Telling Stories [Novadic poem-image exchange]

This is my response to Kerry, but more fittingly a response to [Paul's] sending those photos. So a slideshow, of a sort, in return. Thanks for sending me back to Boston and the Cape. - Chris

​[Poem by Chris Moylan. Photos by Paul McLean (ca. 1984).]

Telling Stories

The coast was late in arriving

For that sudden sunset,

so we invented a new far away,

beautiful, well preserved,

like a bible newly translated

from a long winter’s sleep.

 

Last Breaths

What did we expect? a paper

airplane gliding like a gloved

finger over dust…a conclusion

comforting, almost inaudible

amidst the date palms

And ghosts in the varnish…

 

Anticipation

Sadness so evening kitchen,

so dirty dishes and ice chips,

so twist-off  bottle of Ginger Ale…

clouds gathering kindling

from what’s left of the treeline

to burn what’s left of sleep…

Regrets and disappointments…

Everything addled, a bit

Off kilter, too bright, and

too dark at the same time…

All the windows thrown open,

Flocks of heron, egrets come through.

 

Crosswords

Pills and crumpled napkins,

breakfast crumbs, newspapers

Baking in the oven… Pat telling

stories that don’t fit together;

words come first, then the puzzle,

then the empty spaces.

 

Last Day

On television an old man

Talking to an empty chair, other

Old men bobbing like cut bait

For Leviathan to clear the air…

This is Florida. I can’t wait

To get out of here…

A few families on Bonita Beach

Paralyzed by the sun. Stillness

Everywhere. Within the stillness,

A slight rise and fall on the bay

That pulls freighters into the haze

Does God read my mind?

Maybe, maybe not.

Pat has only a few days

and I am content to sit here,

mind empty, more or less,

no memories, no lists, no tasks,

just stillness and sand,

mind read, contents emptied...

WS2MS: Reading @Occupy Books + Dinner [#M21, 6-8PM]

Monday, May 21, 6-8 PM, stop by for a pop-up night of poetry and prose from OCCUPY BOOKS, the literary heart of the Wall Street to Main Street project at 450 Main Street in Catskill, NY.

Sander Hicks new book, Slingshot to the Juggernaut

Meet the writers at OCCUPY BOOKS for a short reading followed by pay-for-yourself dinner at Wasana’s Thai Restaurant, 336 Main Street.

Rebecca Wolff

The event will be hosted by Fence editor Rebecca Wolff. The reading is headlined by Sander Hicks, author of Slingshot to the Juggernaut: Total Resistance to the Death Machine Means Complete Love of the Truth, just out from Soft Skull Press.

Sam Truitt's Street Mete

Hicks is joined by beloved [Occupy] poet Sparrow, who will present on the power of silence. Sam Truitt will read poems from Vertical Elegies- Street Mete. Rebecca Wolff will share some of her new poetry, as well.

Sparrow, from his 2008 Presidential campaign

This promises to be a wonderful night, occupied by great people, verse, food and fun. Don't miss it!

http://www.facebook.com/events/103822953089752/

REvGaMEs: Call/Response, 2+ Sequence Poems

[Photo by Paul McLean]

1

[Game program initiated by (sender) Alexandre Carvalho]

Solo or collective meditationdance, process whereupon the awakening being feels the streams of the universe intermeshing with body and body politik, streaming to and from, here and there, improving and exercising creation-meditation with no fucking mediation.

Microfilaments play, histories stream about: converge, merge, diverge, merge - and Emerge. 

#OWS? Not an organization. An idea-organism. Faith that manifests. By making the invisible visible, desmystifying space-time, we nourish a new reality. 

!!kaleydoscope.

{{@vortex,,,,,of a free,,,,square,,,we,,spiral.  spin the wheels of

!!kaleydoscope.

got it? no need for it. it's there at the funhouse where all mirrors lie.

#novads = #novas + #nomads. Crossing event-horizons all day all week, not for people but with people, through people. 

all can be to ride lifestreams

let you body loose

feel the streams 

leave the space void

unoccupied

ride the streams

if you like dreams

Click to read more ...

Occupy

A Poem by Christopher Moylan

(Photo: Paul McLean)

Next has a hole in it

You can’t see across…

The horizon slips further away,

But it was always that way…

Clouds tear from clouds,

Light falls to pieces, sky

loses its parts of speech…

Deadwood advances on

springtime, a warm breeze

getting warmer all the time…

The sun is in eclipse,

looking with the naked eye,

Everyone else goes blind.

