This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Showing posts with label American poets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American poets. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Friends remember The Klute, aka Bernard Schober (1973-2022)

The Klute, aka Bernard Joseph Schober
(Feb. 8, 1973-July 18, 2022)

Photo by David Jolkovski/Larson Newspapers

The Klute, aka Bernard Schober (Feb. 8, 1973-July 18, 2022), died following a hike on Monday, July 18. There is a new story at the bottom of this post if you want to read the specifics. If you don't, stop when I write about Klute's last public post.

Memorial SERViCES

It is with profound sadness that the family and friends of Bernard Joseph Schober announce his passing. Please find information on both his viewing and remembrance ceremonies below.

Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery401 N Hayden RdScottsdale, AZ 85257

[Map]

Viewing CeremonySaturday, July 23, 20223pm-7pm
Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
Main Building.

Celebration of LifeSaturday, August 13, 20224pm-8pm
Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
In the chapel
First hour dedicationFood and drinks available

Aug, 12, 2022
Hi everyone-
This is Bob. Thank you for your patience as we worked through the details to be able to webcast the Celebration of Life for Bernard. The event is tomorrow [Saturday, Aug. 13], and the details of time and place are listed on his website, theKlute.com.
This event will be live-streamed on Facebook, via this official page, The Klute, located at: https://www.facebook.com/TheKlute
While the service begins at 4pm, we will initiate the stream at 3:45 MST (or Pacific Time), or as close to it as we can. Please know that during the stream:
- We will not be able to respond to comments, and comments will not be shared with the live audience.
- Quality may suffer based on Internet availability. While we have secured an exclusive hotspot for access to stream with, it is still a wireless connection, and subject to the limitations of such.
Thank you all for the outreach to make sure that you had a way to be a part of this event. Should you have any questions, please feel free to DM Bob Nelson or message on The Klute's Page.

In the meantime, I process my grief I suppose the way any newspaperman does, by publishing the words and photos and stories of others so that you, dear readers, can use your own wisdom to weigh the measure of a man. I don't know how else to act. I will write about my feelings is a later post; I worked on this for the last 7 hours. This is still too fresh.

My wife Laura holding one of our oldest daughter's favorite stuffed animals. Athena loves sharks and loved when Klute would talk to her about them when visiting our house.

The last time I saw Klute in person was May 26 just after we brought our newborn twins home from the hospital. Klute performed in Sedona and was heading home when I begged him to turn around and pop in to see Athena because she had gotten all of her sharks ready to show off.
He visited and made a little 3-year-old girl feel very special.


I'll just say this:

I knew Klute 22 years. He helped me grieve the death of Christopher Lane when I could not grieve with anyone else. He was a slam rival and ally (the two are simultaneous in our sport), was groomsman at my bachelor party and wedding and one of my best friends. We talked politics and life in person and online and I valued his counsel in all things. 
Klute was a good man. 
I loved him as a brother.
I mourn him now.



See what all his others friends have to say:


Jessica Ballantyne-Keller

My best friend passed yesterday. 
I loved Bernard Schober like he was my family. 
He was my family. 
I cherished his friendship so much. 
He saved my life literally three times. 
I am currently completely lost after finding out this morning.
In lieu of flowers please donate to https://sharkangels.org

