Talking to no one

Like a silent storm.

Thinking of things to do

And say

Waiting on a train platform.

Nobody knows who I am.

Invisible cameras follow my footsteps

My boots, in the sand

My shelf of pretty pictures.

Repeating words

That echo and rhyme.

I pour myself into words and images that haunt me,

Like shadows that run through time

And follow me.

Like burnt out diamond light fixtures

Like daydreams of what should have been.

Like hidden messages on a

phone, you decline to answer.

Like a woman waiting.

Me, disappearing

Like condensation.

They will judge me, I'm sure.

Stuck in their relentless trance,

they will never know.

I don't create. Or copy, or

Measure.

I just dance.

I integrate existing matter. I imitate.

I go down in

Subterranean passages, without a ladder.

I breathe life into dreams and signs,

And choruses, sung alone.

Things come to me that cannot wait,

Like flying designs

In the wind.

Images cure me, like leather.

Like medicine.

My eye and my hand must write out

My feelings about sky, and earth, and man.

About empty spaces.

About people

Lined up like a crossing train.

It rains out of me, and

I try to collect the drops

As they drop to the floor.

As from a giant cistern.

I hear songs, and try and learn the sound.

Like a prisoner in Hell, I have

No choice in the matter.

I am just a voice,

Singing loud.

Without a lantern, I explore the cave and the field.

As they spend all their time

Trying to sell me.

I try to reflect what is concealed.

Unsealed, like a scroll in the sky

Like a bell ringing

Like a sound in the land from

The line of telephone poles,

All saying

"I am."

In vain, I fight,

With color

And black and white.

And all they say is, "give."

Hey Mister

I don't want to own nothing--

I just want to know what is happening.

How to get home.

Just if I were a deep sea-diver

Like a trapped miner

I am inside,

Going out with no plan.

Through their lectures

In perfect rows

While calmly sitting

My mind is my gun, thrusting through the air.

In the pale blue sky

A shrill whistle from the wires

An electric bundle of cord.

While there waiting, on the edge of a bench,

On an empty train platform.

Oh,

Do not ask me why;

It does not matter, maybe, why.

I'm just there.

I just felt compelled, I say later

As ten million moments scatter.

Who knows.

Maybe I was just bored.

The streets

So crowded

Like some

Revived ancient fleet

Swept back from the dead

A bell came ringing

Like a telepathic human alarm sounded

I saw numbers in the street

Painted bright red

I saw the monkey's head--

Cut off, by it's feet

Like a full scale family reunion from Tabriz

Or like the sound of 16,000 dreams

Or,

Like a drowning country

Could breathe

Wrists

Floating the sound of pulsing green lighting mist

A mysterious trumpet was bleeding

With slashes of freedom,

Like a hammer that found itself writing

The heart of the city was pounding hard

As the claws of a two-headed lion

Was fighting

And reading

The ringing of the bell, awakening

The sea

Like a gigantic statue, moving

Shards of glass and fire

As the people roar

And as the streets were swept

It grew late

While the land was still singing

Marg Bar Dictator

A dead party is crashing through the floor

In the middle of a church is the darkness

Prying open a door

In the wilderness of town

A girl is plunging headfirst through the window

Though she said

She didn't want to

On the way down

Listen to the sound, crying in the meadow

Singing in an empty room

In his bedroom his mother makes a bed

Under the table where the secrets were

The drugs are still hid

The pictures before the war

Where he was then peacefully waiting

Before the bullet

Killed the man

Stashed inside a drawer

Listen to the sounds, crying in the meadow

Coming from an empty room

A room enters a man full of whispers

Consumed by the quiet stairs down the hall

A weary listener

Can't just fall asleep

But in the darkened rooms of Mom and Mr. Who

Her body

Is half undressed

And very calm

I hear many sounds, crying in the meadow

Coming from the empty rooms

A street is flashing the legs of a whore

In the corner behind the steps, the cameraman sits

Warming up the corpse

Amidst the foggy breath

Two eyes are open wide in a frozen rattle

Where the battle

Between love and death

Seems to loom.

