slam-o

New book for sale

2011-12-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Spirit

2011-09-07T23:38:00.001-07:00

I fill my mind with spirit waiting
Spirit taking clinging snapshots of
Pale blue & dry brushed kiss away
But not far not long there they sit
Biding their time they know spirit is
Fleeting & love's long bond
Will pull me back to you.

Wednesday

2011-09-07T23:37:00.001-07:00

Today your name was mentioned, casually
By Joel he saw you briefly at Millie's on Sunset
Waiting
To eat at my old familiar local white tile red vinyl corned
Beef hash potatoes fried egg a bitter cup of Joe
And you.
Your name mentioned, casually and my heart plummets
Lost again in you.

The HAG:I-III

2010-11-10T21:21:00.001-08:00

I.

Silence slips in on baited breath, frozen, vibrating.
The Hag sits on legs on groin on chest, suffocating, familiar blur of laser pink pulse,
moving so slowly, closer, talons hold breath in the
vitreous humor illuminated, illuminating motes of interlocked white chains
pulsing in time with the tumult of a thousand oceans, all ebb no flow, nebulous
titter of something(s), small, calculating so close you can smell how clean how
void of feeling.

II.

Septicemia - Died of septicemia following operation for bladder stones

Suicide - gun

Cancer / tumors - misc. - Embryonal cell carconoma of the mediastinum

Paralysis / lameness - Painting hand paralyzed following two strokes

Arteriosclerosis

Heart attack

Cancer / tumors - brain

Aortic aneurysm - Given a transfusion of blood from Indira Gandhi

Influenza - fatal - Died of influenza complicated by urosepsis and multi-organ failure

Murder or execution - misc. and unusual - Tortured

AIDS / HIV

Murder or execution - misc. and unusual - Starved to death in prison

Tuberculosis

Suicide - Drug overdose - heroin and cocaine

Surgery - fatal: genotourinary - Died following kidney surgery

Accident in transit - automobile - Was driving while under the influence of alcohol

Pneumonia

Wounded in the hand; later shot by his own men; died of pneumonia after amputation

Alzheimer's disease
Suicide - drug / poison - Heroin and cocaine

Gastrointestinal hemorrhage (Internal bleeding)

Syphilis

Prostate disease - Died of a prostatic abscess

Suicide - asphyxia - Gas from oven

Suicide - drug / poison - Unintentional overdose - loritab and valium

Asphyxia - Suffocated during the eruption of Vesuvius

Smallpox

Died either of the effects of alcohol on 'his weak heart' or of rabies

Murder or execution - shot

Trauma - sharp object - Stabbed in lung and stomach

Jump / fall

Drowning - Boating accident

Cholera

Gangrene - Fatal gangrene following a toenail injury

Cancer / tumors - breast

Trauma - Blunt object - Hit over the head with a shovel

III.

Father on a long walk, somewhere between Lusk and a Hard Place
arrowheads, fossils, rattlesnake (Dem'ser Dime on Backs,son)
coulda been the Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water anyway,
Pop had to, he was stealing their money, most of 'em barely spoke
english, he was a hero, really.
Probly buried him with the same shovel he brained him with.
Nobody ever said nothin, somewhere between Lusk and a Hard Place,

new website

2010-04-29T20:25:00.001-07:00

New website with director of photography info.

