call it new wave, alternative, college radio, call it teenager, ripped concert t-shirt, acid washed jeans, call it cassette tapes, call it you don’t understand what i’m feeling, call it violent femmes- they’ll hurt me bad, but i won’t mind, call it the cure- boys don’t cry, call it yaz, echo & the bunnymen, love & rockets, call it electronic keyboard, call it the smiths- it takes guts to be gentle and kind, call it whitewall shaved head, call it depeche mode- words are very unnecessary, call it joy division, they knew, love will tear us apart… again, who won the battle? i guess we all did, when michael jackson-madonna-wham pop came up short, the angst bands understood who we really were.
Tag: 1980’s
Tanning While Listening To Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
incongruous, fancy word, me, tanning, me, listening to “lost in emotion”-from 1987, incongruous, but isn’t that all of us? how well do we really know anyone? 24 hours in a day and what do we do with them? hopefully a ton, and some of that isn’t what you think, isn’t what i think, maybe you collect stamps? puffy stickers? or you read salinger, who knows? i guess that is the point, we don’t know much, instagram likes to tell stories, but who are we really? or maybe this is just me, a little bit of mystery, 80’s music out of puerto rican hell’s kitchen while getting ready for the almafi coast, who knew?
Gen X Listens To Chappell Roan
good luck, babe, progeny of tori amos & kate bush, the 1980’s, their “tell” -stratified debris of an earlier generation of people- now buried under chappell roan’s civilization, and so it goes, guthrie gave way to dylan, madonna to gaga, dicaprio to chalamet, not to say tori and kate are gone, but they are, & one day roan will disappear too, obvious, the young push out the old, why does this matter? because we all hold too tightly, grip less firmly, because, in the words of sufjan stevens, all things go
Stream #1
what i should do
is not hesitate
like in the past
go boldly into
this blue ink
nothing, it is
everything, but
only for me
in this second
i try to tell the truth
and nothing but
what i’ve learned on tv
those sitcoms like
three’s company
and imagine
that all of life could
be the regal beagle
a stage set in
the 80’s, and yet
this goes on, we call
it netflix, my old
nemesis, my old
friend, what i should do
i don’t, the humans
make mistakes
the revolution
will be televised
but there will
never be a
revolution
Card Stories: Al Bumbry
1980, Memorial Park, the Orioles, my first major league baseball game, & Al Bumbry is our leadoff hitter, best base stealer, and steady center fielder. What I didn’t know is that he, like my father, was a Vietnam War veteran. Bumbry was a tank platoon leader serving his country from 1969-1971. There were 12 MLB players who were in Vietnam, including: Garry Maddox, Chuck Goggin, and Jim Bibby. Maddox served in the Army and was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, which made his skin highly sensitive. As a result, he always wore a beard to protect his face. The Philadelphia Phillies had to waive their clean-shaven rule to accommodate Maddox. –Agent Orange was used to defoliate jungle vegetation, so that it was easier for the United States military to “see the enemy,” however, it was sometimes accidentally sprayed on our own soldiers.
Listening To My Shortwave Radio
you might think it was all tina turner, the cars, or tears for fears, but vinyl could only take me so far, same songs, over & over, flip to side 2, try to save allowance money for the new billy idol album, or listen to casey kasem, see if anyone fresh was in the top 40, but then i got my GE shortwave radio & became an auditory magellan, forget karma chameleon & all that pop sound, i now spent nights slowly turning the dial, on a quest to travel the airwaves, listening as the basketball play by play guy said, louisville has the ball, i added a marker dot to my map of cities: new orleans, pittsburgh, morgantown, buffalo, each night i tuned in to: games, preachers, news, weather, anything & everything, in search of a new locale, another mark for my map, of course it was more than this, i was a 1980’s lewis & clark kid, connecting with my country, & this is still what i’m doing today, except i’m the one broadcasting & you might be in croatia instead of cincinnati.
The Writing Process
watch a video of a guy living off the grid, collecting rain water, chopping wood, young man, happy to have his own chickens, question the modern world, read chaun webster poem, think, think, about repetition, repetition, chaun uses that, by way of entry, his fragment title, poem of the day, another place to start the process, reading, of course, look up random facts about centipede, the video game, came out in 1980, trust the screen is right, always question the screen, i wasn’t in the factory that made the game, another website says june 1981, consider writing about rehobeth beach and getting my initials onto a centipede screen, let that go, try writing about rent, that was a long time ago, now it is mortgage, home ownership, boring, boring, boring, repetition, take a break, think of nothing, give up, something arrives, start typing, keep it, delete it, can’t eat it, just words.
Pontiac Fiero & The American Dream
12 years old, not able to drive, but furious fingers tug on the rotary phone dialing again and again, the pontiac fiero will go to the 107th caller, says the Q107 DJ, as he cues up sweet dreams are made of these, frantic to somehow win, knowing the radio station won’t give it to me anyway, but the chase is everything, like sitting in a boat doing nothing but waiting, like scratching lottery cards, like betting everything on the yankees, busy signal, busy signal, time wasted, finally, you are the 94th caller, busy signal, i lost the car, i never had it.
fugazi
listening to cuyahoga, r.e.m., michael stipe, used to be a household name, like prell shampoo, but now he’s a my generation kind of thing, as in the 80’s, i remember the green tour, when the band went mainstream, didn’t they all try, to get the money, blow up, get bigger, artists and their stage, their platform, grow it, except fugazi, ian mackaye, $5 shows, think about that
Polo Shirt
everyone wanted that
little man swinging
a mallet on
button-down cotton
symbol of money
and conformity, belonging
to the great
american dream, success
on our chest
was everything in
yuppie popped collar
middle school hallways
of my youth
before time passing
and truth telling
consumerism, that word
of excess and
education, realization that
things are just
things
Daniel W. Polk 