bad poem written for a wednesday night

(best read out loud while slightly tipsy at a small poetry reading at some poorly attended reading at a cafe in seattle)

Seattle Skyline SCREAMS
like i do
sometimes
over you

and i CRASH down like
bad poet waves
on misunderstood audience shores

and nobody

gets wet

so i slide down
slow
under this city's stars
and i'm hit
with some smooth sexy
hallucinatory
blood stream flow like some
sssssssssscrazy patti smith flashback like some
lenny kaye guitar string
injection
like some morphine addiction
bruce wayne obsession

but
i'm not

the batman

one twist in the atmosphere

living in the fire lands
with hypodermic accuracy

i may not be a totally streetwise son of a bitch
but
i know what side the gutter is on

i know the sensation of shattering glass
and it's not as bright
as it seems

stare up at the stars
notice how they try
to bust loose
from that hideous sky
notice how the crisp heat
snaps
the city
wide open

thin wire cuts across my mind
fence like

break into wakefulness
and gasping eyes

stretch
for a breath of vision
and you know
that sky
is all we're going to get

photograph

yr standin
in a snapshot moment
so get outta the way
before i shoot again

then i check my bag
i left my camera at home
& all i’ve got
is yr name scratched
on overexposed film

bright light in my eyes
yr shadow skins my knees
lens flare glare
flash
th moment’s passed

and yr standin
off center
wonderin why it didn’t
click
lens cap on & off again
cracked glass
plastic
shutter speed good-bye

-marcel feldmar

another conversation

like a crowded street
where you just want
to throw
broken glass

your voice
makes me feel nervous

so
when i’m on the phone
with you
i start moving
too quick

i walk faster
than traffic
but there are no
streetlights
in my head
nothing to slow me down

the brakes don’t work

and i shape your eyes
into the end of the world
but it is your world
or mine

i shut
my eyes

afraid to open them
and see you
still there

like glass
not broken

-marcel feldmar

cigarettenderness

ashes scatter across yellowed carpet
cigarette blows
a hole in my mind
the street
waits for the rain to fall

like a car crash
like the definition
of thunder

ashes follow
the cigarette
down

thursday coffee

thursdaycoffee
Originally uploaded by kitedrums

so, we've had the music (well, words about music.... maybe someday i'll get around to posting actual music), poetry, some random stuff, but no coffee...

today that changes.

here's the coffee. it's made at home, by me, every morning, for myself and for Shelley. and sometimes the dogs get a little foam lick as well.

the first before work cuppa getuppa.

cracks in the highway

barbie truck
Originally uploaded by kitedrums

i wake up after the day begins
early light missing my eyes
reminding me of sitting outside
a motel room
caught with the thrill of travel
against the sky
and the knowledge
of early morning drive

it’s an east coast wind
that pulls me closer
like florida heat
like carolina fireflies

leave the rain
slow pigeons and
green
head into the hills
watch the truckstops
seduce the sides
of the road

i don’t take my sunglasses off
for a week
there’s a girl
wearing a cross
hair in her eyes
she smiles at me
room number 36
and by the time i finish my drink
she’s gone
greyhound quick

i tie the dusk to my door
wondering about the rain

humid veins and girl hair in my dreams
she’s gone before
i finish my drink

birds fly across my shadow
highway stay awake

-marcel feldmar

three (3) :

hanging flower

i can break i have
i have frozen solid
cracked open




greatful that it’s not concrete

drag you down messing up
your clothes

throw me in the ditch

your legs glow

my fingers reach out
drag you down




almost remembering what it’s like to hate

hold my hands

they’re not as steady
as i’d like
i’m shaking

my fingers
ache



-marcel feldmar

sugar & water

(with thanks (and/or apologies) to the promise ring. tell everyone we're dead.)

did you know that i drink
sugar & water
to hold me down
to hold me next to you

yeah
sugar & water
to hold me down
to hold me close
to hold me softly next to you

'cause you're sweeter
than the liquid moon
i drink you in
drink you down
you drink me too
do we finish too soon
am i failing you
i twist my arm
around empty air
it hurts but i don't know where
& i don't care

it hurts right now it hurts right now

every time i see an ambulance
i wonder if it's me
who's died
am i just a ghost to everyone else
or just invisible inside
either way
i don't care
you say it'll fade
but i don't care

it hurts right now it hurts right now

so i drink sugar & wataer
to hold me down

-marcel feldmar

don’t call me late for dinner

don’t call me late for dinner

alright, okay, cut the crap…
your rhyme? it’s transparent… like saran (w)rap
and they try to cut you down
but you keep your feet on the ground
refusing to ride
on the pop culture riffs
that are all hit or miss
and you slide
catching her eyes sly cornerwise
quick shift slip peripheral romantic
and you think she’s hit
so ya trip into a trance
obscure sonic audio slow dance
singin’ “i may not be the black crow king
but i can drum better than hamlet (pow pow pow)”
and she smiles, so you think you might have a chance
and make some hipster cocktail reference
as if alcohol is the best defense
against her smile
soldier of fortune style
what’s her name… you know the one
with a gun to your head
but those eyes… and i regress
back to when i used to read
about where the wild things are
they’re never too far, they’re right here in my head
or mickey in the night kitchen
and back to those guns… i mean her eyes…
and it’s not my trigger finger that’s itchin’
like daisy duke at an irish bar…
“you! cut-off!”
but i’ve just started have i gone too far?
i just wanted a beer
but i guess my truck i mean the buck oh fuck it’s just my luck
that stops here
so you break the rhyme
to bring it
to bring it back
to bring it down
to bring it down here
to bring it here now
before you drop some boss hogg segue
into a blues explosion
that leaves you standing in muddy water
crying over spilt ocean
and you say…

