUMP!!!",
Playing on an infinite loop in the back of their mind
When they look out their office windows
And imagine the sweet release of death
Waiting for them on pavement below.
Good.
Give in to it, Wall Street,
Embrace your destiny.

I want my 401K back.
I'm not getting it back.
I've been advised it resides at the First Bank of the Land of Imagination,
Currently being managed by a crack team of leprechauns and unicorns,
Being leveraged into moon beams and fairy dust.
I shouldn't worry though.
I'll get my disbursement check as soon as I begin collecting Social Security.
This just in…
I'm not getting Social Security either!
So the time has come
To beat our shares into pitchforks,
Set our stock portfolios alight to guide our way,
To storm the castle
And kill the monster.
Now, I’m not suggesting you head to the headquarters of Goldman Sachs
With a pistol-grip pump shotgun,
Kick down the door,
Shout “I am the Angel of Death – the time of purification is at hand!”
Then start paying out double-barrel killshot bonuses
With a gleam in your eye and a song in your heart.
Oh wait, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting!
Because there will be a reckoning,
A tallying of names and a cracking of skulls,
And it will be easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle
Then it will be for a fat-cat to avoid my lead.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

Who is John Galt?
Who cares.
He’s dead.
I killed him and he’s buried in a shallow, unmarked grave outside of town
Next to the bodies of Adam Smith and Horatio Alger.
Stop asking questions.
Because it’s time for action.
Swift, brutal, unthinking mob action.
Let’s head to Wall Street
Block all the exits at the New York Stock Exchange.
Let’s give these American heroes the reward they so richly deserve.
Let loose rabid bulls and bears as an appetizer of destruction,
Rain down burning ticker tape like the wrath of God from the gallery,
Sing “Auld Lang Zyme ” with the vengeful ghost of George Bailey, Sr.
Then roast marshmallows on the smoking ruin,
Toasting our lost fortunes as we drink from the skulls of Morgan Stanley and Charles Schawb.
Because I watch CNBC and read the Wall Street Journal.
I now know the true meaning of class warfare.
The horror...
The horror...
Burn, Wall Street, Burn

Copyright 2010 © Bernard "The Klute" Schober



Klute, The: A rare breed of Southern Arizona slam poet, originally raised in Southern Florida (however, he's not a native Floridian - rumors trace his origin back to Illinois).

Abhors use of rhyme schemes in poetry, writes almost exclusively in free verse. Frequent targets: the goth subculture, neoconservativism (especially Dick Cheney), and crass-commercialism. Member of the 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006 Mesa National Slam teams (Mesa's 2005 slam champion), and 2008's Phoenix Slam Team. SlamMaster of the Mesa Poetry Slam. Has released three chapbooks of his work: 2002's "Escape Velocity", 2005's "Look at What America Has Done to Me", and 2008's "My American Journey". Ask him nicely and he might send you a copy. Primary habitat considered to be raves (especially desert parties), goth clubs, and dimly lit dive bars. Prefers vodka, rum, and absinthe when drinking. Is considered friendly, but when cornered, lashes out with a fury not seen since last Thursday. He's totally smitten with his girlfriend, Teresa - so don't ask him to dance. Feel free to buy him a drink, but remember, he's not putting out. No matter how much you beg.

People are talking about The Klute!

AZSlim, Espresso Pundit poster: Don't argue with The Klute. His hyperventilating and pure hypocrisy shown in these (and many other) posts makes reasoning with a two-year old who didn't get the popsicle he wanted seem tame by comparison.

Phoenix 944 Magazine says: Despite the heat, [The Klute] wears a black trench coat almost everywhere he goes and if the setting permits, he’ll blast through enough slanderous commentary to make Andrew Dice Clay blush. [He] admits he started slam poetry out of arrogance. He saw a performance and figured he could do better, after which he also admits he failed miserably. Today, his addiction for getting in front of the microphone and spitting out everything from a Dick Cheney haiku to a long-winded prose on race car driving to the late Hunter S. Thompson is as strong as his love for vodka and absinthe. If anyone’s seen “The Klute” in action, they’d know it. If they haven’t, they must.

Jerome duBois, The Tears of Things: You have one of the blackest hearts I've ever had the misfortune to glimpse.

The Klute on LiveJournal

Photo of The Klute by Jessica Mason-Paull

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Lives of Other Men

Again, another old poem I recently found. This one was written Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004, at 3:10 p.m.

