I can tell you countless stories.  I can tell you that all of these stories are true.  I can embellish, and then tell you that events have been dramatized because the real story is always better with a few twists.  I can tell you that all the curve balls in the stories actually happened exactly as they are presented before you.  I can put pictures in these stories.  I can see to it that they are actual photographs that I have taken.  I can graphically alter the photographs so that they are vague abstractions, reminiscent of philosophies I was taught in school.  I can tell you that the people and places in these photographs have no direct correlation to the people and places mentioned in the stories.  I can tell you that they do.  I can tell you countless stories that I have been told “no one wants to hear.”  I can tell you that I’ll tell you them anyway.  I can tell you that you can choose not to care.  I could’ve chosen not to have lived them.  Most of the time, I didn’t.  I can tell you that it is most likely considered socially inappropriate for me to have gathered enough experience to have stories to tell.  Sometimes I thought I enjoyed it, but I really didn’t.  Sometimes I thought I didn’t enjoy it, but I really did.  Sometimes I just enjoyed it.  Sometimes I just didn’t.  I can tell you countless stories.  That’s really all I can do.

On Thursday, July 28^th, Amy Grimm hosted a party at Bruar Falls in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on behalf of her blog Whatever.  She was nice enough to have my friend, Mandy Goldberg, and myself as guests.  On the bill that night were Rumanian Buck, Libel, The Nico Blues, Wojcik and The Diamond Centre.  Below is my sort of non-sequitur account of the experience, as well as a series of photographs from the evening.

(Int: Early evening in a photography studio/office in Massapequa, NY.  Two rectangular desks are placed opposite one another on the length sides of the rectangular, modern office space.  Two computers sit on one side.  One sits on the other.  White-paneled French doors fill one width side of the space, and  a metal door encompasses the other.  Leading to the back parking lot, it is slightly ajar, letting in the low evening sun.)

Stephanie: (Looks at computer clock.  It reads 5:31PM.)  I have to get going.  I have to make the next train.  I missed the last one.  We were eating pizza.

Sean: What time’s your train?

Stephanie: Ummm….Ummm….5:54. 

Chad: You’ll make it if you leave now.

Stephanie: Yeah.  I’m going to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts first.

Grab purse.  Run to bathroom.  Crap.  I forgot my perfume.  Put on deodorant.  A little bit of loose powder.  Don’t want a shiny forehead.  It’s hot out, ya know?  This dress is made of cotton.  What if it gets cold in there?  Did I bring a sweater?  Reapply  mascara.  I hope my lashes don’t look all clumpy.  Did I chop my bangs up too much?  Touch.  Swipe.  Spritz.  Nah, they’re fine.  Check phone.  Gmail is blinking.  Don’t look at it.  5:38.  Enough time to grab coffee.  Rinse out travel mug.  Sick of using Styrofoam.  Crap.  I forgot my headphones.  Stupid LIRR.  Ding.  The next stop is…Rockville Centre.  Open bathroom door.  Walk out.  You sure you guys don’t wanna come?  No?  All righty.  Have a good-night.  Open front door.  Close front door.  Coffee.  Train.  No headphones.  Pandora will offer no surprises today.  Geez, it makes me nervous to meet new people.

Off one train, onto another.  Through a long corridor, and onto another.  Exit in the Williamsburg part of town.  As I walk up the stairs, I spot Ashveille at their feet.  Not the city itself, but some people I saw in the city once.  Not the exact people I saw in the city once, but some people whose transiency is common in such cities.  A trio of train jumpers.  Hitchhikers.  Hobos, really.  They raided my trash in Savannah.  They sought handouts in Asheville.  I’ve always liked them.  I never had the balls or backing to be them.   “Hey, do you have any change?” smiles the kid with the fauxhawk.  “I’m used to this sort of thing.  I used to live in Asheville, North Carolina,” I chuckle, as I wave my hand ‘round their circumference.  “Where y’all travlin’ from?”  “All over.  We’re from all over,” is the general reply.  “Here.  I have a few Sacajawea coins.  Courtesy of the MTA.”  “Nice, I like gold,” says the long-haired guy with awkward posture.  The girl of the group plucks her banjo without managing to produce a melody and asks, “What are the prices like in North Carolina?  Property values, I mean.  I’m looking to buy property in a few years.”  “You might want to try Boone.  I think it’s cheaper than Asheville.”  Or Malibu.  Houston.  Marseille.  Patagonia.  Or banjo lessons.  Banjo lessons might be good.  I understand what I have always understood, give them a figurative tip of my hat, and wish them luck on their journey.  

