Interviews

Hi folks,

Sorry for the delay with the new content I promised, and I appreciate your patience. I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of authors on the second round of questions, but I should have the interviews up by the end of the month. Thank you to everyone who's supported this venture, and big ups to the authors who've dedicated their time and effort to make this project happen.

Hurried,
A.L.J.

Bury me in New Orleans

At a recently divorced friend's birthday, over eggplant parmesean & sparkling water, their grandmother regailed us with stories of her visit to New Orleans. What stuck in her mind more than the architecture or the people was what they did with their dead. Y'know they don't bury their dead the way we do. They bury their departed on mounds of earth, so they don't float away. I imagined four in the morning, when there's only the vicious lying in wait or the homeless or the hopelessly in love left on the streets, that the dead walk the city in a daze, shake branches and manipulate breezes to chill the living with their memories of what their New Orleans used to be. I imagine they dance on streetlamps & moon the public servants who patrol the parks collecting trash. I imagine that the inhabitants retired by time, hit & runs, bar brawls gone wrong & broken hearts congregate near fountains & give speeches on how they ought to reclaim their lost cities. They can never come to a concensus because each city they remember cannot recognize its sister reality. I would be so bored to be buried in some suburban nursing home for the expired, extinguished. That silence, that everlasting silence must be what produces such violent spirits. Play Dixieland jazz on my death-day & the Blues on my Birthday. Make an awful racket. Bury me in New Orleans & lay travel guides & trip planners, political poetry & the World News section on my grave. I want to remain involved, up to date. Bury me so I too rest at your eye level, able to walk the streets of someone else's city. Visit me with stories of exuberance, of love & loss, of everything that will remind me what it means to die, to live.

Tailpipe Blues

Wonder why I’m so dark?
It’s ‘cause I live in ya tailpipe.
Wonder why I’m so dark?
It’s ‘cause I live in ya tailpipe.

I crawled out th’ oilpan – it ain’t been drained in hundreds a’ years.
I been searchin’ for a way ta clear out cha ears, but now
I’m siph’nin’ off gas, storin’ it up jus'
waitin’ fo’ tha right time
ta mess wit’ ‘cha injectas an ya fuel line –
waitin’ for the right time ta blow ya sky high
(who’s got a light?)…
I’m dismantlin’ ya crankshaft
rippin’ out cho pistons,
one by one,
an’ I’ma bust cho face open
ta’ see if we bleed
th’ same black poetics,
sing the body ‘lectric.

You wonder why I’m so dark?
It’s ‘cause I live in ya tailpipe.
Wonder why I’m so dark?
It’s ‘cause I live in ya tailpipe.
You wonder why I’m so dark???
It’s ‘cause I live in ya TAILPIPE!

I been sittin’ in the back this whole time, diggin’
th’ heart’s death on “Time Outta Mind.”In tha
backs of classes, gettin’ bombarded by
bull-shit spillin’ outta th’ mouths a
people talkin’ ‘bout shit ain’t related ta Now.
An’ I’m backed in ta a corner, jus’
tryin’ ta get back to that fleshy core of
Soul-singin’Jazz-swingin’Bebop-verse...

I worked my way back over your chassis,
rusted it out ‘till it fell the fuck off –
an’ now, I’m livin’ in your tailpipe.

Tha exhaust I’s suckin’ in burns me inside-out,
an’ I gotta stawt cuttin’ fingers off
so leprotic diseases of ya dead conceits an’ forms
can’t work their way up inta my veins…

If you’re wonderin’ why I’m so dark, it’s ‘cause I live in your tailpipe,
but if you wonder why I’m so black, it’s ‘cause I can’t figya out
how to move out
of yo’ motherfuckin’ tailpipe.

Poisoned

I.

it's a myth that smoke rises
down here, it's all i can smell.
everyone's exhaust is trapped down here
and it purples the skin around my eyes.
worse than that, i've become used
to breathing these toxins: lies about
where you were last night, knock-down
all night fights about the necklace
you gave to your T.A., weepings
over the toilet, cursing the pregnancy test makers,
shuffling of knees on carpet in your attempt
to naturally abort. the lies we tell ourselves as we lie
collapsed against brick from too many street drugs,
whirring blood struggling to escape vein
pounds against temples,
beckons the whisper of a blade to release it into air
where it can be red, where it can be alive,
vibrant, where it can become part of the concrete's
memory, permanent, a maroon stain
indistinguishable from the dark drippings of dumpsters.

New Content Coming Soon!

Hi folks!

So, here's the reason behind all the posting delays. I am in the process of locking up a group of writers willing to do interviews with me that will be posted on the blog! I won't give away any surprises, but these folks are some of the most impressive authors and poets I have had the fortune to encounter. If all goes well, the first of the interviews will be up by the 20th of October. That being said, there will be sporadic poems being posted throughout the next few weeks. I apologize for the delays. I promise these interviews will make up for it.

Thank you all for visiting the site and sharing the URL with your friends. I normally don't work for free, but for you guys it's a labor of love, so I don't mind. Ever.

More to come!