Approaching 31 on Stubs (a Short Girl Birthday Poem)

Original Photo by Agnes Fohn Photography, (C) 2014

Written while staring down 31, then realizing you need a step ladder to look it in the eye.


APPROACHING 31 ON STUBS

My legs haven't grown.
They say third time's a charm,
but three decades have passed
and they remain abridged.
Apparently I was not destined to be a torso,
and head,
set upon giraffe gams,
or to grow into a lithe antelope woman
made of sloping lines toe-walking in knife-sharp heels.
I'm okay with it.
At least it's time to be.
We still need pixies.
We still need
someone to wear the scraps
cut off other jeans made
for longer bodies.
We need the travel-size army keeping the hemming industry
alive.
The invaluable insight into urgent matters like
the nuances of the undersides of chins,
or the perks of speaking to navels,
can only be obtained by miniatures looking up.
(Also children.)
Still, sometimes,
when slithering into
worn-in mens t-shirts,
borrowed for spooning or sleep,
my wish,
my always wish,
will be for a ballerina's base:
Two long extensions,
sinews taught
to wrap around your waist
like climbing ivy.


(C) Kimberly Kaye 2014

French Door Lesson (you were told)

Written staring through the slats of splintering french doors just before dawn one hateful Southern morning. It was wonderful. There was tea. 


FRENCH DOOR LESSON (you were told)

I hate
I told you so.
Worse than
No.
Worse than
Dead.
Worse than
Fuck no,
or even 
Goodbye.
Only two things on earth are so cold and vain 
they aim to make you think of them as they hurt you:
Women,
and I told you so.
(They frequently travel together.)
I hate the words.
They're the only hate left burning in an aging chest.
I'm too old to ache for more than one thing at a time anymore, 
and I don't want to think that hard 
about something that's hard enough.
They put fishhooks in your gums,
barbed truths,
and you can't turn a head to argue.
You were wrong.
You were so very wrong
that someone else saw it coming
while your back was turned,
and you didn't bother
to watch their eyes.




(C) Kimberly Kaye 2014

Free Downoadable Christmas Cheer! Blistering Fiddle! Mooing!

If there's a person out there who says George Strait isn't a poet (I mean, look at this American specimen), I say strip off yer fancy blouse while I take off my nice ring, we've got a brawl to get into.

She's Playing Hell, Trying to Get Me to Heaven
There Ain't No Way All My Sins Can Be Forgiven
They Say There's Only Ten Commandments, but I Broke at Least Eleven
She's Playing Hell, Trying to Get Me to Heaven 

Poetry, man. 

A couple of years back I fell into a country band thanks to a certain Tony Award winner and songwriter and professional JJ Abrams TV creeper. (Why. Wasn't. Fringe. Ever. Nominated. For. Emmys?)

In keeping with the very little tradition yet established since this motley band of musicians came together, Loose Cattle returned to its Semi-Annual Last Minute Holiday Christmas Single this year with a crumbly sweet cover of George Strait's "Christmas Cookies." Recorded in, oh, about 1 hour, fueled with pizza and beer and the desire to hang out eating pizza and drinking beer, it's the least we could offer as a gift to supportive, wonderful, fascinating characters in our lives.  It has blistering fiddle and sexual innuendo, we think. It's hard to judge the level of purity Mr. Strait operates on.

The link below will letcha choose between streaming or downloading, but both are free. We humbly ask if you like it, share it on your interwebs and keep the spirit moooooving. May it tickle your funnybones and make at least 3 minutes of your Christmas Eve a little brighter.




Wishing you all happiness and health in 2014.

Fa la la la mooooooo moo moo love you. -- LOOSE CATTLE

LOOSE CATTLE featured on this track:

 - Michael Cerveris, lead vocals and guitar
-  Kimberly Kaye, lead vocals
-  Gabriel Caplan, guitar
-  Lorenzo Wolff, bass
-  Eddie Zeibeck, drums
-  Fiddle - Justin "Giant Fidder" Smith

Poet: The Deaf Pit Bull Strangers Rescued

Last weekend Ray and I spent 10 minutes introducing a 12-month-old, 55lb, deaf bull terrier/dogo mix to a Muni-meter on First Avenue. We were the best show in town.

