The first Harford County Youth Slam Festival!
May 19th
12:00 -3:00 p.m.
Bel Air High School
Admission is only $5
**Venue opens at 11:30
Come see the following high schools duke it out in a War of Words!
Bel Air
Edgewood
Kenwood
North Harford
As an added bonus, see the Nationally renowned slam poets Jamie Kilstein, Katie Wirsing and Andrea Gibson as they swing by on their East Coast tour.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
DAY 28- 5/15
If animals could speak,
we would have no need for doctors.
A quick sniff
to the face has nothing to do
with what treat you had before to leaned down to pet them.
When the nostrils pulse inches
from your face
as you mind races with
urban legends of whole faces removed by
crazed canines,
they are not plotting fountains of blood
and tearing apart eyelids like chew toys.
Dogs can smell cancer in out breath.
And each time they hover inches from out open mouths,
they are trying to detect the possible death that
smells like toe nail polish or drain cleaner
on our tongues.
So I wonder how many urban legends would
be crushed if people knew this?
How many women would dangle their children
inches from razor sharp teeth
to breath a little easier?
we would have no need for doctors.
A quick sniff
to the face has nothing to do
with what treat you had before to leaned down to pet them.
When the nostrils pulse inches
from your face
as you mind races with
urban legends of whole faces removed by
crazed canines,
they are not plotting fountains of blood
and tearing apart eyelids like chew toys.
Dogs can smell cancer in out breath.
And each time they hover inches from out open mouths,
they are trying to detect the possible death that
smells like toe nail polish or drain cleaner
on our tongues.
So I wonder how many urban legends would
be crushed if people knew this?
How many women would dangle their children
inches from razor sharp teeth
to breath a little easier?
DAY 27- 5/14
Last one… I think
Walter
Leave 30th Street Station with Starbucks
and head to the food truck operated by a white haired
Greek man with albino chinchillas for eyebrows, and a
wife that doesn’t speak English, unless it’s on the menu.
But she can cook a steak, egg, and cheese hoagie on a long roll
that would make Kate Moss want a second serving.
I see the beggar.
A duct-taped trashbag at his side.
The layers of clothing make him appear able to be peeled.
An onion of a man, who, the more you remove, the
more your eyes water.
My eldest uncle could have been him… if he had been unlucky.
They probably went to school together.
He’s probably somebody’s father…probably a Walter—
he looks like a Walter.
Cast aside like an annoying insect for his illness—
he shakes like a virgin at first touch…but he doesn’t stop—
then I notice the silver band on his wrist that binds him- a shackle stamped with three letters
P.O.W.
Avoid contact, keeping my head low as if in prayer-
(Praying that he won’t see me)
and my hands in pockets, pressing my keys against my leg,
so that they won’t be confused with loose change.
“Spare any change,” he asks, as he extends a beaten Styrofoam 7-11 cup.
I walk on…
I order my food and my palette is revolted as I chew and swallow my recent actions.
I break into a run towards 30th street.
Sprinting—an admittance of guilt in Philly.
And I am guilty… Walter has been shooed away like a pigeon seeking crumbs—
Walter
Leave 30th Street Station with Starbucks
and head to the food truck operated by a white haired
Greek man with albino chinchillas for eyebrows, and a
wife that doesn’t speak English, unless it’s on the menu.
But she can cook a steak, egg, and cheese hoagie on a long roll
that would make Kate Moss want a second serving.
I see the beggar.
A duct-taped trashbag at his side.
The layers of clothing make him appear able to be peeled.
An onion of a man, who, the more you remove, the
more your eyes water.
My eldest uncle could have been him… if he had been unlucky.
They probably went to school together.
He’s probably somebody’s father…probably a Walter—
he looks like a Walter.
Cast aside like an annoying insect for his illness—
he shakes like a virgin at first touch…but he doesn’t stop—
then I notice the silver band on his wrist that binds him- a shackle stamped with three letters
P.O.W.
Avoid contact, keeping my head low as if in prayer-
(Praying that he won’t see me)
and my hands in pockets, pressing my keys against my leg,
so that they won’t be confused with loose change.
“Spare any change,” he asks, as he extends a beaten Styrofoam 7-11 cup.
I walk on…
I order my food and my palette is revolted as I chew and swallow my recent actions.
I break into a run towards 30th street.
