Howling Mime

Currently Watching
Faraway, So Close!
By Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz, Nastassja Kinski, Martin Olbertz, Aline Krajewski
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hid out all day.  first at home, then at genuine joe’s, and made good progress on framing my thesis work.   then dropped by the hideout to film a friend doing a 20-minute poetry set.  came out pretty good, and i was reminded how easy it is to make a quick video when i got home.  i need to do this more…

read a poem up front as well — waypoints, which has been through a few drafts now.  i need more practice reading for an audience tho… read slow enough this time, but stood a little too far from the mic.  good thing everyone involved in the open mic sat fairly close.  also good that nobody ordered any coffee drinks requiring special preparation — crushing, grinding, beating, and other stuff that too often drowns out poetry at these sorts of events.  kept people’s attention.  fitter, happier, blogging. okay, i have no more personality to give at the moment, so here’s the version i read.

Waypoints (2nd draft)

In those autumn evenings when the sun dripped dry
we slept in the harbor, swam in our clothes.
We picked up the drunk at the liquor store,
and from the bed of your truck, he asked us
for a ride home from AA,
and then for some beer.
We left him on the corner of Wilkens and Fulton
and he popped some pills, ducked into a stoop
and out of our lives.
We never went back.

Left on Rolling Road, we pulled into U.M.B.C.
( You Made a Bad Choice we’d joke),
threw such lofty fits in the the dorms,
pushing each other into and out of new -isms
and your finger slammed like an apple
in the basement door, its skin
dangling from the bloody core,
and we rushed you to St. Agnes in our pajamas,
sat out front with the addicts for hours
throwing bottle caps in the birdbath.
Those sirens were little lobotomies.

Why were we so lost then?
Past the rowhomes we ran downtown,
the city’s charms rising in Bromoseltzer hues
and were we falling to the sidewalks like beetles
drawn in by neon letters, places with names like “BAR.”
Did we want to die like Poe,
right there in the gutter?
or to pass through the Blues like those other
kids bitching about their mothers?

We rode through the streets and out to the diners,
the Double TT on Rt. 40, smoked cigarettes,
drank coffee until dawn, our books left in their bags,
wrote poems one line at a time, sharing the rhyme,
the paper accordioned with doubt.
It’s odd how in these habits,
you blink and you miss it.
We paid the bill and out in the street,
the sun etched our impressions onto the bay.

In those days we looked forward to so much more,
but time has no direction or memory,
like the Chesapeake, only buoys light the way.

Currently Watching
Wings of Desire (Special Edition)
By Curt Bois, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk, Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander
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here’s a second plug for this rolling comedy extravaganza, coming soon to a city near you in the american west.  we caught the second austin show and it was just as good as the first time we saw it months back.  and it was easily 80% different!  great to see ed forman and bobby mickey continuing to do their thing, this time with ron funches, another comedian from portland (all roads lead to?).

looks like we have something else to visit and take in whenever we make it up there.

in the meantime, keep your eyes open – tulsa, i mean you! – for these guys to invade your town.  and help support their comedic habits.  they are truly weird fishes.

came at a good time too, as i’ve taken a few days off work to unwind, and will take a few more.  good to be reminded that small-time people with big ideas really can do it.  let them remind us all.

Currently Watching
Burden of Dreams – Criterion Collection
By Klaus Kinski, Werner Herzog, Miguel Angel Fuentes, Father Mariano Gagnon, José Lewgoy
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all done with proposals.  vp gave presentation in d.c.

time to take off with that successful look on my face!

back to schoolwork for a few weeks.  i need to nail this thing down, batten down the hatches and swab the deck.  or something like that.

maybe i need to go sailing…

Currently Listening
Siamese Dream
By Smashing Pumpkins
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Currently Listening
It Still Moves
By My Morning Jacket
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Currently Gaming
Halo 3
By Microsoft
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Currently Listening
Greatest Hits
By Cheech & Chong
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