“You are what you pretend to be,so be careful about what you pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Month: June 2015
art music poetry #39
Opus 2050, Dolmens #8, 2015, Joan’s Garage
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
KV, Jr.
The world’s a lesser place today,
my friend Kurt has passed away.
He wrote of one-foot pubic hairs,
monkey house, foma, atomic glares.
Each time a deer comes through our yard
I see one fenced in Kurt’s canard.
One May at Hobart’s graduation
he told parents, in his estimation
they had wasted their hard-earned dough
by allowing their spoiled children to go
to a school more like a holding tank
where beavers opened and drunkards drank.
He did not expect to be invited back,
but the cap-robed kids had laugh attacks.
With Kurt and Molly Ivins gone,
who’s left to light up things gone wrong?
Who will publish, who will read
the next attack on corporate greed?
Who will stand, sing and holler
about the way they spend tax dollars?
Bokononism lights a fire in sand,
foot to foot, hand in hand,
after Ice-Nine depletes the earth
of all its water, little mirth,
except to sit and masturbate,
everyone dead from one mistake.
The marines were tired of getting wet,
Time to re-read Vonnegut.
Bernie Sanders Must Win
Except for his position on guns (he’s from hunter-heavy Vermont and must at least stay in the senate),Bernie Sanders is a great candidate for president. Not just to try to pull Hillary to the left, but also because many things need to start happening quicker if we are to keep the planet and the USA safe for seven generations to come.
1) remove all troops from overseas.
Who says the USA should control all human and natural resources, and wow aren’t there enough people mad at us already
? We’ve attacked 91 countries (some three times, some even more than that) since World War II. We’ve set up army, navy, air force, marine bases nearly everywhere. We’ve exerted ourselves when not wanted and it’s ALL for the folks in the filthy rich top part of the top 1%.
2) regulate carbon emissions with an enforceable gasoline rationing plan. Stop fracking…isn’t Oklahoma enough of a clue?!?
3) all those SUVs and big trucks that were let OFF Jimmy Carter’s sensible fleet requirements for better gas mileage need to be put BACK ON. Clinton/Gore made this bad deal: if GM, Ford and Chrysler would just “develop” alternative engines, then the SUVs and Trucks they built would NOT be on the list of vehicles that had to improve gas mileage in order for their manufacturers to continue in business. Honestly, why not ban all vehicles under 30 MPG?
4) ONLY allow the manufacturing of products that do not hurt the planet, and encourage more recycled products. OK great Polar Fleece is made from recycled plastic of bottles used in New England. But, do you REALLY know where your recycle material ends up? It’s a very hard one to track accurately in most locations.
5) WHO NEEDS ALMONDS? Really. California grows upwards of 20% of the USA food supply. Yet, its farmers and well drillers are now tapping water that will take 300 years to replenish, and that’s 300 years without ANY wells and with regular rainfall. Hello, skip the almonds, go for water. (see 60 minutes)
6) Keep the folks who risk their lives for us in the army busy by CLEANING UP THE PLASTIC CONTINENTS IN THE PACIFIC and ATLANTIC. Use the US Navy’s advanced technology to pick up the nuclear waste that was dumped in the Atlantic in OIL BARRELS during the beginning of nuclear power.
7) End all nuclear power by replacing it with alternative energy as Germany is doing.
8) Gun control at the same level as England or South Korea: NONE. Allow those who hunt to manage their own ranches and use the meat to survive. IN fact, help create such places for them, hand them a rifle to hunt with, and don’t let them off the land until they give you the gun back.
9) Nurture town meetings between the rich and the poor, different “races,” different points of view and make sure the turn outs are high via grass roots organizing. We have to organize under the coercive influence of government, and away from it. Name me eight (8) national governments that aren’t corrupt. I’ll wait. Good luck. The larger the government, the more money it takes to get elected. Create pockets of sanity in which neighborhoods make their own decisions, thank you very much. Globalized trade has lowered the value of labor EVERYWHERE. The TPP is TP, just not as useful.