Sprinting—an admittance of guilt in Philly.
And I am guilty… Walter has been shooed away like a pigeon seeking crumbs—
DAY 25- Post for 5/12
Oh, did I mention that I used to write a lot of poems about Philly?
Eli Price’s Fountain
Listening to the city, I perch myself
on my stand. Chained like Prometheus
by awe to this concrete geyser.
The city attacks me like an eagle,
yet sets me free with a swing of its sonic hammer:
John Henry—being of noise, static, music.
City spreads out before me
like an orchestra I conduct.
Steps of a million feet tap out a cadence for John’s blows
that lay rhythm out like the beat of a bass drum heart.
Bullets strike a snare roll while
Eli’s dream trickles out—a flute song.
The motion of the masses
staggers into a cello’s moan.
The orchestra shifts to my right
to an R&B song as a white-haired
black man sings with all the passion
of a gospel choir after it has made love to a swinging jazz band.
The singer silenced…
A siren breaks ht tempo
like a bottle of Boone’s on a brick wall.
And I know somewhere a mother is screaming out
like an electric guitar riff on WMMR.
Eli Price’s Fountain
Listening to the city, I perch myself
on my stand. Chained like Prometheus
by awe to this concrete geyser.
The city attacks me like an eagle,
yet sets me free with a swing of its sonic hammer:
John Henry—being of noise, static, music.
City spreads out before me
like an orchestra I conduct.
Steps of a million feet tap out a cadence for John’s blows
that lay rhythm out like the beat of a bass drum heart.
Bullets strike a snare roll while
Eli’s dream trickles out—a flute song.
The motion of the masses
staggers into a cello’s moan.
The orchestra shifts to my right
to an R&B song as a white-haired
black man sings with all the passion
of a gospel choir after it has made love to a swinging jazz band.
The singer silenced…
A siren breaks ht tempo
like a bottle of Boone’s on a brick wall.
And I know somewhere a mother is screaming out
like an electric guitar riff on WMMR.
DAY 24- Post for 5/12
Sometimes you write a lot of poems about a city. Most of the time they are under-developed.
Center City
Steam pours up from a rusty, green gutter like an exhaust fan from hell,
as if Lucifer needed some relief.
Across the river is a train yard,
long since abandoned--
desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all that it once was.
Raped by inactivity,
Consumed by the capital-crazed who saw it no longer feasible
to support its existence. Eventually, the juggernaut of racing iron
slowed and starved to the carcass that remains.
I gaze up at the prominent figures of the Center City skyline.
If I strove to their heights I would have a long way to fall.
Stare at the lights atop a building's peak and realize the futility of wishing on that star.
At my feet is a fallen angel with newspaper wings to keep him warm.
He looks up at the same distant beacon of lost hope through a Mad Dog gaze.
The man with the five month shadow that creeps
from his sad eyes, down his face.
Long since abandoned--
Desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all he once was.
Violated by isolation--
a job and family that saw it no longer feasible
to support his habit. A brown bag and grime become
permanent accessories to his ensemble of misfortune.
Casualties of a starved city.
Its dinner guests--tycoons with insatiable appetites,
And we are their spring lambs.
Center City
Steam pours up from a rusty, green gutter like an exhaust fan from hell,
as if Lucifer needed some relief.
Across the river is a train yard,
long since abandoned--
desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all that it once was.
Raped by inactivity,
Consumed by the capital-crazed who saw it no longer feasible
to support its existence. Eventually, the juggernaut of racing iron
slowed and starved to the carcass that remains.
I gaze up at the prominent figures of the Center City skyline.
If I strove to their heights I would have a long way to fall.
Stare at the lights atop a building's peak and realize the futility of wishing on that star.
At my feet is a fallen angel with newspaper wings to keep him warm.
He looks up at the same distant beacon of lost hope through a Mad Dog gaze.
The man with the five month shadow that creeps
from his sad eyes, down his face.
Long since abandoned--
Desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all he once was.
Violated by isolation--
a job and family that saw it no longer feasible
to support his habit. A brown bag and grime become
permanent accessories to his ensemble of misfortune.
Casualties of a starved city.
Its dinner guests--tycoons with insatiable appetites,
And we are their spring lambs.
DAY 24- Post for 5/11
This is what happens when you run into a bully from grade school while you are in college. Then you write a poem about it (before you know how).
