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 Azami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Azami. Show all posts

Monday, January 9, 2017

"I am echoes of empty moments" by Christopher Fox Graham




I am echoes of empty moments
the days with you:
drunk-night glimmers
flashing into sober mornings
reminding what was when;

you are 200-proof moon-shine moonshine
the press of your sleeping hips
hangovering me
headaches of your smile
body aches of your kisses
AA means something else
and there are twelve-hundred steps
to recovery
I cannot piss your DNA out from my liver
it’s deeper than my bones
shotgunning kegstands of your arms around me

I want you, summer lemonade
sweet-and-sour kick in the teeth
burrowing corkscrew cavities into molars
your mint-julep biceps holding me down
your voice a gazebo piano ballad
earworming a melody the rest of me misharmonizes

this old body was too young in you
you, too old for the time we had
we charted inevitability
we lived the prequel of the now-that-must-be
we plotlined the time-travel TV movies
we echoed thunder before the lightning
and in the now-that-must-be,
20-20 foreshadowing hindsights foresight

I still get drunk you in the moonlight
shape constellations into us
dismiss the stars that don’t connect
as figments of imagination
we, too stubborn to let the heavens disappoint

outside this skin built of metal adamantium strong
unbreakable in the winter sun
but inside the boy still shimmers in your afterglow
someone I knew once
he shared my bones
hoped so hard for fate to fail
hoped so hard time was a hiccup
we could reshape in our image

but without étui, the bedsheets of time
only fold now to then
never make now then
inside, he’s running away with you
flying elsewhere on someone else’s wings
but cannot escape this unventilated skin
he’ll suffocate in
rather than breathe new air

I’m supposed to be stronger than this
stoically accept your absence as a must-be
pass on the days without tears
get over you as all things do
fish-in-the-sea-ing our moments into someone else
less shimmeringly iridescent
but I can’t
I don’t know how
and I have no one to tell,
so your DNA leaks out of my liver
cirrhosising me to death
no one sees the lesions
covering this skin in a new armor
fresh-milk skin in each dawn
stitched together with dried salt threads

because you slipped in under the skin
some night when we shared the same bedroom air
fermented in our sweet sweat and whispers –
in dreams, all my stalwartness comes for naught
I cannot bleed you from my blood
you pump my broken-glass heart into synapses
irresistant when I sleep
reconstituting you back into being nightly

resever these heels so I can’t outrun you
torment me, tied to a kitchen chair
from these lips, draw some hallelujah,
which sounds more like your name
than any heavenly hymn
or late-night radio replay on backcountry roads

tonight as the sun sets and overweight lids heavyize
no volume of drink or caffeine
can keep me from you
or you 
out of me

it’s why I fight sleep so desperately
whatever war I wage in daylight
your irredentist reconquest reseizes in moonlight
paradoxing our ontology

make this heart ache again
bodyslam my mind against my skull again
this is the only real I feel most days
and agony bests absence
because it means there’s still someone here
you

or me 

or someone in between

even if it’s just a boy’s death throes

memories

bleeding out








Christopher Fox Graham © 2017

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Magicks Contained Beneath the Skin

Some magicks are best contained beneath the skin
while others should be loosed to the world,
unrestrained in an unyielding fury of kaleidoscopic colors
bedecked in cat ears or fox tails or deer antlers
a child’s wonder on their tongues and bellies full of fires
some are still the unpasteurized joy of days gone past
all tiger-teeth, shark-fang wildness of youth in its hooligan infancy
dancing in the moonlight of playing in a sealess playa
dreaming of cars turn mutant when swallowed in the dreams of artists
like those beneath her eyelids

Photo by David Schnack
do not fret the days when stars can still be counted as we once did
skipping digits while applicable or when unnecessary
knowing the final number was reachable
and always the same in the this county or the old

as the decades churn old histories into misremembered mysteries
of what-whens and who-hows Seuss would have created had he the lexicon
futures remain unwritten, though envisioned by madmen young boys never listen to,
coaxial lifespans stretch into the undreamed ether threading parallels when the geometry is right
yet the soft hands holding cracked hearts bend outward to find horizons
the foolish forgotten with half-bitten tongues wish for the best days
as yet-to-bes yet-to-comes rather than as what-may-have beens

and as the cycle of stars circles round a child-sun playing marbles in the dark,
on one, unremarkable in its ordinariness,
dances a spirit in tutus and feathers
Saturning her hips in hoops
marking one more checkbox of numbered years
toward days-to-comes
and soon-to-bes
and not-yet-nows
preparing smiles for the nightwandering desert dreams to sail in on the breeze
to sleep soundly until the next dawn asks her
how her sun rises

Saturday, July 20, 2013

"She Holds a Dragon in Her Spine," by Christopher Fox Graham


she holds a dragon in her spine
made of steel and mint juleps
curled up kundalini in her hips
she rocks to the beat
in a to and fro touch and go
shaking the room to its foundation

she breaks beats like bread
"take, eat of this my body," she says
her blood is busy though
snap kicking extremities to their exasperated edges
like the last great explorer discovering a New World over the horizon
where limbs meet limits
and bones bend time and space
she's a gravity well
drawing the eyes of everyone into her orbit
like falling satellites
burning brilliance in her exosphere
yet unable to touch her surface
without being crushed by the pressure
but if she holds you close like a love letter
just about be cast in the fireplace
presses her fingerprints into paper skin like an undiscovered crime scene
your lips ache to be solved by her detective tongue
until your law and order lifestyle
begs for her anarchy to throw a brick through
your thousand blind windows

she fucks your shit up
like a pirate ship sailing into port
on Take Your Daughter To Work Day

when she grabs you and says “kiss me”
hold onto her like you’re bull riding
on a tight rope
on fire
you’re going to experience some turbulence
and if oxygen drops in the overhead compartments
don't bother gasping for air
grab a sharpie and start writing your name on your body parts
so rescuers can reassemble you after impact
don't expect an open-casket funeral when she’s done with you
she’ll leave you splattered on the sidewalk
from a car bomb MacGyvered from the teeth of broken lovers
and the bones of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
that she uses like toothpicks
because when the end of the world came
she said, “Is that all you got?”
The world's been ending since it started
every time some new gods come along to rename it
and give it their own spin
she just laughs and says
“Fenrir fetches my newspapers”
“the Seven-Headed Beast is my alarm clock”
“who wakes me at 6:66 a.m.”

