GOOD POINT

 

GRATEFUL

couldn't ask for a more insightful understanding of what i intended with this work and  the effort that  went into creating it:

https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/06/jerome-sala-getting-it-right-michael.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawK1S3VleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE1SWc0dkZlTHhNbTBFVW81AR6Ml7TM_e2b-u3iKSTQXPFCcpTTkoc9kLRLnUmriq0fSlr0ZLM9xDlS6YZ_WQ_aem_C7Z_F_Y_ppTrCXDIEDdjBw

TRANS RIGHTS

 
I have had trans friends since childhood, and trans lovers since my late twenties, as well as times when I felt transgender identification of my own, and I have an adult trans grandchild, so I have little to no tolerance for any judgment or criticism or discrimination against trans people or limitations on what they feel is best for their health, happiness, and well being. 

As a wise person said to me more than once: There's two kinds of business, mine and none of mine. And what a trans person feels is best for them is none of mine. The current scapegoating of trans people for political advantage used by the trolls in charge must be opposed by all freedom loving people, or just plain loving people.

ME TOO

 

2024

Not to beat a dead horse, as they used to say when I was a kid about futile actions, but given my present physical and mental limitations, listing all the great things that happened last year, including the publication of many fine books by friends I love, is too challenging, so I'll toot my own horn one last time about the new book of mine published by Beltway Editions in 2024, and express my gratitude to those who noted it by giving it rave reviews on amazon, an entity I oppose but nonetheless the only place I know of where SAY IT AGAIN:An Autobiography In Sonnets was noticed.

 

HAPPY HOLIDAAYS

 

YES

 
[don't know the source, assume it's legit, but either way it's righteous]

WORTH REPEATING

 

ANOTHER GREAT MEME

 

NEW FAVORITE MEME

 

YES

 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAYS

My adult grandchild Deak celebrating at a PRIDE festival recently where they were face painting others and did this to their self: "channeling David Bowie" as they said. Proud of their independence, as I am all my kids and grandkids.

JOHN SINCLAIR R.I.P.

I first encountered the poet John Sinclair in 1965 through the mail while I was still in the military stationed outside Spokane, Washington. I wrote in my latest book, SAY IT AGAIN (#76 in The Spokane Sonnets), "John Sinclair, editor of a Detroit little mag, rejects / some poems I submit but writes: Who are you? / I reply angrily I’m the writing you rejected."

I didn't know at the time he was my age, 23, but as we both became anti Vietnam war activists in the years that followed I admired his attempt to  bring the rock-n-roll world we grew up in into the anti-war movement. I organized some anti-war rock shows in DC, but he managed the MC5 and co-founded The White Panthers as allies to The Black Panthers, and fought for legalizing marijuana.

He got a ten year prison sentence for sharing two joints with an undercover cop in 1969, and the campaign to free him succeeded in '71. I finally met him in person shortly after when we did a poetry reading together and he was sweet and supportive. A 'sixties icon. Rest In Poetry brother.

 

AMEN

 

YEP

 

One of my favorite authors. I usually don't post quotes when the source publication is not cited, but this definitely sounds like her.

SOME POEMS

 Four poems of mine just came online on the Relegation site. Check them out here.

PERSONAL HISTORY

MY MLK SONNET

When Martin Luther King is shot I feel the

sudden shift in the atmosphere, like trying to

breathe underwater. It's been three years since

Malcom X’s assassination and my new radical

friends and reading have opened my eyes to the

realities of class in the USA. Malcolm verbally

attacked white folks with impunity, but the

minute he decided it was not about race but

about the poor and the wealthy, BAM! King

spends years fighting racism and despite attempts

on his life and tons of threats seemed invulner-

able, but as soon as he organizes a poor people’s

campaign talking about the haves and have-nots,

BAM! I wonder if the Marxists have it right.

(C) 2023 from SAY IT AGAIN (Beltway Editions 2024)

PERSONAL SAINTS

Woke up this morning to a text from a fiend with a photo of Father Mike Judge, the Franciscan chaplain to a NYC fire brigade who died at Ground Zero on 9/11 and who we knew. I replied with the single word SAINT. Which then led my mind to generate an alphabetical list of dead folk who are personal saints in any world, or heaven, I have a say over (i.e. in my heart):

SAINT ANNE FRANK

SAINT ANTHONY (DINOVI)

SAINT AUNT MARY (LALLY)

SAINT BASQUIAT (JEAN-MICHEL)

SAINT BERRY (BERENSON)

SAINT BILLIE (HOLIDAY)

SAINT BIRD (CHARLIE PARKER)

SAINT CAL (JOHNSON)

SAINT CANDY (DARLING)

SAINT CAMPION "TOMMY" LALLY

SAINT  CLIFFORD ("CLYDE" HEARD)

SAINT COOKIE (MUELLER)

SAINT DIANE (DI PRIMA)

SAINT DOLPHY (ERIC)

SAINT DOROTHY (DAY)

SAINT DOUG (LANG)

SAINT DOUGIE (STEINDORFF)

SAINT ED (COX)

SAINT ELIO (SCHNEEMAN)

SAINT EMILY (DICKINSON)

SAINT EVA (HESSE)

SAINT FANNIE (LOU HAMER)

SAINT FRANK (O'HARA)

SAINT FRED (HAMPTON)

SAINT GRACIE (ALLEN)

SAINT HARPO (MARX)

SAINT IRENE (DEMPSEY LALLY)

SAINT JACK (KEROUAC)

SAINT JIMMI (HENDRIX)

SAINT JIMMY (SCHUYLER)

SAINT JOAN B. (BARIBEAULT) 

SAINT JOAN G. (LALLY GLOSHINSKI)

SAINT JOAN R. ("BAMBI" ROBINSON)

SAINT JOE (BRAINARD)

SAINT KENNY (GRAHAM)

SAINT LEE (FISHER LALLY)

SAINT LEWIS (WARSH)

SAIINT LOUIS (ARMSTRONG)

SAINT MALCOLM (X)

SAINT MARILYN (MONROE)

SAINT MARSHA (P. JOHNSON)

SAINT MARTIN (LUTHER KING)

SAINT MCCARTHY (JOHN)

SAINT MEL (JOHNSON)

SAINT MIKE (JUDGE)

SAINT NATALIE (WOOD)

SAINT NORMAN (LEAR)

SAINT OTIS (REDDING)

SAINT "PRES" (LESTER YOUNG)

SAINT ROSE (MCBRIDE LALLY)

SAINT SELBY (HUBERT JR.)

SAINT SIMONE (SIGNORET)

SAINT SISSY (JOHNSON)

SAINT TED (BERRIGAN)

SAINT TIM (DLUGOS)

SAINT 'TRANE (JOHN COLTRANE)

SAINT UNCLE JOHN (LALLY)

SAINT VERONICA (LAKE)

SAINT WALT (WHITMAN)

SAINT WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

SAINT WILLY (FARRELL)

SAINT YVONNE (DE LA VEGA)

There are more in my head but I can't get them out. How 'bout yours?

ORIGINS

Been sidelined by Covid, but recovering nicely thank you. Meanwhile lots has happened that I wanted to share. I'll start with a podcast I was interviewed by Eric Greenberg on about my poetry and acting and my hometown when I was coming up in the 1940s and '50s. Just my perspective and memories. Check it out if you feel like it, here: www.mapsopodso.com. 

ICON