This is Poet, and the 100+ blessed supporters, Samaritans, and donors who sent letters, food, cleaning help, and money in the wake of Stella's sudden passing should formally make his acquaintance. You truly are the ones who took him from a cage to a home.

I doubt there will be a time when thinking of that list of names, nearly half strangers, won't put a lump in my throat. Think of that scene in The Lion King right after Mufasa has been trampled to death by wildebeest and his baby son is pushing himself under the lifeless king's paws, begging his father to hold him, to please wake up, but he can't, because he's dead. That lump you got going on now? It's that kinda lump, but on steroids.

Anyway, back to the boy:

Poet just turned one. He's interchangeably nicknamed "Chip Bull," in honor of his ink drop markings, and "T-Rex," because his head is ENORMOUS. (And full of teeth.) He, like Stella, was born deaf as a result of irresponsible breeding.

Poet was originally purchased at 8 weeks old from a breeder who clipped his ears for the "tough guy" look. His new owner took him home, named him Ares the God of War (...um...you already got the clipped pit bull, brother. You don't need to saddle it with verbal proof of those insecurities about your manbits), then sent him away for a two-week training program at a facility for police dogs. The trainer there discovered "Ares" was deaf, alerted the owner, and ultimately Ares stopped training. Three months later Ares' owner surrendered him to a New Jersey rescue, citing financial duress as a result of a messy divorce.

The rescue was happy to take Ares, but placing him was exceptionally hard. No one wants a disabled bully, so Ares' spent the next 7 months in a kennel. Most of his time was spent alone, depriving him of the vital socialization puppies need to learn to behave around dogs and people. The rescue, without experience raising deaf dogs, did their best, but the Ares we ultimately met was anxious, terrified, and frustrated out of his gourd trying to communicate. With more than half his life first year spent in a kennel, he was as institutionalized as a Shawshank parolee.

It was Ray's idea to name him Poet--a sweet, silly name for a sweet, silly dog born wearing emo eyeliner, and a nod to the friends and readers of this blog, without whom caring for Stella and rescuing Poet would have been impossible.

Which brings us to urban Muni-meters.

As a result of his isolation, the outside world can scare Poet into barking like a junkyard dog or hiding between my legs while fear-peeing. So far his list of fears include, but are not limited to:

- strangers
- strangers carrying bags
- strangers in puffy coats
- strangers with pouffy hair
- flocks of drunk NYU students
- people who gesture extravagantly on the sidewalk
- bikes in motion
- bikes in park
- bikes on the sidewalk
- bikes
- skateboards in motion
- skateboards
- strangers on skateboards
- hats- shopping carts
- flags
- banners
- flashing lights
- scrolling light signs (like the ones in every bodega window)
- shadows on the ceiling
- sunlight on the ceiling
- the fucking ceiling
- screen savers
- end credits on the TV
- Hulu on the iPad
- hands that raise or reach quickly (he cowers as if we'll hit him)
- the electrical cord on the flat-iron, but not the blowdryer
- the vacuum
- Mom and Dad practicing Krav Maga in the house
- yappy dogs
- blurs of motion
- some parked cars
- inanimate bags of garbage
- bags of garbage and rats
- ATMs

Having wiped that one Muni-meter with beef and successfully coerced Poet into eating a small pile of jerky hidden under it, thereby establishing the limited threat posed by a box of government money welded to a pole, we seem to be on the way to peace between deaf canines and local pay structures.

We had no idea that Poet would have so many fears. He was billed as a bright and beamish boy who loved tug-of-war, other dogs, and children, and needed "a little socialization." In reality, he is whip smart, beamish, wildly playful, and deeply insecure. He and Stella are polar opposites. She was gorgeous, feminine and fawnlike, with an addiction to garbage and a soulful, healing energy. She lived for laps and naps, got along with everything, only barked as a trick, and feared only basements. Poet, by comparison, is a bull. Handsome, muscled, drooly, and goonish, he skids and lumbers through the apartment, knocking over anything we are stupid enough to set down. When he yawns he "deaf whistles," which means we're basically living with a nazgul with anal glands. 

Poet deeply resents Apple, Steve Jobs, and all electronic devices which steal your attention, and has invented "The Pelican" as a defensive maneuver: go to water bowl, fill massive mouth, walk to Mom who is trying to write, and empty contents of mouth into feet or lap, receive attention. Ray thought I was making it up. Then in happened to him.