“did i tell you that i fell in love with my wife
twice
but she moved about as far as you can move
without swimming
i guess i can just pretend that i’m free.
last i heard she was doing fine
she got a job
she got a dog
i heard someone say
that it looked a lot like me.”

-marcel feldmar

the simpsons don't have an RV, they have a bandwagon

and then i went to the carnival...



and then i ate some pie.

spideybutt

spideybutt
Originally uploaded by kitedrums

so - i'm about to head off to vancouver for a day - more on that later... but shelley and i just got back from a superhero filled san diego comic-con... and i thought i'd post a sexy spidey pic...

more on this event later too.
i'm actually just testing out this flickr to blogger gizmo, so - here's something to set your spidey senses a-tinglin'

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

a summer song

August Song Stories

A few years ago, my summers were special things, falling between seasons like spring and fall, or actually, since I was in Seattle, summers fell between rain and colder rain. I didn’t really listen to music to escape the heat, but to celebrate the season. The Ramones have always been a summer band for me, listening to Road to Ruin and hanging out with friends, as well as bands like the Gun Club or Tex and the Horseheads… 54-40, the Actionslacks, Jane’s Addiction (the Live album), Dinosaur Jr., Sunny Day Real Estate… the list goes on and on – hot sounds for the summer heat.
Then I moved to California, Los Angeles, and the summers become just a hotter part of the year, and it’s nice to get out of the rising temperatures. You don’t need songs to make you feel warm, but music that will cool you off, mellow you out, bring you down into the shade. August hits and I’m not pulling out the Ramones anymore, I’m going for the cool blue sounds. Songs that can wave a fan in your face, voices that hit like cool breezes against the drive of the California sun.
Switching back and forth from old to new, finding winter touched inspirations and shadows to hide behind. I’m on the bus, stuck in your normal everyday bumper to bumper freeway traffic, trying to make it from Santa Monica to Union Station. The air is hot and unmoving; even though all the windows are open. The bus is full, and I’m stuck with standing room only. There are people on cell phones, people coughing, bad drivers blaring bad music right next to us, and I escape to my headphone world. I hit the Feelies, and the “Only Life” album. It’s warm, but breezy. It’s springtime music, pushing against bands like Luna, Galaxie 500, early R.E.M., and the Velvet Underground, with a little Talking Heads flow at times too. Moving upbeat and bright but slightly melancholic at the same time, this band takes me away from the non-rush of cars and makes me sigh, relax, breathe a little easier. I feel like moving on to perhaps Television or the Smiths after the last song, “What Goes On”, drives to a close, but instead I hit upon Unrest.
This band has been one of my favorite bands ever since I first heard “Malcolm X Park” in 1988, and as the seasons change, so do their styles. A band no longer, I still find great comfort in the music, and on that hot sweaty bus, I found “Perfect Teeth”. Released in 1993, the album is, for me, springtime. Mark Robinson’s voice moves across the melodics, pushing a dreamlike pop sound from indie-rock to 4AD lushness. The guitars and the rhythms just swimming through my pulse like mountainside river water, and my thirst is quenched.

One song, that can take my mind of anything, everything. The heat the bus the traffic the streets my destination – all slide away. One song that just puts me right in to a perfect moment. One song that hits like a Zen photograph. One song that flows through headphones between “Food & Drink Synthesizer” and “Make Out Club”. One song that slides with the title “Soon It Is Going to Rain”.
It flows across me like ocean waves, from the opening soft guitar strum, breaking into a solid but drifting light pop melody and rhythm, to the ending and its repeated vocal line of “I have found my way back home”. The voice is gentle and reassuring, and the images in the lyrics are stained with dreamy realism… “ice-cream spilling down…” and “shovels in my hand from digging for your pain…”. The verses open up the world outside like enchantment. The lines of cars spreading out as far as I can see turns into a scenic vantage point instead of an exercise in frustration. The choruses kick up and speed me through the clouds, hitting with tightly held build-ups that start to make my heart beat a little faster, and I feel every note, I forget where I am… and as the song fades and suddenly stops, I’m just where I wanted to be, feeling cooled down and refreshed. Feeling like I’ve just finally found my way back home.

-mjf

4 nites away

let's begin right here.

i don't know how much or how often i'll post here, but hopefully it will be often enough.

i'm starting here because in four nights i'm playing live for the first time in Los Angeles. With the Black Kites

the last time i was playing on stage was october 14th 2005 - in Seattle - at the Crocodile Cafe, with Black Nite Crash... so i'm a little anxious, a little nervous, a little excited....

we'll see how it goes