2008- the summer that poetry conquered Portland!

A big Golightly-sized thank you to those of you who came to my reading last Thursday. For those of you who missed the excitement, there will be some secrets that will never be shared, but unlike death and virginity, you get a second chance!

I'll be reading on Monday, July 14th (next Monday!) at the 3 Friends Coffeehouse at 201 SE 12th Ave (SE 12th and Ash) at 7 PM. There's three people on the lineup, not sure when I'll be on, and it'll be 20 minutes of Portland, revolutions, baristas, Europe, the wild west, rock and roll, and whatever else I can conjure up. Bring your friends and enemies. Requests gladly taken.

And I'm still planning to release my as-yet-untitled 3rd book next Thursday, July 17th, in honor of Jesus' arrival in Portland. The Jesus and Mary Chain, that is...

I'll leave you with a summer story of revolution. You can always check out my poetry at http://mikeygolightly.blogspot.com

Happy summer!
-Mikey Golightly


(uncensored version available by emailing Mikey)
-----------------------------
The Pittock Mansion is in flames this morning,
while tea-time ladies run screaming down the
West Hills avenues, gutters filling with blood,
chihuahuas under each arm,
chased by the bicycle revolutionaries,
broomstick lance under each arm.
Someone erected a guillotine on the Burnside Bridge,
and there’s a flotilla of dismembered heads
gathering against the Eastbank Esplanade-
xxxxxxxxkissing xxxxxxxxxx with stone blue lips
while xxxxxx xxxxxx’s gaping lifeless mouth is sucking
the decaying money-rotten brain out of xxxxx xxxx’s skull
through her limp, dangling spinal cord.
xxxxxx xxxxxx is stacking his millions against
Mecca’s front door, trying not to become
a windswept casualty of the class war
hurricane thundering down Burnside,
xxxx xxxxxxxxx’s jet turned back over Iowa,
now he’s exiled from the city he betrayed
and there’s a special blade waiting for him.
CNN says someone’s going to fly a plane
through the windows of Big Pink
but Portland revolutionaries can do better
than copy the fascist ploys of the dying American junta,
Portland’s at war now and I’m just standing
on the east side of the bridge,
counting the heads and calling out names,
only the pure of heart are crossing
the Willamette on this beautiful summer morning.

And so begins the summer of our salvation....

---------------------------------------------------------------

"MOVEMENT! MOVEMENT!"

This is your sign

     HERE

     NOW

Take this exit, coming up fast, your car's worn

  out and your psychic radiator is

  blowing steam all over,

  incinerating the thoughtless children

   licking at the rivulets like icicles,

Step up! Slam down your words, the ones

 you love and hate and hate to love

 and hate to write, have to write,

  like a plague

  scabies, they are

 scratch and scratch and anyone who stands

  too close gets a deadly disease that the

  doctor can't describe

 prescribe a shot and a glass of wine

  but that's the fuel,

  not the antidote

"MOVEMENT! MOVEMENT!"

No need for time travel to tag

  today as the day when the

  psychic train wobbled on its rails

   and exploded in eternity's ecstasy

   as the hobo poets took shotgun

   potshots broadside at the passing express

"MOVEMENT! MOVEMENT!"

  Show me your ticket and I'll kiss you

   so deeply your knees will buckle and break

   and your stomach will dissolve into love's sticky jelly

Unwrap your uncertainties and disintegrate

  your self-hate because

I LOVE YOU! no matter who you are

  or what you write

  as long as you BELIEVE!

BELIEVE until you can't cry

  again, BELIEVE until my love throws

  you down on your hands and knees, lying

  prone facing the redeeming mecca sun,

  your face buried in the soft damp decay of

   a forest regenerating itself from

  the bacteria and the shrinking viruses

   of diseased decades going dark,

"MOVEMENT! MOVEMENT!"

I'll write my own Declaration of

 Independence when I break free

  from the muse's satin shackles,

 the short, orgasmic pleasure of

FUCKING THE FAR BEYOND

 replaced by the post-coital dread

 of becoming nothing

 a sentenced spider who just spent

  his eternal sperm

   on a spontaneous widow not worth

   these webbed words left behind

"MOVEMENT! MOVEMENT!"

   Sign up right here and

    practice your performance-

 The judges are decapitated.

 The priests have all gone to sleep.

----------------------------------------------------------

In the Cascade forest I see through the eyes of God
  brilliant mermaids basking in the hot springs waters
  gazing up the Breitenbush River as the spirits trapped
  in the mountain-top snow unleash their winter-frozen
  voices in the roaring snowmelt torrent,
 the sirens absorb the messages of ancient forests
  in mineral springs brewing before the ages of men,
  bubbling hot from the timeless heart of their Mother Earth,
 and these new mothers of our shared destiny
  become the balancing point between the raging roar
  of the river and the lullaby murmur of the springs.
I hide my eyes from their enchanting beauty, 
  Diana and Helen and Cassiopeia lying naked to
  the rapturous blue-sky gaze of the sun, and to
  the confused wonderings of a dazzled poet
  blinded by the amazing divinity of a woman's body,
 one quick stolen glance can become the mind-destroying
  glimpse into the spiraling origins of the universe,
  an eternal curse that forever freezes my thoughts
 and overwhelms my soul with the undeniable joy
  that springs from deep within each one of us.
I soak quietly in the soothing waters, staring
  back at the Cascade sky, so thankful that
  I'm blesses with the mermaids, with the
   never-ending amazement of the human body,
 thankful to be cursed to take these holy
  snapshots in silence,
 thankful that I've finally found my way
  to see through the eyes of God.
---------------------------------------------

"In the end", she whispered, eyes glazed over staring
  back up at the cliff from which she'd 
  fallen to this last gate, "you have to
 make up your own language for all
  the things that happen, all the days and
  hours and deaths and births and meals and
  friendships and dilemmas and insanities,
 you have to write your own grammar 
  and compose your own history, be it
   a song or a poem, a sculpture or
   a painting, or an eternal gaze 
   captured on film and spread all over
  the walls of museums, and ghettoes, 
 you have to make up your own words
  for the way this life burns into
  your heart and your stomach, your skin
  and your soul, the way it hurts
  and heals, the way the infinite pain of
  death makes you scream with pleasure
  beyond drugs and sex and salvation,
 you have to make up your own language."

-----------------------------------------------

Salvation is indeed coming to Portland, as the Jesus and Mary Chain are performing at the Wonder Ballroom on July 17th, in what could be the best moment in Portland's glittering rock and roll history since the Beatles played Memorial Coliseum in 1965. In honor of band that's been more than just my favorite band, something more like religion, or at least  misguided self-help scriptures,  I'll be releasing my 3rd book of poetry, including several JAMC-related poems from throughout the years, on July 17th. Look for it in the same places where you might have found "Dream Trains Keep On Rolling" or "These Poems Kill Fascists".

Revolutions don't carry advertising budgets. So what are you waiting for- a TV commercial or a banner ad to tell you when it's time to step out of the shackles that hold you down? There's two ways to correct the stratification that threatens each and every one of us. One is the civilized way, through laws and taxes, a Constitution and the American way. The other? Well, go ask Marie Antoinette. 

I'll see you at the ramparts.

-MVK