30 June 2011

thirty for thirty

june disappeared


i promised myself, and without really mentioning it- all of you, that i'd write and post 30 poems in the 30 days of june.  now that it's done i'm surprised/relieved/saddened and a little impressed with the body of work.  you may see similarities in the poems, i know that certain phrases popped up more than once but all in all it's a good start on a 'next book.'  i say 'next' because editor extraordinaire, patrick riedy, and myself are putting the finishing touches on my first print collection which will share a name with this blog.  the book won't contain all poems posted here and there are several in the book that haven't made their way to blogland yet.


i feel that time and space will eventually get them all over here.


thanks to all who are reading and a special shout out to those overseas reading daily or weekly.  i have a pretty good idea who the german page views come from but i'm mystified by the consistency of those from denmark each week.


i hope you're enjoying the writing and please feel free to comment if you'd like.


also, here are a couple of links that might be interesting:


PressBoardPress 


wordpress site for intelligent writing and reading.


live reading


me reading a few from late june.



onehundredfortysixthousand
eighthundredthirtythree


it’s sugar   sure as shit
sure as guilt’s gonna find catholics
sure as sugar bear  curly hair
      nobody seems to care

the cell phone air 
fills with yes men
      platitudes
teen angst and attitude
keep the proof coming through
reading you
              feeding you
      but ultimately
                         needing you
to be the truth
       free the proof
socrates in shiny shoes

drinking the poison kiss
of cold air's bakery bliss
little ‘love you’ s between breaths

never the right time to get wet
  or be upset
we counted every last hair 
                                          on her head

onehundredfortysixthousandeighthundredthirtythree

           at least

and about a thousand more
       in the air
                  on the floor
an even dozen on my pillow
every time that's good 
        to go
or ought 
             to know
which way the timetable wind blows

for weathermen
                  for leathermen
   making sense and recompense
                         at all the reformed catholics
         on a
red brick   noise floor
    pushing adieu   to adore

here’s one   thing   more

      to good timing
and tippage
            the full house missing
drawing two
               but daydreaming of kissing
for the first time since i can remember
and at least since the first worst of november

when germs in mouths 
      caused so much doubt
and we all found out
that smiles are
                      shouts

to the little burn brown
              in this town
that circle the sweet sound
and get up just to 

       get 
down


                                                                   Corner of Oak Lane and 12th
by Chuck Connelly

29 June 2011

How Do You Wear a Seersucker Suit?



Summertime was made for seersucker suits.

 They're cool (ironic) and comfortable, looking crisp (even with that lisp) in the most humorous of climates. There is a reason why they were once considered the uniform for the Southern Gentlemen, like Willy Gunderson or Stamford Xavier MacGillicuddy III.   

                                                      
 But, how do you wear one?   How do you bear one?  

What goes with seersucker? 
                           Well, I'll tell you motherfucker! 


Read on for some helpful pointers.

Accessorizing the seersucker suit:
                               Shirts and a hat, now how about that?

A good guideline with seersucker is to select a shirt that includes one of the stripe colors.  Go black, green, and red if you're an African man, if you catch as you can and you have to admit that the sweat on your neck does bother you, a bit, it's so true.  So, if it's a blue and cream stripe, then a shirt in cream or blue will be the best thing    for you.   But there's one thing you should know (you should always know), that inevitable isn't edible anymore than credit is incredible and you must certainly understand that only Southern Gentleman— like the most gracious of all, Mr. Knight Berman Junior— can successfully wear a hat like that.  
So put yours on the rack and go to the back of the back where the books hang out and read a few until you find the one that makes you   shout, that makes you smile, and you feel understood for the first time in miles.  
In the last century the printed word was king, you see; it tore you down and set you free but now we're unsure about everything. 
Maybe this is how it feels to be on that limb, looking back, looking in and saying those words that everyone knows but nobody heard.  
Nobody hears   because it feeds the fear. 

But, what style of dress shirt?

                 Watch it now, you might get hurt.

As far as the style of shirts that are useful, youthful, and truthful.  A spread collar, point collar, or tab collar dress shirt will work, and work well if you're paving a road to hell or if you've just moved to Austin and can't get enough Stubbs or heat or heart or white boy blues or high heeled shoes and the new good news   but     ‘how much’ is never enough and ‘soon’ isn't now anyhow.  Just toss that tape in the air and wait for the surgeons to look up from their work, now you've got your shirt, and the shirt selected should be all cotton, if it’s a dress shirt, but cotton or linen will suffice, if you're nice and you always think twice, if you're real or you're right and you take leave of your senses only at night and also if it's a sport shirt.