10) Make sure Bernie gets elected because, though he would not institute any of this, he’s a step in the right direction. Please
HELP MAKE IDEAS BEAT MONEY this time around.
Sincerely,
Doug
Opus 1463, 2005, Chapel Hill
art, poetry, music #43
Opus 1996. 2015, Joan’s Garage
Play II, Thirty Five Years Later
There’s this shadow made by Korean Pines that hits
the white wall of building two at one every day.
If you’re sitting upstairs at An Die Musik, lazily
waiting for your favorite lunch-mate, this shadow can
appear to be the cliff seen in ancient watercolors. A
dark cliff and foggy white air in a far-distant place.
Foreground cloud-clipped conifers add a touch of reality,
nudging you back to lunch, which arrives, unlike your partner.
Today it’s the newfound cliff, visible only from three
southeast-facing seats. Students move, shoes push grains
into jagged cracks, yellow buds enlarge, the sun warms
frosted souls, but it’s the shadow cliff that matters. Now
you have a new friend, silent but hopeful, strong yet fake,
everlasting but ever-changing, finally receding with the sun
to a place no one knows. A morose quartet, early romantic,
pops at least one bright piano note, while cello, violin, viola
continue their lament. A new banner is stretched between
trees. The perpetrators are efficient and mingle into passersby
in less than thirty seconds. Now the cliff cascades, trios walk
and talk, you dream of love alone, confident it will return.
>< (Below written 1973)
Play
Brandy barks at swooping swallows,
Life, lowered to one foot or so
In summer time is simple,
As the lure of tired dogs and clover
Greets only those who need to play.
Scampering down outside stairs
Past the skidding bicycle marks
To a tumbling fit of joy
Goes the only daily memory
Of a happiness once known.
Landing in a pile of limbs,
Which includes the golden hair
That shines of wetness on the
Back of Brandy, the player
Laughs at the summer sun.
How long will it be
Before the play begins again,
Before the youthful joy
Once known appears, before
The love, if ever, returns?
Art Music Poetry #41
Opus 688, Tarppon Springs, 1980
Sarah & Ed
A glass apple shines in light so pale you
Hardly remember to breathe.
Twenty three seconds later you notice
A car noise and remember it’s Wednesday.
Uncomfortable plastic chairs pass for décor
At cafes that lure sweaty walkers.
Banter floats up four stories in time to
Stop you from crying. Who’s out there?
You pull on some shorts and fly down
Stairs, forget the bad knee. Human contact.
It’s Sarah. She’s lost her hat. She sits
Politely waiting. You walk slowly.
She walks slower. Finally you stop.
You think about stroking her.
You think. You think. Which stops
You from crying. Think on young man.
Art Music Poetry #27
Opus 1463, 2005, Chapel Hill
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
The Creek
Harvesting future sauerkraut,
Paddling the lake.
Spearing for a rainbow trout
Baking cornbread cake.
Smothing down an arrowhead,
Digging trilobites.
Walking where our brothers bled,
Singing funeral rites.
Hiking back along the creek,
Past the cherry trees.
Raspberries, they seem so meek,
But bloody up the knees.
Creekbed slowly running dry,
But then a waterfall.
A pause to sit and wonder why,
To hear the blue jay call.
Water drops into the pool
Like a giant tear.
Elders preach a peaceful rule,
We pray for a plentiful year.
Art Music Poetry #26
Opus 1552, 2006, Chapel Hill
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
I had the great and amazing luck of getting to know Toy Caldwell (lead guitar with a thumb!) as the Nail Drivers and later Nice Day for Somethin’ had been called to open for him when he played the Iroquois in Roanoke VA, Circa 1987-1990, thanks for the memories boys!
Lavender Tear
See if this rings a bell:
The exact feeling you have to express
Before your father dies is the one thing
The two of you never approach, so you
Go about your latest woes, or his
Beating cancer, but you can’t ever say
How amazing it is that he put up with
So much for so long without raising
A peep.
