Poetica Concretica

A ratio:

Killingly/Livingly=Thrillingly

cheap poetry is a cheap game:
Which is harder on the heart?
Which is harder on the hands?
Harder on the man?
cheap poetry as a cheap game:

These things in a room:
Severed hands
severed head
Limbs apart
the color red
a bomb
a mask
a man in pain (oh god the pain)
the soldiers knife
the thrill
the gory glory
and the pain.

And what's the name of this room?

Across the hall these things in a room:
ecstatic souls
a joyous day
the color white
a dove
and roses
sweaty night
heart in bloom
same in womb
some pointless fight
Severed hands
severed heads
severed hearts
sorry souls
and pain of being apart.

What's the name of this room?

Each room is empty fill it up!
And which is harder on the heart?

postlude concrete

on my desk:
blue bottle
Metronome
pencil
eraser
14 "cd"s
8 markers
nicor bill
ComEd bill
Photograph of my sister
Cell phone
Tea
Note pad
lamp
computer
In my head this poem:

A dead man.
Take a skull.
cover it in paint.
rub against canvas.
skull against canvas.

add on novel mini addition

Previous chapters down yonder, I'll link to them when I'm feeling less lazy.

CHAPTER 5.1

Yes, this was definitely my funeral. And there's my cousin....

And what is that scratching my nose.... it seems to be a hand...
Dah! get it away!

Nothing happens... I open my mouth to speak and in a strange voice I say, "come now, lets go home."

Very very strange. I would have never guessed from the movies that this is what it would feel like to be... uh, haunting someone, if that's what I'm doing.

I'm fat.

And sweating.

I wish I could be nervous or something but I can't. But I feel...

The strange voice again; "I'm starving lets go get some burritos."

I like pictures

pictures that k doesn't like. Thank you to Je Suis for the linkage.

Poetic Aesthetic

EDITED

First let me put a link here: Keri

Before I said something that wasn't really true, that I prefer her prose to her poetry, where it's really just a mater of my mood.

Too many thoughts to try to parse them out coherently here... here are a couple of poems that hopefully do part of the job for me. They were written on the day that the US attacked Iraq.

Our Poetry, My Love, is Death

How today can I write to you
who know my mind without words?

In this jarring age, can I
express, with our shared
lexicon, the beauty I witness in you?

"Mission: Endurring Love" (around the clock coverage!)


"Showdown in LoveTown!"

or perhaps

"Target: LOVE"

Simple words mask our
profound horrors,
Our poetry, my love, is death.

Words have become brutal instruments
of death.
Language no longer reveals or shares
it scabs festering lies and death.

In it's ennui it is death and
even in extremity it is banal:
How many who shit and fuck and bleed
can be erased with one callous
Euphemism: "collateral damage."

So hold me, and listen to my body.
My warmth against your skin.
Confesses one shared future together.
Share your lips, and share with me
what can never be made an act of
war.

Postlude to "Our Poetry:" a Pastoral Dance

In your eyes, my love I see death,
and on your lips I taste it.
And though your breath is sweet
my love, it's daggers to me and death.

And all about your smooth white skin
(which almost seems too white)
is wrapped a chain of skulls my dear
(a chain of endless night.)

And on your fine white clothing love
(which almost seems too fine)
are tiny hand prints, see them love--
much smaller than yours or mine?

I see them hold hands with death as they sew,
(hands with death as they sew!)

And we too hold tight their frail wrists
(as we sow and reap)
and 'round the world the chain goes...

Ah, thank the lordy it's spring break!

And I'm done with teaching for a week. The last week or so I feel like I've been hanging from the sanity tree by my teeth. Right now I've been learning music for a concert in April, programming a sort of recital at my college, working on some ideas with spectral analysis and teaching and it's just too much.

I think I'm going to pretty up some pictures of voices because I think it's really interesting. I've really learned to literally see the beauty in voices... this week I intend to post some explanations of what I mean....

I murdered my ex wife, what did you do?

The place: Federal maximum security penitentiary. Even through the dim lighting you can see the grime and grease-stained floors-- rusted bars.

The dark figures of hardened criminals rise and swarm around the new addition to their cell. They swagger and strut menacingly with the body language of sharks surrounding their pray.

Inmate one: Fresh meat on deck boys!

(sounds of laughter. The new guy, LUCKYMORTAL sits quietly but intensely, unmoved by the taunts of the other criminals)

Inmate two: Well, fresh meat, you gonna tell us your name?

Luckymortal doesn't respond, he just continues to sit in silence.

Inmate two: You hear me fresh meat?! I'm talkin' t'you! Why, I ought ta rip you up, just like I did that stupid....

