Fox the Poet

Monday, August 31, 2009

Punk Rock Chick Dream Haiku

A pink-haired punk chick
finds me on the dance floor, says:
"You're mine." Forever.
Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Journalist's Wet Dream Haiku

Journalist's Wet Dream Haiku
The rhythmic thumping
Wet ink dampens sheets. She screams:
"Don't stop the presses!"

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Overnight Stay Haiku

Photo by redpolish
She removes her dress
lets it fall like a passport
departs me by dawn

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

In Spite of Me Haiku

Photo by Janina
I want a lover
who yearns for my arms and lips
despite who I am

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

McCain picks Palin.
See photo before name.
Really think: Tina Fey?

"Palin," heritage:
Inuit. Verb. Translation:
batshit fucking crazy

Seriously, John?
Palin? Has it been so long
since a landslide loss?

Sarah Palin was
not John McCain's pick, but God's gift
to Tina Fey

McCain picks Palin.
not since Bush/Cheney have we
made such bad choices

Arizona sends
both McCain and Goldwater,
to teach how to fail

The best thing about
Palin ... was Tina Fey on
Saturday Night Live

Bristol's abstinent?
Hindsight is 20/20
now that you're pregnant

Goldwater
Then McCain. Arizona's next
will be 2080

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Love Letter Haiku

In your sentences,
in the commas of your prose,
I taste your warm skin
Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Type, Type, Send

Type, Type, Send

We speak a language of thumbs
communicated into translators of T9
like UN ambassadors
transliterating the codes of our home countries
into global policy
each carrying more weight than
the digital characters they encapsulate

type, type, send
type, type, send

a new message in the inbox
read at 55 miles per hour
or between classes
or minutes before deadline

the poets of this language
are the ones who choose to punctuate
the oft-overlooked colloquialisms
of “R U BIZY 2NIGHT”
into the proper grammatical structure

proper spelling still matters somewhere
AIM has the niche of brevity
with its lowbrow dialect
of “LOL”, “ROTFL” and “OMFG” —
bearing your digital STDs,
keep your emoticons from infecting our thumbs

the debate is as old as English
when Norman French filled manors with "beef" and "veal"
while fallen Cynings tended the cattle and sheep outside
the high class thumb the seven keys for “t-h-r-o-u-g-h”
while the uninspired ignorant masses settle for “t-h-r-u”

if the late Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — or MLK —
spoke today
the phrase, broadcasted into the phones of the crowd
would be that we are judged
by the content of our communications
type, type, send
type, type, send

our thumbs define us
much to the jealousy of our other eight digits
the exasperated index
the vainglorious bird
the self-important ring
and the naïve, wayward pinkie
that secretly plots and schemes
in hopes that an errant firecracker
or angry car door
will leave it as the sole articulator
the last tool to accuse in courtrooms
or scratch behind one’s ears

but none of the non-opposables
even united like a superhero foursome
can counter the voice of the thumb
they merely hold our phones like beds
while the outcast digit
the extremity intentionally uninvited to parties
articulates in an erotic tryst with keys
like lovers beneath dark sheets
sending our hopes and dreams to phones elsewhere

they, jealous and embittered
lean tightly against the battery
like guests next door in a seedy hotel
wondering what passions
can be seen on the other side
celibates envious that others can love so freely
forever uncertain how T9
rises from foreplay to climax to afterglow
between spent thumbs and their beloved keys

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Slam Tutorial: Confront Your Own Cultural Heritage, Part 2

It's not easy confronting one's history, especially if it has a dark history, like Southern Whites confronting racism.

Greg Nix, my former roommate is proud to be a Georgian (though he was technically born in Albuquerque) and proud of the Southern flag, but he was taught to see it as a political symbol of State's Rights and independence, not racism. Also coming from the "Southern redneck" tradition of Jason Carney, Nix's poem is more a commentary on the non-Southern racist view of the Southern non-racist heritage. It addresses the non-Southerner view of Southern whites as split into two factions: the "enlightened egalitarian" white person - the common stereotype that we non-Southerners attribute to more-or-less racial equality in the South - and the "ignorant redneck" who seemingly hates gays, minorities, always votes Republican and would rather return to Jim Crow segregation if not outright slavery.

Of course, growing up in the 1980s, I will always equate the Confederate flag with "The Dukes of Hazzard" (let's ignore that abortion of a remake in 2005.) I had several toy General Lee cars as a child.

