I have no poem this Christmas Day,
no words to compass all my joy
for all gifts given unto me
and all the blessings I employ.
For sky and cloud and cold and tree,
for all I have and all I may,
for all the our and all the we,
I have no poem this Christmas Day.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7

When I was a wee wee lad
no taller than a gun
I tried to write a poem with words
and found it wrote with sun!
Where from this poem that wrote with light
from fingertips and pen?
Where to these words that pulse so bright
and where these words and when?

When I was an older lad,
a masturbating teen,
I tried to write my poems with me
and found they wrote with mean.
Where from these poems with anger dark,
with agony and cry?
Where to these words that lack and spark
and how these words and why?

When I was a younger man,
a troubled man, a nut,
I wrote no poems, or other poems
for either nor for but.
Where from these poems that mock not poem,
that emptiness and spite?
Where to a poem of otherness
and where a poem of light?

Now I am an older man,
a sadder man, a sight.
Some poems they wrote over the years
but not enough or right.
No matter why, no matter way,
no matter don't or do,
a poem writes me now every day
and finds these poems in you.

Come August 1, I will have lived in an apartment for a year. I can't say that I'm very happy about this -- living in the apartment, I mean. The apartment is actually quite pleasant, especially since a certain someone moved in there with me a couple of months ago. I miss my house, my boys, and my dogs. I have missed them ever since I moved out. And while the house may not be mine in the same way that it used to be mine, I still feel as though it's mine. And I certainly feel that the boys and the dogs are mine. As much as they are anyone's, if you get my drift.

I was attempting to get a teaching certificate to teach theatre in Texas high schools, but have abandoned that effort. While I think I would be happy teaching high school theatre, the pay is lousy, especially for the hours, and I would end up seeing my loved ones less and less. That is not something I find acceptable in any way. I want to see my loved ones more and more, not less and less.

A few weeks ago I made the decision to begin working at (of all places) Pizza Hut full-time as a shift manager. I had been delivering pizzas for Pizza Hut anywhere from twenty to thirty hours a week since March of last year and was making good money at it. A couple of months ago I heard what general managers make and I was stunned, so I decided to go ahead and make the plunge and try shift managing. I have to work my way up the hierarchy, of course (shift manager, assistant manager, general manager), in order to get a store of my own to manage, but so be it. I was certain I could do the job and have found in the last two weeks that, yes, most certainly, I can do the job. It isn't that difficult. Busy, yes. Difficult, no. Most surprisingly, I'm finding, at this point at least, that I really enjoy it. It's not that different from directing, believe it or not, and I most certainly enjoy directing. And while going back to full-time work has been somewhat taxing, because it's such a busy job the time flies by. The toughest part has been having to stand on my feet so much. I'm used to doing work sitting down, and the managing job is almost entirely a standing job. Well, it doesn't have to be, but I'm making it a standing job. I want the folks working with me to see me working, not sitting. The first week was hard on my legs, but I'm getting used to it now, and if I ever get a store, I will do more sitting. Until I get a store, I'm standing.

I'm still teaching acting -- I won't stop doing that until I don't have any students left. And I'm still writing for the Chronicle -- I don't plan on stopping that either, as I've enjoyed it more and more as the years have passed. I'm not entirely certain that I will be happy in this job, but so far, so good. I'm trying really hard not to put too much faith in other people, because other people have control of my fate at this point, and they have not proven themselves entirely trustworthy. But I find myself, strangely enough, feeling more at peace with myself than I have ever felt. And I'm thinking that can't be anything but good.

Some things you cannot write about:

You cannot write a poem of shit,
Nor can you write a poem of crap.
Such verbiage shows lack of wit,
Such recklessness a hidden trap.
Unless you want to take a hit,
You cannot write a poem of shit.

You cannot write a poem of cock,
Although the ancients poemed many.
The David has a cock of rock,
Yours mere flesh, not worth a penny.
Unless the Fates you wish to mock,
You cannot write a poem of cock.

You cannot write a poem of cunt
For no one wants that twatish word,
Especially poets, who have to hunt
For rhymes, or else their poems be turd.
Use it and you'll bear the brunt.
You cannot write a poem of cunt.

You cannot write a poem of tit,
Nor one of hole, nor one of clit,
Nor one of balls, nor one of slit.
And unless you want to press your luck,
Of course you can't write poems of fuck.