We have worried, I think as all "second child parents" do, that we made a mistake. That a deaf dog with serious fear issues is too great a challenge, that we'll fail him, that we'll disappoint everyone and weaken the argument to adopt special needs animals. Or become those people everyone glares at, walking around with their dog alternately barking like a Resident Evil zombie-Doberman and pissing with fear near the Citibikes while the folks in Starbucks point and mouth "Ugh, why don't they TRAIN their dog...".

But we are bonded. For the first time in his life, Poet is connected to two people and has a lap to sit in at home for 6-12 hours each and every day, depending. Last week he crawled out of his crate at night, quietly joined his sleeping adoptive parents in their bed, curled up between them, and has been there every night since, grinning, alligator rolling in the sheets with delight, knocking over both lamps with his tail while trying to stalk, attack, and then eat a sleep mask.

I can't hear a word you're saying. 

Thanksgiving Day Turkey massacre.

Dad!

Dad? Dad  I--zzzzzzzz.....

Dogfather Michael!!

SAINTS.

Um...okay, also 9ers.

I know we have to try. The rescue, woefully unprepared to work with deafies, offered to take him back. His chances of being adopted a second time are low. We will continue to work with his trainer, and try--and then thank you all for giving us the chance to try and help a Poet. 

Of Sausage and Unborn Children

We moved recently. That meant, among other things, coming to terms with how vile I am, based on the ruthless dog hair and urban dust netherworld I apparently allowed to flourish under the bed for three years. It also unearthed a long-since forgotten tin box, with bits of writings dating as far back as 2005 written on scraps of paper of all sizes. Some of it is really bad. Like, burn it bad. Some bits I love for their imperfections and clumsiness.

This was one of them.

Untitled, 2010

I've been up and down the sheets
Made and unmade those beds of roses
and worn the thorns as buttons
while sticking thin fishbone pins into voodoo lovers

I've tied every love letter ever with twine
And set them on fire in a secret place
it took three days to reach on foot

One time I held two stagehands hostage until
they turned the spotlights on me
So I could perform the rain dance to call
wet love down from the skies

But now I want one bed
One bed and two pillows
One bed and two pillows for two bodies
A place to cook you dinner
and a Cajun who can teach me to season sausage
properly

I want to hear my children
laugh from inside your daydreams

Bread Basket-case

Bread Basket-Case

A piece of cornbread
brought her down.

She had been doing well enough,
doing things like
combing her hair,
brushing her teeth,
making the oversized sleigh bed that rested
at the center of her room--
those things that are hardest to do
when nursing
another's leaving.

She had been doing even better
with the necessary rituals,
like taking down the 5x7s
of them laughing
at the wedding of another
matched set
of friends,
or learning to ride the subway
through the lump in her throat that boarded
the train at the stop they used to meet at
after their work days ended.

She took his name out of her mouth
and placed it in a drawer
close to the kitchen sink,
where she could come to fetch it
once it was less likely
to cut her gums and tongue.

But the cornbread was too much.
His favorite, presented in a tiny basket
at a dinner party
flanked by bricks of foil-wrapped butter,
sucking the air from the room,
forcing her to recall
his mouth
his fingers
his satisfied humming
his long-held preference
for baked goods
with actual kernels
folded into the batter.

A single cubic slice
of cornmeal and hot butter
brought him back into the room
like some dark ancient voodoo,
proving there could be
no escape
or going back to the world
that had been
before he came,
and went.

Black magic
in a bread basket.

And so she did the only thing
the cursed can do in such situations:
She ate her heart out.
Fingers grasping at every square,
seeking out and devouring
every crumb of memory
stuffing it down
and swallowing away
each and every piece
unprettily and unrepentant  
until butter glossed her lips,
and her breath was hot and audible,
and her dining partners shifted
uncomfortably
in their seats.

And just like that,
he was gone again.
She dabbed the corners of her mouth
daintily with a napkin.

Later a young waiter
well-meaning and well-trained
passed by their table
with another steaming basket
cradled in his curved palm.
More bits of past swathed
in warmed white linen.
The young man extend one long arm
leaning down to land it
in the empty space between her wine glass
and the table's glowing candles.

This time she did nothing
except smile at her friends
with something close to victory
perched on the top of her nose.
She calmly rested a palm across
her slightly distended stomach.
It is hard to be eaten up inside
when one is already stuffed full.

