poem: free trade 071609

Sex service users create the demand that moves pimps to provide supply women and young girls.  Without demand, there would be no pimp, no sex slave.  We need to go after the users, most of whom are men, many of whom are white and/or economically privileged.    ’nuff said…here’s the trick…

Poem: aseasonal affect disorder 112008

As much as I like (make that LOVE) my new job…I have deep-seeded philosophical objections to spending hours of day in an office, in front of a computer.  As opposed to, in direct interaction with communities of living organisms in an environment not wholly manufactured by us.  Many of my poems grapple with technology and its role in industrial societies as a(n often unnecessary) mediator interactions between self and other.  Yes, we use it to break down barriers.  And it also constructs new barriers, creates new forms of intense alienation, corrupts our priorities and distorts the way we perceive and think about and ourselves and others.  Plus, so much of it is just…crap.  But whatever.  Here we go…

Poem: move 111408

My reaction to Barack Obama’s election, after coming down from the initial high.  I’ve heard a lot of people say that “he’s got a lot of work to do” as if they expect him to fix all our problems on his own.  This was my response to that line of thought.  Because we’ve got a lot of work to do.  It’s also my response to people who tend to fetishize “the revolution” as if change weren’t happening in front of us, with every day.  True, lasting progress is gradual and subtle, not some sudden, flashy orgy of selfish, small-minded chaos and violence.   So let’s get to it.

Poem: rethinking the bouquet 122603

An over-reaction to a rejection that happened years ago.  It was a messy process where the rejection was no more than implied (on her part) and inferred (finally, on my part) without much any clear communication in between.   Not a confidence booster (yes, some rejections are!).   It’s hard to not feel like a creep sometimes, and situations like this don’t help things.  Although I did learn from the process that I am no good at inferring implied messages…

This poem marks the beginning of a period of decidedly romantic (in the historic sense of the word) melodramatic dabblings.  In my defense:

1. Romanticism, as much as I hate to admit, agrees with the second law of thermodynamics,
2. I was a hormonal teenager, and furthermore,
3. I am happy to announce my full recovery.

Poem: day after 102508

For a while I’ve had some concept sketches I was never satisfied with, until I completely scrapped them and started over from scratch, keeping only the general topic/subject matter intact.   This is an example of that process.  The rewrite is first, inspired by feelings I had after a very nice meeting and long conversation on the previous day (hence, the name…); the older poem is second.  They ended up being completely different stylistically, and I think they speak to two different audiences, from two different versions of me.  Enjoy.

Poem: Into the Freeze 2003

This poem is part two of a poetic dyad about the transition from 1. fall into winter and then 2. winter into spring.  It’s probably also an emotional allegory.  I don’t remember the specific context…only that I wrote it after a frustrating argument with a loved one.

Poem: Backlash 101308

This is one of my more recent poems.  It is directly inspired from a conversation with someone who lives across the continent from me in Canada.  One of her reactions was, “Do people really say, “y’all”?”  Yup.   I live outside of any city limits and I grew up surrounded by farms: horses, cows, crops.  I collected eggs from the chickens as part of the morning chores before school.  I have a rural “y’all,” but there are also plenty of folks with an urban “y’all.”

The conversation was about success, failure, lessons learned and processing recent advice given to me by an academic advisor, activist and mentor:  “First, do no harm.”  Simple, but perhaps something that we all struggle with.  But ’nuff said.  To the poem…