Bernard Schober was my best friend. 
I don’t just mean he was my best friend because we were like family,
I also mean he was the best person who was also my closest friend. 
I keep looking at his page, because I’m amazed at all the good Bernard did. I watch in real time as another story rolls in, how good of a human he was. 
To be honest, I always knew he was a good person. Seeing it posted in real time from hundreds of people is a completely different story and I didn’t fathom on any level how amazing of a human my best friend really was. 
Grief is selfish. 
Grief says he was mine to mourn on a level that I didn’t think anyone else deserved to. 
But that just isn’t true because everyone lost him,
And to think of all the good he was going to do after all the good he had already done is just mind blowing and I can’t possibly hold all of that to myself. 
It’s an impossible feat. 
He was an impossible feat. 
From open heart surgeries to diving with sharks to writing his poetry. 
There are some of you out there who have told me how much this man respected and loved me. 
I know he did. Even on days I didn’t deserve it. 
But I also know how many of you he loved and respected. And exactly the reasons why. 
It’s no less than every single one of you who has a Klute story. I’m dead serious. 
He saw the good in everyone. 
He was sometimes the only good thing about me. 
I walked a little taller when I was with Klute. 
I sent him my poetry to go over, and he sent me his. 
I could never be the poet he was because he could arrange words like houses of cards.  I always felt like I was grabbing bingo balls from a cage. 
I beat him one time at slam. One time. 
I rode that victory for two weeks straight. And he let me. He made it to almost every single one of the birthday parties I had for as long as I knew him. 
We sang karaoke together. 
He would call me while he was visiting his dad in Florida while walking home from the bars, would miss his turn by two streets and somehow would still navigate home ok. 
We had a mutual hatred of United Airlines. 
And then there was the one time we flew to Texas together for Grand Slam on United, and I’m pretty sure that’s the only time I can remember we didn’t run into problems. 
I say Bernard saved my life three times. 
And on three seperate occasions he absolutely did. It’s not a figure of speech. 
He loved me unconditionally, just like he did with everyone in his inner circle. 
To say I miss him is a complete understatement. It’s the pain that keeps on giving. I’ve said before and I’ll say again it feels like I’ve lost a limb. 
I have gone to send him a text no less than a thousand times over the last two days and that’s the kind of pain that breaks a person. 
But I’m trying to remain steadfast. 
He wouldn’t have left if he didn’t think we couldn’t handle it. 
So I’m handling this. 
And because of him and his influence, I have so many of you to help lift up and who are helping lift me up. 
I will never forgive Bernard for making me make friends. 
Also he would have laughed at that. 
I have said a few times over the last few days that words have become very hard for me. And they still are. But I needed all of this to get out while I still had them rumbling around in my brain. 
I love you, Bernard.

Partners Bernard Schober and Teresa Newkirk

Lauren Perry

For the first two minutes of my morning when I woke up today Klute, it’s as if it never happened. As if the phone call at 2:29pm on July 18th hadn't occurred at all and it had just been a really awful dream, as so many nightmares tend to be. I remember this time years ago, when you dramatically called me and said “Lauren! I had a dream I was walking along the River Sphinx! And the toll man asked for my coins so I pulled them from my eyelids.” 
My birthday 2021. He made everything so much more special!

It's as if our entire friendship, you have been preparing me for this day and even still, I feel as if I am on stage with a blank piece of paper and my poem unmemorized. 

Classy tiki adventures at Captain's Cabin.

It still doesn't seem real; not hearing your voice again calling me through the phone, that you’ll never again stand in my doorway before we head to Captain's for tiki drinks with your newest tiki mug that is always better than mine. 
Tiki adventures: Cthulhu addition with his fancy new birthday tiki!

Where you will no doubt regale us with videos of the ocean of these beautiful sharks and massive stingrays from your adventures scuba diving in sunken, lost cities. We never got to go together. There’s so much we’ll never do again. I swear that someday you were going to tell me you had grown gills; it seems almost silly now I think about that now, but I was so happy for you when you found the ocean and fully embraced it. You deserved so much to be happy, you had so much love in your heart and you gave it without wanting or needing anything in return! 
Favorite memory, back in 2010. We'd just crushed a duet on stage and got a perfect 50 at the SLC Utah Arts Festival. We were clearly the coolest kids in school!

Your friendship was the best gift I could have ever received while still feeling undeserving of. To say you are my best friend is the understatement of the century, you are my other half! The Giles to my Buffy! I god damn love you so much more than I ever felt I could ever love another person and I'm so very appreciative that I had almost 20 years of knowing you while being in awe of your achievements, you're unending strength to push through challenges that would have crippled a normal person. To always know the right thing to say at the right moment. How did you always do that? You used to joke that I'd save your life at least two or three times but really, you saved mine.
Klute's birthday 2022. He was so happy and had such a great night!!!!

You never gave up on me or our friendship. In truth, I think we only truly ever fought a handful of times which is pretty great considering all those twelve-hour road trips, late night flights to Florida and poetry competitions, crammed together in overly priced hotels with the stresses of getting scored a perfect score on stage. 
Haunted house adventures 2021. We finally made it out of that blood corn maze after 30 minutes!


I'll never forget when you finally told me your real first name was Bernard or that you were actually from Illinois and let me think you were from Florida. Like who keeps that a secret?! You are so incredibly funny and only ever really messed with me a few times, but when you did it was really something! Like when you calmly said “oh yeah, my father is the zodiac killer” like it was nothing then just turned away to watch tv, letting it hang there casually in the air, and just let me sit there thinking your dad was actually the zodiac killer for thirty minutes then laughed at me for believing you! 
Dream team, killing it on stage 2013 at Copperstate with a duet.