Short and Sweet: Sweet and Sour

Another bit of writing found scrawled on a napkin that made its way back from New Orleans to New York:

bright spot

I'll never forget the morning
we discovered the little lemon
A little piece of summer
fallen on the pavement
You found the sun
hiding under pruned branches
And gently broke the rind with a thumbnail
turning the air bright
Then wrapped five fingers and a thumb around it
and carried it home.

You brought the sun with us.

Even on cloudy days
it is a glowing spot
on the landscape of a year
You
Your little lemon
the sweetness of you both--
I taste it when the days break bright,
that little pinch of sugar
spooned over each sour note
that dared follow us home.

To My Parents on Their 34th Wedding Anniversary: The Buccaneers of Long Beach Island

The REAL Jersey Shore. Yeah.

Narrative poemness for my parents, gifted on the occasion of their 34th wedding anniversary.

"To the Buccaneers of Long Beach Island: The Day the Treasure Was Found"

it was just after lunch when we found the map.

the clan was assembled in the sand as always:

sarah's lips stained red from cherry ice, a popsicle herself, 

tiny and poised on paired stick legs;

cousins, browned like sausages in the sun,

digging holes with neon plastic buckets;

mom, smile lines burned into the crooks of her eyes,

holding out chilled wet grapes.

there was a hermit crab captive in my hand

all wet, small, flailing legs--

a slimed almond in its shell

using tickle as torture.

we were digging near the water, 

dad and i and a few of the others,

he waist-deep and handsome in a wet hole,

the pile of sand nearby as tall as i;

and bill, with his slick green beer bottle illegally in hand, towering above it all.

then the map appeared,

conjured from the end of the old iron shovel, or it seemed.

mom was the one who pointed it out,

it teetering suddenly on the top of the pile as if dropped from the sky--

bill’s smile hidden behind ever other adult. 

i dropped the crab.

the cousins let me unwind the scroll,

coarse and wet and bound with twine,

breaded with grains of damp stone and singed black at the edges--

the oldest didn't wait for the small ones.

we raced, speedo-ed gazelle on baked plains, tracing black ink to the first stop:

a clue on a chipped shell by the grass!

then another stampede to the ancient gazebo

for the note taped to weathered wood seats.

laura released the paper with shaking fingers.

kyle, the youngest, cried--we understood. 

the excitement was too much to bear.

the entire beach was watching.

we found the X by the fence near the dunes,

where the bound plywood met the rise of sand in its drunk, erratic path, 

a barrier to the barrier to the land. 

"dig!" we cried to my father. "dig!"

and he did,

meaty shoulders driving the blade until it landed with a thud

on something that wasn't sand.

bill helped him heave the structure up and everyone gasped when they should,

an ebb of sound cresting through the modest crowd like a wave.

a small plane went by then, 

pulling an airborne restaurant ad that went wholly ignored,

efforts outdone by our bounty. 

it was a chest of bleached wood

pale and dry and entirely unmarred,

exactly as we'd seen in books,

and fastened shut with cheap rope.

one of the men loosed the top, then let us lift the lid.

our famously unsilenecable brood fell silent.

for a moment.

then the cries of glee broke free 

and naked arms and legs splayed every which way,

the tallest going so far as to pull the youngest forward for a fair view.

we were family, after all.

chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil,

stacked to the brim and glinting in the sun.

all of us--

parents, offspring, in betweens--

glinting in return,

kings and queens of the day.

Short and Sweet 'Cause It's Friday: "Still Here"

While I was busy creating diversions, some piece of brain lay awake at night like a cranky baby with melancolic, busy composing this.

Sometimes the anticipation of missing someone is worse than noticing they've gone.

Insomnia Postcard: Still Here

You have gone,
and will not miss me.
There are too many new pieces there
to puzzle together,
busying a mind.

I will not be behind that strange new leaf--
the light will dapple places
your feet have never touched,
and you will peer at your toes
at a new angle,
reexamining their oddness.

In moments you might miss me--
like in populated squares
where strangers' fingers weave together
like baskets,
Or glasses of red wine sit around
in lazy, bloody pairs--

You will discover a single dark braid
laid down a slim young woman's back,
and stare at it and wonder

what it would feel like
in your hand.

