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 Kingman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kingman. Show all posts

Sunday, August 28, 2011

"A 1,000 Best Days," by Mikel Weisser


"A 1,000 Best Days," by Mikel Weisser, third round poem in the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, July 30, 2011.


Mikel Weisser
Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser spent his teens as a hitchhiker.

Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction.

A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City.

He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.

Friday, August 26, 2011

"These Words," by Mikel Weisser


"These Words," by Mikel Weisser, second round poem in the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, July 30, 2011.


These Words
By Mikel Weisser
March, 22-25, 2011

Oh the rivers of blood i have waded through
And the oceans of tears that have washed over me
Oh all the death that's been dealt to me
and all the ugly scenes i have seen
for on Tuesdays at 6pm
teen misery flows my way.

for i am the teen poet's best friend
an adult with a sound system
who's not afraid of the word "fuck."
That's right i fucking said "fuck."
As the host of Teen Misery Tuesdays
i hear it often fucking enough
& whereas most adults shake their heads, "Why THOSE words?"
I just say, "Who's next?"
There's only so much time
we got a lot of misery to go--

I mean, you hear the craziest things like,
"motherfuckin' this, & motherfuckin' that
some motherfuckin' motherfucker
motherfucked my cat." and shit like that

And once every couple of months
there's some variation of  "Ode to My Latest Girlfriend"
something like:
"Oh sweet love in my pick-up truck..."
and as soon as i hear that i'm thinking what the fuck
another goddamned time and another messed rhyme
God how many more times am i'm supposed to
go through another june-moon-spoon?
but mostly it's just misery. see--

Blake's been off the chemo for two months
but the hair's still not coming back
he's sick of tiger-stripe pajamas
to go with his wardrobe of bandanas
sick of being sick
sick of missing his brother
though they still live in the same house

Here with her latest evisceration
Sylvie's mad at dad again
the insults they've hurled at each other since last week
+ cleverly words litanies of slights she recalls from her past
her dreams masquerading as a steel edged "think i give a fuck?"
except for the recurring white doves
that alight on the corners of her stanzas.
all her silky suicide songs
placed on the path about
five steps past her last safe place
& fifteen metaphors deep
in synonyms for death

Janice's blade
Virginia's blade
Julie's Blade
the cut and bright pain/the cut and bright pain
the coming and going of unsightly stains
but ya betcha every poem always comes back to
the beauty of life
yes, the beauty of life
even if it's only the glory
of the glory in the beauty of the pain

& and now maybe this's payback for the times
i knew no one was listening
to the mental nooses i knotted
& maybe my smeary prints
still clutching crumpled pages
But every now and then
i pick the right poem to answer back with
when some particular misery comes sprawling
some kid spends the whole night writing about dying
instead of trying it
maybe the sharp object she reaches for
flows ink, not red.

but for now Billy's just hitting on the new chick
comparing her to the flippin'
4th of July or some shit
you know,
basically saying she's hot

 & then that old familiar line
takes that old familiar rhyme:
"Of all the miraculous things god's given me for luck--
and i know right away where the poem's going
And i find that i am struck
by the stark raving desire
to yell "You write that shit
you figure it out
you are capable
you are immense
don't let this shit kill ya
you got this

this
is just the pain of the universe giving you your turn
this is just life overflowing over and over and over again
And your words, are the rocks, maybe even boulders,
you can stand on if you can stand it
These words share what fire you've got
your echo will fill more than my sound system
these words will keep us all alive
so yeah, go ahead and say 'em
fuck yeah.

Copyright 2011 © Mikel Weisser



Mikel Weisser
Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser spent his teens as a hitchhiker.

Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction.

A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City.

He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

"My Hair is Here to be Dangerous" by Mikel Weisser


"My Hair is Here to Be Dangerous," by Mikel Weisser, first round poem in the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, July 30, 2011.


Mikel Weisser
Mikel Weisser
Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser spent his teens as a hitchhiker.

Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction.

A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City.

He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.

Mikel Weisser recalibrated the stage after intermission at the Sedona Poetry Slam on June 27.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Grapevine Canyon, Nevada


Azami and I just downloaded these photos off a camera from our trip to Bullhead City and Kingman for a class I taught at Mikel Weisser's schools in April. After class and before the open mic, Mikel took us to Grapevine Canyon in nearby Nevada, right across the Colorado River.



























