by Rich Balling
For Charlene Rogers
Copyright
Grand Central Publishing Edition
Collection copyright © 2004 by Ad Astra Books, Inc.
Epigraph is excerpted from “lars jansson: ballads” by Gerald Locklin,
copyright © 2004 by Gerald Locklin. Used by permission.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Grand Central Publishing
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First eBook Edition: November 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-57004-6
“one of these days, I’ll learn from my mistakes and not rush to opinions before I have given works in any medium the time and full attention they deserve.”
—Gerald Locklin from “lars jansson: ballads”
Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction
William E. Beckett
Jarrod Taylor
Nate Barcalow
Colin Frangicetto
Dan Arnold
Jeremy Talley
Jonathan Newby
Gabe Saporta
Bobby Darling
Joseph Karam
Shane Told
Mike Burkett
Vincent Reyes
Russ Rankin
Aaron Barrett
Evan Jewett
Evan Jewett
Derek Kiesgen
Phil Pirrone
Bob Nanna
Aaron Pillar
The Autumns
Rich Balling
Anthony Green
Brandon Bondehagen
Kenny Vasoli
Chris Martinez
Nick Torres
Brandon Phillips
James Muñoz
Adam Fischer
Tim Mcilrath
Joshua Partington
Nate Ruess
Marc Mcknight
Jason Gleason
Chris Haynie
Mark Thomas Kluepfel
Jamison Covington
Robert Monroe
Joseph Troy
Joey Cape
Gared O’Donnell
Steve Scavo
Justin Pierre
Jon Orison
Chris Sheets
Jason Cruz
Derrick Sherman
Andy Hermes
Tim Elsey
Mike Elliott
Keith Goodwin
Matt Embree
Matt Embree
Brian Martinez
Scott Gross
Jared Draughon
Andrew Low
Alex Hovis
Jesse Kurvink
Jeff Davis
Danny Smith
John Bowers
Craig Owens
Nico Paolo Sy
Aj Brown
Christopher Hindley
Gregory Itzen
Emergency
Christopher Zerby
Chris Haynie
John Gourley
Chris Tsagakis
Jason Cruz
Chris Hughes
FOREWORD
When I first heard Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck,” I thought, “This is great! Someone using the F-word in a song.” I remember slam dancing around my government-subsidized apartment punching holes in the walls. It was the next best thing to saying, “fuck you” to your boss, your teachers, hell, even to your parents. At the time I didn’t even know the complete meaning of the song, I was hooked on the fact that the catchy chorus kept repeating the word fuck (it wasn’t your average pop radio love song). On closer inspection, I became more aware of the sarcasm and irony in the lyrics. It was a frat boy chant denouncing stereotypical frat boy behavior. I had a Punk Rock epiphany.
I thought to myself, after years of AC/DC and Rush, there was finally music with a lyrical content that went beyond telling stories about fantasy worlds, and bar room bravado. I wanted to hear more. Instead of getting “shook all night long,” my brain and value system got a wake up call. These Punk Rock poets were speaking out about the ills of government, the shortcomings of a Napoleon complex and the hierarchy of economic classes in our nation’s capital. I learned about politics, psychology and sociology by reading the lyrics of Jello Biafra, Ian MacKaye, and Steve Polcari from Marginal Man. Here were prophetic, pro-active speakers using music as a tool for change.
Twenty years later, the values that I learned about growing up in the D.C. scene still hold true. Actions speak louder than words, but it was those words that inspired action. Too many bands out there underestimate the influence their lyrics have on people, and that irony can be a double-edged sword. Responsibility is literally in your hand.
Rusty Pistachio
H20
INTRODUCTION
If you’re reading this book, you’ve probably seen them— in a library or a bookstore or on a subway—posters of Shaquille O’Neal or Cameron Diaz or Al Gore (holding favorite books) and telling you to do one thing: Read! Somberly clad actors on the big three networks say the same thing. And so does my 17-month-old son (about 219 times a day)—“Read, read, read, Da Da!” And so I do. He crawls in my lap and off we go into lands of primary colors and levitating fruit and numbers dressed like people and farm animals. It’s not sophisticated stuff. He’s not yet ready for Hamlet or Camus or even a standard-issue Grisham novel. But by reading these little books now (these books whose A-B rhymes invade my sleep and whose monosyllabic words cloud my lectures at school), someday he will be. Admittedly, I am lucky. I was brought up with books, frequently read to, taught to read well by both teachers and my parents. My son will have the same luck as Shaq and Cameron and Mr. Gore and me. So the statistics say. Reading parents produce reading children.