The unnamed roommate (not me, by the way) in Nix's poem misunderstands the political implications of the Confederate flag perhaps out of racism or simply thinking the flag is cool or rebellious.

Most of the (invariably white) people I've met who display the Confederate flag on their vehicle display the flag for provincialism not out of ideology:

like the

Texans' Lone Star

or the

Arizonans' sunburst and copper star.

I don't know

Delawareans who do the same, for obvious reasons.

Both non-Southern and Southern blacks might have different interpretations of the Confederate flag, but as Nix points out, these are not due to the political use of the flag during and after the Civil War but due to the cultural and racial use of it. If the Texas flag had been used instead or another symbol had been used, we might have a far different feeling on the banner.

"Southern Angst"
By Greg Nix

he hung the flag in our stairwell
because, "its cool - you're a Southerner"
I'd heard that line from him so many times
just wanting to plant into his soul
what that means to me
memories of school days when us Boy Scouts would
salute the flag and pledge allegiance to Georgia
studying our state history
lost in marvelment at the sacrifices our Forefathers made in
"The War"

weekends spent at Stone Mountain recalling with pride
Stonewall Jackson, General E. Lee, Nathan Bradford and our esteemable
President Jeff Davis

looking back with wonder at the way our great great granddaddys
went off and fought for us, on behalf of us
in defense of home and hearth because
rich noble men floated in the air such words as
State's Rights. Self-Determination. Freedom.
but it all changed following Defeat and Occupation

a band of disgruntled officers mounted up beneath
the battle colors
rode off to begin our glorious history
whites hats, nooses, crosses burning in the night
the flag my forefathers fought under
fighting for no other reason then why young men always fight
pride.

i was raised to honor that flag in memory of
others who died not for slavery
but in defense of their homes
my ancestor's homes
the homes where my great great great grandmama's
passed forth the next generation in morning cries and tears.
until one day my father explained it better to me
clearing away the cobwebs of yesterday's glorious triumphs

"we never had the battle colors on the state flag
when i was growing up, son,
they put it there when Brown beat the Board of Ed
it was a reminder to 'them.'"

them.
them.
always us 'n' them.
still to this day

my father taught me that being
Southern
means to honor your parents,
love God in devotion
always bear yourself with respect.

i wasn't raised to hate
and yet, being a Southerner i must inherently be
racist, homophobic, and misogynist

this is the expectation

why don't i just go ahead and pop another Pabst
blast the Skynyrd a lil' louder?
fry me up some chicken and
let's go burn us a cross!
praise jay'sus too!

and here that poor damn fool goes hangin' that flag in my home
nevermind that i once believed it stood for something noble
stood as symbol for ideals or homes or in honor of my ancestors
nevermind that that flag stood as stone edifice to the
members of my state
hung and torched, mobbed for being a different color
killed because some asshole officers couldn't take defeat
couldn't accept that their way of life
was changed
because sometimes it must just be easier to hate
than to learn to love

i told my roommate
"lets put it out front!
wave it proud for all the neighbors to see!

we'll stand together and say, 'its
History, not Hate.' its
'Rebellion against Unlawful Authority.' 'its
about Freedom.'"

he never saluted that flag
unknowing what it really meant
how deeply it cut across the grain
my father impressed upon me
or how sick and tired i am of
attempting to explain to others
what mixed feelings i have toward
the Confederate Flag
realizing how others judge me by the
blood soaked into that fabric
turning it from a sentiment once noble
into a symbol of all that
ain't
Southern

and that flag doesn't stand for me
doesn't answer a single question anymore
i won't stand to have it in my presence
won't stand to see the battered and tarnished image
it has become
at the hands of assholes like my old roommate

who think hate is funny
call it hysterical and wonder why i grind my teeth
uncaring of what lies beneath the colors

but i do

i'm Southern
i took it down
i threw it out
he didn't understand.

Slam Tutorial: Confront Your Own Cultural Heritage, Part 1

It's not easy confronting one's history, especially if it has a dark history, like Southern Whites confronting racism.

Jason Carney, who I first met on when I was on tour in Dallas in 2002, has a poem that carries particular resonance for me. In "Southern Heritage," Carney addresses racism from the perspective a white Southerner. As a non-Southerner I was guilty along with many others of splitting white Southerners into two factions: the "enlightened egalitarian" white person - the common stereotype that we non-Southerners attribute to more-or-less racial equality in the South - and the "ignorant redneck" who seemingly hates gays, minorities, always votes Republican and would rather return to Jim Crow segregation if not outright slavery.