The only sounds, there crying in the meadow

Are from an empty room.

http://www.lulu.com/jallenwood/

And know--it is going to a good cause, because I am still out of work.  So if you do have the chance to buy the book, my 3 kids and I thank you most humbly.

Over a flood of spoiled meat

When we've buttoned up their coats and flak-jackets

Who is willing to die in the street

When you're passing up the barracks

In a comfortable seat

Seeing the roadside isn't drying blood

No more

Firing nothing

When the Fallujah bridge is empty

Who is willing to be alone

At war

Say your'e thirsty, say you're tired, say you want to go home

Who'll be the first one for the sky to take 

Fly me away, like a flag

Oh, mother country

Who will be the last to die for a mistake

But it, of course didn't happen.

As Woody once wrote on a card for Bob Dylan, "I ain't dead yet."  But, the imaginary door I envisioned for my life is invisibly closing further with each passing holiday.  WIth each grey hair on my head.  With each new word my baby tries to say.  Life comes crashing slowly, tearing apart my dreams of them all knowing me.  And the chances of disappearing into oblivion are growing ever more likely.  A day will come when Joe Wood's canvases are stacked, not so gently, in the middle of a floor.  Some will end up in thrift shops.  Some will be thrown away.  Some will find a home, where people who feel like nobody will cherish them.

I will never be James Dean.  I will never wheel the guitar like Pete Townsend.  I won't write Prufrock, nor light up the parties where they eat out of my every breath like Truman Capote.  A voice, and a shadow, and at moments a rock star--to 3 little people in St. Louis is what I really am, while the world moves on. 

What the cafe has given me really is a chance to feel like I am somebody, even though in reality, I am just somebody's dad.  Here, I am a voice, whimpering during a whirlwind.  If one can find me, which here they can, I can be that person I want to be.  I can sit at the mike and be Jack Buck and call the game.  Or, I can be myself.  I can kneel at the confessional behind the screen, and tell it all.

The beauty of being a big fish in a small pond, of being known in a small town, of being a face in a crowd of people only you may ever know, but they're the people you'd choose if it were really up to you--that is what I feel when I can't sleep, or I am excited by something.  Or when I am scared, because I am powerless, and can feel it in my bones.  Yet I put words down, thoughts, and set fire to my own ideas, and see what happens.  It is like art.  I drag my stick in the mud, and see what becomes of it. 

I don't know if people realize it or not, but the trend of making homogeneous the places and people we discover has less and less time for people like us, people who are interesting and interested.  And we need to cling to small roadside cafe's like TPM, where we can fill an afternoon or a long lonely night with ideas and dreams.  Though I hate to admit it, I need a dimly lit cafe sometimes.

I felt a creepy feeling as I watched.  I recognized many of the faces.  I recognized the words, the place, and even the backdrop felt familiar.  But all put together, in the same moment, it just didn't agree with me.

I am not sure if I watched Joe McCarthy yesterday or Adolf Hitler.  But I felt their presence.  Their spirit.  On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

I did not understand why they were there, saying what they were saying, for no apparent event or holiday.  I'm not sure I can fathom why so many people showed up either.  If I knew what the central purpose was, maybe then I wouldn't be so confused.

I felt like screaming at the TV, because I was awaiting Beck to take the opportunity to shape-shift into Howard Beale.  Instead, I heard a sermon, that didn't go into detail, but only hinted.  Signified for the man.  And, the Howard Beale thing didn't leave my mind.

I am not sure I like this new world, where people don't come out and say what they mean, what they're for, and what they are against.  That world that shames people out of being honest with you.  How to use code.  That shames them into being tricky and conniving and learning how to be smarter than you.  Not smarter about life, but about how to get what they want from you.

This is a trend that permeates everything.  And it sounds like a Beck conspiracy, but I find it in every corner.  Yesterday, I saw two tricksters try to become preachers, and try to infuse themselves with religion and God and the troops by wrapping themselves up in symbols that they don't own.  By attaching themselves to dates and places and images and words that have nothing whatsoever to do with them and their purpose.

I am not tricked.  I felt afterwards like taking a shower.  Washing my hands.   

