American Management Styles:

This old pencil sketch is from a series I made years ago, called American Management Styles. Wish I could find the rest of them.....

Poem for April 2 - HIT THE BRICKS

This is NaPoWriMo #2 - the prompt was to write a poem based on a lie. Like all my poems it is subject to change. This started with the moon/green cheese lie and grew more true.... or not.

HIT THE BRICKS

The high moon is pale as a ruined stockbroker.
The earth is blue as chapter 11.
The sea's a flood of worthless greens.
On the day after, everything will be alright,
or everything will collapse to chaos.
Nothing will ever be usual or unusual.

The key is in the wrong ignition for a timely get-away
and the spin is this: the tires are deflated and
the emergency checklist has a forever stamp of disapproval.
The half smile is a tiny light in my right eye. In my left eye
is the tell - a tiny twitch. Call and I'll show my hand.
Which hand did you want? Both are on the wheel
but it's too late to drive far.

-- mm walker

Honoring The Women Beats

Helen Peterson

Yvon Cormier

An event called Women Beat Era Poets/Authors/Artisits: A Celebration, took place at Broad Street Bookstore in Middletown, CT on Sunday. Like most women during the 50s, they were a bit under-exposed, and despite their own rebellions they seemed overshadowed at the time by their outlaw men.  I have to admit I enjoyed listening to their work.
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 Poet Yvon Cormier who organized the event, asked to me read poems representing someone, and I chose Jay Defeo - a visual artist rather than a poet, who now in retrospect is considered one of the definitive American Abstract Expressionists.
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Joan Kantor

Colon Haskins

For the occasion I put together six poems, five so called found poems gleaned from her own words as found in a lengthy oral history interview with Defeo conducted around 1976. The last was a reaction poem to her monumental one ton painting, The Rose which was eleven feet high, eight feet wide, 11 inches deep and eight years of effort long. It's now owned by the Whitney Museum.
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Dolores Lawler

Mad Mar Walker

The former Poet Laureate of Long Island, George Wallace was suppoed to read Janine Pommy Vega. He was unable to come at the last minute so Dolores Lawler read Pommy Vega's work instead, as well as some some Denise Levertov and some of her own. Helen Peterson, co-editor of the Waterhouse Review read Diane DiPrima, Joan Kantor, author of Shadow Sounds, read Hettie Jones, Yvon, who organized the reading, read Mary Fabilli and Colin,Haskins, who's put out a whole slew of fine poetry chapbooks and started the Free Poets Collective among many other ventures, read Elise Cowen.
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Robin Sampson

Sympetalous

 I only have two pics from the open mic, Robin Sampson and Sympetalous.  I have video but give me a month or two to sort that out.

According to the press release: This event is proudly presented by the FREE POETS COLLECTIVE, IN COLLABORATION WITH BROAD STREET BOOKS & CAFÉ, The Wesleyan Bookstore. The next Free Poets Collective event is Farmtober on 10/22, 1-4 at Fort Hill Farms in Thompson, CT

Guns as Inheritance: Passage or Portent?

From the archives:

I haven’t been able to think clearly about guns since my ex-husband shot me in the behind with a pellet pistol 30 years ago. He actually said those classic words - “I didn’t know it was loaded.” 

He said it in an uncharacteristically high and nervous voice as he was wringing his hands. My ex kept that gun in our over-the-junk-store apartment for the unbelievable purpose of shooting wasps, and he was actually quite good at it.This isn't on my mind at the moment. 

Right now, I am troubled because I was witness to an odd ceremony last weekend. A grandfather, a relative of mine, gave a pistol with a holster and ammunition to his 14-year-old grandson. It was not a toy. He talked about not being around much longer and wanting someone to have it. He helped the boy strap on the belt and tie the bottom of the holster around his leg. Showed him how to load it. His segment of the family takes periodic Sunday afternoon outings to a shooting range at grandpa’s behest. 

While I understand the idea, this last gift is a bit disconcerting. Adolescents don’t live in the same world this 78-year-old grandpa did when he was coming of age. After Columbine and other recent school shootings I can hardly believe anyone would think this was a good gift for a teen. 

Though this boy seems smart and sensible, he is a teen. The young seem to live in a world of exaggerated response, always testing the limits and forming the brain circuitry. A young teen’s world is up and down in a day. Their triumph and despair always seem life rending. I hope his parents had the good sense to store it out of reach.

No doubt guns have several iconic meanings in American culture. The giver of the gun was a guardian-of- freedom type, a wanna be militia man with twisted but good intentions. For him and for many conservatives and libertarians, guns represent a sacred trust by which we remain free, though the federal government runs amok, though invaders from abroad or from Mars descend. To the frontiersman or the hunter they are a tool to dinner, triumph, survival. To the egoist, validation. To the vigilante and the sociopath, gunfire is the bark of the archangel. 

As a wounded pragmatist, to me guns will always represent a pain in the ass and an unanswered moral question.