The river is cold and swift.

kneeling to take a sip,

Everyone else gets tipsy…

Turn out your pockets,

compassion needs a loan…

The old words are worn thin,

The new ones require faith

one doesn’t have: swaps and

Derivatives, securities for

Houses under water…

Take care the quiet neighbor,

beware the friendly banker

and job creator…Beware

the savior monetized like

an inspirational movie…

The planes are taking off

Again, the silos are dilating

From the Rockies to Iran…

Watches synchronized; on

their wrists, it’s always midnight…

Time to reassess; the air

We breathe is free, what

to do with it? The spot we

stand on was staked with

light once. It can be again.

We can be better. We can be

New. From now until the end

Next is always at hand.

We can fill it with what

Could be. So much want

To unwrap and pass around

One strong hand to another.

If the higher ground is cluttered,

Overgrown with neglect,

Or lit up like a carnival,

Then come down,

The open ordinary is just fine.

Pick a spot, and occupy.



A Non-Valentine Message

By Jim Costanzo

Aristotle understood that money is a form of social exchange. Joseph Beuys called this process social sculpture and proclaimed that all people are creative in the way that they live their lives. Art is an intensified form of social exchange, more specific and at times poetic. But intensity is not limited to artists and should not be separated from daily activities. Creativity is our Commons, Art is our Commons. Limiting creativity is limiting social exchange. It is a form of oppression; the slavery of the 99% imposed by the 1%.

This was a synthesis of my performance for Greg opening at the forum, transcribed below.

Click to read more ...

The Claudius App Launches

Click the image to visit this beautiful site.

A Journal of Fast Poetry

Die Neue Elite ist das Volk

CLICK THE IMAGE TO VIEW MORE IMAGES.

Andreas Maria Jacobs

Die Neue Elite ist das Volk

Ephemeral Visual Graffiti

Digital projection of a series of red & black stencil type-faced lettering on a white background constituting of various subjective, erratic political - sometimes poetical - statements & slogans

Perceived and written during the final stages of the economical and financial downfall of Empyre in the years 2010-2011

Screened live at Beursplein, Amsterdam during Occupy Amsterdam November 10 2011

Photos by Belle Phromchanya



Poet-Bashing Police

Great American poet Robert Hass describes his Occupy experience in today's NY Times Sunday Review section.

NONE of the police officers invited us to disperse or gave any warning. We couldn’t have dispersed if we’d wanted to because the crowd behind us was pushing forward to see what was going on. The descriptor for what I tried to do is “remonstrate.” I screamed at the deputy who had knocked down my wife, “You just knocked down my wife, for Christ’s sake!” A couple of students had pushed forward in the excitement and the deputies grabbed them, pulled them to the ground and cudgeled them, raising the clubs above their heads and swinging. The line surged. I got whacked hard in the ribs twice and once across the forearm. Some of the deputies used their truncheons as bars and seemed to be trying to use minimum force to get people to move. And then, suddenly, they stopped, on some signal, and reformed their line. Apparently a group of deputies had beaten their way to the Occupy tents and taken them down. They stood, again immobile, clubs held across their chests, eyes carefully meeting no one’s eyes, faces impassive. I imagined that their adrenaline was surging as much as mine. 

Click HERE to read the rest of the story.

The Blanket

I hear change.
Pressing my ear to the earth and its stirring bones,
baby vibrations kiss my skull,
I close my eyes and smile;
I detect approaching footfalls.
In conversations, the sketchy sparks of electrified embryos,
these restless hatchlings of hybrid hopes
spring from incubation, fall from lips and
onto my shirt, shoes and into the dirt we walk on.
They are not lost shards of fragmented dreams.
I choose to believe they are seeds.

I hear change.
Surrounds me: a lyric of tongue spoken with hands and feet,
a melody of ideas, philosophy, theology
married to passion in search of a savior
fashions a harmony, this whispered anthem
scratches my ear.
It is not an elegant sound, these staccato pinging
sutures of suffering sewn into faces
of mommies and daddies staring at babies
unconscious to thundering ticks of time
countdown seconds to roll call;
masses lined up for closeted stations in Purgatorio Nuevo.
And notes of simpatico silence as cellos
mourning the passing of faith in the night,
struggle to harmonize poorly with courage,
that blood of the ages which oils fear and flight;
I hear it.

I sense change.
I cannot feel it. The wind won’t reveal it. I’m numb to its presence.
I find no evidence trail on my tongue,
nor DNA refugees hiding in fingertips.
These trained eyes strain to identify
its invisible silhouette walking among us, and fail.
Yet, it is coming.
I know this because it is cold in here.
I should be shivering but I am not.
An other-earthly cloak has fallen,
cast around myself, its warmth just barely
coats me with a holy intuition.
Wrapped and huddled on front porch step,
eyes fixed upon that dark horizon
expectation welds me to this patient space
where, as prodigal children returning to rescue,
christening streaks of breaking light
will herald our transformation.