Your sarcastic sense of humor was unmatched; a secret layer of your personality that you shared in the rarest of moments. You were so damn funny! You loved haunted houses but hated horror movies. Last year when we got lost in that corn maze when it was so bloody cold and had to have a clown walk us back to the front so we could go through the zombie house twice even though you hated zombies, but still waited 18 years to tell me because I love them. You believed that sharks were kind and gentle creatures so you saved clippings of newspaper articles about them in your journal. You wrote beautiful fun journal entries about food you’d tasted on your trips and were a phenomenal cook. You loved to dance but were very specific about to what kind of music. 
Nerd Slam, IWPS Flagstaff edition.

There are so many tiny details that make you up that I can't even begin to describe them all even as I think about every single one of them, every memory, every moment; I'm breathing through them, missing you. This is the longest we’ve ever gone without talking. All my life, I will cherish the time we had together, even as I wish there have been more. You are the true last king of Egypt. Klute, you’re dearest person close to my heart. Not a day will go by that I will not feel the absence of your presence. All my love.
نرجو أن تعيش إلى الأبد في حقل القصب. أفضل صديق لي. توأم روحي. لقد كنت جيدًا جدًا بالنسبة لهذا العالم.
May you live forever in the Field of Reeds. 
My best friend. 
My Soul Mate. 
You were too good for this world.
13th Floor Haunted House 2021. He jumped numerous times. It was awesome!

David Tabor

It is a thing. Most of us will remember “The Klute” in this way or some other variation being behind a microphone etc. Most of my time with him was spent with Bernard Schober if that makes any sense to anyone. 
I could probably say the same thing in some ways that most of you know “Tabor”. A larger than life version of myself that I present and manicure for others entertainment. It’s not that it is an bit per say, but it a cultivated part of my life.
Especially the last two years with the pandemic lingering. We moved our long standing Saturday coffee drinking to his backyard and was one of the few pillars of normalcy in my life left. That and work.
I feel like we’ll have something to commemorate at some point. It’s a tough call when you realized that you are probably that person who does this or should be a part of that. As another one who is in the “double income- no kids” club and also had a brush with mortality; I have wondered about who does what when I pass on.

Bill Campana

there is no way to ease into something as devastating as losing one who has been a part of your life for 22-years.  in a world gone haywire, Bernard Schober always made sense of the chaos.  he lived his life doing what he loved.  he won his final slam last week.  out with a bang.  he was the supreme traveling companion, soundboard for all incorrect comments, purveyor of good times, and always seemed to enjoy it when on saturday mornings during our 22-year coffee klatch he would freshen my coffee and i would say, "thanks, doll face."  we are all going to miss you, my friend.  the inner circle is going to spin out off balance for a long time.  word from teresa is while hiking on monday morning had a heart attack and dialed 911 on his cell phone.  doctors worked on him for an hour.  this is going to take some time to sink in.

The Klute and Marc Schaefer, dive buddies and partners in crime

"Awake"

by The Klute
(2015)
I swim through the Blue Eternal.
She feeds me.
Truth told, that's all I've ever cared about.
Her waters are an endless buffet.
Bring me a Harp seal, 
Tender mackrel,
Robust tuna!
From each meal to the next, I devour the seas 
One bite at a time.
At the top of the game,
Atop the food chain
Who's the Great White Shark.
Who's an eating machine to all the fishes.
They say that's shark's a bad mother...
Shut your mouth!

I *can't* shut my mouth.
If I do, I'll die.
Mother Ocean and I are tied together
Bound by the oxygen I take from her body.
Five gills fluttering as bloody flags in the briny breeze
Keep me alive and in your nightmares,
Chasing you through REM sleep,
Waking you up in a cold sweat, 
Your heart pounding so hard
I can hear it whisper to me as I ply through the shoals
Close to your shore-hugging homes,
Tickling my senses with promise and delight.

I envy you.
Wishing I could stop and drift away
Stop my constant forward motion.
I know other residents of the deep can do it.
I have felt the wings of stingrays pull covers of sand over their bodies
Suprised dreaming dolphins bobbing in the waves,
Watches eels slip into crevices and disappear.
It looks wonderful.
To be able to stop, feel the wave's embrace
Cradling me in her arms,
The only movement a gentle tidal dance. 

