Quotations

"The function of freedom is to free someone else."
Toni Morrison

"If you give freely there will always be more."
Anne Lamott

"I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but now they have learned to swim."
Frida Kahlo

A Classic Hadji Nothingness Poem

Winter in the City

Lately, the downtown
theater is the best ticket
to paradise I've found.

Dad argued with the pastor
the other day.

Mary, the 83 year old tenant
is back in the hospital.

Sister is lonely, she drinks
coffee alone in European cafes
and really, so does everyone else.

I can hear friends laugh
in Tuscan, Texas, Boston,
and down the road. But we
hardly laugh together anymore.

Even if I could travel
where would I go, and what about
responsibilities? Could I go someplace
and leave my umbrella behind?

I really don't want my camera anymore,
it sterilizes life. The strap
on my satchel broke, and I rarely
play guitar.

Mom plays caretaker for children,
and elderly, and rarly has a chance
to talk or even be alone.

Work leaves me too tired to cook
and why cook good food
when it is just me at the table.

A bottle of wine
still tastes better with a friend.

The phone rings mostly to sell
me services and magazines I don't
want, but I buy them anyway.

And central district ice rink
finally opened so
I went to skate, not
realizing people don't wrap
their necks in wool anymore,
mittens keep hands warm
not the touch of a friend
or a lover linking arms
while people just skate,
individually, together but
alone in circles around
the frozen downtown pond.


I need to clean this up I think.
Thoughts, take, leave, change?
More images? More senses?
Love you all,
Hadji

Wine Poem

Lets put it this way, the winemaker is now dating a sommeilier (almost, she has one test left). A little funny and scary to have a date who will come over to your house. Do you pull your wine off the shelf? Which one? How do you give your wine to a sommeilier? Oh dear... if I ever has butterfly in my stomache; maybe it is the same way for a poet to date an editor?


The Wine Tasting

At the Syrah table
a crowd began to gather
as the sommeilier told friends
the history of the grape. Suits,
ties, and tight dresses
asked well how is it made?
She looked at me and said,
"he's the wine maker,"
so I explained fermentation
and oak and blending,
scientifically and they began
to follow us through numorous wines.

We were a duo with the Chianti
while glasses filled with rich
estate wines and we pinned weighty
wines to the floor like only
a sommeilier and a winemaker could.

The Merlots were like walking
in a luscious green park after
a late evening out, laughing,
at a joke a wino would make
when someone asked,
"What is a meritage?"
A wine that deserves and award,
and they chuckled, a result
of recent "analysis"
of this wine's terroir and bouquet.

By the Cabernet's we explained
how to adopt a terroir from
the humane society and that bouquet
refers to flowers, not wine, and it
was then, we realized, recieving
the final dregs of the bottle,
we needed some air. Away
from the small crowd,
outside we found a bench,
cold in the November evening air
and tugging on our coats, she
leaned into me as moved toward her
and we both knew the history
and making something that
could never be cellared.

lesson of the day

i feel like i'm trapped in the twilight zone... let me explain. sorry this is a bit long, but i need to vent and i think you can all benefit from what i'm learning, so bear with me a read it all.

most of you know i'm in my first semester of grad school at roosevelt university in chicago. i'm taking a class called 'literary magazine production'. the class of 13 is serving as the editorial board of this year's Oyez Review, to be published this winter. in the past few months we have logged in over 350 submissions, most of which is poetry containing 3-5 poems each. 90% (at least!) has been awful. we have read and commented on them all, met in genre groups and discussed, narrowed it down to about 17 poems, 7 fiction pieces, and 1 nonfiction piece, ranked each genre according to quality so we could take the top pieces for the issue and have a few backups depending on page length in the final manuscript. we have exactly 96 pages to fill, 8 of which are artwork and must fall exactly in the middle of the magazine because we print them on higher quality paper.

so that's the background. now picture this, 14 students and their professor spend an hour and a half discussing the order of the magazine. somehow, without too much argument, they create an order that works both thematically as well as mathmatically, even putting all two page poems on facing pages. no easy task. the very next day the author of the non-fiction piece, the longest piece of the issue at 17 pages, and arguably the strongest piece of prose, notifies us to say the piece was simultaneously submitted and has been accepted elsewhere.

problem solving #1. via email conversations we replace the piece with the next ranked fiction and 3 poems, reordering only slightly to fit the new pieces into our well planned out format. i spend 3 hours of my sunny tuesday afternoon putting the entire thing into layout, print it, my professor makes copies for everyone, and wednesday we all begin proofreading.

thursday (yesterday) we receive an email from the author of our final and strongest poem saying it has been accepted elsewhere, and while he was tempted to not tell us he's gotten in trouble for that in the past, letting his pieces be simultaneously published. who does that? and now what do we do? problem solving #2. after more email, we concede to ending on the previous poem and expanding the contributors notes to fill the blank page.

friday (today) we receive another email, this time from the author of our first, most upbeat, and second strongest poem saying it has been accepted elsewhere. problem solving #3. we are living in the twilight zone.

moral of the story? we are changing our policy to say in big big bold print, WE DO NOT ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS. and for those of you who will ever submit your writing for publication... don't ever do this to a publisher. ever.

N E W S F L A S H ! ! !

Drunk Poets Cry Out For Bi-Partisan Poetry Party

Routers--This morning out of Holland, MI, spokesperson Dan Morrison and his DDs (designated drinkers) Will Ziegenhagen and Andrew Kleczek provided a peaceful and poetic message in Centennial Park.
"On this election day the most important rights need to be exercised, the right to vote--and the right to drink," Morrison began. "And after we vote, we celebrate with drinking games and poetry readings in homes and street corners across America."
Ziegenhagen continued with the Drunk Poets Society's plans for a "poetry readin, beer slammin', peace-making, political partying Tuesday night--or in the case like 2000 elections, we drink till the vote comes in." Kleczek remarked on how that may go for a week to three months. The Drunk Poets Society also seeks donations for the American Liver Society with proceeds of beer sales at the party at their new lake Michigan mansion built with the incredable sales of Red Hat Wine in St. Clair Shores MI.
The event rules were followed as Morrison rapped to Kleczek and Will's beatboxing. If the Democrats win a state drink. If the Republicans win a state, drink. If "Kerry" and "Flip Flopping" are used in the same sentance, drink." If either the green party or the Libertarians win a state the case must be finished immediately. The rules went on until Kleczek passed out. He later commented that he drank too much Red Hat Wine before their performance at the rally.
Tonight the party will continue at the Dead Poets Society Estate on top of the dunes. See you there, drunk and poetic as always.