I will still be here,
where every curb is one already
stepped over with you,
and each street or mailbox
is a part
of a familiar, old routine--

The dog on the corner is vaguely imitating
one we walked together.

I will see naked light bulbs
and think not of fields, or toes,
but of your head, freshly shaven,
toasting in the sun.

I will discover new things also,
and feel them in my palm,
Then turn to show you
as if you were there
finding only,
after turning,
the place you usually sit.

Monday Morning: Inside the Envelope

Found this today. Describing it as a wispy half-love poem by a sliver of sterotype girl burning incense in defense of insensitivity while wearing a hand-stitched dress.

(Yeah, say THAT five times fast.)

Uh, anyway:

Inside the Envelope

leaning on you too much

sometimes

you creak

but do not bend

                 or break

                     out loud

your foundation 

is stronger

When the lean reverses, 

for now

I fail

      or break

    

just let me be the sling

lean too hard and

yes, I will swing away

away, for now

but lay with me

                    or in me

and I will cradle you constantly

                                 out loud
                                 and above

above it all, away

away

from din and dirty.

Awkward Forward Momentum

I fell off my blog.

Lost my balance when something unseen hip-checked me and tossed me off the wheels, into some dark corner.

I spent a few months feeling shadowy. I found and goofed around with Gollum, sat beside him turning things over and over in my palms. I grew accustomed to him waking me with a hissy little "my precious." We played handball with a bouncing circle of obsession. We spent a lot of time doing many things with words that end with "ession" in general.

There's a tremendous amount of equally esoteric metaphoric hooey that I could wax poetic about until you slam that Macbook shut while eye-rolling---wait, YOU, no, don't go yet, don't click off to the next pa--

--lost that one.

Ah well.

In short I fell off of much and into more and also stopped writing altogether. Which is no great loss to readers, because there is always someone somewhere writing something worth reading; most of the time it excludes weird side-rants about playing handball with Lord of the Rings characters.

But today I tripped and fell back on and started rolling along, slowly. It's like stumbling over a curb face-down onto a skateboard and lurching forward, injured: breasts smushed weirdly against the body, scraped arms out, shocked legs taut, the toes dragging behind. But somehow, forward momentum. Awkward forward momentum.

Rolling on, as if nothing had ever happened.

On Creative Vampires (A Letter About The People Who'll Suck You Dry Through Two Holes if You Let Them)

I received a letter recently from a young poet. (No, I am not going all Rilke on ya'll). Upon the printing of her first commercial poems she discovered a backhanded compliment via Facebook (the Mecca of passive-aggressive bulldinky) from a writer accusing her of aspiring to be something she's not, for "forgetting her true friends" in the process. They claimed that anyone who wrote for money was "selling out."

Gut reaction: F@#!. THAT. NOISE.

Secondary more mature reaction: This happens more frequently to writers and creatives of all kinds than any teacher or book can ever prepare you for.

It knocked loose the memory of a successful writer-poet-journalist-friend who recently experienced something similar: After a milestone year she published a piece thanking the writers, mentors and patrons who supported and inspired her over the course of 365 days. Soon thereafter an old contact got in touch to let her know he was "one of the ones who knows" her "best," and therefore HAD to express his feeling that her essay was a grotesque combination of unchecked ego and name-dropping. He also alluded to something the other young poet's friend did: selling out.

She wrote to me fuming, wounded in that way that comes with realizing you and a creative cohort are parting ways, questioning which sides of the river you'll soon be staring at each other from.

Below is my (edited) response to her. It is a version of what I will also send to the young poet.

It is what I wish someone had said to me a long time ago:

[To my creative Lovie];

Once you've hit a certain point in your growth bursts of uninvited opinion are inevitable. Some will happen to your face. Most will happen behind your back.

Jealousy and ambition in combination form a strange, unpredictable cocktail. The jealousy shot is palpable...it masquerades as concern, insight, criticism or commentary. But its foundation is, "Why do these things happen for someone else and not happen for me?" A creative always wrestles with jealousy, because in order to focus on "the work" we must tune it out, stay the course, support others going through the same struggle...everything we've ever read in any verbose artist's journal. 

Your "friend" is jealous and understandably wrestling personally with it.

But his ambition has kicked in and stirred the struggle with jealousy and shame into a less-than-personable email. [Or conversation. Or note. Or Facebook post.]