I can't speak for the thousands who felt something yesterday, or showed up to find something there on the mall yesterday.  I don't look down on their faith and hope and charity.  It is real for them. 

But I wasn't fooled.  I don't fall for cons that use patriotism, religion, and symbols of our nation anymore.  Never again, Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin.  I was here after 9/11. 

I won't be fooled again.

Sometimes I think I am Donald Draper.  Sometimes playing it cool and knowing more than I actually do gets me through a few moments, until I realize that nothing is actually ever certain. 

Sometimes a church is a refuge.  The same church I used to ditch.  The church my Father and Mother got married in.  The place I used to take my family, when I had one.  Sometimes, church is just a pretty building.

Sometimes I want to be alone in a windy field.  Sometimes I want to be alone at sunset.  Sometimes I just want to feel the sky, as hard as a gush of a motorized fan. Sometimes, I don't wish to be alone as I am.

There are times I look through the windshield, and realize life will one day end.  Sometimes I look through the windshield, while someone else is driving, and sit there quiet, seeing the world as if for the first time.  Sometimes life feels like light warming the tips of grass.  Sometimes life feels like a storm.

Sometimes life is just unbearable.  Too busy.  Too boring.  Always at the wrong place, or the wrong time.  Sometimes I wonder how much Van Gogh and Gauguin really knew about art.  Sometimes I wonder if Lincoln was just a politician.  Sometimes I wonder if the city is just a place to realize you are alone in it.  That potential often has nothing to do with you and your ability.  That you will try and try to be more than that.  But you will just be you, no matter what happens.  Even if they never saw you.   

In arabic and persian, I want to rite out: America, is the hope of the world.
The schoolhouses, domes and pillars are defaced by such slogans. All men created such and such. Life, liberty, and something else.
In America, my Jewish son, my Catholic, and my Shinto father can all be treated the same by the state, or at least in theory. My atheist brother won't be stoned in the street. My wife won't be turned on the wheel for heresy. And I won't be removed from my lands--at least not anymore...
I hate the debate but I love the fight for a place we think or deem or posture to be, like chipping away at a hunk of wood--trying to find the right design; the hidden truth. Always aspiring to be something. America, what, I wonder is your truth?
I love NY. I love our flag. I have many. I pray for it, not to it.
I think if a mosque were built on top of a skyscraper shaped like a titanic American flag, it would only show our greatness, and our tolerance for diversity. If the crescent moon was atop Freedom Tower, I would not reel in disgust, but be proud of how far we've come. If a muslim was elected President, then Martin Luther King's dream would be closer to fruition.
What better place than NY for the terrorists to have struck a nerve in us, America. For we all suffered, christian, buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, and nihilist. We all grieved. We all were struck. All on the same block.
I don't care what they call a mosque, or it's location. Just as I don't mind a church, or where I may find it. Because I know what it is for.
As long as we don't have to finance the construction, nor have to attend by force, nor are told that we will pray to God, or Allah, or Jehovah, I will demonstrate my love for America by loving it's people, it's religions, it's languages, it's faces, it's colors--the way you may love cigarettes, and sex, and sleep, and children. Only the past can hate a mosque, the way it hated the Sioux, the African, the Afro-American. King George's rule.
Are we tending towards Shickelgruber, or are we tending towards Lincoln? I implore you America, with your modern convenience gadgets and such, to make a place for kindness, and for everyone. Even those you despise. Even those you hate with passion. I assure you that they are like those brothers and sisters we hated growing up, and yet would stick up for in a fight. Would go tell Mom on, but would also hug at a funeral, and kiss at a wedding, and we would adore their children.
Oh, lets talk of dreams. In the way dreams really are, Mr. King. One day a dream to see the staff at Pearl Harbor be Japanese uniforms and eastern descent. To see the great-great-great granddaughter of John Wilkes Booth open a museum to Father Abraham. To see rappers with a confederate flag. To see white skin-heads the founders and trustees of a Malcolm X university. Germans running a holocaust memorial.
Then, a Barack Obama would be ho hum. A Sarah Palin would be so what. A holacaust and a slavery and a cold war would be fairy tales that scared nobody, and flew away in the wind. All on one sidewalk. Only in America, would this not be a ludicrous fantasy.
Would you object to a cross? Would I object to a Cathedral?
Be better than your worst, America. That blood minged on the sidewalk ten years before, on that one block. Orthadox Jew, Muslim, Jesus Christ. It is still stuck in the caked crevaces of the concrete of Lower Manhattan.
Be better than Lincoln. Make Martin Luther King Jr. seem even more visionary. Bend yourself towards justice. Be the change you wish for in your dreams.
A muslim, a Jew, a Christian--they are your brother, your mother, yourself. See yourself in them, and them in you. Can you cast out yourself? Can you cut off your own leg? Can you hate yourself?
Be America. Be it in the way you look different, say it loud, and sing in tongues.
I admit that I'd love to see NY as a Jerusalem. I sometimes do already. The men hiding in caves and 19 men with planes would have loved to force a Christian church out of Jerusalem, out of Rome, out of Paris, out of Manhattan.
That is a greater victory to them than the Eiffel tower, the Statue of Liberty.
What is your victory, I wonder? Is it just a building, some pretty columns with slogans? Is that all we can dream of?
America, you don't seem to know that you are greatest when you are magnanimous.
Mother, father, brother--O' my eye is searching for justice, my ear is pressed to brotherood. America seems to ignore me. America, at times you seem blind.
As the world is always listening, and watching.
I pray for the children, especially the ones we ignore. Cast aside. Treat like a one-legged stepchild. The ones we hate, we probably still smile at the children. What are you saying to them, America? What is your truth?
Is it in your words, or is it the way you fear a building, full of Americans.