Remember these rules and keep them well
Or else no more these tales you'll tell.

The black man hangs from the lynching tree
and still alive so he can see
the faces bright of hate and white
before he passes to eternity.

The red man's head rolls on the ground
and as it topples round and round,
its eyes two-sized in dull surprise,
it comes to rest without a sound.

You know the rest, all you who read
this ages old and yellowed screed.
Our father's hell they taught us well.
Good hellions we our demons breed.

One Christmas
someone stole the lights
off our front door.
Just took them all down
and walked away.

Now you've got to ask yourself,
what kind of a person does that?
Takes the lights
off your apartment door
at Christmas time?
Not Jesus, that's for sure.

I used to shoplift
with a friend of mine
in Madison, Connecticut.
We got so good at it
we'd just take stuff
we didn't even need.

Now you've got to ask yourself,
what kind of a person does that?
Just steals stuff
they don't even need
any time they want?
Not Jesus, that's for sure.

I once put a guy in a headlock
and started punching his face
because he took a swing at me.
And he bit my nipple!
And it really fucking hurt!

Now you've got to ask yourself,
what kind of a person
puts a guy in a headlock
and punches his face?
And what kind of a person
bites another guy's nipple
really hard?
I think you can say
with some certainty
that Jesus never
put a guy in a headlock
or bit a guy's nipple.
That's for sure.

I thought of rabbits today,
of their furriness,
long-eared exuberance,
of the caged one I allowed to die
long ago, when just a boy.

Tonight, as I drove,
a rabbit raced across the road
in front of my car.
It went so fast
I barely had time to see it,
from one darkness into my light,
then into another darkness.

Later, at home,
in the dimness of the courtyard,
a rabbit hopped across the lawn,
came within twelve feet of me,
then suddenly darted away.
Disappeared.

Oh Rabbit, I am sorry.
All these years later
I carry the weight of your death.
You died alone, in the cold.
To this day I am bereft,
though I grow so very old.

You mouse you.
I see you in that corner.
So quiet.
What do you do there?
Sitting like motion arrested.
Ready like a whip.

Why don't you answer my question?
Up on your back feet.
With those mouse eyes
wide like air.
Those mouse ears
standing like soft stone.
All whiskers and hair
like some ancient gnome.

From what chasm came you?
From what clifftop ridged with trees?
From what intersect of rivers?
What mind conjured the likes of you?

And which of us
will move first?

With my cold hug
I steal your warmth.
Coming in
from the day outside,
I don't mean to chill you
but only
warm myself against you.
Cold needs warmth.
I need you.
So at first you scream
just a little
and then
you give yourself to me,
arms up around my back,
body snug against me,
and we warm each other.
Nice to be warm
in this cold world.

He sits in a chair by a window
gray-haired, white-chinned,
a man of northern climes.
He rolls his own cigarettes,
and when he speaks
a voice like land and sea
rolls out of him in waves,
crests, peaks and valleys,
the voices of people
from many lands
crossing oceans.
His father was a fisherman
who died at sea.
When he asks me to,
I scratch his back,
then he takes me down to Bud's
and buys me a popsicle.
Sometimes he stands at the stove
and makes a scallop stew,
dishes it steaming hot into a bowl,
spears a scallop whole
and holds it out for me to take
like a dream into my mouth.
Once he took me in a boat,
a skiff, and in my memory
he rowed into the Atlantic
off the coast of Maine,
until the land was gone,
swallowed whole by the sea,
and gradually, in the distance,
nets climbing out of the water
and fish within the nets,
big ones, dozens of them,
schooling through the waves.

It probably didn't happen like that.
I was like four or something.
He probably had an engine on that boat.
And where all those big fish came from,
who the hell knows?

Stranger and stranger.

I'm going to play Willy Loman in the City Theatre's production of DEATH OF A SALESMAN. Easiest audition I ever had. I did a prepared monologue (one of more than a few that I can do), then read a monologue from the play and got offered the role two days later.

It's sweet. I'm going to have to work my ass off, though.

Yes, I am a bad journal writer.

As of today, I am living alone in a small, for the most part unfurnished apartment. I have a very nice, very soft new bed that I am going to go to and appreciate in a few moments. My youngest is sleeping in it right now, having consented to spend the first night in my new place with me. He plans on spending at least a night a week with me, during which we'll play in the pool, watch movies and drink beer. (Well, we won't actually drink beer. I don't much care for beer, except when it's very hot outside and the beer is very cold and free. And my youngest doesn't drink beer. It just seemed like an interesting way to end that sentence.)

