New Poem: NO FOOL LIKE THE DONALD

SPY magazine

once called him "the short-fingered vulgarian"

it was the 80s

and most of us weren't ready to heed the warning:

it was easier to buy copies of

TRUMP: THE ART OF THE DEAL

and read gossip about his relentless pursuits

of women, real estate and casinos

>

someone somewhere may be on YouTube

with a mashup video that cuts between

the real Donald Trump yelling about NBC

saying "YOU'RE FIRED"

after making racist remarks

he later tried to rebrand

as truth-telling 

and the fictional character played by Andy Griffith

in A FACE IN THE CROWD

wailing about his fans and sponsors leaving

after a colleague kept the mike on

during comments about

how stupid Americans are

and how they'll do anything

he tells them to do

New poem: CHARLESTON

Young man with bowl haircut

Takes an hour to wrestle with

Evil compulsion vs temptation

To embrace Good and become friends

With nice strangers he meets

At Bible study

Before worrying about losing face

> 

Battle flag is objected to

Only after hideous murder spree

Makes Republican leaders think

What about the Optics?

What about the Election?

How to keep courting the Bigot vote?

>

Governor Nikki tries balancing act

Assuring racists they can still fly Battle flag

On their own private property

While deciding it’s Time to declare Battle flag

Public eyesore

Calling for state decision to be made soon

> 

Take the Battle flag

Bury it in a coffin

Use the same padlock

That sealed it

To the state flagpole

And everyone pray in unison

To go forward

> 

And stop the nostalgia

For slavery

For self-pity over Reconstruction

For Klan terrorism

For Segregation

Let the madness disintegrate

And never rise again

Charlie Daniels' SIMPLE MAN: a scary song, especially in wake of Charleston murders.

Fear and urges towards "righteous" violence served up by Charlie Daniels.

Photo that goes with the song's audio shows a Bible, a pistol, bullets and the American flag.
Caption: GOD, GUNS & COUNTRY!  THAT'S WHAT MADE AMERICA GREAT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1H2njznEU

NBC can't say goodbye to Brian Williams.

The "WE CAN'T LET HIM GO TO ANOTHER NETWORK" style of crisis management engaged in by NBC has erupted again with regards to exaggeration-prone former NIGHTLY NEWS anchor Brian Williams.

From a NEW YORK TIMES article http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/business/nbc-plans-to-let-brian-williams-stay-but-not-as-news-anchor.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
In February, Mr. Williams ranked as the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country, on par with Denzel Washington, Warren E. Buffett and Robin Roberts. By May, his trust ranking had plummeted to 3,352, near the rapper Eminem and the Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner, according to the Marketing Arm, a research firm whose celebrity index is closely watched by media and marketing executives.

Playlist: THE BEST OF JAMES TAYLOR 1985-2015

Highlighting the best of an increasingly uneven, mostly complacent three decades:
1. That's Why I'm Here
2. Song For You So Far Away
3. Only A Dream In Rio
4. Never Die Young
5. Copperline
6. The Frozen Man
7. Slap Leather
8. Shed A Little Light
9. Line 'Em Up
10. Enough To Be On Your Way
11. Stretch Of The Highway
12. Far Afghanistan

When you're outnumbered and you know it....

Here are two excerpts from a fellow poet's recent blog post that are worth sharing; it should be noted that my aesthetic ideals don't match with his, but the paragraphs below contain sentiments we both agree with:
In the LA poetry scene, the question is how long have you been active locally? Or how long have you hosted a particular venue? A poet could be the shittiest writer alive but if they have been active in the scene for 25 years and hosted some open mic at some coffeehouse for the last 10 of those years then they are venerated as the greatest living LA poet alive ever. And you have to play the game, you have to get in the queue and coo and caw over these venerated poets for a bit before you are even vaguely acknowledged by the cool kids. If you come in roaring and lay down the gauntlet and demand respect according to your writing ability, this will never work.

LA has a habit of forming their own poetry groups where they then give out their own poetry awards. This is really hilarious to me. Some poet makes up some group like “The Poets Who Say Snee” and then they have an open mic at some coffeehouse for a few years and then they put out an anthology of “The Snee Poets” and then if they build this up after a while they start giving out “The Snee Poetry Awards.” If you happen to point out that some of the Snee Poets are not very good, then you get shot down with a “What have you ever done for the community? Have you ever run your own Snee Poetry group for six years hmmm? No? Then shut the fuck up nobody cares about your opinion.”

The full post can be read at:
http://rumrazor.com/2015/06/12/the-snee-poets/

My only addendums are:
1. Prepare to hear banshee-level shrieking if you say--with or without naming Names--that certain people in poetry communities behave badly towards inferiors and even some peers.

2. Also, prepare to find out how alone you are if you complain about people who want the poetry community to be as small as possible--doing their best to chase others away with epithets like "journal-entry."

Playlist WHEN EVERYONE WENT DISCO Volume 2

1. Portable Radio--Daryl Hall & John Oates
2. Come Back--The J. Geils Band
3. Emotional Rescue--The Rolling Stones
4. Da Ya Think I'm Sexy--Rod Stewart
5. Dancin' Fool--Frank Zappa
6. Gonna Get Ya--Pete Townshend
7. Bebop/Drop--Daryl Hall & John Oates
8. In And Out Of Your Heart--Kenny Rogers

Why, Gatsby Books, Why?

This past weekend, I received an e-mail which contained the sentence below:
​The Best-Loved, Independent Bookstore in Long Beach  is Still Lummox-Free!
My attempt at a translation:
The proprietor of Lummox Press (someone I gave up on after being embarrassed by him during two publication readings for the LUMMOX #2 issue a year previous) had difficulties with the Gatsby Bookstore in Long Beach CA.  And he is still not allowed even to have "the best-loved independent bookstore in Long Beach" carry the books by the authors/poets he publishes--because the store doesn't care for him.

Having been the object of banishment myself, I empathize with the Lummox publisher's plight (regardless of how I feel personally). 

And I find it rather childish and unprofessional of the Gatsby Bookstore to trumpet its alleged moral superiority in e-mail advertisements.

Not to mention the store's willingness to punish Lummox poets/writers by association.

Whether or not the Lummox publisher is ever allowed in Gatsby again is up to the store.

But Lummox Books should have the chance to be sold there.

I now have a second blog titled QUIET MAN.

On Tumblr, I just set up a blog called QUIET MAN which consists of brief posts plus reposts (with occasional comments).

POETRY-ARTS CONFIDENTIAL will still be used for longer posts.

Here's the QUIET MAN address:

http://ourquietman.tumblr.com

Here's what a lLos Angeles literary poet really thinks of his inferiors.

This is excerpted from a discussion taking place on Facebook on--yet again--what Brand Name poets are overrated.  But this quote has value outside of the original context.
"There are tons of LA poets that I think are great people but shitty poets...I hosted a reading at [prestige venue] for 4 years and there [were] a lot of 'nice' poets who never got features."
This comment ended with a smiley-face emoji.