Dolphins always talk of dreaming.
When they close their eyes
They can let the currents carry them to places long forgotten,
To places never been.
They can swim with the dead that my kind took from them,
Or simply float to half-heard whale song from the unfathomable depths.
It looks and sounds wonderful,
But I can't stop, not even for a moment.
My life is a series of forward motions,
Punctuated by 
Dive,
     Speed up, 
              Surface,
ATTACK
Dive,
     Dive,
          Dive,
Keep moving forward
NEVER STOP,
Forward! Forward!
Surface, 
Attack, ATTACK, ATTACK!
Forward, forward, 
Never stop moving forward.

I am forever swimming towards death.
Mine, yours, theirs...
The line between such trivialities grows thinner
With each passing flick of my tail, each meal, every mate.
The hourglass will always be half-empty to someone 
Who can never stop to turn it over,
But sometimes I imagine what it would be like to stop.
If destiny wants me to keep moving,
Who am I to argue with destiny?
But I can slow myself down until I'm just... barely...
Moving.
      
I cannot close my eyes, 
So I let myself sink to where the light does not reach
My tail barely moves,
And I begin to think I know what it must be like
To live without perpetual motion.
So deep that the sounds of waves against rocks grows ever silent
I sink deeper,
              deeper,
                     deeper
Into the endless black of the infinite sea.
I feel my fins flutter gently and twitch
I begin to feel Mother Ocean embrace me
And it feels wonderful.
I cannot stop.
This is not what she created me to be.
Sometimes though, I think I know what dreaming is.
I do not need to stop,
I only need to slow down.
I only need to sleep. 

Laura Lacanette

Bernard Schober your time here was over too soon but you really lived the hell out of this life. I’m absolutely devastated for your family, your partner, and your many dear friends. 
Thank you for always being so kind and welcoming to an awkward newbie, for making space and encouraging others, for supporting the weird and offbeat without judgement. Your talent with poetry and comedy was something I looked up to and I feel honored to have been able to share space and get my ass kicked by you on stage. 
You always used your larger than life presence to bring people up. I’ll never forget when I performed a nerdy poem that bombed, only to look out into the crowd and see you and Lauren standing up cheering your heads off. I wish I could tell you how much you meant to me and how much you will be missed. 
I hope you’re somewhere swimming with sharks, winning all the slams, and pissing off online trolls. So long Klute, and thanks for all the fish.

Laura Lacanette, Russ Kazmierczak, the Klute and Lauren Perry at Phoenix Fan Fusion, or, 

Julie Elefante

Dear Klute,
Bernard Schober. I hate that you died because you were so damned good at living. My torso is a heavy fist, but it loosens its grip when I read all the eulogies collecting on your page and feel the love that you put out coming back in with the tides. The affirmation, the ebb and flow, is soothing. We grew up next to oceans on opposite ends of the country, but we always celebrated the kinship. When people are born and bred by the sea, it threads its silver hooks and fine white lines along their spines and sways them into sleep. In turn, people of the sea leave their lines in everyone they touch. What a wonderful net you wove through all of us, and how well you filled it. 
Here are stories, things I’m grateful for:
A lot of people have talked about their poetry friendships with you. You did all that for me, too. And even after I left slam behind, you always asked me if I was going to read whenever you saw me at poetry events. There’s something so validating when a well-known, well-loved writer tells you they want to hear your words, and you did that for a lot of us. Thank you for that.
Looking through my hard drive, looking for memories of you, I’ve found hundreds of documents—photos, art, and of course poems. All the edits, layouts, and final proofs for so many of your chapbooks and books from the last 17 years. I loved that you asked me to take care of these, partly because you knew I’ve always loved layouts and editing, and partly because you trusted me with it all. AND, for every book, I was guaranteed a delicious home-cooked meal, some fine drink, and an evening of cartoons and conversation. Thank you for giving me all these opportunities to let me express my own passions, for believing in me and trusting me with your own. 
For a few months, when you needed a place to stay, I offered you a room in a house I was renting. Thank you, Klute, for being one of those rare roommates who was easy to live with, for cleaning up after yourself and around the house, for paying your share of the rent and bills on time, for just adulting so well. Sorry you had to clean up that chicken bone in a sock; the previous roommate wasn’t so good.
At one point, I was struggling with money but too stubborn and proud to take handouts, so I was picking up side jobs here and there. You took me aside and told me you were looking for a sort of personal assistant. You’d find random chores and errands that I’m sure you were just making up—putting all your printed poems into a binders, sorting out a pile of stuff you said you wanted to list on eBay, stuff like that. You paid more than the work was worth, that you could’ve done yourself in far less time and much more efficiently. I told you I’d tried pawning stuff, and during one visit to my place, you asked if I still used my old bike from college. It was several years old, well-used, and banged up, but you said you’d been meaning to buy a bike and asked how much I originally paid for it, and that’s just about how much you gave me for it. I don’t know if you ever rode it, and I can’t imagine you pedaling along with your long black duster flapping behind you in the breeze. You said you were enjoying it, though. That made me feel better. Thank you for treating me with dignity and generosity in equal measure. 
So your body is gone, but your light is still with me, inspiring me with everything you accomplished while you were here and were still pushing to do, ever so intrepid. Thank you for your friendship and your part in making me a better version of myself, thank you for weaving me into your life and letting me weave you indelibly into mine. 
Love you, Klute,
-J