I am always deeply affected—saddened mostly—that so many of my students come from homes where there are no books. Most of them will attest to this, when asked, without hesitating—some of them, oddly, with a bit of bravado. Unfortunately, it’s no wonder that these students are the ones who struggle with even basic writing. It’s no wonder that the source of their struggles (those with learning disabilities not withstanding) is of course the lack of exposure to reading materials, and often reading parents, at home. Obviously, the students to whom I refer here have at least basic literacy skills or they wouldn’t be able to survive even the first semester of college. Of course there are those far worse off than those who can eke out a C- in freshman or even remedial composition.
So what about those who can’t read a sentence? How can they be helped? And who will help them? There are innumerable reasons—individual and systemic—for illiteracy and weak reading and writing skills. Economic issues of course come to everyone’s mind first. How can a child learn to read and appreciate books if there is no money for books and no one to take the child to the library or to sit with him and sound out the word “ca, ca, carrot” or “butterfly”? Many parents are simply not available because of second (and third and fourth) jobs. This combined with the simple fact that many parents can’t read well themselves makes the origins of illiteracy far less mysterious. Illiteracy, like poverty, is hereditary.
But there is hope and hel
p. And there are people who care. The musicians whose ideas and words that are featured in this wonderful book are committed to making people aware of the problem of illiteracy in the United States and of the programs available to combat illiteracy. Programs like the National Center for Family Literacy (famlit.org), to whom the proceeds of this book will be donated, succeed in improving the literacy skills of both kids and their parents by bringing them together in a supportive environment and teaching them side by side, so that they learn together, improve together, and encourage each other to work toward a common goal—the goal of making their family a literate one. How beautiful.
John Payne
Associate Professor of English, Cypress College
In an attempt to preserve the integrity of the work, we have chosen to leave the text as it was when we received it. It’s not our business to decide who meant what where, and we don’t want to insult anyone with blanket editing that might sacrifice what was meant by the work in its original form, whether it be on a type-written page, or a drink-stained napkin.
WILLIAM E. BECKETT
The Academy Is…
Realization.
Enter The Author.
Home. Security. Illusion. Ego. Self. Lust. Blame. Sloth.
Betrayal and Fear.
Enter Panic.
Journey. Road. Quest. Reflect. Chaos. Discover. Condemn.
Adjust and Change.
The search has begun. This is Page One.
Men meet your maker, I give you “The Author”.
He may look familiar because he looks like your mirror.
You’ve lied like a lawyer, but don’t deny it when you’re
face to face with demons dancing off of mirror images
reflecting all that you wanted. So far from perfect.
Enter The Mirror.
Onward, we will strive for betterment.
Take it for what it’s worth, this truth that you’ve realized.
You’re not who you thought you were, it’s time you see the other side of what you have become… Nothing but
Single serving selfish chapters of sacrificial moral standards.
No stranger to apathy in Bold situations. Take your time to make it happen.
Bring your mirror, and spare your excuse for a self-serving mystery.
This is a drastic endeavor. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Take it, or leave it, if you will.
From this point on, it’s Courtrooms and Battlefields.
The way you thought it would all work out… we’ve hit
Autumn.
Just follow the storyboard. The Fall of The Author.
From this point on, it’s Exposure and Recovery.
take it, or leave it, if you will.
Exit The Author.
JARROD TAYLOR
In Reverent Fear
The Spokes of a New Tyranny
we’ve set our mark upon the baron shade we’ve made,
with the taste of our mistakes and the heat of our decrees.
the broken sped throughout into the air of distant plains,
i’m holding up your prudence and betting further dares.
still rusty with subjection and fruitful in our march,
you’re downstairs and i’m here spinning clever fate in the dark.
with the hate in your remarks when you’ve spoken only love,
i’m praying for health and you’re praying from above.
so we danced and we laughed at the normalcy of good fortune,
her eyes ever glowing in sickness and in health.
with focus and chemistry we took the world alive,
sorting through musings of a life i cannot provide.
she’s in love with ideas i’m in love when she cries,
her neck gently bending and shaping the night.
the morning is begging us awake yet holding softer,
she’s the taste of a millionaire, and i’ve the wallet of a pauper.