she's the philosopher of the dance floor
but you can't stop her beat
her hips will just keep dancing
come your Big Crunch flashfire or your intergalactic entropy big freeze

the Big Bang began the beat
and now it's so deep in her bones
her DNA splices in rhythm
A-T-C-C-
G-A-T-T-
T-C-G-G-
C-G-A-A-
stretching into infinity
or until you're so old,
your bones refuse to move
disassembling into their composite atoms she swallows like an anteater to fuel her fire
and thump the universe into hip-hop heartbeat
ba dum dum bang
ba dum dum bang

can you feel it?
it sounds like god tapping her temple
or the rain
or the rapping talons of the dragon in her spine, asking to come inside
and snuggle alongside you
now, open the damn door

Sunday, July 14, 2013

"I Wish My Pride Was More Malleable," by Christopher Fox Graham


I wish my pride was more malleable
so I could remember the taste of you
but "forgive" is a seven-letter word
neither of us can say
without swallowing back into our chest
to burn deep into our spleens

to sleep
I have replaced your two arms
with two glasses of whiskey
so I don't spend the hours between midnight and daybreak
calculating how my 72¾-inch doorframe
can so perfectly divide us
Korean Peninsula-style
into two halves
sharing the same language and history
but without armistice or peace treaty
to settle the civil war
we both claim the other started
we are starfish:
all fingers and mouths but no ears

I kissed her because she was young and curious
and most importantly, wasn't you
but as her cheeks melted into my hands
she became comparison, afterimage, contrast
the joy of first kiss became science experiment
an astronaut's expedition to a new Earth
"can we survive here, like home?
will the atmosphere adapt to us
or we to it?
will our grandchildren bury us here
or will we bury each other?"

you were the home left behind
the hometown of my eventual obituary
linked to my biography the way
Lee, Marc Antony and Rommel are inseparable
from Appomattox, Actium and El Alamein

You earthquake-forest fire-kaleidoscope wrecking ball:
I understand why warzone survivors stand
in the wreckage of their homes
photographed stone-faced:
there's nothing left to mourn
when one's home isn't still here
just cremated into rubble and ash
it looks fixable,
but it's not
the way the dead, without gunshot wounds,
should spring back to life
after rebooting the hardware because we will it

but anatomy and history and car accidents
are one-way streets
sins we cannot unsay
we've collided at full speed
wreckage strewn across this bedroom
photographs and knickknacks
tagged and noted by the forensic investigators
to chart them back to the moment of impact
not a last kiss,
but the words, "I think you should leave"
spilling from these lips
without the addendum:
"but return tomorrow"
or "when time and reason softens your illogic
and you can remember you are meant
to be the better one of us"

but my unbending pride
will doom me to death by train impact
rather than move out of the way
and my last words
instead of the profundity of poets
with pithy statements
of time's brevity
or the beauty of life strung through mediocre moments
into something grand and glorious
or dying haiku masters in the bamboo forests
waiting for the end to suck the life from their lungs
grown ancient in the pursuit of shorter phrasing
will be something asinine
a gurgle of gibberish
a profane declaration

Monday, December 31, 2012

My Biggest Events of 2012

The year 2012 was busy, with both highs and lows. These are neither the best nor worst the biggest events of my year:

Confirming ballistics from double murder outside Sedona

The morning of Friday, Jan. 6, James Johnson, 63, from Jaffrey, N.H., and Carol Raynsford, 63, from Nelson, N.H., were found shot to death in an idling late-model red Subaru wagon around 11:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 6, at an overlook between Sedona and Cottonwood. There hasn't been a murder inside Sedona city limits since 2003.

Photo by ABC15 News
On Sunday, Jan. 8, a shootout in Anthem resulted in the death of Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputy William Coleman, a 20-year veteran of MCSO and father of two.

The suspect, Drew Ryan Maras, 30, fired 29 rounds at police, two of which killed Coleman. Deputies fired 41 rounds, killing Maras.

The weapons that killed Jaffrey, Raynsford and Coleman were all .223-caliber rounds.

We, at the Sedona Red Rock News, were trying to get confirmation of a ballistics match between the two shootings, but the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office couldn't confirm it.

A tragedy, like this, means something different to a journalist. While we feel compassion for the victims of violent crimes or bank frauds and assaults and identify as fellow humans to those in feature stories or obituaries, reporting the news is our job. Reporting this story, and doing it before anyone else in the Verde Valley means I was doing my job for my community.We went to press suggesting there might be a relation, but 15 minutes to deadline on Tuesday, Jan. 10, I happened across a Twitter post from a New Jersey news site confirming the connection. My editor was out of the office, so the onus fell on me. I shouted "stop the presses!" had my photojournalist Tom Hood checking my email every 20 seconds while I called MCSO over and over until I got verbal confirmation and Hood got a press release from MCSO verifying the ballistics. I rewrote the lead with just a minute to spare and sent the plate the press, effectively breaking the story locally connecting the two shootings.

There is still no motive in the two deaths near Sedona.




May photo shoot

In May, following a Sedona Poetry Slam, a got a group of my best poets to stay overnight.

Photo by Tara Graeber
Josh Wiss, Spencer Troth, me, Brian Walker, Azami, Nodalone, Valence and
Lauren Hanss, left to right, helped encapsulate Arizona's Wild West and sci-fi
motifs.
The next morning, we went out to Fay Canyon and shot a series of photos blending Firefly imagery with the Old West, with images shot by Tara Graeber.

Hikers to the site came across a dozen armed poets and artists adjacent to the trailhead. Seeing there reaction to poets like Josh Wiss with three pistols and Valence wearing heterochromic sunglasses, my trenchcoat and a wielding a rusty shotgun must have been terrifying, then hilarious.

Of course, readers of my blog have seen the results of these pics as they are my favorites.



Publishing my first bound book, "The Opposite of Camouflage"

In late May, I started working on my first bound book of poetry, publishing it through Lulu.com, a print on demand service.