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Sending David Blair to Burning Man

While I normally find burning poetry a sacrilege, I am sending a copy of “Detroit (while I was away)” by David Blair with Azami for her to burn at the Temple of Juno when she leaves for Burning Man in about an hour.

Fly high above Black Rock City, Blair. May the ashes reach Detroit, your beloved city.

Fa una canzone senza note nere
se mai bramasti la mia grazia havere.
Falla d'un tuonó ch'invita al dormire,
dolcemente, dolcemente facendo la finire



Blair performs "Detroit"
Producer: Connie Mangilin, Philip Lauri
Camera: Sean Redenz
Editor: Steven Oliver


David Blair
Photo by David Lewinski Photography
“Detroit (while I was away)”
By David Blair


Even though I know the air hangs
like a dead dog’s ass over River Rouge,
I still miss you. Your fenced in gardens
filled with sustenance and Saturday

evening draped over a back alley porch.
The September stench that creeps
slow as a Woodward bus on Sunday.
Black tires crawling in summer heat.

Your acoustic guitars and amplified hair.
Your rows of long thin buildings,
arranged on a young man’s head.
Last time I saw you, a woman stood

on a corner conducting traffic.
Her own sunken opera.
A crack pipe baton. Car horns joined
in like a bad man cruising a dream.
She stood on the stage of Cass and Mack

dying to reach Joy Rd. The moon left
its spotlight on a backdrop of burnt buildings.
Yellow police tape posed like velvet rope.
Do Not Cross.

A picket line of teens careened down Cass
past broken glass that spread
like urban sprawl, a Diego Rivera mural
painted across the DIA wall.

Another time I saw you,
steam barreled out of your manhole covers
like you were about to explode. A soul imbibed
forty ounces of courage so it could head back to the axle plant

on Lynch Road, Jefferson or some other
conveyor belt street that gets everyone moving
in step like a Temptation line dance.
22 ounces of sweat and iron hidden in a bathroom stall.

Away from the plant tours and fat cats,
shop stewards and snitches. I remember you
old friend. I’m in another city now.
But Martin Luther King St. always looks the same.

It just doesn’t intersect with Rosa Parks,
12th Street where ‘67 fires started,
named for a woman who chose you beyond
a boycott in Montgomery, then rode

the front of that big old dog
straight home to you Detroit, I love you...

from your basketball sun, that hangs in the sky
then falls, only to bounce back up tomorrow. Down
to your alligator shoes. I’ll kiss you on the river.
Meet you in the middle of a suitcase and wonder

do you think of me this way...?
Do you even know I’ve gone? Say my name, Detroit.
I pray you claim me. A small town boy.
Born in New Jersey, but made in Detroit.
My heart beats like tool and die for you.
like horse power and pistons for you,
while mechanized, lumpenized robot
zombies haunt Mack Avenue.

Here they come, a gang of buildings in tank tops,
Mack Trucks in do rags, marching
down to Hastings Street.
Though I never knew you back when
you wore your onyx necklace
like a tire around your neck, I witness

the aftermath. Dipping your blue black hands
in electric currents of music and art. The circumference
of Outer Drive. Moross and Joy.
Paris of the Midwest they called you.

And every time ‘67 fires or Halloween came around,
you lived up to it. The year I was born, you blew up.
I heard it. I came when I could. I’ve never left.
I stay, even when I go. Chosen heart.
Adopted town. From Belle Isle to Eight Mile.

