Archive: 'poetry'

mark weber - I love the blues

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

I love the blues

especially at night

you get that old blues guitar
and tear it up, just beat
hell out of it, turn it
every which way but loose,
just wreck the place, drink
all the whisky chase
all the white people off
yell & scream & hollar
holding on for dear life
yr eyeballs roll into the back of yr head
only the whites show, only God can
see you now, and he’s rolling dice
with the devil to see who gets to
take you home, you pop a string
roll down easy with a walking grinder
of a bass line and a steak bone
teasing with the high notes
of eternity

22mar08
mark weber

poetry | Comments (0) | 322 Views

mark weber | poem

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

you see the hip hop dudes
stutting in the crosswalk while you wait
for the light to change, their duckbill hat on
sideways, baggy pants, huge white tennis
shoes, talking (rapping?) on their cell phones
trying to act cool —
you can see they haven’t quite figured out, yet
how to look cool while on a cell phone
one arm raised like a duck flapping
the other arm with the hand turned like a Don
Martin character in MAD magazine –

I’m from an older generation who think being cool
is not being encumber’d by constraints like somebody
tracking you down on a phone, like
you’re on a leash –

You don’t need to talk all the time, talking too
much is weird, and nervous, like
you’re scared

16mar08
mark weber

poetry | Comments (0) | 348 Views

mark weber | gerald locklin | zerx chapbook no. 60

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

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books, poetry | Comments (3) | 752 Views

mark weber | for todd moore’s birthday party

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

Todd Moore | Photo: Pete Jonsson

FOR TODD MOORE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY
[read in a gruff, gravelly voice]

put all your guns away Todd you’re
70 now and your reflexes ain’t what
they used to be you might hurt someone
I know your packin heavy this soiree here
looks chancy, you keep your back to the wall
I’ll watch the other side, lookit I know
six or seven of your guns are in pawn, just
give me them pawn tickets and I’ll get ‘em on over
to Snoozer Jackson down at the Mineshaft
to offset your bar tab, okay? and that one
you loaned to Kell just forget about it, you’ll
never get that one back, he got
drunk and tried to buttfuck Cabbage,
‘course Cabbage didnt take too well to that,
grabbed the gun but missed and now Kell
can’t quit blinking, so Pockmark McGhee
took the gun away from the both of them and
tossed it in the stewpot where Diamondtooth
Mary said it’d put some flavor on things,
and I know you got ten or twenty guns
under the bed, three or four of them the
G.I. men would like to talk to you about but
why you left that one on the front
seat is beyond me the stupid punks from
down on the corner broke the window even
though the door wasnt locked, the lock hasnt
worked in four or five years ever since
you broke the key off in there, and
Bill the Wheel said him and Capshaw never
did mean to quote unquote lose your granddad’s
old shotgun, which coincidently went missing
around the same time Stinky Caldwell disappear’d
‘course Stinky was messing around with Doris w/
the big jugs, and her husband, who’s locked up,
could have called in a favor from ol’ Goose
who’s impartial to no one, fact is, Goose
Johnson’d murder his own dogs if they got
in the way of his beer
no, Todd, it’s time to disarm
put the arsenal up on eBay
here’s a flyswatter, maybe you can catch
a few of them flies swarming
around your rocking chair

Mark Weber
13nov07

artist portrait, poetry | Comments (0) | 434 Views

todd moore | billy the kid in the theater of blood

Friday, November 9th, 2007

I am staring at the cover of a pure Outlaw classic, just published by the Outlaw Press in Pueblo, Colorado. It’s perfect bound, with signature black depths and striking yellows and reds all across it. The surreal figure wearing the big cowboy hat and poncho is Tony Moffeit and the title of this book is BLUES FOR BILLY THE KID. There is no price on the cover simply because this book is, according to Moffeit, one of a kind, not for sale.

While all books written by Outlaw Poets are one of a kind, this one really is just the one. Moffeit, who has long been known for his fascination with Billy the Kid has published this book on his own press and is giving it away to close friends, tells me that BLUES FOR BILLY THE KID is still a work in progress.

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books, poetry | Comments (0) | 479 Views

tony moffeit | american blues outlaw poetry anarchic dream

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

TONY MOFFEIT | AMERICAN BLUES OUTLAW POETRY ANARCHIC DREAM
by Todd Moore

Tony Moffeit and I founded the Outlaw Poetry Movement in America in 2004, partly as a reaction to the kind of tame poetry generated by writing programs, academia, and the prize system which is good old boy, incestuous, and corrupt. However, Tony and I have been good friends since 1983 when I published one of his early chapbooks entitled OUTLAW BLUES. But Outlaw in his work predates the early eighties because of his abiding interest in rockabilly, Delta Blues, Sun Records Country, and Hank Williams. Tony brought pop music culture to the poetry table when most everyone else was too cultured, too sophisticated to care.

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poetry | Comments (0) | 778 Views

dorothy terry | toujours couture

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Writing Fashion

I often thought that it might be interesting to someday present a writing course based on “The Literature of Fashion.”

Which immediately leads to the examination of culture–especially ours, where fashion rules, and the times or the designers or the individual herself/himself attempts to make a statement. (For what purpose?) Just how this might be explored for the benefit of the class members, just how it might help them become better, more observant writers…well, that would be the teaching challenge. (But I think I know the way.)

With all that in mind for future reference, I have kept a file on this idea for a number of years. Certainly there would be biography to choose from (historical, celebrity, etc.) as well as fiction (novels, short stories), various magazines for study–and possibly poetry. However, given this writer’s need to focus on priorities in the time ahead, I doubt this course will ever materialize. Nevertheless, thanks to this excellent new poem by Dorothy Terry, I will keep the fashion file open and surely include a copy of “Toujours Couture” as prime source material.

This is the first publication of Dorothy Terry’s poem. Norbert Blei

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poetry | Comments (0) | 1,059 Views

norbert blei | making the invisible visible

Monday, September 24th, 2007

Marcel Marceau: March 22, 1923 / Sept. 22, 2007

Shhhhh…
Just see…I want to make this short…and simple…Marceau has disappeared into his silent self forever. Writing has a way of going on and on: The leaves outside my window are changing color, trembling in the wind, saying goodbye… Picture a mime disappearing into nothingness. But ‘nothingness’ is too much…Marceau would not approve…Which is probably why he did not become a writer…“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?” What must be understood, be it music, religion, art: It’s all about silence…

Quiet, please…

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poetry | Comments (2) | 738 Views