Or how about this one:
Ten or twelve years into a better-than-
Average love affair you finally decide
Things couldn’t be better, just in time to
Find out you don’t have the balls to
Complete the function by raising some
Children. You lose her over this, and
Waste months, not sure anyone else
Will listen.
You’re not sure they’ll listen to the loud
Colors smacking onto canvas, or to
Bass rumblings, or some dashed-off line.
But this is a dream, and your day’s night
Blends, due to insomnia. Einstein and
Zevon never slept. Broken hearts mend.
Art Music Poetry #25
Opus 2008, Dolmen #7, 2015, Joan’s Garage
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
February in Rochester
Here where the gray clouds are so pervasive
They effect the way we behave,
A small gift of color replaces the flowers
Long hidden by Winter’s parade
Of snow slush mud, snow slush mud,
Snow slush mud, snow slush mud,
Snow, that comes at us each day.
So, roses go floating down the brown water
Out to the iced-over lake
A week or two after they passed their prime
In celebration of Valentine’s Day.
Which, as you recall, was warm with
The love we have shared for over a decade.
So here’s to the moments when smiles
Follow laughs and soulmate’s connections are made:
Of grow love hug, grow love hug,
Grow love hug, grow love hug,
Grow, that make life just like getting laid.
art poetry music 24
Opus 1462, 2005 Chapel Hill
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
Nancy
She survived
hepatitis C
for twenty one years,
she mentored hundreds off of
alcohol and drugs.
She wrote long letters
when I was stressed out,
she loved all
she met, thus taken
advantage
of in schemes,
love, even death. Her
happiness was a
neat house, pet dogs, holocaust
memorial at
Monroe C.C., where
public relations
men also
tried to warp her words.
she never
stopped giving
so people took, yet her smile
stayed alive
long after she knew
she’d been scammed because
she knew the
needs of others, having been
through every
type of misery.
Love was all she sought.
art music poetry 23
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
Opus 2053, Joan’s Garage, 2015
Lady Recruiter
She, again tires of her shield-boy, you know
the one who is the current boyfriend, in order to
shield her line of work. The workers are uniformly ladies,
the customers, men. So, our heroine must never be discovered
since she would have to leave the country. The way she
switches “cover” men is by making them very angry
in public. She might kiss another man, or have her
boyfriend continually buy dinner and drinks for an ever-
expanding group of her friends and co-workers. As his money
keeps flowing to her whole stable, the anger turns to
rage and they “break up.” The problem is, it isn’t just the
men she is “dating” who get mad, but the men she picks
randomly to use as a wedge. Fights break out as five
men buy her drinks at the same bar, none of them her
“boyfriend,” who arrives later, into a trap of many men
Expecting something from her, to the dismay of the man who
Is only minutes away from seeing the aforementioned kiss.
Modus Operandi maximus cum stupido. So she plies her
trade in three different cities, oh, such a sad fate.
art music poetry 22
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
Opus 2026, “Consumption” , 2015, Joan’s Garage
Division of Labor in Korea
Her heart ticks, his lungs push energy with the
excitement a third grader gets when paired
with the chosen mate. “But she chose me, so
I’m not sure I love her,” he says, at age nine:
primed to be the most popular, he was class
president last year. But isn’t being popular a
curse that leads to egomania, especially in Scorpio
males? The wind pushes elementary walk, three
hundred meters to paradise, then, fore me, on to
a different type of classroom full of students
whose every grades determines career path, marriage
eligibility: attractiveness measured by diligence in
class, looks once out the door. Just like the apex
of suitability, the college entrance exam, one’s grade
point average makes or breaks job interview status.
Forget football star, chess club, five thousand hours
Of community service, it’s all about grades here, so
the East/West cultural divide hits early, say age four.
The East, so good at mimicking and selling products,
the west at developing new ones. Global but unequal.
Art Music Poetry #37
Opus 27, 1977, Stockbridge, MA
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
Manhattan Mambo
Rain, mist, Rain.
Synthetic awnings cast water bombs
That splash between nose and lenses.
It’s a hike to Chelsea from Koreaville.
You duck into a pay-by-weight
Kimchi shop to fuel up for the
Twelve block trek.