Astounding, the way things can change in 18 weeks. The one thing about life of which I am certain is that nothing in life is certain.

But my bet is I'm preaching to the preachers.

You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (18% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Yes. It's true. I'm officially drunk.

It's been a LONG time.

It's been a long long long long, long long long long, long long long long time.

I'm a bad journal writer.

The following are some things that people wrote to me after they saw Shakespeare-Unhinged!!! I publish them here because I really am apt to lose them somewhere else. So if you find unmitigated praise uninteresting, don't even start.

They liked me! They really liked me!

"Bravo Barry!!! I thoroughly enjoyed your performance of your play on Saturday night. Question. Where did you learn how to act man?"

"I thoroughly enjoyed your show!! It was great to see an acting coach act! While I, too, don’t always understand Shakespeare’s written word, you did a fantastic job of bringing the emotions of the pieces to life. I was inspired…to act better, to write better, even to live better." [And my use of this particular quote should not in any way imply or condone the use of emotion as an acting tool.]

"The best teachers are the ones who teach what they love. Anyone can spout the facts. The facts just provide structure. It's the love that gives a subject life. You're living proof of that."

"Thank you for a great birthday present. I mean it. I really, REALLY enjoyed your performance in SU tonight." [For the record, I did not give this individual a ticket as a birthday present, although I did give her a ticket, and it was her birthday.]

These next are from a long email I received. I cannot recall ever receiving such a legnthy, positive response to any endeavor of mine in the theatre. Some of it was quite personal, and this is a very small sample.

"It couldn’t have hit me harder if you had physically punched me. It hit hard and it dug deep. It inspired me to act like very little has done lately."

"The show itself is wonderfully made. Very smart. So passionate. And it delivers something that is so rare on stage: watching someone expose their own heart to you. It’s an act of bravery, but also an act of generosity."

"You engaged and entertained first of all. You taught and illuminated beyond that. Then, above all else, you inspired and…for want of a better word…medicated. There’s really no thanks adequate to express that."

"But that Hamlet analysis? Damn. You repaired a great deal of [damage] to my esteem of Shakespeare just with that. I thank you. He thanks you."

I don't think I've ever received more kind, generous, giving praise. I really was overwhelmed.

But there's more! One person, who had seen the show before opening, was kind enough to share her guest's opinion of the show: "He told me afterward that he has never experienced Shakespeare like that. He even mentioned how great he thought the contrast was between the monologues and within them, and he was making some connections that I had never thought of regarding how the life-story parts of the show are really reflected in the Shakespeare pieces you performed and vice versa."

The final one I received, not too long ago: "Enjoyed your unhinged performance. Not unhinged at all but firmly grounded. Barry's truth with the bark on."

So when my wife got home, I told her about Queen Margaret and asked her if she would look at it. And she did. And she was somewhat speechless when it was over, but she ended up having two very helpful suggestions. I had to go to rehearsal, but she asked me to do it again and work those two notes, and I said, no, I gotta go, I gotta brush my teeth and get to rehearsal, and she said, come on!, you've got time!, do it again! So I did. And I did everything, every damned thing I wanted to do with the speech, right down to highlighting the alliteration in "murder" and "make" and looking up to heaven right on the rhythm, both of which I missed the first time around. And she was quite happy with it. And so was I.

She also said, "You're sounding more like a woman than before." Just a bit though, because I've started to pitch my voice just a LITTLE higher at the beginning.

Here's what's funny: I'm getting effing nervous. I haven't had this feeling -- this specific kind of nervous feeling -- in many, many years.

It's kind of interesting.

Here are some things that I'm constantly telling my students:

If you're planning on failing, at least plan on failing big, because what's the point of failing small? (As a corollary: Don't do anything halfass, do everything wholeass.)

Commit to your choices.

Focus on your action.

I was struggling with a monologue from Richard III. It's Richard's first monologue, and when I first attempted to do it for my wife, I thought it sucked and so, of course, she also thought it sucked. She told me, basically, that it was nowhere, and she was right. She said that every time I did a verse piece that sounded like a verse piece, it sounded horrible because I wasn't committing to anything but the verse.