The Lives of Other Men

on these mornings
I wish for the lives of other men
who can not calculate the distances
between faraway cities
who do not know the details
of how what came when

the bliss of minds
who do not know the differences between men
and assume that all have the lives we live

I wish the stories I could tell
were fictions
whose specifics were authored, not endured
because the narrations
of fallen systems and blind eyes toward good men
proves the privilege of my birth
and our ideals
are pretty parchment passages
with good intentions
I'm ashamed I once believed

this life is an accident
the branches of my tree
belong to a better man
who knew to not waste them
but I stepped in
and held tight the lie that I had it rough
because suburban religions
preach to the choir with bake sales
and new pipe organs
or golf club politics
while boys like me
tell tales of tattoos and riots
bullets shattering Sunday mornings
cells and sentences
I thought only existed in films

make me nameless
reward some lost soul with this life
so they do not wander streets
count in years the absence of children's visits
or leave unlived the rights that parchment offers

let me lease my days
so that boys who could be me
can make redemption more than a word
father more than an abstraction
family more than an anachronism

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Cut out my heart and leave it in a gin and tonic on top of a Dave Matthews Band CD

I found a collection of old poems floating in e-mail limbo. The poem was written Sept. 5, 2008.

Cut out my heart and leave it in a gin and tonic on top of a Dave Matthews Band CD

This is beauty,
the way skin bounces off clouds
shouted to a thickened sky
of a heaven too tired to listen
and I feel a step closer to god
when i contemplate our creation

you know we were made in the image
of a drunk deity
who didn't know her/is right from her/is left
tried to shorten our days with death and plague
but we kept coming back
till s/he woke in a hangover
and realized what s/he'd done
was a little ... um ... crazy at the time
a little short on the why’s and how’s
of how we came to be
left us between two dead soldiers of Sam Adams Light
on her/is best friend's neighbor's kitchen counter
'cause s/he was watching her/is figure
tries to hide her/is face in the bar
when we come staggering through,
asking to use the phone.
and begging the bartender to serve us the wine
of the vine that softened Judas' loyalty
then asking the gravedigger to bury us
close enough to count raindrops
of the days till judgment
when pulled from the soil like treasure
we can recall our days before it all went downhill
and convince the final judge
that we're worth sparing
worth including in the finality
then sing a song
soft enough to make the towers crumbles,
tarnish those pearly gates
and force the whole mess
to come crashing down
when heaven falls
the boom will resound through history
in our heartbeats,
and the echoes will come 72 per minute
there,
put your hand on your sternum
can you feel the echo in your chest?
the end has already happened
now we're just words arching toward that final
"the end"
before the acknowledgments,
index,
and afterward from the publisher,
characters on a page.
and tonight,
I glimpse the reader's eyes

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Russ Kazmierczak wins the Sedona Poetry Slam

Results from the Sedona Poetry Slam

Russ Kazmierczak won the Sedona Poetry Slam, held Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010, Studio Live, Sedona, Arizona, 7:30 p.m.

The night was heavily political with a few splashes of humor and a plethora of poetry about current events.

Russ Kazmierczak and The Klute took the lead early and battled to the end, with Russ edging out the Klute by 0.1 in a nail-biter.

Round 1
Random Draw
Sorbet Christopher Fox Graham of Sedona, "Today, I Will Wash My Bedsheets"
Calibration: Gary Every of Sedona

Maple Dewleaf, of Flagstaff, 24.5, (2:51)
N. Miouo Nance, of Phoenix, 24.7, (3:02)
Russ Kazmierczak, of Tempe, 28.1, (2:04)
Lauren Perry, of Mesa, 26.5, 26.0 after 0.5 time penalty, (3:12)
David Tabor, of Mesa, 27.0, 24.5 after 2.5 time penalty, (3:55)
Joe Griffin, of Flagstaff, 22.6, (1:17)
Danielle Silver, of Sedona, 26.3, (2:12)
Mikel Weisser, of Kingman, 27.1, (3:02)
Ron Lemco, of Sedona, 26.9, (1:31)
Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, of Cottonwood, 26.8, (2:22)
The Klute, of Mesa, 28.7, (3:05)
Tristan Marshell, of Mesa, 28.7, (2:58)

Teaser poem by feature poet Brit Shostak
Host: Christopher Fox Graham of Sedona, "Orion"