slam-o.com

2010-02-03T22:27:00.001-08:00

Alan Caudillo

the not a list story

The thyroid is the control center for everything in the body; weight, metabolism, sickness. If your thyroid is fucked up, it can explain why you can never lose weight, no matter how much you exercise, no matter how little you eat, you'll still just get fatter and fatter. I'm allergic to everything except for milk. Sesame oil, peanut oil, strawberries, yeast, peppers, everything will seriously almost kill me, but I can eat ice cream until the cows get home. I moved my mother from her rundown Watts apartment to a nice neighborhood, right next to the west L.A. Police station, what could be safer I thought. She developed breast cancer from the police microwave tower and died seven years later. You have allergies because you have a dirty colon. You have to clean out your colon like I did, 7 days lemon and honey with water, I was peeing out my ass at the end but I've never had an reaction since. His wife wants him to see some kind of Ayurvedic or other sort of New Age hippie doctor, she doesn't trust his Endocrinologist because he only prescribes Western Medicine. 'Dr. Pornchai uses Indian medicine that goes back three thousand years' she said, 'Great' he said 'I should start trusting medical practices that three thousand years ago gave the people an average lifespan of 25 years, up from 15 years a few hundred years before." The best way to get rid of athletes foot is to pee on them in the shower. Its also good for jellyfish stings. The greatest thing that ever happened to my marriage, seriously, was having my hysterectomy. No more PMS, no mood swings, just me, only without a uterus. Let me give you some advice, screw vitamins. The only thing beneficial about vitamins is the glass of water you drink with them. Everything else just gets flushed into the sewer system. We used to think that maybe my daughter was crazy, she would freak out for no reason, she was irritable and hard to be around, she lacked focus. Then we found out she had sleep apnea, big tonsils kept her from breathing right and stopped her from going into REM, she wasn't crazy, just insanely tired. The best thing you can do for your body is drink green tea. Black tea is fermented and is horrible for you, but green tea has antioxidants and actually works like an antibiotic.

The Doctor

2009-06-24T08:52:00.001-07:00

The Doctor

Posted using ShareThis

One Half Hour

2009-05-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

Half Hour.

One half hour before Christian was hit by the white, silver trimmed 1984 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, he was sitting bored between his little brother and mother as she talked to her friend Mary about how the President of their school's PTA was driving her crazy sending out emails and calling twice a day acting as if she were a dictator, not just another mom with not enough to do, and even though he felt too old he used one of the three green crayons the waitress gave him to color on the piece of paper with a poorly photocopied picture of a pirate ship that said "Pirete's Cove," misspelled with nothing on it that seemed cove-like which he's seen once when they went to see Nana in Florida and they had gone out on the Catamaran to the Keys looking for Mermaids in the cove on an island that was so small he could run all the way around it in just a few minutes.

One half hour later as the Monte Carlo turned into the yellow striped crosswalk at the intersection of Montana Boulevard and 22nd Street, its tires made no noise but the impact of the small boys body against the black-smeared bumper was a clear, sharp thwump that turned heads for several blocks in either direction anxiously away from their latte's, chicken caeser salads, Christmas/Hanakah/Kwanzaa shopping excursions, and the commercial photo shoot on the sidewalk outside Angelica's Couture among the nonseasonal dresses and airy thin Hermes scarves, the photographer not noticing the image he captured of Christian's brown right shoe suspended in the air over his young model's thin, ivory white shoulder some 30 feet from where the Monte Carlo screeched to a halt.

One half hour before getting in his car, Emir was laughing in a booth in the back room at Canter's Deli on Fairfax wishing he had not gotten the piece of apple pie but eating it anyway in spite of the hard time Goran and David had given him for his ample stomach which bubbled up through his blue cotton blend oxford shirt and over the top of his tan straight leg Docker's. He ate the ice cream that melted next to it even though he knew it would make him phlegmy and almost certainly make him snore and his wife would ask if he had eaten dairy; he knew that he couldn't lie to her, couldn't even try, she could see it a mile away like the time before they were married and he slept over at David's because he was so drunk he couldn't get off the couch let alone sleep and she had known he wasn't at his mother's house. She knew and he promised himself he would never lie to her again and on their wedding night as they made love in his mother-in-law's guest house, he promised himself he would always be faithful as he struggled to push the image of his wife's best friend touching his thigh with her foot at the reception dinner.

In half an hour, on the ground as he wailed, staring at the limp body of Christian cradled in the arms of his mother, a woman so calm so peaceful she could have been a painting a Raphael, a Michelangelo, a perfect Pieta, as he stared the snot and fear poured from his body, and the engine of the Monte Carlo purred so lightly, he kept it in good shape, always did the right thing, changed the oil used good gas, and so it purred but he didn't hear it for the pure sound of anguish that shot forth from his heart at the speed of life.

©2009 alan caudillo

B-girl trailer

2009-03-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

This is the trailer for a little Dance movie I recently shot. Very fun to make, check it out: click the title above to go to their website.