I hadn't printed a new book of my poems since 2006 and I've become a much better poet since then. It has 16 poems in a 52-page bound book, available for $9.99.

Poems included:
  • Welcome to the Church of the Word
  • Manifesto of an Addict
  • We Call Him Papa
  • Spinal Language
  • Ragnarok
  • The Peach
  • Breakfast Cereal
  • In the Corners of This Room
  • Three Minutes for Dylan
  • Do You Have a Baseball Bat?
  • My Hands are in the Mail
  • The Devil’s Gardens
  • Revolution 2.0
  • Staring at the Milky Way with One Eye Closed
  • Dear Pluto
  • They Held Hands
Special thanks to Big Pappa E for suggesting the title.




Winning the FlagSlam Grand Slam in May

Photo by Tara Graeber
The FlagSlam Grand Poetry Slam competitors: Tara Pollock, Ryan Brown,
Spencer Troth, me, Valence, Dan Rivera, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Nancy,
Nodalone, Vincent Vega and Jackson Morris. Pollock, Brown, I, Nodalone and
Morris made the team.

The last time I was legitimately on a team was 2006.

In 2010, I was added to my fifth Flagstaff team because I had competed and happened to be going to Nationals as a volunteer and the team's fourth poet bailed.

But in 2012, after a year of competing every week, despite living 40 minutes away in Sedona, I won the FlagSlam Grand Slam, making the team with Ryan Brown, Tara Pollock and Nodalone, and our alternate Jackson Morris, who we almost immediately made a fifth member of the team, as permitted by Poetry Slam Inc. rules.

The team was super supportive and incredibly talented, probably the strongest team of poets since the inaugural team in 2001.




First Sedona Grand Slam in June; performing with Azami

In 2011, The Klute suggested I send a team from Sedona to the National Poetry Slam.
I scrambled in to get in six poetry slams between December and May, meeting the threshold to qualify for inclusion in the National Poetry Slam, paid venue registration and certification for Studio Live and set up a point system to encourage poets to participate. 

Members of the Sedona Poetry Slam Team, left to right, Frank O'Brien, Spencer
Troth, Evan Dissinger, Tyler “Valence” Sirvinskas and Josh Wiss stand on stage
after their first National Poetry Slam bout at the McGlohon Theatre in Charlotte,
N.C. The team came in third, losing to Portland, Ore., and Oklahoma City, but
defeating Springfield, Mo.
In June, I hosted the first ever Sedona Poetry Grand Slam, featuring in alphabetical order:
  • Evan Dissinger is one of the preeminent voices in the Flagstaff poetry scene. A skateboard rat in Flagstaff, Dissinger is one of the most sincere poets in Arizona with a knack for making conventional experiences sublime.
  • Lauren Hanss is one of the strong female voices in Flagstaff. An early education and creative writing student at NAU, Hanss is respected for her honest, confessional poetry.
  • Known for his political savvy and humorous poetry, The Klute performs all over the United States and Canada and featured at the Poetry Slam and the Sedona Public Library. A seasoned veteran, The Klute has been to the National Poetry Slam seven times, for the Mesa Slam Team in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006, and the Phoenix Slam Team in 2008, 2009 and 2010. He also won the grand slams in 2005 and 2010.
  • A poet’s poet, Frank O’Brien writes with a profound simplicity. O’Brien won the 2008 and 2009 Flagstaff Grand Slams, and competed at three national poetry slams from 2008 to 2010.
  • A veteran national competitor, Lauren Perry competed at the National Poetry Slam with the Mesa Poetry Slam Team in 2006, 2009 and 2010. She also proudly represented Sedona at the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam in Denver.
  • Austin Reeves is an up-and-coming voice in both Sedona and Flagstaff. A coffee-loving creative writing student at NAU, Reeves has already made an impact, taking second at the last Sedona Poetry Slam in May.
  • Beginning in Flagstaff in 2005, Rowie Shebala has slammed all over Arizona. After graduating from NAU with a Bachelors of Science in Theater and a minor in English, she hosted the poetry slam in Gallup, N.M. On the national level, she competed at the 2009 Women of the World Poetry Slam in Detroit and as a member of the Mesa Slam Team in 2011.
  • Tyler Sirvinskas aka Valence, was a member of the 2011 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam team. He is the top-ranked poet competing in the Sedona grand slam.
  • A political science student at NAU, Spencer Troth’s introspective work brings compassion to his views of current events, such as a poem touching on the double murder outside Sedona in January. Troth will be taking his poetic voice overseas as a political science student in France next year.
  • Mikel Weisser is a school teacher from Kingman, an Occupy activist and a 2012 candidate for Arizona’s Congressional District 4. In conjunction with his congressional campaign and activist activities, Weisser schedules poetry performances all over the state.
  • Part of the performance included a duo poem featuring me
    performing "[The Dust] In the Corners of this Room" with my
    then-girlfriend Azami dancing to the piece.
  • Joshua Wiss’ infectious enthusiasm for life is evident in his energetic performances. A recent graduate of NAU with a degree in creative writing, Wiss performed at every Sedona Poetry Slam this season and is currently ranked No. 2.
Part of the performance included a duo poem featuring me performing "[The Dust] In the Corners of this Room" with my then-girlfriend Azami dancing to the piece.

That was awesome.


The 2012 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team members were chosen: Valence, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Frank O'Brien and Spenser Troth




Desert Rocks Music Festival

The Apocalypse Slam, The Dust and Whiskey Slam,The Hunger Slam, whatever the 12 poets who participated wanted to call it, it was a struggle but awesome when all was said and done.

Notice the lack of green on the underlying map. The festival was dust, just
dust.
The slam itself was great, the camaraderie between those of us who went will last for years, because performing slam poems in the face of 50-mile-an-hour dusty gusts will make you tight with each other. Misery loves company.