Inmate three: that's right, "Sharkey" here, he killed his mail carrier. Ripped her apart with his bare hands! (some more laughter. Inmate three continues quietly in a raspy voice:) Me, I killed my wife. Stabbed her sixteen times in that black pit she called a heart. What did you do to get here fresh meat? Go on and confess your sins before we mop up the floor in here with your worthless hide!

(finally, luckymortal rises slowly, his face just inches away from the other inmate's. He doesn't flinch, staring at him with his soulless eyes. He spits on the floor. Them slowly and calmly, his hardened voice rasping:

Luckymortal: I conjugated a verb in front of some mexicans

commotion ensues, the other prisoners recoil with shocked expressions of horror. Luckymortal curls his lip with a menacing snear and laughs a cold evil laugh....

This blog drama brought to you by HR 4437, which would criminalize helping undocumented immigrants in any way: including teaching them English. The bill would make such violations of immigration law "aggravated felonies"-- a category usually reserved for the most violent crimes like premeditated murder and rape.

Music Brain Again

Well, I'm finally feeling better....
but now I'm all up in music brain again and I can't write anything.

A little more on immigration policy:

Firstly, I have to say that I am for a stronger immigration policy of some kind. I think that our current immigration status is dangerous for the American economy for the same reason that out-sourcing is; it turns us into a banana republic. It is a continuation of the ruinous policy of allowing an American elite to sell off our Autarky for personal profit. The end result is predictable and disastrous.

However, the proposed bill 4437 is soulless and cruel and would only push us further down the road to a Argentinean style economy.

This bill is the very definition of fascist economics. It would punish victims (small businesses-- the victims of our national economic policy of destroying small business, and immigrants) while appealing to nationalistic sentiment. It's main goal is to hinder small local businesses while helping big-business, further concentrating wealth in the hands of the ultra-wealthy-- the definition of fascist economics....

Just plain bad news.

Immigration Law

(Written with help from my English Students)

All over the country, Americans of all colors are coming out to protest a new “anti-immigration” law. The law: HR 4437 the Hastert/Sensenbrenner “Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act” is intended to make America safer. However many people say that the bill will do little to make America safer, and do much to hurt immigrants tourists and the American way.
The new law has already passed in the House of Representatives, and Republicans are trying to pass the law quickly in the Senate, before there is any debate.
Here are some parts of the new law:
 It will be illegal for any person, organization or agency to aid illegal immigrants in any way. If the bill is passed, services like doctors, free English Classes, and shelters and even churches could be used to put illegal immigrants in prison.
 It will make immigration laws “aggravated felonies.” The term Aggravated felony” is usually for the most violent crimes like intentional murder and rape.
 The bill will change the “Burden of Proof.” In the United States, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. The new law will make the immigrant responsible for proving that he or she is here legally.
 Local governments and police will be given the right to take care of immigrants as they want to without the courts getting involved. All government agencies (even the fire department and hospitals) will be required help find illegal immigrants.
 The government can deport even legal immigrants for minor crimes. These minor crimes will be classified as “aggravated felonies” and will have harsh penalties.
 700 miles of border fence .
 Mandatory worker legal verification through electronic means for all employers phased in over several years.
 Elimination of the visa lottery.
If you want to do something about this law, you can write to your Senators. Also there will be a March against H.R. 4437 - Friday, March 10th at noon at the Federal Plaza (Kluczynski Building), 230 S. Dearborn St. When: 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Come join immigrants from all over the nation in a historic march this Friday, March 10th at 12 noon! We need to send a message to the nation!

Light blogging

a little longer. I've been feeling a little under the weather. I hope to be back to it by the weekend.

Trogdor Rogers!

Ah, a nice romantic evening at home....

Wait, it's quality time that's important, right?

Dick Cheney Ninjas karate chopping our children-- oh the humanity!

An interesting (and looong) article on government intervention in violent video games atIGN.COM And a discussion of the article at slashdot.

Everyone today is worried about violence in the media. "Too many Ninjas karate chopping robots." But worst of all, our children are now pretending to be ninjas karate choppng robots and the fancy graphics of modern video games make their kung fu antics very realistic. And many are now crying out to ban these games, or at least take strong actions to keep them away from children.

As the article points out, Censorship is not new. But let me add a little music history perspective to the discussion. Ancient Greece was a pretty boring place to be: No ninjas. No robots. But even back then, the likes of Plato (in Republic) advocated for censorship of certain music "modes" because the were too... (drum roll please)...

"non violent."

That's right Plato led an effort which actually ended in certain city states (sparta- but not plato's native athens) passing laws to ban certain music modes because they were too gentle and might make young men too "soft" and "sentimental" and hence utterly useless in war.

This leads me to the conclusion that we're missing the whole point of violence in media-- it's not good, it's not bad-- it's about pragmatics. All media has a certain effect-- well, what kind of effect do you want to have? Not good or bad-- it's about skillful use of media or unskillful use of media. The US government has certainly come to the same conclusion. If you ever wanted clear proof that our culture has deteriorated into a sort of comic-book, Science fiction, Klingon-war-society then check out the US Army page here

That's right, the maker of the two most popular extreme violence video games today is the US Government.

