Mash Up

It’s been an incredible week for me as far as music is concerned.  This time last Sunday evening I spent a peaceful evening soaking up Matt Epp’s acoustic excellence and last night I had the face blown right off my head with a rousing show at the Sea King Club care of The Stanfields.  With friends present, cheap beer sloshing around in my hand I stomped, sang and was blown away by the balls out, fist-pumping grit only The Stanfields can provide in the way of their distilled cocktail; punk hues, Celtic rock gumption and blistering delivery.  Their new record ‘Death & Taxes’ is a fiery collection of songs that stay true to all the dirtiest drunks in the history of liquor.  My favorite changes on every listen but the title track is just simply awesome and just as explosive live.  The Stanfields are a gang of rock warriors who band together to … well … show their chops and get you drunk off your arse with their wares.  They succeed in spades.  They are kicking off their tour with Gloryhound sharing the bill.  If they roll into your town, do yourself a favor and line up.  I dare you.

I have rock ‘n’ roll hangover today but managed to have a great brunch date and time to polish a new poem that I’ve been pecking at for a few days.  One of my newer pieces appears this month in Open Heart Forgery.  I’ve been following the American election as well as the politics on Canadian soil as well as our mayoral election that is looming.  Politics are a conundrum.  Everyone strives to be right, strives for the power, and will lie cheat and steal to get it.  I fear for the American people of Mitt Romney takes office.  Obama may not be a perfect President but allowing the GOP to take control will throw the nation back to the stone ages.  Scary that we live in a world where things like women’s rights and topics such as birth control are even up for discussion, being talked about by uneducated dolts who believe a woman’s body shuts the potential for pregnancy if she is raped.  Unreal.  Someone missed sex ed in grade school?  Let’s see how they’d feel if it were their daughters.  I’m of the opinion that people have the right to be who they are, love who they desire, pray to their chosen entity all with equal human rights and health care.  Seems like common sense to me.  Yeah?  Big business, war and the un-ending struggle to be the most powerful over-shadows our basic human need to live peacefully and happily.  Nothing is more certain than death and taxes.  Pun intended.

So, I wrote this poem in response to the overwhelming intake of political information of late and submitted it for the October issue of OHF.  Always such an honour to be published with other great local writers:

Mash Up

passionate discussion

unforgettable impression

pos.

derisive laughter

oppressive tradition

neg.

formal constraints

avant-garde aesthetic

opp.

illustrated audience

a mirror morphs into

a magnifying glass

advance your own agenda

subtle seize

visceral shock

muddled melee

tender tussle

true/false

right/wrong

&

the dangers of all

the things we take

for granted

**

Just as a reminder, if you live in the Halifax area, you can find copies of Open Heart Forgery all over town, in cafes, coffee houses, lobbies, nooks and crannies everywhere.  You are encouraged to forge it, share it and do it all over again the following month.  It’s such a brave and inspiring undertaking and so good for our area. I love stumbling across it when I’m in my travels.  Everyone needs a little poetry.

I wouldn’t typically share two poems in one post but as I said, I’ve been pecking at this new one now for a few days and feel like I’m ready to share it.  It sprung up after a quiet night I spent by myself, thinking.  Take from it what you need to but it soothed a deep ache that cropped up and surprised me.  My response to it was to write it out.

Wave of Staggering Loss

there is a detached mercy

that cannot be seen in us

as we stare into

self-descriptive sunlight

we are guided

perhaps misled

while reaching to accept

a wave of staggering loss

permissible

& audible

in a conflagration

of svelte language

intended to disarm

intended to defuse

unbendable nightmares

choreographed

by a nettled stir

converged

with a downward rapture

all designed to

question our brio

in accordance with

a degree of controversy

loss

our deconstruction

our keen denial

versus

our normative truth

**

And there you have it, a little of this and that, a little bit of poetry and now I’m going to set my iTunes to a new and awesome set-list I’ve prepared to aid me while I try my hand at making homemade fudge.

Hope your Sunday was full of love and peaceful feelings.

In propinquity,

Nic