Black Star

This is completely meaningless, but shows how good staging can create a nice juxtaposition... I like how Michelle's necklace brooch at times became rays emanating from the black microphone head... making a beautiful black star radiating from her heart.

It reminded me of Nikki Giovanni's magnificent poem "Sound in Space." Here's a bit:

Science teaches us that there is no sound in space and I think that's hogwash because if there is no sound in space how will all those wishes get up to the moon and anyone with an ounce of sense knows science fiction is much better than science fact because science fact tries to prove things like Thomas Jefferson wasn't diddling Sally Hemmings and everybody knows people diddle people all the time especially when they can't say no so yes there is sound in space and a large part of it says: I love you in a lot of different ways and when the language is unknown to the hearer other people say things like that is gibberish but love can never be gibberish . . . foolish for sure . . . silly you bet but the basis of all relationships is love which is then followed by trust and not the other way around because if trust was the basis there would be world peace and safe international travel but what I want to point out since it is always so important to do something useful is that you should, quite naturally, floss and nickels and dimes have a relationship with dollars and sense but not halves and quarters and machines that tell you deposit more money and Good Luck when it isn't luck that you need but better science which can explain how and why when all is said and done we are left with this density that forces us to recognize the Eagle Nebula is falling into itself and will one day be a planet though mostly we will not be around to see it and then there are those troublesome Black holes which are so totally fascinating though no one can exactly put their finger on what makes them so important and I am here to tell you I know: the density of a Black hole does not prevent light from escaping but rather that once light encounters the Black whole it finds such beauty and peace and comfort it no longer needs to search which is another word for love . . . and I do.

That last line gets me every time.

No Title [a poem]

I write mysteries on napkins
I build homes with sand.
My world is governed by tides.
Their washing away of monuments,
My soaking them up in blurred sheets
Torn easily by charms and spells disguised
As urgent notes and phone numbers.

No Title [a poem]

we love legends and myths
to exaggerate the heroic
and make it supernatural
and yet
we remain in despair
because we forget
of what we are capable

Squared Poem I

Lucid moments drawn from the inkwell
Moments of unconsciousness steeping in paper
Drawn out of mulched conversations and bleached
From the taillights of passing thoughts,
The words disappear and reappear in the
Inkwell, refusing to stay on the page.

No Title [a poem]

I’ve struggled with waltzes.
unable to block out
the iambs of heartbeats
or depart from
hurried spondaic steps
stepping on feet, and then
tripping over anapests

---

Hurray! Norm returned to the blogosphere, dropping a bunch of posts like peanut shells.

Lot's Wife [a poem]

To hear them talk
you’d think there was
a pillar of salt
at every corner

So many preachers
so many voyeurs
leaving pillars
to support the subway

What's in a name, or an area code? 917press explained

My faithful friend, inspiration and reader Steve gave me a generous shout out, but inquires to the origin of this blog's name.

917 is an overlay area code assigned to New York City. Back in the day, all of New York City was 212. NYC always had a high concentration of phones, so when dialing, by definition on a rotary, 212 was the quickest area code to dial, as compared to 800. As numbers kept accumulating, the outer boroughs (Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and ShaoLin) were exiled to 718 (a much longer dial, no?). Since Manhattan has so many letters, I now often refer to it as the 212. Then, as mobile phones emerged, they were given the area code 917. There is now 212, 718, 646, 347, and 917 in the Five.

As some of you know, I resisted the mobile lifestyle until 2003 when I moved to the Heights (Brooklyn that is)and gave up having a landline. In fact I used a rotary phone, and really felt the pain of 718. Nonetheless, when, in 1999, I moved up to the Heights (in this case Washington) my landline number had a 917 exchange, which always led to assumptions that this was my mobile number. No no, no no no... though I lived in Manhattan, I was denied the 212. This kind of slight would happen again in a few months when Manhattan, north of 135th Street, blacked out in July. Above 125 gets no love, and yes, I've gone through two blackouts in New York.

So anyway, I started feeling a bit disconnected from Manhattan, though present all over, well at least throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. So later that summer, I embraced my nomadic area code when I made a chapbook of poetry published by 917press. Thus is the tale.

More on the history of area codes. And here's the mess we have now ever since they abandoned area codes having either a one or zero in the middle.