Hmm, so what kind of society do we want to have? To me, the effects of violent media are horrible for our society, and according to psychologists, the effects are the same on adults as they are on children!

But are more laws the answer? Well, although the US has fewer protections for consumers and workers than any other western nation, it has more outlawed behaviors than any other country in the world (accept in some people's opinions the few countries with strict sharia law-- though this is debated!) Gee, with fewer freedoms (to act freely and freedom from government intervention in our lives) than any country you might start getting the idea that we arn't the beacon of freedom we say we are. So lets not make "the terrorists", who "hate freedom," jealous by throwing yet another freedom on the fire.

Yet again, my solution is that people need to be taught to take responsibility for the state of their minds, and to understand how our minds actually work. People need to be pragmatic about how we keep the state of our minds-- do you want to walk around all the time with our fight or flight mechanism turned on? Do we want our children to do that too?

So how does violent media effect us? Here are the best parts of the article: (keep in mind that the results for violent to and movies is Double that of video games, and the amount of time spent with these media increases the effect hugely!)


Playing videogames with aggressive content does have an effect on children, teens, and adults. In children and teens, several results are associated with exposure to aggressive videogames.

First, youth experience an increase in arousal that suggests an increase in tension that may contribute to aggressive behavior.

Second, youth engage in more aggressive thinking about others and changes their attitudes toward people as they emerge from play more likely to believe that others are interested in harming them.

Third, play diminishes the level of empathy that kids have for other people.

Fourth, play has an effect on the amount of aggressive behavior demonstrated in verbal aggression, teasing, and some physical aggression by increasing the frequency of these actions...

Finally, playing and viewing does desensitize people to aggressive images and the impact of aggression on others. After play and viewing, children are much less distressed by images of characters being hurt or killed, and, given their reduced empathy, more likely to engage in aggressive behavior against others.

Got Voice?

I recently attended a performance a friend was in, and he asked me for some advice on singing from a voice teacher perspective. So I rather quickly hatched out an email and then I realized that (amazingly) what I had written communicated my philosophy on studying voice pretty clearly. So I decided to reprint parts of it here. I intend to improve on this in the future, but....




If you want to work on your singing, here's what I'd have to say: "don't WORK on your singing." Many people think in terms of "vocal problems" and such, and this is a very ruinous way of thinking. Don't try to fix anything or change anything, don't try to "project," and especially don't try to "sing forward"-- then you lose the special qualities that make your voice unique. Besides this, by over analyzing, we only get in our own way-- read "the inner game of tennis" or "a soprano on her head" by Elois Ristad-- Your Language Brain is quite separate from the parts of your brain that you want involved in your singing That is unless your trying to learn to conjugate "the hill are alive". A great singer will approach singing the same way a great athlete would-- with visualization. And the other parts of your brain will do quite well at improving your voice if you just get out of the way and let them.

Firstly, for this to happen, your voice has to have it's own natural balance, so always try to find the relaxed and easiest effortless way to sing. Listen to the tone of your voice and imagine it as beautiful as you can. Listen to good singing and let it have an imagined visual footprint in your head-- what does a good voice "look" like? By doing this, you're allowing all of your brains resources to get involved in your voice progress. And most importantly, sing often-- and sing with a vivid imagination. Learn to visualize your own voice the way you visualize other voices.... Slowly, your voice will start to look like the voices you consider beautiful (and sound like them too) without loosing the characteristics that make it unique.

But you should also pick good models for you to listen to.... Right now I'm doing research with spectral analysis and voice types.... You know that every sound we hear is actually a composite of different pitches... well these pitches are different for different voice types. And some of these things are unchangable. This is at least my future thesis, and my research thus far bears it out. You can imitate a different voice type, but from the stage, it will always sound like your voice, because you can't get the right harmonic response....

Male voices have four formants (or main pitches that make up the sound). The first is the actual pitch you are singing. The second has to do with making different vowel sounds. The third adds a feeling of space in the voice. The fourth formant is called "the singers formant" and it is really a combination of the fourth fifth sixth and seventh formants. This is ring in the voice, but it's different for tenors, baritones and bases. Tenors for example have a lot of ring in the fifth sixth and seventh formants, whereas bases have all of the energy concentrated in the fourth formant, with almost no energy in the fifth and above this is what makes a voice dark and bassy. This is my voice. I can try to sound like a tenor, and it works up close, but I can not generate energy above the Fourth formant, so from the stage I always sound like a bass-- a bass doing a bad imitation of a tenor!

So basically, just relax and sing, and don't worry too much (at this point) about changing anything. Just build your ear and your imagination. And enjoy singing.