By writing to you, alternately stroking and slapping you (and not in a fun, vaguely pleasurable way) with his uninvited opinions, he is subliminally saying "I know you better than these successful new contacts of yours. I am someone worth remembering." He writes to work through his own issues, and he writes so you will not forget him--so that you will remember his struggle with ambition and success, relate to it and deem him worthy...

...then tap him to be the next person pulled up the ladder by the chain of friends, mentors and patrons who have made your own success possible.

When someone writes something condescending from the position of stalwart advocate or ally, what they are really saying is this: "Please take me with you to that place I claim I do not want to go."

Tune. These people. Out.

If you are like many writers, you have never (not seriously anyway, or at least without the influence of several bottles of port or dusty pint of whiskey) pretended you want only to write in a garret somewhere, penning a great work on parchment to later hide in a cupboard where those who have not been enlightened would damage it by reading it before you die of consumption.

You see things, experience them, suss out meanings and work hard to put them into words. You want people to read those words and experience something as well. In order for people to read them you have to put them out there.

Writing (for now) about your experience as a starving artist doesn't mean you want to be defined by starvation. Mapplehthorpe, Warhol, Joplin, Cobain, Lennon, Patti Smith...they all believed in "art." They also wanted to, and struggled with, the desire (and occasional inability) to EAT.

Do not let anyone who covets your dinner make you defend your desire to eat. 

Now this part is important, and I add it with intense love: In almost every criticism there will be some tiny thread of reality you can choose to tug on, or not.

You  have thanked people you love and who love you, but also people you are proud to be associated with, correct? There's a little ego in that...and there bloody well should be. Why shouldn't there be? Look what you did so far. Look what you are doing. But it is true that that same sliver of ego, or inkblot of simple pride, will be interpreted by some as "name-dropping," and it will alienate them. Think about how you feel about that. If you don't care, own it and carry on. If you find you do care, recalibrate your delivery.

There is no wrong choice so long as you recognize and own it.

My own humble personal rule has been this: Promote your friends and contemporaries, but keep your mentors secret.

Or, in more sound-bitey terms: "Shine your light as bright as it can burn, baby, but keep your fuel source well-protected." 

This response is a little long. I am not sorry about that. I mean all of it and hope it helps now and in the future, because you will have many unsolicited opinions forced upon you over a lifetime.

Stay strong and be sure to stake any vampires that threaten to suck you dry.

Love Always,

KK Van Helsing

Dryer Lent (Seasonal Musing)

Mardi Gras has ended. Mourning photo:

Single. Black. Tear.

No poems or prose or plugs today, just a barely creative sneeze musing on how it is time to be repentant, to give things up and to give things out, because it is officially Lent.

(Lent: Christianity's second chance at all your failed New Years Resolutions!)

Regardless of spiritual or religious leanings, giving and giving up both seem worthy of musing. Is God okay with me giving up grudges instead of TV or beer? I assume as much:

for Lent the one good Catholic I know is parting ways with alcohol
maybe
mostly
except for wine, which we agree is good for him

which made me think of heavy things, like charred memories, I'd like to part ways with too
temporarily
completely
except for those with funny parts, which we agree are good for everyone

now that we can laugh at them

Protestants do not repent the same way during holy days
but as a good non-Catholic I can at the very least
relent

and relenting is the best way to give and give up
and take something at the same time

Don't You Just Hate Poetry Readings?: The Debut of Banjoetry

 

A few weeks ago I turned to a trusted buddy and said, "I want to score poems to banjo."

She said: "That is a terrible idea."

I said: "I want to read them live, with the banjo."

She said: "That is a terrible idea."

I said: "In front of a bunch of people."

She said: "That. Is. A. TERRIBLE. Idea."

I began scribbling notes.

A few days later I mentioned to a trusted mentor that I had a feature slot reading at Bowery Poetry and wanted to perform a suite of poems scored to live banjo twanging.

He said, "That sounds like absolute agony."

I decided then to do it.

I fortunately have a dear friend who can twang banjo. He has toured with Pete Townshend of The Who and pop-punk demigod Bob Mould. He has recorded with members of Teenage Fanclub. And Sleater-Kinney. And The Posies. And Ash. He has his own indie album of aching, perfectly strummed alt-rock tunes. (Aside: I highly recommend that record--great break-up album. Doubly sweet on vinyl.) Oh, and a Tony Award and a bunch of big Broadway credits and a list of off-Broadway mega-roles, like rock diva Hedwig from Hedwig and The Angry Inch. Sometimes you see him on TV. His name is Michael Cerveris and he was, and still is, clearly overqualified for my plot. 