Bruar Falls.  In between Driggs and Roebling.  Near the Trash Bar.  Nice place, the Trash Bar.  But it’s 4 bucks for a little PBR.  I don’t ask them if they have PBR at Bruar Falls.  I would’ve felt the need to offer an explanation.  Ya see, I lived in Savannah, Georgia for 4 years.  It cost $2.50 for a tallboy.  We were students.  We learned to like crappy beer.  I’d really like a Savannah right now.  But I didn’t explain that to the bartender.  Because I didn’t ask her for a PBR. 

Mandy meets me outside of Bruar Falls.  We touch base.  We laugh.  We’re excited. Things are really starting to work for us professionally.  But it’s been hard.  It’s been so damn hard.  Amy Grimm, hostess of the evening’s festivities, walks up to me and politely says, “Excuse me, but you wouldn’t be Stephanie, would you?”  “Yes, yes, that’s me.  You must be Amy.”  I’m guessing she recognized me from my array of goofy Facebook photos.  Amy joins in our conversation on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We’re 3 women.  All about the same height.  All about the same age.  All of the same ilk.  We keep doing what we do for love.  We stay in this elegant mess for love.  But really, maybe it’s just an addiction at this point—like cigarettes; or M & Ms; or Outback Steakhouse cheese fries.  Addicted to the adventure; the associations; the feeling that you’re impacting some abstract greater good.  It’s easy to love en masse. 

Flashback: A nightclub in San Juan, Puerto Rico on another night.  “Tienes un novio?” spoke the Dominican man.  I think he’s Dominican.  I’m not really sure.  He looks Dominican.  “No.  No,” I shook my head.  I’m too distracted.  Too involved in…in.   He followed me around for the rest of the night.I should have said, “Sí.  Tengo tres.  Estan aquí. Ahora.  Conmigo.”  What I want to know is, how did the 1 straight man on a dance floor full of gay men manage to sniff me out?  I was being so quiet and inconspicuous. 

Flashforward: This bar in Brooklyn on this night.  Mandy and I sit at a dimly lit table pushed flush against the wall—like Hemingway might have in Spain.  Vamos a Londres.  We’re going to London.  Well, Mandy’s thinking of London.  For films.  For progress.  For achievement.  It’s taken 10 years to bring everything to critical mass.  10 years of grinding, waiting and hoping.  10 years of sacrifice.  10 years of lost loves.  Me?  Where am I going?  Maybe London.  Just for a bit.  Perhaps an institute?  An international start-up?  Business school?  A computer lab.  A wedding near you.  I look at my old confidant and say, “We’ve spent this whole time talking.  I really should take some pictures.”

Flashback: A different show somewhere in Brooklyn on a different night.  “I’m old,” I say.  “How old are you?” responds the sound engineer incredulously.  “Old enough to not care whether or not people think I’m cool.”  Flashforward: The present show in Brooklyn on the present night.  Click.  The shutter of the camera snaps.  The profile of the bassist framed in line with the glare of the tungsten stage lights.  Damn daylight balance.  I’ll have to crank up the blues in Photoshop.  I crouch and walk in search of a different composition.  My oversized hoop earring gets caught on the plaid sleeve of an onlooker.  Falls to the floor.  Gone.  Nunca olvidar.  Never forget.  Never forget how to mambo.

If I could tell the story of this place,
It’d be written on a highway sign
That would really belong on a parkway.
‘Round these parts, no one knows a highway
Unless it sways in tune to traffic lights.

It’d be in the symbols on soccer fields,
Drawn out in goose droppings,
Smeared about by elementary school kids in cleats.

It’d be embedded in a deck of cards,
Rifled through by waitstaff,
Staring into one another’s pennies,
After a long day of smiling like plastic.

It’d be at a show;
A strip mall;
Painted on the bottom of a skateboard,
Somewhere at the foot of the
Jones Beach Causeway,
reposing with Sonny Corleone.

It’d be laughing at house parties,
And making out in cars.
It’d be rung by the church bell choir,
Saying “Amen,”
As we sneak out the back door.

