Field Recordings

Spent most of the weekend submitting manuscripts and poems to magazines and journals. A boorish exercise. Found a bunch of old photos and decided to post them to facebook. One find was an exterior shot of the North Street Playhouse. I played around with it and turned it into a painting.

OF RUST AND WRECKAGE They saw her leaning against the stop sign at the crossroads that was Main and Church of old Delmar, the town long boarded up and blasted away by the disappearance of the rails which had created it. What once had been a bright brick cross-street was now littered with Styrofoam cups, the occasional beer can, and dozens of cigarette butts. She was the one bright spot, her red hair like a spot of rust against the dull street and pavement, her legs tapering to ballerina-like feet as she absent-mindedly kicked pebbles. She was as old as they were, or perhaps a bit older. Her face had a sweet look that came from daydreaming too much, and not having a foot in the real world, and she didn’t appear to notice the boys, for she was spending too much time looking off into the soaped up windows of the old Radio Shack, which had long ago boxed it up for the highway. “Let’s stop and see if she needs a ride.” Jackson said as they passed her. He followed her in the rearview as she ...

Happy St. Valentine’s Day Love. True love, is what brings us together, today. In celebration of all things eros I’m posting some of my love poems. To my lovely of course! She rocketh my worldeth. IVAN, AGAIN, WINTER 2007 Dark cupping the sides of your cheek your breast anchored in his mouth, winter dry heat and days on small sleep. In a decade we will feast on these small memories, and in doing so, begin to grow into relief, the dizzy world about will make us mountains. THE CITY MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL The city makes you beautiful because when snow comes paling down the only red will be the arc of your lips as you light a cigarette, a crow calling over your shoulder, the heavy patter of the old school echoing the falling snow. The city makes you beautiful because the weight of your breath is bigger, heavy, and one must frame herself as the T rumbles in--a hot and humid exhalation, and only a busker breathes. A quarter rings in her cup as the subway comes to a stop. One must quicken betwee...

Ah, post show depression. Yes indeed. Last weekend the drama clubs/departments of Arcadia, Chincoteague, Nandua, Northampton, Pocomoke High Schools, and Broadwater Academy, collaborated to perform N. Simon's The Good Doctor at North Street Playhouse. In tough economic times, the show was a win, win sitch. It costs us nothing to perform the show (N. St. picked up the rights) and each club (plus N. St.) pocketed some cash Sweet. Enjoy the slide show to your left. Elvis has left the building.

Ah. Abstract art. No matter if you love it, hate it, or couldn't care less, you probably know of Pollock. I'm not a huge fan of JP the person, but the artist interests me, and one of the best looks at the man happens to be a biography of a poet I admire, Frank O'Hara. City Poet by Brad Gooch is a great read, and if you love the New York Bohemian art scene and literary scene it's a must. While O'Hara worked as an art critic he ran around with Pollock and his crew. Fun stuff, sometimes brutal, but always fascinating. So on Pollock's birfday, as my four year old would say, become the painter for a while. Check it out at http://www.jacksonpollock.org/ Double click your mouse to change colors. Drag your mouse like a paintbrush. Enjoy!

Personal note: Not my best...but crunched in a day Postcards from the Mirror: Cecelia Woloch’s Narcissus “I doubt/ I am aware” is etched into the WC mirror in Café Les Philosophes, and it isn’t hard to imagine the speaker of Cecelia Woloch’s Narcissus edging away from the mirror, wondering who am I? How did I arrive? Woloch’s elegy to worn-out love echoes with doubt, and eventually hope, and is haunted by desire, “We were husband and wife in that house because that's what we'd been pronounced,” she states in “Postcard to Kim from The Cafe Les Philosophes,” as if by addressing her failing love is the way back to love, a journey fraught with danger, both physical and romantic. While walking with a spouse/lover along the Lethe he “plucked from the grass/ a single flower by its throat/ to shut me up.…” presumably the same lover who in “Postcard to Kim” “was angry and swinging a bat. He was maybe drunk. It was maybe my fault.” The striking image of the small flower, perhaps a Nar...

(Shoulder shrug) Can't exactly say I didn't see it coming. When doom and gloom loom 'round the corner...cut the arts. Worcester County is shaving money off the music budget for the next two years, at least. Accomac County is looking to cut 66 jobs, which means arts positions, if left vacant, will not be filled. And that's just for the 09-10 school year. Deeper cuts are always a possibility. But what remains is a will to power. Fund-raise , beg, borrow, steal, and think outside box. A DIY approach to school arts programs. Already the theatre departments of Northampton, Nandua , Arcadia, Broadwater Academy, and Pocomoke High Schools in Maryland are combining forces to produce a show at a neutral site, North Street Playhouse . While the show will not bring in hundreds of dollars, each school stands to make a nice chunk of change to pay for royalties for spring shows.