Hanging out with Seth Walker, Solomon Schneider and some of the best slam poets in the country was worth all the heartache of going and competing:
  • Karen Neverland was a member of the Salt City Slam Team in 2010 and has featured at many venues around the Salt Lake area with her poetry and motivational speaking. She has been featured on KRCL’s RadioActive and City Weekly’s Zionized and has recently completed a full-length philosophy book (unpublished). Karen has also self-published three chapbooks of poetry and often performs under the nickname “Karo”. In her free time she runs Salt Lake City’s most successful open microphone at Greenhouse Effect and enjoys creating music. 
  • Amy Everhart has been called one of "America's most refreshing Poetic Voices", a whirling-dervish of a performer whose voice sucker punched itself into the National Consciousness when she made history in Berkley California on October 10th, 2009 by being the first Woman to ever win the Individual World Poetry Slam, the most highly coveted title in United States performance poetry.
  •  Will Stanford is co-founder of Sparrow Ghost Publishing and Collective, a hair-stylist in training, hst of Portland Poetry Slam, Word-Out and Broetry. I write poems and do hoodrat stuff with my friends. Also, he performed a poem naked.
  • Slam scores posted during the Desert Rock Music Festival.
  • Jackhammer Serenade is composed of Dre Johnson and Patrick Ohslund and was born of fire and incalculable odds as these two poets converged from vastly different backgrounds on the 2009 poetry team Life Sentence. Since then they have given themselves entirely to multi voice work in order to further the human experiment of melding consciousness.
    Their work is at once tongue and cheek combined with a biting no-nonsense social commentary on the unseen suffering going on in the urban world.
  • Jesse Parent is a poet, an improviser, a former mixed martial arts fighter, a computer nerd, a husband, a father, and, above all, a human being. According to the results of the 2010 and 2011 Individual World Poetry Slams, he is also the 2nd ranked slam poet in the world.
  • Jordan Ranft loves poetry. He loves writing it, and he loves performing it. In the few years he has been practicing his craft he has taken the scene by storm. First starting performance career out in Colorado Jordan placed several times at the Mercury Cafe Slam in Denver. Now residing in northern California he has performed all over the bay area, won multiple slams, and has featured at several big name events including the Northbay Poetry Slam and the San Francisco How Weird Street Fair.
  • Lauren Zuniga is a nationally touring poet, teaching artist and activist. She is one of the top 5 ranked female poets in the world, the 2012 Activist-in-Residence at the OU Center for Social Justice and the founder of Oklahoma Young Writers. MoveOn.org, called her poem "The most riveting message on the war on women in under three minutes." Her work has also featured in On the Issues Magazine, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, Being Liberal, RH Reality Check, Muzzle Magazine, The Good Things About America and The Gayly.
  • Gray Brian Thomas is a performance poet born and raised in Salt Lake City Utah. Graduating cum laude with a B.A. in English in 2012 from the University of Utah where he was editor of enormous rooms, the undergraduate literary journal, Gray has been writing and performing poetry for several years. He was a member of the 2007, and 2011 Salt City Slam teams, and is a current member of the 2012 Salt City Slam team. He helped found the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational team for the University of Utah, which sent it's first ever representatives to the 2012 CUPSI tournament. Gray is also the 2012 Individual World Poetry Slam representative for Salt Lake City, which will take place later this year in Fayettville, Ark.
  • Lacey Roop is a nationally recognized and touring poet placing 6th in the 2011 Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWPS), was the Austin, TX Individual World Poetry Slam (IWPS) representative, and has been a two-time member of the renowned Austin Poetry Slam.
    What is far more interesting about Lacey, however, is that she has an uncanny ability to get hit by cars while biking, finds the fact that we are all made of stars both fascinating and comforting, and wears a key around her neck that unlocks the bottom of the ocean. Really, it does.
  • The rapper Progress.
  • Lilly Fangz
  • Me 
And we got to see Beats Antique, Brother Ali, and the winners, Jackhammer Serenade, opened for the Wailers.




    Copperstate Poetry Slam

    Valence, Josh Wiss, Evan Dissinger, and
    Frank O'Brien show off the 2012 Copperstate
    Poetry Slam trophy they won as the Sedona
    National Poetry Slam Team.
    The Copperstate Poetry Slam brought together poetry slam teams from all over Arizona. Flagstaff was rocking it, but Nodalone and I dropped our duo "Babies" and effectively threw the slam.

    My Sedona boys, however, rocked it and took home the trophy.

    Spenser Troth was in Los Angeles getting visa from the French consulate for a future study abroad course and coun't attend. The rest of the 2012 Sedona National Poetry Slam Team Valence, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Frank O'Brien

    After Nationals, the team chose to give me the trophy as the Sedona SlamMaster, which now sits on my entertainment unit, proudly overlooking all the slams of the 2012-2013 slam poetry season.

    Whatever team I'm on in 2013 will be gunning for the next trophy.




    The FlagSlam Team at Nationals in August and peforming nothing but duo poems.

    I have always loved Ryan Brown's poetry.

    Being able to perform a duo poem with him at the National Poetry Slam was awesome. We had performed my poem "Dear Pluto" flawlessly at the Copperstate Poetry Slam and I was looking forward to slamming it at Nationals.

    FlagSlam 2012: nodalone, Ryan Brown, Jackson Morris, myself and Tara
    Pollock outside our venue at the National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C.
    I wrote the poem and Ryan did the edits to transform it into a duo.

    We killed it in the first and second rounds of the National Poetry Slam and gave the powerhouse Nuyorican Poets' Cafe a run for its money, leading them for two rounds before they and Hawaii slam pushed out some great poems and pushed us to third place.

    Slamming with such a talented team was a great experience.

    Having been to nationals as a solo performer so many times, I looked forward to an odd anomaly this year; I perform on the nationals stage three times, none of which were solo. My first poem was with Ryan, my second was "Babies" with nodalone, and my third was a duo poem with Tara Pollock dancing.

    I also got trashed at nationals, no surprise there, and handed out nearly every copy of


    My newest poetry book "The Opposite of Camouflage"

    GumptionFest VII

    Yep, seven years of providing free art for the community.

    This was the first year without our founders Dylan Jung and Danielle Gervasio. There was some complaints about shifting the location of the venue from Coffee Pot Drive to the Old Marketplace and a lot of headaches between organizers who had some difficulty getting along. There were also complaints about so many out of town acts and so few locals on the stages. But the economy has been weak, and there are fewer full-tme and amateur performers in Sedona,

    Splitting sites was admittedly troublesome as a lot of people didn't realize the festival was as large as it was. The stage at Sun Signs suffered the most, which is real shame because Mark Jacobson has been one of biggest, longest supporters.

