Holy shit I haven't posted here in a while. I've totally forgotten this blog exists, and I'm sure there's plenty of poetry that will embarrass the shit out of me. Well, if you want to see new shit, that will surely embarrass me in a few more years, go to: http://www.justinwoo.wordpress.com

For anyone who's interested in more work can check out my blog here:

www.myspace.com/justinwoo

It gets updated reasonably regularly, and has poems as well as my daily life.

Enjoy.

Yelling about music...

And if you got that reference, you get twenty Justin points. They're redeemable for fuck all. But I'll like you a lot more.

Thursday - A City By The Light Divided

Sometimes it's nearly impossible to separate an album from a particular time in your life. For me, "War All The Time" is one of those albums. College, activism, social struggle, personal loss, sexual confusion... I stick all of these things to WATT like a bunch of Post-Its covered in angsty poetry.

So it was with great anticipation that I pushed play on "A City By The Light Divided." I really wanted to love it. I'm post-college, twenty-something, romantically frustrated, and working even harder on social justice. I was hoping that my favorite band had grown with me.

This album proves that maybe, just maybe, progressive rock and hardcore can exist on one CD without spontaneously combusting. The music and lyrics have become more complicated and the mix itself has become much more multi-layered.

Not everyone is going to like what Dave Fridman has done with Thursday's sound. Every track is far more sonically dense than previous efforts. The guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, and vocals smash together to form a chaotically harmonious whole. We can finally hear and appreciate Andrew's keyboards, and Tucker's drums have moved forward in complexity.

On the flip side, we occasionally lose Geoff's vocals, which is unfortunate considering how the lyrics have improved. However, I do not think this was a mistake; rather, it appears that it was Fridman's intention to make everything blend together.

But will it be the soundtrack to my twenty-something years? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure - Thursday refuses to rest and continues to challenge themselves. That fact alone makes this album a rewarding listen.

Rise Against - The Sufferer and the Witness

This is another solid effort from Rise Against. The band explores similar musical territory to what they've already covered in "Revolutions Per Minute" and "Siren Song..." If you enjoyed those albums, you'll enjoy this one. If you disliked those albums, there is nothing to interest you this time around.

However, if you have never heard any of Rise Against's previous efforts, this is arguably their most accessible release to date. Pick this one up, and if you hunger for something more abrasive and challenging, go backwards through their discography, starting with "Siren Song...", then "Revolutions".

A first draft of a new poem that's part of a new series. I'm excited. It's going to be about masculinity in the 21st century, feminism, love, sex, interpellation of desire, sex, and strength. I'm trying to poetically strengthen my thoughts on feminism. Hope you like it. I'm trying to be better about posting more poems more often.

Also, I'm learning how to DJ. Or at least trying. It's an exciting new journey.

Be A Man, Part 1
Whispers

I cover my mirror with vaseline,
unwilling to bear my reflection.
I’m a monster in my own eyes.
Let me explain.
Understanding comes crashing
at the age of thirteen –
A quick smile and a full beard,
we loved Mr. Wood like our own fathers.
He was a roadie for Led Zeppelin
in the Sixties,
or so he said.
I don’t know if I should trust him,
anymore.
Mr. Wood, beloved science teacher
convicted of molesting female students.
Like a phalanx, we closed ranks
turned our pubescent spears outwards,
and raised our shields

against his victims.
We loved Mr. Wood like our own fathers.
Those girls were trouble,
stupid, full of gossip, intimidation tactics,
revenge for the D he gave them.
He gave us all Ds – sometimes – why did they have to
go and get the last good teacher fired?

Shame. I smear the mirror’s image
and watch myself dissolve.
We were young.
As if that was an excuse.
Why do we always hold hands with villains?

He was fired and stripped of his license.
If I saw him today I would
grab him by his shoulders and say,
“Why did you kill yourself in my mind?
“Why did you slaughter a hero?”

Still so self-centered
I can only think of my own loss.
Childhood cut up.

I shared a locker with one of the girls.
Her curves fed my adolescent fantasies.
I can no longer think of myself as guiltless.
I was a spectator, but I threw stones.

6/25/06

I'm trying to be better. I really am. I will post more often. I promise. Pinky swear.

I've been so busy. Trying to revise my show, trying to write, trying to dream, trying to make a difference with my activism. Trying to keep my skills up. That last piece was a free write. Just sad, thinking about the women I've loved and how we've hurt each other.

Why don't dreams last? Why don't they last, even for the tiniest little while?

Why isn't life the dream - crystal falling from broken skies.
Open smiles, perfect great white,
swallow me for this precious second
i am not what you promised. I am nothing you dreamed.
Why don't we look like dreams?
Everything is flux.
Molecules of water slide over polished stones in a limestone river
while their electrons dance on the rim of a black hole.
I am everywhere at once.
Uncertain - principles of movement
never made any sense to me. -
perpetually off-balance. One-legged. Running
as fast as I can.
The only stone in the stream - a desk job -
eyes strain against the phosphorescent glow
of electrons screaming against a silent screen.
Where are those promises?
Where are my dreams?
Last summer, she was my lover,
a sharer of secrets, a maker of potions.
And we danced the same dance...
at least to the same tune
and now all our promises are scattered
like diamond dust amongst broken glass -
if you reach for them, you'll get cut.
But it's so sweet, and I'd spill myself
all over the pavement, just to hold on
to the perfect broken seconds where
liquid flowed in my hand
but went nowhere.