Thursday, March 25, 2010

"The Drunk Guy’s Dick" by Mikel Weisser

"The Drunk Guy’s Dick"
By Mikel Weisser, of Kingman

Written March 14, 2009,
read at the Sedona Poetry Slam
on Saturday, March 20

So,
We see this drunk guy
Fucked up
And there he is
Pissing against the wall

Understand,
It’s New Year’s Eve
And it’s right at midnight
And our evening of party has fallen to fighting
And right at the stroke too,
Right at the stroke
So we go outside for air
And there’s this drunk guy
And the drunk guy’s dick

Understand
It’s not just any old wall
And not just any old time
He’s two feet from the front door
Of this crowded downtown bar
And it’s midnight + 30 seconds
The first new minute
Of the New Year 2005
And he’s pissing right at us
It’s splashing on our shoes

Happy Fucking New Year and all that

As I remember it now
And I do remember it
Now and again
I remember we were fighting
Did a lot of it that night
Don’t remember much else of the evening
But I do remember the drunk guy’s dick

Which is kind of annoying

That puff of graying copper wool bursting out of the jean vagina
The nodes and veins
The black of his nails
The way the 2 finger hold of his
Failed to steady the hose
And the shadow on the shaft between them
That odd angle of the Moyle’s work

The arching steam
Neoned globules
Sprinkled into the pavement in a fog
The intensity of his exhale as he released

Huh!

His eyes were closed in concentration’
It may’ve been the best feeling of his entire life
Meanwhile it’s downtown in a state capital on New Year’s, you know?
Cars were cruising by honking
Yelling about New Year’s
Squealing at the guy’s dick
Understand,
It’s Springfield , Illinois
Land of Lincoln, 5 blocks from Lincoln’s house,
3 blocks from the capital itself
It is right at the cusp
Of the next new era

And we’re dodging flying urine

Meanwhile the guy’s stream has reverse tributaried
Into several simultaneous vigorous channels
Blocking the sidewalk better than
Police crime scene tape.
The rivulets are rippling around
Cigarettes and holiday confetti

And those dirty fingernails
That endless urine stream
It must have been a 12-pack
It might’ve been gallons
It might’ve been better measured in acre feet per minute

And it froze me,
I was fixated
And at some point he sensed our staring
“Well, don’t just stand there looking.
What’s wrong with you people?”

He squinted harder and gave his stream more force

“Wrong with us?
You’re the one with your dick out
In the middle of the street.”

“Didn’t tell ya you had to watch”
He blinked once and then kept going

Meanwhile she was gone.

Saw her up the street
Snapped out of it
And walked on
Remembered we were fighting

I saw my wife walk away from me
While I tried to hopscotch through his tributaries
But I didn’t make it
I jerked and spasmed
To shake his pee off of me
And followed her into the darkening New Year night
While his bladder kept splattering
In the distance

And as I tried to follow my wife
As she kept receding
I kept remembering the drunk guy’s dick
And wondering why
I kept remembering the drunk guy’s dick
And what kind of a year
This kind of omen meant

The next day we were wary
And silent except for apologies to each other
We flew on home
And two weeks later
To the day
I picked up the phone and
Her mom was gone
And the world as we knew it ended then

Oh, we stumbled back to the town where the year had started
And things just kept dribbling downhill
By spring the estate was an uproar
By summer the money was gone
By fall they were taking our house
By December my wife took her life.