Class Reunion
As I walk with my wife along
the fruit covered funnel cake signs and
Clak clak clak of the roulette wheel;
candied apples and corn dogs.
I see a man that bears resemblance to someone
I used to know.
The black nylon jacket says Coach and Tom
and yes, it was him,
so I walk up and he grins beneath bushy eyebrows and
Makes monkey noises.
My name for him.
In school when he played every sport and
I weighed a buck fifty with a wet parka on
I would mock him
against better judgment.
He would retaliate—
Throwing me into a stack of
aluminum chairs,
clanging against my laughter.
Our little game,
neither of us winning,
just keeping a constant volley
of repartee and repercussion.
And I don’t think we disliked each other.
Now we reminisce, we laugh,
As we did when I would collide
with metal chairs and linoleum.
Our game, your pride, my acceptance.
So I drop five dollars in the jar for your little league team.
Class Reunion
As I walk with my wife along
the fruit covered funnel cake signs and
Clak clak clak of the roulette wheel;
candied apples and corn dogs.
I see a man that bears resemblance to someone
I used to know.
The black nylon jacket says Coach and Tom
and yes, it was him,
so I walk up and he grins beneath bushy eyebrows and
Makes monkey noises.
My name for him.
In school when he played every sport and
I weighed a buck fifty with a wet parka on
I would mock him
against better judgment.
He would retaliate—
Throwing me into a stack of
aluminum chairs,
clanging against my laughter.
Our little game,
neither of us winning,
just keeping a constant volley
of repartee and repercussion.
And I don’t think we disliked each other.
Now we reminisce, we laugh,
As we did when I would collide
with metal chairs and linoleum.
Our game, your pride, my acceptance.
So I drop five dollars in the jar for your little league team.
DAY 23- Post for 5/10
Getting caught up…
So due to team finals, senior grades being due, and preparing for North Carolina, I have fallen behind on my posting.
So I will attempt to play catch up. Here we go…
CHASING SILVER
I moved into Uncle Chase’s Washington Hill row home on an unseasonably warm December day the year my father like a deadbeat cliché announced to my mother and brother that he needed a pack of Pall Malls for an after dinner smoke.
Two hours later, my mother phoned the police department and the Thanksgiving pies had cooled too much on the counter. My brother sat asleep in my father’s recliner, as I got the feeling in my stomach that something was wrong. I had had this feeling before, when Jim Smithson took off down Moravia Road and wrecked my bike into Mr. Hathaway’s new Chrysler. Then, the feeling latched onto the back of my head and spread like a dream over my eyes in the familiar déjà vu. This time, the feeling was different and like a cancer, what I would later name abandonment crept across my stomach and hardened.
Uncle Chase, or Caleb as he was born, had a half dozen row homes around Baltimore. One he rented out to a widower on Eutaw Street. The second and third rested a block and a half from Patterson Park. The fourth was on long term lease to a night-shift, emergency room, nurse two blocks from Johns Hopkins. The fifth was the one we moved to in 1967, the same year that Johnny U got his start over Shaw. The sixth sat unfinished in Federal Hill a few blocks away my new home.
My Uncle Francis lived in the large townhouse with the rest of us. Chase had furnished a small basement apartment for Francis when he returned from a spell in Vietnam. I went down to this apartment twice in my entire two years I lived there. Only one of the times was it by invite. That trip ended with Chase telling Dennis and I, “Stay out of Uncle Francis’ room. It is for the best.”
Francis never real left the war. His apartment was immaculately kept. The bed, a military issue twin, could have bounced a quarter. Everything else fell into place…the footlockers filled with Francis’ personal effects. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought yourself in the barricks of some boot camp.
One would think that Uncle Chase would have made his claim to fame as a Realtor, given the sheer amount of property he owned. Yet his true gift, that which would immortalize him was found in his namesake.
He was a silver chaser.
Unlike nowadays when you give silver to the people at the mall and lasers burn away that which is precious, Uncle Chase worked with chisels. The thing about this way of doing it is that there is always something left behind. And in the case of silver, it slides up the chisel and curls around itself until it falls off in discarded metallic ringlets.
Those who were skilled at this type of work looked as though they were chasing the silver clean off of the surface. My Uncle made gardens appear from dull gray, like the flowers were always there just below the surface and he simply cut back the weeds of a monotonous landscape scene to make them show through.