Chocolate city where the mothership landed.
Late night downtown and the peacocks are out
on Fourth Street, calling to billboards
that hover over highways, telling stories to streetlamps.
The moon is a plate full of soul food, Mexican food.
Pierogies and paczkis. Kafta and curry
We mix and separate, mix and separate.

Each Prentis stoop is a garage rock chord
strummed and banged, like a car mechanics sledge.
A man screams beneath the Ambassador bridge.
Another drums on plastic tubs for tourists.
“Will work for food” is a piece of poetry
scribbled on an art house wall.

Festival wizards, Saunderson, Atkins and May.
The Big Three. De trois, of three.
Black panthers, white panthers and Lions, oh my.
Tight boys in rock pants, the hustlers in Palmer Park.
Lovers, thugs and blues men with axes
sharp enough to cut down another forced overtime shift.
The sun dresses flowing like the Detroit River. Supremely
turning, bending with the weight of the city. Detroit,

your beautiful hair woven women, putting on gloves
and grabbing tools next to me on the assembly line,
teaching me what perseverance and being a brother is
all about. Overtime fists clocking. These are the hands
that braid hair and lock dread, cook meat that falls
right off the bone into fat, black pots of collards working harder
and harder...
and harder still...

...so step on, Detroit,
dribble and shoot,
pass and play,
struggle and fight,
darken and light,
drive and impel,
riot and quell, pick the steel burrs
off the cross members at the front of the Jeep Cherokee.
Look what we have made you. Steam and steel.
Still, that’s how hard I love you.


David Blair
Sept. 19, 1967 -- July 23, 2011
David Alan Blair “Blair”, age 43, born Sept. 19, 1967, passed away Saturday, July 23, 2011. David grew up in Newton, N.J., but came to call Detroit his adopted home. He is the son of Hildegard Blair and Herbert Blair.

Blair was an award-winning, multi-faceted artist: poet, singer-songwriter, writer, performer, musician, community activist and teacher. In the words of Metro Times journalist Melissa Giannini, “Blair focused his work on the hope that rises from the ashes of despair.”

A 2010 Callaloo Fellow and a National Poetry Slam Champion, his first book of poetry, Moonwalking, was recently released by Penmanship Books. Blair, as a solo artist, and with The Urban Folk Collective, self-released more than seven records in the last ten years. His most recent album, The Line, with his band The Boyfriends, was released in 2010 on Repeatable Silence Records.

Throughout his life, Blair performed at venues, large and small, across the nation and around the world. He was nominated for seven Detroit Music Awards, including a 2007 nod for Outstanding Acoustic Artist. He was named Real Detroit Weekly Readers Poll’s Best Solo Artist and The Metro Times Best Urban Folk Poet. In 2007, he won the Seattle-based BENT Writing Institute Mentor Award.

As well as being the recipient of numerous awards, he taught classes and lectured on poetry and music in Detroit Public Schools, The Ruth Ellis Center, Hannan House Senior Center, the YMCA of Detroit, and at various universities, colleges and high schools across the country.

Blair has friends and fans on almost every continent. He will be greatly missed by the loved ones he left all too early. He is preceded in death by his father, Herbert Blair. He is survived by his mother, Hildegard (Smith), siblings Herbert Blair (who resides in Pennsylvania), Tony Blair (New Jersey), Walter Blair (Florida), Joy Blair Swinson (New Hampshire) and many nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles.


And every raindrop falling from the sky
is like a tribute to the blue skies following behind,
And every raindrop falling to the sea
is like a testament to a new life that will come to be.
~Blair

Saturday, August 18, 2012

"Oil Dealers & Deepwater Part II – Étouffée" redux


Part II – Étouffée


the last thing he remembered
was her étouffée
the way shrimp and chicken
could fall apart in his mouth
the texture of onion,
the soft burn of the bell pepper,
the crunch of celery
the way a drop of saffron
could flavor a whole meal
for a moment
after the alarm sounded
after the shock of fear subsided in his spine
he was there again
in her Baton Rouge kitchen
surrounded by the smell of her labors

he had seen a blowout on another rig
before BP
before Deepwater Horizon
everyone jumped to their posts
did their jobs
and when all was said and done
insurance wrote off the damage
and they thanked heaven no one got hurt

for a moment
he flashed back to that rig
hoped it would repeat

and as the rumble rose
his eyes dimmed
the world fell away from focus
and he could taste  her étouffée in his throat