10 things you should know about Obama's plan (but probably don't)

2009-03-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

10 things you should know about Obama's plan (but probably don't)

The plan:

1. Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.3

2. Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.4

3. Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.5

4. Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.6

5. Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.7

6. Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. 8

7. Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.9

8. Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.10

9. Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.11

10. Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.12

click here for details

Missing Stan Brakhage

2009-02-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

I've been missing Mr. Brakhage of late as I struggle with the purpose of my art in this world....

some of my work, recap

2009-02-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

Here is another look at my work, as with time one tends to forget. I'm in the process of updating, cutting some, and I have ALOT of new stuff to stick on, so any suggestions welcome!

man in the elevator

2009-02-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

The tall man with the thick head of grey, curly hair stands silent and still in the elevator. He has on a brown overcoat, unbuttoned and without a belt. His black, freshly polished left shoe is untied. He looks but does nothing. In his left hand he holds a brown paper bag. The bag holds groceries. A loaf of whole grain, vitamin enriched bread in a clear plastic bag with white writing on a purple background is visible at the top.

The tall man sighs, and shifts the brown paper bag to his right hand, and with his left index finger presses the button for the 4th floor, three times in succession, then sighs again.

The elevator door closes, and begins to move. P1. L. 1. 2. 3. The elevator stops with a lurch, and the lights flicker on and off, then on again. He briefly puts his left hand on the bronze mirrored wall to steady himself. The gold band on his ring finger clicks loudly on the glass.

The man pushes the button marked "alarm" with his left index finger. It fails to light up. He pushes first the L button, then each successive button until all have been pushed. He shifts the brown bag to his left hand and opens the gold colored panel beneath the rows of buttons. He grabs the black phone inside and puts it to his right ear. The ear has a small hole where an earring would be. A man's basso voice comes through the phone.

"Yeah, security."

The tall man clears his throat and says, "Uh, I'm in the uh, elevator. It's stuck."

The tall man puts the bag down and presses the 4th floor button with his left hand. The lights flicker, and the elevator resumes moving up, quickly coming to a stop. The doors open onto the fourth floor.

"Never mind.'

The tall man hangs up the phone and closes the small door. He stands up, looks at himself in the mirror, picks up the bag with his left hand and leaves.

reaching for the sun

2009-02-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

With my left hand I grasp for the space left behind by the Sun.

MLK in LA

2009-01-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

MLK. alan caudillo

My wife and children and I make the trek in the family station wagon to the parade celebrating the birth of Martin Luther King, jr. Because of the parade, we must park several blocks from the parade route, MLK boulevard from Leimert Park to Western, in the heart of the hood.

We had expected a joyous time, the following day was the inauguration of Mr. Obama, and we wanted our children of color to have a memorable experience. It was a sad occasion for me. There were cops, tense and edgy, on both sides of the street, twenty feet apart facing the crowd for the entire parade.

Instead of celebration and pride, there was a great deal of living down to cultural stereotypes; children smoking blunts, while holding their even younger children, as they yelled into the cell phones "nigger, this the stupid fuckin' thing I seed."

The night before, we watched the stars come out and perform in Mr. Obama's honor. We cried as we hopefully awaited a new day. My wife saw a friend, Arno, performing with James Taylor, and only a few months ago she bumped into him, broke, working for peanuts as an extra on a long canceled TV show, and she weeped in happiness for him as he sang his heart out for the President.

For nearly the whole performance, a young girl slept behind the President-Elect and slept. It is and not the reality of the parade I held in my mind when I wrote this poem.

While the world watches

the change that has come a

child sleeps peacefully.

Among Art

2008-12-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

collage #64

2008-12-09T09:27:00.001-08:00

From slam-o

Good News

2008-12-09T09:14:00.001-08:00

Good News.

I-5 North & South,
all lanes slow
between
91 Freeway &
Artesia.

Construction
on
I-10 Eastbound
approaching
Rosemead
stop & go
past
the 605.

Low visibility
creating problems
on Eastbound
210 due to
smoke from
the
Angeles Crest
fires,
all lanes
slowed
to a crawl.

Good news
on the 405.
All lanes clear
now that
the
fatal accident
between a
car & a big rig
has been
cleared
to the side.

All four people
in the car,
an adult
&
three children,
were
killed.

-©2008alan.caudillo

Sonnet for a Friend

2008-12-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

O, How should I call you; acquaintance? friend?
When in mind's eye you're more than that to me?
And should my feelings for you ever end,
It's end for all and all that is to be.
So, friend, tho' we should remain divided,
And in spite of fondness, remain apart.
This is the life which we have decided,
In fullness friendship always in our hearts.
Time has proven time's grace is forgiving,
And each road's fork towards this moment bent.
True I've found that life was meant for living,
and sweet memories ever present, sent.
For in reaching the student learns to teach,
And I have learned that mem'ries fondly reach.

