"A Poem at the Going Rate": part III
Another installment of a long poem inspired by the Minutemen
So I’m closing out this second month of Out of Its Wooden Brain with a third edition from “A Poem at the Going Rate.” You can find the first two sections here and here, and the first section includes an essay about the band as well. Also, I’m trying a different visual presentation this time. Substack’s built-in text editor has improved since I began, so I’ll present it two ways: in the text-editor and as screen shot. If it comes out OK, I’ll go back and put this into other posts as well. But one thing appears to be clear already: this looks much better on desktop than mobile.
Additionally, after the poem, I have a recording to share1. I was going to read the poems aloud, but that will have to wait, because the whole process got really annoying. I have a decent mic and an audio interface from some musical projects, so I tried to do it all very “professional” (lol) with Garageband rather than just talk into my phone. And it got complicated and took more time than I had to give. So what I have is a lightly (audio-) edited “essay” spoken off the top of my head about some things going on in the poem that are important to me. And if I don’t hate this after a few days, it could open some more doors for recording stuff down the line.
OK, enjoy! Please like and share <3
from A Poem at the Going Rate
+/- This part took forever, like no time. Sometimes I don’t even know whose voice. I’m sitting here, my back is always fucked up, it’s fine. I folded some booklets just now, I’m listening to the album right now. It’s Friday night and John Fogarty owns the rights to his music again. Was typing all day, talked on a phone call to nobody and recorded it. The future studies it and then talks to me about its form. How far away do you have to get? It’s always maps, windows, watching the screen door get dirtier. You can lose decades thinking home is where you live, or that it matters. It takes forever to think, to say what you have to say, to say what you never could. It’s 11:21 PM EST, August 25th, 2023. It’s Bloomington, Indiana. I revise but get lost on purpose all the time. The whole thing is moving. If you get scared of accidents, it’s done. The way out is the way home is the way out. Even the fucked-up parts can sing. Are you up? +/- All night long, telecaster weather in the brain. Get in the van, finish the sentence, start again. It’s not a freeway, it’s a calendar of vertebrae, the exact engine of the heart. Frustrated gas station misery, fast food miles per gallon, dead highway stars. It’s vortex itinerary, miscellaneous godhead, going on for miles and miles. Choose one thing, the other’s already there, better get out ahead. Industry can’t read what lives in advance. Cameras can’t see what hears forward. Don’t carry your own horses to the glue. Don’t shoulder the sentimental death squad racket. This is the cosmic long division, the sky ripped open with single coils. THE SOUND IS ALL, THE RHYTHM, THE ACTUAL BATTERY. You say that and then some guy walks in, little man with a gun in his hand. You say that, and he kills your friend, shoots the room up, screaming death through six thousand layers of lucite hell. Shits his Nazi brains out in a bullhorn, that’s his name forever now. This happened, it happens anywhere. I don’t know how a guitar even lasts. Do you have time for this poem anymore? It’s already on the next song, the next sentence, next town. However you can get free, do it. Whatever medicine you create, share it everywhere. +/- The pulse died, ok, well— It’s starting up again. +/- What can I get for some used songs? What about ore mined from my liver? Easy jokes between lines, Cincinnati tomorrow, it’s Thursday. The summer another river between constellations, stars in crayon on the map. It ends and ends, that’s how we keep it going. It keeps on going, that’s how we learn the end. Two things can be a million, they keep becoming one another. Marx in the neon concrete, Marx in the corner with a broom, the bathroom trashed. Nobody tips this guy, he cleans out the whole fucking sink each night. You either live history by improv or end up trusting some asshole. It’s why Sam Rivers again, it’s why Andy Gill, the mask of Don Van Vliet. The cosmos explodes out of your fingers every day, are you watching? Staple some shit down if you have to, learn the changes. It’s everything every chance I get. It’s bare hands in the chewed food in the trap, what of it? Nothing matters but keeping the mind on fire. Nothing else pays for gas & then drives. Nothing ever dies, it can’t. The music is louder than anything.
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On Minutemen, Minimum Wage, and “Dreaming Light Years”
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Pics of the poem for precise formatting:
I get at least one thing wrong in the recording. The lyric D. Boon sings is, “I live sweat but I dream light years,” not “I think light years.” The correct lyric actually makes my point stronger, so I’m fine with it.