Let’s say…
Let’s say
You and I take the Thruway
Straight through to Montreal,
Even though we don’t speak a lick of French.
But that really won’t matter.
They don’t even speak it there anyway.

Every line I fumble will have to
Sit well enough for now.
There are always more tomorrows for
This…
This
Beautiful,
Beautiful,
Beautiful,
Panicked-
But Beautiful-
Cliched joy.

One paddle ridin’ in a slipshod canoe.
Couch surfing on a foreign jet stream over
My own lack of backyard.
The tinnitus clangs and bangs confuse senses,
As we all toast to the jangling discomfort of
Last year’s pained, piercing eyes.
Chemically infused shooting beverages scratch up my voice,
Halting my solitary career as a
Driver’s seat rock star.
Pinned between fences;
Gazing through lenses,
With waning objectivity,
I managed to write the word “darlin’”
On the door of a 1960s Mustang…
And that was just for you.

Here we have some words from Charlie Kassay, show promoter and all around friend of the Long Island music scene.  Here is what he had to say before sending them over to me:

…I don’t really write my poetry for publication anymore.  I used to in my early 20’s.  Nowadays I kind of just write them for myself.  If I need to get something out of system, or I’m feeling like something else entirely is actually compelling me to write something & I just have to do it, I usually end up writing something.  At the same time, I really don’t know if they’re actually any good at all anymore.  For one, prose poetry seems to be the thing with people these days, and my poems are rhymers.  For some odd reason, I feel like rhyming poetry gets treated like it’s silly & antiquated or something.  So, depending on yr point of view, it already has 1 strike against it.  As I also said, I mostly only write to get something off of my chest.  Writing to simply get something off yr chest can make for some great art, BUT it can also make for the worst art in the world too.  For all of the above reasons, you might love the poetry or you might hate it…

Kill Bill Vol. 3

Sometimes I don`t even know what`s going on inside my brain. It makes me wonder if I must have masochistic tendencies. It`s the only way to explain how I could do a thing to hurt you, baby, when it makes me feel as awful as you`re Uma Thurman & we`re in Kill Bill volume 3. I know we all can be so busy feeling our own pain, it can make it hard for us to see another person`s suffering. I know that as human beings it`s something for which we`re all guilty, but all the wisdom in the world still doesn`t make it any easier at all. Yet, as hard as it can be to find comfort in a world so cold & cruel that it won`t hesitate to make a fool of us all, all I try to do is remember that the story isn`t done & over with if the final credits haven`t yet rolled. Yet, as much as it can hurt for someone to wield their words like weapons aimed straight towards the heart, all I try to do is remember that they`re a lot easier to recover from than if they were bullets. So, even as I continue to rummage through our story`s plot with as many twists & turns as a movie`s plot, there`s still one thing that leaves me feeling reassured. As long as the two of us are still alive, there`s still always a chance for our tremendous bond to survive, and for redemption to ultimately be ours.

The Neverending Story

Once upon a time I felt like I was drowning, until you arrived like a life vest. I thought this time I might just forever be down and out, but you were more valuable than a treasure chest. You were my north star, my guiding light, my compass. You were more inspirational than any church mass. You were a moment of pure beauty in a world too often so crass. Your mere presence alone let me know that even this moment this too shall pass. If it were all just a dream, it would have been the sweetest dream I`d ever had. Yet, as I rubbed my eyes to clear them time & time again, it turned out I hadn`t actually gone mad. You were so lovely it could make any man delirious, but my mind wasn`t merely playing tricks on me. You were here, you were real, and the most unbelievable things my eyes had ever seen. You were my heroine, my best friend, and proof positive that miracles truly can happen. This wild world can try as it will, but even its roughest waves will never kill a story with such a happy ending.

This latest installment is contributed by Ellisia Jesnes, Game Changer/
National Brand Strategist at Upward Wave Inc. in Savannah, GA.  In describing this particular poem to me via Facebook message, she said—

I don’t know why I like it so much…but I do.  Every time I read it, I go straight back to the night I wrote it…crazy how that happens, you know?

I think that many of us have been there at least once in our lives.

I run. I think. I cry. Then run some more.

I kick. I scramble. I scream inside.
I fall down.
On you.
I skin my knees.
I bleed.