-©2008 alan.caudillo

of things past

2008-12-02T20:01:00.001-08:00

Viking.

He crouched behind what was left of his Char-Broil 40,000 BTU 4-Burner Gas Grill, purchased with a credit card the prior spring, even though they were broke and he hadn't worked in months ('No interest for one year!').

What sounded like a very large pack of dogs scurried on the other side of the fence, made all the more ominous by the bark of small arms fire and the black smoke leaping from what was left of the apartment building across the street.

"Shit" he thought as the dogs scratched frantically at the fence, "I could have bought the Viking."

–Alan Caudillo

Haiku

2008-11-16T19:15:00.001-08:00

Night News embraces

Dysphemism of our Time
-she reads my poem.

-alan.caudillo

Miss India America

2008-11-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

"Miss India America"

A few months ago I had the great privilege to see Meera Simhan perform her one woman autobiographical piece "Miss India America" at Highways in Santa Monica. Meticulously directed by Cornerstone Theater vet Shishir Kurup, this magnificent show has re-opened for a limited run at The Acme Comedy Theatre in Hollywood.

Ms. Simhan fluidly transforms from herself as a second generation descendant of Indian immigrants growing up in white bread Orange County, into her mother and father, her brother, her friends and family. Somehow, with only a handful of props and no set design to speak of, Ms. Simhan manages to fill up the space with characters so memorable and detailed you forget that they are all crafted by one immensely skilled actor.

Throughout the evening she flawlessly evokes the regional accents of her parents, friends and family, from Orange County to India to England and back. In one moment she becomes her mother, sniffing out her lost virginity, making her swear "in front of god that she had sex," and in the next moment she heartbreakingly evokes the coolness and swagger of her older, Americanized brother.

Ms. Simhan fearlessly leads the audience on a tragically comic one-person journey of self discovery from a girl that desperately wants to fit in to white America, to a woman that has come to accept herself for who she is. "Miss India America" transcends both gender and culture; it is a universally human performance that must not be missed.

-Alan Caudillo

There are only a few shows left,

Thursday Nov. 6 - 8:00 pm
Sunday Nov. 9 - 6:00 pm
Tickets: $18 online / $20 at door

Closing Night:
Wednesday Nov. 12 - 8:00 pm
Tickets: $18 online / $20 at door

tickets can be purchased at:
Acme Comedy

True Change

2008-10-25T10:19:00.001-07:00

Remember this?

true

American Rain (Thunderhead)

2008-10-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

Here is info about my dear friend Gregg Chadwick's new opening. If you are near Santa Monica on October 18, you'd be crazy not to attend!

At the Santa Monica Art Studios
Studio #15
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, California 90405

As well as the new work there will also be a selection of out takes, rarities, B-sides and covers for purchase.

Gregg Chadwick's Homepage:
cell 415 533 1165
greggchadwick@earthlink.net

Gregg Chadwick
American Rain (Thunderhead) 48”x36” oil on linen 2008

sophia

2008-09-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

Sophia.

  The savior sat cross-legged and quiet in the chair. In the room by the kitchen she sat waiting criss-cross in the chair like a child. Quietly the child Sophia sat in the chair, waiting for brother who had always been there. She waited for brother who had always been there but wasn't there anymore. He was there now but wasn't there anymore. Her brother was there playing before having left long before she had sat quietly waiting.

In the beginning neither Sophia nor her brother had been there. They had always been there before but now she was there when he wasn't there, and when he was there she wasn't there like before. Crossed leg Sophia waited where her brother had been playing but he wasn't there anymore.  The child Sophia quietly waited and played with a string. Sitting cross-legged on the chair with the string she was given, the child savior waited for her brother. Sophia waited to tell her brother he broke the gift that was given. He had broke the gift given by their father and mother. Her brother had broken the gift he had made that was given to them by their mother and father.

He did not know he had broken the gift he had made that was given. It was supposed to be like their mother and father but her brother had made it and now it was broken. Their mother and father asked Sophia to tell brother that he had broken the gift he had made that was given.   Sophia sat in the chair with the string and she waited to tell her brother he had broken the gift he had made that was given.