Selecting neckwear for seersucker:
                       C'mon and pick one you salty motherfucker.

For the most part it is best to select a tie with a pattern one that matches your    hat (err, wait just a minute we got rid of that    didn't we?). Yes, ideally, you won't wear such things unless you have the head to pull it off, the style to slow the soft, and find the oceans roar like you did before from Mobile or Fairhope, Chickisaw or Spanish Fort.  Select a tie with a pattern, one of import, composed of the shirt and clothing color then wear it to court, to church, to the bar, and then home to the kids. Don’t show your weaknesses, keep those well hid.  However, it's OK if the neckwear incorporates additional hues, the ones you can use in its pattern, in blues, even in the band of the hat (wait wait, no-no, um forget about that).
So, if you are often in a position of prominence, if you've got something to say to more than one of us, if you haven't put down your all your expenses for the month and the fiscal year ending is coming right up, well, now you're talking. 

What is the appropriate footwear for seersucker?

                        This one's going out to all the full time truckers.

The most traditional footwear choice for seersucker is a pair of white bucks but most folks look at those and say 'What the fuck?' I can't really blame them, those shoes kind of suck but the warm red tradition calls it   'cut'.
And you do so to be polite, but underneath your civil rights are raging and staging some sort of coup, trying to recall how time might renew and diffuse the sexist and racial tonality, I wonder why arrogance feeds personality. And, how belief in the conscience is all very new to the immigrant sons of Pepe LePew. 

But actually brown or black shoes are also acceptable options, don't need to be made out of cotton, just keep it comfortable and that will do— it's all in line with a seersucker suit.  

The appropriate style is some kind of lace-up:
Think-captoe, split-toe, plain-toe, or wingtip.
In design, so fine, comfortable in leather, sassy and classy, impenetrable to weather   of most kinds on the coastline seeking Evangeline. 

Slip-on shoes simply aren't dressy enough.

And, finally, the belt should match the color of the shoes. It's leather-know-better than to sing only blues.
So, if you decide to go for a grosgrain belt, well, live it up then brother, drink to your health.  
And choose one that makes you happy and wealthy and fat but just make sure you don't pick the wrong hat. Because, that    that  that      would be disastrous. 

















28 June 2011

happiness is a scheme


there is a map of cypress on the wall
lips painted green and a hand to hold
if you were born there you can’t go back
                             it’s just too dangerous
                                    you have responsibilities   to us
                    and heroic is a relative term
                                        just as memory is written and then learned
                                      a sense of justice was somehow earned
                                           because stoic, too, is a relative term

                              



27 June 2011

The Two Jakes


It must have been somewhere that the land meets the water, or maybe, where the mountains meet the sky.  It certainly seems like the city and the country collided but no one is really sure if it was where Truth bumped into The Lie.  


Still, we are certain that it happened.  The ‘it’ in question is the rather fortuitous meeting of Blackbeard and Yellowbeard that led directly to the sonic experience that is ‘The Two Jakes.’  My first, and hopefully not last, encounter with the Jakes was at a small club in Buffalo, NY that looked fairly traditional in it’s dive-bar aesthetic.  I was impressed by the sweeping announcement from the public address system for all patrons to make their way to the ‘War Memorial Stage’ in the front of the club.  What I saw when I got there were two bright, harsh spot lights shining on seated figures, hunched over metal slabs containing small boxes with lights and knobs. 

Blackbeard leaned into the microphone and almost whispered, ‘Tonight, this is the truth center’ and a gentle, rising pulse of sound began to fill the room.  Then Yellowbeard struck one mighty chord that sounded like, well, doom. 

A hush fell over the Buffalo night and things that were merely ‘real’ got ‘right.’

Finding beauty in chaos is a trick that only a few can muster and most of them have left us to our own devices via death or the dismemberment of how to achieve such sonic desires.  Those that remain must be more vigilant than ever to not let the secret art die out, to continue the madness perpetrated by Cage, Young, The Velvets, Silver Apples, Gabriel’s Genesis, Eno, Bryars, Sonic Youth, Branca, Spacemen, Shields, Kember and Pierce.  

The madness of jagged shards of sound hurled and then corralled into sweet songs that come from a time where wanting and having are parallel lines and the Jakes soon decide that they just might be able to make those two ornery motherfuckers coincide somewhere deep in the night       if they could just get the delay pedal set right, they might. 

So when you listen and when you hear (which, after all, are two distinctly different tasks) to their songs float up, out, over and around and when you hear the feedback howl, the Fender music box growl of the Jonny Greenwood special,the deluxe 85, the southern blues for dessert Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor Duane and Dickey dirty gritty Gibson SG on eleven with pretty little melodies that fell out of heaven.