    GumptionFest is always an experiement and we learned from this one. As we say every GumptionFest, next year will be better.

    On the plus side, I fought for my poets to be treated as equals on the programs, website and promotional materials. Poets The Klute, Tara Pollock, Evan Dissinger, Josh Wiss, Taylor Hayes, John Q, Batman (Biance Luedecker) and Geoff Jackson all had a turn on the microphone with The Klute winning the annual GumptionFest Haiku Death Match, reclaiming the title from his 2010 victory.

    Get ready for GumptionFest VIII in September.




    Death of Chris Lane in August

    Ever since Christopher Lane's death, people have asked me my reaction, or been afraid to. This is as near as I get to an official statement.

    The reason I moved to Sedona in March 2004 was to help Chris Lane run NORAZ Poets.

    Despite being friends from the 2001 Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Team through our years living together as slam poets in Sedona, he kicked me off the 2006 NORAZ Poets Slam Team after Meghan Jones had a temper tantrum over some angry emails and quit in a tizzy about two weeks before the National Poetry Slam.

    The fact Lane created a previously nonexistent "ethics of email correspondence" rule and tried to send me a certified letter telling me I was off the rather then call me or stop by -- we lived in the same small town after all -- was a bullshit move on his part I felt and I never forgave him for the coldness with which he behaved toward his friendly rival and one of his oldest in Northern Arizona.

    This staged photo of Chris Lane in Jerome in 2004 and me would later prove
    to be our de facto relationship from 2006 until his death in Aug. 2012.
    Thus began the Sedona Poetry Civil War, as one of our mutual friends called it in 2010. For the first year, I was "banned" from competing in NORAZ slams, but still went to a few in Flagstaff while avoiding those in my own town. I still co-ran a relatively popular open mic with Greg Nix at the Szechuan Martini Bar.

    In February 2007, Sedona Monthly ran an article of Lane's franchise of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project and accidently ran my name in the story and photo captions, to which I took great delight. The reporter had never met me.

    On March 12, 2007, he called for a truce and we met in a neutral location at a restaurant to discuss the terms. We negotiated a code of conduct for NORAZ, the terms of which he changed when he sent a final draft on March 27, 2007, adding in a whole series of rules about drug and alcohol use, which in a poetry scene or any civil setting were superfluous and unnecessary for a simple nonprofit. After all, I held a poetry open mic at a Sedona bar and banning minors from entering was the job of the bar and the bouncers, not Nix and myself.

    At the same time, Nix and I were hosting the Sedona Poetry Open Mic, an event which Lane wanted to put the NORAZ Poets logo, but which Nix and I declined as long as the alcohol portion of the code of conduct was still in question. In any case the dialogue fell apart by mid-April.

    In 2007-2008, Aaron Johnson stepped down as FlagSlam Slam Master. NORAZ. The new FlagSlam had little to do with NORAZ afterward, and in late 2008, the FlagSlam poets asked me to feature. That marked the end of Lane's involvement with the adult slam as he turned to Brave New Voices, the youth slam teams, and one for which there was more grant money to be had to run the nonprofit. I made a point to fill the void for all ages slams in the Verde Valley, first hosting a team slam at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood, then later starting the Sedona Poetry Slam in 2009.

    By 2009, the civil war had become a cold one; he didn't attend or support any of my events and I didn't attend or support any of his; the exception being one Sedona Poetry Slam featuring a former 2001 teammate, Josh Fleming, which he attended but did not speak to me.

    I stylized the Sedona Poetry Slam to be what NORAZ Poets had began as, and opposite of what it evolved into. I wanted Sedona Poetry Slam to be open to all without regard to poets' personal lives, democratic, supportive both artistically and financially, and I set the ground rule that under no circumstances would I make any profit from poetry slams. All money from the slam returns to the poets via prize money, feature poets' pay, or team registration. In the intervening years, I heard stories from other poets and arts organizers about questionable financial and personal behavior; money or support for programs promised, then retracted, then promised again, then retracted or renegotiated, and various poets in Northern Arizona had falling outs over projects he supported then backed off from.

    Lane also began to refer to himself as Ya'ir, a Hebrew word meaning "he who enlightens," and putting "Christopher" into quotes. Lane was raised Catholic, but had become a Buddhist by the time I met him in Sedona. He converted to Judiasm before marrying his wife, but the name change was a bit much. I mean, we used to make fun of poets with stage names, going so far as suggesting he starting slamming under the stage name "Moniker" and I start slamming as "Pre-10-Shus" (pretentious). Toward the end, I suppose someone in the scene should have seen the decline, but his charisma just made him seem like he was getting more and more eccentric.

    On Aug. 19, 2012, at 7:05 a.m., Lane was pronounced dead at his home from benzodiazepine and narcotic intoxication, according to the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office. I received word from a mutual friend later that morning and got a copy of the autopsy in September. Reading an autopsy is a odd experience -- an antiseptic description of a person's body you once used to share conversation and meals.

    I always expected that at some point, Lane would have apologized and our years of enmity would have come to an abrupt end. I'm not vindictive without cause and I'm quick to forgive when I believe in the sincerity of an apology. With his accidental overdose, we never had the luxury of repairing our friendship, but deep down I always thought it was inevitable.

    The civil war -- a melodramatic title but one I like, being a poet -- did make me into a better organizer and public figure simply because I tried to be his opposite. In the end, knowing him longer than nearly anyone outside of his family, and seeing both his light side and dark side, I feel like I knew him better than most and I hope in the end, he respected me as only a rival could. Coming to terms with his death was difficult because few people understood what having a sincere arch-rival or arch-nemesis is like. One mutual friend asked if I felt like Superman, Batman, or Obi-wan Kenobi hearing Lex Luthor, the Joker or Anakin Skywalker had died, but another said it was more like Iron Man and Captain America: we were rivals and didn't get along, but in the end, we were on the same side, promoting poetry and inspiring other poets to take the stage.

    That poem will one day be written.