In the room by the kitchen where they had once played she sat by the chair with the string and she waited. She waited to tell her mother and father that her brother had broken the gift that was given before.

no politics today

2008-09-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

I love Radiohead.
I love Telluride.

Nuff said.

Surprise! Palin is a fringy religous zealot!

2008-09-08T12:56:00.001-07:00

surprise!

watch and learn.

By the way, McCain slapped her down already

2008-09-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

This from the LA Times today.

McCain 3 times called Earmarks (Pork) requested by Palin's and her paid Congressional lobbyist's
shameful.

So did nobody else see this story? C'mon, did McCain do any research on Palin or what?

This just in from the McCain-ites

2008-09-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

What the "Right" pundits really think of Ms. Palin. From my buddies at MoveOn.org.

RNC defiles first amendment

2008-09-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

OUTRAGE! RNC and Minneapolis police violating 1st Amendment! Spread the word!

Actually Meaningful

2008-08-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not afraid

Of mornings

anymore.

Each one

comes,

Dew like–

Without anxiety.

Sleep easy son,

It appears but might

Actually not be,

Meaningful.

–©2008 alan.caudillo–

Alan + Kurosawa =

2008-08-07T00:46:00.001-07:00

New Art

2008-08-05T23:27:00.000-07:00

Collage art originally created as a collaboration with my friend Graciela Mazon, and recently revamped...

The Real McCain

2008-07-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Chomsky

2008-07-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Chomsky, John Perkins, Sergio Arau...

Here are a few pix from the movie I'm currently shooting, "Harvest of Empire," a doc based on the award winning book from "Democracy Now" co-anchor Juan Gonzalez.

Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Martin Espada, Jesse Jackson, John Perkins, to just name a few of the exemplar people who so far have participated in this exciting project.

This film will be seen first in Theaters probably Spring of 2009....

Nother new poem

2008-07-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Alan Caudillo
______________________

I can't remember her name.

"Je ne t'aime plus mon amour,
je ne t'aime plus tous les jours"

Manu brings her back:
Stacks of comics; several
unwashed plates,
pieces of food; black
lacquered table found in alley
behind the Trojan;
porous, white light & winter
wind between
rough green burled slats;
mud & grass & me
on my stomach
& some kind of soda
& tears
& snot
dripping on the yellow nearly wall
to wall shag remnant.

Her face, thin
& pale, her nose upturned
slightly,
deep dark eyes
& lips thin
& nearly scarlet.
Auburn hair thick, dribbling
into perfect
ringlets.

She tasted fresh
& smelled like soap
& I thinking that she was too
good to be.
Not me;
too poor
too Mexican (or not White enough)
too dirty
& Catholic
& bad.

I can't remember her name.

She
must have felt very
naughty kissing
me
in the Hall,
long hair
& ear rings
& Black Flag T.

Manu brings her back:
"Je ne t'aime plus mon amour,
je ne t'aime plus tous les jours"

That night,
golf course,
we laughed
& kissed
& rolled on green; She
told me
'I love you.'

I can't remember her name.

New Obama spot

2008-03-12T17:11:00.001-07:00

My Friend Yareli Arizmendi is featured in this new spot!
¡Si se puede!

The Letter

2008-03-12T17:09:00.001-07:00

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Mr. Harold Finkelstein
c/o Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
POB 104
Los Angeles, CA 90019-1104

Dear Mr. Finkelstein,

Finally! For some strange reason I have been unable to acquire your information from the DWP offices. I’ve spent hours on the phone and have literally sent dozens of faxes trying to reach you. Fortunately I was able to reach a colleague in your office by just randomly punching in an extension (be sure to thank Ms. Hernandez for me!).

This letter is in response to your recent “Flex Your Power” campaign, specifically the flyer I received this morning, which states, and I quote, “If all California households permanently replaced 5 incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, it would like taking 414,000 cars off the road.”

I am curious as to the source of your data and the metrics used to calculate your speculative statement. What if the cars taken off the road were not gas guzzlers like the Hummer, but rather more efficient vehicles such as a Prius or a bio-diesel burning Mercedes?
Also, doesn’t it seem likely that the international oil and automobile cartels will frown at sort of behavior? Because of your position, I’m sure your aware of the intergalactic struggle for supremacy between the “Grey’s” and the “Greens” being played out on our planet, and how they have conspired with Big Oil and the Pharmaceutical industry to suppress our access to free and endless energy generated electromagnetically by the trillions and trillions of insects moving perpendicularly to our earth’s own magnetic field.