Round 2
Reverse Order

Tristan Marshell, 27.7, (3:00), 55.5
The Klute, 29.6, (3:04), 58.3
Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, 26.5, (2:14), 53.3
Ron Lemco, 26.7, (1:10), 53.6
Mikel Weisser, 27.0, (2:28), 54.1
Danielle Silver, 27.8, (2:50), 54.1
Joe Griffin, 26.9, (1:24), 49.5
David Tabor, 28.9, (2:35), 53.4
Lauren Perry, 28.6, (2:55), 54.6
Russ Kazmierczak, 29.6, (2:06), 57.7
N. Miouo Nance, 27.0, (1:54), 51.7
Maple Dewleaf, 28.3, (2:12), 52.8

Feature Poet


Brit Shostak is in a constant battle for balance. She spends most days trying to read as much as she writes, be as creative as the things that inspire her, and love as much as she is loved.

She is a life-long four-eyes, who sings in the shower and tries to listen as much as she speaks.

She still prefers typing most things on her 1957 Underwood typewriter.

When she was just a tot she had to get stitches in her eyebrow after running into a bookcase at the library. Legend says that something from that event stuck.

After writing for what seems like as long as she could hold a pencil she has published two chapbooks, “Kissing Lightning Bolts” (2009) and “Lessons in Calamity” (210).

She has just released her first CD, “Thieving the Midnight Oil.”

Although Shostak enjoys the competitive thrill of slams she is actively pursuing a degree in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry and finds the page just as if not more important than performance.

Shostak was the 2009 Mesa representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam and a member of the 2009 and 2010 Mesa National Slam Poetry teams.

She has also had the extreme pleasure of reading in front of poetry legends Sonia Sanchez, poetry slam creator Marc Kelly Smith and S.A. Griffin.

After spending the last decade in the desert she is headed to the Pacific Northwest in search of adventure, good coffee, and the perfect tree to read a book beneath.

Shostak is a dandelion seed looking for a place to plant herself. She does most of her deeds in watermelon sugar.

Sorbet: Gary Every of Sedona

Round 3
High to Low

The Klute, 29.5, 29.0 after 0.5 time penalty, (3:11), 87.3
Russ Kazmierczak, 29.7, (1:54), 87.4
Tristan Marshell, 29.1, (2:50), 84.6
Lauren Perry, 28.9, 28.4 after 0.5 time penalty (3:13), 83.0
Danielle Silver, 27.7, (2:22), 81.8
Mikel Weisser, 28.3, (2:19), 82.4
Ron Lemco, 28.6, (2:32), 82.2
David Tabor, 30.0*, (2:40), 83.4. *Four 10s
Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, 28.8, (1:58), 82.1
Maple Dewleaf, 27.9, (1:52), 80.7
N. Miouo, Nance, 28.1, (2:16), 79.8
Joe Griffin, 28.3, (1:07), 77.8



Final scores
1st: Russ Kazmierczak, 87.4, $100

2nd: The Klute, 87.3

3rd: Tristan Marshell, 84.6

David Tabor, 83.4
Lauren Perry, 83.0
Mikel Weisser, 82.4
Ron Lemco, 82.2
Bert Cisneros, the elder poet, 82.1
Danielle Silver, 81.8
Maple Dewleaf, 80.7
N. Miouo Nance, 79.8
Joe Griffin, 77.8

Slam staff
Scorekeeper and Timekeeper: Sarah Lepich
Host: Christopher Fox Graham
Organizers:
Studio Live
Christopher Fox Graham, Sedona 510 Poetry

Next Sedona Poetry Slam: Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010, Studio Live, Sedona, Arizona, 7:30 p.m., featuring Mesa's Brit Shostak.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Recording: Seven Years of Solitude

Seven Years of Solitude by FoxThePoet

Seven Years of Solitude
First published Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009, 9 a.m.


Seven years of solitude
one-night stands
and last names lost to the wind
I wrote them in chronological order
carved their names in the sand
rewrote our mythologies
into my own fictions
to win 10s from strangers who preferred verses
rather than the cut and dry facts of thrusting hips
and white lies to strip cotton from our skins
before clothing ourselves in dawn-lit shame
of till-we-meet-agains