And I wonder if he knew the weeds that grew inside of him, if he would have chosen a different path. Because the only thing worse than realizing that silver was never worth anything is to have it tarnished by something that makes it useless.
But that would not happen for some time. Back to the story at hand.
INSERT REST OF STORY HERE
But as with chasing anything valuable and temporary, the chase leaves something displaced, missing. And when it is finished, and we have obtained what we sought, we are left with another type of longing. We long for the chase.
So due to team finals, senior grades being due, and preparing for North Carolina, I have fallen behind on my posting.
So I will attempt to play catch up. Here we go…
CHASING SILVER
I moved into Uncle Chase’s Washington Hill row home on an unseasonably warm December day the year my father like a deadbeat cliché announced to my mother and brother that he needed a pack of Pall Malls for an after dinner smoke.
Two hours later, my mother phoned the police department and the Thanksgiving pies had cooled too much on the counter. My brother sat asleep in my father’s recliner, as I got the feeling in my stomach that something was wrong. I had had this feeling before, when Jim Smithson took off down Moravia Road and wrecked my bike into Mr. Hathaway’s new Chrysler. Then, the feeling latched onto the back of my head and spread like a dream over my eyes in the familiar déjà vu. This time, the feeling was different and like a cancer, what I would later name abandonment crept across my stomach and hardened.
Uncle Chase, or Caleb as he was born, had a half dozen row homes around Baltimore. One he rented out to a widower on Eutaw Street. The second and third rested a block and a half from Patterson Park. The fourth was on long term lease to a night-shift, emergency room, nurse two blocks from Johns Hopkins. The fifth was the one we moved to in 1967, the same year that Johnny U got his start over Shaw. The sixth sat unfinished in Federal Hill a few blocks away my new home.
My Uncle Francis lived in the large townhouse with the rest of us. Chase had furnished a small basement apartment for Francis when he returned from a spell in Vietnam. I went down to this apartment twice in my entire two years I lived there. Only one of the times was it by invite. That trip ended with Chase telling Dennis and I, “Stay out of Uncle Francis’ room. It is for the best.”
Francis never real left the war. His apartment was immaculately kept. The bed, a military issue twin, could have bounced a quarter. Everything else fell into place…the footlockers filled with Francis’ personal effects. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought yourself in the barricks of some boot camp.
One would think that Uncle Chase would have made his claim to fame as a Realtor, given the sheer amount of property he owned. Yet his true gift, that which would immortalize him was found in his namesake.
He was a silver chaser.
Unlike nowadays when you give silver to the people at the mall and lasers burn away that which is precious, Uncle Chase worked with chisels. The thing about this way of doing it is that there is always something left behind. And in the case of silver, it slides up the chisel and curls around itself until it falls off in discarded metallic ringlets.
Those who were skilled at this type of work looked as though they were chasing the silver clean off of the surface. My Uncle made gardens appear from dull gray, like the flowers were always there just below the surface and he simply cut back the weeds of a monotonous landscape scene to make them show through.
And I wonder if he knew the weeds that grew inside of him, if he would have chosen a different path. Because the only thing worse than realizing that silver was never worth anything is to have it tarnished by something that makes it useless.
But that would not happen for some time. Back to the story at hand.
INSERT REST OF STORY HERE
But as with chasing anything valuable and temporary, the chase leaves something displaced, missing. And when it is finished, and we have obtained what we sought, we are left with another type of longing. We long for the chase.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
DAY 22; More from the AVAM
I'm going to Missouri
to steal myself a dog.
And this is a feat because
I've never been to Missouri,
my car is in disrepair,
and I'm allergic to canines.
But somewhere in Missouri
there is a dog named Jim.
Jim can decipher morse code,
he's picked the last seven Kentucky Derby winners,
and he can tell the sex of your child before science can.
and I'm going to steal him.
And it is not that
I want to break some secret government code,
that I want to develop a gambling habit,
or that I have illegitimate children.
Ok, so I'd totally take him to the track.
But that is really secondary.
I realize that Jim is the exception.
He is the doghouse equivolent of
the Harvard student or the Rhodes scholar.
For every gender guessing dog that exists
there are a dozen dogs that are good for little beyond
licking themselves
often.
They are working with what they were given.
And Jim has a lot to work with.
Like me...everyday. Because every morning
after a night at the track,
we would go into the classroom.
