Ok, so now it’s time for the segway into the music, and how do I tie this all together. Give me a second, I’m a poet; I can do this. OK. So.

This song is a traveler’s song, a workman’s song. And I have been busting my ass for some time now. I started back to school less than two years ago, part time. But I cannot finish well, working 6 days a week for low pay and no benefits, even if the restaurant is one block away, and even though, thanks to my host-ish personality, I am amazing at what I do. So, I knew I would need to branch off into the things that will add to my degree and make me more hire-able in a field I have wanted to be in for a long time. My frustrations with the status quo were probably just my ego’s way of telling me it was time to hit the kick stand and really start this machine rolling. If you look at this the wrong way, it appears to be a step backward, but I think it’s a leap forward, freeing me from some responsibilities that are preventing me from doing what I want. Ah, here I go again, getting off course in this post. That’s what I don’t want to do.

I want to die free, as the song says, not at the wheel of someone else’s dream. So here is a song by my future sister-in-law, Katie, and her band Ashes for Trees. Their accoustic cover of “Wagon Wheel,” featuring the family animals, Buddy and Benny and honoring for Father’s Day a man who I am happy to know, the father of some very talented and beautiful people in my life.

I don’t post much of my own poetry here or on Youtube right now, but that’s mainly because I am working on the old fashioned printed form, submitting for publication. But eventually more and more of them will find audio visual release here as well. I also don’t post enough music, though I do love it, and my beloved is a musician whose videos you might have seen here before. Yes, this blog needs a tad more of that, as well as a tad more of my own journal-ly stuff.

I have been back to school, pursuing my art and my desire to teach (in one form or another), and while I have felt more than a bit discouraged in the workplace lately, a new-found Youtube friend has reminded me that I really do love and care about hospitality. I think I am currently burnt out on it though. The combination of spoiled Americans who sit at the table and create their own menu and are too easily apt to be rude or ungrateful, and the experience of caring more about someone else’s dream than they do… well, frankly I need to get away from this for a while, and concentrate on having more time to feed and please the people I love around my own table. Perhaps later in life I could come back to it as a profession, on my own terms, in a better economy. But for now, dear friends, why don’t you sit with me, pour a glass of wine for yourself from that bottle there, and then come to the kitchen. We’ll cut onions and cry and laugh, and make a rich sauce out of this life.

This week I’ll post some favorite musicians who inspire me in hopes that they inspire and encourage you too. First off, because I was just listening to this song for the tenth time today, here is that friend from Youtube, Mary Cigarettes performing his “Bootcamp for the Broken Hearted.” Coming up later today, a performance by my favorite musician of all, my own beloved Mr. BPK. Stay tuned (and yes, I’m a poet, so I intend that phrase to be understood on multiple levels)!

Mr. Frost handles here a very serious subject with a touch of dry New England humor as well as a moment or two of serious pondering. The images are all from google searches on hatred, ice, fire and desire. If one is yours and you prefer me not to use it, just let me know. I hope the presentation here does justice to Frost’s intentions.

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great,
And would suffice.

There really isn’t much more I can or should say about this poem, except that it is one that a favorite teacher and mentor of mine once read to me. It is splendid advice to the young or unpublished writer about not losing heart. But it is also a reminder that doctors are not doctors because they read about medicine; pilots are not pilots because they read the flight manual, or even 150 books about how to fly. “A real writer really writes,” the poet says, and so for me this piece becomes not only an encouragement but an indictment for those who dream but don’t do. Would you want a mechanic to fix your car if he has read all the specs, and memorized the names of the parts, but has never gotten his precious little hands greasy on a car before? A real poet might not be published, but she has most certainly written poetry.

Ok, ambiguous rant over. Here is the video. I hope you enjoy it.

“For the Young Who Want To”
by Marge Piercy

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

Marge Piercy, “For the young who want to” from Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). First appeared in Mother Jones V, no. 4 (May 1980). Copyright © 1980, 1982 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc.

CNN seems to not be cooperating with WordPress on this so please click here to open a new window and watch the second speech first.

As the next video shows, he is not only a presidential class act, but he also has a fine sense of humor. For many reasons this week, I am reminded why I voted for this man. Say what you will, but the United States of America has a leader of whom we can be proud.

By the way, it is National Poetry month in the United States, so do something to celebrate the occaision. Here are some ideas from the Academy of American Poets!

I sometimes have the flip camera and tripod in my bag when I feel inspiration approaching, like Stafford’s furring of little snow flakes out there in the atmosphere, heading my way. It served me well, despite a few interruptions and distractions the other night when the restaurant biz slowed down. So I hiked upstairs to the balcony and started recording. You’ll notice the pause between poems when an innocent bar customer passed below me toward the ladies room. Later in another video, the bartender was scared witless when she heard my voice from somewhere, saying “shit that didn’t even make sense!”

I guess I was a bit hard on the anthology, On Wings of Song. It’s gotten great reviews by poets and birders alike. I was just annoyed that Tennyson’s Eagle was not in the Birds of Prey section and that Hawks was another section, as if Hawks were not in fact birds of prey… yeah, I was being a prissy ass, wasn’t I? Well, I might have been alright with the section being changed to “Other Birds of Prey,” since it only featured only Vultures, Corbies and Kytes, but then again, such a great gathering of poems in a little pocket sized hardback probably was a bit tough to put into an order to satisfy every category. I just hope you guys don’t take my ranting and raving too seriously. It’s a great wee book, and I am looking forward to reviewing more from Billy Collins’ anthology Bright Wings as well.

The two poems are sweet little anthropomorphic bits that are fun to read, especially for kids. Hilaire Belloc’s poem is from his sequal to “Bad Child’s Book of Beasts,” “More Beasts for Worse Children.” It was at one time prominently posted on my refrigerator. I should perhaps post it there again.

“Vulture”
by X.J. Kennedy

The vulture’s very like a sack
Set down and left there drooping.
His crooked neck and creaky back
Look badly bent from stooping.
Down to the ground to eat dead cows
So they won’t go to waste
Thus making up in usefulness
For what he lacks in taste.

“The Vulture”
by Hillaire Belloc

The Vulture eats between his meals,
And that’s the reason why
He very, very, rarely feels
As well as you and I.

His eye is dull, his head is bald,
His neck is growing thinner.
Oh! what a lesson for us all
To only eat at dinner!

Here it is, already more than a week into April and I have done nothing to publicly promote National Poetry Month! Well, it was a busy, crazy start to April, so what can I say? This year I am not attempting to write a poem a day, but I may post some new ones here. I am in more of an editing and submission mode though, so I’ll do some readings here from my YouTube channel in order to promote what others are doing to celebrate the month.

This is my second reading of a poem by Jack Spicer. Read more about him here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jack-spicer

As for that crazy hair? I have no comment. :/

From my home to yours.

(And yes, that is non-alcoholic sparkling cider).