    Saul Williams on November

    There are a few Greats in poetry slam every slammer should see in the flesh at least once. Marc Smith. Mike McGee. Derrick Brown. Shane Koyczan. Patricia Smith. Marty McConnell. Rachel McKibbons. Beau Sia. Taylor Mali. and Saul Williams.

    Considering Saul Williams lives in Paris now, I figured the nearest I would ever get would be some book tour in the late 2030s when I could afford the airfare and time off to hop a suborbital shuttle and catch him at some little theater in the Sorbonne.

    Instead, he came to Phoenix and performed a feature at Lawn Gnome, the bookstore performance space owned by my old friend and FlagSlam teammate Aaron Johnson.

    He performed new poems as well as his signature poems, ", said the Shotgun to the Head," "Sha-Clack-Clack," "Black Stacey" "S/he" and a big portion of "The Dead Emcee Scrolls."

    I got all my books signed, too.




    November Election

    As a news junkie, I was obsessed with the 2012 elections, both on the state and national levels. I interviewed Congressional District 1 Democratic primary candidate Wenona Benally Baldenegro, Republican primary candidate Doug Wade and the eventual winner, Ann Kirkpatrick.

    I installed Nate Silver's 535 app so I could watch the daily poll changes as they came across every morning.

    The reelection of Barack Obama seemed more or less inevitable as the opposition put forth only mediocre candidates unloved by the party running on an anti-Obama campaign rather than putting forth a real plan for any worthwhile changes.

    Gay marriage was approved in four states and recreational marijuana use was approved in two states, and while I have no vested personal interest in either, I am happy to see American move to sanity on progressive social issues.

    The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell means we're moving toward an America where I can one day go to a gay friend's wedding which will have the same legal standing a straight one. “The arc of the moral universe Is long, but it bends toward justice,” minister Theodore Parker said in an 1853 sermon. One day I will, with great difficulty, attempt to explain to my children how their country could think one group of people could be denied their civil rights based on whom they love.

    I expect puzzled looks at the absurdity during that conversation.




    Winning the Dylan Thomas Award in December


    Mary Heyborne won the Christopher Lane Memorial Award. I won the Dylan
    Thomas Award for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word, Eric Haury
    and Barbara tied for third and Josh Wiss won second place.
    On Dec. 14, Pumphouse Poets and Prose in Ken's Creekside Plaza and Cocopah Bead Shop North, awarded me the Dylan Thomas for Excellence in the Written and Spoken Word. Poet Joshua Wiss won the second place Dylan Thomas award and debuted his first book of poetry "Wonder: Full Bloom." Author and poet Barbara Mayer and author Eric Haury tied for third.

    Poet and playwright Mary Heyborne won the Christopher Lane Memorial Award.

    The Pumphouse Prose and Poetry Project is sponsored by Gary Every, author of 11 books who acted as presenter at the readings, Dr. Elizabeth Oakes, award winning poet and former Shakespeare professor, Cynthia Tuck, owner of Ageless Pages Bookstore and Ann Fabricant, owner of Cocopah North. The project will resume reading in the spring.





    Necessary Publishing

    The last two days of the year, I spent in Flagstaff with Ryan Brown, Robert Gonzales, Verbal Kensington, Josh Wiss and his girlfriend Katie, Maya Hall, Evan Dissinger, working on our newest project, NecessaryPublishing, from which plan to have a 100+ page book by early-2013.

    It's the culmination of all the art we're created over the last few months coming to life thanks to Verbal Kensington's motivation and organization.

    That's my focus for 2013.

    Sunday, November 4, 2012

    Fire dancing and the Names of Trees

    For a Dia de los Muertos performance at Tlaquepaque in Sedona with the Sedona Sacred Circus fire troupe, of which Azami is a fire dancer. A trio began the poem acting like monkeys and wild animals until one discovered how to use fire, like the rest of the dancers and spun fire for the rest of the poem. Bradley Blalock, Vusi Shibambo and James Turner performed percussion with Jason Vargo on sound.

    Kyle, Lynn and Azami of the Sedona Sacred Circus perform in Tlaquepaque for Dia de los Muertos.
    The Names of Trees

    before we named the trees
    we feared the dark
    ran from the shadows
    monsters stalked us
    in daytime’s tall grasses
    and nighttime’s nightmares

    we feared fire most of all
    it ate the unnamed trees alive
    its breath choked the beasts we hunted
    we could not hold it
    and could not fight it
    just fear it

    but one of us
    The First of us
    saw an infant spark
    and treated it like a child
    she learned to wield it
    our first tool
    brought it into the caves
    and taught us not to fear
    but use it
    to chase away the monsters

    fire is always the same
    because a flame is never the same
    from moment to moment
    by always changing
    the flame never changes

    with fire
    we learned to control the shadows
    we danced them onto cave walls
    where we trapped the monsters in ocher and ash

    we used the fire to keep the beasts away in the night
    to cook the bounty gathered from the earth
    and roast our meat from the day’s hunt

    and with bellies full
    in the glow of the fire
    we learned language
    around campfires
    as our elders told stories
    of their young days long passed
    they told us the names of trees:
    oak
    ash
    banyan
    pine
    bodhi
    fir
    palm
    cedar
    sugi
    cypress
    they spoke of the strong mothers who raised them
    the great hunts of their brave fathers
    how they leaned ways to teach us these things

    they told us
    of ancestors who had long since turned to bones
    and were now dust
    who had sprinkled themselves across the heavens
    to watch over us
    always
    glowing in the dark
    like flames in the night

    when the fire in their own hearts
    began to flicker
    they asked us to built fires to mourn their death
    help ascend their bodies
    so they could watch over us from new stars
    alongside their ancestors

    around the fire
    we learned to structure nouns and verbs
    into rhythm and beat
    rhyme and stanza
    turning the articulation of breath
    the staccato of consonants
    the tone and pitch of air in living lungs
    into the art of poetry
    stories we could pass from generation to generation
    long after the first lungs to hold them
    were silent beneath the dirt
    we still tell some of those stories
    passing along the poetry
    of heroes
    who are no longer bones
    no longer dust
    but vapor in the wind