I lust. I long.
All for things I think I need.
I can’t see past the past.
The one that didn’t last.
I want.
So bad.
And so I bleed.

I think of you.
Of you, and new things.
I imagine you thinking she’s…….
But I don’t go on.
Or else I bleed.

I reconcile within.
I think.
It’s so short lived.
Next thing I know I’m thinking…
What I wouldn’t give.
Your pain.
Your hurt.

God. I WANT the weight.

But knowing.
I can’t have it.
I dissipate.

It’s distance.
Time.
Forgiveness.
It’s messy tears.
It’s choking fear.
It’s all those years.
It’s all this time.
NOT knowing.
I was stuck.

And so I bleed…..

Concept & Photos by Stephanie Augello

Sometimes a person’s whole life resembles a piece of poetry.  Maybe not poetry in the traditional metered sense, but more like “prosetry,” or what’s more commonly referred to as stream of consciousness writing.  A drifter.  A rambler.  A freestyler.  A bit of a dharma bum.  You don’t see too much of those these days. 

I met Marty back in early December at a late night burger place in Savannah, GA.  I had just gotten off of a bartending shift, and was famished at 1AM.  Marty had just finished playing a solo set at nearby Hangfire Bar.  We ended up sitting next to each other at the restaurant counter.  He told me what he was doing.  I told him what I was doing.  We parted ways, and then met up again the next day to roam around Savannah.  I took some photos of him during our chit chat stroll.  When I posted them in an album on Facebook, this is what I wrote:

“Morty Porty” is the stage name of a guy named Marty. He’s from Minnesota. He majored in Animal House Studies, and minored in Computer Science. He’s traveling across America on a mountain bike, and plays his guitar in the towns he stops in. Savannah was one of them. We walked around. I bought him a bagel. He gave me a copy of On the Road.  The next day, there was a drive-by shooting in front of our house.

In the end, it turned out that Morty Porty’s current life path was not the only stream of consciousness story; the story itself turned into a piece of prosetry, complete with irony, a plot twist and pictures. 

You can take stock of his adventures at http://songoftherustbelt.blogspot.com/

Social networking has its pros and cons.  We’re all aware of this.  You know what I really love about the internet though?  This.  I can follow someone who lives in Qatar on Twitter.  They can follow me back.  We can have a message exchange like this:

MalikPeterson: Thank’s for the follow! Click the link here http://goo.gl/4OI6 if you are interested in checking out some of my poetry. Hope you enjoy!
Steph_Augello: Nice poems! I can post some of them on my blog, & link it to your site— http://poetymology.tumblr.com I think that’d be cool. Let me know!
MalikPeterson: Thanks…yeah that would be ok!

As a result, a post like this one can be born.  So, here’s a little more about Malik Peterson, direct from his personal site:

My name is Malik Peterson and I am an American writer living in Qatar.

I have been writing casually since the 7th grade, where I began to write short stories. Later on I got into poetry after reading Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Raven”. I guess you could say I was sort of mesmerized by the way he put his words together in rhyme, and how he carried out the story.

I’ve always aspired to try my hand at a “raven” of my own but haven’t yet gotten around to it. Though he is my biggest poetic influence, I have been careful not to become a “Poe copy”. I have recently embarked on a more serious approach to writing, while attempting to develop my own style and set myself apart from others.

…and here is some of his poetry:

The Misconceived Symphony of Synergy

Why must I die…for you to live?
Do you remember all the joy that you used to give?
Maybe I’ve gone crazy.
Maybe I’m dead wrong
Maybe I cut myself…
and I bled this song.

Why must I die?

Why must you create the hate…
that ingratiates the state of this evasive fate?
I’m perplexed in this pervasive place.
Am I a perpetual patron…
or a paper weight?

Do I buy now just to take away…
or sit and do nothing…just a vacant stay.
Do I fly high like paper planes…
or dwell nightly ‘pon memory
and hatred’s lane?

Am I proactively exchanging lanes…
or merely standing pat to await the reins?
Am I acting…to vacate…these chains…
or simply lying flat…
content to wait
for change?

Why must I die…for you to live?
Do you remember all the joy that you used to give?
Maybe I’ve gone crazy.
Maybe I’m dead wrong
Maybe I cut myself…
and I bled this song.

Why must I die?

