Suckerpunch

It's one of those memories that only comes when a fresh wound conjures the ghosts. A bully on the school bus bound for Loveland Elementary pulled back a fist and belted me in the gut as he strode down the isle. I couldn't breathe at first; I sat in mute confusion, blinking. Who was this kid? Why did he attack me?

I recently learned that my friend once endured unthinkable brutality by a stranger. Her rage has festered, dank as its cave, poisoning the well. But now she stalks the demons, hunting down the details of her attacker's horrific childhood. She throws it all at the sun -- the rapist, her self-blame, systemic failures that breed violence, day in day out.

Her relentless pursuit invokes my courage. As a woman, as a citizen, as a mensch.

I have choices. If I want to, I can see the bombings of 9/11 as a cruel attack that had nothing to do with me or anyone I know. I can condemn Jeremiah Wright for saying our nation of imperialists provoked the bombings. I can ridicule others who denounce torture as a sanctioned government response to terror. I can define patriotism as unquestioned loyalty to a system that produces humanitarianism -- as well as bullying, rape and torture.

Or, I can dig. Not because it's a citizen's fault for being bombed any more than a woman deserves to be raped. I would dig to understand the broken system of have and have-not, victim and aggressor, remembered and forgotton. I would dig to unearth a lie that grows lethal in the dark -- the lie that blames the victims and ignores systemic origins of abuse.

In the end, no matter how distant the memory, it's up to the little girl to decide, with her lunchpail clutched to her sore belly, staring out the window at her new found knowledge of the world.

Buffalo

Diane: I listen to Buffalo every single day. It has shaped my character.

Susan: Can you elaborate?

Diane:

I can elaborate in that
I wake up each day
as a person
who feels like a mat
on which people walk
but the strong voice
in the song
and the strength of the beat
makes me feel my spinal cord
has much more give
and I want to go out and live.

Listen to the hoofbeats here.

j.o.y.

When did you last fall in love? Remember -- waking to desire that flowed into your daily ritual, no feeling too mundane to capture the light of this new love?

Love found. Love cherished. Love tamed and groomed in friendship, family, sacrifice and gratitude. The secret we don't always want to hear is that we are creatures of desire. If we tamp it down with civilized love, we are contented, perhaps, but our bellies growl for the deep wild pleasure known as joy.

I can't think of a form of entertainment that brings joy. But art, whether you pour it out or drink it in, is the elixir of your passionate self, multiplied by swirling image, potent metaphor. It's the dance of you in exceptional pivots and reels, breaking your trance into a million blinking stars.

Listen

The world is awash in sound, much of it humanoid.

No matter where you go on this planet, you will most likely be visited by the sound of civilization within the hour. If you live in a people zone, you can become a lazy listener, passively tuned in to human sounds (or anthrophony) -- talk honks cussing roaring gushing burps ringtones soundtracks laughtracks cheering bleeps booing sobbing and of course the ever present amplified placebo that is sold in the name of music.

Imitation music abounds. It is often called 'music' because of the look of the people who make it -- divas with microphones pressed to their lips, bands populated by suave hipsters. Musicians, right? Only if they teach you to listen.

Like anyone else with a humble guitar and a handful of lyrics I once fancied myself a troubadour bound for stage and glory. The friendly people who clapped at my act, I understand this: they reared me. I am forever in their debt. One day I left that stage to take guitar lessons from Michele Temple of the band Pere Ubu. This woman set me to the task of listening. In time, she sent me to the cable-snaking gear jungle of Adam Lake to relieve him of his starburst Fender Telecaster with a Zoom pedal and scribbled instructions on the care and feeding of my new exotic life form.

People tell me I "went to the crossroads" in 2003, from which I returned to voice my sonic rain of poetry and electrons. This sounds dubious to me, as though I sold my soul to the devil who taught me a trick or two about the arrangement of sound and cypher. I don't buy this since the devil cannot hear to save his life. Isn't he the incessant whisperer who saturates the atmosphere with blather?

The only roads I took to with my tele and my strat were crossings where a poet lets her conscious mind unravel, where passions of a lifetime filter through a new kind of song. If she is patient, and lucky, she may acquire the capacity to teach, lobe by lobe, the errant will to listen.



photo by Bruce Jennings

Dame Cognito

Why is my underslept gray matter punch drunk the morning after a concert?

Doubts ensconce themselves in the boudoir of Dame Cognito. In pink lamé, she drapes her curves across my spongy couch as one by one her suitors kneel and bow. These are pudgy little men who promise bells and baubles made of compliments and preen. Bored, my noble madam does her nails in deepest purple; she ignores the manikins and looks at me.

So, she asks again. I scrape the sludge out of my dredger.

You thought your show was over
when the stage went dark?

With this my handsome lady reels into a laugh that would uncouch her.

You are mad (she frankly whispers)
you are mad to be an artist
there is no reprieve
this mind of machination
is your gift and your despair

Wear it bravely, mavin,
wear it boldly and enchanted
and exotic in your hair.

There is movement like a cancer,
there is healing like a balm.
You are present you are absent
you are song.

With this I take my smudgy pencil out of my jeans pocket and a crinkled store coupon too shiny for words. I would lay them at her feet. Make me sane, I say. Make me normal like the women who are happy.

Dame Cognito's purple toenail flicks my pain aside.

You are as normal as they, she mutters.
they as mad as you.
Somewhat sleepier perhaps,
or better actors,
who can say?

They spend a lot of words on wallpaper and gardens, I suggest.

So do you --
refurbishing unconscious thought
for public consummation.
This is risky
and embarrassing
and strange.

I sit dazed, considering. Normalcy. Not in my timeline?

You are captivated
by the sounds that would be born.
Lilliput adores you.

Play the cords that bind and set you free.



photo Britters Szatala

Semi quaver

Music welcomes everyone.

You don't have to be gorgeous, hip or suave. Music asks you to be authentic and maybe a little bit crazy. It takes a kind of deranged love for your instrument to press on until anyone besides your loyal friends will listen.

People do listen to exceptional music in any genre. It reminds them of something. It remembers them to love. Strange love, desperately wanting to cohabit the molecular space of an other. Truthful, vulnerable trust of atoms smashing. Kids know this. Teenagers surely know it. Old people -- I think they do too. It's the vast middle earth of our lives that deflates love, dispenses it in cannisters.

Enter music. Throbbing sound waves crash against our ear drums into self. Legions of composers juxtapose intensity-duration-pitch -- endless variations of the vibratory muscles of our minds. This, when executed skillfully, unfetters our desire for the wordless union.

Some praise the lyricist for haunting images or exquisite rhyme. But words, in the signature of music, are also sounds that break the barrier of thought. Songs don't speak, they sing. They're less tasted by reason than swallowed whole by desire.

Certain music sweeps you off your feet in a ball room crammed with strangers you could love if you were younger or older or merely intrepid enough to feel. The tipping point between caution and candor is a billion angels dancing on a pin. And the pin -- you know it anciently -- is extraordinary music that will touch you like a hand along your spine. This is the pin pulled out of your elaborate headdress. The pulling lets the mind relax. Its raw heat tumbles down your shoulders into hurt and laughter as you slip into the world.

Leadership

I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader." 'Cause "leader" implies "follower." ...I think we need to appropriate, embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for.
-- Grace Lee Boggs, Bill Moyers Journal

This interview is worth watching -- I recommend it highly!

When I can devote myself to the pleasure, I'm going to dig into this as well.

There are cells in my brain, sleeper cells, awakening to this exceptional woman's clarion call.