Jason - Family

Seven Wooden Tiles, for my Grandmother

The seven wooden tiles longed to find their place,
Her fingers brushed the plate and potential arose.
The seven wooden tiles longed to find their place,
A word to beat my dad so cleverly composed.
Our time with her was treasured. Moments sought and sweet,
Her fingers brushed the plate and potential arose,
An orange became the wings. A simple loving feat,
A ritual of fruit and joy delivered so.
Our time with her was treasured, moments sought and sweet,
Long hours of delight locked away in sorrow.
That moment I found Juicy Fruit, unwrapped, her gum,
A ritual of fruit and joy delivered so.
And so, that flavor, did my mind unlock and run.
An empty chair remains beside the board I see,
That moment I found Juicy Fruit, unwrapped, her gum.
I’m taken back to Scrabble games, the apple tree,
The seven wooden tiles longed to find their place.
An empty chair remains beside the board I see,
And seven wooden tiles long to find their place.

Justin - Family Terzanelle

February Snow, for Golden Smith Jr.

If his last hug contained a way to know,
That we would never meet on Earth again,
Departing in the February Snow.
 
If I had known what I know now then,
Would it have changed a thing about the day?
(That we would never meet on Earth again.)
 
Would we have found more poignant things to say,
Unraveling secrets hidden deep within?
Would it have changed a thing about the day?
 
If I’d known to ask, where to begin?
What could I have learned given a week,
Unraveling secrets hidden deep within?
 
This mythic giant though would seldom speak,
Yet always say “I love you” and “Goodbye.”
What could I have learned given a week?
 
Could I have seen by looking in his eye?
Did his last hug contain a way to know?
Yet still I’d say “I love you” and “Goodbye,”
Departing in the February Snow.

Jason - Patriotism

Introducing..

In so many ways our guest speaker shows us what is great about America. I remember the first time I saw him, up to his armpits in charcoal dust and a crazy look in his eyes. He was talking about some truly miserable work, but his smile certainly made him look like he was having a good time. While his TV show was not glamorous, often showing filth and rot, it never failed to show the valor of hard work. It became a kind of celebration of the American worker.

From that he did what might be the most American of activities, which is leveraging his success into a cause. Now, this wasn’t some “Save the Pigeons” or “Make the Desert Green” type program. This was a cause to reinvigorate skilled trades. As part of that program he even went before congress to express the need to change our perception of skilled trades. Extending the very thing he had been doing on TV, telling those bureaucrats their strength was from the workers they represented. He showed them greatness there.

In the speeches he gives to executives in Fortune 500 companies he tells them about our most free and most virtuous nation. He warns them not to rest on their wealth, that it was their effort, not their titles, that make the difference. He tells of maggot farmers who love life and the need for the noble trash collector. He brings warnings and encouragement. Greatness is not in rent seeking.

These audiences, though, are not his only ones. He writes to the young, particularly Eagle Scouts. To each Eagle Scout he writes a letter and, while he would not bill it as such, he tells them what is great about America. That the title Eagle Scout, while it is a great accomplishment, it doesn’t get them anything, it doesn’t mean anyone owes them anything. They do not have a destiny controlled by being an Eagle Scout. Their future is still theirs to make. They need to put what they have earned to use. The greatness of America will be in the future they make, not in the badge they have earned. 

See we have brought this man to talk to us today because he brings us a unique song of America, a distinctive brand of patriotism, which celebrates our past, but doesn’t rest on it and doesn’t pretend it is perfect. It looks forward to the future, but doesn’t think anyone is entitled to some kind of free ride. The real meat of his patriotism is about the work of today, hard work. The beauty of America is in her Dirty Jobs. So, without further ado, let me introduce Mike Rowe.

Justin - Patriotism

Thomas Jefferson Introducing the newest member ASDP

Welcome everyone to the annual gathering of the American Society of Deceased Patriots. Before we get started, can a waiter see to Mr. Henry?  We don’t need him interrupting the proceedings with one of his “Give me chardonnay or give me death,” speeches.  Seriously, Patrick, you’ve been dead for more than two hundred years; give it a rest.

Did everyone enjoy the musical number from Hamilton?  Alex, I didn’t know you could sing like that; and dance.  I haven’t enjoyed a musical this much since 1776, but that was mostly because of how they painted Adams.  “Sit down, John.”  Abe, did you like it?  He hasn’t seen the show yet; he’s still a little wary about going to the theatre.  What, too soon?  It’s been seven score and eleven years; that’s how you like to count it, right Abe?  Long enough.  Later on, for those interested, Abe, George, Teddy, and I will be doing a Rushmore up here by the stage if you want selfies.

One final note, the annual District haunting tour will be taking place as scheduled but, and this is for you Sons of Liberty boys, no native costumes. Seriously, Sam we’re better than that.  It’s culturally insensitive and it’s time to grow up. Come as you are.   