This dog can decipher morse code.
And while it really doesn't have
any practical application anymore,
it is impressive.
And that was just what God gave him.
He has no control over who teaches him
or what he decides to learn.
But all of you do
becuase you are humans
with control over what you do
and what you decide to learn.
So if dogs can
learn to smell the gender
of unborn children,
the least you can do is open a book.
And too often I hear people
complain about their situation.
If life has left a crappy taste in your mouth,
LEARN TO LICK SOMEPLACE ELSE.
Because we are humans and we have options.
Because every one of you can be exceptional
if want to.
to steal myself a dog.
And this is a feat because
I've never been to Missouri,
my car is in disrepair,
and I'm allergic to canines.
But somewhere in Missouri
there is a dog named Jim.
Jim can decipher morse code,
he's picked the last seven Kentucky Derby winners,
and he can tell the sex of your child before science can.
and I'm going to steal him.
And it is not that
I want to break some secret government code,
that I want to develop a gambling habit,
or that I have illegitimate children.
Ok, so I'd totally take him to the track.
But that is really secondary.
I realize that Jim is the exception.
He is the doghouse equivolent of
the Harvard student or the Rhodes scholar.
For every gender guessing dog that exists
there are a dozen dogs that are good for little beyond
licking themselves
often.
They are working with what they were given.
And Jim has a lot to work with.
Like me...everyday. Because every morning
after a night at the track,
we would go into the classroom.
This dog can decipher morse code.
And while it really doesn't have
any practical application anymore,
it is impressive.
And that was just what God gave him.
He has no control over who teaches him
or what he decides to learn.
But all of you do
becuase you are humans
with control over what you do
and what you decide to learn.
So if dogs can
learn to smell the gender
of unborn children,
the least you can do is open a book.
And too often I hear people
complain about their situation.
If life has left a crappy taste in your mouth,
LEARN TO LICK SOMEPLACE ELSE.
Because we are humans and we have options.
Because every one of you can be exceptional
if want to.
Monday, May 7, 2007
DAY 21: Morning Offerings
Morning Offerings
I always believed that girls
like you would never give
me the time of day.
The type with hips like
grandfather clock pendulums in slow motion.
Setting a room on stun, freezing time
and leaving fantasy in their wake,
eyes of men glazed over like
frosted glass watch faces.
So our lives revolved around
seconds of second glances
that would never add up to minutes of conversation.
But then they did.
I told you how I was a morning person
and you said that you could sleep for hours,
sometimes into the afternoon.
I explained how sunlight meant sheer potential
a day with a story waiting to be written.
Hours of minutes with no agenda
except possibility.
And I wondered how you
could possibly sleep all day
and all of the potential moments that
were wasted buried under covers.
I decided that I would give you the gift of my mornings.
I heralded them in as we watched the sky lighten,
you slept on my shoulder
and we fit together like carefully carved cogs.
Watching you walk to your doorstep with dawn in your hair
I remembered how we said we made cameo in each other’s waking dreams
and knew that this must be potential
must be providence.
That night my fingers became sundial stopwatches
by candlelight tracing shrinking shadows
across your skin.
Morning daydreams were interrupted
by the sound of your bare feet
on my kitchen floor.
You wore my favorite button-down
and left over kisses like morning offerings.
Your skin still smelling of the oranges
I had traced along your lips, the curve of your neck.
I wanted to make memories of you synchronize with
the smell of citrus.
I wanted to give you my mornings.
If I were a magician,
I could somehow stretch those last days into weeks.
I could get you to hear the choir claps and halleluiahs
that chimed every time you looked at me.
But not even magic could saw in half,
dissect the moments we spent together enough
to make me believe that I had a rabbit’s foot dangling
from my chest,
the one you’d been waiting for,
disguised in the mornings on a mundane life.
I used to be a morning person
knowing that sunlight meant sheer potential
a day with a story waiting to be written,
hours of minutes with no agenda except possibility.
But mornings aren’t the same
without you in them,
and now I sleep through to afternoons.
As morning creeps across my bed.
I hope that it might find you there,
where you ought to be.
But it never does.
So seconds pass thinking of you
thoughts never manifesting as second chances,
unable to freeze time, and
waiting for you to bring back my mornings.
Waiting for you to give me back the time of day.
I always believed that girls
like you would never give
me the time of day.