For R

6/20/06
1:15 AM

This is a first draft, it's not done, but I just don't care.

I'm really upset...


You most sacred dead
who passed like night songs
sung by migrating birds
now extinct
except in recollections and dreams
captured, digitized.
A static memory fades.

On feather wings headed south,
you announced autumn
too quickly for yourself
and me.

Why do you walk in legions
those sad smiles soft upon your face?
captured on creased Kodak paper
are you the dust or the photograph?

I still recall your hands in the darkness
soft on my skin like
those not yet gone.
You hold so much of my fear.

Who are you, most sacred dead,
who pass like mist in the morning.
left sick in your wake,
I cannot close my eyes,
But never cease to dream.

You sacred dead
you’re perpetually turning away
leaving no footprints for me to follow
through the barren snowfield of time.

Hey guys!

For everyone who missed the Hurricane Katrina benefit, here's the poem I performed there. Baraka and Algarin said they both liked it, which is a great moment of validation for any performance poet. Hope you guys enjoy it!

A Million Hands Reaching Upwards

Like a man howling in a buried coffin,
the starvation wage leashed us to a drowning city.
Poverty made us monsters
in the nation’s horror movie memory.
The only good zombie is a dead zombie.

Unheeded pleas rise from hot marsh water
like heat waves leached from the desert.
A million dead hands clench into fists.
Rigor Mortis.
All corpses turn the same color
buried beneath sand or submerged in swamps
Ghosts remember the blood
the living choose to forget.

Bodies that once swung from trees
now float down Bourbon street.

We are at war.
We are witnesses.

An army of the poor armed to kill the poor.
Mobile Irony, at home and abroad.
Soldiers stolen from street corners.
Street corners stolen from families.
The ghetto, a shrinking desert of opportunity,
spills over onto itself.
We fled to the oasis of the American Dream
and found out it was a mirage.

Baghdad gives birth to Ninth Ward slaughters.
White phosphorus outsources floodwaters.
Under orders, a National Guardsman
dies thirsty overseas while
the Mississippi River drinks his sister’s blood.
Men with rifles scour this town.
Their orders: Leave nothing standing.
Did you save the truth
or did you shoot it?
Who saw you
and can they prove it?
Did you find food
or did you loot it?
A hurricane, a war machine,
a new day, an old dream.

White supremacy.

Manifest destiny.

From sea to shining sea.

Poverty, wet with panting screams,
ruts with War,
all biting teeth and scrap metal.
In gasps and moans,
they give birth to themselves
squalling, screaming for the blood of children.
A left-handed voodoo, a system of clones.
A pause button pushed on progress.

We are witnesses to this primetime pornography,
this culture of life.

Bodies that once swung from trees
now float down Bourbon Street.

The water rises
and we haven’t learned how to build levees,
still puzzling over the
shaky foundations of yesteryear.

Gunbarrel mouths whisper
whitewashed words
witnessed by white eyes.
Staring at sunny predictions of weak protest
clouds pupils.
Debating violence versus nonviolence
clouds issues.

If an activist screams at the White House
and nothing changes,
does he make a sound?

Moral outrage floods both coasts.
We’ll march at most.
Investors propose toasts.
Soon they’ll own us both.
So we rally, dally,
sally forth and march.

Do politicans manufacture tragedies
or do we let them happen?

We are at war.
We are witnesses.

Nothing changes and it’s no surprise.
Our waste water protest culture
rallies a million feet from the sky
to the gutter.
We flood our PC cities,
and fail each other,
over and over again.

A million feet from the sky to the gutter.

Whose gutter?
Our gutter.

Bodies that once swung from trees
now fester on Bourbon Street.

Coretta Scott King cannot sleep in her grave.

Ten black Alabama churches burn
while hip hop cashes in, pop, lock, stock, and barrel.

Malcolm X cannot sleep in his grave.

Blue and white slave collars
slam shut around every neck
while stockholders stomp on falling wages.

Emma Goldman cannot sleep in her grave.

We are their witnesses
but our testimony is failure.
When will this movement
earn more than disrespect?
When will we speak the truth
that ghosts cannot forget?
Listen to the bloodless howls
of the forgotten dead.

For every lie, burn a flag.
For every invasion, storm a building.
For every murder, shut down a city.

This is a threat.

Tear out every millionaire’s tongue.
Flatten his tires in the bad neighborhoods he built.
Send his children to the war he started.

This is a threat.

This Mardi Gras,
Tie ten corpses to every parade float.
Dress every dead body in beads.
Rip the prettiness off the truth til it
screams
naked
from every street corner.

Never
Give
Up.

This is a threat.

2/10/06