LO GALLUCCIO'S SEASON OF THE WITCH: 2008-10-26

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Halloween

Coleen T. Houlihan and I went to Salem for Halloween last night, where over 100,000 gathered to storm the streets as bees, and witches, Plumber Joes, and Jokers. There were men in drag and divine 50's Satin dolls. Coleen and I braved one sure to make you sick ride and then ate a caramel apple and had a class glass of wine at Captain's restaurant on the wharf.

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Laurie Anderson The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin) lyrics

"Hansel and Gretel are alive and well And they're living in Berlin She is a cocktail waitress He had a part in a Fassbinder film And they sit around at night now drinking schnapps and gin And she says: Hansel, you're really bringing me down And he says: Gretel, yu can really be a bitch He says: I've wated my life on our stupid legend When my one and only love was the wicked witch. She said: What is history? And he said: History is an angel being blown backwards into the future He said: History is a pile of debris And the angel wants to go back and fix things To repair the things that have been broken But there is a storm blowing from Paradise And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future And this storm, this storm is called Progress."

Laurie Anderson The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin) lyrics

MEMORIAL DAY by Lo Galluccio

I might have stood with my Mother

on Sparks Street cheering the veterans of America’s

just and unjust wars

march past,

weeping for my Dad who died

jaundiced in the infirmary of society

not on the opera bloodied battlefield.

Instead into the cold confines of

film spectacle to see young Scandinavians

wrestle with writing and go mad,

jumping into the cold cobalt sea

off Oslo piers--

Two days ago Caravaggio’s dead Madonna

in crimson cloak crossed my mind as a Reiki healer

pulled my ear lobes. The church rejected

her because she was so heavy and lifeless,

daring to lie there dead,

not asleep for ascension’s sake--

That day I left behind my watch and black wrist band.

Strange, he’d made me undress--

the badboy of the Renaissance who loved his sword

and put his head into Goliath’s -- eyes bulging

with crazed fury, held by David’s victorious angelic fist.

To be today, not to be seen, to swear allegiance

to something else.

For Sarah

Pink, Unthinking, True

The Colors Are Off This Season
by Sarah Hannah

I don't want any more of this mumble—
Orange fireside hues,
Fading sun, autumnal tumble,
Stricken, inimitable—Rose.

I want Pink, unthinking, true.
Foam pink, cream and coddle,
Miniskirt, Lolita, pompom, tutu,
Milkshake. Pink without the mottle

Or the dying fall. Pink adored, a thrall
So pale it's practically white.
A tinted room beneath a gable—
Ice pink, powder, feather-light—

Untried corner of the treble.
I want the lift, not the lower.
Bloodless pink stalled at girl,
No weight, no care, no hour.

Link: ::: wood s lot ::: "the fitful tracing of a portal".

Obituary: Sarah Hannah, 40; teacher, poet known for incisiveness, fervence - The Boston Globe.

Bottom link also via Wood's Lot.

Friday, June 01, 2007 in Books | Permalink

Published by Cervena Barva Press in 2010

LO GALLUCCIO'S SARASOTA VII

So this is what Anne Boleyn whispered to the men who took her head—both her husband and her executioner—so this is what the henchman replied; for nowhere has sinner and saint been so exquisitely linked than in Lo Galluccio’s Sarasota VII. As the curtain parts, it is not polar opposites that are revealed but a single conjoined child. Traversing Sarasota VII (it has less in common with reading, more so the navigation to heaven or the surrender into hell) is like giving definition to the word ‘passion.’ This is how to say profoundly simple words with often incomprehensible meanings: Love. Desire. Hate. Birth. Destruction. And who hasn’t attempted this— to grasp the single rose in the pit of thorns. And who hasn’t, on occasion, failed and been banished? But Lo’s beautiful, prophetic prose lulls us, even as we burn, and she tells us to “Fossilize the monster” and “Tend our rings like vain kings.” She is right. We must. For something so terrifyingly beautiful should, forever, be.

Coleen T. Houlihan

READING AT THE STONE PIGEON IN PORTSMOUTH, NH

On July 14th, a C & J bus from South Station took me up route 1 to 95 and a bus terminal in Portsmouth, NH where Nate Graziano and his wicked blonde wife picked me up to go read at The Stone Pigeon as features that night. The ride was pleasant with silent videos of "I Love Lucy." Nate's the author of a number of chapbooks and his latest full-length "Teaching Metaphors." Portsmouth was rife with boutiques and little pubs -- the Stone Pigeon hosted by Tim in the excellent Breaking New Grounds gourmet coffee shop. Despite no amplification, we had a nice crowd and regaled with poetry and Nate's biting flash fiction and satiric edge: my fave poem being about overheard comments during a lap dancing round in a nightclub. I read from "Hot Rain" and some lyrics I pulled out of an old folder like "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" plus some newer work inspired by Gloria Mindock's poetry workshop. A lovely Goth guy named Stocker bought my book and a gentleman who loves pop, my CD. Heard about "The Press Room" -- a more swanky spot every third Thursday with a jazz back up band.