I found her literally in my own back yard
spreading dandelions along her path
on highways and backcountry roads
from the tundra to Sonora
fallen into disuse by travelers —
save Kerouac scholars

she called herself a hobo,
always homeward bound
but yet to find a doorstep to call her own
she came to kiss the red from the rocks
paint her lips with this Martian dust
swirl pirouettes in the vortices
verify that stars here match home
and chase down crash-landed aliens
looking for a one-way trip home to Perseus

she broke me open like an egg
scrambled my contents with her garlic smile
smothered in maple leaf syrup
and salted to taste

she coaxed herself inside
to better hear the word
by smiths more crafted than me
pressed skin to skin
and melted my insides into cheddar
smothered the sheets
in her unrepentant smiles

she is joy
unpasteurized, caffeine-free, antioxidant-rich
joy
if it could drip from its source
sculpt itself into flesh and skin and bones
camber its soft exterior into curves
tender to trepid fingertips
hesitant to brush capsulated ebullience
lest it evanesce into vapor
like the morning fog
she zipped herself up behind a smile
radiant as auroras
to stay warm in the Yukon

we knew from the first kiss
the impending expiration date
I could only hold her so long
before wanderlust reignited her blood
pumped visions of highway sunsets into her aorta
pulled her sticky sunrise from my bed
I held tightly to dreams
that I would foresee us waking unshared unemptied
in the decades to come
but behind shuttered eyes
one loses the path of footsteps
roads meander as they must
not as we desire
and mountains have yet to yield to men

we were doomed to end
from the first morning we shared
each time we pressed hips and lips
I tried to capture the details
with scientific precision
to reconstruct the crime scene of her illegal emigration
from the homeland I built
she could have packed and parted a thousand times
without a second thought
or smile in a stranger's rearview
after her outstretched thumb purchased passage
yet I found her bedecked in my socks
or shirts or shorts and boxers after a time

I would have shed my skin to keep her warm
if it would have delayed her departure
a few hours more

she left me thrice:
to smell the stories wafting on Diné desert
see tors resistant to harassing winds —
play in a park where symbols of peace
were even written on the stones —
pioneer the plateau seared asunder
by patient waters that still run wild
too oblivious to laugh at our cages
knowing that they too will one day fall
Ozymandias could not conquer the sands
Hoover cannot break the canyon's will
though the crest once offered us a view
down to the moonlit sea
all endeavors come to an end
despite the glory
of their lofty dedications

each time, the gravity of our weight
pulled orbits back to the same ellipse
we shared atmospheres
and now with her light years across the plain
it's harder to breathe the air
before I knew her grace

in the winter nights
with the rest of the house bursting with life
lovers pressing tender touches
uncaring of audiences
friends rehashing old wounds reopened
musicians repeating tunes remembered by fingertips alone
I long for her pride
I languish for the smell of her with days trapped in hair
I yearn for the exhilaration of her tender brilliance
dropping falling stars into my exosphere
to scar the surface
leaving us again in the naked ecstasy
when the world faded away
leaving us alone with our uninhibited vices

the nights seem colder
and my limbs never warm enough to sleep through the night
awake with dreams unremembered
each one leaves a passport of her absence
the way she alone could seem to fill the bed with her laughter
as I left her in the mornings

our last day
remains wickedly vivid
how I longed to break my fingers and toes
to render my hands unable to labor
feet unable to leave her
knowing that as the door closed
when I next returned
she'd not greet me with outstretched arms
and leopardic leaps to pin me beneath her passions

I couldn’t have loved her better
goodbye was always on our lips
but when the last one came
it broke me down the middle

in the center of my city
tourists who came for millennial stones unbroken
saw us cleave together our last moments
and for the first time, she shed tears
broke open her dam
to cleave the street beneath us in two
in a way only the canyons know
the red rocks above trembled in dread
conjuring that winds and creeks had taken their toll
but she, unleashed, could finally break them into red sand
washing them like blood into the seas

there, at a crossroads I could recreate from memory
she said I would not cross the road with her
I was unable to follow
could not take her trek homeward bound
because I had never been
she carried my heart across the asphalt lanes
tied up in her pack
beneath snacks for the road
betwixt books and rolled socks
she carried it in secret
which I knew as she walked away from me
along a stretch of road
that seemed to widen for miles
until I lost her behind what could have been her next ride
or mere passersby
stained with her goodbyes
I watched until she was vapor and wind
red hat and pack
and then a mirage
as if she never was
but the hollow in my chest
beat her empty echoes with thumps in rhythm to her wandering footsteps
I send out platoons of foxes to find her
seek her out even in cities unknown to their habits
hoping their spying slyness
can catch her eye

now I seek out hitchhikers
the way addicts itch for a fix
I want to ask if they've seen her
if I can glean some knowledge of her whereabouts
and if they haven't yet
if they would pass on a message in my absence:
when the first winter breeze
blows in from the north
I will strip naked wherever I am
in the midst of Times Square,
the hollow of empty woods
or in my own living room
let her cold kisses caress all my sharp curves
feel her twirl around all my edges
inhale her joy so deeply
the atmosphere in my lungs turn to ice
all my pores will rise into goosebumps
to return her ten-thousand kisses
send all my silent words northward to find her
along whatever road she finds herself
wrap the embrace of breath around her
so she feels my arms again
even if just once more
even if just in dreams
even if she never knows

Recording: Somewhere Between Midnights and the Dawn

Somewhere Between Midnights and the Dawn by FoxThePoet

Somewhere Between Midnights and the Dawn
First published Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, 1:55 a.m.