A poem by Joe Wood

(2010)

I had a memory, of a land a'plenty

The men a'working, the women talking

I had a nightmare, the world was ending

This land was made for you and me.

I stole a hammer, to break a wall through

I built a tower, to see a sky from

I smelt the tarnish, of an aging steeple

This land was made for you and me.

As I was crying, on a desperate mid-day

I felt a puncture, a desolate hunger

I stopped the engine, I grabbed my steel-string

This land was made for you and me.

I took a picture, of the tallest building

I made a painting, of a falling airplane

I drew a number, in reflecting water

This land was made for you and me.

I laid my head back, in a rocky rapid

I fanned my fingers, in a raging windstorm

I put my feet up, on a crashing mountain

This land was made for you and me.

I saw a body, that had no clothing

I fed a baby, that wasn't smiling

I helped a lady, who wasn't beautiful

This land was made for you and me.

Walked down a highway, to lose my feeling

Counted my footsteps, to keep from dying

I bought a rifle, to kill my fearing

This land was made for you and me.

I took a corner, and drew an opening

I gathered flowers, to frame the desert

I scattered seed-lings, in a desolate meadow

This land was made for you and me.

I played a record, that gave a signal

I rode a box-car, that sang a refrain

I saw a man who, whispered a warning

This land was made for you and me.

I rode the pony, and felt the prarie

I stood in sunny, and wavy grassland

I fell asleep in, a lonely valley

This land was made for you and me.

I started singing, to see the sunset

I met the moonlight, to keep from crying

I wrote the letters, to keep from insane

This land was made for you and me.

I saw the Devil, in a million windows

I saw the Devil, in a crowded hallway

I saw the Devil, on a sunny sidewalk

This land was made for you and me.

I swore an oath to, an aging banner

I broke an engine, to save a man from

I loved a young girl, who wouldn't save me

This land was meant for you and me.

Almost every time we are let down, and they fall short the grace of God or Zeus or Mr. Smith.

At such low moments, Republicans, and Democrats alike are prone to say, "Why bother?"
Or, to become Independents, or part of a third party movement--until that too proves an uphill battle, unlikely, or an impossibility--and steers us from community activism into our private disillusionment.

What are we to do?  Why bother to vote when with R or D, we still get screwed, and we still feel hungry and empty after we do the groundwork every 4 years.  Why waste time getting excited, getting invovled, spending time with strangers instead of our children--for the right reasons--but all in vain, when all is said and done...  Is it worth it?