    around the fire
    we passed on what we had learned
    to the children who would mourn us
    consider these frail lifeless bones still sacred
    because they once held them
    in their infancy

    long after our bones turned to dust
    and the dust turned to vapor
    and the vapor exhaled by something new
    they would remember … us
    in the stories around the fire

    a ribbon of flesh and fire
    tied us to the infant spark
    that The First one of us
    held without fear

    fire is always the same
    because a flame is never the same
    from moment to moment
    by always changing
    the flame never changes

    it is consumption and combustion
    a moment of reaction
    between earth and air
    the tangible and ethereal
    in a spark of life
    never the same from one second the next

    nothing is eternal but change
    so our civilizations learn to adapt
    like tongues of flame
    growing together or apart
    rising and falling
    expanding and shrinking
    dancing in a campfire

    we sometimes forget that lesson
    so our empires defy it
    our monuments stand against it
    our great cities are abandoned
    for new homes
    Sumeria
    is now just artifacts
    Assyria
    has become Scrabble word
    31 dynasties ruled Egypt,
    each falling to the next
    the dream of Rome
    became a dream again
    the sun never set on the British Empire
    until the day it did
    and young America too
    will grow old into history books
    but the fire will still be the same
    because a flame is never the same
    from moment to moment

    even now
    in the glow of digital screens
    behind the wheel of combustion engines
    or miles above the earth
    in steel aircraft
    or space stations
    we are still mesmerized by the flame
    we gather around fireplaces on holidays
    remembering the ancient reasons for things
    we light wax candles for dead loved ones
    hoping whispered words
    might rise to their ears in the heavens
    where they watch us
    alongside ancestors

    we find ourselves
    still captivated by campfires
    staring into them
    unable to look away sometimes
    while we tell stories
    just like we used to
    when home
    wasn’t made from stone and brick
    or animal skins from last year’s hunt
    but the warmest cave
    on our nomadic trek
    following the herds
    teaching our children
    the names of trees

    some day
    when we no longer fear the dark
    a descendant of the flame that first warmed us
    as we lay dreaming of stars
    will help send a few of us
    beyond the reach of Earth
    never again to see this home
    more will follow
    using flickers of fire
    to pass the boundaries
    break the laws of gravity
    that we will refuse to obey any longer
    and sail across the night
    unafraid of the monsters we left behind
    trapped on cave walls beneath ocher and ash
    they will make their homes
    on marbles of every color
    swirling in the dusty arms of space
    and in the wildernesses of new worlds
    they will name new trees
    tell stories around campfires of ancestors
    strong mothers
    brave fathers

    fire is always the same
    because a flame is never the same
    from moment to moment
    by always changing
    the flame never changes

    some day
    when “human”
    means something else entirely
    and whomever we become
    sails on the winds of supernovas
    finds no fear exploring black holes
    the last place darkness can hide from us

    they may communicate the poetry quasars and quarks
    with the same beauty as verbs and nouns
    but still stare at the surface of suns
    and without explanation why
    know the fire burning before them
    is still wonderful to witness
    because in the glimmer of a memory
    dancing with the arithmetic of orbiting atoms
    and the geometry of galaxies
    they can feel something deep in their bones
    tying them like a ribbon of flesh and flame across time
    to a tiny world
    whose name they have forgotten
    or can no longer pronounce
    and remember
    somehow,
    ancestors who wielded an infant spark
    to no longer fear monsters or the dark
    but listen around the first campfire
    to poetry
    and stories
    and the names of trees

    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

    Monday, May 14, 2012

    Christopher Fox Graham and FlagSlam poets

    For the 2012-2013 Poets of FlagSlam calendar. Photos by Tara Graeber.
    Photo by Tara Graeber 
    Christopher Fox Graham and his poet renegades. From left, Josh Wiss has a .45-caliber pistol and 9 mm Beretta, Spencer Troth has a 9 mm H&K and a .22 Long rifle, Graham is armed with a modified WESTAR-34 blaster pistol, lightsaber, microphone and boot knife, Brian Walker has a crossbow. Azami wields a Remington 30-06 rifle, Nodalone has a Mossberg pistol-grip 12-gauge shotgun and throwing knives, Valence has a breech-loading shotgun and .45-caliber pistol and Lauren Hanss has a MP5 submachine gun.
    Photo by Tara Graeber 
    Christopher Fox Graham and Azami. Graham is armed with a modified WESTAR-34 blaster pistol, lightsaber, microphone and boot knife. Azami wields a Remington 30-06 rifle.

    More photos coming soon ....

    Friday, March 2, 2012

    "Do you have a baseball bat?"


    "Do You Have a Baseball Bat? An open letter to my future self"
    By Christopher Fox Graham

    “Do you have a baseball bat?”
    She asks questions like these
    when world gets too tough
    she asks for wooden implements
    branches, hockey sticks, golf clubs
    I no longer own an axe
    better the back yard tree then me
    but the shrubbery can only take so much punishment
    and the neighbors are beginning to ask questions

    this is an open letter to my future self:
    Christopher,
    the next time some injustice brings her to tears
    because her laborious hands
    and good intentions
    simply can’t end genocide
    halfway around the world

    or when she ceases to believe
    goodness in the human heart
    outweighs the darkness 100 to 1
    the mantra that kept her pushing
    back and forth across this continent
    hitching free rides with nothing more
    than an outstretched thumb, a smile and story

    or even when “customer service”
    elevates her frustration
    beyond levels you can handle

    take a deep breath
    move your hand slowly to her cheek
    if she slaps it away
    turn to the other cheek
    and try again
    when skin meets skin
    reinterpret ways to say you love her
    imagine no one else has said ever words like that

    take her by the hand
    and lead her to the driveway
    let the morning sun dapple her face
    remind her that you could map her freckles
    like astronomers do stars
    sometimes she forgets
    you navigate by her

    pull her close
    so she can feel your heart
    still beating first-date style against her ribcage
    start barefoot and feel the dirt
    imagine you are a circuit
    and the thumping Earth
    sends a pulse through you
    into her and back down
    you’re glowing enough light for the entire world
    even leaves on the trees are turning away from the sun
    and catching the light you’re burning through palms