The type with hips like
grandfather clock pendulums in slow motion.
Setting a room on stun, freezing time
and leaving fantasy in their wake,
eyes of men glazed over like
frosted glass watch faces.
So our lives revolved around
seconds of second glances
that would never add up to minutes of conversation.
But then they did.
I told you how I was a morning person
and you said that you could sleep for hours,
sometimes into the afternoon.
I explained how sunlight meant sheer potential
a day with a story waiting to be written.
Hours of minutes with no agenda
except possibility.
And I wondered how you
could possibly sleep all day
and all of the potential moments that
were wasted buried under covers.
I decided that I would give you the gift of my mornings.
I heralded them in as we watched the sky lighten,
you slept on my shoulder
and we fit together like carefully carved cogs.
Watching you walk to your doorstep with dawn in your hair
I remembered how we said we made cameo in each other’s waking dreams
and knew that this must be potential
must be providence.
That night my fingers became sundial stopwatches
by candlelight tracing shrinking shadows
across your skin.
Morning daydreams were interrupted
by the sound of your bare feet
on my kitchen floor.
You wore my favorite button-down
and left over kisses like morning offerings.
Your skin still smelling of the oranges
I had traced along your lips, the curve of your neck.
I wanted to make memories of you synchronize with
the smell of citrus.
I wanted to give you my mornings.
If I were a magician,
I could somehow stretch those last days into weeks.
I could get you to hear the choir claps and halleluiahs
that chimed every time you looked at me.
But not even magic could saw in half,
dissect the moments we spent together enough
to make me believe that I had a rabbit’s foot dangling
from my chest,
the one you’d been waiting for,
disguised in the mornings on a mundane life.
I used to be a morning person
knowing that sunlight meant sheer potential
a day with a story waiting to be written,
hours of minutes with no agenda except possibility.
But mornings aren’t the same
without you in them,
and now I sleep through to afternoons.
As morning creeps across my bed.
I hope that it might find you there,
where you ought to be.
But it never does.
So seconds pass thinking of you
thoughts never manifesting as second chances,
unable to freeze time, and
waiting for you to bring back my mornings.
Waiting for you to give me back the time of day.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
DAY 20: Another day of rest
Taking off this Sunday to get ready for Baltimore Finals.
Check out www.slamicide.com
Check out www.slamicide.com
DAY 19: More ideas from the AVAM
Just wanted to post a few things that I found:
"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her."
--Ellen DeGeneres
"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
--St. Francis of Assisi
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
--Albert Einstein
WONDER DOGS & HEROES
There is a monument in Marshall, Missouri to "Jim, The Wonder Dog" (1925Ð1937), a black and white setter. It is said that Jim was able to follow complex directions spoken or written in a half-dozen different languages. During a joint session of the Missouri Legislature, Jim demonstrated he could accurately interpret commands tapped-out in Morse code. When presented with the list of entries, Jim correctly picked the winner of The Kentucky Derby seven years in a row and was renowned for identifying the sex of unborn children in dozens of pregnant townswomen. After extensive independent testing, even the most skeptical university professors from the fields of psychology, agriculture, and veterinary medicine concluded that Jim was truly a wonder. No trickery or collusion from Jim's owner, Sam Van Arsdale, was ever found. Van Arsdale never sought profits from any of Jim's predictions and refused all commercial endorsements - turning down offers of big Hollywood contracts, lucrative dog food promotions, and six figure bids to buy his beloved Jim.
That there may never be another dog quite like Jim doesn't belie the fact that almost all dogs can hear and smell in a range far beyond human ability. That dogs also exhibit a capacity for extreme faithfulness to humans has made their talents particularly invaluable. Most people are familiar with how important "seeing eye" dogs are to their sight-impaired owners, but in the last few years the number and variety of trained service dogs has skyrocketed by the thousands. Service dogs help warn their owners of oncoming epileptic seizures, diabetic sugar imbalances, and panic attacks. Because dogs have a keen perception of time, they are also being trained to inform forgetful owners when to take medicines.
The single most common theme of visionary artists worldwide is their personal reconstruction of The Garden of Eden - or some other utopian, personal world.
"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her."
