AKIREMA
I.
"the white man points to things that aren't there anymore"
You castaway spike
in the bell curved
cast of thousands
skylines, you orphaned
mongrel guest motels
vacancy ripening
into red and green
plastic monopoly
game boys, yo animal
man, yo animal woman
getting a leg up
on the freeze pop
all over each other
for a two faced garage
and frankenstein dogs
on gold chokers, for
the greater goodies
walking the plank
at the sound of the bell
for undisclosed hyperglycemias
to fuel the fire foreclosure
and the white washed graves
in the Big Easy of the head
and casino royale
with oysters in bed bugs
the hell out of the lounge
lizards patent leather
ox blood with the mop
in the hands of migrants,
You got what it takes
when it doesn't hit back
your timing is perfect
when the clock's clean
last call before the doors
close and the gas goes down
the tubes fed without chewing
the fat, virtually unloaded,
docks the enemy mall,
touch and go without
feeling a thing just where your
skin should have been
there's an upper crust instead
I'd been way ahead
afterall the dope is on the way,
yes kids, the dope is on the way!
-Frank Walsh, 11.07.04
AKIREMA #3
America should I leave you
from the time we broke up
your greener pastures were flattened
we both had too much stuff
because the judge has it in for
us there's no where else to go
the beauty of the victims here
is never too much to have and hold
my likes to any one object
of desire mushrooms just enough
to go round with a chip on my shoulder
better yet, in the head, a free
for all may be called for
to push and grunt your Tombstone up.
-FRANK WALSH, DUBLIN, IRELAND 8.3.04
(Frank Walsh will be headlining the ULA's April 22 Spoken Word Extravaganza at The Underground, 40th and Spruce, in Philadelphia.)
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20 comments:
Better than certain movie scenarios i've read lately...art beats paranoia any day of the week.
Well, thanks. (I plan to go to a "managed" blog soon, like others are doing. You'd then have to use your real identity.)
Not everyone "gets" Walsh's poetry-- though it's in the clear tradition of great modern poets like Pound, Dylan, and Berryman, among others, albeit unique.
Part of the problem is we're seeing little real poetry nowadays.
Most academic verse, even a lot of underground stuff, is merely prose.
Kind of a unique time when the poets are trying to write poetry that looks like prose, the prosists are trying to write prose that looks like poetry. The worst of all worlds.
With Walsh, look at the way each line leads into another with constant surprises. Also the extremely subtle euphonic rhythmns/rhymes ("sound of the bell . . . and casino royale") and just some really dynamic lines ("ox blood with the mop").
Walsh gives the reader/listener not only great LANGUAGE, the essence of poetry, but also, in one short poem, a flurry of images tied into the theme: ("for a two-faced garage/and frankenstein dogs/
on gold chokers").
Quite an indictment of contemporary American society right there, and those who run it, as well as "You got what it takes/when it doesn't hit back/your timing is perfect/when the clock's clean."
Which could even be applied to some of the ULA's opponents, I think.
Btw, I may keep the movie serial going. I have some great, albeit "out there" chapters envisioned, starting with an gang boss trip to New York City, and a way to get John Hodgman into the story. (Maybe gets frightened to death by the Ogre or something. Hodgman has the character of a grown-up child. It'd be interesting to see this naif encountering pure evil.) Inspired by watching an old Dick Tracy movie on TV-- which actually looked at the underbelly of American society, a rare thing in those days.
What do you think?
Any ideas?
Any ideas? I think good art encourages you to think outside your own self and into a larger world. That's why this poetry is better than your movie scenarios, where you imagine that a guy who stars in Mac commercials (is that the Hodgman you mean? That's who turns up on Google) is part of a conspiracy against your organization, when clearly people are madder at you within your own ranks.
Change is going to disturb a lot of people-- and provoke a reaction.
We attacked corruption in the lit world from the beginning of our campaign, by giving facts and naming names.
Yes, this created for us a lot of enemies.
Yes, we've also been attacked by tons of anonymous posters.
I note you continue to post anonymously. This is fundamentally dishonest.
You're here to defend your buddies. Okay. At least be upfront about it!
I have nothing to apologize for. I've been upfront and honest every step of the way-- and have taken the resulting slings and arrows, and will continue to take them.
But I do think you're overreacting in this case to some mild satire.
(I guess you prefer David Sedaris as a satirist.)
Anyway, this will be my forthcoming policy regarding yourself:
Every time you post here under a fake name, I will post another chapter of the movie serial.
Fair deal?
(I can crank out something like that very easily.)
Great fun awaits.
Dude, those people aren't my friends. If you'll recall, I managed to post twice while SE was performing. Look up your own blog comments. I'm not posting anonymously. I'm Jimmy Grace. (I was born with a different last name, but something tells me that you were born with a different first one.)
I don't give a shit who you mock. I just think it doesn't bring on revolution. Walsh's poetry comes closer. I like it. Sedaris is comedy for yuppies, but at least he doesn't pretend he's a radical.
As for dishonesty, you maintained that the ULA was a united front, and then it came out that you were splitting down the middle. What you can't seem to decide is if you dig debate (in which case, open up your comments) or not (in which case, stop moaning about how your voice is stifled). Don't want me commenting? Just say so and I'll split. But then you have no right to say that all are welcome.
Oh, come on, we've been through this before. You're a phony.
I want people posting here under their own identities. I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand.
I've bent over backward to be fair to you-- though you're a fake-- which is more than can be said about many others toward me.
Re comments. Oh, they'll be back. Right now I'm too busy for debates. I'm reading this Monday and also setting up another Underground show for April 22. Among other things.
Meanwhile, I'll get going on that movie serial episode. Will likely air on this blog next week.
Thanks!
Write...
...whatever...
...you....
...want...
...you...
...mighty...
...revolutionary...
King!
!
!
!
!
Wow Jimmy, good job messing up the comments section of our poetry & fiction blog!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's really kewl.
Just encouraging King on his satire. He promised an episode per post.
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