If the absence of evidence isn’t the evidence of absence…
then how do I explain how my lack of presence…happens?
While my body’s in a black pit…
my mind’s intergalactic…

My receptors receive static…
while I’m trapped in the attic…
the whiskers of a catfish…
tickle my synapses.

I’m disconnected from the masses…
they are all captives…
believing they are active…
…I’m beleaguered by these tactics.

I leave these worldly themes…
to the fiends and the fascists…
and retire to my space station…
overlooking Atlantis.

Overcooking the atlas…
my world is blazing…
the fact that I’ve been gone this long…
is just…
amazing.

Why must I die…for you to live?
Do you remember all the joy that you used to give?
Maybe I’ve gone crazy.
Maybe I’m dead wrong.
Maybe I cut myself…
and I bled this song.

Why must I die?

Disassociation of the entities…
a crisis of the inner kind…
or one of the identity?

If I motion to deny them both…

how much energy
is left for the inner me?

The power and the synergy…
the showers of the imagery…
the hours of efficiency…
the blueprints and the finishing…

which led to this epiphany…

without a sound body and mind…

there can be no symphony

The Melancholy Of The Heartless Ones

If I feel then I am weak.
If I don’t then I am strong.
I’m not lonely…
I’m just scared to be alone.

If I feel then I am weak.
If I don’t then I am strong.
I’m not lonely…
I’m just scared to be alone.

If I let on…that I wasn’t soulless…
That I was seeking solace in the midst of the solstice…
and longing to be hosted by a genuine hostess…
who would pamper my heart with ingenuous motives…

I would’ve never approached this…

Melancholy of the heartless ones…
Melancholy of the heartless ones…

If you never knew I was a heartless one…
constantly in search of artless fun…
keeping appearances…an Arctic Hun…
there would still be holes in my soul…but…

barring none.

I’d keep moving forward…
instead of marching…run…
in to the open arms of a sparkling sun…
emotional confetti…the harp has sung…

and no signs that the dark has won…

but what about the…

Melancholy of the heartless ones…
Melancholy of the heartless ones…

But maybe you took my heart for fun…
a smile and a wave…so artful done…
so wild you behaved…a part of none…
so vile a knave…I hark…you shun.

So while I sing the praise of the darkness come…

Maybe you should join…

the melancholy…of the heartless ones.

To be brief, Paumonok is the Native American name for Long Island.  Long Island is where I am from.  Long Island is where I currently live.  Long Island is also where Walt Whitman was from.  So, to connect poetic and geographic history with personal poetic and geographic history, as well as a sort of current state of affairs, I’m leaving the rest of this post to Whitman.

Facing West from California’s Shores

Facing west from California’s shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the
land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,
Long having wander’d since, round the earth having wander’d,
Now I face home again, very pleas’d and joyous,
(But where is what I started for so long ago?  And why is it yet
unfound?)

To Foreign Lands

I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle, the New World,
And to define America, her athletic Democracy;
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you wanted.

To a Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking,
(it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you,
Your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you,
I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.*

*Lines had to be reformatted slightly to fit page

I believe in a world of energy.  Science is power.  There is a great energy that lives within all of us. 
There is a beast inside of my heart and it howls at night, thirsting for blood, sweat, and tears. 
Most of the time when I sleep at night there is a great big darkness that hovers over me and holds me down. 
The only way that I know how to define or describe this large cloud of darkness, would be to say that it is negative energy.
Have you ever thought to yourself that maybe I was supposed to be someone else, like as though your glory has been stolen from you?  Sometimes I feel as though negative energy is a living force, like a parasite feeding on all of the joy that I could have had.  In this world it is easy to lose control, but if you can somehow harness positive energy then that too will follow you, and it will make you stronger.  Are we all just in a race against ourselves?  The only person who is going to keep me from my dreams is me, and I am thankful for having such a luxury.  My friends out here tell me all kinds of crazy things, like “cream rises to the top” and also how “shit rolls downhill”.  I believe in Science, and the pursuit of knowledge and happiness.  My journey has barely just begun but I know one thing is for sure, keep your family close, and never lose sight of your dream.  If you are willing to fight for your future then maybe your future will fight for you.

-Whit Alexander, Philadelphia, PA
3D Effects Artist/Compositor

Here is some of Whit’s recent work—

3D FX Reel 2011 from Whit Alexander on Vimeo.