Open mic was fun with a prize of lizard head going to a Bastille Day poem -- it was Bastille Day -- to an Italian poet/puppeteer.

Never saw the water but sat in the bright fluorescent terminal lights with a restless eccentric, pennnng a poetry review waiting for my return bus. Hit Boston at 11:30 pm. Only wish there'd been a working mic and I could have sung a few songs.
Looking for more readings for when "Sarasota VII" comes out in the fall. So far Gulu Gulu in Salem in October and Tim Gager's Dire in February....

Field of Wanting, new book by Wanda Phipps

from Your Last Illusion or Break Up Sonnets
(inspired by Ted Berrigan's Sonnets)

1.

"what a planet!"
"what a life!"
"what a concept!"
right now I feel
can hardly imagine us not
right now like this
I can sit here for a while
"the muscles around your eyes
how they move in recognition"
can enjoy this for a while
what will my mother day?
who sleeps with who?
I sleep with you
"this is as good as it gets"

Field of Wanting is a charged, radically honest book of poems by a writer/performer who intervenes on many fields of desire with zest and panache. She tells it like it is, with wit and a touch of irony. -- Anne Waldman, author of Fast Speaking Woman and Outrider

Why Dog eat Dog

Joni Mitchell's little known but masterful mid-80's CD, Dog eat Dog, crept into my consciousness again yesterday. It is by far her most "pop" and synthesized record, sort of like, but totally different from Leonard Cohen's 1987, "I'm Your Man." Joni was in quite a cynical mood about what was turning the wheels of America -- mostly greed and oblivion. The title is suggestive of her message. In "Fiction," she sings: "I can't decide/I don't know/Which way to go?/The options multiply/The choices grow/Which way to go?/What should I buy?/What should I be?/Which way to go?/So much comes at you/Too much for me/

And in the title track Joni pens these words, words that have applied probably since Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale for President and the ethic of profit has reigned over any sense of social justice or unity:

"Where the wealth's displayed/thieves and sycophants parade/And where it's made -- the slaves will be taken/Some are treated well/in these games of buy and sell/And some like poor beasts/are burdened down to breaking....

As always, Mitchell knows that any picture has a balance between light and dark and offers some hope in the song "Impossible Dreamer":

"The room was dark/and full of sharks/and I thought of you/I thought of you/Dreamer/Give peace a chance/Don't think just dance/Impossible/Impossible dreamer...."

The record was produced on a major label, Geffen, and I have no idea how many copies sold. Strangely, it was released the year I graduated, looking unkempt and hobo-like, from Harvard's grand gates -- it was not until years later that I discovered its wisdom and wicked grooves. Other notable tracks include: "Smokin' (Try Another,) "Shiny Toys," and "Ethiopia."

As Bush's term in office winds down all too slowly, as houses are foreclosed and the perhaps final battalions of troops are sent on their 4th or 5th term of duty in a country now ravaged by Civil War, and as the Christmas season revs up with promises of digital cameras and new fangled iPods, maybe we should revisit Joni Mitchell's mid-80's CD "Dog eat Dog" and consider whether or not we are indeed a culture in decline or, as others would argue, a culture speeding ahead into the future, hot on the trail of stem cell research and cutting edge technology.

Lo Galluccio

THE THREE GREAT STIMULANTS, LYRICS BY JONI MITCHELL

The Three Great Stimulants

I picked the morning paper
off the floor
It was full of other people’s
little wars
Wouldn’t they like
their peace
Don’t we get bored
And we call for the
three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and
innocence
Artifice and innocence

No tanks have ever rumbled
through these streets
And the drone of planes at night
has never frightened me
I keep the hours and the company
that I please
And we call for
the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality
and innocence
Artifice and innocence

Oh and deep in the night
Our appetites find us
Release us and bind us
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up
building bombs
And making laws and bars
They’d like to slam free
choice behind us

I saw a little lawyer on the tube
He said, "it’s so easy now,
anyone can sue."
"let me show you how your petty
aggravations can profit you!"
Call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality
and innocence
Artifice and innocence

Oh and deep in the night
Appetites find us
Release us and blind us
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up
building bombs
And making laws and bars
They’re gonna slam free
choice behind us

Last night I dreamed
I saw the planet flicker
Great forests fell like buffalo
Everything got sicker
And to the bitter end
Big business bickered
And they call for
the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality
and innocence
Artifice and innocence

Oh these times, these times
Oh these changing times
Change in the heart of
all mankind
Oh these troubled times

LO GALLUCCIO'S SEASON OF THE WITCH

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Halloween

STRANGE ANGELS

Laurie Anderson The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin) lyrics

Mary Louise Parker

Goliath's Head

MEMORIAL DAY by Lo Galluccio

My Blog List

Leah, her friend and Lo