Art at Whitehall, art on every floor,
Art by appointment only, art as
Video, art as manhole cover, art
as “Hello-my-name-is” tags, art
From Kansas, a Korean lady who glues
The outside frills of name badges in rows
Ten across and 300 high, quite derivative.
Seated, pooped, twelve-dollar park.
But what a relief to have been in the art.
You drive back to Carolina, land of crafts,
See Boston galleries showing gray,
Young wine merchants taking chances on
The stuff they hang in galleries. You have
The time to paint, but don’t today.
Heat, sun, heat.
Twenty five years of painting. One huge
Pile waiting to be stored, maybe framed,
Maybe dipsy-dumpstered, maybe sold off
The wall of Port City Java. To be amazed
By art, to laugh in the face of art. To paint:
The last refuge, last thread, last breath.
Art Music Poetry 20
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represent the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
Opus 2059, 2015, Joan’s Garage
Hikaru
One cherry blossom detaches, falls, a single unit
allowing fruit its space, starting its new journey: island
to reflecting pond, orchard to cottage yard, daughter to
lover, enhanced by the wind, if even for only six seconds.
Transformed to long-boned genius, long-yearning adult,
considerate friend, purple-green plaid from soft pink,
tan suede boots from four-petalled bloom. Hikaru, as they
say in Japan, hits the town running, arms crossed, cradling
herself like the war-torn victims of Vietnam, but not
worn or torn, she flings enthusiastic youth toward
outstretched limbs. She captures her beginning and future
simultaneously, shedding one form, embracing another,
sweating humid Spring, still awkward in this skin.
Descending unannounced, she moves among mere mortals
Spreading joy, quietly demanding obedience, offering all
in exchange for all. Most cannot accept, choose an
easier, less complicated path; but those brave strong souls
Born from deep roots blessed metamorphosed
beings who join Miss Cherry soon realize, if for one day,
week, or lifetime, their lives will never be the same.
Art, Poetry, Music #19
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represent the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
There is no doubt, even though this poem is 16 years old, that this type of problem
is now a lot worse than back then.
StatusQuo
For now the streets are cluttered:
The poor kill off the poor,
But this won’t last forever
If the “Quo” keeps getting worse.
Guns for sale in neighborhoods
Where crime is the only living
Quarts and vials and bullets
Take without ever giving.
“Innocent” bystanders
Are the ones to blame.
Standing by in times like these
Leaves everything the same.
The quo goes “living standards
Will be on the decline.”
While multi-national barons
No chums around a fireplace
When you can’t pay the bills.
While money-man is traveling
In search of bigger thrills.
Sooner rather than later
The poor will raise their arms.
Replacing all the suited men
Regardless of the harm.
The system as we know it’
Is fading thanks to this:
The greedy haven’t realized
Their life ain’t worth a piss.
The ticking clock inside the bomb
Has passed the witching hour.
There is little hope for most,
So when will freedom flower?
It will when people with the time
Turn to lend a hand,
It will when greedy governors
Give back a hunk of land
The quo has made it possible
For us to live like rats.
Your life to them means nothing
You could end up a stat.
As the status quo gets worse
Violence rules the day.
We better help each other now.
Let us pray.
art music poetry #36
Opus 2053, Dolmens #10,2015, Joan’s Garage
The art in Art Music Poetry #19, to #50 represents the debut show at Golden Belt
in Durham NC. That will be June 19, 2015. Email for more information.
dougstuber@gmail.com.
The Meadow
The meadow’s grains flow in the breeze
While birds fly up above.
The leaves are turning in the trees
And lovers are making love.
The wild asparagus has gone away,
The corn is turning brown.
But this is where I’m going to stay
Because I’m feeling down.
If someone would come with me,
If someone would really care.
I’d take them up and we would see
That chestnut thoroughbred mare.
And we would pick some long tall grass
And throw it at each other.
And we would watch the summer pass
Being friends with one another.
My dearest friend I will not lie,
I love you very much.
But like the elusive butterfly
You are much to nice to touch.