Please send your data and any supporting documents to may address below ASAP. The sooner I can go through this data, the sooner I can begin transmitting the data via the ether to our protective “White” helpers.

Yours, etc.

Alan Caudillo

P.S. Would it be possible for you to also include two (2) free CFL’s as indicated on your website?

New Poem

2008-02-25T13:18:00.000-08:00

For A. X.

She was holding up half the sky.

With her free hand,
She placed you in mine.

For One Hundred Years you wept.

Retrieving single strands
From Silk Cocoons.

For One Hundred Years.

Now you are in our Miracle Mile,
Rosebuds intact, no worse for wear.

“Ni Hao Ma?”
“Hao. Ni ne?”.

©2008 alan.caudillo

if obama were behind down by 11

2008-02-22T13:13:00.001-08:00

Eugene Robinson wrote an interesting op-ed piece in todays Washington Post, positing the question, "What if it were Mr. Obama who had lost 11 straight contests,wouldn't we be all but counting him out now?"

The article is worth a look.

some of my cinematography

2008-02-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

here is some of my past work. Not any recent stuff, but what the heck, here it is.

clicking on the title of this post will link to a higher res version!

a poetry manifesto

2008-02-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

POETRY MAN, I FEST-O!
by alan.caudillo

I am NEW to poetry poetics prosody. Too new perhaps to
manifest any opinion about the ABSOLUTES of the word(s)
I know what I like, what moves me, tickles me, fills me with energy:
I like everything that I've read by Hafiz, his poems are full of life, love, God,
humor:

Now
That
All your worry
Has proved such an
Unlucrative
Business,
Why
Not
Find a better
Job

_____________________________________
FIRST TENET: All Poetry Should be Like Hafiz.
_____________________________________

And yet I like the poetry of e e cummings, the clever use of punctuation, the unordothodox context in rather orthodox form.
For instance,

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

Is both beautiful to read and also full of humor. But it is a far throw from Hafiz. For that matter, the poetry of Shel Silverstein was formative in my life:

If you had a giraffe,
and you stretched him another half,
you would have
A giraffe and a half.

____________________________________________________________________________________
SECOND TENET: If Poetry Is Not Like Hafiz, It Should At Least Resemble e e cummings (or Shel Silverstein).
____________________________________________________________________________________

My sense is, the boundaries for what Poetry can be have been pushed so far out as to be nonexistent.

My
sense
is,

the boundaries for
what Poetry
can be have been
pushed

so far
out as
to be nonexistent.

In many ways, that is what the last century (and the one before, to some extent) was all about, in all art forms, in science, in politics. We can toss out everything we know about the Universe if we can only get small enough (or close enough to something VERY MASSIVE). I think "HOWL" would have been an expression of Plato's reaction to the poem. When Stravinsky opened "The Rite of Spring" in 1913, the audience was so shocked by the departure from the norm ('My God, what has he done to that poor Bassoon?') that they rioted, tearing apart furniture and attacking the Composer. Where was the outrage when "Sunset Blvd" opened on Broadway (Besides me, I can't stand Sir Andrew. OK, Jesus Christ Superstar was fun, but come on).

_______________________________________________________________________________
THIRD TENET: There Are No Rules or Boundaries In Poetry, It Has All Been Done Before, And Better.
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Maybe it's easier to talk about poetry by how it makes me feel. If Poetry is:
well written (Pound)
intelligent (Yeats)
emotive (Rumi)
inspirational (Lorca)
clever (Shakespeare)
devastating (Rimbaud)
sublime (WC Williams)
personal (Berrigan)
essential (Neruda)

then it is Poetry. If it is not, it still might be Poetry, just not good.

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FOURTH TENET: Some Poetry Is Better Than Others, I Am Willing To Be The Person Who Decides Which is Which.
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©2008 alan.caudillo

a link to a flash movie of the total piece

2008-01-25T08:27:00.000-08:00

postcard.swf - Hosted on SaveFile.com

Did you find a piece of art?

2007-12-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

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