#mixtape methodology

My heart feels a bit rebellious today

for I want to experiment

and feel connected 

with the ground

especially when I sneeze.

We live in a world of dreams

pulled by the tugs of fictional poetry,

lovers hymns sung at church

or at cult reception meals.

I come back from this

when my head feels all spiny

and my nose can’t stop sneezing.

Rationalization in the form of playdoh

for I’ll still be molded by a world despite

what my heart tells me it wants

aka you.

The good things are in the moments, they aren't in the details. The good thing isn't my book, it isn't the day itself, and it isn't any one band, promoter, or performer. The following things are positive: the words spilled out of the mouths of the people reading, the noises made by the violin, drums, guitars and vocal chords of the bands, and the appearance of all of this where it has not been present before. 

Any band can play a bar or venue, but not every band has played in a comic store or at a house show. I feel like similar things are true of the current attitudes in poetry and live literature in the UK at the moment. So many poets I know complain that not enough people care about poetry. They say this in conversation, online, and whilst performing on stage. I often feel like replying by saying something like; “if you want to take poetry to more people, stop performing at poetry nights and in places where you know half of the audience already – seriously, where is the fun in that?”

I don't say that, of course, I just agree and continue to write. All of this becomes unnecessary as the notes play, as the words are spoken, as the coffee cools, as the atmosphere gathers, as the pressure is released from a can of beer, as the pages are turned, as the rooms occupy genuine and heartfelt art. I only hope this kind of thing can happen more often. 

☊

Note the smartass doesn't care, leans in anyway.

Note the watchful one listens, he honors her.

    The Smartass was born to chase women. I watched him. He was mesmerized by lovely mermaids circling before a show. I suspect his wife could testify.

The Listener was born to love women. I watched him, too. The truest bodhisattva, he was mesmerized by all things good and beautiful: kindness, the viola, warm bread. (He brought warm bread to our stairwell trio.)

    I first saw Smarts across the orchestral chasm that divides the string sections. He was first chair, always smiling, joker type. Cellists are supposed to be watching the conductor, but who does that. And if any violinist tells you he's watching the conductor, he's lying. They're all lying. Truth be told, they're checking out the other players, noting who's on key, who's fake-bowing, who might sleep with whom, who's not wearing black.

    The women loved him at break. Therefore, I avoided him at break.

    So naturally we became fast friends. Not fast in the sense of tawdry or quick, but fast in the sense of I fastened him to my chest. Once it occurred to him that there was a female in the room who didn't swoon, he started hanging around my chair. The siren song of avoidance.

"Is that a blue music stand? Really? Who would guess."

I continued to rosin my bow.

He continued to speak. "They usually come in black, don't they?"

I looked up to see two blondes behind him. Loitering violists.

"I think we're about to begin," I said, nodding towards the conductor.

He sat down on the edge of the chair next to me, leaned in, his back to the blondes.

"Nice cello."

"Right. Want to pick me up for practice tomorrow?"

"Excuse me?" He wasn't expecting that.

"Practice. Tomorrow."

He started stuttering. "Um, well, I think you live out of the way."

The conductor tapped his stick and I returned to my rosin. We're done here.

He stood up and shuffled his feet, shook his head, "I can do that. I can do that," he whispered to himself, as if weighing the consequences of how much trouble he was willing to get into.

    He picked me up and took me home every practice after that. I said I lived in a gang-affiliated neighborhood, so I was afraid. He fell for it, hook line and sinker. I never asked him to come inside, though. That was never part of the plan.  And the femme fatale bit works every time, doesn't it. Pathetic.

    We hung out a lot. Every afternoon, in fact. We met for tea at the Absinthe & Me Teahouse, gossiping about the lame viola section, ridiculing the conductor's girlfriends. We took long walks in the woods, discussing Debussey vs. Dylan. We even formed our stairwell trio. But most importantly, we traveled to his gigs in far-away taverns, where I'd dance for him while he played.

    I danced in my short black skirt, right smack in the center of the floor, up front. He played on stage, that way he couldn't dance with me, he was stuck. Every gig he'd churned the gunfire out of Dylan's “One More Cup of Coffee,”a killer cover with angry guitars and furious violins. And to every beat I twirled round and round like Stevie Nicks in '78, before she got bored.

Sometimes he played so fast, so hard, that I got away from myself. Closing my eyes, the tavern disappeared, my arms rose over my head, my body became this superfluous, seamless energy no Catholic school ever taught.

We were both into the seduction. There's a fluid string that runs between a musician and his dancer, it's intoxicating on all sides. His bandmates, both the girls and the guys, would wink at him, laughing. And he would always say "Thank you" to the crowd after the song, but he was really saying thank you to me. For dancing for him. I danced just for him.

    Nonetheless, he refused to love me. He massaged the moaning self-absorbed shoulders of every manipulative violinist in our small town, but never mine. And I'd been in car wrecks, for Christ's sake, so shouldn't I have taken precedent?