2011 Sojourner109

Common Ground

hi all, had a really interesting conversation today on the subway home as I was leaving OWS with a woman who worked for a bank on wall st. and she was open to having a dialogue, but really felt like she and her co-workers were taking the hit for the 1% even tho she was a divorced mom who had to work her way up from nothing. We tried to explain to her not to take it personally, that it was the structure of the system that was the issue but people of her ilk are very goal oriented and really was hoping to hear our demands and proposed solutions. I invited her down there to discuss and told her how important it was that she participates in the process and see for herself what is happening, rather than taking what the media says at face value....anyway, its just these types of dialogues that I think is what's best about this movement. It was an uplifting moment for all of us just to communicate.

In other news, my friend in Canada posted this amazing poem/song on facebook, and I told her there was a web archive for poetry, so Paul, or someone else out there if u have a spare moment, can you upload this, and maybe send me a link, so I can tell her it on line?

Thanks so much!
O

>

Zipporah Lomax :

The world is stirring...history unfolding beneath our feet, before our eyes.

 

Inspired by the OWS movement, I started writing a song. It quickly became more of a poem...a poetic commentary...my take on the issues we face.

 

I'd like to share it as my small contribution on this day of solidarity...

 

**************************************************************

'Common Ground'

by Zipporah Lomax

 

everything has gone awry

a great divide has grown

between the hands that hoard the pie

and the measly crumbs we're thrown

 

they enjoy their privileged lives

while our homes are foreclosed

they're keeping us in line

with all the wealth that they withhold

 

they profit off our ignorance

expecting us to play the part 

of obedient indifference

robots, with shopping carts

 

well-designed to distract

and keep us misinformed

the media's been hijacked

by those who bank offshore

 

they've poisoned our sea and sky

through oil-driven greed

they contaminate our food supply

with their modified seeds

 

they've stolen our autonomy

and our right to choose

they perpetuate inequality

through narrow-minded rules

 

they've made health a business

selling pills to those in need

they benefit from illness

growing rich off our disease

 

we know it won't be long

before they try to buy our souls

before our lives have been withdrawn

exchanged, for fool's gold

 

they've kept us on our knees

believing change would never come

but down on wall street

the revolution's just begun

 

we're waking from our slumber

it's time to stand up strong

take back what they have plundered

we've held our tongues too long

 

we'll shout until our cause is heard the whole world 'round...

they may tie our hands, but our voices cannot be bound...

something's gotta give...the wall has gotta come down...

...we all deserve to live on common ground...

 

**************************************************************



A Note from Jason Flores-Williams

....I'll never forget yesterday at OWS long as I live. Such a privilege to be around it. For me, nothing shows how things could be versus how they are, than to spend a day in the cool humanness of Zucotti Park, then to walk a block over to Wall Street and feel like the guy next to you wants to stick a knife in your neck. For what..I don't know. Maybe the wrong shoes.

Today Times Square 5:00 pm EST. 

Tomorrow, doing a reading with a bunch of cool writers - Ina P, Ted H, Mark, Paul, Brenda - at the Bowery Poetry Club 3 to 4 pm. The gig is in 110 percent solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, requested donation of five bucks that will go directly to the cause. Food, clean, up, socks - all the sort of essentials required to mount an occupation. 

Bowery Poetry Club 3 to 4 pm tomorrow. Sunday.  

No doubt this will roll into something Kesey-ish.



OCCUPY THE CULTURE

Jason Flores-Williams will be in NYC this week doing occupant interventions, including a reading at Bowery Poetry Club & Cafe. Here's an excerpt from the text Jason will be reading from (originally published in Brooklyn Rail):

Now here was the vision: truth has a way of being relentless. Truth has a way of refusing to die. There will be many people who read this and see it as an overly sincere and melodramatic piece of crap, but there are those who will recognize it as one loser’s agonized attempt to get at the heart of the matter. And for those people, i.e. you and me, this game isn’t over. You can say that truth is going to use us for something, or maybe we’re braver than we think we are, or maybe that the bullshit volume of misery is going to get turned up so high that ultimately we’ll have no choice but to say fuck it and take a stand, but something is going to happen here. We will not go gently. I can see it in the eyes and on the faces: the desperate realization that five years of something beautiful is infinitely better than 30 more years of lies. We may go down, but we will go down swinging. The final act of this generation has yet to be staged.

The reading is from 3 to 4 pm this Sunday the 16th of October, and will also feature Ted Hamm, editor of Brooklyn Rail, and the Occupennial's Paul McLean.

"Jason Flores-Williams is a literary force of a nature...A train wreck of genius." San Francisco Chronicle.

"Jason Flores-Williams is the king of American protest literature." The Yellow Rake.