the moment was too quick to prepare
he saw the faces of the men around him
he had seen them all today on the rig
they were 11 roughnecks who would go home
when the job was over
they were strangers before the rig
and they would be afterward
they always wanted to be forgettable
for a roughneck,
to have one’s name known
means you’ve fucked up
you screwed the boss’s daughter
you carelessly killed a man
or you died on a rig


they were 11 men
whose names would be remembered:
Jason Anderson
Aaron Dale Burkeen
Donald Clark
Stephen Curtis
Gordon Jones
Roy Wyatt Kemp
Karl Kleppinger
Blair Manuel
Dewey Revette
Shane Roshto
Adam Weise
no longer forgettable


when it came
the rip roar of steel and crude
swallowed in a sun
the last thing he remembered
was her étouffée
the last thought
was the smell of Cajun cooking
the feel of her arms around him
as the bowels of the earth
those billions of animals
compressed into oil
buried for millions of years
saw the sky again
released the rage of imprisonment
ignited into fire
rose into the sky
carried his disintegrated memories
with them
rising like steam
from a cooking pan
of her étouffée


the earth hemorrhaged billions of gallons
like a head wound
across the Gulf
to her, it was bloodstain


denied his body,
she collapsed
the first time she touched the oily surf
prayed that somewhere in the black crude
there was some drop of him
some molecule of her husband
the size of a saffron seed


after she walked home
barefoot from beach across the bayou
she refused to wash
the oil would fall away
but he would hold her
sink into her skin
flavor her like saffron
she has no gravesite to visit
but she can smell him in the kitchen
any time she cooks étouffée

Deepwater Horizona victims

Jason C. Anderson, 35, Midfield, Texas, father of two.
Aaron Dale Burkeen, 37, Philadelphia, Miss., married, father of two (14-year-old daughter Aryn and 6-year-old son Timothy), died four days before his 38th birthday.
Donald Clark, 49, Newellton, La., married to Sheila Clark.
Stephen Ray Curtis, 39, Georgetown, La., married and had two teenagers. Taught his son to hunt and play baseball and was active in his church.
Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27, Jonesville, La., married to Courtney Kemp.
Karl D. Kleppinger Jr., 38, Natchez, Miss., U.S. Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm, enjoyed NASCAR and cooking barbecue. Married with one son, Aaron.
Gordon L. Jones, 28, Baton Rouge. Wife Michelle Jones was nine months pregnant with their second son when he died.
Keith Blair Manuel, 56, Gonzales, La., father of three (Kelli Taquino, Jessica Manchester and Ashley Jo Manuel). Engaged to Melinda Becnel. Had season tickets to Louisiana State University baseball and football games.
Dewey A. Revette, 48, State Line, Miss., married with two daughters. Had been with Transocean for 29 years.
Shane M. Roshto, 22, Liberty, Miss., married to Natalie Roshto, father of 3-year-old Blain Michael.
Adam Weise, 24, Yorktown, Texas. During time off, the former high school football star spent time with his girlfriend, hunted deer and fished from his boat.

Oil Dealers & Deep Water Part I - redux

Part I – Oil Dealers*

drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



used to have our own,
but never enough
I found some pure stuff
bought it cheap
right next door
who knew the neighbor was a dealer?
had to go under the water
not so easy and finding it in the dirt
but don’t matter none
once it goes in
you don’t think about where it came from



got it pure and cheap
got it from B.P.
always trust a Limey, I say
they talk like us and don’t do no wrong



drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



we don’t trust the Saudi dealer anymore
he’s got too many issues
beats his wife for speaking out
little brothers always bitchin’
’bout how we smack ’em around
Saudi thinks we like him
but we won’t even know his name
if he didn’t have any



his crew don’t trust us none
last time we went there
one o’ them ragheads
left us with a bloody lip
knocked over a few towers in our neighborhood
but we done fucked him up good



we only go to the Saudi for this junk
when we’re desperate
— and when we’re armed, rollin’ with our boys
got to show ’em who’s boss
if you want a fair deal



had some homegrown
but it’s gone bunk
always need more
if we’re going to make it ride
and if it runs out
we still got the Saudi
he’s eager to deal
if he don’t sell to the Chinaman first
but if he do
we’ll just go back with bigger guns
bleed him dry till he’s done
maybe go visit the Chinaman
sure, he packs heat
and rides with his boys
but I think we can take him
We’re ’Mericans,
and we don’t take no shit
John Wayne wasn’t no pussy
we're bad motherfuck'rs



drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



spill a little, no big deal
always more where this came from
if you lose control
let it flow, let it burn
give Mother Nature a facial
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none

*All BP satire logos from www.logomyway.com

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Tonight: New York City poet Jahnilli Akbar features at Sedona Poetry Slam

Sedona’s Studio Live hosts a poetry slam Saturday, Dec. 3, starting at 7:30 p.m. featuring New York City poet Jahnilli Akbar.