Of course, she was right. Which is why I had her look at my pieces in the first place.

I went back and reconsidered Richard and fixed it in a snap, mostly by doing something physical my wife suggested (it's why I had her look at my pieces in the first place -- to direct me -- she has a really excellent eye) and then just having fun (which is what Richard is really doing). And like I said -- a snap. Everyone that's seen it thinks it works really well.

I had similar problems with Polonius, so instead of focusing so hard on the verse, I focused on his action and -- voila -- problem solved. The verse still reads quite strongly, but what really reads strongly is his action.

So after working on this Shakespeare-Unhinged!!! thing for months now (and I tend to obsess about this kind of stuff -- I am blessed to say that it is my work, after all, and if you're going to obsess about something, it should be your work), and suddenly, just this past week, I've found that I have problems with Queen Margaret, another speech from Richard III. I initially thought the problem was that I was pushing the tempo too hard, so I tried slowing it down, and I thought that was it, problem solved -- but it wasn't. It was just quieter and slower, halfassed instead of wholeassed. Yesterday, while standing in a parking lot (I like to do the monologues in the open air more than anywhere else -- they sound real good out in the open air), I tried it again, focusing on the action, and voila, it worked beautifully, even with me pushing the tempo. But, when I did my runthrough today (I do the damned thing every day, it takes for effing ever), again Margaret was a problem. It just wasn't there. So, after the runthrough, I went out in my backyard and tried it in the open air, focusing on the action. Again, voila, it worked nicely. BUT, while it was focusing on action that got me on the right track, what I noticed was that, as the speech came (and I do mean the speech came -- I try very hard, once I feel I've got a handle on something, to just let it play rather than forcing choices on it, even though I do make detailed choices about everything while I'm preparing), while I was focusing heavily on the action I tended to key different words than the words that I had planned on keying. So, I went back and tried just the beginning of it and what I discovered was that, in order for the speech to work, I had to focus on a different set of key words and then COMMIT to them in order for the speech to play me (and I do mean play me -- not me playing it, it playing me). Once I found that set of keys, I did it over and over again and found that, not only did the speech work, but it worked even better when I focused on the action and allowed the commitment to the keys to be there as well. And because of those changes, of course, OTHER things started to change, especially "Stay, dog," which I suddenly realized was meant to be just what it sounded like -- a woman telling a dog to stay, not a woman telling a man to stay. I had been forcing a choice on it that really had nothing to do with the choice Shakespeare is suggesting I make.

Ya can't force it, baby. Ya gotta let it play, and play YOU. Find your choices, commit to them, focus on your action, and let that sucker play.

THE ROAD -- Cormac McCarthy used to write only about one book every eight years, but he's put out two in the last year. His latest is this book. I'm told by some that McCarthy is an acquired taste, and that might be true. He's certainly a taste I've acquired. I've read all of his books, most more than once, one many times, and I think this might very well be his best book. As I read it, it tore my heart to shreds. Despite its bleak and empty landscape and its moments of utter terror and despair, it is filled with a longing for what is good and right in the world and in the beings we call human. As I read the last half dozen pages, I sobbed for everything we've lost and everything we almost assuredly will lose. You would do yourself and the battered world a service by reading it.

UNITED 93 -- I had not the slightest desire to see this film. I have little desire to see almost anything related to 9/11. I've seen and heard enough. But, my wife very much wanted to see it, and it isn't often that she asks me to get a specific film and watch it with her, so I did. I can't recommend it highly enough. It appears -- and I could easily be mistaken about this -- to be a major studio film that plays like an independent film. There are no stars -- I'll be surprised if anyone who sees it recognizes any of the actors (I recognized only one). The man who wrote and directed it, Paul Greengrass, surprisingly also directed THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, which I saw and didn't care for, but he quite obviously did his homework on this one. The final sequence is one of utter chaos and yet, unlike so many movies nowadays, you can tell exactly what is happening at every moment, and the final image in the film is one that the many cheap and exploitative horror films that seem to be so popular nowadays can only dream of touching. It's a brave film about ordinary people who did something truly extraordinary. It is well worth your time and effort.

What mental disorder do you have? Your Result: ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) You have a very hard time focusing, and you find it difficult to stay on task without your mind wandering. You probably zone in and out of conversations and tend to miss out on directions because you cannot focus
GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
Manic Depressive
Paranoia
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
What mental disorder do you have?