May 16, 2005 – radical druid

jazzum backclash

Published on May 16, 2005

bitwing bedbug housefly arcnet
kurt’s looseleaf tea rolled convenient
hard times coming four and more
‘s miles and coleman, hat stove in
screen door strained looking for peaches
can’t, recall, died in the poorhouse
out-of-come forsooth and spittle mood
john thomas passed out drooling
somewhere in the last hash chorus
i lost track; the extra change
is all you can spare for poor stella.

great danes dogging swedish meatballs
cremate the meaning and the d.s. al coda
parker’s lighthouse dimmed and mist-infested
no more than twice through for the maestro
’twas enough why more than necessary
evil improvisation masturbation
somewhere i lost track of structure
engineering
yardbirds caw give the heave ho
yardarms outstretched
enough of this can’t take it:
please take off
that album;
stick a fork in its ass,
it’s done.

1993

I Don’t Do Slam

Published on May 16, 2005

Now when I say I don’t do slam
it doesn’t mean
that I don’t dig
the meth-euphoric drenal high
that comes when words escape at Mach
and you roll like the Candy Man with those
sweet treats to clear the sleeping ears
of all those deadbeat debutantes
who crowd like mike like it was manna
say they’re gonna, makes you wanna
holler damn the poet man
street preacher speaking tongues in rhyme
but that ain’t slam, sam.

When I say I don’t do slam
it doesn’t mean that I can’t jellyroll
mainline strings of silken soothings
talk loud without saying nothing
run below the feedback radar
at the edge
of sound distortion
keep it real compared to something
shut down shambles mumble rumbling.

When I say I don’t do slam
it ain’t because I’m old and gray
and rhymes don’t flow don’t grow
testosterone and angst OD
some chosen chump to channel
all the crap you couldn’t stand to shout
I’m not the one to rock your pulpit
spin your world yourself
my axis
doesn’t equate power with volume
strokes its own ego quite nicely
whispers sermons to a choir
that knows just why
I don’t do slam.

16 MAY 2005

What good is art

Published on May 16, 2005

What good is art if it does not instruct,
or for our “better angels” cast new wings
beyond utilitarian design,
reminding us that beauty without form
is doomed, under the sheer weight of itself
to force its rigid framing to collapse?

Art is like all religions, in that all
are but a generation from extinct;
the evolution of a form requires
that it do more than simply change its clothes,
grow gills and fins to swim in altered seas
or learn to hunt new game to feed its young.

What good are schools if they do not provide
a context beyond simple black and white,
and offer views of different paradigms
where parasites are not the food chain’s end?
That corpse is sucked of marrow, and its bones
are far too fragile to host us for long.

The arts are an essential to the whole:
without creative outlet, we are chained
to follow, sullen, on pathways not our own
in search of some elusive, unknown truth
that if found, will be meaningless, or worse,
to our imagination’s limits, dead.

What good is any dogma that insists
on praising uniformity’s facade
while damning the poor souls behind those bars
whose torment is to see outside the cage,
and fed on lies of common brotherhood
to mutate into monsters, thugs, and whores?

True culture does not denigrate the arts
if it intends to do more than survive;
and Beauty, unappreciated, dies,
its empty shell an ugly, barren waste.
What good then is mere rhetoric that claims
some great prize as its end, by any means?

16 May 2005

Day: May 16, 2005

jazzum backclash

I Don’t Do Slam

What good is art