Of course, I learned in my later teens that racial issues in the South were far more gray.

This knowledge, however, did not alleviate my own fear of my family's potential history: my grandmother and mother are both from Atlanta, thus, my young mind used to theorize, they must be racist, thus, am I?

I wanted to ignore this "unfortunate" aspect of my history growing up lest I begin to think of myself as someone from a racist bloodline, based perhaps incorrectly on my grandfather's word choices, which I now attribute more to cultural and generational nuances than racist attitudes (in my early 20s I came to the realization that my grandfather's attraction to beautiful women 40 to 50 years younger than him was 100% colorblind, which put me at ease with him in the years before his death).

However, in September 2008, I asked my grandmother about her feelings and history following a speech I wrote for a seminar analyzing Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as a poem. At the time, it wasn't a question of race but rather politics I was asking for. I learned that my great-grandfather was something of a civil rights leader in his own way, though he probably wouldn't have thought so. Aside from chastising people who used racial epithets in his home, he helped black plumbers get their plumbing licenses, which I found rather cool at the time. I would assume that his choice wasn't one necessarily of self-righteous social equality but more of simple efficient rationality that seems to be the hallmark of my Redfield bloodline: "These guys can do the work, but they can't get licenses because of how they look? That's just stupid. I will help them."

My friend Lee Sullivan told me recently that that was an even more important step toward social equality that I had first suspected.

In the end, I think this sort of Redfield rational thought rather than overt idealism is what helped bring down Jim Crow and end other social inequalities: "This is how it is? This is inefficient and does not get work accomplished. It must change. If no one else does it, I will."

There's a poem in all this, but I haven't found the angle as yet.

"Southern Heritage"
By Jason Carney
Knowledge cures ignorance; if you're in the know, be fucking contagious.
This is for my Mamaw and my daughter, Olivia, the beginning and end of who I am.

My southern heritage lies in the smell of June.
It was my Mamaw.
She was half Choctaw, half snuff, half crazed by the spirit of the wind given her accent.

She called it "a touch" . . . she could . . . see things.

She'd catch a firefly with her tongue.

Rub the swollen fluorescence of their bellies to my forehead, a good vision on my birthday.

And she always told me I would grow to be a man who would always know life by the way it felt.

Alone I walked in the wandering reflection of dreams.
I should stand strong and tall as Papaw cause he was a man who knew life by the way it felt.

And his heart was in my eyes, his soul was in my breath.

My southern heritage lies in their simplicity; poverty and faith, baseball games on an old AM radio and the closeness of my family sharing a Sunday supper.

My southern heritage was Sundays.

Baptist Revivals . . . deacons passing the altar plates, deep voices from the choir urging me to go tell it on the mountain because Jesus Christ is Lord.

And I do love that old hymn . . . but I cant think about those fond memories of childhood anymore without seeing them through the pessimism of these eyes which are of a man, and I have to ask myself what kind of truth those old white baptists found on them mountain tops.

Why couldn't they hear the voices dangling from the branches of the elms when death could have been peeled away into the forgotten generation after generation woven into our skin, into our bones?
All because they were silent.
Practiced at turning their heads.

Their heritage lies in the shades of my skin, it's twisted and scarred, worn by their words "colored", "negro" . . . and "nigger."

So why don't we go find the truth on the mountain that says my southern heritage came clothed in white sheets and allows a rebel flag to hang this very day over the capitol of Mississippi?

My southern heritage spent centuries of time where people are silent . . . and practiced at turning their heads.

So we're the threads of rope that pulled James Byrd to his death along the back roads of Jasper, Texas.
Less than two hundred miles from where I live, ignorance reigns.

My southern heritage spans centuries of time, where people are silent and practiced at turning their heads.

It boils under my skin when my eyes don't have heart, when my soul is not in my breath, see . . . if I'm gonna grow to be that man who knows life by how it feels then these lessons gotta be mine to see the truth of and find the responsibility to teach my little girl.

Cause I don't want her southern heritage to lie in the shades of the skin. She's half Thai . . . half Irish, Choctaw, and snuff.

And I'm gonna catch fireflies with my tongue, rub the swollen fluorescence of their bellies to her forehead, a good vision on her birthday, where she will travel amongst the dead, and learn the lessons of their lives, spill the dust of stars and planets, exist in the deepest reaches of the mind.
She will tell the truth on that mountaintop, she will not succumb to the wounds of her bones.
She will not be silent.
And she will not ever be practiced at turning her head.