I think so.  At least--that is the socially responsible thing to say.  In 2000, if a bit more of us have voted, who knows how things might have had to turn out, no matter what people had up their sleeve.  Who knows if voting really counts, but it still is the best way to live.
People, if for nothing else, should vote because of what it cost, and how many people have paid for us to have that right, that duty. 

I rememember having one of my first jobs.  I worked in a machine shop, that employed about 15 people.  It was hot, small, cramped, filthy.  One day I worked through breaktime, alone at my station.  Not because I was a kissass, but because I was interested in finishing something.

One of the older machinists came in.  He said, "Joe, it's Breaktime.  What are ya' doin?"
When I told him I was fine; just working through break--he said, "Alot of guys got beat over their head for that break we get; you should take it.  Alot of guys never got breaks.  In some countries, they still don't."

So, I took my breaks after some thought.

We don't have a perfect system; far from it.  But at least we have a say.  At least we don't get beaten or killed for calling our President "Hitler."  We don't have to kill our leaders or have a war every 4 years.  And, at least we have a hand in picking.  And alot of guys got hit over the head, shot in the face, and killed for that.  We should use it, proudly, as an act of duty, of citizenship, patriotism--and defiance, each and every time we have the opportunity to.

His speech was electrifying; I was seeing Lincoln, RFK, Malcolm X.  I was feeling the thread of history of America in my nerves.

I remember afterwards watching CNN, C-SPAN.  Watching him give that same stump speech over, and over, and over again.  It kind of took the edge off his words that night.  It kind of ruined it.  Like how you feel when you are accidently told there is no Santa.  That the magic is just a production for you.

But I nonetheless realized that my grown up self had gotten confused with my juvenile self.  This is just how it is; don't be so naive.

That helps for awhile.

Last week, I was realizing how the same things repeat themselves.  Like noticing how every time Obama speaks he says "Thank You" in a slightly tedious way, or that he, once finished, thrusts his waving hand in the air and always ends with, "Thanks, everybody."  Then struts away to shake hands.

Yes Virginia, he is a politician.

I find myself thinking less about his soaring oratory, on race, on peace, on change, and hope, and more of the times he or Gibbs do containment or damage control instead of coming clean. 

Maybe it's just inevitable.

Perhaps a juvenile and naive part inside all of us needed an RFK, a Malcolm Little for President.  But we have seen slowly and repeatedly, in little gestures and in big decisions, that he is not anymore the incarnation, not that he ever was except in our psyche. 

Obama has simply lost his edge.

Not maybe his nerve, but let's face it--he has "arrived." He is not the outsider anymore. He now is seeming to be "too nice" because he is not some underdog from Chicago, fighting against the establishment. Now, he is the establishment. What is he supposed to do, burn the Capitol?

He is now, having been elected--in the spot to keep it from getting away.  He now has to worry not just about himself, but his entire party.  Elections.  Polls.  2012.  It is nuts, but it is reality.

But there is something more important than political considerations. 

He is in the unique spot all outsider artists, poets, musicians and community organizers are in--when they cease to be a force outside on the street, and instead sleep, work, and act from inside the coziness and distance of the big house. He has to weigh his old realities and plans with the new realities and plans. He has to deal with people who on the outside talked the talk of what "we'd do"--and now--have to figure out how to do it. He also has to not only carry his message to his ardent fighters and backers--but carry an olive branch to the others he now serves. How do you attack and fight half your constituency?

He can't, or dare I say shouldn't--unless he can win publicly, with the backing of a slim majority of us coming around to his way of seeing things.  But that has proven badly for him.  Look at Health Care.

But neither can he cater, or beg, or be "too nice."  The opposition has it in for this particular man.  It really doesn't matter if it's race, or fear, or ideology.  They have it in for him.

Yes, he must lead them. He must lead us. 

But he has to lead through strength, and summon the courage and wit and charm that JFK and RFK had--and I believe this President has in store--to melt and shame us at the same time to be on his side.  Use words.  Use actions.  Ideas.  Go places, but be daring, not NICE.  Speak your mind again, and stop playing it safe, just because you're in the big house.