Somewhere between midnights and the dawn,
in the shadows of dreams
old lovers slink into the caverns of my mind
for one-way trips through memories
reminding skin of its old acrobatics
through daylight repetitions
they come as if to see a dying friend
say final words, then bid adieu
and slip out before sunrise

after their emigrations
but before daybreak shutters open my eyes
I find you there, pressing palms to palms
as if you had always remained alongside watching
like an unnoticed scarf
keeping warm my throat to speak words
only you and I know in secret
from then until dawn
I find you have taken all the heroines' places
usurped the leads' roles
as if they were your prequels
just understudies filling seats
while waiting for the star player who was stuck in traffic

there, behind corneas, in the cathedral concavity
we rise upon the stage to play parts
in the fictions that dreams explore
your embrace is no longer forgotten
but repeated karmically as I slouch toward a nirvana
that will wake me at dawn
to the world of ice and steel and lies
with you, I would rather repeat my sins indefinitely
curse off enlightenment for a Bodhisattva
stay entranced for years horizontal and convalescent
ignoring flesh for ether
in a place where our bodies still match puzzle-perfectly
where the world is beholden to dreamers' whims
and your departure is remembered only as theory
I would stay unconscious beneath covers
until starvation or paramedics would extricate me
but the day is a persistent kidnapper
pulling me too soon from the visions of you

with our distance,
you are a disembodied voice
sound waves from a pocket toy
that rings to declare your impending,
leaving me afterward with the longing
to disassemble your components
into 1s and 0s,
transmit you through fiber optics and stationary satellites
and reform you in my living room,

but when the midnights come
and I climb beneath satin sheets
only brevity and steady breathing hinder your return
there, where all the best parts of me
try to remember all the parts of you,
you return unbroken, renewed
to bring me back to you,
the embodiment of joy
who once wore a girl's skin
and shared my arms

when all the world is only imaginary
I yearn for the moments I still have there
ache to make the dreams last longer each time
to keep your absence from its profound loneliness
when dawn wakes me to your vacancy
but the night offers another chance
even if only in my own fictions
to bring you back where you belong

Poet Brit Shostak features at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, Dec. 11

The Sedona Poetry Slam hits the stage at Studio Live at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, presenting three rounds of poetic competition as poets battle for pride and $100.

Between rounds, the audience will be entertained with a feature performance by Brit Shostak, a two-time Mesa National Poetry Slam Team poet and Individual World Poetry Slam competitor.


Feature poet Brit Shostak

Shostak is in a constant battle for balance. She spends most days trying to read as much as she writes, be as creative as the things that inspire her, and love as much as she is loved.

She is a life-long four-eyes, who sings in the shower and tries to listen as much as she speaks.

She still prefers typing most things on her 1957 Underwood typewriter.

When she was just a tot she had to get stitches in her eyebrow after running into a bookcase at the library. Legend says that something from that event stuck.

After writing for what seems like as long as she could hold a pencil she has published two chapbooks, “Kissing Lightning Bolts” (2009) and “Lessons in Calamity” (210).

She has just released her first CD, “Thieving the Midnight Oil.”

Although Shostak enjoys the competitive thrill of slams she is actively pursuing a degree in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry and finds the page just as if not more important than performance.

Shostak was the 2009 Mesa representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam and a member of the 2009 and 2010 Mesa National Slam Poetry teams.

She has also had the extreme pleasure of reading in front of poetry legends Sonia Sanchez, poetry slam creator Marc Kelly Smith and S.A. Griffin.

After spending the last decade in the desert she is headed to the Pacific Northwest in search of adventure, good coffee, and the perfect tree to read a book beneath.

Shostak is a dandelion seed looking for a place to plant herself. She does most of her deeds in watermelon sugar.


Want to slam?

All poets are welcome to compete in the slam.

Slammers will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.

The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. The top poet at the end of the night wins $100.

Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

Founded in Chicago by construction worker and poet Smith in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe.

Your host, Christopher Fox Graham

The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010.

He has hosted and competed in poetry slams and open mics in Sedona since 2004. Graham is a member of the Sedona Performers Guild, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit alliance of musicians, performers and performance poets that runs the 100-seat Studio Live performance space in West Sedona.

Graham founded the bimonthly Sedona Poetry Slam in 2008, bringing in feature poets from around Arizona and the United States.

Graham has performed in 40 states, Toronto, Dublin, Ireland, and London, and wrote the now infamous “Peach” poem.

Get tickets

For more information or to register, call Graham at (928) 517-1400 or e-mail to foxthepoet@yahoo.com.

Tickets are $5 online if ordered by Dec. 10, or $10 at the door.

Home of the Sedona Performers Guild nonprofit, Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona. For more information, visit www.studiolivesedona.com.

Studio Live is located in West Sedona, off Coffee Pot Drive, just north of Bashas' plaza and Oak Creek Brewing Co.

See video from previous poetry slams at www.YouTube.com/FoxThePoet.

For more information about the worldwide phenomena of poetry slam, visit www.poetryslam.com.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Lexington, Bull Run and Live on CNN

Lexington, Bull Run and Live on CNN
By Christopher Fox Graham

America, the absent-minded lover
who forgets your name in the ambivalence of night
doubts the pressure pressed gently to it yesterday was worth remembering today
America, you drunk rapist of suburban children
seeking to know your currents
pull themselves higher to see the view
know the far side of your hulk

you, America, show shadows of past days
bring down the cultural acme
to a level you can conduct with a symphony of fools playing off and out of meter
you, America, want us to love you
and your ideals that you stopped practicing
long before most of us came here,
you want us to love you
the way you were
and ignore the bombs of contempt and leaflets
dropped on Americans who just haven't moved here yet

you, America
with your blind eyes and traffic stops
with your breathalyzers of dissidents
shatter our hopes with your material wealth
and the need to make more

you draw in our children with your Technicolor dreamscapes
teach them that 2-D television love lives
can fill the void we feel
by not reaching out to feel our neighbors hands
call 9-1-1 instead of showing up
to speak some next-door words

you, America, that forbids our secret pleasures
from leaving us happy for a night
let us damn ourselves if you believe in the freedom
with which our ancestors built you
let go of wrists because these nations' hands
have empires to wreck
and men to free
we have lovers to swoon
and stars to call our own
without the cataloging of spheres of gases

we have dreams of starlight
to worship lovers beneath
without the fist fall of your suspicions
let us alone, America,
you redneck whore,
you control freak with good intentions
our way to hell is paved with your statutes
that enforce the will of do-nothing meat puppets
instead of letting the artists
live for art's sake
and drag the moonlight out into day
name the blind sun with our own tongue
and kiss the clouds into tomorrow

you, America, the destroyer of worlds
the doom of dreams
leaving broken roads not taken
through yellow woods unseen
bought with slaves wages

we will resist you
cap your mountains with our footfalls
bring down the gates of mud
and bury them for peach tree orchards

you, America, may doom us one by one
but the enumeration of our mysteries
will hopscotch through our daughters' minds
raise the sons
to raise the armies to resist you
tear down the towers
overlooking our prison camp daymares
America, we love you
but you do very bad things
no man or thing is evil
but actions may be
and sometimes crimes deserve just punishment
when too many have been broken

we, America, your sons and daughters, lay broken
but we won't here long
soon we'll rise
it will only take a moment
when one swift kick in the ribs
proves one too many
and we retake our place
and the bearers of freedom
the entrepreneurs of artistry
one more artist with shotgun dentistry
one more ghetto enclave to genocide the unwanted
one unlucky fuck who gets too close to the riot line
and takes a round on live network daytime TV
one martyr who didn't want to be
to raise the call in us
get us to pull each other up by the bootstraps
and bring down the highjackers of our grand experiment
and make you remember that you
are ours
we are not yours

you, America,
you were a republic once
and a republic can last forever,
but empires, all empires
must one day fall

I wrote and performed this poem tonight for the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition's "PATHWAYS...A Visual Journey" show in the Tlaquepaque Sala de la Milagro ballroom.

Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood, and a reply















Two Roads Diverged
in a Yellow Wood
A Road in a Yellow Wood
By Robert FrostBy Christopher Fox Graham
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We parted ways in that yellow wood
split at the fork to wander onward
I, the grassy one who wanted wear
my partner, the one bent below
the undergrowth where I could not go

the traveler stood between us
weighing our claims for his future
looking down us both as far as he could
as if the first footfalls hence
could reveal our destinations

Others had stood here on other mornings
longingly stretched their dreams down us
then trodden black the fallen leaves
and none had ever come back
to retry the other road

the traveler chose a route,
and made his way down his road
where he wound up, I cannot say
I am just the road in a yellow wood
the difference was his to make


I wrote and performed this poem tonight for the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition's "PATHWAYS...A Visual Journey" show in the Tlaquepaque Sala de la Milagro ballroom.

Orion

MapQuest the miles in the sky
it's easier to find you that way
than to traipse the hills between us

begin at Betelgeuse,
the moment we met
you, smiling as a stranger yet to know me
me, tripping over words
until I learn the rhythm to match you
we trace the lines
the midnights you teach me the art of touch
the mathematics of how to hold you
wrap starstrings of limbs to encase you
and become a hammock for your dreams

I first kiss you
near the lips of Meissa
taste the words camping in your backyard tongue
bring them inside mine
swirl them around until they lost track of their speaker
and became one breath

on the edge of Belatrix
we start our roadtrips
showing you all the places I loved
atlasing each one in sequence into new memories
snapping photographs for future shoeboxes
and Facebook updates

the fights erupt near Mintaka
parry, thrust, riposte,
we practice the arts of combat
study the hows and ways of pushing each other
you always win the battles, even if you don’t believe me

near Alnilam, you proffer forgiveness
and I discover how to say "sorry"
without losing face
on the brink of the Horsehead Nebula
I dive into all your stories
bleed out all of mine
let you examine all my sins
with the enthusiasm of a hell-bent prosecutor
working an open-and-shut case
but on the executioner's block
before the guillotine blade drops
the electric chair switch makes contact
or the Sodium Pentothal entered the vein
the pardon comes
and into my arms you sweep like a storm
tsunaming my defenses to wreckage
and calling me back to bed

we swim to the Orion Nebula
lovers in the surf of a black and white movie
drenched in the waves
as if to tell Nature and the gods,
"your eternity will not outlast us"
"our kisses will still come ferociously
long after this sand is washed away to bedrock
and the waves have evaporated in the heat of a dying sun"
"Your mighty Olympus will fall into Eden's vacant valleys
before we yield to your earthquakes
shrug off lightning bolts and burning bushes"
"our pulses will be the last thing the universe will hear
before entropy turns all the matters into orphaned atoms
finding lonely refuge in the dark"

we lost ourselves in those nebulas
swallowing stardust to give birth to new suns
we seemed to live there for eons of mortal time
just black sheets, bare skin, whispered poems
smiles and slumber

but in the bliss, we drift just past Alniltak,
and differences became too much too bear
so we kiss for last time
make love for the last time
said our last words as lovers
and go our own way

You sail on to Saiph,
I go home to Rigel
leaving phone numbers scarred on each other's aorta
mine still beats out the ten digits daily
when the moment feels right
and in the time it takes to draw a line between them
with the tip of finger remembering the sequence
we fold space like bedsheets in the blink of eye
so two points become one

and we cross the thousands of light years
become lovers again, drunk instead on words
remember the old times,
the joys in Orion and Horsehead,
the battles of Alniltak, Alnilam and Mentaka
the road routes to Belatrix
the kiss of Meissa
and the first hello in the orbit of Betelgeuse
but when the phone clicks off
and the points unfold,
you shine in Saiph
and I glow bright above Rigel
so we can see each other

and if on some little world called Earth
where two lovers like us
gaze up and see us shining on the same night and wonder
so be it
navigate by us if you will
send wishes heavenward if you think it'll do any good
but know we don't glimmer for you
we, instead, burn brilliant so the other can see us
and know that despite it all
love travels faster than light
and our story is wide as a constellation

I wrote and performed this poem tonight for the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition's "PATHWAYS...A Visual Journey" show in the Tlaquepaque Sala de la Milagro ballroom.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Best Headline

I forgot to post a photo of this new plaque when I got it last month.

The winning headline was "Santa puts 4 on the naughty list for drug smuggling over the holidays."

Monday, October 25, 2010

Shaikh Sammad wins the Oct. 23 Sedona Poetry Slam

Results from the Sedona Poetry Slam

Shaihk Sammad won the Sedona Poetry Slam, held Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010, Studio Live, Sedona, Arizona, 7:30 p.m.