I woke one Saturday to find her dead and warm
In my arms
Her red-purple rose of lividity
Spread across her lower face
Like a drunk woman beaten
And her panties soaked somewhat
As her sleep slipped into something deeper

By New Year’s Eve I was broke from buying her funeral
And the lawyers and I
Were negotiating my upcoming eviction
I was returning from yet another trip to Springfield
And yet another funeral
I’d driven all day and into the night
The evening blurred into miles
Racing across the desert dark
Heading back home to a home
That was soon to not be mine
Mile after mile driving ‘home’ that way
Till somewhere west of Williams
I saw the apparition of a woman
White dress, white puppy, book in her hand
Splotched snow framing
The way her dress whipped in the wind
No coat, no hat, no luggage
Just ambling down the road
Lost in the middle of the darkness

I stopped and waited till she drifted to the truck
We hardly spoke the next 100 miles
She sold me her book for a twenty dollar bill
It was a battered old copy of “Pilgrim’s Progress,”
But not $20.00 worth of old
I’ve yet to open it to this day

I sat in my darkened living room
In time for my new year’s eve minute
I said nothing at all
There was no one to talk to

And now days the year of 2005 is long dead
And largely buried
In the ongoing stream of time
Most of the year is lost to me now
The way a charred trunk
Leaves only the barest hint
Of the tree it once might have been

Shards of events come back sometimes
The purple rose of that Dec. morning
Most present
Amid the random moments of watching
The life I had known be washed away
And the black under the fingernails
That wrapped round that drunk’s dick
Those lively yellow tributaries
That worked their ways to the gutter

And the taste of the instant I thought
What’s it going to mean
This drunk guy pissing on my New Year
And the forever wishing I had caught
The look on my wife’s face
As she stared
Before she started off into the night
That instant when she stepped across those streams of urine
And into her last New Year.

Mikel Weisser © 2010

From Mikel Weisser's "Over This Mountain"
Available for $10 from:
Cohillican Productions
4490 Sundown Drive, So-Hi, AZ 86413
yzurthemepark@gmail.com

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

"The New Material" by Mikel Weisser

"The New Material"
By Mikel Weisser, of Kingman

Written Sept. 7, 2000,
read at the Sedona Poetry Slam
on Saturday, March 20

Last night
I dreamt a group of scientists announced the development of a new material,
one that was all style and no substance.
Odorless, colorless, tasteless,
each of those things and yet none.
All style and no substance,
the implications were immense.

Immediately an investigation was begun to establish the practical applications.
I was called on to be part of the team installed to exploit
the unlimited possibilities of a material that was
all style and no substance.
And though I knew there were several of us on the team
I never saw anyone else’s face.

Of course, at first, we worked to apply the new material to its most logical application:
advertising.
It was the breakthrough we’d all been waiting for.
All style, no substance.
We could make a burger that glistened on the screen and touched the eternal longing to be filled,
yet left no cholesterol or mustard stain,
a car that felt as powerful as a five foot penis,
yet would not pollute nor deposit road kill,
a blond to make you buy diamonds and feel desired
yet offered no morning after after taste of age.

We sold cities to country folk, pastoral scenes to subway dwellers
and no one had to leave their one place to be the other,
for it was just a matter of style, not substance.
We sold intelligence to fools
and ignorance to the blissed
yet neither was stuck with the sense of responsibilities therein implied,
for it was merely a matter of style, not substance.
We sold cyber-sex to the celibate, strength to the weak
and non-dairy low-fat whipped topping to those who felt unadorned.
We dressed it up as everything, and it was loved by everyone,
and all of them clamored for more, more, more
and we gave it and gave it, and gave,
and it was never too much,
because it was all style and no substance.

So we tried to apply it in music
Size 4 singers in size 14 jeans wrapped their tonsils ’round it and poked out their belly buttons with pride.
Booming thugs puffed up their chests and clutched their 9s as if it were their crotches and bellowed how the material embodied their absolute essence without even requiring them to say “motherfucker,” as they swigged on their gin and juice.
Razor edged haircuts moshed each other into angst ridden pulp to vie for the honor of hammering home its three chords.

We tried it everywhere and soon it was everything.
All style and no substance, all style and no substance.
It was the mantra of our century.
It was at last a voice of reason.
And as I kept saying “we” I knew I kept knowing “I..”
I ogled the material, and coveted it, and felt shamed before its truth.
I praised it, I lusted it, I worshiped its freedom from failure, its purity beyond judgment.