But let’s get down to why we are really here.  We are here to add a new member to our ranks; a man whose merits we have been debating for the last century and a half.  There has been much trepidation about calling him a patriot as some among us saw him rather as a rebel if not as a terrorist.  He sparked years of discussion, sometimes heated, about what it means to be an American patriot.  This society was founded on the idea that patriotism meant love for our country and an unyielding loyalty to her.  As debate progressed, we all agreed on the love for country, but many of us thought that unyielding loyalty sounded a bit to like the old Tories: loyal to the crown, blind to its faults.

What we finally came to was that a patriot should show a great love for his country, an unyielding loyalty to her core values, and a willingness to sacrifice of himself to make her better.  As for core values, we looked to those three unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Please, no applause; I wrote the document but I cannot take credit for the idea.  What we must realize is that these rights are interdependent. Pursuit of happiness must be supported by liberty and neither is possible without life, though I think we’re all doing okay for a bunch of stiffs.  Sometimes one must lay his life on the altar of liberty or risk his individual liberty in our pursuit of greater happiness.  Many here risked or lost their lives in the fight for our nation’s liberty and in the hope of a greater opportunity towards the pursuit of happiness for our progeny.  However, whereas we revolutionaries were fighting in hopes of securing our own liberty, our own happiness, this man did not fight for himself, but so that the liberty already secured for him, might be likewise secured for others. 

This man was by birth was afforded all of the rights of a citizen of the United States.  His father was a business owner; he was able to attend college; he eventually became a business owner himself.  He could have enjoyed the full fruits of the tree of liberty, but the pursuit of happiness was for him tainted by the liberty and happiness he saw withheld from his fellow man. He realized that his rights, no man’s rights hold full value while the government set to protect those rights, withholds them from men and women within its borders. So, setting aside his privilege, knowing that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, he laid down his life at that tree to fight against the great tyranny of slavery that many of us present, myself included, so ignorantly left as a growing cancer eating away at the promise of our beloved country. A cancer that, so many years later, our grandchildren’s grandchildren continue to work to heal the scars left by its removal.  He watered the tree of liberty with his blood so that his brother, that brother that we had left enslaved, could also partake of its precious fruit of freedom. This man did not remove the tumor of slavery on his own, but he did sway our country, nay, push it by violent force towards its removal.

So here I present to you our newest member; though his body “lies a-moldin’ in the grave, his truth is marching on.”  Let us hope that it continues to march on until it truly is self-evident in our beloved land that those who have come after us believe, truly believe that all men, all people, are created equal.  Ladies and Gentlemen, the newest member of the American Society of Deceased Patriots: John Brown.      

Justin - Conspiracy

About the writing

Originally, I chose the form for this piece to be two stanzas of ottava rima.  After writing two stanzas I realized that it was not sufficient.  So I asked Jason if he would mind if the requirement was changed to at least two stanzas with no maximum.  Being flexible, he agreed and so I churned out another four stanzas.  Six stanzas ottava rima is by no means a tour de force, Keats’ Isabella is sixty-three stanzas, but I don’t make my living off of poetry, though I might like to, so my writing is interrupted by trivial things like working for a living.  Not to say that poetry is not work, but for me it is a hobby, that is work I do to relax.

Ottava rima is, as our linguist readers can tell, an Italian form of poetry where each stanza has eight lines and a specific rhyme structure (a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c.)  It was not a form I was familiar with before selecting it, but found that I enjoyed the form.  Like many strict structures, major changes in tone can be made with minor shifts.  For this poem, switching the lines of the final couplets made a big difference with my first two stanzas (which are now the first and last stanza.)  My struggle was the conspiracy narrative within the form.  I’m still not sure how clear it is, but it should be read as a peasant’s uprising or a socialist revolution from an older time in history.  So, am I making a pro-socialist statement?  Not necessarily, but my revolutionaries are taking a stand against an unfair system, and that I support.  Of course they are my revolutionaries, why wouldn’t I support them?

This poem really wanted punctuation.  Most of you who are regulars know my aversion to punctuating poetry.   This one, if I were to make a change or if I did make my living from poetry, would be punctuated.  As it is, I think most of you can handle a question without a question mark. Can’t you

For Gold or for Iron
Gathered in wooded glade ‘neath slivered moon
The four stood round to make their final plan
That acting must replace the speaking soon
Was known by each that made this wayward clan
And if the crime should bring them to a boon
Through silt and water shining in their pan
By daring shadow work saved for the bold
Then they could trade this iron for the gold

The four were farmers tied to rented land
Tenants working for their landlord’s gain
Together they had raised a rebel band
Together they would break the binding chain
For they had watched their fathers’ blistered hands
Fight for each shilling pressing through the pain
And they had watched those hands as they grew old
Driving an iron plow for master’s gold