I told him I wanted to score some poems about New Orleans to banjo. And read them. In front of people. I explained he was essential because he is the only one I know who can play banjo.

He said, "Okay, let's do it."

Thus the inside joke of "banjoetry" went public. Both the friend and mentor who said it was a terrible idea attended the performance. I have video proof (embedded below) that they cheered like loons for us in spite of themselves. A bunch of other people did too. They may even have enjoyed it. Or banjoyed it. (Either works.)

Fantastic photographer Jenny Anderson was there to get it on film (scroll down for pics). There's video of the whole set. I'm also pasting in the text from my "set" opener, "Don't You Just Hate Poetry Readings?" below. I love reading but somehow always get nervous and start shaking like a crack-baby for the first 5 minutes of all performances, which occasionally leads to tripping over the words of whatever is read first. I wrote the poem a few hours before hitting Bowery, so it was especially unfamiliar and raw...the text is here to fill in the gaps where my crackbabyness failed the piece.

Don't You Just Hate Poetry Readings?

Behind a curtain, under some stairs,

shoe-horned into community centers or the nearest jail,

spawning on student coffee shop stages,

dressed up and made up and paraded for sale

at your nearest megabookshop franchise, there it is folks! (and this is no joke),

we got right here for you fine folk the fruit fly of the literary world,

the buzzing

beating

flapping

needy

slip of public word breeding known to us as The Poetry Reading,

Where everyone’s less than secretly competing for rattiest scarf,

holiest boots,

most crumpled transcripts of items that could’ve been committed to mind if we’d taken the time

Best disapproving sigh,

best judgmental eye,

least best chance of separating spectators short on patience from Thorazine patients when you prop them all up in one straight line;

Most likely to jack from Kerouac

to buy off Bly

or rip off poor Miss Smith by dragging up some poorer stiff

with a guitar with them to riff on riffs while the whole ship goes down and watchers go stiff

before they make it to the awards portion of the night!

where blue ribbons are given for angriest word rant,

droniest tone poem,

most unnerving piece of childhood nostalgia,

most unremarkable slab of melancholia,

and don’t forget the coveted award of most maligning backhanded complimented handed out as you walk out the door, and that’s before

we event mention honorable mentions for artful statings of the obvious,

heartfelt ramblings by the oblivious,

irreverent references,

obscure preferences,

whored out metaphors

ALL absorbed while keeping an ear out for a cell phone ringing or Death finally bringing

some carefully delivered blessed delivery from asking why we’re here again, especially when

every time we leave one of these creaking old creative heaves we always seethe

WHY. DO. I. KEEP. GOING. TO. THESE. THINGS?
Because we know if we don’t go

we’ll not have heard that line or word

that makes it clear while we’re all here

and still coming to poetry readings.



Michael Cerveris rockin' the MANjo for the love of banjoetry.

 

"I love reading out loud thiiiiiiiiiiis much...."

Seriously? This photo? What the hell am I doing? It does look intense though, maaaaaan. **Poetic beat finger snaps.**

The "banjoetry" starts around the 6:57 mark. (At one point some affable lout steps in front of the camera, which was resting on the bar next to a whiskey and ginger. He quickly realizes his folly and steps back outta the shot.) 

This set includes the above detailing of why poetry readings are agony, delivers missives for my inarticulateness in romantic situations, paces out a suite of poems about the alchemy of New Orleans while Cerveris twangs the strings, then brings the hyperbolic silliness of Mick Jagger's Shirts back to its original home at Bowery Poetry.

Hannah's set is sex, mangled love and why you should think twice before letting her play librarian, with a spotlight thrown on the accidental poetic rhythms hiding in GMail threads.

Banjoy, and thank you to everyone who packed the house. Special thanks to Michael for lending his talent and insight during the collaboration process, George Wallace and Russ Green of Bowery Poetry Club for having for allowing me to read poetry in public.  

Kimberly Kaye at Bowery Poetry Club 2/20/11 from Hannah Miet on Vimeo.

And Hannah:

Hannah Miet at Bowery Poetry Club 2/20/11 from Hannah Miet on Vimeo.