Jason Carney is a former skinhead who now uses poetry to continue to reform himself and heal others.

As a young man, Carney was sent to a juvenile detention center after several violent incidents involving gay bashing and racial intolerance. While in the detention center, Carney was roomed with a young gay male who was HIV-positive. A friendship formed from what could have been a volatile situation. The experience changed the way Carney saw people that were different from him. After Carney was released, he tried to look up his new friend only to find that he had lost his battle with the disease.

Carney has made it his life work to heal and help eliminate intolerance.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Aayla Secura Haiku

Love is colorblind.
I'd die my skin blue for you,
Aayla Secura
Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Shoulder Haiku

Her shoulder cries out
for my lips to sail its edge
and lose myself there

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Obama Wins Election Haiku

Ever try to explain
the moment the world changed?
Yeah, it was like that.

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Poets in the Sept 11 Slam: The Klute

Klute, The (noun): A rare breed of Southern Arizona slam poet, originally raised in Southern Florida (however, he's not a native Floridian - rumors trace his origin back to Illinois). Abhors use of rhyme schemes in poetry, writes almost exclusively in free verse.
Frequent targets: the goth subculture, neoconservatism (especially Dick Cheney), and crass-commericalism. Member of the 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006 Mesa National Slam teams (Mesa's 2005 slam champion), and 2008's Phoenix Slam Team.
Slammaster of the Mesa Poetry Slam. Has released three chapbooks of his work: 2002's "Escape Velocity", 2005's "Look at What America Has Done to Me", and 2008's "My American Journey". Ask him nicely and he might send you a copy. Primary habitat considered to be raves (especially desert parties), goth clubs, and dimly lit dive bars. Prefers vodka, rum, and absinthe when drinking. Is considered friendly, but when cornered, lashes out with a fury not seen since last Thursday. He's totally smitten with his girlfriend, Teresa - so don't ask him to dance. Feel free to buy him a drink, but remember, he's not putting out. No matter how much you beg.

People are talking about The Klute!

AZSlim, Espresso Pundit poster: Don't argue with The Klute. His hyperventilating and pure hypocrisy shown in these (and many other) posts makes reasoning with a two-year old who didn't get the popsicle he wanted seem tame by comparison.

Phoenix 944 Magazine says: Despite the heat, [The Klute] wears a black trench coat almost everywhere he goes and if the setting permits, he’ll blast through enough slanderous commentary to make Andrew Dice Clay blush. [He] admits he started slam poetry out of arrogance. He saw a performance and figured he could do better, after which he also admits he failed miserably. Today, his addiction for getting in front of the microphone and spitting out everything from a Dick Cheney haiku to a long-winded prose on race car driving to the late Hunter S. Thompson is as strong as his love for vodka and absinthe. If anyone’s seen “The Klute” in action, they’d know it. If they haven’t, they must.

Jerome duBois, The Tears of Things: You have one of the blackest hearts I've ever had the misfortune to glimpse.

Twins Haiku

I want to have twins
but not the way you might think
and ... not as daughters

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Sedona Poetry Slam offers $100 prize

Sedona Poetry Slam offers $100 prize
Poets battle for your love and my cash

Sedona’s Studio Live hosts a high-energy poetry slam Friday, Sept. 11, starting at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. All poets are welcome to compete.

After three rounds, random judges in the audience will judge the best poet, who will win $100 and three minutes of glory.

Slammers will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted. The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. The top poet at the end of the night wins $100.

Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.

The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at four National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2006.

For more information or to register, e-mail to Graham at foxthepoet@yahoo.com or call 928-517-1400.

Video from previous poetry slams are available at www.YouTube.com/FoxThePoet.

Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, Sedona. For more information, visit www.studiolivesedona.com.

Tickets are $10, available at Studio Live or Golden Word Books, 3150 W. Hwy. 89A.

Price: $10
Date: Friday, September 11, 2009
Time: 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location: Sedona’s Studio Live
Street: 215 Coffee Pot Drive, Sedona, AZ
Phone: 9282820549
Email: foxthepoet@yahoo.com

Princess Leia Was My First Love Haiku

It's been twenty-six years
since Carrie Fisher taught geeks
like me how to love

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

High School Flame Haiku

All my old crushes
got married and had children
I still bear a torch

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

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