We had veteran slammers but also a first-time slammer who gave it a go. We love these "virgin" slam poets because we were all first-timers once. We also admire the bravery to get up on stage for the first time. There were a lot of 10.0s, which are indicated by an asterisk *.

Round 1
Random Draw
Calibration poet and host Christopher Fox Graham of Sedona, "This County: A Lover's Geography"

Brian Towne, of Flagstaff, 27.5, (2:48)*
Christopher Harbster, of Flagstaff, 28.1, (3:06)**
Mikel Weisser, of Kingman, 29.0, (2:56)***
Shaikh Sammad, of Cottonwood, 29.9, (2:59)***
Maple Dewleaf, of Flagstaff, 26.8, (2:10)*
Richard Wagner, a first-time slammer from Ontario, Canada, 22.6, (1:34)
James Joseph Buhs, of White Plains, N.Y., 26.9, (3:02)**
Jessica Laurel Reese, of the Village of Oak Creek, 29.2, (1:34)*

Teaser poem by feature poet Doc Luben, "A New Hand"

Round 2
Reverse Order

Jessica Laurel Reese, 27.3, (2:25), 56.5*
James Joseph Buhs, 29.4, (2:20), 56.3**
Richard Wagner, 22.6, (1:16), 45.2*
Maple Dewleaf, 27.9, (1:55), 54.7*
Shaikh Sammad, 30.0, (2:55), 59.9****
Mikel Weisser, 28.1, (2:12), 54.7*
Christopher Harbster, 28.2, (2:17), 56.3
Brian Towne, 30.0, (2:43), 57.5****

Feature Poet
Doc Luben is a Tucson slam poet with more than a decade of professional theatre experience.

Luben has been stomping the stage in Los Angeles and Arizona since well before 1990. He recently completed a 17-city national poetry tour from Orlando, Fla., to Chicago to Detroit to Denver and many wild points between.

Luben was a panelist and performer at the 2010 Phoenix Comic-Con Nerd Slam and was the Tucson Poetry Slam Champion in 2009.

Luben's performance is a cocktail of twisty magic realism and sneaky, snarky humor. His poems are compressed life stories, marked by a rosy-cheeked love of screw-ups and contempt for those who claim enlightenment.

Luben earned his street cred in 1990s Los Angeles, writing and performing in loading-dock theater and guerrilla improv. He then squandered all of that street cred on a decade of Shakespeare with the Arizona Classical Theatre. In Prescott, he was tempted into the evils of slam poetry at the McCormick Arts District's poetry venue, the MAD Linguist.

Doc performed twice in the Arizona All-Star Slam, and enough time has gone by that he can reveal he did not technically qualify either time: they bent the rules to get him on stage, because he is just that good.

Luben was a featured poet at the first and later the last Arizona Spoken Word Festival and Slab City Slam at Arcosanti, the state's slam poetry tournament.

His plays have been featured productions at ACT, and has proudly taught subversive youth performance workshops for two decades. Luben trained at the freakishly progressive California Institute of the Arts, where they absolutely do not have Walt Disney's head frozen in the basement.

Also, your girlfriend has a crush on him. Don't worry. It's normal.

Round 3
High to Low

Shaikh Sammad, 29.6, (2:37), 89.5**
Brian Towne, 29.3, (2:51), 86.8*
Mikel Weisser, 28.1, (1:55), 85.2
Jessica Laurel Reese, 27.4, 26.9 after a -0.5 time penalty (3:18), 83.4
James Joseph Buhs, 27.9, (2:12), 84.2*
Christopher Harbster, 28.3, (2:39), 84.6*
Maple Dewleaf, 28.9, (2:13), 83.6*
Richard Wagner, 25.4, (0:35), 70.6

Final scores
1st: Shaikh Sammad, 89.5, $100

2nd: Brian Towne, 86.8

3rd: Mikel Weisser, 85.2

Christopher Harbster, 84.6
James Joseph Buhs, 84.2
Maple Dewleaf, 83.6
Jessica Laurel Reese, 83.4
Richard Wagner, 70.6

Slam staff
Scorekeeper and Timekeeper: Sarah Lepich
Host: Christopher Fox Graham
Organizers:
April Holman Payne, Studio Live
Christopher Fox Graham, Sedona 510 Poetry

Next Sedona Poetry Slam: Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010, Studio Live, Sedona, Arizona, 7:30 p.m., featuring Mesa's Brit Shostak.