JARROD TAYLOR
In Reverent Fear
The Butcher/The Barber
Cinnamon glowing the vices that I want to be bound to. The calming breaking down the rain on the asphalt. Wet with fever like I’m missing the better. And I know this is just the beginning. Still I wait, with suitcase.
With the math of you and I aside… it’s the skin on your jawbone, woven into you. One more pausing silence. Two dimes on your eyelids. Third time’s a charm, and the fourth time is too far. I adore mi amor. I am the patron shaking and you’re only dreamed. Pure and Golden, here are gifts from the thousands before. To HEAR the voice of the angels, “Raise anew!”
I’m recovered because you’re warm in truth. Still I wait, with suitcase.
With the math of you and I aside… it’s the skin on your jawbone woven into you. You are my serenity, when I think of you, I forget to breathe.
NATE BARCALOW
Finch
Veins coarse, wet, abrasive. Dimwitted
Happiness
On and on about the neverminds of Me
Scratch your bloody itch-
This is The Tourniquet-
One more for Innocence, with a sad face
Looking at this…
Well, what’s left of It.
Never a dull moment
A Lonely Desert Night to build a Fire
Warm this abandoned meat-
Reckless and ignorant
A Victim of black and white.
COLIN FRANGICETTO
Circa Survive
What It Means to Travel the Straightest test Line:
placed, so out of focus
somehow i find myself inside the frame
within this concrete empire
i
swear
to
leave
stand and absorb all the scapes of the land
stare harder, with intentions of figuring it all out
and then held for ransom,
who would make this trade?
the blurring rails and power plants
have me thinking that ive lost the way.
DAN ARNOLD
A Static Lullaby
…Of course I hear you!
You’re the taste upon my lips when I wake.
Sometimes you’re the only faith I have.
Searching…always searching for more.
I’m enslaved by you, but you make me feel as free as can be.
I want to touch you.
I’ll catch your scent on the air and my feet don’t
stop, they can’t stop! We must keep dancing in your name!
MUSIC
The only air I breathe.
JEREMY TALLEY
The Bled
Perfect Teeth
i taste your wife your kids your new car.
accessories.
i taste your game show grin. your perfect teeth.
i reach and miss. i spit at ceiling fans and sundowns.
your name under my pillow. your eyelash on my lips.
make a wish.
you sold me everything.
i taste your new home in flames.
i taste your calloused typewriter paws.
oh so television.
success.
your secretary is the mistress i never had.
glowing.
i smell your teenage daughter’s tears.
she reeks of sedatives.
i need this.
i try to become you.
anything to escape this sk(prison)in.
JONATHAN NEWBY
Brazil
Your Name Ajain?
ok
you just walked out the door with the won’t-ever-happen-again
ok
it was supposedly incommunicado
ok
not that I’m jealous or upset or feel strange in any way
well …ok
JONATHAN NEWBY
Brazil
A Poem About Love and Hate in the Informatio
n Age
10010111000101101001
10010010101010101001101010
1010010110LOVE101001001
100101011010010010101001
11010010100101010101010
0101100101HATE0101001010
01001010010101001010.
JONATHAN NEWBY
Brazil
Logic
Four commuters are riding in a train car. One gets up to use the restroom. Upon his return he finds another passenger has taken his seat. The woman next to the passenger that took the first passenger’s seat is wearing a red overcoat. The man across from the woman wearing the red overcoat is not the passenger carrying the briefcase. The man with the briefcase was there from the beginning and has not moved. Seconds later they were all killed when the train derailed.
JONATHAN NEWBY
Brazil
Three Haikus
irony of chance
on the corpse of truth I dance
bitter end romance
...
honestly I’m not
nothing happens fast enough
words confuse the thought
...
seconds tick away
the illusion starts to fray
je suis désolé
GABE SAPORTA
Midtown
The Tragedy of the Human Condition
I’m still waiting for the news dad,
That she’s gone and never coming back.
I can’t go on because the strength I had is gone
And I find it hard to get out of bed
Oh yeah, don’t you know it’s true son,
You can’t really know someone.
