coffeehammermic

evening,
there's another open mic and slam setting up at the Chatham Marketplace in Pittsboro. Saturday 24 March, 5 to 8 p.m.
i'll talk folks through it all and it'll be great fun.

the best part of it is that there are kids who come and share their words. i've crafted a small zine that will feature the works from the previous readings. it's called "busy signals" and will be available for free very soon at the co-op.

we do what we can and that's all we can do sometimes. i was typing in the entries earlier today and noticed a note i had scratched to myself to: "call it 'i can't write like this'". that's from a nice self-referential agonizingly familiar work by my pal Lyle. i really like the way he writes, even though he can't.

i'm hopeful that folks will show up next week. the past events have been adequately attended and those who showed really showed. that's always pleasing. come by if you're in town, grab a beer from inside the store. thanks.

here's one that i could not read at the co-op:

id #5

I want the last of whatever it is that isn’t in front of me. I want to be a pay-per-view individual. I want to dip nails in Pepto Bismol, tie them with tanned bits of umbilical cord and hang them from the mirror of my imaginary car.
I don’t know any of this yet.

I want to scream outside your window and it’s
sometime after 4 in the morning and the lights are coming on all around us and your naked tired body is framed by the light over the stove in the kitchen. I want you to beg me to stop.

I want to be that guy at the end of the bar that writes furiously in his little book and is always serious and always in demand; always dressed and always on time; always all ways always.

I want to puke in front of Wal Mart or maybe in the toilet at Southpoint Mall. I don’t know any of this.

I want to have a spare and know how to make change for the meter. I want to tinkle like a pocketful of baby food jars. I want my papa back. I want to exit every scene simultaneously and pick at the edges of your nails until they bleed. I want to weld bones
together and glue cold flesh in strips over a box that talks and string it with lights and call it Santa until it rots.
I don’t know any.

I want to be automatic.
I don’t know.
I want to know, you know.
I don’t.

I don’t.

***

y'all have a great night, i'm gonna watch some basketball.

geo

coffeehammerman out on the town

there was an event recently in my local town of Pittsboro NC.

there is a small cooperatively owned grocer in an old mill up from the courthouse circle where gather every eight weeks or so a group of not so dissimilar individuals from ages four to sixty-four.

there from the hours of 4 p.m. to about 7 p.m. (small town rules) those so gathered spoke their piece and listened, drank and played, climbing rocks in the front yard and quaffing wine under the unseasonably warm January sky. the sun set and nobody got hurt.

there is a link to a description of the event here.

there were kids reading their poems and grownups reading their poems and those in between, including yours truly. a sample included below.

there will be another open event on 24 March. check out the Chatham Marketplace website for specifics.

here is a poem:

noise:word

what happened to the word?

the word is a dog is a god in a dust mote in a spiral generated just now on a screen by anonymous foot traffic is the noise outside is the noise overhead is the noise inside every part of this corpse we inhabit short term

the word is all that is inside sometimes and I try to chase it out with spots and beasts and law and threats of violence and TV and music and drink and paper and paper and paper but sometimes the only thing that works is sex

the last time is the first is the fist in my stomach is an imaginary ring just out of reach on a free merry-go-ride that never stops

the damn telephone rings again another noise I would rather do without answer it answer it answer it just hearing it is already an answer of sorts so I turn up the volume sit closer to the screen look harder at another machine and more noise comes out I need to bathe myself in it

bad for me bad for my ears bad for my posture grows hair on my soul turns morality inside-out skins ethic and eviscerates livelihood boils culture with entrails of money and paper and loves smoke

the sky is acoustic is tiles overhead is soot is old stars is collecting in the corners and hiding from even the dim lights and the word reaches out to the sky and strokes the beating flesh of night strokes with fire and all is already warm and the fire turns the words into char and the char is bagged and sold off bottom racks in quick stops off 2-lane hiways and crammed down the throats of ugly stained men with gun racks overhead and crumpled soft packs in the floorboards of their quivering saucers

the word is a dog in heat is a rut is a shallow grave at the end of a nameless cart path off a seldom visited road is a postal scale lying in the bottom of a water damaged trunk on a low table of cinder blocks and door and everything’s a quarter and covered with rust and nothing will ever have a home again just a trunk

the word is carried off along the Eightfold Path in 8 individual televised pay-per-view survival scenes where the audience may witness all they need for a modest fee the paper and the plastic never far from the tittering bitch-box

blue light singing siren stench over all

of sex and juice pour it over me no me first no me first no me no wait there’s plenty to go around which credit card will you be using today?

and each off note is another blunt nail in my last good ear is another stripped screw in the bottom of my box with the dress Pandora was wearing when she was last seen and the noise we all hear might be crying might be choking might be another mystery inside another box somewhere somebody oh please somebody open it up before we all get sick

the word gives me a headache

sometimes the phone rings and i do not answer it

flee

cover your ears

unplug it if you still have access to a cord

the noises and words are sunshine and atmosphere and gravity and that’s enough said about them.