Slowly and slowly I crowded the others out;
slowly and slowly I embraced and embodied the material.
Always to be in fashion, never to be found lacking.
All style and no substance,
always to feel my full fat face and never my emptying soul.
All style and no substance,
Slowly and slowly the institute faded,
and the world faded and eventually even the material faded and there was just me:
all style and no substance,
Just me and my mirror, all style and no substance.
just me and ever death closing in from the one side,
just me and ever life slinking off in the other.
All style and no substance,

Just me and the mirror, all style and no substance,
all style and no substance.
Just me and I cried and I reached and I woke—

and as I rose in my terrors I knew that that dream was truth,
for there I was in my mirror still.

Mikel Weisser © 2000

From Mikel Weisser's "A Simple Calendar"
Available from:
Cohillican Productions
4490 Sundown Drive, So-Hi, AZ 86413
yzurthemepark@gmail.com

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Reflections on Azami's return

To overcome the culture shock of returning to the United States in the heart of all our most insane uber-American cities, Las Vegas, where all vices can be bought for a price, Azami indulges in sustenance.

Having never dated someone this long, nor getting back together after a spell apart, it was interesting to recalibrate my brain to her again.

We had been apart 2 months and 2 days, and my habits were used to being alone again. But Azami was back in my life, so all the habits of "space" -- holding hands; subconscious awareness of her presence when she was near, like a Jedi sensation of her location, or a cerebral GPS; that inevitable joining of consciousness so that I can approximately feel her limbs when we touch even though she's in another body; the disassociation of myself into the unit of "us" (look around the room you're in right now, close your eyes and visualize all the objects in your head and rebuild the room in your imagination, as if they exist in a diorama inside your head. Then imagine that the black exterior of your skull is actually your skull and all the objects therein are apart of you - as constructs of your mind - then open your eyes and resume that feeling with the actual, tangible objects in the room - they are apart of your mental comprehension and cerebral being although they exist independent of your flesh) wherein I sense us as a unit together and not so much me as me and her as another person -- came back like habit.

They had to be readjusted to the intellectual understanding that she had been gone and I had to instantly relearn them all. It lead to me acting the same as I had the day she left, but feeling extremely awkward the entire time as my brain tried to figure out what was happening.

In any case, I explained to her that I was feeling awkward because all of me was readjusting. She took it in stride.

We headed over Hoover Dam and back to Mikel Weisser's Peace Park in So-Hi, Arizona, just north of Kingman. He had offered us the place rather than drive back to Sedona for another four hours. We got into his place at around 5 a.m. and crashed out.

I had never been to Mikel's before, so it was cool to see all that I had heard about. Mikel and his wife were at a teachers' union meeting in Phoenix, so they gave us a run of the place.

Just as we were leaving -- like getting in the car and opening the gate leaving -- Mikel's 16-year-old daughter came out to say hello. I shot this picture of the Mikel's peace stones right after. The big coffee mug used to adorn Java Love Cafe in Sedona, but Gianni Cardinelli gave it to Mikel at the party marking Gianni's sale to a new owner. Now it has a new, peaceful home in So-Hi.

We woke around 11 a.m. and made the drive back to Sedona, where all was right with the world.

Azami has been back for two weeks, 21 hours. It's as if she never left.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Mikel Weisser video, Sedona Poetry Slam round 3


Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser. spent his teens as a hitchhiker. Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction.
A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City. He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.
Sedona Poetry Slam, Round #3, Poet #7, July 17, 2009.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Mikel Weisser video, Sedona Poetry Slam round 2


Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser. spent his teens as a hitchhiker. Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction.
A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City. He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.
Sedona Poetry Slam, Round #2, Poet #11, July 17, 2009.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Mikel Weisser video, Sedona Poetry Slam round 1


Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser. spent his teens as a hitchhiker. Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction.
A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City. He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.
Sedona Poetry Slam, Round #1, Poet #1, July 17, 2009.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Recalibration poet Mikel Weisser


Son of a nightclub singer, Kingman slam poet Mikel Weisser spent his teens as a hitchhiker. Since then Weisser has gone on to receive a masters in literature and a masters in secondary education, published hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political comedy columns, along with seven books of poetry and short fiction. A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches junior high history and English in Bullhead City. He and his wife, Beth, have turned their So-Hi, Ariz., property into a peace sign theme park.
Mikel Weisser recalibrated the stage after intermission at the Sedona Poetry Slam on June 27.