    We got in a fight once. Over what is the most beautiful sound. I said cello. He said the human voice. (That's what all men say, so caught up they are in their fragile Celine Dion closet fantasy. Yes, you know who are.) When I was young, a man told me, it's the human voice, because the human voice contains the soul. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he was so bright a star, I didn't have the confidence to contradict him. But now I could say it, and I said it to my violinist, that if you play the cello, you know, you just know, that the voice is nothing compared to that lugubrious tone. Cello makes the most beautiful sound. Because wood. Has. No. Ego. Smarts didn't speak to me for a week after that.

    After our 6 months of weaving together (sound, little else), we were unpacking our instruments in the stairwell and a photo fell out of my case. I caught it before it hit the ground, but those two miss nothing.

"Who's that," Smarty asked, miffed.

"I'm moving," I said. "To the desert."

They both knew what that meant.

The listener said nothing.

"When?" Smarty asked. Then he caught himself. "I mean, how many more practices."

"None," I said. Obviously.

"How about one more." As if the word "none" contained ambiguity. "Do you need a neck massage?" he practically whispered. "Does your neck hurt?"

Oh God, seriously? I play cello, what do you think? I looked at Listener. He seemed sad.

"Okay, one more," I said.

    A week passed with no word about the practice time. Then, on Friday at 5pm, the phone rang. It was Smarty, sounding desperate.

"Come to my gig with me."

I knew he was wigged out with my most recent relocation information, so this was not a good idea. "No."

"Oh, c'mon. You can dance. It will be fun. One last shot."

I thought, well, I am sort of bored. "Where is it."

"In the valley. Just over the mountain."

"That's far."

"45 minutes. But we need to leave right away." Urgency giving weight, I hate that.

"It looks like snow. That mountain pass gets a lot of fog at night. I don't think so. Not tonight."

And then he started begging: one last fun gig together before I moved, he needed someone to keep him awake while he drove, the mountains are beautiful and won't I miss them?

And so I got in his van. And so he played that furious “One More Cup of Coffee.” And so I danced. And danced. And danced.

But something was different this time. It didn't feel good. It didn't flow. There was no fucking fluid string, merely the musician and his muse of the hour.

And he knew it, too. On the way home, he was tense. And driving too fast for the weather.

"Please slow down. I'm scared," I whispered. (No fatale now, I really was scared.)

"Something's changed," he said. And the van swerved a little. Maybe a small patch of ice.

"What do you mean?"

"Your energy for me is gone," he said. "You're not loyal."

Another swerve. The fog was thicker here, right over the pass.

And I thought, not loyal? Dude, you're married, how does that work, but I didn’t say it, I knew better . "No, I feel the same about you," I lied. Swerve, just slight, I may have imagined it. "I love playing music with you." Swerve.

"He's an ex-con," he said. "You're taking a big chance."

Swerve. This was the most narrow part of the mountain, a dead drop on both sides, the fog thick, the speed limit was 15, he was going 50.

"You're right," I said quickly. "Maybe I shouldn't move. I should stay here. I think I want to stay here."

But he knew I was lying. He sort of chuckled, slightly shaking his head side to side, like no, no, you can't fool me, you're not at all afraid. And the van went over the side.

I woke up in the ambulance. I was fine. I had on my seatbelt. He didn't. He strapped in his precious guitar, but not his own body. He was thrown.

    The Listener helped me pack up my house. He was the only person in the entire town who helped me. Femme fatales escape no one.

"Only one question," he asked after he helped me with my seat belt, then closed my car door.

"Yes?"

He rested his hands on the frame, "Do you love him?"

"Yes," I said.

He didn't hesitate. "Then you're good to go."

☊

i, who am carrying a plastic shovel in one hand and a bucket of shrimp in the other—i look down to see what color my toenails are painted & say “you’re peeling too, right?” & she say “they broke a hermit crab’s back” & i say “sure, okay” & keep biting my lower lip—her voice calls out to the mermaids—it reminds me of a Disney movie—it is very nostalgic—“you want to swim?”—i’ve got an extra bathing suit” she blinks twice “the hermit crab doesn’t have venom” “yup” i say—decide i need to repaint my toenails and mind my own business—but i look back and say “if you hate seafood, i understand” she keeps forming glass between her toes—“the crab was crawling naked & when i started to cry, i wasn’t faking it” “gotcha” i say & follow the lines in the sand . . . less than two sandcastles later, i saw her hand imprints collecting water—marked by an umbrella was the new site of a lifeguard post—“did you happen to see a girl collecting pieces of shell here?” i asked the lifeguard sunbathing with sunglasses—“i can’t save her unless she’s in the water” was his response . . . it was then that i began to question the sand’s role next to a body of water.

☊

want to live a life that kanye would be proud of

do something big

do something happy

make a lot of people feel strong emotions

blur the lines between hero and villain

get insulted by the president

make a comeback

blindly follow my impulses resulting in good and bad situations

but inevitably giving me life experiences i will learn from

and use to further my reputation as someone who is

“important” and “controversial”

loving kanye as an extension of loving myself

loving myself as an extension of loving kanye

want to be like kanye

want to feel like kanye

don’t be afraid to love myself

don’t be afraid

☊