back to the grind

now that i am back from nats i can (hopefully) turn away from slam for a minute and concentrate back on poetry. as a detox from all the lynchings, monkey knife fights, oversized ballerinas and theatrics from the last week i have re-read “Book of My Nights” damn, i musta been like a plant out of water for months cuz i ripped through it in record time. found this particular gem where stanzas 1-5 are so eeringly familiar to me right now, its not even funny. i am a bit perplexed by the ending but maybe that revelation will have to wait for a few months, or maybe never. i dont want every poem in the world to make sense to me. i dont want to be told exactly how to feel and what to think- thats a monologue. poetry should always be a dialogue between the poet & the reader. call me ole school and let me wonder at the complexities of a fated man.

Fill and Fall
from Li-Young Lee's "Book of My Nights"

As long as night is one country
on both sides of my window, I remain a face
dreaming a face

and trace the heart's steep path: Night
and falling.
There's no place

my hand, full of its own going away,
ever found along a body
falling beside me.

And the way to the crowning grapes lie sealed
to all but one who's heard
what nights are for: Falling,

as water falls
to fill and fall, overwhelming
basin after basin,

as each must kneel
inside himself to find
the tiered slopes
only brimming masters.

Li-Young Lee

nps 2005: end nats

alternate title ‘no sleep till brooklyn’

a ton of us are leaving on the red eye which means we have to leave the hotel at about 4am and finals ends around midnite and that all equals Big Booty all nite long. (Big Booty bein a kinda camp game involvin some dancin, some sound off and tons of alkeehol) some poetry tag was goin down as well but the snob in me was waiting to get the call that the No Whackness Reading was goin on. maybe the call did come but i have been pretty anti-social which is my norm for nats. i’d rather meet two or three really cool people than go around hand shakin anybody with a poets badge and makin sure they know my name… not my type of hype, y’all.

no late night talk of gov’t oppression or DNA sampling tonight. i head to the room to pack my bags and veg out in front of the tv. find a mailbox, grab some food, check out the pool and pass out for all of 20 mins as the alarm goes off.

get to the airport on time and the louderCREW just refuses (ding!) to let go of the fun vibe of abq. we snap on each other in the shuttle van to the airport (shut up, don goyo!) and after checkin in & requisite security check, congegrate by a common gate and get stoopid all over again. let your inner hatah loose!

the return trip was uneventful. i finally wrote a poem on the trip. a five page hand written epic that will probably get whittled down to haiku when its all over but still some good stuff.

ima miss burque and can see myself comin back one day jus to enjoy the sun, altitude and sopapilllas (fried sweet dough wit honey) hella happy with the tat which is healin as if i had an adamantium skeleton.

new york is humid, loud, crowded and dirty but still remains my first love.

live from the city of constant sirens,
ob

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nps 2005: end day five

in the ‘who are you? and what did you do with ob?!’ files: by 6am i was already having breakfast and writing by poolside as the sun was coming up over ‘burque. there were 20 or so slammers already up as well but it was more like ‘just got in’ than “just got up” kinda thing. an overcast sky gave me a less than postcard dawn but anytime you can greet the sun, you should take it. thats what ima miss most, how close the sun is in new mexico like a mothers cheek.

slamfamily meeting at 11. another well run gathering (thank you, scott woods) with a minimum of slam theatrics. afterwards, i hit the room for some reading and another shower/costume change then the hunt was on- time for a tattoo. i was tellin rich the week before that we should be open to the possibility…
(ron burgundy voice: activate) Rich, I’m going to put this out there. If you like it, keep it. If not, then just throw it back. (Anchorman clip: off)

anyhoo, i went searching for a tat parlor cuz the time was now. of course, i had NO idea what i as going to get which flipped the acentas out. then again, i did just sneak up and give em a heart attack a sec before so that may have had some thing to do with the fact that they kept callin me DUM.

found the ink spot. settled on a design. made an appointment. walked around a bit. appointment pushed back. went back to the hotel. costume change. returned. appointment pushed back. ob ready to choke a beech.

at this point i returned to my zen- something always has to go wrong, better its this then the tat artist saying “oops!” tu sabes?

i’ll post a jpg of the image i settled on later. i dont think i will be postin pics of the actual tat. seems kinda personal at this point.