--Ellen DeGeneres
"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
--St. Francis of Assisi
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
--Albert Einstein
WONDER DOGS & HEROES
There is a monument in Marshall, Missouri to "Jim, The Wonder Dog" (1925Ð1937), a black and white setter. It is said that Jim was able to follow complex directions spoken or written in a half-dozen different languages. During a joint session of the Missouri Legislature, Jim demonstrated he could accurately interpret commands tapped-out in Morse code. When presented with the list of entries, Jim correctly picked the winner of The Kentucky Derby seven years in a row and was renowned for identifying the sex of unborn children in dozens of pregnant townswomen. After extensive independent testing, even the most skeptical university professors from the fields of psychology, agriculture, and veterinary medicine concluded that Jim was truly a wonder. No trickery or collusion from Jim's owner, Sam Van Arsdale, was ever found. Van Arsdale never sought profits from any of Jim's predictions and refused all commercial endorsements - turning down offers of big Hollywood contracts, lucrative dog food promotions, and six figure bids to buy his beloved Jim.
That there may never be another dog quite like Jim doesn't belie the fact that almost all dogs can hear and smell in a range far beyond human ability. That dogs also exhibit a capacity for extreme faithfulness to humans has made their talents particularly invaluable. Most people are familiar with how important "seeing eye" dogs are to their sight-impaired owners, but in the last few years the number and variety of trained service dogs has skyrocketed by the thousands. Service dogs help warn their owners of oncoming epileptic seizures, diabetic sugar imbalances, and panic attacks. Because dogs have a keen perception of time, they are also being trained to inform forgetful owners when to take medicines.
The single most common theme of visionary artists worldwide is their personal reconstruction of The Garden of Eden - or some other utopian, personal world.
Friday, May 4, 2007
DAY 18: A few fragments
So today I went on a field trip with my Creative Writing students to the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore. HOLY CRAP! If you have not been, you need to go.
The three hours we spent there was an exercise in unfair.
Everyone should go.
Here is something that came out of the trip.
"I'm trapped inside that apple tree"
he told them, but they had heard that sort of talk before.
When you work with shizophrenics,
you get used to the splinters of words that snag
you as you walk down the hall.
But somehow, he convinced them to take
the tree that had fallen on the west end
of the asylum back to the common area.
And this man, who had never
out pen to page, brush to canvas
said "I need to create myself in my own image."
So they let him.
Once per day,
under strict supervision,
he chipped and chiseled away.
And when he was done,
it was exactly as he appeared
the chest caved in from his
ongoing struggle with tuberculosis
like the soil over the uprooted tree
he used to recreate himself.
There was no exageration,
the eyes that were carve into the wood
were the same sad ones that strolled
through the courtyards.
But unlike him, this sculpture
th only work he would ever create
would be remembered
and last
forever.
The three hours we spent there was an exercise in unfair.
Everyone should go.
Here is something that came out of the trip.
"I'm trapped inside that apple tree"
he told them, but they had heard that sort of talk before.
When you work with shizophrenics,
you get used to the splinters of words that snag
you as you walk down the hall.
But somehow, he convinced them to take
the tree that had fallen on the west end
of the asylum back to the common area.
And this man, who had never
out pen to page, brush to canvas
said "I need to create myself in my own image."
So they let him.
Once per day,
under strict supervision,
he chipped and chiseled away.
And when he was done,
it was exactly as he appeared
the chest caved in from his
ongoing struggle with tuberculosis
like the soil over the uprooted tree
he used to recreate himself.
There was no exageration,
the eyes that were carve into the wood
were the same sad ones that strolled
through the courtyards.
But unlike him, this sculpture
th only work he would ever create
would be remembered
and last
forever.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
DAY 17: Crazy week
So I've had a real interesting week with lots of things to keep me from cranking out new stuff. Therefore I have to hit the vaults again. I hope that next week (once grades, lit mag, and finals are over) I can return to new thoughts.
76
Driving into the city I focus on the galvanized landscape:
an arboretum of artificiality that sets the stage for an industrial tableaux.
To both sides of the highway are rows of billboards
--incollapsible dominoes--lined like the mummers we came to see.
Putting on costumes, fabrications which are no way
reflective of their lackluster lives--they seem plain when they
put out our fires and take out our garbage…nut today they are spectacles.
The boards wear their costumes…
NOKEA, MARLBORO, YUENGLING--
the vestments of sequins and feather of the stationary dancers. Yet,
in the distance there is one barren, sickly-white dancer,
naked….
