Ode to The Trumpet of God

It is the lamp you love the most

throwing your hips and thrusting

your feet, fingers to the indian

quills quivering to the sky

But I also see your trophies.

Trophies found,

that you worship with a twirl

and a grind.

The winner of perfect attendance

(Robinson Junior High School, 1977)

Perched upon the pedestal

of your outstretched arms

that you circle with high kicks

and raise to the air for the commuters

passing on Kansas Avenue

I notice, my trumpet, that your earphones

are unencumbered by the attachment

to a jack

flailing

Pioneers, oh! Pioneers?

by now, you've probably seen this

So, naturally, as a poet and being a child of a world where punk rock is taken as a matter of course, as something that happened, my first thought was "FUCK. CONSUMERISM."

This is a standard reaction, mind you, and there is always a sort of low hum of that sentiment buzzing through my brain any time I watch TV, so that wasn't terribly uncommon. But the use of the poem, of course, is the thing that sets this particular commercial (set of commercials, I think, actually) apart.

The more I think about it, though, the more I think I like it. I grant you, I am not Whitman's biggest fan. But I definitely do not downplay his influence; the man basically invented American Poetry as we know it.

Here's what I like about it:

As poets, we sit apart from all other artists in most minds. The poem is not seen as a form of entertainment, it is a curiosity, mostly to be wondered about by other poets or by hipsters or would-be intellectuals hoping to impress a date in some dank coffeeshop or other. To say you are a poet is to immediately throw up a roadblock between yourself and anyone who hates (as all of us should) flowery, rhymey, greeting-cardy verses about butterflies and love and butterflies in love, to say nothing of dead-flowery, often-rhymey verses about self-pity and love and the love of self-pity.

The poem, at some point, wandered down a different road than all other forms of art. we don't sell tickets to poetry readings. no one hangs a broadside in their home. no one has dylan thomas on their ipod. No one reads poems or listens to poems purely for their enjoyment, but only when they have to, or when they have something to prove.

[As I make this point, I naturally concede that there are exceptions to this rule, myself being one, maybe you are another. However, I think it's safe to say this fairly well sums up the general attitude towards the art of poetry -- certainly among the general public, but even, in my experience at least, among those who are otherwise in tune with "the arts"]

But here, in this commercial, we see the poem set with images of young attractive people having sexy adventures. The poem, here, is a soundtrack, used the same way you would use a piece of music! Here, we see a poem placed on an even plane with other forms of art: as something to be utilized, to be combined with other art forms, and yes, even to be exploited for commercial gain. After all, truly great art is hardly immune to commercialization. Lord knows I've heard plenty of favored songs chopped up and shoehorned into 30 seconds of awkward pitchmanship.

Poetry has been too removed from pop culture for too long. If we, the poets, are ever to feel that there is any point to what we do, we cannot deny that we need external validation.

And perhaps most importantly, Whitman himself would've liked it, I think. His initial edition of Leaves of Grass was designed to fit in a pocket, he wanted it to be read in the open air, to be carried with the reader as a part of daily life -- as we now carry our laptops or smartphones. And if there was one thing old Walt loved, it was attractive people having sexy adventures. (There even appears to be a gay couple embracing romantically, if you watch close enough.)

And, goddammit, there are really some nice visuals paired with the poem. It's just a successful little piece of filmmaking all around.

But then again, for all this rabble it has roused in me, one thing it does not inspire in me is a desire to go buy a pair of Levi's jeans. So who knows?

second skin

all pictures were borrowed from flickr.

Bagombo Snuff Box: Vonnegut's rules for short story writing

One of my favorite writers, a favorite writer of many, Flannery O'Conner has been exempted from these rules by Vonnegut except for rule number one. This is a trait that he suggests is shared by many writers. But here they are anyway.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The Zombie Apocalypse of the Imagination

or Undeath, Where is Thy Sting?

By Timothy Volpert

In 1968, a relatively unassuming, black-and-white independent film was released, entitled Night of the Living Dead. You've almost certainly heard of this film, so I needn't expound here upon its merits nor its short comings. The point that I am trying to make, dear reader, is this. In 1968, this film, like the first onscreen “zombie” that appeared in it, staggered, menacingly but somewhat without fanfare, into the popular consciousness. Furthermore, like that grayish man in the graveyard, this film was but the first, small, slow indication of what would become a full-scale invasion, not of the physical world we occupy, but of the much more precious real-estate of the Imagination.

