Have you ever been wrong?
I was wrong.
Ugly, smugly wrong.
Psephologically wrong.
Hit the iceberg,
smoking’s good for you,
the treaty of Versailles,
left on red,
Copernicus, Aristotle, Custer,
wrong.
I’m not claiming an excuse,
wrong.
It wasn’t you,
it was me,
wrong.
Just fricking
kiss a frog
wrong.
Wrong all along,
wrong about the world,
reevaluate me wrong,
wrong, wrong, wrong.
I can admit I was wrong.
Can you forgive me,
can I forgive me,
wrong
.
.
Songs for this:
Waters of March by John Roseboro & Mei Semones
Stabilise by Nilüfer Yanya

(this is another throw-back - a piece of writing, from high school, used in my Yale applications)

I pound the pillow, curse the clock and mock injunctions to rest.

The sun finally rises and its rays slantwise fall through the curtains as I dry my hair.

A meal, like a forced dose, we soak ourselves in wasted, nervous time.

Finally! We arrive at the competition...

Tension is here and tireless pressure.

The players waiting stiff as straw, tongues playing over dry lips.

Teachers and coaches unapologetic in their pallor.

Music drifts behind us and occasionally gasps, as imperfections play like daring circus tricks.

The sparkling prodigy returns disappointed, grimace of a smile, stricken, he stares away as we search for words, oh! clumsy, unrepairable prince!

Suddenly, its time and I wonder why we are hurrying, feeling weak, momentarily frightened to go there.

On this stage in this great, hushed hall, enormity suddenly dawns with mass enough to crush me.

At last, I sit before this odd Steinway music machine - my dearest mechanical friend.

A tremble resisted - the reward of mortal afternoons - endless practices fruit.

Eyes closed I prepare my best self - pushing all fear, all doubt, to the margins - and begin.

I hope, to recreate, one note at a time, Chopin's ancient impact - with hands flying, like tethered birds, I hammer out his timeless melody explosions, his streams of crazily exact math exam fiery semiquaver motions.. then, almost suddenly, I'm done.

I stand, joyously, nearly crying.. The world hasn't ended.
.
.
Songs for this:
12 Etudes, Op. 10: No. 4 in C-Sharp Minor by Vladimir Ashkenazy
Part of Your World by Emile Pandolfi
We gather together by Emile Pandolfi

(a poem in Senryus)

Let’s rerun the play,
take up strings, so the puppets
can start fresh their dance.

Summon the old ghosts—
Shakespeare’s doomed heroes
—pronounce them reborn.

Recall the actors,
lead horses from their pastures,
raise the curtains.

Pay Shylock his pound
of flesh, give Richard his horse,
let Viola love anew.

Old, ever-hallowed
villainy, once banished,
has taken new stage.

Human suffering,
live—don’t fret, you won’t miss it
—it’ll come to you.
.
.
Songs for this:
Kool Thing by Sonic Youth
End of the innocence by Don Henley
The Perfect Idiot by Fievel Is Glauque

Should I write a poem about Halloween,
full of psychological horrors and gruesome things?

Like deep romantic wounds getting infected,
herpe kisses or Donald Trump getting elected?

I could lean on shuddery tropes, like haunted houses
or more real world threats, like cutthroat spouses.

I could make you look up scary looking words, like Syncretism.

gasp What caused that creek in the floor?!
Who’s that banging on the door?

Is that blood on that rag?
Is there a body in that bag?
Is that your husband in drag!?

Relax, have fun, chill-out,
Oh, better get a bowl of candy out.

Happy Halloween!
.
.
Songs for this:
Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers
I Killed You by Tyler, The Creator

(A 'thought piece' I wrote in high school)

Ok, I'm not paid to think (like the TV shouting heads), I have no real voice (vote), and certainly no credentials - but I'm as invested in America as any high-school citizen can be. I've pledged allegiance 3000 times (hhmm.. do they doubt our loyalty?) and when it comes to loving America, I'd have to say my classmates and I are at the center of the spell.

I'm afraid we're growing up in the age of hate.. the age of phony outrage where each position large or small is high noon and violence is underfoot even when policing ordinary citizens.

We won't address the multitude of old problems in this new age.. we'll just unleash a marquetry of half truths to dispute the proven until unreasoned arguments reach their paranoid fullness.

The real world is alarming enough - lets just push that away and ignore it - while we're at it lets **** shame the poor, the old, the sick, the unemployed, the hungry and the hand of mercy.

I realize America was never one moral atom bonded for better.. but those anvils that forged us appear neglected or forsaken. I'm afraid what's happening now, what we're seeing and hearing now, is a symphony of erosion - that by the time I have any say at all, the middle class will be gone - america turned slum - where even the voice of despair will be turned traitor.

We'll only be able to see our greatness in museum souvenir shops where nothing is affordable and everything is made elsewhere.

My room, the suite, seemed too small.
I felt like I’d been in my room forever.
I’d developed a scratchy sense of stuckness
and a fresh, itchy awareness of dust particles
floating in the stifling, still air that made me
want to stop breathing in so much.

But I didn’t, categorically, have the energy
to get up and focusing seemed like a lot of effort.
I had a big midterm test, first thing this morning
and it laid me to waste, mentally. I think I did well
but it was a feat. Whenever I feel lifeless and weak,
I start to fear I’m coming down with something.

But then, everyone’s tired. The suite seems unnaturally
quiet, as if no one even has the energy to command
our ever-listening AI to play a playlist, so silence
ruled by exhausted default. It’s as if a low-pressure area had
descended to hold off a brush of refreshing ozone and rain.

Could I rouse my posse of symbiotic sort-of siblings
for an outing somewhere - like Toad’s bar - just across the street?
My door was open, so I called out, rather weakly, “Let’s go out!”
Someone, (Lisa sprawled out on the red corduroy couch?)
groaned listlessly from the common area. “My treat!” I updogged.

Five minutes later, it was showers all around. I love a good shower.
A shower’s where I ponder over the big questions, because
answers seem to come quickly there. I imagine I’d be wise
beyond words if I had a house with a waterfall running through it,
like one of those amazing, Frank Loid Wright masterpieces.
.
.
Songs for this:
The Duke Is Gone by Chuck Senrick
Cannock Chase by Labi Siffre

life happens.
It’s fall, it’s midterms
It’s election time.

New Haven’s giving a lot of fall.
I’ve been starting to feel the chills,
but things are turning cold and extra breezy,
so it all maks sense.

The good and bad can coexist closely,
is our energy dropping? Nope.

Whenever I think of voting,
I go back to American Idol.
My first voting experience.
It was 2009 and I was 14.
I was into Adam Lambert.
he didn’t win, and sure, I felt
a child's appreciable sense of outrage
millions and millions of us did
but we didn’t storm FOX Network
We cried into pillows and took it in stride.
Now Adam sings with Queen.
So I guess it worked out.
.
.
Songs for this
​​Bohemian Rhapsody by Adam Lambert
Do It Again (feat. Carolyn Leonhart & Robert Smith) by The Juju Orchestra