---- Mar Walker
December 4, 2006

Uncle Henry Torments Deacon Wayne Just A Little

From the archives:  a fictional vignette

Uncle Henry was crazy, that's what Deacon Wayne said. And Henry had a few odd ways about him, in a sublime sort of New England way.

When he worked on his truck, he’d take a brown paper bag and roll it up until it was about six inches deep. Then he'd jam it down over the top of his head to protected his hair from any oil that might drip down from the chaise. When he was done fiddling with the engine, he'd forget to take it off. He'd stroll up the back stairs and wander in through the kitchen doors to where Aunt May was just pouring tea for the Ladies Garden Guild. He'd stride in with that bag on his head, grab Aunt May and kiss her on the cheek, then help himself to the cookies she was serving up with tea. Aunt May didn't mind. But it got all over town that Henry wore a brown bag instead of a hat. It was that sort of thing that made folks wonder about him.

One day Deacon Wayne stopped by the house about a blueberry pie Aunt May was baking for the church bake sale. Henry came upstairs to see who had arrived for tea. Naturally he had a bag on his head. Deacon Wayne pointed at it and announced that it was prideful to be odd. Uncle Henry said Deacon Wayne was prideful enough for both of them since he was so proud of being humble. Deacon Wayne choked and tea came leaking out from between his lips unexpectedly. The Deacon sniffed and poked at his mouth with a paper napkin then blew his nose. Said he was doing the Lord's work and that he'd just be about it now if Henry and May didn't mind. He stuffed the napkin in his pocket, snatched up May's pie and headed for the door.

"If that fuzzy old man you call OUR father wanted us all the same - don't you think he could have managed it hisself?" Henry hollered as Deacon hurried away down the walk. Then he noticed the Deacon's hat sitting on the radiator under the window. He opened the door and tossed it across the lawn like a Frisbee. The Deacon scrambled after his hat with the pie balanced precariously, all the while praying out loud that the Lord should bless him and save him from Uncle Henry.

--- Mar Walker, 2006

Uncle Eddie on the lamb: Edward H Smith

Mom came home from the hospital Saturday morning, and Sunday - early in the morning - we got a call from mom's sister, my Aunt Flo in Florida who wanted to let us know that Uncle Eddie, who was 83 years of age, had died. It's been a heck of year. Oddly I find I know less about my uncle at the moment, then I do about any of the other folks I lost this past year. I know he was in the Navy. That he loved to go to VFW everyday at 4p.m. for beer and conversation and enjoyed eating breakfast at MacDonalds. He and Aunt Flo lived on Hazel Street in Norwalk, CT for many years. Though I know a bit about his habits and personality in later life - I know next to nothing about any other aspect of his life. In this video you can see Eddie engaged in two of his favorite pastimes: drinking a beer and being a rascal.....


 Edward H. Smith, 83 of Kenneth City died April 19, 2009. Mr. Smith was born in Stamford, CT, and was a Navy veteran of WWII. He was the beloved husband of Florence; loving father of John and Denise, grandfather of 11, great grandfather of 16. Funeral services will be held at Bay Pines National Cemetery 10:45 A.M. Friday April 24, 2009. In lieu of flowers memorials to a favorite charity. Arrangements are by R. Lee Williams & Son.

In praise of the Harper's Index

No, it's not a stock index, nor a fund index, nor related to maps, encyclopedias nor to a government census. Harper's Index is a page of offbeat statistics published each month in Harper's Magazine. We are talking odd and outlandish statistics that seem to flow into each other in some sort of semi-poetic stream-of-consciousness progression. A quasi organic tumble of cultural quirks - evidence from which (perhaps) deductions can be made. Need to know the percentage of Americans who claim they'd like to have a plug to the internet surgically hooked into their brains? The amount of CO2 released from opened champagne on New Year's Eve? The chances your daughter's bright red lipstick has an unsafe level of lead? You need this month's INDEX to find out...
(Note: Harper's Magazine is NOT to be confused with Harper's Bazaar which is NOT NOT NOT on my reading list.)

The Harper's Index that arrived today (on Page 15) has 39 tidy snippets of intrigue and outrage. Some of their stats hit like a sucker punch with a quick one-two rhythm. Here's an example of the one-two style. Tidbit number 29 - in the state of California 19,300 credit card disputes have been resolved since 2003. While that one fills readers with a satisfying sense of justice, it's a short-lived delusion. It's just the setup line. The punch is the next line which reveals that 94 percent were resolved in favor of the credit card company. On page 82 in a neat source box, you can discover that both these statistics were provided the Public Citizen, an organization founded by Ralph Nader

For the 37 other bits this month, including the three odd questions posed in the first paragraph - subscribe! Or go to the library! You can also wait two months and get the index online. Or if you know me, I can lend you the issue. And yes I realize I am plugging a bit of traditional media. I like it. If you are bored or in need of small talk stunners I urge you visit the Harper's Index Archive which runs all the way back to March of 1984. - regards and happy reading!