Again I will not bore you here with research, my friends, although I assure you it can be found. But more importantly, I ask you to draw on your own experiences. How many advertisements have you seen (or will you see, if you deign to read this screed in the early morn) today for zombie-related films, books, comic books, t-shirts, video games, or other zombie paraphernalia? How many conversations did you have today, in which zombies as a topic jokingly came up or were referenced? Perhaps you had one or two conversations in which they were referenced quite seriously. How many of your friends' Facebook status updates today were about zombies in some fashion?

For years, popular fiction has entertained and frightened us with the notion of the “Zombie Apocalypse” -- the idea that, once one zombie exists in a given world, eventually the zombies will completely overrun that world. It will almost invariably take a number of years, because of their inherently slow speed (unless you take into account the faster zombies of latter-day films like 28 Days Later, but goddammit this essay isn't about that) but as they turn the once-living into the undead, their numbers begin to grow exponentially. Like a mold growing on a forgotten dinner roll in a plastic bag at the back of the cupboard, slowly but surely, the zombies, we are told, will completely envelope the planet.

But friends, I say to you the time for despair is at hand; this Zombie Apocalypse is upon us, even now. As more and more of our entertainment is filled with the concept, as more and more our conversations turn to The Shambling Ones, they slowly, as they have done to countless alternate Earths in countless works of fiction, they slowly but surely are overrunning our popular consciousness. The Zombie Apocalypse is occurring not as a clashing of rotting flesh and living terror, but in our minds, our imaginations! The concept of the zombie is slowly taking over, and if we don't do something to stop it, there will be nothing left but zombies!

Take for instance, the (disgustingly) well-selling “book” Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. That's right, dear reader, the Zombie Concept has already begun to “turn” other works of fiction. We have the Zombeatles invading music, and Shaun of the Dead (even though it is a masterfully hilarious movie, and, in the interest of full disclosure, one of my all-time favorites) representing the first decaying hand bursting through the soil of the romantic comedy genre.

Where does it stop? Undeath of a Salesman? The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Zombie? The Heart is a Lonely Zombie Hunter? “Love (But Mostly Zombies) Will Tear Us Apart?” Catch 22 To The Head You Know It's Dead? The Grapes of Wraaarrrghhh?

Soon, you won't remember what it sounded like to flip on the radio in the car, and not have every song be about eating brains, or at the very least accompanied by a chorus of bloodcurdling sepulchral moans. You won't remember a Julia Roberts movie where she doesn't crack wise while bashing in the skull of a once-living vessel of sheer unstoppable terror. You won't remember the original ending of Hamlet, where they all just stayed dead.

My friends, I implore you; we must stem the tide of this cultural apocalypse. The more we talk, joke, and make films about zombies, the more strengthened their deathly grasp is on our collective imagination. I say to you, we must remove the head or destroy the brain of this fad now, before those few survivors of us are holed up in libraries and independent cinemas with shotguns and a limited supply of canned goods, clinging desperately to our last remaining “retro” reprint edition of Pride and Prejudice Without Zombies.

Landscaping/Near Future

I'm not nervous,
just shaking
as I watch brick streets
break back up
through the young concrete
above

and I run a chalk line along
a set of railroad ties
and chant the magic words.

I have planned, up to this point,
my journey
down to a series of right turns

that will spit me,
a lost salmon spawning, out onto your sidewalk.

At a wide enough angle
I am comprehensible,
can finally be reconciled
with the landscape around me --

so stand there on your front porch a minute,
door ajar,
and think about
what part of the garden
you might put me in.

---

and on monday morning:
a car
abandoned in the
middle of the street, its blinker on --

your phone might ring,
or it might vibrate itself right off a table

and later on,
the car won't be there anymore;
the tiny rapture
will have been canceled.

And in the near future,
in a business suit,
I will step,
shoeless, through your door

and demand my money back.

Ode to Jan

the weather was warm, Jan
when you sailed your Grande Marquis
into port
you blustered in with turbulent
curls crowning your head
like barnacles

i switched to your channel
The Weather Channel, Jan
and rained gin into your tonic
as you docked at the rail
relinquishing your mackinaw to the wood
of the back of your chair

"Well he is such a hunk," you say
and Jan i agree with you
as you point to the weatherman
blowing in the wind on the screen
"I do love Jim," you say
the hands of your betrothed caressing the sun
sliding across the blue map

Jan I know that you are a liar, Jan
and i think about the weather in
your head. i shiver as i pass you
i pass you your pork
chop, well done

you say "I see my Jim at midnight"
and i say "Shit, Jan what?"
and you say not to worry about it
your eyes rolling whirlpools
lined in kohl, the shaky edges
of heavy clouds

you slur your words, Jan
like the crash of the tide
and you laugh alone at the screen
lips pulled back to reveal teeth
teeth like planks

a woman appears on your channel
huddled against the hurricane's gust
"She is my best friend," you say
"I sure do miss her."