While what they earned the lord took as his spoil
They inherit only tenancy and debt
Bearing not to think this sacred soil
The aged farms that their forefathers let
Land hollowed by sweat and blood of toil
Could never be in reach for them to get
So though the thought of failure left them cold
They’d use their iron to get at their gold

With their small band they’d siege the house at night
Circling to cut off all means of egress
Show him that the workers have the might
But hoping with restraint him to impress
To cause the lord to see what was their right
To own the land they work and nothing less
And though it might cause the estate to fold
Their iron would no more provide his gold

And if they take the scripture as God’s light
That those that do not work should not be fed
The landlord should see that he has no right
To rest and eat from other’s hard earned bread
So thinking that the Lord had heard their plight
And knowing that His word should be plain read
No longer to the master will they bow
But seek the gold they’ve earned with iron plow

But as no map is always plainly read
No plan can be complete without the deed
As paper routes look differently when tread
So action may find words in wanting need
But boldly still they plot with reverent dread
Knowing the master may not their words heed
Might boldness’ flame burn out to smoking puff
Or chasing vaunted gold find iron cuff

Jason - Conspiracy

The Conspiracy

The ancient shadow cast enslaves our fears,
It whispers of a world order new.
But wisdom we have gained over the years,
The clear and mundane truth it can not skew.
If everything is not as it appears,
The great cabal must meet without a clue.
Their moves stretch like a great accordion.
They must be hid in ravel Gordian.

But there are questions that I have to ask.
Who placed those upright stones in Georgia corn?
What drug created MKULTRA’s task?
How can the Clinton body count not warn?
Were saucer sightings In Roswell a mask?
One reason is why these stories are born!
Illuminati! Masons! Templar Knights!
Bohemian Grove they plotted for nights.

I look to see the strings that force my hand.
Then everywhere I see the mark of Mouse.
The pattern now I think I understand,
And how he got that castle for a house.
With baited joy the rodent traps the man,
Pinocchio to pleasure island lost!
The Hidden Mickey plot you can’t unsee,
The Seven Seas Lagoon Conspiracy!

Justin - 9/11

About the writing

Part of the intention was to have this not punctuated, a kind of stream of consciousness. What I saw after the first pass was that it was hard to read. I added capitals to kind of make sentences. I think it’s still choppy and hard to read, but I don’t want this to become something other than the inner monologue it is supposed to be.

The other challenge was in keeping with that day and not tracing the fifteen years since. It is difficult not to trace that patriotic unity through the nationalistic fervor and polarizing politics that replaced it so quickly. That brings up what was emotionally the hardest part of this piece; it was not the remembering of our nation being attacked and the images of broken buildings and broken lives, but remembering where we were together and unified and seeing how quickly we deteriorated into our polarizing hate. The hardest part was imagining how we could have responded, how we did early on, and seeing where we are now.  I wonder if we can be so unified only when we are so broken.

9/11
That doesn’t sound right How could a plane hit one of the giant towers of the World Trade Center it must have been a small plane with an amateur pilot A second plane This was no accident I wish we had a TV here Shouldn't we be going home I don’t think this little bit of steel we are cutting justifies still being at work The boss says what are we going to do if we leave I don’t know get a better grasp on what’s happening see the news reports see what it means that a two planes hit the towers in New York Now the Pentagon Rumors even in this small shop flourish about other planes where they are heading what other targets there might be Going about the normal things I do on a normal day seems surreal  

Finally I see the images that others have seen all day The tower burning the second plane hitting The towers collapsing as ash and dust billowing in huge clouds in the streets of Manhattan People wander the streets like children lost in the supermarket We all seem a little lost They start showing walls of flyers pictures with notes Call me we are looking for you Let us know you are ok No one is ok NO one will be ok for a while But we are together All of us are together Lost Confused Together

Jason - September 11

On the writing

This week was  a hard one, for a few reasons.  First, the topic was on 9/11 which for most of us comes with a bundle of emotions.  Trying to remember how we were before, what it was like in the days and moments while events unfolded, the things we think and do now as a result.  It is a mass of wires and some of them shock.  Secondly, I selected stream of consciousness as a writing style, meaning no real adherence to punctuation or grammar, just very loose prose.  It was actually much harder than I thought it would be.  I worked on mine all week until late last night.  It evolved over time.  I am not sure this is the final form of this piece, but it is the one I can post this morning.  I hope you enjoy it.