as soon as im done with the body art, its time to head over for slam finals. once again, the lAp is reppin strong. i catch most of the indy competition (congrats anis!) till my knee starts feelin a lil funny and then i pull a disappearing act for the next hour. i return to see the end of the team competition, watch as burque takes the crown in their own hometown (a first in the 12 year history of nps) and then here comes the drama!
“NPS we know drama”

some of the losing teams heard booing when they were being intro’ed. (i couldnt hear it where i was sitting) a competitor took it upon themselves to invoke the words of danny solis and then use them to trash danny’s hometown by sayin that the people of burque had “no home training” ya know, that was kinda tasteless being that burque in general and danny in particular have treated everyone like royalty but the real shit is when said rep and some team members cross their arms above their heads in protest as team burque attempts to celebrate. the protest continues even as ken rodriguez announces that the one underage member of the team will finally get to recite a poem. the protesters are practically chased off stage and now danny is pissed. straight up. he tries to salvage the night by goin somewhere few would challenge by citing his personal love and devotion to slam. he then brings back the other teams to thunderous applause (not everyone came back). did this ruin nats? close but no cigar. ya knew something had to go wrong during the actual competition and it all got pushed back to finals night. i am sure some will side with the protesters but the majority of the support will go to danny & albuquerque. at least my support does.

time to get ready to go home. we take off at 7am so we need to be at the airport by 5. oh lawdy.

love ya like el corazon ama a aztlan

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nps 2005: end day four

the slammasters meeting sets off the day. i was under no obligation to attend but my curiosity got the better of me. a well run meeting with only a select few going into “slam mode” the whole slam mode thing is the true pain in the ass
‘i am here

today

to speak

of a grave

grave

grave

injustice. perpertrated not only to my person

but to the ENTIRE slam… fam/ily’

ten! ten! ten!

after the sm meeting i was off to the womens showcase more to get a good seat and an early jump at the latino showcase but i was happy to hear some dope pieces from the ladies of the community.

latino showcase aka acentos takeover! myself, raina, nina, maria, jess, eliel, ed, rich and fish hosting. ah yeah. a real highlight of the trip. i tried to write some new hotness before hand but it wasnt meant to be and i went with ‘Sorta Rican’
“is ecuador in the house?”
(cricket, cricket, cricket) LOL

adventures in navigation followed as i chilled with the vegatarian crew in a failed attempt to find a vegan type spot. no such luck but we still had good times as my hateration level went through the roof!

semi-finals night. the winner of this baby goes to finals, the rest are done. louderarts has to go up against team albuquerque (again!) as well as oakland, hawaii and del rey beach. fish was able to sneak some of us in and we were able to have a strong united louder-presence. i was afraid that we would be TOO large an entourage but we were in ‘burque and the home field advantage didnt hurt. bottom line- louder came in second to albuquerque. the slam gods giveth and taketh away.

the indy semi finals was right down the street from the hotel but there was a line and a half. i didnt feel like being on the cheese line so back to the hotel room for pizza and tequilla. yes, i did have a sip. this time around the bulk of the talk revolved around copyright & genetic engineering. we watched some Def Poetry Jam and fell asleep. ah, irony can be so ironic.

love ya like the mountains love ‘burque

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nps 2005: end day three

its 3am friday morning and familia acentas just left our room. today started with an early morning poetry reading/q&a at a local high school. gettin there was like 40 days in the desert, a true test of my faith. the drivers had zero navigation skills and i came precariously close to taking the wheel myself. we arrived late but we arrived. the we included laura ej moran (one of my favorite poets) and cali’s own anthony miller and kat sanford. long story short: we kicked ass.

back to the hotel and a costume change then off to the rules & protest committee meeting. (yes, guy, im on the protest committee. guy, stop shaking your head. thanks.) the meeting went mad long and as a resut, i missed out on a trip to santa fe. i cant go into details just yet but im glad i stuck around.

bummed through the city, back to the hotel for an ice cold bath to help out my joints. second costume change for my first ever nats bout hosting duties. the venue was small and hot as hell plus i messed up one poets intro and a couple of other nervous errors but the bout finished on time with a ton of compliments afterwards. yay!

off to the louderarts bout which was off the hook as familia acentos scores front row seats. louder won by a nice margin which has them going into semis as the #2 ranked team.

back to the protest committee and then fun with the crew as we crack on each other, drink (i had coke cola) and talk about childhood beatings.

great day and tomorrow may just be a lil better with the latino showcase. werd.

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