April FAIL Day

Yeah, yesterday's April Fools' Day Effort wasn't particularly up to snuff. It was pretty much just going through the motions, especially after last year's successful hoax. It wasn't even particularly funny. No one was going to believe that the New England Media Group was being bought by The Enquirer. Perhaps its time to give these hoax efforts a rest. (Or ... am I just saying that, to lull the reader into a false sense of security?!?!?)

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Crazy week at work this week, and I'm behind on everything. A few things of note: I have a review of the new album from Lost Profit$ online. The extremely political combo has quickly become one of my favorite hip-hop acts, and they're terribly worth a listen. They'll be performing with Regie Gibson Friday at the Dirty Gerund's First Friday Upstairs Show at Ralph's.

Also, my poems "How To Grow Old Gracefully And Still Love Rock 'N' Roll" and "Incorporated" are up on PoeticDiversity.

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Had a great time last night at the Encyclopedia Show in Somerville. Congratulations to Simone and everyone else down there for a great first season. Much, much fun. Lea's poem on the subject of mokele-mbembe went over gangbusters, and fit well into a jam-packed night pf poetry, music and dance. Much, much fun.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, we won't be able to attend this Saturday's release party for Best Indie Lit New England, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't:

Best Indie Lit New England Release Party
Featuring Tim Mayo, Jade Sylvan, Emily O'Neill, Hannah Larrabee, Kendra Decolo, Mckendy Fils-Aime, Sean Patrick Mulroy, Jeff Bernstein and Laura Rodley, with music by Paul Erlich, Audrey Harrer and Andrew Scandal and the Lightyears.
369 Congress Street, 7th floor
Boston, MA
$5-$10 sliding scale admission, anthology available for $15

Rest in Peace to My Uncle and Namesake, Victor Infante

I've just received word that my uncle and namesake, Victor Infante, has passed away. I didn't really know him, and at this point, that's as much my fault as anyone's.

I don't have a whole lot to say here, have no way right now to articulate the strange miasma of sadness and regret, the negative space around a hole where something was supposed to be, but never was.

Rest in peace, Victor. I'm sorry I didn't know you. But you were my father's brother, and I was named for you (and for your father, also gone), and that means something, and with your passing, I can't help but feel that another piece of my father is gone.

If there's a next life, maybe we'll both be able to make amends.  

An old poem for my current mood ...

Speaking to Pittsburgh

1. Where my father died

This is what the city says to me: Closed doors
remain so, though I’ve gardened keys now
for decades; The Earth sprouts no metal to fit
long-rusted locks, gives no transcription
for maps and language barriers, absent legends
in the corner of the map folded in your jacket pocket.

My grandfather, my uncle – they say nothing:
They are strangers to me, though I bear both
men’s names, the same burden of night.
I wouldn’t know them on a half-empty bus to Mohegan Sun,
though sometimes I sense them shuffle in the dark –
key to any game: Know what you’re willing to lose,

and I’m out of key with this song – forgot the lyrics,
life lived in fragments of melody and poker chips,
gambling song against small gain,
tune I am willing to lose.

And you? How do you bear this weight
and waiting? This song will not curl on my lips,
voice cracking. But if it comes, it will shatter steel.

2. To the man who killed him

When I am honest, I know that it is not the city that killed my father,
it was a man with a gun, second-degree murder, “non pre-meditated killing” –
and yes, I am acquainted with the way violence spreads like spilled beer,
seeps into the foundation of buildings if left untended, rots floorboards;

and yes, I’ve sipped coffee with men whose hands are powder-burn scarred,
uncleansable stains soaked into their skin –
do not mistake me for an accountant of sins,
keeping ledgers of unpayable debts. There is
no bureaucracy to balance this splotching of red ink – no grace
of prison or confessional; even knowledge of your name seems blasphemy.

3. Talking to myself

What’s been forged in this kiln, this city of insomnia?
No answer from the darkness, just the burbling
of molten metal underneath my ribs, waiting to be tempered.

From "City of Insomnia," by Victor D. Infante (Write Bloody Publishing, 2008)