I recall the parable by Malcolm X of the House vs. the Field Negro.  (And not because of his race.)  But because his dilemma is central to why he was elected in the first place.  We wanted the urgency and outrage of a field hand, not the complacency and moderation of a house servant. That is our President's problem.  You just can't be both at the same time.

He must get firm. He must get his mojo back, and have an edge again. Not just through "going out into the country." Not just by having town halls where he rolls up some sleeves on his $600 shirt. No. He must get back on the forefront of IDEAS, of the things that MOVE. The things WE wanted done, once Cheney and Bush were removed.

Dear Mister President,

End the fucking Wars! Get the flow going to new jobs, or even better--our OLD jobs! Just make sure they are REAL jobs; get jobs that are in our grasp--back into our grasp, however you can. Get tougher on Wall St. Get tougher on BP. Prop. 8 was just defeated.  Consider overturning DOMA, but at least overturn DADT!!!! AND DON'T WAIT FOR US TO SAY SO!

Lead US!  You, of all people--we will follow, if we can just believe something will be better.  You are best, when you seem hungry, when you seem tired, when you seem fiery and determined.

You are the President.

Now do it like you were outside the damn White House, ready to do anything to get a foot inside.

I expect FOX News to give me snap judgements and slanted information.  But I am appalled at the administration for not checking their sources, and reaching such a final and usually irreversible judgement--publicly--about one of their own, that has left them with egg on their face, and a woman's reputation swallowed whole, then thrown up and spit on the sidewalk.

How do you undo this mess-up? 

Even if she got her job back, talk about a hostile work environment.  Sometimes just the air of suspicion is enough to kill long standing relationships once thought secure.  She said on the Today show, and CNN, and anyone else who would listen--that she implored her coworkers, superiors and the administration to check the whole statement, her record, and probably expected her "friends" to come to her defense.  But, as usually happens with even ordinary people, a workplace trying to "get out ahead" on a bad story or accusation is met with a rush to judgement, often with an undeserving employee getting the boot, totally deserted by people who are supposed to know them.  Do you think she'd want to be around those people again?  "Oops; sorry Miss Shirley!"

Anyone who has experienced this can imagine how deserted she felt, and feels.  There really isn't a way to fix what was broken here.

What always sickens me in this type of "oops" situation, is that maybe 60 percent of those who heard the initial story + her edited soundbyte, will even hear that there was a retraction by her former employer, by NAACP, and the administration. Maybe 40 percent will also hear that she was offered her job back and that her former boss apologized. Maybe 25 percent will hear the context of her initial statement, and of that maybe 15 percent will sit through and listen to her full statement at length.

In other words, you can't unring a bell.

Yes, we all know now that she isn't a racist; at least those percentage of us who 1) still pay attention to a story beyond 24 hrs, 2) believe what we hear for what it is, and 3) aren't conspiracy theorists or bigoted people who won't like this outcome, and will therefore ignore it.

I think that this woman is owed some measure, a big ass measure, of broadcast excellence--across various media, totally and singularly devoted to CLEARING HER NAME, in a way that will leave no one doubting it nor never hearing of it.

It must be clear and substantial.

Additionally, she should sue the pants off of whomever started this whole thing, and/or carried it further without due process and exploration it deserves--for slander.

This is going to be my last entry. 

You guys at TPMcafe have really been great and wonderful kindred spirits, especially at my darkest of struggles.  Thank you for being there, all of you.

I have realized that this is not helping me to figure out what to do with every day's existence, but instead enabling me to sit indoors while I could be outside, living a life. Someone suggested the other day that the best medicine for me is to stop this blog, and start doing something tangible.  I agree.

I am not knocking others who do either by choice or necessity.  It is just not helping me be who I need to be, if I am ever to make something out of myself.

Life is just too damn short. 

I don't know if I will ever blog at a later time, but I realized I really have nothing to teach anyone, nothing of use to say, and so much that I could say, but I don't see the point.

There are so many people out there.  Why stay hidden?

Goodbye, my friends. 

.....