When you hear all that
             When you listen to all of that
                                  When it really sinks in
                                                 That’s when the good life begins.  



26 June 2011

did we win tonight?
did we baby?
did we?




 george and homer declared an illegal assembly zone for the known and the unknown  the bound and batons  backed by a line of officers who all want    four fires  in the background  an arbitrary amount   who is keeping count   white towels coming in handy     rubber bullets have been using police and at least teargas designed to disperse the mob  has a job   here  in the province

along the  corridor grenades are using flash-bang police throw striking police know chairs below the knees some of the people with clubs  broke free and sent this   to me:



  • car is now on fire
  • by Captobvious via oud at 12:34 AM

black smoke billowing from george direction of grady mexican visible from rubber bullet corridor and  higher than a hippie on april twenty
by Ye Olde  Providence via banjo at 12:43 AM

gil was tear gassed as he tried to get out of the area at rubber bullet corridor    he danced like a toreador sang “it's goin on nineteen ninety four  people drinking doing drugs gonna be a long night from the cops”  he feels a little trapped  as police have shut off the streets at both ends, corralling actual people in with the bad apples
by Ye Olde  Providence II via bajosexta at 12:44 AM

On the streets LIVE and running so tight uptight upright   did we win tonight? did we baby?  did we?

                           trad. arr. -province reporters around the lower mainland
·       Updating
  seen inside  carrying fire extinguishers and lutes    trying to stop them  violent fighting including blood stain women could be seen on the   sidewalk in a scene of ugly chaosby misterfrankfolger via cuatro at 12:49 AM
hummer  fan fire threatening power poles 
by ellenmanglobe via zither at 12:54 AM 

black smoke from soultrain coming fook   war zone
by davidlAurance via slither at 12:58AM


four police cars just blew NickHornby sirens lights pants  tight
 by antonyAndsudro via zither at 12:59 AM
skyline Vancouver from KurtisBlow talkin’ bas ket ball   and practice?  practice? we talkin’ about practice?  not a game   not a game  practice
by CallieKenzie via sitar at 1:02 AM

Crowd chanting "ole ole ole ole"
by lambjamb via hammerdulcimerat 1:03 AM

mountain bus transit service is pulling all   downtown area east toward ottowa
by sausagelink via barbat at 1:06 AM
Woo window down thru wood car 
by ellenmanglobe via zither at 1:07 AM 
Fire transformer now go heat up a yfrog 
by garymanglobe via bazouki at 1:07.5 AM

who said this wasn't dancing with the stars on cop cars  
by garymanglobe via bazouki at 1:08 AM
RCMP officer at Edmonds SkyTrain station tells riders ‘don’t worry be worry’
by mamasmartinlawrence via electric mandolin at 1:08 AM
 flames spotted they are trying to cop the light cars
by perrmydahling via parlor guitar at 1:08 AM

Police jump on rioters cars
by Ye Olde  Providence via banjo at 1:09 AM
george’s street empty and yearning for cops  big cops  small cops impenetrable to all cops all earning their $ tonight
by gahottoh via doublebass at 1:09 AM
A line of riot cops in Georgia gear is on Richard and slowly pushing him crowd westwards towards the Sea A smoke of cloud black is billowing out of a gatorade from 1968 between men
by Ye Olde  Providence via banjo at 1:09 AM
Lots of streets blocked off down here. Apparently gas has been fired down robson (not confirmed)  we wound up drunk again on robson street
by Ye Olde  Providence via banjo at 1;10 AM

this vacation sucks
by texashasnow via mouthharp at 1;13 AM

 



25 June 2011

one me one more one stare


the goal of this is fame
fame
    fame
fame

            but it's different   because

                    it's not just my name

content   w/CONtent       at thirty percent

          we got good by not being good

        it was noise

                    by human machines with machines made by humans recorded    by machines made by machines

              it was everything

                           gray and everything 

dawn of a decade
                                                      in a bar  in another bar
                                    bare
                                             the bear
                                    bear the bar

unnatural attachment  gallo shallow   mellow family mallow  in the same ole  same role  samo a big star  the new messiah’s at the big star  


calling it advanced 
                               will earn you an argument    part of it 
                                            and it’s arduous 
      the most language oriented   
                            of all the arts    
                                        how do you start
well      get it together                                 that's one part

do it

  i notice the lateness
and recall the early-ness
               just a warholic

outliving us all    only to fall  and break   the things it takes to enjoy the post-scar   cottonwood heart   air in the air  
one hour        one half            one care  
one (w)hole   
         one me one more one stare




Jean-Michel Basquiat, Riding with Death, 1988