outlaw poetry and free jazz network

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009...12:00 pm

tony moffeit | the outlaw revolution

to have a revolution

that is an outlaw revolution, you must start with zero. zero in the bones. you must start with a new language. a language of mumbles and screams. a language of stutters and howls. a language of gutteral groans. a language that is not alien to the blues. a language that is not alien to the backstreets. a language that is not alien to the abandon of marginality. a language that is not alien to the separateness of the outsider, the renegade. the wolf howls at midnight. to have a revolution that is an outlaw revolution, you must abandon everything to create the fire in the blood. to have a revolution that is an outlaw revolution, you must seek the flame, the blaze, the pure burn of the artist, the engaged, the disengaged. engagement through disengagement. to have a revolution that is an outlaw revolution, the revolution must be reinvented every day by the individual. i heard someone say, there is nothing new. the revolution that is an outlaw revolution says, everything is new. it begins with a fire in the blood. it begins with a fire in the brain. it begins with a fire in the marrow. zero in the bones becomes fire.

when you don’t feel

like you’re real anymore. then you know you were born for it. when you are looking for someplace to live. and you find the wide open space of the poem. the wide open space of the page. where there is an emptiness that is pure. where there is an emptiness that is full. and you are not who you think you are. you are not there anymore. you are who you are not. in your ghost you are most yourself. to live inside the poem is to live outside the law. when you find the barren landscape of the poem and the hunger to make it your own. to create a new territory. to turn your own shadow into shadow words. shadow words streamed through the darkness. to do what you have to do to release what holds you. to enter the abandoned territory of the poem. where you speak a different tongue. and you do what you have to do to be free. to live inside the poem is to be an outlaw.

the outlaw revolution is

a secret revolution. the outlaw revolution is a hidden revolution. the outlaw revolution is hidden in the air, hidden in the song, hidden in the dance. the outlaw revolution is about mad love. the outlaw revolution is about the hidden vengeance of the desperado. the outlaw revolution is about the insane flame of creativity. the outlaw revolution is about constant creativity, constant reinvention, constant transmutation. the outlaw revolution is a song that is a part of the air. the outlaw revolution is a dance that is irresistible. to get caught up in the energy of the new is to find the outlaw revolution. the outlaw revolution is about hiding out, hiding out in plain sight. the outlaw revolution is about not saying a word and also about shouting from the rooftops. the outlaw revolution is about running, driving, burning, blasting, jumping, bleeding, firing, slipping, sliding, diving, soaring.

what you need what

you got put to the test. been gone so long the night has swallowed you. infinity squared and looking back at you. false time and time plays and time is false in play. where will you find your other voice? where will you find your other face? where will you find your other place? in the wide open space of the page. you are what you are. a longing and a lightning flash. to live inside the poem is to live outside the law. and so what was left when there was no trace of place? back before you knew this was nowhere and no one knew who you were. let it begin with zero. the stillness in the center of the storm. what would you name it? what would you call it? or would you just blaze it with bullet words? because it is phantom. because it is blood. because it is a coming together and a tearing apart. to live inside the poem is to be an outlaw.

the outlaw revolution is

found today in the poem and the poet. the outlaw revolution today is about the poem, the poet, the poetry reading, the performance, the idea transformed, the word reduced to energy. the outlaw revolution today is found in one word: outlaw. the outlaw revolution today is found in the poem, the essay, the song lyric, the anti-novel, the poem-novel. the outlaw revolution is found in the characters of john dillinger, billy the kid, hank williams, robert johnson in poems. the outlaw revolution is found in the visceral, the blood, the blood of the poet. the outlaw revolution is the fire in the blood of the poet. the outlaw revolution is the fire in the blood of the dance. the outlaw revolution is a theory of relativity in which the body is transformed into pure energy.

and back where you

spoke it and now speak it. back where the words break on the unspoken. back where the turning returning the going and returning. back where you are searching for somewhere to live like the wide open space of the page. an emptiness that is pure. and even again as you speak in your waiting in your silence and your waiting for the fire of your identity. to live inside the poem is to live outside the law. the poet emptied out in the outcast wind of the poem. a territory scouted out in sounds seeking words of mumbles seeking syllables of noises in the dark seeking the animal. when to say is not to say and when not to say is to say. hello out there that’s how to hold the words how to speak the need to hold what you are in a whole new alphabet of sleep. to live inside the poem is to be an outlaw.

you want the outlaw revolution

then turn your back on everything. you want the outlaw revolution then wrap your shadow around yourself like a cloak. you want the outlaw revolution then become one whose life is about self-imposed exile. you want the outlaw revolution then kick out the footlights and burn down the stage. you want the outlaw revolution then reinvent energy. you want the outlaw revolution then become a mathematician of dreams. you want the outlaw revolution then learn the physics of becoming. you want the outlaw revolution then answer the call of the wolf and howl when the sun goes down. you want the outlaw revolution then track down the outlaw. you want the outlaw revolution then hunt down the outlaw. you want the outlaw revolution then stalk the outlaw.