Only scraps remain scattered across its chest
like the bits of glue and paper that nostalgically cling
to a beer bottle. It wears the bits of old fabrications in splotches across its void--
NEWPORT maybe-- but
It stands there an awkward without arms to cover its naked flesh
or legs by which it can run.
Even those wearing the ugly HEROIN DETOXIFICATION CALL…
or WHO'S YOUR DADDY? dna tests are more pleasing than vulgar,
exasperated white.
We wear our NOKEA's and MARLBORO's, even
Our HEROIN DETOXIFICATION CALL…
In designer jeans, haircuts, and metal
studs that seek our most sensitive parts,
procreate, and start dysfunctional families.
Adorn ourselves with attitude like YUENGLING
for to be a the pasty ghost of a fleshy billboard is unacceptable.
For your sake, don't be a barren domino, you are not fixed in concrete supports
And you will get knocked down.
76
Driving into the city I focus on the galvanized landscape:
an arboretum of artificiality that sets the stage for an industrial tableaux.
To both sides of the highway are rows of billboards
--incollapsible dominoes--lined like the mummers we came to see.
Putting on costumes, fabrications which are no way
reflective of their lackluster lives--they seem plain when they
put out our fires and take out our garbage…nut today they are spectacles.
The boards wear their costumes…
NOKEA, MARLBORO, YUENGLING--
the vestments of sequins and feather of the stationary dancers. Yet,
in the distance there is one barren, sickly-white dancer,
naked….
Only scraps remain scattered across its chest
like the bits of glue and paper that nostalgically cling
to a beer bottle. It wears the bits of old fabrications in splotches across its void--
NEWPORT maybe-- but
It stands there an awkward without arms to cover its naked flesh
or legs by which it can run.
Even those wearing the ugly HEROIN DETOXIFICATION CALL…
or WHO'S YOUR DADDY? dna tests are more pleasing than vulgar,
exasperated white.
We wear our NOKEA's and MARLBORO's, even
Our HEROIN DETOXIFICATION CALL…
In designer jeans, haircuts, and metal
studs that seek our most sensitive parts,
procreate, and start dysfunctional families.
Adorn ourselves with attitude like YUENGLING
for to be a the pasty ghost of a fleshy billboard is unacceptable.
For your sake, don't be a barren domino, you are not fixed in concrete supports
And you will get knocked down.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
DAY 16: Idea
So we are in the midst of senior superlatives. I was just thinking, what if we had real superlatives that mattered? What if we did them as we got older? Do we already?
Another thing, what if we gave superlatives to classic writers?
Who would you pick for:
Most likely to succeed
Best all-around
Most spirited
Class clown
Friendliest
Least Friendliest
Best Dressed
Post your responses.
PS I know this seems like a cop out, but I am going somewhere with this.
Another thing, what if we gave superlatives to classic writers?
Who would you pick for:
Most likely to succeed
Best all-around
Most spirited
Class clown
Friendliest
Least Friendliest
Best Dressed
Post your responses.
PS I know this seems like a cop out, but I am going somewhere with this.
DAY 15: At home for week 3
Something old and pretentious.
OCKHAM SHAVING
FIRST INTENTION
William shaves the faith from
the reason of his face.
“Musn’t complicate the chin
with plurality of hair…
to do so would be vain.”
He finds all the pieces unique
in the basin and laughs—
“I think I will name that one Aquinas”
SECOND INTENTION
William assigns Aquinas
the symbol “hair”
and it begins to loose significance
resembling the other floating
objects in the white water.
Aquinas becomes hair.
No longer particular or individual.
“What a nominal idea,” William says.
As he dumps the basin of universals from
his second story window,
they no longer exist.
It is easier to rid ourselves of the namless.
OCKHAM SHAVING
FIRST INTENTION
William shaves the faith from
the reason of his face.
“Musn’t complicate the chin
with plurality of hair…
to do so would be vain.”
He finds all the pieces unique
in the basin and laughs—
“I think I will name that one Aquinas”
SECOND INTENTION
William assigns Aquinas
the symbol “hair”
and it begins to loose significance
resembling the other floating
objects in the white water.
Aquinas becomes hair.
No longer particular or individual.
“What a nominal idea,” William says.
As he dumps the basin of universals from
his second story window,
they no longer exist.
It is easier to rid ourselves of the namless.
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