All poets are welcome to compete for the $75 grand prize.

Poets expected to slam tonight:
Jack Egan, Sedona
Shaun "Nodalone" Srivastava, Flagstaff
The Klute, Phoenix
Lauren Perry, Phoenix
George Yamazawa Jr., Durham, North Carolina
Thom Stanley, Sedona
Brian Towne, Flagstaff
Frank O'Brien, Prescott
Mikel Weisser, So-Hi (near Kingman)
Ryan Brown, Flagstaff
Gary Every, Sedona

The slam will the first of the 2011-12 season, expected to be more moving, more energetic and more intense because this year, poets will be competing for a slot in Sedona’s first National Poetry Slam Team.

After four years of collaborating with the Flagstaff and Phoenix metro area poetry slam scenes, the Sedona scene has developed the reputation and strength to muster its own team to send to the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., in August. The eventual four-poet team will share the stage with 300 of the top poets in the United States, Canada and Europe, pouring out their words in a weeklong explosion of expression.

Sedona’s Studio Live hosts a poetry slam Saturday, Dec. 3,
starting at 7:30 p.m. featuring New York City poet Jahnilli Akbar.
Jahnilli Akbar
Jahnilli Akbar is a 22-year-old poet and activist, born in Chicago and raised in northern Mississippi. Currently he splits his time between Harlem and Brooklyn, N.Y.

Akbar’s poetry is best defined as an artistic mesh of alternative black, Semitic and queer life in America.

Akbar won the 2010 Rookie of the Year award at the Wade-Lewis Invitational, the second largest colligate slam in the country with more than 100 participants, held at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Akbar is also the recipient of the 2011 Fresh Fruit Festival Queer Poet of the Year Award. He is a known face on the underground New York City art scene, as part of a movement called the Bushwick Renaissance, and as a member of Ground- Floor Collective, a leftist, African diaspora-based, predominately lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer group of artists. The Ground-Floor Collective, the Brecht Forum & Malcolm X Grassroots Movement curates the annual Black August art show, a fundraiser for political prisoners abroad.

Many stages, venues and spaces have hosted Akbar’s poetry, including Nuyorican Poets’ Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Louder Arts, NYC Intangible Poetry Slam, SUNY New Paltz and the Brooklyn Museum, all in New York, the Seattle Poetry Slam, Chicago’s Mental Graffiti Slam and Wordplay Chicago.

In early November, Akbar published his first book, “Chronicles of a Contemporary Alternative American Negro,” and headed out on tour.

To compete in the slam, poets need at least three original poems, each three minutes long or shorter. No props, costumes or musical accompaniment are permitted. All types of poetry are welcome.

Photo by Harley Deuce
The Dec. 3 slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox
Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff
team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010.
The Dec. 3 slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010.

Sedona National Poetry Slam Team
Competing poets earn points with each Sedona Poetry Slam performance between Dec. 3 and Saturday, May 5. Future slams will take place on Saturdays, Jan. 7, Feb. 18, March 10, April 7 and May 5. Every poet earns 1 point for performing or hosting and 1/2 point for calibrating. First place earns 3 additional points, second place earns 2 and third place earns 1. Based on points, the top 12 poets in May are eligible to compete for the four slots on the Sedona Poetry Slam Team, which will represent the community and Studio Live at the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C. All poets are eligible in the slamoff except those already confirmed members of or coaching another National Poetry Slam or Young Voices Be Heard team. Poets can compete for multiple teams during a season and still be eligible to compete in the Sedona team.

What is Poetry Slam?
Founded in Chicago in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. Poetry slams are judged by five randomly chosen members of the audience who assign numerical value to individual poets’ contents and performances.

Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe.

Tickets are $7 in advance and $12 the day of the event, available at Golden Word Books and Music, 3150 W. SR 89A, and online at studiolivesedona.com.

Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona.
For more information, call (928) 282-2688 or visit http://studiolivesedona.com.

To slam:
Sign up at Studio Live by 7 p.m. or send a text message with your name to Graham at (928) 517-1400. Slots are first come, first serve.