Poets for Democracy & Core Freedoms Event
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 at 5:30 p.m.
click here for more info - press release
doc
and a sad Sunday it is….
for Jacques Levy
Today, another bright light has gone out in the universe, and I lost a dear friend, Jacques Levy. As I write, family, and friends gather at the site, in Putnam Valley, where Jacques will be committed to the earth as he was to affirmation, to courage, to overcoming adversity, and to a vital, and stubborn, belief in the survivability of the human race.
Many will remember Jacques for his accomplishments, for the songs he’s written, for the stars he discovered, for the celebrity dinners, and “Oh, Calcutta,” but I will remember a man who, quite simply, gave me the courage to go on at a time, in my life, when I had reached the end of a frayed, and ever fragile, rope.
There are those who give us strength, and those who take our noses and rub them in our own shit. Jacques was, like Oscar Wilde, ever looking at the stars even from the lowest depths.
A rainbow now forms near the hurricane lamp on my desk. It is defiant—it is damned to live on in his memory. May the flame we call “Jacques” burn eternally in the hearts, minds, and souls of all whose lives he filled with magic, and hope.
Jacques----may you dream the dreams you dream best, and ever sleep with angels.
October 3, 2004
last time I looked…
last time I looked
vikings on yamahas weren’t on
the menu and
human skulls in
with the frozen vegetables.
last time I looked
the only person left
waving a confederate flag
was six feet under.
last time I looked
somebody took the klan out
with the trash
butchers didn’t trade
brueghels for napalm and
debutantes hid their
swastika lipstick.
last time I looked
truth didn’t fly standby
high priced hemorrhoids
didn’t run for office or practice
sodomy in
pentecostal salads.
how did it happen that ghosts drive
pick up trucks
and the damned line our closets
where once upon a time
there was such a thing as youth now
highway patrol pulls beauty
in handcuffs from
stolen vehicles while innocence
is raped in the name of
ash-
craft with
patriot axe.
last time I looked
clean air wasn’t a luxury
schoolchildren were playing
with coloring books not
switchblades. who gypped us
who tripped us where might
becomes right cowboys stick to
their saddles forcing mother courage to
her knees. who gypped us
whose pompous cemeteries
promise roses
whose insider
trading in
white house where elected pimps preach
abstinence whores of
decency give suck to
virtuous crimes where giants too
are forced to surrender little men fly
big planes into rows of
coffins nailed shut in
the name of
homeland security.
whose target practice this
that yields only terror
where the price of freedom
is greater than oil.
maybe the emperor needs new clothes….
ever wonder what an empire looks like
when it’s naked
or if the guy next
door to you
plays emperor in those wee
hours when the wife
is dreaming of bone china
ever wonder why
it’s hard to distinguish between
a power motor
and viagra.
ever wish yesterday’s news
would stay that way
and advertisers could make more money
keeping their mouths shut. ever think about how
it’s impossible to keep your hands clean
when doing laundry or stay holy
while raping and ravaging
foreign villages. who would think
that presidents too
might get stuck in
spin cycle and
someday maybe
this vast
imperfect
race will figure it out
so yesterday’s news
will stay that way.
pull my daisy—after a photo of Allen Ginsberg
(for Hammond Guthrie)
bare
Allen holds a daisy in
his left hand pledging allegiance
with his
right no background
in this shot no moon too
big for its pants where Allen
glossy defies black and
white
where Ashcroft dips in
vinegar Cheney in
chocolate
what fun
we have with
sacrilege where
sacred rots
what fun
to pluck from
the garden of
fright what sacrilege
in empty mirror basement
where we seduce
lonely sailors with
Allen’s futuristic cock sealed in
memory like silent letters in old pockets
these weeds we pluck from
the garden of
fright
per Icarus
nothing wrong with
f
l
y
i
n
g
too
c
l
o
s
e
to the sun
as long as you
k
n
o
w
sooner or later
you may have to
take the
p
l
u
n
g
e
extraterrestrial frolic
Dreamt I was gang raped by a group of extraterrestrials one of whom was very cute. He had the face of Marlon Brando, and the body of James Dean but, alas, was quite young. After the other extraterrestrials had their fill of me, my young friend invited me to frolic with him. I told him, understandably, that I wasn’t in the mood. He said he was about to change shapes, so “you better hurry up. I’m not going to be in this form much longer.” I asked to see his “expiration date,” he laughed, and transformed into a huge, silk raven—flew out an open window whereupon this creature enters through the balcony---a human body with no body hair. and no discernible trajectories of any kind---a face that could have been composed of silly putty as it had no animation. Here, before me, stands a pile of flesh---two arms, two legs-----rather frightening---this gender-less thing, which introduces itself as “the future.” I awake thinking now that the past has had its way with me, maybe it’s the future’s turn.
Jayne Lyn Stahl