Falling

the programming suddenly didn’t matter for in that moment something had happened an interruption something to break up the morning a dark intermission presented on a clean plastic table which had been dragged into the office and was straining under the weight of a large TV placed on top of it and now it was blaring talk of a plane in New York City hitting a building and reality was FALLING everything warped until there was only the impact a smoking hole in glass and steel that consumed the noise the speculation the everything which came before until from that past and through the smoke a second plane flew and crashed vanishing into the mirrored side scarring the sister tower and stunning all of us watching from our wheeled over office chairs which were not unlike the office chairs being used to shatter windows so victims could escape the heat and suddenly they were FALLING cameras watching their decent down down down into the horror the confusion everyone wanted to know what was happening an accident or terror certainly two planes crashes at the same site could not be pilot error the odds would just be unthinkable and it was because of the depth of this unthinkable many of us started to call our homes our wives and children to have dozens of the same conversations, conversations of many questions and few answers and then it happened with moans and screams second tower hit was the first to fall FALLING tumbling in on itself crumbling and collapsing creating a cloud of dust and debris papers and glass hiding the steel teeth which still remained erect pouring out destruction and anguish covering the light of the sun and uprooting us grinding us into something else freezing us in place until the first tower too was FALLING leaving this gap in the skyline this symbol of loss and betrayal a black hole which would draw us all together binding us into a single heavy mass a great weight a collective where all of the divisions which separated us cease to have meaning crushed under the weight of the moment a moment which had us holding hands and going to churches and leaning on each other recognizing our mutual need for each other we would be one and be lifted together lifted to heights we hadn’t imagined and then we would crest and again we would be FALLING falling from unity to hate and a desire for revenge we would strike back again and again on foreign soil and innocents at home we craved that unity that patriotism that bonding we felt when we held each other staring at what wasn’t there and cried but we can’t seem to find it I never want to feel what I felt as I watched that newscast from my office on a TV dragged in but I do want to feel that unity that came afterwards but instead all I feel and all I see is FALLING still FALLING

Justin - Song Parody

About the writing

I had a huge mental block on this.  At first I wanted to write a song parody about Zeus and his adulterous ways.  The humor behind a mythology where most of the problems involve the gods’ inability to keep it in their respective togas seemed ripe.  But I just couldn’t get it written.  I finally asked my wife for suggestions and came up with Narcissus singing to his reflection Nothing Compares 2 Me based on the late Prince’s song made famous by Sinead O’Conner.

This song shows the big difference between written and performed poetry.  The rhythm works only in the confines of the tune and without it, it seems meandering and rough.  Regardless, Prince was a poet and so where some phrases fit well I left them (notably the opening line of the first verse and the second of the second.) 

I find the song and the idea humorous.  One of the things I had to consider was that while in the myth Narcissus is staring at his own reflection, he is unaware of it.  So, should I then have him singing “Nothing compares to you” versus “…to me”? I considered this, but found that him exemplifying the mental disorder named after him, at least for the refrain, held more humor.

I doubt “Weird Al” will be recording a set of mythological parodies anytime soon, but I think it would be fun to see what other people might try.  As for font and handling, one should print on 3 x 5 index cards and sing these lyrics at your Greek themed karaoke toga party.

 

Nothing Compares 2 Me- Narcissus

 
It’s been seven hours and fifteen days
Since I found this lovely face
I can’t sleep at night and stare all day
Since I’ve found this lovely face
 
Since I’ve found you there’s nothing more I want
There’s no one I’d rather see
I’ll stay here till I grow weak and gaunt
Because of you
You’re the only thing as fine as me
 
And nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 me
 
I’d been so lonely ‘til I met you
Like a bird without a song
Though you don’t speak you just stare back at me
Tell me baby how could we go wrong
 
I could go with all the girls that hit on me
But they’re not as pretty as us
A man walked by and guess what he told me
Guess what he told me
He said “Son you need to get away from that reflecting pool”
But he’s a fool
 
‘Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 me
 
All the flowers Gaia planted
In the whole world
All fade when I look your way
I know that I should leave and find a girl
But none could ever catch my eye
 
Nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 me
Nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 me
Nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 me

 

Jason - Song

On the writing

This week we worked on a Song Parody, which can be kind of hard to do, but I like them quite a bit.  It is not uncommon, at our dinner table, to take some Disney song and rewrite it to be able some tragedy.  So, this week I had a bit of fun taking What a Wonderful World and giving it a bit of a Greek flare.  In this case Hades at the end of the harvest welcoming home Persephone.

Hot and Dark Underworld (To Persephone)

Eight long months on earth,
while wheat fields grew.
That means it's time,
for me and you.
And I make you come back,
To my dark underworld.

You’ll see Tartarus,
And feel it's might.
The king’s judgement day,
The raw frantic fright.
And you see for yourself,
Hot and dark underworld.

The eddies of tormented,
The hopeless rushing by.
The expressionless faces,
Of people who have died.
You’ll see friends contemplate,
Thinking, "What did I do?"
What I’m really saying,
"I miss you".

You’ll see my great wealth,
The palace glow,
I’ve built you a throne,
on which you’ll go.
And you see for yourself,
Hot and dark underworld.

Yes, you see for yourself,
Hot and dark underworld.

Oh yeah.