    the next steps don’t require music,
    but it helps
    remind her that this is what life’s about
    two lovers can only do so much
    everything else will work out in time
    tell her she’s the only music you need
    you can already hear it in her breathing
    the melody dances in her laughter

    before her tears have Left,
    tell her she’s Right
    and you have her Back

    even when she Left
    your arms felt Right
    and she came Back

    when she moves Left
    and you move Right
    you both come Back

    because a love like this
    is a dance between two mismatched hearts
    that beat in rhythm
    sometimes she’s the melody
    and you’re just the harmony
    trying to complement her chords
    other times, you’re the strings
    and she’s the woodwinds
    but you can’t write a symphony with just violins
    because no one listens to classical music anymore
    chamber music is for our grandparents
    and their world is fading into history
    but feature films always need soundtracks
    and the drumbeats of your love
    could win an Oscar if the Academy gave awards for it

    now your three-step swing
    can slide into her meringue,
    but let her lead,
    she’s been to Cuba
    and you, you’re still white
    hold on to her hip
    like you’re riding a wave to Havana
    her seas are rough
    but she won’t you drown out here
    all she wants is partner to watch the sunset with
    to hold her in bed late past Sunday sunrise

    this is when you should kiss her
    do it as if it’s the last time
    so hard the trees lose their breath
    make it long enough
    that stones ask if your kiss will outlive them

    and Christopher,
    if still she’s with you when you read this
    put down this poem
    touch her on the cheek
    take her hand and lead her outside
    she’s the only music you hear
    and you can make up the song as you go
    if you need to remember the melody
    you can find it in her hips
    still echoing in her kiss

    Video shot March 1, 2012, at Sundara in Flagstaff by Vivian Abernast

    Thursday, November 24, 2011

    "Star Wars vs Star Trek" by Faldwin J. Bard and Christopher Fox Graham

    The Shonare Vhekadla clan of the Manadalorian Mercs surprise
    Faldwin J. Bardand Christopher Fox Graham at Bookmans
    Here it is, nerds of the world. The duo poem Faldwin J. Bard and I wrote together for our Sunday, Nov. 20, poetry feature at Sundara in Flagstaff.

    Writing with Faldwin was a lot of fun. We wrote the poem at Bookmans in Flagstaff, which coincidentally was visited that day by the Shonare Vhekadla clan of the Manadalorian Mercs.

    Of course, I had my lightsabers in the truck and I was wearing my vintage Star Wars T-shirt, so, well perfect.


    Beneath this handsome exterior


    beats the heart of a nerd
    and not your typical


    “I’ve read the novelizations of the Harry Potter movies”
    nerd
    nerd
    or “I Wikipediaed ‘Twilight’ to sleep with the girl at Bookman’s”

    nerd
    nerd

    No
    we’re NERDS
    we’re NERDS
    Spend six months working on a costume for a three-day convention

    NERDS
    NERDS

    Memorize the inner workings of interstellar starships
    NERDS
    NERDS
    Spend more money on an authentic prop than I do on my girlfriend

    NERDS
    NERDS

    Become fluent in a fictional language I’ll never be able to put on my resume
    NERDS
    NERDS
    we devote our life to the greatest space epic of all time
    we devote our life to the greatest space epic of all time
    filled with alien races from exotic worlds


    interstellar travel with impressive special effects
    grand galactic space battles


    exploding torpedoes
    Of, course we’re talking about

    Star
    Star
    Wars    Trek
    Trek
    Star Trek?
    Star Wars?
    Pointy-eared Vulcans and color-coded pajamas?


    Wrinkly green gnomes and shit-colored bathrobes?
    How is Star Trek better than Star Wars?


    One word: Klingons


    You mean wet dream machines for filler episodes?


    Yeah ’cause nerds need to point out we only get laid once every seven years


    So what’s so great about Star Wars?
    Jedi Knights with Lightsabers


    Grown men dancing around with flashlights?
    The Force


    Yeah, it was totally cool when Matilda did it
    Mandalorians


    Midi-chlorians. ‘Nuff said.

    At least my technology makes sense

    Give me some dilithium crystals and a forcefield and I can build you a warpdrive

    because I have the specs for that memorized

    I doubt you can build a lightsaber
    Whatever, I prefer my space epic focus on the characters not “Treknobabble

    You fix a busted hyperdrive the same way you fix a busted TV

    You hit it with Wookie


    “Calibrates the vertarium cortenide power grid with compressed personnel transporters”


    Why would you use vertarium cortenide for personnel transports?

    The molecular structure isn’t complex enough to handle organic lifeforms
    Stop! It’s not about technology, it’s about characters



    C3PO is just a rusty servant with a shitty British accent


    Did you just insult the silky smooth baritone of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

    the Barry White of the Milky Way?

    at least he doesn’t sound like he’s been smoking two packs a day for 800 years

    “emphysema, I have”

    who trained Obi-Wan Kenobi,
    “tumor causing, teeth staining,
    smelly, puking habit”
    Star Wars is a modern retelling of ancient Greek heroic epics:

    a boy becomes a man

    finds his father

    Rescues him from himself

    and saves the galaxy


    or he’s a whiny brat with daddy issues who kisses his own sister
    But with the Force

    Star Wars is better (said while doing the Jedi Mind Trick)


    Seriously?

    Don’t use your Jedi Mind Trick on me

    I will mindmeld your ass

    faster than you can say Pon Farr
    Wait, what’s the difference between a Vulcan and a Romulan again?


    I’d explain, but we don’t have all night

    Isn’t an Ewok a dwarf Wookie?
    Lightsabers!


    Holodecks!
    The Force!


    Mindmelds!
    Mandalorians!


    Klingons!
    Gorram-it!
    Gorram-it!

    Wait, did you just say “gorram-it”?
    Yeah


    Shiny. You like “Firefly”?
    Of course. Cowboys in space. What’s not to like?



    So hot
    So hot

    It’s so messed up that it got canceled
    Yeah, what the hell was Fox thinking?

    (exit stage together)
    (exit stage together)

    Azami with the Shonare Vhekadla clan of the
    Manadalorian Mercs at Bookmans
    Azami sent the Mandalorians over to our table. Which is one reason why she's awesome.